Ruel Perley Smith

“ A mile from the nearest land, seemingly at the mercy of a wild sea which threatened every moment to engulf it, a small canoe slowly and stubbornly fought its way toward the island shore. At a distance one would have thought it a mere log, tossed about at random by the waves; and yet, one watching it would have seen it slowly draw ahead, glide from under the spray that broke constantly over its bow, and still make progress; sometimes beaten back by billows that tumbled fast one upon another, but gaining something through it all. ”

“ If he hired a horse and went up the island for a drive, he was sure to fall in most unexpectedly with Henry Burns, spinning along on his wheel, and could not shake him off. If he felt strong enough to get into a rowboat and start out, weakly, across the cove, groaning at the effort it cost him, he invariably fell in with Tom and Bob, gliding along quietly in their canoe, and they would insist on accompanying him, and pointing out to him the beauties of the scenery along the shores. ”

“ However, as they caught the fresher breeze, and the little Spray stood stiffly up into it and ate away to windward, their spirits rose. Then, as the islands came plainly into view and they drew nearer and nearer to the first, big Saddle Island, with its low range of little hills dropping down in the centre in the shape of a horse’s back, the excitement became intense; for the Nancy Jane had not rounded the point of Eagle Island, and it seemed as though they might be out of sight behind Saddle Island before they could be seen by those aboard the pursuing yacht. ”

“ Men were running to and fro, and the greatest excitement prevailed. The news quickly spread that some frightful accident had happened at Harvey’s camp, and Tom and Bob heard expressions of sympathy for them on all sides, from many who had been the victims of their tricks, and who had time and again wished the island rid of them. A rumour spread among the crowd of villagers—no one knew where it originated—that a keg of powder, which the campers had left to dry near the fire, had exploded, and blown them all to pieces. ”

“ George Warren turned away precipitately, and, taking a fishing-reel from his pocket, dropped a line over the side of the wharf.
“There’s something peculiar in this island air,” continued Henry Burns, looking Mr. Kemble full in the eye, with the most innocent expression on his face. “No matter how bad a person feels when he first comes here, it puts new life into him. The first thing he knows he begins to feel like rowing boats, and going fishing, and all that sort of thing. I come here sick every summer, and I go away feeling strong.” ”

“ Captain Sam little knew the relief and satisfaction that his remark afforded Mr. Kemble.
“She won’t want all that sail to-morrow, though,” continued Captain Sam. “The wind is coming around to the eastward for a storm of some kind. Looks more like rain than wind, but there will be wind, too,—enough to do all the sailing any one wants. You say you’ll sail to-morrow, do you, Mr. Kemble, rain or shine? Well, that boat will stand it all right. She looks as though she would just like a good blow, and nothing better.” ”

“ It would not be well that this man, a pretended invalid, but strong, and armed with a heavy cane, that had suddenly become transformed from a cripple’s staff to a cudgel, who could but have some dark motive in thus disguising and secreting himself, should find himself watched and his secret discovered. Henry Burns crouched closer in the shadow of the chimney, and hardly dared to breathe. The evil that he had so accidentally uncovered in the man, his own helplessness compared with the other’s strength, and the dangerous situation, there upon the house-top, made him afraid. ”

“ She was perhaps the prettiest craft there. Her hull was beautifully modelled, with a graceful overhang, bow and stern; her sails snow-white, and mast and spars were glistening. She steered with a wheel of ornamental mahogany and brass, and here and there about her cabin and furnishings brass and mahogany had been used, regardless of expense.
“Willie Grimes has us all beat for beauty,” remarked Harvey, as they neared the line, “but that boat is too new for racing; that is, he’s too scared for fear something will happen to her. Most everybody is that way. ”

“ They were much liked by the boys and girls of the village, and were at once a part of a jolly group, each of which party had a separate detail to recount in the capsizing of the canoe as they had seen it.
All at once the picnickers were startled by a howl of rage from Colonel Witham. All eyes were turned upon him. He was executing the most extraordinary contortions and dance-steps that could be imagined. An Indian chief, excelling all his tribe at a war-dance, could not have outdone the grotesque movements of the colonel.
“What ails the man?” cried Captain Sam. “He must have gone clean crazy.” ”

“ They can handle a boat as well as any skipper on the island. And as for fear, they don’t know what it means.”
“Look!” he cried. “Do you see what they are doing?” as the yacht was suddenly brought, quivering, into the wind and headed away from the island on the other tack. “There’s nothing in the world Jack Harvey’s doing that for except to frighten the hotel guests. He sees the crowd on the piazza watching him, and is just making game of their fright. He’ll sail out there as long as he dares, or until his topmast goes, just to keep them watching him.” ”

