The Rival Campers Afloat; or, The Prize Yacht Viking

by Herbert Strang

  CHAPTER V. HARVEY GETS BAD NEWS

  Harvey and Henry Burns left the store together in high spirits,surrounded by their companions, loudly jubilant over the turn affairs hadtaken. It was growing dusk, and Rob Dakin was preparing for the usualillumination of his store with one oil-lamp. Harvey and Henry Burnsstarted for the shore, but were stopped by a hail from George Warren.

  "Come on over to the post-office with me," he said. "You're in no hurryfor supper. It's my turn to go for the mail, and we are expecting aletter from father up in Benton."

  So the two boys retraced their steps, and the three friends went along upthe road together.

  "We haven't a very extensive correspondence to look after, eh, Jack?"remarked Henry Burns; "but we'll go along for company's sake. My auntnever writes to me, and I think I never received but two letters in mylife. They were from old Mrs. Newcome."

  "I never got any," declared Harvey. "My dad says to me at the beginningof the summer, 'Where are you going?' and I say, 'Oh, down in the bay,'or wherever it is I am going. Then he says, 'Well, take care ofyourself,' and forgets all about me, except he sends money down to meregularly--and more when I ask him."

  The boy's remark was, in fact, an unconscious criticism of the elderHarvey, and accounted, perhaps, for some of Harvey's past adventureswhich were not altogether commendable. Harvey's father was of the roughand ready sort. He had made money in the Western gold-fields, where hehad started out as a miner and prospector. Now he was enjoying it ingenerous fashion, and denied his family nothing. He had a theory that aboy that had the "right stuff in him," as he put it, would make his waywithout any particular care taken of him; and he was content to allow hisson, Jack, to do whatever he pleased. A convenient arrangement, by theway, which also left Mr. Harvey free to do whatever he pleased, withoutthe worry of family affairs.

  The boys walked through the fields, up a gentle incline of the land,which led to the general higher level of the island, overlooking the bayand the islands in the distance. They gazed back presently upon apleasing prospect.

  There was the cove, sweeping in to the left, along the bluff opposite,which was high and rock-ribbed. At the head of the cove the shores wereof clean, fine sand, broken here and there at intervals by a few patchesof clam-flats, bared at low water. Out from where the boys stood,straight ahead rolled the bay, with an unbroken view away across to thecape, some five miles off. A thoroughfare, or reach, extended south andeastward from the cape, formed by the mainland and a chain of islands.Then, to the south, the bay extended far, broken only by some islands afew miles away.

  At anchor in the cove lay the Warren boys' sailboat, the _Spray_, and thelarger yacht, the _Viking_.

  "Well, George," said Henry Burns, with his right arm over the other'sshoulder, "it looks like some fun, now that the trouble with SquireBrackett is cleared away."

  "Great!" exclaimed George Warren.

  The post-office, called such by courtesy, the office consisting of thespare room of whatsoever fisherman or farmer happened to be honoured withUncle Sam's appointment, was about a mile from the harbour of Southport.It was, in this case, in the house of one Jerry Bryant, and was about aquarter of a mile, or less, from the western shore of the island, where asmall cove made in from that bay.

  "Good evening, Mr. Bryant," said George Warren, as they arrived at thepost-office door. "Mail in yet?"

  "Be here right away," replied the postmaster. "I saw Jeff's packet comingin a moment ago. There he comes now up the lane."

  Jeff Hackett, whose commission it was to fetch the mail across from themainland in a small sloop daily, now appeared with a mail-sack over hisshoulder.

  The formality of receiving the attenuated mail-sack and sorting itssomewhat meagre contents, being duly observed, Postmaster Bryant threwopen a small sliding door, poked his head out, and was ready forinquiries.

  "Anything for the Warren cottage?"

  "Not a thing."

  "Anything for the neighbours, a few doors below?"

  "Nothing for them, either."

  "Looks as though we had come over for nothing," said George Warren. "Toobad, but you fellows don't mind the walk, do you?"

  "Not a bit," answered Henry Burns.

  They were departing, when the postmaster hailed them.

  "Say," he called out, "who is Jack Harvey? He is the chap that caughtChambers, isn't he? Doesn't he stop over near you, somewhere?"

  "Here I am," said Harvey, taken by surprise. "What do you want?"

  "Why, I've got a letter for you," said the postmaster. "It has been herethree days. I couldn't find out where you were."

