The Rival Campers; Or, The Adventures of Henry Burns

by Herbert Strang

  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 againfixed with horror as some dim object, cast up by the sea, assumed inshadowy outline the semblance of a human form. The shore was heaped hereand there with piles of driftwood and ends of logs that had come downthrough countless tides and currents from the lumber-mills miles up theriver, and this stuff had lodged among the ledges and boulders at variouspoints along the beach. Here and there among these they hunted, gropingamid the seaweed, cold and chill to the touch, and suggesting to theirminds, already alert with dread, the most gruesome of discoveries whichthey feared to make.

  That the boys had crossed the bay in the frail craft which they had justfound there seemed to be no possible doubt. Furthermore, they were nowled to believe that Tom and Bob, having once reached a point where theycould have found shelter, had chosen to keep on past the head of theisland 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 hadfound the canoe, and have, perhaps, paddled some distance beyond.

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

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

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

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

  Shortly below the hill, upon the road, was a big farmhouse, arriving atwhich they turned into the yard. The house was in darkness, save one dimlight in a chamber; but they pounded at the door with the heavy brassknocker till they heard the shuffling of feet in the entry, and a voiceinquired roughly what was wanted. They answered, and the door was openedcautiously a few inches, where it was held fast by a heavy chain. An oldman's face peered out at them. The sight of the boys was evidentlyreassuring, for, in a moment more, the man threw open the door andinvited them to walk in.

  "There be rough sailors come by some nights," he said, in a mannerapologizing for his suspicion. "I'm here alone, and"--he lowered hisvoice to a husky whisper--"they do say that I have a bit of money hidaway in the old house. But it's a lie. It's a lie. It's the sea and thegarden I live on. There's not a bit of money in the old house. But whatbrings 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 headdubiously. When they told him of the finding of the canoe, and theircertainty that the boys had crossed in it, he declared that it couldnever have lived to get to the island.

  "It must have come from down below," he said. "It could never have beenpaddled 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, andused to these waters, might have done it; but two lads in a cockle-shelllike that would never have reached the Head, let alone getting beyondit."

  He seemed to regard them almost with suspicion, when they told him of howthey had sailed up along shore in search of their comrades, and wasperhaps 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 lookalongshore in the morning. If any one had drowned offshore in theevening, they might not come ashore till the next day, he said.

  But he got a battered lantern for them and handed it over with atrembling hand, cautioning them to be careful of it, and to leave it bythe door on their way back. They heard him bolt the heavy door behindthem as they turned out of the yard into the road. A clock in the kitchenhad 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 thathas been lost off some steamer?"

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

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

  "I won't believe it's their canoe until I have to," said George. "Theyare 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 shore in silence, for noneof 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 againfor a half-mile along in the vicinity of where the canoe had come ashore.But nothing rewarded their hunt.

  "The old man must be right," said George Warren. "The canoe must havecome ashore from some steamer. Let's go home, anyway. We've done all wecan."

  Heart-sick and weary, they began the tramp back to the cottage. At abouta mile from the old farmhouse, where they left the lantern, they turnedoff from the road and made a cut across fields, till they came at lengthto the shore of the cove opposite the Warren cottage. They could seeacross the water the gleam of a large lantern which young Joe had hung onthe piazza for them; but the boat they had expected to find drawn up onshore was gone.

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

  "I'll go, myself," volunteered George. "I'd rather swim that shortdistance than do any more walking. I'm about done up, but I am good forthat much." And he threw off his clothing once more, and swam pluckilyout to the tender and brought it ashore. They pulled across the cove tothe shore back of the cottage, and, springing out, carried the boat highup on land.

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

  And then the dear little woman, having embraced and kissed them as thoughthey had been shipwrecked mariners, long given up for lost,--notforgetting Henry Burns, who wasn't used to it, but who took it calmly allthe 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 dryclothing for the three from the extensive Warren wardrobe was warming bythe fire.

  A comical welcome they got from young Joe, who had been just as muchworried as Mrs. Warren, but who hadn't admitted it to his mother for amoment, and had scornfully denied the existence of danger, and yet whowas every bit as relieved as she to see the boys safe. He tried not toappear as though a great weight had been removed from his mind by theirreturn, but made altogether a most commendable failure.

