The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle Part 23

"Really!" said the Captain, making a grimace of comical surprise at her.

"Who would have thought the child was so deucedly clevah, bah Jove!"

But the name of In-Bad the Sailor struck the others as being such a good one that they adopted it right away, and Slim had to answer to it half the time for the rest of the summer.

Slim shadowed Katherine so closely and volunteered so gallantly to do all her dinner ch.o.r.es that she relented in the middle of the afternoon and brought out the brown and white "makin's" that Slim's sweet tooth so delighted in. The Captain looked at them and jeered as he went past on his way down to the landing.

"Slim would eat his words any day if he could roll them in a piece of fudge," he called. Slim only smiled sweetly as he watched the experimental spoonful being dropped into the cup of water. Nothing could ruffle him now.

The Captain walked briskly down the hill and untied the small launch.

"Where are you going?" called Hinpoha from the log where she was sitting all by herself reading.

"Over to St. Pierre, to mail a Special Delivery letter for Uncle Teddy,"

replied the Captain.

"Do you need any help getting it over?" asked Hinpoha.

"Why, yes," said the Captain, laughing, "come along if you want to."

Hinpoha tripped gaily over the beach and seated herself in the launch with him.

"Hadn't you better wear your sweater?" asked the Captain, looking rather doubtfully at Hinpoha's low-necked and short-sleeved middy. "There's a raw wind today and cutting against it will make it worse."

Hinpoha shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not a bit cold," she replied carelessly. "I always go like this; even in lots colder weather. I'm so hardened down to it that I never catch cold. Besides, we're not going to be out after dark, are we? You're just going straight over to St. Pierre and back?"

"That's all," said the Captain. "Just to mail this letter and buy some alcohol for Uncle Teddy and some peanuts for the chippies. Hadn't ought to take more than an hour and a half altogether." He started the engine and off they chugged. They reached St. Pierre in good time, mailed the letter, bought the alcohol and the peanuts and a postcard with a picture of a donkey on it to give to Katherine and some lollypops for Slim and started back.

"What's happened to the sun?" asked Hinpoha. It had been feeble and watery on the way over, but now it had vanished from the sky, and a fine mist seemed to be falling all over. Hinpoha s.h.i.+vered involuntarily as they started off.

"You really should have brought your sweater along," said the Captain.

"Here, spread this tarpaulin over you, it'll keep you warm a little."

Hinpoha declared she wasn't very cold, but, nevertheless, she availed herself of the protection the tarpaulin afforded and was glad to have it. The mist thickened until it looked like steam, and almost before they knew it they were surrounded on all sides by a dense fog. They could not see a boat length ahead of them.

"Nice pickle," said the Captain, b.u.t.toning his collar around his throat.

"How are we ever going to find our way back to Ellen's Isle in this mess?"

Hinpoha strained her eyes trying to peer through the white curtain. "I don't know," she said, "unless you can guide yourself by the fog horn in the harbor of St. Pierre. Keep it behind us, you know."

"But the sound seems to come from all around," said the Captain.

"It will at first, but afterwards you can tell," said Hinpoha. "Nyoda used to keep making us tell the direction from which sounds came and we can almost always do it. The fog horn is behind us now."

The Captain kept on in the direction they had been going and ran very slowly. "It'll take us all evening to get home at this rate," he said.

"If we don't run past the island," he added under his breath.

A few minutes later the chugging of the engine ceased and their steady, if slow, progress was arrested. "What's the matter?" asked Hinpoha.

"I don't know," said the Captain in a vexed tone. "It can't be that we're out of gasoline--I filled up before we left. The engine's gone dead."

He struck match after match in an effort to see what the trouble was, but they only made a feeble glare in the fog and he could not locate the trouble. "What are we going to do now?" he exclaimed in a tone of concern.

"Sit here until the fog lifts, I suppose," said Hinpoha calmly.

