The Rival Campers Part 41

It was obvious there was no way of going ash.o.r.e, however, as they were some miles distant from it. There was nothing for the unhappy colonel to do but to make the best-or the worst-of it.

"Cheer up, colonel," said Captain Sam, pulling out the stub of a black clay pipe, lighting it, and puffing away enjoyably. "I've seen 'em just as sick as you are one hour, and chipper enough to eat raw pork and climb the mast the next. You will be feeling fine before long,-won't he, squire?"

But as the squire evidently had his doubts in the matter, owing particularly to the fact that he was not too much at ease himself, his response was rather faint; and the captain was left to the entertainment of his own society. He enjoyed himself for the next hour or two with a sort of monologue, in which he proceeded to a.n.a.lyze audibly the relative chances of the little yacht ahead and the _Nancy Jane_.

"They are doing surprisingly well for a small craft in windward work," he muttered. "They handle her well. Still, the _Nancy Jane_ is eating up on them. I say about sundown we shall be able to run alongside-Hulloa! If they are not changing their course to run down the Little Reach! Thought they knew better than that. Why, it's what they call a 'blind alley' in the cities. Well, I'm surprised. They know the bay pretty well, too; and, only to think, they go to running in to a thoroughfare which really is nothing more than a long cove. They'll fetch up at the end of it in an hour or two, and there's no way out."

The captain's voice almost seemed to express disappointment that the chase should end so tamely.

"Colonel," he cried. "Squire. It will be all over in a few hours now.

They're running into a trap."

But the colonel and the squire were beyond interest in the pursuit.

The yacht _Spray_ had, indeed, started its sheets, and now, with the wind on its beam, was running off toward a group of small islands, or ledges, on a course nearly at right angles with that which it had been taking.

The boys had watched the _Nancy Jane_ anxiously for the last few hours.

"They are steadily coming up on us," George Warren had said. "Too bad we could not have got a few hours more start. We might have given them the slip then when night shut down."

"But we are not sure that they are after us, are we?" asked young Joe.

"No, but it looks pretty certain," replied his brother George. "There's nothing particular to start the _Nancy Jane_ down here, and she is Captain Sam's boat and he is the town constable."

"Then what had we better do?" queried Tom. "There is not much use running away, if we are sure to be caught inside of a few hours. We'd a sight better turn about and start back, as though we had finished our sail.

That would look less like running away."

It was noticeable that, having once set out to escape, they accepted the situation now fully, without more pretence.

"We have got to decide before long," said Henry Burns. "The _Nancy Jane_ is overhauling us fast."

"George," said Arthur Warren, "I know one chance, if you want to try it, and if you are willing to risk the _Spray_,-and I think it would save us."

"What is it, Arthur?" asked George. "If it is any good, I'm for trying it. I can't see as we have anything great to risk, with a twenty-five thousand dollar fire charged to us."

"What is it, Arthur?" exclaimed the others, excitedly. It did not seem possible there could be any chance of escape open, but they jumped eagerly at anything that offered a faint hope.

"Well," said Arthur, in his deliberate manner, "you know the small opening between Spring and Heron Islands at the foot of Little Reach?

n.o.body ever ran a sailboat through there because it's choked up with ledges. But you remember when the mackerel struck in to the Reach there last August, we all went down in the _Spray_ for a week's fis.h.i.+ng. Well, one day Joe and I took the tender and worked our way clear through between Spring and Heron Islands to the bay outside. Now the _Spray_, with the centreboard up, does not draw very much more water than the tender, and by dropping the sails and all poling through, I think we can work her in clear to the other side."

"We'll try it," said George Warren. "It is the only chance we have, so we've really no choice."

And he put the tiller up and threw the _Spray_ off the wind, while Arthur and Joe started the sheets. It was this sudden manuvre which had startled Captain Sam.

They soon pa.s.sed the entrance to Little Reach, two barren ledges shelving down into the water, and were well down the Reach when Captain Sam and the _Nancy Jane_ headed into it.

"There they go," cried Captain Sam, "like an ostrich sticking its head into the sand. Well, what can you expect of boys, anyway? We'll overhaul them faster than ever now, because this big mainsail draws two to their one this way of the wind, and the jibs aren't doing anything to speak of, the wind varies so in here."

It was smooth water inside Little Reach, and, as there was now scarcely any motion to the _Nancy Jane_ as she skimmed along by the quiet sh.o.r.es, the colonel and the squire began to revive a little, sufficient at least to regain their interest in the pursuit.