  The big, roomy, old-fashioned kitchen--for the Warren cottage hadoriginally been a rambling old farmhouse, which they had remodelled andmodernized--had never seemed so cosy before. And the fire had neverseemed more cheery than it did now. And when they had scrambled into dry,warm clothing, and Mrs. Warren had taken the teakettle from the hob, andpoured them each a steaming cup of tea, to "draw out the chill," theyforgot for the moment what they had
been through and their sad discovery.

  In fact, it seemed as though Mrs. Warren and young Joe were strangelyindifferent to what had sent them forth, and were easily satisfied withthe opinions expressed by the boys, who had agreed not to mention thefinding of the canoe until something more definite was learned, that Tomand Bob had in all probability not left the river.

  So easily satisfied, indeed, and so little affected by the fruitlesserrand they had been on, that all at once Henry Burns, who had been eyingMrs. Warren sharply for some moments, suddenly rose up from where he wassitting, and rushed out of the kitchen, through the dining-room, into thefront part of the house. Wondering what had come over him, the othersfollowed.

  What they saw was a tableau, with Henry Burns as exhibitor. He had drawnaside the heavy portiere with one hand, and stood pointing into the roomwith the other.

  There, seated before the fireplace, were two boys so much like Tom andBob, whom they had given up for lost, that their own mothers, had theybeen there, would have wept for joy at the sight of them. And then, whatwith the Warren boys pounding them and hugging them, like young bears, tomake sure they were flesh and blood, and not the ghosts of Tom and Bob,and with the cheers that fairly made the old rafters ring, and thehappiness of Mrs. Warren, who was always willing to adopt every boy fromfar and near who was a friend of one of her boys,--what with all this,there was altogether a scene that would have done any one's heart good,and might have shamed the storm outside, if it had been any other kind ofa storm than a pitiless southeaster.

  Then, though the hour was getting late, they all sat about the bigfireplace, and Tom narrated the story of the shipwreck.

  But, just as he began, young Joe said, with mock gravity:

  "We haven't introduced Henry Burns to the boys yet. Henry, this is TomHarris, and this is Bob White."

  "I don't think we need an introduction to one who has risked his life forus," said Tom Harris, heartily, as he and Bob sprang up to shake handswith Henry Burns. But Henry Burns, carrying out the joke, bowed veryformally, and politely said he was extremely happy to make theiracquaintance. At which Tom and Bob, unfamiliar with the ways of HenryBurns, stared in astonishment, which sent the Warren boys into roars oflaughter.

  The boys thus introduced to Henry Burns were handsome young fellows,evidently about the same age,--in fact, each lacked but a few months offifteen,--thick-set and strongly built. The sons of well-to-do parents,and neighbours, they had been inseparable companions ever since theycould remember. Tom Harris's father was the owner of extensive tracts inthe Maine woods, from which lumber was cut yearly and rafted down thestreams to his lumber-mills. In company with him on several surveying andexploring expeditions, the boys had hunted and fished together, and hadpaddled for weeks along the streams and on the lakes of the great Mainewilderness.

  They had hunted and fished in the Parmachenee and the Rangeley Lakeregion, and knew a great deal more of real camp life than most boys ofdouble their age. Further than this, they were schoolmates, and were soequally matched in athletic sports, in which they both excelled, thatneither had ever been able to gain a decided victory over the other. Tomwas of rather light complexion, while Bob was dark, with curly, blackhair.

  It was through their friendship with the Warren boys, who lived not farfrom them, in the same town, that they had decided to spend the summercamping on Grand Island.

  As they all gathered around the cheerful blaze of the fire, Tom told thestory of the day's adventures.

  With so much of their camp kit as they needed for cooking along theriver, they had started from the town of Benton at about four o'clockthat morning, just as the tide began to ebb. Hardened as they were to theuse of the paddle, by the time the tide had ceased to ebb and slack waterensued, they had left the city miles behind and were well down the river.

