CHAPTER VII.
THE MYSTERIOUS BLUR ON THE HORIZON.
"I just thought it'd turn out to be a whopper of a yarn!" said Jimmy,frowning as if grievously disappointed all the same.
"What's that?" asked Frank.
"Why, all that tommyrot about the queer old fleet of boats that vanishedright before your eyes, and then bobbed up somewhere else, like a flockof submarines, or a school of blooming porpoises," returned thedisgusted one.
At that Jack laughed.
"Why, it sounds like Jimmy really believed the whole thing," heremarked; "and has been expecting the mysterious fleet at anchor thevery minute he glimpsed Hudson Bay."
"But I did expect to hit on something different from this," said Jimmy."Somebody, tell me, would you please, what's so remarkable about thisthing? I've seen many a stretch of salt water that looked just like it,shore line and all."
"Why not?" observed Ned; "I never thought we'd find Hudson Bay countryany different from other Northern lands. There are the same trees,moss-covered rocks, peculiar sedge grass, and the like. But don't be soquick to jump at conclusions, Jimmy. Give me half a chance to take alook through my field glasses here, and perhaps I can tell you somethinginteresting."
With those words Ned unslung the glasses, and adjusted the same to hiseyes. The others of the party, standing there knee-deep in the rankgrass that grew along the border of the woods, watched him with renewedinterest. They even forgot about the wild fowl that were sporting inflocks out where the waves broke upon a line of rocks, with a subduedroar.
Carefully did Ned train his powerful field-glasses on a certain part ofthe horizon. Looking in that quarter some of the others began to rubtheir eyes.
"Seems to me there is something there," remarked Frank, straining hiseyes in the endeavor to make sure.
"It may be a low-lying cloud on the water-line of the horizon," Teddyadded.
"Anyhow, it's too far away for us to tell with the naked eye," Jackannounced; "and so we'll have to depend on Ned to give us theinformation."
Just then the leader lowered the glasses.
"Take a look for yourself, Jack," he said; and there was a slight smileon his face while speaking, that told of a discovery of some sort.
While Jack was fixing the glasses to suit his needs, for everybody'seyes are not just alike, Jimmy was trying to make use of his doubled-uphands in order to help his vision.
"'Tis meself that believes it's smoke!" he declared, with animation.
"How about it, Jack?" demanded Teddy.
The one indicated did not keep them in suspense needlessly.
"Yes, Jimmy hit the bull's-eye that time," he remarked.
"Then it _is_ smoke?" queried Frank.
"Not only that, but I can make out what seem to be a number of smallobjects that must be vessels of some sort," Jack went on to say.
"The disappearing fleet!" gasped Jimmy.
"Well, they haven't skipped out of sight yet," continued Jack, chucklingas he handed the glasses over to Frank to have a try.
In turn all of them took a look, and no one found reason to differ fromwhat Jack had ventured to declare in the beginning. They were, withoutquestion, looking then and there on the clump of boats about which therehad been so much talk made. Of course, at that distance there was no wayof finding out the character of the several boats, or more than guess atwhat they were doing, away out from the shore.
"Strikes me that it might be some queer sort of mirage, like that yousometimes see on the sandy desert." Teddy suggested, after he had gazedintently at the picture for a full minute through the lenses of thefield-glasses.
"Oh! they have the same sort of deception at sea," declared Jack; "onlysailors call it the _fata morgana_. When you're on the desert, itgenerally takes the form of a lovely running stream of water, whichyou're crazy to reach and suck up. But the shipwrecked tar always seesa vessel coming to his relief, which keeps on rushing through the water,right up over reef and everything and disappears over the island leavinghim broken-hearted at the deception caused by conditions in theatmosphere."
Jack knew considerable about these things, for he had been in strangelands, even before he took to roaming around with Ned, when the latterentered the employ of the Government Secret Service.
"All you say is true enough, Jack," the patrol leader told him, "but inthis case it isn't a deception. All of us can see the smoke hanging lowdown, that tells of steam vessels of some type out there, possiblytrawlers, fishing. But we didn't enlist in this business intending tosolve any riddles connected with Hudson Bay. I've been told that thereis no place in Northern latitudes where so many strange stories haveoriginated, as this same big sheet of salt water. Four-fifths of it havenever been fully explored, so that they do not yet know what may behere."