They were about a mile and a half down the Reach, and the _Spray_, not quite half a mile ahead, was apparently at the end of her cruise.

"They are at the end now," cried Captain Sam, whose blood was up when it came to a race between the _Nancy Jane_ and another, though smaller, craft. "We've got 'em like mice in a box."

"By George! look there, colonel-look, squire!" he exclaimed, excitedly.

"They have given it up. There go the sails. It's all over. They may scoot ash.o.r.e, but the island on either side is nothing more than a rock. Well, I vow! But I didn't think they would quit so tamely after a game race."

"We'll make 'em smart for what we have suffered to-day, eh, colonel?"

growled the squire.

The colonel grunted a.s.sent. He was not yet sufficiently himself to be very aggressive.

"What on earth are they doing?" said Captain Sam, a few moments later.

"Looks as though they were trying to hide away among the rocks, like a mink in a hole. They'll have the _Spray_ aground if they jam her in among those ledges."

The _Spray_, however, slipped in among the rocks, and was shut out from the view of the pursuers.

"Let 'em hide," said Captain Sam, contemptuously. "That is a boyish trick. We'll be up with them now in fifteen minutes."

But the _Spray_, hidden from view of Captain Sam and the colonel and the squire, was not running itself upon the rocks nor poking its nose, ostrich-like, among the ledges.

The instant the sails were dropped young Joe sprang out on the bowsprit and lay flat, holding a pole, with which he took soundings as the others pushed and poled with the sweeps of the yacht.

They ran the bow gently on to rocks a dozen times, but a warning yell from Joe stopped them, and they turned and twisted and wormed and worried their way in among the ledges, turning about where a larger craft would have had no room to turn, and slipping over reefs that just grazed the bottom of the little _Spray_, and which with two inches lower tide would have held them fast.

"It's just the right depth of water," said Arthur, exultantly. "Luck is with us this time, for certain. An hour later and we could not have done it. But we're going through. There is only the bar ahead now. If we clear that we are free of everything."

Just ahead, where two thin spits of sand ran off on either end of the two islands into shoal water, was a narrow, shallow pa.s.sage, where the water was so clear that it looked scarcely more than a few inches in depth, as it rippled over the bar.

"All out!" cried Arthur, as the _Spray_ grated gently on the bottom, "We will lighten her all we can," and they sprang overboard into water scarcely above their knees.

"Now, Joe," said Arthur, "you and Henry take the head-line out over the bows and go ahead and pull for all you are worth. George and I will get alongside and push, and keep her in the channel, and Tom and Bob can get aft and push. We have got to rush her over that shallow place, and we must not let her stop, for if she once hangs in the centre we cannot budge her. The _Spray_ is not a ninety-footer, but she's got enough pig iron in her for ballast to hold her high and dry if she once sticks."

The boys seized hold quickly, and the _Spray_, lightened of her load, slid along, at first sluggishly, and then gathering speed, as the twelve strong, brown, boyish arms pulled and tugged and pushed.

"Jump her, now, boys! Jump her!" cried Arthur, as they neared the shoal.

"We're doing it. Don't let her stop, now! Oh, she mustn't stop! We've got to put her over or die."

And the little _Spray_ seemed to feel the thrill and joy of freedom throughout its timbers; for at the words it surged forward with a rush, as though it would take the bar at a flying leap. The white sands reached up from the bottom, and the whole bar seemed to be rising up to hold the boat prisoner, as the water shoaled. But the little _Spray_ kept on.

It hung for one brief, breathless moment almost balanced on the middle of the bar, and the white sands thought they had it fast; but the next moment it slid gently from their grasp, gave a sort of spring as it felt itself slipping free, and the next moment rode easily in clear water, just over the bar.

The next instant six exultant boys, their faces blazing with excitement and exertion, had scrambled aboard, falling over one another in their eagerness to seize the halyards.

They hoisted the sails on the _Spray_ again in a way that would have made Captain Sam himself sing their praises, and now, with evening coming on, there was just enough breeze left in among the rocks to waft them gently along out of the inlet.

They watched breathlessly, as they neared the entrance to the outer bay, for a glimpse of the _Nancy Jane_; but the _Nancy Jane_, good boat though she was, was just a moment too late. Scarcely had they turned the little bluff and were hidden behind it, on their way whither they might choose, when the _Nancy Jane_ rounded to at the entrance to the channel.