  Then the flood tide began to set strong against them, and a wind arosethat furrowed the river with waves that were not big enough to benoticeable to larger craft, but which seriously impeded the progress ofthe frail canoe. They kept steadily on, but made slow headway.

  At Millville, a few miles above the mouth of the river, where itbroadened out into the bay, they had met the steamer, and had hastilyscrawled the note which Captain Chase had brought to the Warren boys.

  Sure enough, Captain Chase had warned them of the impending storm, and,furthermore, had offered to transport them and their canoe across thebay; but they had declined his offer, wishing to paddle the entiredistance to the island. They had set their hearts on making the trip offorty miles in one day; and partly for this reason, and partly becauseCaptain Chase had looked askance at their canoe, and had assured themthat it was not a fit craft for bay work in any weather, let alone in aheavy sea, they had set out, toward the latter part of the afternoon, tocross the fifteen miles of bay which lay between them and Grand Island.

  The storm which had threatened gradually closed in around them, but theyheld on stubbornly, until, when too far across the bay to put back, itrapidly gathered strength, and soon turned what had been a comparativelysafe pathway across the sea into a wilderness of waves, that at onemoment rose high above the bow of the canoe, dashing them with spray asthe sharp canoe cleaved them, and the next dropped down beneath them,opening a watery trench, into which they plunged.

  They had seen storms like this, that came quick and sharp upon the lakes,heaving up a sea almost in a moment, with squalls that swept down fromthe hills. They had been safely through them before; but at those timesit had been a short, sharp battle for a half-hour at most, before theycould reach a friendly shore. But here it was different. Here were milesof intervening water between them and the nearest land. This was no lake,to be quickly within the shelter of some protecting point of land.

  But they had never for a moment lost courage nor despaired of comingthrough all right. They struggled pluckily on, and might have gottensafely to land without mishap, if they had been familiar with the shoreof the island. To a stranger, the shore about the head of the islandpresented a sheer front of forbidding cliffs, rising abruptly from thewater, and against which, in a storm, the sea dashed furiously.

  There was apparently no place at which a boat could be landed; and yet,hidden behind the very barrier of ledge that sheltered it, lay Bryant'sCove, as quiet and sequestered a pool as any fugitive craft could wish tofind. Had the boys known of its existence, they would have landed there,and have been at the Warren cottage before the _Spray_ had left theharbour.

  As it was, there seemed to them to be no alternative but to keep on to apoint about half a mile farther along the shore, where they hoped to beable to make a landing upon the beach.

  They had accomplished the distance, and were fast nearing a place wherethey could land in safety, when a most unexpected and disastrous accidenthappened. Suddenly, and without the slightest warning of its weakness,the paddle which Bob was using snapped in two in his hands. At the samemoment a wave hit the canoe, and, with nothing with which to keep hisbalance, Bob was thrown bodily from the canoe into the sea, upsetting thecanoe and spilling Tom out at the same time.

  The boys were able to grasp the canoe and cling on for a few minutes.They were both good swimmers, and often, in smooth water, had practisedswimming, with the canoe upset, and were able to accomplish the feat ofrighting it, bailing it with a dipper, which they always carried attachedto one of the thwarts by a cord, and then climbing aboard over the ends.But it was useless to attempt such a thing in this boisterous sea.

  Indeed, it was more than they could do, even, to cling to the overturnedcraft, for soon an enormous wave struck it a blow broadside and tore itfrom their grasp. Then ensued a fight for life that seemed almosthopeless. They were near to shore, but the sea seemed to delight inmocking them; tossing them in at one moment, so that they could grasp atseaweed that lay above the ledges, and then clutching at them and drawingthem relentlessly back.

  It was then that their athletic training stood them in good stead. Lesshardy constitutions and weaker muscles than their
s would have quicklytired under the strain. Refraining from useless struggles to gain theshore, they waited their opportunity, and strove merely for the moment tokeep themselves afloat. In this manner they were, several times, almostcast up on shore.

  All at once Tom Harris felt a sharp pain in his right hand. Then herealized, with a thrill of hope, that he had struck it upon a rock. Itwas, indeed, a narrow reef that made out some distance from shore. Theyhad narrowly escaped being dashed upon it head-foremost. Tom waited andgathered his strength as the next wave hurled him on its crest in thedirection of the ledge. Then, as the wave bore him with great forceagainst it, he broke the force of the shock with his hands, was thrownroughly up against it, and managed to cling fast, with his fingers in aniche of the rock, as the wave, receding, strove to drag him back again.

