The Outdoor Chums On A Houseboat Part 13

On that score the chums seemed to be agreed. Like all boys, they disliked very much to give up anything they had started to accomplish.

All that hard running would go for nothing; and they were naturally curious to learn what sort of a fire it could be.

"A barn, I reckon," Jerry had said.

"Perhaps it's only a chicken coop," Will had in his turn mentioned.

"Now, I'd think it more likely a pig pen," observed the weary Bluff, as he changed his gun from one hand to the other for the twentieth time, refusing to let Frank relieve him of it.

"Jerry is right, according to my way of thinking," Frank said. "The chances are that's what it is. Perhaps it looked at one time as if the fire would jump to the farmer's barn, too, and that was what all that shouting meant."

They finally drew closer to the scene, though Frank feared they had gone twice as far as seemed wise, under the circ.u.mstances.

It was fully an hour after they had left the houseboat before they reached the place; and then it was to find the fire about out; with a dozen men, and as many women and children, gathered in cl.u.s.ters, talking it all over with the man who had lost his barns, and what new crop of hay he had just been putting in them, together with several cows that could not be rescued in time.

The boys hung around for a little while talking with some of the farm hands. Frank asked a few questions about various things, and even found that he could secure a small amount of information concerning the river below that point, since some of these young fellows had lived near it all their lives, and even taken boats of produce to Rock Island below.

An hour later, and Frank proposed that they start back to the boat.

While the boys were engaged in listening to all that was being said concerning the fire, the sky had clouded over, and it was now quite dark. Indeed, the growl of thunder could be heard down the river, and some of the farmers were even then hurrying off.

One fellow, who happened to live not a great way from the location of the houseboat, as described by Frank, said he would keep company with the boys, in whose trip down the big water he seemed to be deeply interested. And while they thought little of that fact at the time, it afterwards turned out worth a great deal to them.

Louder came that noise from behind them, the storm having swung across the river apparently, so that it was now heading almost from the south direct. Will doubtless wished deep down in his heart that he was snug inside the cabin of the houseboat about that time, when the gale would have small terrors for any of them. But he did not say a word along those lines, only ran at the heels of the others, doing the very best he could.

"She's going to catch us, boys!" remarked the young farmer, who had given them his name as Seth Groggins.

"Could we find any sort of shelter?" asked Bluff-and then, as if fearing that his motive might be misconstrued, he hastened to add: "not that I care a cent whether I get wet or not; but I'd hate to have my gun soaked. Steel rusts so easy, you know."

"Might get under a big tree that lies a little way ahead," remarked Seth; "only I've heard it isn't the best thing to do in a thunderstorm."

"No, I'd rather stand many duckings than take chances that way," Frank declared, positively; for he had known of fatal cases following the action of men in a harvest field seeking shelter under a tree during an electrical storm.

"Well, here she is; but as you say so, we'll give her the go-by," the farmer called out over his shoulder, as he ran on past the big tree, standing close to the road. "If we could only make the old lime kiln I reckons as how the lot of us'd be able to find some sorter shelter thar.

It's jest a leeetle way further on, boys. Hit it up agin; kin ye?"

Even Will seemed to take another brace, for the din of the storm behind was surely enough to make any fellow try his level best to get out of its reach. What with the roar of the wind, the sound of falling trees, the terrible crash of the thunder accompanying each vivid flash of lightning, and the roar of the deluge of rain that followed, no one need be ashamed for wanting to find a place of refuge.

The rain began to come, and the boys would soon have been drenched to the skin only, as luck would have it, they reached the deserted lime kiln just then, and were able to hastily crawl under a low shed.

Although this threatened to carry away bodily with the fierce gusts of wind, approaching the force of a tornado at times, it seemed to have been st.u.r.dily built in the first place; and was also somewhat sheltered by the kiln, so that it managed to withstand the gale.

And thankful that they had found even so poor a shelter, the boys crouched there, waiting for the fury of the storm to subside, when they might go on their way to the moored houseboat, not more than half a mile off, Frank believed.

"Wow! listen to that; would you?" cried Bluff, as a crash followed a blinding flash of lightning, although the rain had now stopped.

