CHAPTER 16 TREED BY A BOAR

Left to themselves, Penny and Louise walked a few steps on the sagging planks which had been nailed to tree stumps. The boards beneath them creaked protestingly and dipped nearly into the water.

“We must have been crazy!” Louise exclaimed. “We’ll die of boredom waiting here. Two hours too!”

“It is a long time.”

“And if Joe shouldn’t come back, we’re stranded—absolutely stranded.”

“We did take a chance, Louise, but I’m sure Joe can be trusted.”

“He seems all right, but what do we really know about him?” Louise argued. “If anything queer is going on here in the swamp, he may be mixed up in it!”

“I thought about that,” Penny admitted. “Anyway, if we’re to learn anything, we had to take a certain amount of chance. I’m sure everything will be all right.”

Slowly they walked on along the rickety planks, now and then bending down to pluck a water lily. Louise quickly jerked back her hand as a water snake slithered past.

“Ugh!” she gasped. “Another one of those horrid things!”

Interested to learn where the planks led, the girls followed the bridge-like trail among the trees. Louise, however, soon grew tired. As they presently came to a stump which offered a perfect resting place, she sat down.

“This is as far as I’m going,” she announced.

“But we have lots of time to explore, Louise. Don’t you want to learn where this boardwalk goes?”

“Not at the risk of falling into the water! At any rate, I’m tired. If you want to explore, go on alone. I’ll wait for you here.”

Penny hesitated, reluctant to leave her chum alone.

“Sure you won’t mind, Louise?”

“I’d much rather wait here. Please go on. I know you’ll never rest until you reach the end of the walk.”

Thus urged. Penny, with the package of lunch still tucked under her arm, picked her way carefully along.

The board path curved on between the trees for some distance only to end abruptly where boards had rotted and floated away. After a break of several yards, the walk picked up again for a short ways, but Penny had no intention of wading through water to follow it further.

Pausing to rest before starting back, she noticed beyond the water oaks a narrow stretch of higher land covered with dense, wild growth. Above the trees a huge buzzard soared lazily.

“Ugly bird!” she thought, watching its flight.

Penny was about to turn and retrace her steps, when she noticed something else—footsteps in the muck not far from the end of the boardwalk.

“Someone has been here recently,” she reflected. “Those prints must have been made since the last rain.”

Even from some distance away. Penny could see that the shoemarks were small ones.

“Probably the person who made them is the same fellow who built the campfire,” she thought. “Wonder where the footprints lead?”

Penny tried to draw her eyes away, but the footprints fascinated and challenged her. She longed to investigate them further. However, she had not forgotten Trapper Joe’s warning that it was unsafe to leave the boardwalk.

“If I watch out for snakes and only go a short ways, what harm can it do?” she reasoned.

A moment more and Penny was off the walk, treading her way cautiously along the muddy bank. She paused to listen.

All was very quiet—so still that it gave the girl an uneasy feeling, as if she were being watched by a multitude of hostile eyes.

The footprints led to a large tree in a fairly open area. On one of the low, overhanging bushes, a bit of dark wool had been snagged.

“Someone climbed up there either to rest or sleep,” Penny thought.

In the bushes close by, the girl heard a faint, rustling sound.

“Who’s there?” she called sharply.

No one answered. All was still for a moment. Then again she heard the whisper of disturbed leaves.

Penny’s flesh began to creep. Suddenly losing all interest in the footprints, she decided to beat a hasty retreat to the boardwalk.

The decision came too late. Before she could move, a dozen big rooters led by an old gray boar, swarmed out of the bushes, surrounding her.

Too frightened and startled to cry out, Penny huddled back against the tree trunk. The rooters had spread out in a circle and slowly were coming closer.

Retreat to the safety of the boardwalk was completely cut off. The leader of the pack now was so near that she plainly could see his razor-sharp ivory tusks. In another moment, the animal would attack.

Throwing off the paralysis of fear which gripped her, Penny swung herself into the lowermost branch of the big trees. The package of lunch she had carried, dropped from her hand, falling at the base of the trunk.

Instantly, the rooters were upon it, tearing savagely at the meat and at each other. Sick with horror, Penny clung desperately to the tree limb.

“If I slip now, I’m a gonner!” she thought. “Those rooters are half starved. If I fall, they’ll attack me!”

Penny considered shouting for Louise, but dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. Her chum probably was too far away to hear her cries. If she did come, unarmed as she was, she might leave the boardwalk only to endanger herself.

“Louise can’t help me,” Penny told herself. “I brought this on myself by not heeding Old Joe’s warning. Now it’s up to me to get out of the mess the best way I can.”

The girl lay still on the limb, trying not to draw the attention of the rooters. Once they finished the meat, she was hopeful they would go away. Then she could make a dash for the walk.

Grunting and squealing, the rooters devoured the meat and looked about for more. To Penny’s relief, they gradually wandered off—all except the old boar.

The leader of the pack stayed close to the big tree, eyeing the girl in the tree wickedly. Even in the dim light she could plainly see his evil little eyes and working jaws.

“Go away you big brute!” she muttered.

Penny’s perch on the limb was a precarious one and her arms began to ache from the strain of holding on. Unsuccessfully, she tried to shift into a more comfortable position.

“I may be treed here for hours!” she thought. “Can I hold on that long?”

The old boar showed no disposition to move off, but kept circling the tree. It seemed to the now desperate Penny, that the animal sensed she was weakening and only awaited the moment when she would tumble down to the ground.

Breaking off a small tree branch she hurled it defiantly at the boar. The act caused her to lose her balance. Frantically, she clawed for a foothold but could not obtain it. Down she slipped to the base of the tree.

The old boar, quick to see his opportunity, charged. With a scream of terror, Penny leaped aside and the animal rushed past, squealing in rage at having missed his prey.

Even now, the boar stood between the girl and the plank walk. The tree from which she had fallen, offered her only refuge, and as she measured her chances, she realized that the probability of regaining the limb was a slim one.

The boar had turned and was coming for her again.

But at that instant, as Penny froze in terror, a shot was fired from somewhere in the bushes behind her. The bullet went straight and true, stopping the boar in his tracks. He grunted, rolled over, twitched twice, and lay still.