  Then, holding on with one hand, he managed somehow to grasp at Bob as hewas drifting by, and hold him fast and draw him in. Clinging to the ledgeas each succeeding wave broke over them, they waited till they hadregained their strength and recovered their wind, and then slowly workedtheir way along the ledge to shore, and at length were safe, out of thesea's fury.

  Then they had rested awhile, before setting out on foot. Their canoe theycould see at some distance out from shore, tossing about at the mercy ofthe waves. It must of necessity come ashore in due time, but it might notbe for an hour, and they resolved not to wait for it, but to push on totheir destination, returning on the morrow to look for it. They followedthe shore for about a mile down the island, till they met a fisherman,who told them how to get to the Warren cottage by the same route theWarren boys and Henry Burns had taken a few hours later.

  They had crossed the cove in old Slade's boat, and, expecting to astonishthe Warren boys by their appearance, in the midst of the storm, hadfound, to their dismay, that those whom they had expected to find safe athome were imperilling their lives for them out in the bay.

  "Well, I must be up and moving," said Henry Burns, when Tom had concludedhis narrative. "I don't mind saying I'm a bit tired with this night'swork--and I guess you are, by the looks. I can sleep, too, now that Iknow that you are not down among the mermaids at the bottom of SamosetBay."

  "Why don't you stay here with the boys to-night, Henry?" said Mrs.Warren. "You cannot get into the hotel at this hour of the night, withoutwaking everybody up. Colonel Witham closes up early, you know."

  "No one but Henry Burns can, mother," said Joe Warren. "Henry has aprivate staircase of his own."

  "It's a lightning-rod staircase, Mrs. Warren," explained Henry Burns. "Iuse it sometimes after ten o'clock, for that is my bedtime, you know.Mrs. Carlin--good soul--sends me off to bed regularly at that hour, nomatter what is going on; and so I have to make use of it occasionally."

  Mrs. Warren shook her head doubtfully.

  "You shouldn't do it, Henry," she said. "Although I know it is hard for astrong, healthy boy to go off to bed every night at ten o'clock. Well,that comes of being too strict, I suppose,--but do look out and don'tbreak your neck. It's a bad night to be climbing around."

  "Don't worry about Henry Burns, mother," said Arthur. "He wouldn't do it,if he wasn't forced to it,--and he knows how to take care of himself, ifanybody does."

  "Well, good night," said Henry Burns. "And don't forget, I hold myreception to-morrow night; and I extend to Tom and Bob a specialinvitation to be present." And, with a knowing glance at George Warren,Henry Burns took his departure.

  As the boys went off to bed that night, George Warren explained to themthat on the next night, the occasion being an entertainment in place ofthe regular Wednesday night hop at the hotel, he and Henry Burns hadplanned a joke on Colonel Witham, in which they were all to take part,and, with this prospect in view, they dropped asleep.

  In the meantime Henry Burns, arriving at the hotel, and having learned byprevious experience that a lock on a rear door of the old part of thehotel, which was not connected with the new by any door, could bemanipulated with the aid of a thin blade of a jack-knife, crept up to thegarret by way of a rickety pair of back stairs, and from thence emergedupon the roof through a scuttle. Then, carefully making his way along theridge-pole to where the new part joined the old, he climbed a shortdistance up a lightning-rod, to the roof of the new part.

  This was a large roof, nearly flat. He walked across, about midway of thebuilding, to where another rod, fastened at the top to a chimney, cameup. Clinging to this, Henry Burns disappeared over the edge of the roof,found a resting-place for his foot on a projection which was directlyover his own window, and then lowered himself, like an acrobat, down therod to a veranda. Raising the window directly beside the rod, he slippedinside, closed it softly, and in a few minutes more was abed and soundasleep.