"That hit something, sure!" quavered Will, who had no fancy for such a terrible display of electrical force.

"Say, I wouldn't be surprised if that big tree got it thet 'ere time!"

declared the farmer. "Kim right from thet ways; an' she lies thar. An', by hokey, I thort I ketched a crash o' branches as the ole lightnin'

stripped her bare, like it does, sometimes."

Frank was of the same opinion; and felt deeply grateful in his heart that they had been wise enough to give that shelter the go-by when it offered. If it was really the big tree that had been struck, what would have been their fate had they foolishly taken refuge under its wide-spreading limbs?

As Frank had truly said: far better a wet jacket any time, than to take chances under a tree that seems to especially invite the attention of the lightning, either by its being alone in a field, or standing higher than its fellows.

A short time later, and they once more started along the flooded road.

All of them were wet, but made light of it, in view of the fact that they had managed to get off so lightly. And this was the first occasion Frank found for feeling glad the young Illinois farmer had accompanied them; since otherwise they would not have known about the shed at the old lime kiln.

The storm had gone raging up the river, and far in the distance they could still hear the dull roar of the thunder peals, and see the flash of each successive bolt of lightning, as it either pa.s.sed from one cloud to another, or else sought the earth in a zigzag downward plunge that was most terrifying.

"I guess we ought to call ourselves lucky for once," Jerry was saying, as they left the river road, and headed through the patch of timber, just beyond which all of them knew the boat had been left, securely fastened.

The young farmer kept along with them. He had told Frank that he would like to see for himself just how they were fixed; and had promised in the morning to fetch them a supply of fresh eggs, some newly-made b.u.t.ter, and milk from his Jersey cows.

"An' ev'ry night you jest tie up alongside the bank, you say?" he remarked, as he kept at the side of Jerry, with regard to whom he seemed to have taken an especial fancy, for some reason or other.

"Why, yes, that's the easiest way of doing with a houseboat, which, after all, is pretty much the same as one of your shantyboats, used to carry potatoes and truck down to market," Frank had taken it upon himself to answer.

"Now, here's just where we had our camp fire," Bluff, who was in advance, remarked. "It got squdged by that downpour of rain, all right, I should say. And here you see, we tied the-Frank, Frank, _she's gone!_"

he suddenly ended with an excited yell, as he saw the well-known spot where the _Pot Luck_ had been moored, vacant, and not the first sign of their floating home.

Will clung to Frank in the first shock of his dismay; while Jerry echoed the loud cries of the first discoverer of this new calamity that seemed to have overtaken them.

CHAPTER XIV-THE RUNAWAY HOUSEBOAT

They all stared as if they could hardly believe their eyes. The moon had set about the time the storm started; but since the sky was already clearing, the stars gave a certain amount of light. And especially on the river it was possible to see for some distance.

Frank was almost as dumbfounded as his chums when this alarming fact burst upon them. Without the houseboat, their cruise down the Mississippi must come to an end.

"They must have been hiding somewhere near by," lamented Will, "and saw the whole bunch of us scooting down the road; so that the chance they just wanted came along."

"Say, Frank, he thinks it must have been Ossie Fredericks!" exclaimed Jerry; "but I say it was that Marcus Stackpole. He wanted to get that treasure Uncle Felix hid away on board so neat that even I never could find it. But Marcus, he's bound to get it, even if he has to take the old boat, and tear her to flinders. Oh! what a bunch of gumps we were to leave her that way, to run to a fire."

The countryman was listening to all they said, and trying to grasp the situation. Frank saw him step over to the tree to which they had fastened the cable of the boat so securely, as they thought.

"This whar you tied her up, boys?" asked the young farmer.

"To that tree, yes," Frank replied. "What have you found-a piece of the rope left there?"

"Jest what I hev," came the reply, as the other took out a match, and prepared to strike it.

"Sliced it off as neat as you please; didn't they?" demanded Bluff, angrily.

"Wall, not as I kin see," replied the farmer, bending closer to look, as the match flamed up. "This hyar rope, she's gone and busted clear off!"