  "Well, that's odd," exclaimed Harvey, stepping back and receiving theenvelope. "I never got one before. Say, we came over for something, afterall."

  He tore open the envelope and read the letter enclosed.

  "Whew!" he exclaimed as he finished. "That's tough." And he gave adisconsolate whistle.

  "What's the matter? Nothing bad, I hope," asked Henry Burns.

  In reply, Harvey handed him the letter. It was dated from Boston, andread as follows:

  "My dear Jack:--Sorry to have to write you bad news, but you are big enough to stand it, I had to work hard when I was a boy, and perhaps you may now, but you'll come out all right in the end. I don't know just where I stand, myself. Investments have gone wrong, and Saunders has brought suit in court, claiming title to the land where the mine is. May beat him out. Don't know. He is a rascal, but may win.

  "Now I haven't got a dollar to send you, and don't see where I'll get any all summer for you, as I shall need every cent to pay bills. I have got to go out to borrow money to pay lawyers, too, to fight the case.

  "Too bad, but you will have to come home, or shift for yourself for the summer. Let me know, and I'll send money for your fare, if you are coming.

  "Affectionately, your dad, "William Harvey."

  An hour later, Jack Harvey and Henry Burns sat in the comfortable cabinof the _Viking_, talking matters over. The yacht swung lazily at anchorin the still cove. A fire burned in the little stove, and the smokewreathed out of a funnel on the starboard side. The boys weresuperintending the baking of a pan of muffins in a sheet-iron oven, whiletwo swinging-lanterns gave them light.

  "I declare I don't know what to do about it," said Harvey. "You see, Inever thought about getting along without money before. All I have had todo is just ask for it. Now, you see, I'm behind on my allowance. We paidReed thirty-five dollars, you know, for wintering and painting the boat,and something more for some new pieces of rigging. That, and what I'vespent for clothes, has cleaned me out."

  "Yes, but I owe you twelve dollars on the boat account, which I'm goingto pay as soon as I receive my own allowance from my aunt," said HenryBurns.

  "Well, that won't go very far," responded Harvey, gloomily. "We owe--orshall owe--for the freight on that box of provisions that's coming fromBenton; we have got to hire a tender to take the place of the old one Isold last fall. We can't keep on borrowing this one all summer--"

  "Never mind," interrupted Henry Burns. "You know it costs us scarcelyanything to live down here. We can catch all the fish and lobsters wewant, dig clams, and all that sort of thing. All we need to buy is alittle meal and flour and coffee and sugar from time to time, and we'lldo that all right on my allowance."

  "That's kind in you, Henry," said Harvey, warmly, "but I don't quite likethe idea of living all summer on you."

  "Why not?" demanded Henry Burns, and added, quickly, "You used to provideeverything for all your crew last summer, didn't you?"

  "Why, yes, I did," replied Harvey. "Ha! ha! catch one of them buyinganything. But of course they couldn't buy much of anything, anyway. Theyhadn't any money. But somehow this is different. You see,--well--the factis, I'm not quite used to being hard up. And I don't exactly like to takeit. Of course, I know just how you mean
it, too."

  "Yes, but think how small our expenses need be if we are careful," urgedHenry Burns. "We live right aboard here all the time, you know."

  "Yes," answered Harvey, "but it all counts up more than you think,especially when one is short of money. You can't run a big boat like thisall summer without expense. It's a rope here and a block there, and aspare anchor we need, and a lot of little things all the time. I know howit was on the _Surprise_."

  Their conversation was interrupted at this point by a voice closealongside. The canoe had glided quietly up, and the next moment Tom andBob were descending into the cabin.

  "My, but you chaps have elegant quarters down here," exclaimed Tom. "Weenvy you your summer aboard here, don't we, Bob?"

  Henry Burns and Harvey, somewhat taken aback, made no reply, and lookedembarrassed.

  "Why, what's up?" asked Tom, observing something was wrong. "No moretrouble, I hope."

  Harvey explained the situation.

  "That need not be so bad," said Tom. "It doesn't cost but little to livehere. We spend scarcely anything, do we, Bob? We can lend you somethingto help you through. You don't want to think of giving up the summer."

  "I dare say I could stick it out all right," said Harvey, "if I was justcamping once more. That doesn't cost much. It is this boat that bothersme. We can't run it for nothing."

