The Rival Campers Part 3

"I don't see but what we have done all we can to-night," responded his brother; "and, as we have got five miles of muddy road to travel, the sooner we start the better. We could stay in the boat to-night, but we must get back on mother's account. Depend upon it, she has worried every single minute we have been gone, and I don't blame her, either. Now it's all over, I don't mind saying I think we were fools to come out. But we meant well, so perhaps the less said the better. We'll have to leave the _Spray_ to herself till the storm goes down. n.o.body will harm her."

"I don't mind staying here to-night and looking after her," said Henry Burns. "To be sure, old Witham doesn't know I have left the hotel, but I tumbled my bed up before I came away, and he will only think I got up early in the morning, if he wonders where I am."

"No, no, old fellow. We won't let you stay. We won't hear of it," said both brothers. "The sooner we all get home and get dry clothes on, the better. There's no need of any of us staying. The _Spray_ won't sail out of the cove of herself, and every one on the island knows her."

So, as they had left the tender behind, they removed their clothing, tied it into bundles, slung them around their necks, and, slipping overboard, swam to sh.o.r.e.

"If I ever was more glad to get on land alive than I am at present," said Henry Burns, his teeth chattering with the cold, as he hastily scrambled into his clothes, "I don't happen to remember it just at this instant. I wonder if my aunt would send me down here again for my health if she could see me now."

There was something so ludicrous in the idea that the boys could not help bursting into roars of laughter,-though they felt little enough like merriment.

"The more I think of it," said Henry Burns, "the more I believe the boys are snug ash.o.r.e at Millville, and that they haven't been within ten miles of Grand Island to-night."

"I think you are right, Henry," responded Arthur.

"It must be so," said George.

And yet not one of them dared to believe absolutely that what he said was true.

They started off across lots now, walking as rapidly as their wet and heavy clothing would allow, to strike the road which led to the harbour.

Coming at length into this road, they had walked but a short distance, and were at the top of a hill at a turn of the road where it left the sh.o.r.e, when Henry Burns, pointing down along the sh.o.r.e, said:

"We ought to remember that part of the bay as long as we live, for we shall never be much nearer to death than we were right there."

"Sure enough," responded Arthur, "it was just about off there that the big yawl smashed our bowsprit off."

"The yawl must have been driven ash.o.r.e by this time," said George. "Wait a minute and I will take a look." And he disappeared over the bank and was lost in the bushes. The two boys seated themselves by the side of the road to await his return, but started up with a horror in their hearts as a shrill cry came up to them from the sh.o.r.e. There was that in the cry that told them that George Warren had found other than the s.h.i.+p's long-boat. They scarcely dared to think what. Then they, too, dashed down the slope to the sh.o.r.e.

When they reached his side, George Warren could scarcely speak from emotion.

"Look! Look!" he cried, in a trembling, choking voice, and pointed out upon the beach where the tide had gone down.

There were two strange objects there that the sea had buffeted in its wild play that night, and then, as though grown tired of them, had cast upon the sh.o.r.e, among the rocks and seaweed.

One was the long-boat, no longer an object of danger, for the sea had hurled it against a rock and stove its side in. The other was a canoe.

The sea had overturned it and tossed it upon the sh.o.r.e. Two of its thwarts were smashed where it had been dropped down and pinioned upon a rock-and the rock held it fast.

CHAPTER III.

A SURPRISE

With hearts beating quick and hard, they lifted the canoe from the rock, fearful of what they might find beneath it; but there was nothing there.

Then they searched along the beach in the darkness as best they could, peering anxiously into clumps of seaweed, and standing now and again fixed with horror as some dim object, cast up by the sea, a.s.sumed in shadowy outline the semblance of a human form. The sh.o.r.e was heaped here and there with piles of driftwood and ends of logs that had come down through countless tides and currents from the lumber-mills miles up the river, and this stuff had lodged among the ledges and boulders at various points along the beach. Here and there among these they hunted, groping amid the seaweed, cold and chill to the touch, and suggesting to their minds, already alert with dread, the most gruesome of discoveries which they feared to make.

That the boys had crossed the bay in the frail craft which they had just found there seemed to be no possible doubt. Furthermore, they were now led to believe that Tom and Bob, having once reached a point where they could have found shelter, had chosen to keep on past the head of the island in an effort to make the harbour of Southport. They must at least, as the wind had blown, have reached a point opposite where the boys had found the canoe, and have, perhaps, paddled some distance beyond.

But it was clearly useless to continue the search further in the darkness and storm. They lifted the canoe and carried it up from the beach, and hid it in the bushes upon the bank. Then they went slowly back to the road.

"I tell you what we can do," said Arthur Warren. "I hate to go back to the cottage without making one more search. Let's get a lantern and come back. We shall not have to go far for one,-and we shall have done all we can, then, though it is a bad night to see anything."

