The Rival Campers Part 35

That is, unless you'd like to use it awhile," he added, slyly.

"Not much," replied Harvey, with a laugh. "I've had enough canoeing to last me for a few days. But I'm glad I took that paddle, though, for all the narrow escape I had. It was the best accident I ever had in all my life."

"Canoeing isn't always as easy as it looks," said Bob, as they walked along. "By the way, we haven't even asked you how you came to upset. It's because we have had so much else to talk about and think about."

"Why," said Harvey, "there isn't much to tell. I don't hardly know how it happened, myself. I went to change my position in the canoe, as I was cramped with kneeling in one position so long. I suppose I lost my balance a little, but I was overboard so quick I don't know, myself, just how it did happen. I must have wrenched myself as I went over, for the minute I tried to swim I felt a pain in my side."

"That's the way with a canoe," said Tom. "It doesn't always tip over.

Moreover it just slides out from under one, without even capsizing at all. That's usually when one is kneeling or sitting up on a thwart, and the centre of gravity is high in it. When one is low down in a canoe it is rare an accident ever happens. We never have had a bad spill in several years of canoeing, except when we got caught in the storm this summer, and that was because a paddle broke."

They had now reached the camp, and Tom and Bob launched their canoe and paddled away. They did not return to their own camp, however, but headed down the island. When they had reached the Narrows they carried across into the other bay, and then started down along the sh.o.r.e at a good clip.

They were in search of Harvey's canoe.

Several miles down they found it, lodged gently on a projecting ledge. It was uninjured, beyond a little sc.r.a.ping of paint from the canvas, and they took it in tow and returned to the Narrows. They carried both canoes across, and then, when they had paddled up toward Harvey's camp a way, they took his canoe up on sh.o.r.e and left it.

That night, when Harvey's camp was asleep, they paddled down quietly, got the canoe, and towed it out to the yacht _Surprise_. They lifted it aboard and left it there, for Harvey to find in the morning.

"There's just as much fun in that kind of a joke, after all, if one only looks at it that way," said Tom, as they paddled home to bed.

"My! but it seems good to be back in the old tent once more, eh, Tom?"

exclaimed Bob, as they turned in.

"Good? Good's no name for it," returned his chum. "The Warren cottage is fine, but I like to hear those waves creeping up on the beach as though they were coming clear into the tent. It just puts me to sleep."

The next moment bore truth to this a.s.sertion.

The next afternoon, as the sun was just sinking down through the trees beyond Harvey's camp, a band of six boys marched along the sh.o.r.e and through the woods, singing as they went. If they had not known every inch of the way as they did know it, a beacon-light on the sh.o.r.e would have guided them.

All afternoon Harvey and his crew had worked, making preparations to receive them. They had gathered wood, lugged water, brought stuff down from the village, brought in the lantern from the yacht to aid in the illumination, and had, indeed, laid themselves out to do honour to their guests.

Harvey extended a hand to welcome them, one by one, as they came up.

"That was a fine joke you played on us last night," he said, warmly, as Tom and Bob appeared. "If you fellows keep piling it on, you'll have me buried under a debt of grat.i.tude that I never can attempt to pay."

"Looks as though you had made a good start at it," said Bob, pointing to one of the benches, where a huge supply of food lay heaped.

"Well," replied Harvey, "just watch Joe now. He's going to give us a treat. If any one knows how to broil a chicken over the coals, it's Joe."

Joe, thus distinguished, had raked over a bed of glowing coals, the product of a heap of s.h.i.+p's timbers, nearly consumed, and was preparing to lay out the aforesaid chickens, split for broiling, upon a big wire broiler.

"There's half a dozen of them," said Harvey, "and they're the best that the island affords. You needn't be afraid-we didn't confiscate them, either. We're all done with that sort of thing."

"Don't they smell good!" said young Joe, gleefully.

Soon they had a great dish of the chickens on the table, flanked by a heaping plate of potatoes, baked in ashes, a pot or two of jelly, several loaves of bread, and coffee that filled the woods with fragrance.

Then they fell to and ate like wolves. If young Joe had any the best of it, it was hard to see,-and n.o.body cared, anyway, for every one did his level best.

And then, when they had eaten, they sat and sang, roaring away at the top of their lungs, for it was a fair place for noise and no one to be disturbed; only the fish-hawks high in their nests and the seals away out on the ledges to wonder at the unusual disturbance. Then, as the fire blazed, they told stories of fis.h.i.+ng, of hunting, of the search for the strange yacht, and a hundred other things, more than ever fascinating, heard under the stars, in the shadow of the woods, in the sight and sound of the sea, by the firelight.

