The Boy Aviators' Flight for a Fortune Part 4

CHAPTER V.-ADVENTURES ON THE HULK.

A sudden sharp puff of wind, followed by a heavier dip than usual on the part of the dismantled hulk, apprised the boy that both breeze and sea were increasing. Putting aside, for the moment, by a brave effort, his heart sickness, Harry ran to the rail and peered over the side. The motor boat was careering gallantly along by the side of her big consort, and the boy was glad to note that the painter still held, despite the strain.

But Harry knew, from his examination the previous night, that it would be useless to try to escape by the motor craft. She was disabled beyond hope of repair, unless he could get another spark plug. Having made sure the motor craft was all right, Harry returned to the bow and sat down to think the situation over.

It would have been a trying one for a man to face, let alone a lad; but Harry's numerous adventures had given him a power of calm thought beyond his years, and he managed to marshal his ideas into some sort of shape as he crouched under the bow bulwarks.

"Evidently the _Betsy Jane_ was caught by the tide, when it turned, and carried out to sea," he thought, "and then, when the wind got up, she drifted still faster. I wonder if her mooring rope broke or if it was cut-guess I'll take a look."

The boy dragged inboard the end of the mooring line that still hung over the bow. One look at it was enough. The clean cut strands showed conclusively that it had been severed, just above the water line, by a sharp knife. The fact that the Daniels could not know that any one would come on board after they slashed the line did not make their act any less heinous in Harry's eyes. It had been their deliberate intention to set the schooner adrift, and they had succeeded only too well in their act of spite.

"Whatever will they be thinking on the island when they discover all this?" thought Harry with a low groan. "They'll imagine that I'm dead, or at least that some fatal accident has befallen me, and, worst of all, they have no boat to use to reach the mainland. They are just as much prisoners as I am."

Sharp pangs of hunger now began to a.s.sail the lad, and he recollected, with a thankful heart, that on board the motor boat there were the remains of a lunch they had taken ash.o.r.e with them on their expedition the previous day. There was also a keg of water. Harry lost no time in descending the gangway and making his way to the locker where the food had been stored. First, however, he made a foray on the water keg.

Taking out the stopper he found that it was only half full, but he slaked his thirst gratefully, taking care to use as small a quant.i.ty of the fluid as possible. He knew that before long the water might be precious indeed.

In the locker he found the remnants of the lunch. As he consumed the sc.r.a.ps of bread and cheese, and a small hunk of corned beef, he recalled with what light hearts they had fallen to the meal of which he was now devouring the remains. The recollection almost overcame him. With a strong effort the boy choked back a sob and formed a grim determination not to dwell upon his miserable situation more than was possible. He felt that the main thing was to keep a clear head.

There was some spare rope on board the hulk, and with this Harry made the fastenings of the launch more secure, leading one end of the rope on board the schooner itself, and making it fast to a cleat. He felt that the craft would be more safe if attached thus than would have been the case had he depended on the gangway alone.

This done, he took a look about him. He had had a vague hope that he might sight a s.h.i.+p of some sort, but the ocean was empty as a desert.

Not a sail or a smudge of smoke marred the horizon. All this time the wind had been steadily freshening, and Harry judged that the schooner must be drifting before it quite fast. The inclined superstructure naturally added to her "windage" and made her go before the gale more rapidly. The sea, too, was piling up in great, glistening, green water rows, which looked formidable indeed. But so far the _Betsy Jane_ had wallowed along right gallantly, only s.h.i.+pping a shower of spray occasionally when a big sea struck her obliquely on the bow.

"If only I had plenty of food and water," thought Harry, "this would be nothing more than a good bit of adventure, but--"

In accordance with his resolution not to dwell on the more serious aspects of his predicament he dismissed this side of the case from his mind. But as the day wore on, and he grew intolerably thirsty, the thought of what might be his fate, if he did not fall in with some vessel, beset his mind more and more, to the exclusion of all else. In the afternoon, as closely as he could judge the time, he took another drink from the fast-diminis.h.i.+ng supply in the keg. He noticed, with an unpleasant shock, that the fluid was growing alarmingly lower. Before he took the draught he had cleaned up the remaining crumbs left in the locker, and was now absolutely without food.

The rest of that afternoon he pa.s.sed watching the empty sea for some sign of a s.h.i.+p, but not a trace of one could he discover. Utterly disheartened he watched the sun set in a blaze of crimson and gold. The sunset lay behind him, and Harry knew by this that he was drifting east at a rapid rate. Just how rapid he had, of course, no means of calculating. Of one thing he was thankful-the sea had not increased, and the wind appeared to have fallen considerably with the departure of daylight.

"Surely," thought the boy, "I must have drifted on the track of ocean vessels by this time. I know there's a line to Halifax, and another to Portland, besides the coasters."

With this thought came another. What if he should be run down during the night? The idea sent a shudder through his scantily clothed form. He knew that derelicts are often the cause of marine disasters, and during the dark hours the hulk might invite such a fate if he did not take steps to guard against it.

Accordingly he lit his lantern and hung it in the underpinning of the inclined superstructure.

"At least they can see that," he thought, as he completed the hanging of his warning light.