  While all Southport slept, the storm spent its force, and toward morninggradually subsided. In the place of the beating rain there stole upthrough the islands, in the early morning hours, great detached banks offog,--themselves like strange, white islands,--which shut out the bayfrom the shore. They lay heavy over the water, and, as the boisterousseas gradually gave way to the long, smooth waves that rolled in withoutbreaking, one might have fancied that the fog, itself, had a depressingand tranquillizing influence upon the sea.

  Yet old fishermen would have ventured out then, without fear, for therewere signs, that might be read by the weather-wise, that a light westwind was soon to be stirring that would scatter the fog at its firstadvance, and sweep it back out to sea.

  But, brief as was the visitation of the fog, it sufficed to hide allthings from sight. And if a boat, in which one boy rowed vigorously, hadput forth from the camp of Jack Harvey, down in the woods, and had comeup along the shore to the wharf, and the box, which was a part of thebelongings of Tom Harris and Bob White, had been lowered from the wharfinto the boat and conveyed back to the camp and hidden away there,--ifall this had happened, it is safe to say that no one would have seen whatwas done, nor would any one have been the wiser.

  Perhaps some such a thing might, indeed, have occurred, for when Tom andBob, Henry Burns, and the Warren boys met at the wharf the nextfore-noon, they found the box gone. They hunted everywhere, ransacked thestorehouse from one end to the other, but it was nowhere to be found.

  "And to think that it's all my fault," groaned young Joe, as they stoodat the edge of the wharf, after the unsuccessful search. "I might haveknown John Briggs would forget to lock it up! It was left in the openshed there, boys, protected from the rain, and he promised to look outfor it; but he must have forgotten. I spoke to him about it the lastthing last night, on our way home to the cottage."

  "Was it very valuable?" asked Henry Burns.

  "Ask Tom what he thinks," laughed Bob, while Tom tried to lookunconscious, but blushed furiously.

  "There's a pretty sister of mine," continued Bob, "that thinks so much ofus that she spent a week cooking up a lot of things for us to start ourcamping with. There's a box full of the best stuff to eat you evertasted, that somebody will gobble up, I suppose, without once thinking orcaring about the one that made them. Pretty tough, isn't it, Tom?"

  Tom turned redder still, and felt of his biceps, as though he wasspeculating what he would do to a certain person, if that person couldonly be discovered and come up with.

  "I tell you what it is, boys," said George Warren; "things have had astrange way of disappearing here this summer, as they never did before;and, what's more, if Jack Harvey and his crew haven't stolen them, theyhave at least got the credit for taking the most of it,--and you maydepend upon it, that box is down there in the woods, somewhere about thatcamp."

  "Then what's to hinder our raiding the camp and getting it?" Tom brokein, angrily. "Bob and I, with two of you, could make a good fight againstall of them."

  "No doubt of that, Tom," answered George Warren; "but there are twothings to be considered. First, we want to get the box back; and, second,we are not absolutely certain that they have it. If they have it, you maybe certain that it is carefully hidden away, and we shoul
dn't recover itby making an attack on them. We must find out where it is hidden first,and then, if we cannot get it away otherwise, we will fight for it."

  "So it seems that we have two scores to settle now," said Henry Burns,dryly. "We owe a debt now to Jack Harvey and his crew, and there's along-standing account with Colonel Witham, part of which we must payto-night. Be on hand early. The latch-string will be out at numbertwenty-one." So saying, Henry Burns left them.

  Late that afternoon Tom and Bob, looking from the door of their tentacross the cove, saw a sight that was at once familiar and strange. Itwas a canoe, in which were two occupants, and it was being paddled towardtheir camp. The long seas, smooth though they were, still rolled inheavily, and the light canoe tossed about on their crests like a meretoy. Still, it did not take long for them to discover that the canoe wastheir own. They had supposed it lost, though they had intended to set outin search of it on the following morning.

  In the bow and stern, propelling the craft with paddles roughlyimprovised from broken oars, were George and Arthur Warren.

  "Tom, old fellow," said Bob, as the canoe came dancing toward them,"we've lost the box, but we've got the luck with us, after all. Not onlyare we proof against drowning, but we own a canoe that refuses to bewrecked."

  And then the bow of the canoe grated on the sandy shore.