Jimmy had been silent while all this talk was going on. But it could bereadily believed that his restless mind was not inactive. He proved thisby suddenly nodding his head, and looking up at Ned in that shrewd wayhe had of doing, whenever a particularly brilliant idea appealed to him.
"Chances are they're a blooming bad lot, that's what," he went on tosay, as if he meant every word of it. "I wouldn't be a bit surprised ifthey turned out to be bloody pirates after all."
"Oh! perhaps Captain Kidd and his men come back to life again, eh,Jimmy?" suggested Teddy, with a laugh.
Jimmy turned and gave the speaker a scornful look.
"Think you're smart to get that off on me, don't you, Teddy?" heremarked; "but how're you goin' to prove that it ain't even as bad asthat? Don't they say this here fleet comes and goes like ghosts of thepast? Mebbe they are the spirits of Kidd, Blackbeard, Morgan, Lafitte,and all that gay crowd of buccaneers that flourished in the early daysof our country. Supposin' I said I believed that way, it'd be up to youto prove me wrong, wouldn't it? Let's see you do it. Call 'em up on thewireless limited or the telephone and interview the commodore. Bah!don't be so quick to poke fun at everybody that's got an idea you happento think stretched. I'll even say that I've got half a sneakin' notionthat it might be old Kidd himself, come back to see how the pickings arethese fine days."
When Jimmy showed this fighting disposition the others were generallycareful not to knock the chip off his shoulder. He had acquired habitswhen living on the Bowery long ago as a bootblack that could not beeasily shaken off; though any one formerly acquainted with Jimmy wouldnever have recognized him nowadays.
"It would be worth coming all the way up here if we could run acrosssomething like that, wouldn't it now?" remarked Jack, trying to looksober. "Think of how we could take the breath away from the rest of thetroop at home, when we told them of meeting up with a lot of those oldhuskies, we've all read about in history. Jimmy's been devouring one ofClark Russell's stories, '_The Frozen Pirate_,' while on the traincoming through Canada, and that's what makes him think of that crowd.But as we haven't any boats, and the smoke keeps on hanging miles away,likely enough we won't get any chance to know what kind of men areaboard those vessels out yonder."
"Besides," put in Ned, "we mustn't forget that we've got some seriousbusiness on hand of a different character from looking up pirates. Landsharks are enough for me to tackle just now. I'm wondering whether we'llbe lucky enough to find where this mine is located near here. Once weget on the track of that and things are likely to warm up a bit."
"Then I reckon we'll just have to comb the whole country roundabout, soas to learn what's what," suggested Jack, always a hard one to give upanything on which he had set his mind.
"The sooner we begin that job the better," added Frank, anxious to bedoing something that would count.
That was the way with these energetic fellows. Whenever they had acharge committed to their care, they were eager to get it moving. Nedoften had to hold them in check, for fear lest they show too muchambition.
He looked around in the endeavor to decide which direction they hadbetter choose, in order to seek traces of the working which was markedon the map so plainly. It was gi
ven such prominence that one mighteasily believe he would find all manner of shafts, sunk, with machinerythrobbing busily, and scores of brawny miners hard at work, bringing outthe rich deposit of copper ore.
Ned, however, did not deceive himself into such a belief. He had hadsome little experience with stories of this type, and knew the vastdifference between the reality and the wonderful things prospectivesellers were apt to mark upon the maps they had prepared. These usuallydescribed things as they might appear in case all went well, and themine turned out a splendid success.
So far as indications went, Ned believed that they would have a betterchance of success, if they turned abruptly to the left and made up theshore. At least, the character of the rocky country favored this idea.As far as he could see, it grew more and more inviting, looked at fromthe viewpoint of a miner, or a prospector for precious minerals.