  "Well, then," exclaimed Henry Burns, vigorously, with moredemonstrativeness than was usual with him, "I'll tell you what we willdo. We'll make the boat work. We will make it pay its own way, and pay ussomething besides. We'll fit out and go down among the islands fishing,and take our fish over to Stoneland and sell them, the same as thefishermen do. There won't be a fortune in it, with a boat no bigger thanthis, but it will support us, and more too, after paying all expenses."

  "Henry," cried Harvey, gratefully, "you're a brick! I thought of thatonce, and I'd have proposed it if this had been the old _Surprise_; but Ididn't know as you would be willing to do it with this boat. It dirties acraft up so."

  "That doesn't hurt a boat any," said Henry Burns. "The fishermen downaround Wilton's Harbour take out sailing parties all summer, and theirboats are always handsome and clean, and they don't smell fishy. And themen always use them for fishing in the fall and spring, when the fishingis at its best. It simply means that we have got to take out all the nicefittings from the cabin, stow them away somewhere on shore, fit out withsome tackle, and go ahead. At the end of the summer we will overhaul the_Viking_ from deck to keelson, take out every piece of ballast in her,clean it and dry it and put it back, and paint the yacht over after wewash everything inside and out. She will be just as fine as she wasbefore."

  "That's great!" exclaimed Tom Harris. "You can do it all right, too. Iwish we had a boat. We'd go along with you, wouldn't we, Bob?"

  "I'd like nothing better," answered Bob.

  "Then come along with us," said Harvey. "We really need two more tohandle this boat properly. You can fit yourselves out withfishing-tackle, and we'll all share in the catch."

  "Hooray! we'll do it," cried Bob. "But we don't want a share of thecatch. We will be glad enough to go for the fun of it."

  "Yes, but this is part business," said Henry Burns. "You must have someshare in every trip you make with us. How will two-thirds for us and athird for you do, as we own the boat?"

  "That is more than fair," replied Tom.

  "Then it's a bargain, eh, Jack?" said Henry; and, as the other gavehearty assent, he added, "We'll go about it right away to-morrow, if theweather is good."

  When George Warren heard of the plan the next day, however, he was notequally elated. "It's the thing to do, I guess," he said, but added,"It's going to keep you away from Southport; that is the only drawback."

  "No, only part of the time," said Henry Burns. "We are not going to tryto get rich, only to support ourselves. We shall be back and forth allsummer. We'll have some fun here, too."

  Then the boys went and hunted up Captain Sam Curtis.

  "Yes, you can do it all right," said Captain Sam, when he had heard ofthe plan. "But it's rough work. You can count on that. You want to getright out to big Loon Island--you know, with the little one, Duck Island,alongside. There's where the cod are, out along them reefs; and you canset a couple of short trawls for hake. May get some runs of mackerel,too, later. I'll get you a couple of second-hand pieces of trawl cheap.They'll do all right for one season. But it ain't just like bay-sailingall the time, you know, though you may not get caught. When it's rough,it's rough, though.

  "And there's one thing you've got to look out for," added Captain Sam."Of course the men around this coast will be fair to you and won'tbother. But there's a rough crowd that comes up from the eastward. Theymay not take kindly to a pack of boys coming in on the fishing-grounds.Just keep your weather eye out; that's all."

  The boys went about their preparations eagerly. Already they had begunremoving the fine fittings from the cabin of the _Viking_, carrying themup to the Warren cottage, and putting the yacht in condition for rougherusage. They worked hard all day. At night, however, an unexpected eventoccurred, which delayed their fishing-trip until the next week.

  George Warren came down to the shore that evening with another letter forJack Harvey, much to the latter's amazement.

  "Hang it!" he exclaimed, as George Warren handed the letter over. "Theysay troubles never come singly. I wonder if here's more. I hope thingsare no worse at home--Hello, it isn't from Boston. It's from Benton. Whocan have written me from there?"

  He tore open the envelope hastily. The letter, badly written in anuncouth scrawl, read thus:

  "Dear Jack:--You remember you told us fellows last year that we could come down to the island again this year and live in the tent, the same as we did before you got the boat, and you would see that we got along all right. Me and George Baker have got the money to pay our fares on the boat, and Tim and Allan will work part of their passage. Dan Davis, who's on the boat, told us you was down there. So we'll be along pretty soon if you don't write and stop us.

  "So long, "Joe Hinman."