The rain was, indeed, pouring in torrents and driving in sheets against their faces.

"Yes, we must do that much," said George. "And then-then we can come back in the morning-" His voice choked, and he could not say more. They went on down the muddy road in silence.

Shortly below the hill, upon the road, was a big farmhouse, arriving at which they turned into the yard. The house was in darkness, save one dim light in a chamber; but they pounded at the door with the heavy bra.s.s knocker till they heard the shuffling of feet in the entry, and a voice inquired roughly what was wanted. They answered, and the door was opened cautiously a few inches, where it was held fast by a heavy chain. An old man's face peered out at them. The sight of the boys was evidently rea.s.suring, for, in a moment more, the man threw open the door and invited them to walk in.

"There be rough sailors come by some nights," he said, in a manner apologizing for his suspicion. "I'm here alone, and"-he lowered his voice to a husky whisper-"they do say that I have a bit of money hid away in the old house. But it's a lie. It's a lie. It's the sea and the garden I live on. There's not a bit of money in the old house. But what brings you out in such a storm? You haven't lost your way, have you?"

They told their story, while the old man sat in a chair, shaking his head dubiously. When they told him of the finding of the canoe, and their certainty that the boys had crossed in it, he declared that it could never have lived to get to the island.

"It must have come from down below," he said. "It could never have been paddled across the bay against this sea. Two boys, d'ye say, paddled it?

No. No, my lads, never-upon my life, never. Two stout men in a dory, and used to these waters, might have done it; but two lads in a c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l like that would never have reached the Head, let alone getting beyond it."

He seemed to regard them almost with suspicion, when they told him of how they had sailed up along sh.o.r.e in search of their comrades, and was perhaps inclined to believe their whole story as some kind of a hoax.

Certain it was he gave them little comfort, except to say he would look alongsh.o.r.e in the morning. If any one had drowned offsh.o.r.e in the evening, they might not come ash.o.r.e till the next day, he said.

But he got a battered lantern for them and handed it over with a trembling hand, cautioning them to be careful of it, and to leave it by the door on their way back. They heard him bolt the heavy door behind them as they turned out of the yard into the road. A clock in the kitchen had struck the hour of ten as they left the house.

"Isn't it very probable, after all," said George, as they walked along, "that the man may be right, and that this canoe we have found is one that has been lost off some steamer?"

"It seems to me perhaps as probable," answered Henry Burns, "as that the boys should have attempted to keep on in the storm, having once reached a place of safety."

"I wish I could think so," said Arthur. "But I can't help fearing the worst,-and if the boys are lost," he exclaimed bitterly, "I've seen all I want to of this island for one summer. I'd never enjoy another day here."

"I won't believe it's their canoe until I have to," said George. "They are not such reckless chaps as we have been making them out."

And he tried to say this bravely, as though he really meant it.

They tramped along the rest of the way to the sh.o.r.e in silence, for none of them dared to admit to another that which he could not but believe.

By the lantern's dim and flickering light they searched the beach again for a half-mile along in the vicinity of where the canoe had come ash.o.r.e.

But nothing rewarded their hunt.

"The old man must be right," said George Warren. "The canoe must have come ash.o.r.e from some steamer. Let's go home, anyway. We've done all we can."

Heart-sick and weary, they began the tramp back to the cottage. At about a mile from the old farmhouse, where they left the lantern, they turned off from the road and made a cut across fields, till they came at length to the sh.o.r.e of the cove opposite the Warren cottage. They could see across the water the gleam of a large lantern which young Joe had hung on the piazza for them; but the boat they had expected to find drawn up on sh.o.r.e was gone.

"Old Slade must be over in town," said Henry Burns; "and he won't be back to-night, probably. So it's either walk two miles more around the cove or swim out to the tender. We're all of us tired out. Shall we draw lots to see who swims?"

"I'll go, myself," volunteered George. "I'd rather swim that short distance than do any more walking. I'm about done up, but I am good for that much." And he threw off his clothing once more, and swam pluckily out to the tender and brought it ash.o.r.e. They pulled across the cove to the sh.o.r.e back of the cottage, and, springing out, carried the boat high up on land.

They were at the cottage then in a twinkling; but, even before they had reached the door, dear Mrs. Warren, who had heard their steps upon the walk, was outside in the rain, hugging her boys who had braved the storm and who had come back safe. She was altogether too much overcome at the sight of them, it seemed, to inquire if they had found those in search of whom they had set out.

And then the dear little woman, having embraced and kissed them as though they had been s.h.i.+pwrecked mariners, long given up for lost,-not forgetting Henry Burns, who wasn't used to it, but who took it calmly all the same, as he did everything else,-hurried them into the kitchen, where young Joe had the big cook-stove all of a red heat, and where dry clothing for the three from the extensive Warren wardrobe was warming by the fire.