Finally, satisfied that he could do absolutely nothing to fix the trouble until he could see, the Captain settled back to await the lifting of the fog. The chill in the air was getting sharper all the time, and, although Hinpoha did everything she could to prevent it, her teeth chattered and the Captain could feel her convulsive s.h.i.+vers, even under the tarpaulin.

"Here," he said, taking off his coat and putting it around her shoulders, "put this on."

Hinpoha shoved it away resolutely, shaking her head. She could not speak articulately. But the Captain was determined and made her put it on in spite of her protests.

"Y-you'll t-t-take c-c-c-cold," she said.

"No, I won't," said the Captain, "but you will." Hinpoha made him take the tarpaulin as she began to warm through in the coat.

"It's kind of fun," she said in a natural voice again. "It's a new experience."

"Is there anything you girls don't think is fun?" asked the Captain in an admiring tone. "Most girls would be wringing their hands and declaring they would never go out in a boat again. Aren't you really afraid?"

"Not the least bit," said Hinpoha emphatically.

"You're a good sport," said the Captain.

"'Thank you kindly, sir, she said,'" replied Hinpoha. But she was pleased with the compliment, nevertheless, because she knew it was sincere. The Captain never said anything he did not mean.

They sat there drifting back and forth with the current for several hours, and then suddenly there was a break in the white curtain and two bright eyes looked down at them from above. "It's the Twins!" cried Hinpoha delightedly. "The Sailors' Stars. They have come to guide us back. Don't you remember, they're always directly in front of us when we come home from St. Pierre in the evening."

The fog was breaking and drifting away before a fresh breeze which had sprung up and first one star and then another came into view. Soon they could see a bright red light in the distance and knew it was a signal fire, which the folks on Ellen's Isle had built to guide them. Hinpoha held her little bug light down while the Captain searched for the trouble in the launch engine and he was not long in discovering that it was nothing serious. A few pokes in her vitals and the launch began chugging again.

The whole family was lined up on the beach awaiting their arrival and they were welcomed back as though they had been gone a year. It was nearly nine o'clock. They had been out on the lake more than four hours.

"Stop hugging Hinpoha, Gladys," bade her mother, "and let her eat something. Those blessed children must be nearly starved."

This was not quite true, because they had eaten the two quarts of peanuts and the half dozen lollypops originally consigned to the camp, which had saved them from starving very nicely.

The clearing wind, which had dispelled the fog, came from the north and blew colder and colder as the night wore on. In the morning the Captain woke stiff and chilled and with a very sore throat. "I'm all right," he protested when Aunt Clara came in to administer remedies, but his voice was a mere croak. Aunt Clara felt of his head and found a high fever.

She promptly ordered him to stay in bed and set herself to the task of breaking up the cold. Hinpoha wandered around distracted all day.

"It was my fault, all my fault," she wailed. "If I had only had sense enough to take my sweater he wouldn't have made me take his coat. Is he very sick, Aunt Clara?"

By night the Captain was very much worse. He had developed a bad case of bronchitis and his breath rattled ominously.

Hinpoha, crouching anxiously at the foot of a big tree near the tent, overheard a low-voiced conversation between Uncle Teddy and Aunt Clara, who were standing in the path. "It would be pretty serious if he were to develop pneumonia out here," said Uncle Teddy in an anxious tone.

"We're doing our best," said Aunt Clara, "but he's a very sick boy. In the morning you must bring the doctor from St. Pierre."

They pa.s.sed on and Hinpoha heard no more. But her heart sank like a lump of lead. The Captain was going to have pneumonia and it was all her fault! If he died she would be a murderer. How could she ever face Uncle Teddy again? She was afraid to go back with the rest, but sat crouched there under the tree almost beside herself with remorse until Aunt Clara herself found her and made her go to bed.

In the morning Uncle Teddy brought a doctor from St. Pierre who stayed on the job all day and by night announced that there was no danger of pneumonia, although the Captain had had a very narrow escape.