  "Well, here's a mess," said Harvey, ruefully, and looking sorely puzzled."I'd clean forgotten that promise I made to the crew last year, that theycould come down, and I'd take care of them. You see, I thought I wasgoing to have plenty of money; but I don't know just what to do now.Would you write and tell them not to come?"

  "No, let them come," said Henry Burns. "They'll get along somehow. Wewill help them out, and they'll have your tent to live in."

  "All right," said Harvey. "I hate to disappoint them. They don't get muchfun at home. I'll send them word to come, as long as you are willing."

  So it happened that a few days later there disembarked from the riversteamer a grinning quartette of boys. The youngest, Tim Reardon by name,was barefoot; and the others, namely, Joe Hinman, George Baker, and AllanHarding, were not vastly the better off in the matter of dress. This wasHarvey's "crew," who had sailed the bay with him for several years, inthe yacht _Surprise_, and had camped with him on a point that formed oneof the boundaries of a little cove, some three-quarters of a mile downthe island from where Tom and Bob were encamped.

  The united forces of the boys, including the Warrens, made thingscomfortable for the new arrivals in short order. Harvey's old tent, whichhad been stored away in Captain Sam's loft for the winter, was broughtout and loaded aboard the _Viking_; and the entire party sailed downalongshore, and unloaded at Harvey's former camping-ground, where therewas a grove of trees and a good spring close by. The tent was quickly setup, the bunks fashioned, a share of the _Viking's_ store of provisionscarried ashore, and everything made shipshape.

  "Now," said Harvey, addressing his crew, after he had confided the newsof his embarrassed circumstances, "I'll help you out all I can, andyou'll get along all right, with fishing and clamming. But, see here, nomore shines like we had befor
e. I know I was in for it, too. But no morehooking salmon out of the nets. And let other people's lobster-potsalone, or I won't look out for you."

  "Oh, we'll be all right, Jack," cried the ragged campers, gleefully;while little Tim Reardon, standing on his head and hands in an ecstasy ofdelight, seemed to wave an acquiescence with his bare feet.

  "That's your doing," said Harvey, thoughtfully, turning to Tom and Bob."Since you saved my life the crew really have behaved themselves."

  Two days later, the bare feet of Tim Reardon bore him, breathless, to thedoor of the other tent, where Harvey and Henry Burns sat chatting withTom and Bob.

  "Say, Jack," he gasped out, "you just want to hurry up quick and get downinto the Thoroughfare. They're going to raise the _Surprise_. I got aride on behind a wagon coming up the island this morning, and two menwere talking about it. One of them said he heard Squire Brackett say thatthat yacht down in the Thoroughfare was anybody's property now, as it hadbeen abandoned, and he calculated it could be floated again, and he'dbring it up some day and surprise you fellows. But he hasn't started todo it yet, and so it's still yours, isn't it? If he can raise it, we can,can't we?"

  Harvey sprang to his feet.

  "Raise it!" he exclaimed. "Why, I've thought all along of trying it someday. Captain Sam said last fall he thought it might be done. But I hadthis other boat to attend to, and then I was called home. We'll go afterit this very afternoon. What do you say, Henry?"

  "Yes, and I think I have a scheme to help float her," replied HenryBurns.

  Acting on Henry Burns's suggestion then, the boys proceeded to the store,where, in a spare room, Rob Dakin kept a stock of small empty casks whichhe sold to the fishermen now and then for use as buoys. They hired thewhole supply, some twoscore, agreeing to pay for the use of them andbring them back uninjured. These they loaded hastily aboard the _Viking_,having sent word in the meantime to the Warren boys. They, joining inheartily, soon had sail on their own boat, the _Spray_, and went onahead, down the coast of the island.

  Completing the loading of the _Viking_, and taking aboard an extra supplyof tackle, borrowed for the occasion, Henry Burns and Harvey got up sailand set out after the _Spray_, stopping off the cove below to pick up theothers of Harvey's crew. They overhauled the _Spray_ some miles down thecoast, later in the afternoon, and thence led the way toward theThoroughfare. They had the wind almost abeam from the westward, and wentalong at a good clip in a smooth sea.

  That evening at sundown they sailed into the Thoroughfare. This was astretch of water affording a somewhat involved and difficult passagebetween the Eastern and Western Bays, the two bays being so designatedaccording to a partial division of these waters by Grand Island. Theisland was some thirteen miles long, lying lengthwise with its headpointing about northeast and the foot southwest.