Then, having done all he well could under the circ.u.mstances, Harry cast himself down in the lee of the weather bulwarks and tried to sleep. But in his scanty attire he was far too cold to do aught but lie and s.h.i.+ver till his teeth chattered. He determined to pa.s.s the rest of the night below, and once more sought a couch in the empty bunk. But sleep was a long time coming. Tired, excited and hungry as the boy was, he could not compose himself to slumber. Ten or a dozen times he started up and ran to the deck, thinking that he had heard the distant beat of some vessel's engines. But each time it proved a false alarm.

At length tired nature a.s.serted herself, and he sank to sleep in good earnest. When he awakened it was daylight, and there was an odd feeling about the motion of the _Betsy Jane_. She seemed to have ceased her rolling and pitching, and was almost steady in the water. Suddenly there came a jarring crash that almost threw Harry out of the bunk.

Much startled, he ran on deck, and found, to his astonishment, that the vessel lay right off an island. Seemingly she had grounded on a reef of rocks stretching out from the island itself. At any rate, as the waves rocked her she gave a jarring, crunching b.u.mp with each pitch of her hull. The island appeared to be a small one, and in general appearance was not unlike Brig Island. In fact, at first Harry had thought that in some magical way the _Betsy Jane_ had drifted back to that small speck of land. But a second glance showed him that the island off which the dismantled hull had grounded differed in many essentials from the one he had left. Far to the westward, about twenty miles as well as the boy could judge, lay a dim streak of dark blue that Harry guessed was the mainland. But for all the good it did him it might have been a hundred miles removed.

Harry was still gazing at the island and wondering how he could reach it before the _Betsy Jane_ pounded herself to pieces on the rocks, when he started violently. The island was not, as he had supposed, uninhabited-at least, he had caught sight of a swirl of blue smoke rising from among the trees on its highest part. This meant help, companions.h.i.+p and food. An involuntary cry of joy rose to the boy's lips, which the next instant turned to a groan as he looked over the side of the schooner and saw that the reef on which she had struck was much too far out from the sh.o.r.e for him to try to swim the distance, even if a roaring, racing tide would not have made it suicidal to attempt the feat.

"Unless I can attract the attention of whoever lives there by shouting, I'm as badly off as I was before," exclaimed Harry, in a voice made quavery by panic.

CHAPTER VI.-HARRY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND.

All at once, while he was still gazing at the column of smoke sh.o.r.eward, Harry became aware of a figure coming out of the woods toward the beach.

He shouted with all his might, and the man who had appeared from the undergrowth waved a reply.

Then his voice came over the water.

"What's up?"

The tone somehow was strangely familiar to Harry, and, for that matter, when he had first seen the figure of the newcomer it had struck him with an odd sense of familiarity. Suddenly he realized why this was.

"Ben Stubbs!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

"Ahoy, mate!" came back after a pause; "who are you?"

"Harry Chester!"

"By the great horn spoon! What the d.i.c.kens are you doing out there?"

Cupping his hands to make his voice carry the better, Harry hailed back once more.

"I drifted here on this hulk. Can you take me off?"

"Can I? Wait a jiffy."

Ben Stubbs-for it was actually the "maroon" whom the boys had rescued from a miserable fate in the Nicaraguan treasure valley-began running along the sh.o.r.e as fast as his short legs would carry him. Presently he vanished around a wooded promontory, leaving Harry in a strange jumble of feelings. What could the good-hearted old companion of several of their adventures be doing on this desolate island off the Maine coast?

When they had last heard from him he had been running a tug boat line in New York harbor, having purchased the business with the profits made out of the discovery of the treasure trove in the Sarga.s.so Sea.

Before a great while the man who had so opportunely appeared came into view once more This time he was in a skiff, rowing with strong strokes toward the stranded hulk of the _Betsy Jane_. Harry watched him with eager eyes. Fast as Ben Stubbs rowed, it seemed an eternity to the anxious boy before his strangely rediscovered friend reached the side of the grounded schooner.

When he did so he hastily made fast, and was up the gangway ladder three steps at a time. Fortunately for his haste, the sea had diminished in roughness considerably, and the _Betsy Jane_ lay almost motionless on the reef. Otherwise he would have stood a strong chance of being thrown from his footing. Harry was at the gangway as Ben Stubbs' weather-beaten countenance came into view at the top of the steps.

Ben seized the boy's hand in a grip that made Harry flinch, but he returned it with as strong a clench as he could. For a moment both of them were too much overcome with emotion at the strange meeting to utter a word. It was Ben who spoke first.

"Waal, what under the revolving universe are you doing here?" he demanded.

"I was about to ask the same question of you."

"It's a long story, boy, and you look just about played out. What has happened? I never dreamed that you were even in this neighborhood."

"I guess the same thing applies to me, so far as you are concerned, Ben," rejoined Harry, between a laugh and a sob. "As for myself, I've been adrift all night on this old hulk. Some rascals cut her loose from her moorings at Brig Island."

"Wow! you've drifted all the way from there. Why, it's fifty miles or more away."

"I know it. It seemed a million to me. What worries me is what the others must be thinking. They won't know if I'm dead or alive."