CHAPTER 20 TRAILING HOD HAWKINS

After Mrs. Hawkins had pounded out the signal, she hung the dishpan on its peg once more, and went to the door of the shed. Without opening it, she spoke to someone inside the building. Penny was too far away to hear what she said.

In a minute, the woman turned away and vanished into the house.

Penny waited a little while to be certain Mrs. Hawkins did not intend to come outside again. Then, with an uneasy glance at her wrist watch, she stole away to rejoin Mrs. Jones.

The skiff was drawn up to shore by the time she reached the appointed meeting place.

“I was jest about to give you up,” the widow remarked as the girl scrambled into the boat. “Did ye learn what ye wanted to know?”

Penny told her what she had seen.

“’Pears you may be right about it bein’ a signal,” the widow agreed thoughtfully. “We may be able to learn more too, ’cause whoever had his’n ears tuned to Ma Hawkins’ signal may figure we’re deep in the swamp by this time.”

“Let’s keep on the alert as we near Lookout Point,” Penny urged.

Mrs. Jones nodded and silently dipped the paddle.

Soon they came within view of the point. Passing beneath an overhanging tree branch, the widow grasped it with one hand, causing the skiff to swing sideways into a shelter of leaves.

“See anyone, Penelope?” she whispered.

“Not a soul.”

“Then maybe we was wrong about Ma Hawkins signalling anyone.”

“But I do see a boat beached on the point!” Penny added. “And see! Someone is coming out of the bush now!”

“Hod Hawkins!”

Keeping quiet, the pair in the skiff waited to see what would happen.

Hod came down to the water’s edge, peering with a puzzled expression along the waterway. He did not see the skiff, shielded by leaves and dense shade.

“Hit’s all-fired queer,” they heard him mutter. “I shore didn’t see no boat pass here this mawnin’. But Maw musta seen one go by or she wouldn’t heve pounded the pan.”

Hod sat down on a log, watching the channel. Penny and Mrs. Jones remained where they were. Once the current, sluggish as it was, swung the skiff against a projecting tree root. The resulting jar and scraping sound seemed very loud to their ears. But the Hawkins youth did not hear.

Penny and the widow were becoming weary of sitting in such cramped positions under the tree branch. To their relief, Hod arose after a few minutes. Reaching into the hollow log, he removed a tin pan somewhat smaller than the dishpan Mrs. Hawkins had used a few minutes earlier.

“He’s going to signal!” Penny whispered excitedly. “Either to his mother, or someone deeper in the swamp!”

Already Hod was beating out a pattern on the pan, very similar to the one the girl had heard before.

After a few minutes, the swamper thrust the pan back into its hiding place. He hesitated, and then to the surprise of Penny and Mrs. Jones, stepped into his boat.

“If he comes this way, he’s certain to see us!” Penny thought uneasily.

With never a glance toward the leafy hideout, Hod shoved off, rowing deeper into the swamp.

“Dare we follow him?” whispered Penny.

“That’s what I aim to do,” the Widow Jones rejoined grimly. “I hain’t afeared o’ the likes o’ Hod Hawkins! Moreover, fer a long time, I been calculatin’ to find out what takes him and Coon so offen into the swamp.”

“You mean recently don’t you, Mrs. Jones. Just since Danny Deevers escaped from prison?”

“I don’t know nothin’ about Danny Deevers,” the widow replied as she picked up the paddle again. “I do know that the Hawkins’ been up to mischief fer more’n a year.”

“Then you must have an idea what that city truck was doing on the swamp road the other night.”

“An idear—yes,” agreed Mrs. Jones. “But I hain’t sure, and until I am, I hain’t makin’ no accusations.”

Now that Hod’s boat was well away, the widow noiselessly sent the skiff forward.

“We kin follow close enough to jest about keep him in sight if we don’t make no noise,” she warned. “But we gotta be keerful.”

Penny nodded and became silent.

Soon the channel was no more than a path through high water-grass and floating hyacinths. Hod propelled his boat with powerful muscles, alternating with forked pole and paddle. At times, when Penny took over to give the Widow Jones a “breather,” she was hard pressed not to lose the trail.

“We’re headin’ straight fer Black Island, hit ’pears to me,” Mrs. Jones whispered once. “The channel don’t look the same though as when I was through here last. But I reckon if we git lost we kin find our way out somehow.”

Soon the skiff was inching through a labyrinth of floating hyacinths; there were few stretches of open water. Shallow channels to confuse the unwary, radiated out in a dozen directions, many of them with no outlets.

Always, however, before the hyacinths closed in, the Widow Jones was able to pick up the path through which Hod had passed.

“From the way he’s racin’ along, he’s been this way plenty o’ times,” she remarked. “We’re headin’ fer Black Island right enough.”

The sun now was high overhead, beating down on Penny’s back and shoulders with uncomfortable warmth. Mrs. Jones brought out the lunch and a jug of water. One ate while the other rowed.

“We’re most to Black Island,” the widow informed presently. “If ye look sharp through the grass, ye can see thet point o’ high land. Thet’s the beginnin’ o’ the island—biggest one in the swamp.”

“But where is Hod?”

“He musta pulled up somewheres in the bushes. We’ll have to be keerful and go slow now or we’ll be caught.”

“Listen!” whispered Penny.

Although she could as yet see no one on the island, voices floated out across the water.

“We heerd yer signal, Hod,” a man said, “but we hain’t seen no one.”

“A boat musta come through, or Maw wouldn’t heve beat the pan.”

“Whoever ’twas, they probably went off somewheres else,” the other man replied. “Glad yer here anyhow, Hod. We got a lot o’ work to do and ye can help us.”

Hod’s reply was inaudible, for obviously the men were moving away into the interior of the island.

“Thet was old Ezekiel talkin’ to his son,” the Widow Jones declared, although Penny already had guessed as much. “They’ve gone off somewheres, so if we’re a mind to land, now’s our only chance.”

Penny gazed at her companion in surprise and admiration.

“You’re not afraid?” she inquired softly.

“Maybe I am,” the Widow Jones admitted. “But that hain’t no excuse fer me turnin’ tail! This here’s a free country ain’t it?”

She poled the skiff around the point to a thick clump of bushes. There she pulled up, and with Penny’s help made the skiff secure to a tree root hidden from sight by overhanging branches.

Scrambling up the muddy bank, the pair paused to take bearings. Voices now had died away and to all appearances the island might have been deserted.

Treading with utmost caution, Penny and the Widow Jones tramped along the shore until they came to a path. Abruptly, the girl halted, sniffing the air.

“I smell wood burning,” she whispered. “From a campfire probably.”

“An’ I smell somethin’ more,” added the Widow Jones grimly. “Cain’t ye notice thet sickish, sweet odor in the air?”

“Yes, what is it?”

“We’ll find out,” replied Mrs. Jones. “But if we git cotched, I’m warnin’ ye we won’t never git away from here. Ye sure ye want to go on?”

“Very sure.”

“Then come on. And be keerful not to crackle any leaves underfoot.”

The path led to a low, tunnellike opening in the thicket. Penny, who again had taken the lead, crouched low, intending to crawl through.

Before she could do so, she heard a stifled cry behind her. Turning, she saw that Mrs. Jones had sagged to one knee, and her face was twisted with pain.

Penny ran to her. “You’re hurt!” she whispered. “Bitten by a snake?”

Mrs. Jones shook her head, biting her lip to keep back the tears. She pointed to her ankle, caught beneath a tree root.

“I stumbled and wrenched it ’most off,” she murmured. “Hit’s a bad sprain and I’m afeared I can’t go on.”