  The waters of the Thoroughfare were winding, flowing amid a small chainof islands at the foot of Grand Island. The channel was a crooked one,the deeper water lying along this shore or that, and known only to localfishermen and to the boys who had cruised there.

  Henry Burns, on the lookout forward, presently gave a shout of warning.

  "There she is, Jack," he cried, pointing ahead to where the mast of ayacht protruded above water some three-fourths of its length. "There'sthe ledge, too. Look out and not get aground."

  "Oh, I know this channel like a book," said Harvey, and demonstrated hisassertion by bringing the _Viking_ to, close up under the lee of thesubmerged yacht, in deep water.

  The yacht _Surprise_, sunken where it had been in collision with the veryyacht that had now come to its rescue, lay hung upon a shelving reef,with its bow nearer to the surface than its stern. The tide was at thelast of its ebb, and it was clear that by another hour there would beonly about two feet of water over the forward part of the boat and aboutfive feet over the stern.

  "We are in luck," cried Harvey. "She has worked up higher on the reef,somehow, since last year, either by the tides, or perhaps some ice formedhere in the winter and forced her up. She was deep under water when Ilast saw her."

  "But it's a wonder the mast did not go," he added. "The bobstay went whenwe smashed into the _Viking_; and the mast wasn't any too firm when welast saw it. It wouldn't have stood after we struck if we hadn't let themainsail go on the run."

  Evening was coming on, but the boys lost no time in going to work.Getting into the dory that they had hired for the season as a tender,Henry Burns and Harvey stepped out carefully on to the reef, and madetheir way down its slippery sides to the bow of the _Surprise_. Then,with trousers rolled up and divested of jackets and shirts, theyproceeded, as soon as the tide had fallen, to nail some strips of canvasover the hole smashed in the bow. They fastened it with battens, puttingseveral layers on, one over another.

  "It isn't a handsome job," said Henry Burns, finally; "but the water willnot run in there as fast as we can pump it out. It's a fair start."

  The yacht _Spray_ came in now and brought up alongside the _Viking_.

  "What are you going to do?" inquired George Warren.

  "Why, everybody has got to go in for a swim," answered Henry Burns,setting the example by throwing off his remaining garments. The others,willing enough at all times for that, followed.

  Henry Burns next brought forth several coils of rope, which he had busiedhimself with, on the voyage down, knotting it at regular intervals intoloops.

  "There," said he, "the _Surprise_ lies, luckily, on these irregularrocks. We have got to duck under and pass these ropes underneath thekeel, wherever there is a chance. Then we'll bring the ends up on eitherside and make them fast aboard, wherever there is a thing to hitch to.Then we'll attach the kegs to the loops. See?"

  "Good for you, Henry!" cried Harvey, enthusiastically. "You always havesome scheme in your head, don't you?"

  "Wait and see if it works," said Henry Burns, modestly.

  "Ouch!" cried young Joe, as the boys splashed overboard. "This water islike ice."

  "Oh, shut up, Joe!" said Arthur Warren. "Just think of that hot coffee weare going to have for supper."

  The boys worked eagerly and hurriedly, for the waters of Samoset Bay hadnot, indeed, fully recovered from their long winter's chill, and the sunhad sunk behind the distant hills. The ropes, passed beneath on one side,were grasped by numbed but skilful hands on the other. In a quarter of anhour they had some six or eight of these passed under and made fast, andthe empty casks, tightly stopped with cork bungs, tied into theloopholes. This, in itself, was no easy task. The buoyant casks persistedin bobbing up to the surface, escaping now and then from their hands. Twoof the boys would seize a cask by the lashings that had been passed aboutit and fairly ride it below the surface with their united weight. Then,holding their breath under water, they would make it fast to a loop.

  It was dark when they had finished; and a hungry, shivering crowd of boysthey were, as they danced about the decks and scrambled into theirclothes. But the cabins of the _Viking_ and the _Spray_ were soon madeinviting, with warmth and the odours of hot coffee and cooking food. Theywere only too glad to go below and enjoy both.

  "Hello, Henry," called young Joe from the deck of the _Spray_, some timelater, as the boys were hanging their lanterns forward to warn any strayfisherman that might sail through in the night; "the _Surprise_ doesn'tseem to come up very fast."

  "Well, wait till to-morrow and see," answered Henry Burns.

  They were soon sleeping soundly, weary with the day's hard work.