It was a night long to be remembered, although as yet they did not dream of those events soon to happen, which would be far more memorable, and of which this evening by the camp-fire was but the beginning.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FIRE

It was nearly midnight when the boys came over the hill, and the half-moon was just sinking out of sight. They strolled down past the hotel, whistling a college tune in chorus. The hotel stood out, a big, black, indefinite object in the enveloping darkness, for the lights had been out for nearly two hours, and the guests were supposed to be all abed.

"Hulloa!" exclaimed Henry Burns, pointing to a faint gleam that shone from a bas.e.m.e.nt window. "John Carr has forgotten to put out his lamps in the billiard-room. Old Witham will give him fits when he finds them burning in the morning. Wait a moment, and I'll just slip in through this window and put them out for him. If the colonel should find them, just as likely as not he would discharge John for wasting five cents' worth of oil."

So saying, Henry Burns, with the best of intentions, shoved up the sash and crawled into the billiard-room in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

The boys stood around the window, waiting for him to return, but one and all thrust their heads into the open window as Henry Burns suddenly gave a whistle of surprise.

"Say, fellows," he called, turning the lights up stronger instead of extinguis.h.i.+ng them. "Look what John Carr's done. He's left all the b.a.l.l.s and cues out, instead of locking them up. Wouldn't the colonel be furious? I'll tell you what we'll do. Old Witham always drives us out of the billiard-room, so we'll just stop and play one game now and I'll make it all right with John Carr. He wouldn't care, and he will be glad enough to have things put to rights, so Witham won't find them out in the morning."

George Warren, as the eldest of the brothers, demurred at first. "We've been up to enough pranks this summer," he said, "and we don't want to get into any more trouble."

"But we're not going to do any harm," persisted Henry Burns. "We'll only play one game, just for the lark of playing at this time of night, and to get ahead of old Witham; and then we'll put everything away s.h.i.+pshape and put out the lights, and no harm done."

It did not take much argument to influence them; and in a moment they were all inside, each equipped with a cue, and engaged in the forbidden game. The time pa.s.sed faster than they knew, and one o'clock found them there still.

But, late as it was, a most unusual hour for any Southport dweller to be astir and abroad, there were at least three individuals who were not abed and asleep; and with these three we shall have to do in turn.

It so happened on this morning that Squire Brackett had important business that took him across to Cape Revere, on the mainland; and, as no steamer was due to run across till afternoon, and he must be there in the morning, he had arranged to sail over, taking advantage of the ebb-tide, which served strongest shortly after midnight. He was sleepy and surly as he came down the road, but paused a moment in his haste as he caught the gleam of light and heard the sound of subdued voices from the half-opened bas.e.m.e.nt window.

Squire Brackett stole up softly and peered inside.

"Aha!" he exclaimed, under his breath. "So that's the way the young rascals treat Colonel Witham, is it? I'll just see about that in the morning. I fancy Colonel Witham will have something to say about this breaking and entering. I'd call him down now and trap them at their game, if it wasn't that I'd lose a tide and a twenty-dollar bargain by it."

And the squire tiptoed craftily away, chuckling maliciously to himself at the thought of how he would aid in punis.h.i.+ng the boys on the morrow.

The second man of the three who were to figure in the night's adventure had set out some two hours ago from afar down the island on the obscure western side. If any of the boys had seen him rowing in from a yacht anch.o.r.ed just off sh.o.r.e, had seen him land on the beach and drag his boat well up on it with supreme strength, and had seen him set off through the fields and along the strips of beaches of the coves, if any of the boys had seen all this and had looked carefully into his forbidding face, with its malign, evil expression, it is probable that that boy might and would have seen a striking resemblance to that same individual whom he had seen in flight on a certain evening, and have wondered and feared what business could bring him back to the scene of former danger at this hour.

Not being seen by them, nor by anybody else, the man slunk along, now running, as a clear stretch of field opened up before him, now thrusting his way through clumps of alders, now skirting the sh.o.r.e of some little inlet.

At length he struck fairly across the island, directly toward the very town from which, a few weeks ago, he had made so hurried an exit. Coming finally in view of the hotel, he squatted down in the gra.s.s and surveyed the prospect long and carefully before approaching nearer.

Squire Brackett, going on down to the hotel, would not have been so much at ease had he felt the presence of this evil figure, crouching within a few feet of him as he went by, and following stealthily in his footsteps, pausing as he paused, and watching him wonderingly as he peered into the window at the boys.

Now, as the squire went on his way, the man, himself, crawled up to the window and cast a quick glance within.

What he saw clearly startled him, for he had expected to find the hotel in utter darkness. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then quickly drew away from the window.

"So much the better," he muttered. "They won't stop me, and if only some one has seen them there they'll get the blame."