The others were watching him closely. They guessed something of thenature of what must be passing through Ned's mind, for both Jack andTeddy followed his gaze up the uneven shore. Jimmy had the glassesagain, and was busily engaged in scrutinizing the blur on the distanthorizon, which all of them had agreed must be smoke hovering close tothe water. Perhaps he half-believed the fanciful suggestion made byTeddy, with reference to Captain Kidd, and was wildly hoping to discoversome positive sign that would stamp this fairy story with truth. All theprevious adventures that had befallen himself and chums would sink intoutter insignificance, could they go back home and show evidences ofhaving made such a romantic discovery up there in the Hudson Baycountry.
"See the feather they say he always wore in his hat, Jimmy?" askedFrank.
"Nothing doin' _yet_ that way," replied the other, without allowing eventhe ghost of a smile to appear on his freckled face; "so if you please,we'll let the matter drop for the time bein'. Who knows what may happenbefore we get back to New York? 'Tis a great old country, so they say,for all sorts of queer things to crop up. You needn't be surprised atanything here, they tell me. And I've made up me mind to take it as itcomes, and not let anything faze me. Put that in your pipe and smokeit, Teddy."
"And I'm wondering," mused the one particularly addressed, "what thatancient but bold explorer, Hendrick Hudson, said when he had sailed allthe way around this great bay, and found that it was after all aland-locked arm of the sea. When he first entered it, history tells ushe had great hopes that he had found what Columbus was searching forwhen he made his western voyage, a way of reaching the East Indies by awater route. It must have been a keen disappointment when Hendrick hadto turn north, and then east again, always fended off by the land."
Ned had by now determined that they ought to turn to the left incontinuing the forward movement. He next looked for some landmark, bymeans of which on their return that they might know just where theyshould plunge into the woods, so as to follow their trail back to wherethe precious canoes were secreted.
As though he found nothing in the arrangement of the shore or the treesthemselves to stamp it different from other places, Ned stooped down andplaced several stones upon each other at the foot of a stunted oak.
That was an old trick among the scouts. Many such a stone cairn had theyfashioned when playing some game of fox and geese, to serve as a sign tothose who were following in their wake.
"We ought to see this, and remember that it tells us where we struck thebeach," he explained to his chums, as he rose up again after completinghis work.
Both guides had been watching what he did with more or less interest. Ofcourse, they understood that the scouts had learned many of the wayspracticed by woodsmen, for by now the real meaning of the khaki uniformsworn by the boys had been fully grasped by Francois and the Cree; thoughfor a long time they had had hard work to understand why Ned and hischums were not to be looked upon as soldiers.
"Zere ees nozzing better zan a pile of stones to mark ze way," admittedthe voyageur. "I haf myself used zat many times. But be sure zat younotice other things besides. It may be, an enemy he move ze stones someozzer place, and if zat be so you all get twist up when you try to comeback."
Ned nodded, as though he had already covered this ground.
"I had thought of that very same thing, Francois," he said, "and see,here is where I made a little gash in the trunk of the tree. I expectedto look for that on the return trip. If I failed to find it I shouldunderstand there was something gone wrong."
"Zat ees well, sare; ze one who gets ze better of you must wake up earlyin ze morning, I am think!" he said softly, but in a way that told hemeant every word.
"So say we all of us," added Jack.
"Ned generally looks out for snags!" Frank declared.
"We'd have met up with many a wreck only for his watchfulness," camefrom Teddy.
Jimmy did not like to be left out when there was any exchange ofsentiments. He had a great admiration for the gifts of Ned Nestor, andwanted every one to understand what his sentiments were. So he startedto open his mouth to say something, when Ned lifted a hand and gave alow sibilant hiss.
"'Sh! don't say anything more, but drop down in this grass and lie low;because I'm sure I heard voices right then, also a husky cigarettecough. Down it is, boys!"
He set them a good example by dropping flat and hugging the ground. Theyhad at the time been standing more than knee deep in lush grass thatgrew beyond the woods, and where the salt water never reached, save inflying spray possibly. All that was necessary, therefore, in order toconceal themselves, was to fall on their knees and then straighten outat full length. Even the two guides did this same thing, for they musthave caught the sound of approaching voices at about the same time NedNestor did.
Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay; Or, The Disappearing Fleet Page 7