“ When Henry Burns made his exit across the roof that night, he made a careful survey before climbing out on it to see that the stranger was not there. There were no signs of him, and Henry got away safely. Tom and Bob were at the Warren cottage when he arrived. Everything was in readiness, and they all set out for the shore.
“These clouds in the sky are favourable,” said Tom. “If it was as bright as it was last night, we might have to postpone our trip. This mackerel sky, through which the moon shines dimly, is just the thing.” ”

“ Harvey had cried. “Come, boys, get into shape now; but stay below till I give the word,—all but you, Joe,—and when I yell you pile out and get aboard that sloop the quickest you ever did anything in all your lives. He will fight, and we have got to act quick.”
If the thick-set, ill-visaged man who sat at the wheel of the black sloop felt any concern at the sudden appearance of this new craft, dead ahead and coming down the narrow thoroughfare toward him, his alarm must have abated as on its near approach the apparent number of its occupants became disclosed. ”

“ I’ll warrant if we could see Jack Harvey now, we should see him out examining every inch of the shore, looking at the rocks on the beach for any paint that might be scraped off your canoe, and all such things as that. He is a shrewd one, and, when he has once satisfied himself that you and Tom wrecked his cave, why, I wouldn’t give a fig for your camp here,—that is, unless you propose to stay at home all the time to guard it. ”

“ So the crowd marched on Bob, and found him down on the beach to the right of the tent, presiding over an enormous kettle, which was hung over the glowing coals of a fire of driftwood, and from which there arose such a savoury odour of stew that, in a burst of enthusiasm, they seized upon the stalwart young cook, and, raising him on their shoulders, bore him with hilarious shouts three times around the fire, much to the apparent discomfiture of the quiet Bob. ”

“ Another thing that disturbed Henry Burns not a little was the knowledge that his excursions over the roof were now attended with greater risk than ever. It would not do to encounter the stranger there unexpectedly. What might not the man, suddenly aroused, and desperate, as Henry Burns believed him to be, do to him, if he found himself discovered? A fall from such a height must mean instant death, and who was there to suspect that he had not fallen, if he should be found next day lying upon the ground? ”

“ And then Harvey, knowing every bush and tree and nook and corner, and every rock and cove on all the shores of the island, ran over quickly in his mind the inlets along the coast, to pick out the most likely spot he knew of where a man might choose to moor his yacht and steal ashore; and the proof of his accurate knowledge was that the mental picture he drew of the place was that very cove toward which the stranger was now travelling, and where there lay snugly at anchor the strange yacht. ”

“ What one man knew in Mayville was every man’s property. Gossip always spread through the town like wildfire. So it happened that on the morning of the arrival of the Nancy Jane and the Spray there was a buzzing and a shaking of heads and a wagging of tongues; and before long the whole town knew that something of vast importance was about to take place up at Squire Ellis’s court.
“It’s those young fellows that set the hotel afire over across at Southport,” said a certain tall, gaunt individual, who happened to be the centre of an excited group on one of the street corners, near the town pump. ”

“ Young Joe tried to smile, with a slice of chicken in one hand and a spoonful of preserves in the other, and a mouthful of both. His reputation at the table had been made long before that day, and had gone abroad, and here was the opportunity of a lifetime, for every good-hearted motherly-looking housewife within reaching distance was passing him food.
“I hope there’s a seat for me,” said Henry Burns, who came hurrying up. He and George Warren had made the run down the island on bicycles.
“Come on, both of you,” cried the crowd. “There’s always room for you,” and made places for them at once. ”

“ As they neared the mark, even the Surprise and the Sally were leading the Bertha, which now seemed to be hopelessly out of the race.
The race, indeed, seemed narrowed down to these three yachts, with a slight advantage in the Anna Maud’s favour.
“Hooray!” cried Harvey, “we are holding the Anna Maud in fine style. She’s gaining ever so little, not enough thus far to cover our time allowance. They say she is fast off the wind, but so are we. That’s the best point of the Surprise. She sails better running free than any boat of her size I ever saw.” ”

“ Across the wide stretch of bay for some eighteen miles the sea was one mass of whitecaps, a tumbling confusion of waves, which already broke aboard the yacht, covering the boys with spray and necessitating the use of bailing-dish and boat-sponge to keep the water from standing in the cockpit.
“We’ve got to get that topping-lift up higher, Arthur,” said George Warren, as the yacht rolled heavily, bringing the boom down dangerously near the waves. ”

“ There was a tinkling of bells; a great commotion as the steamer’s wheels began to revolve rapidly; a general waving of handkerchiefs from the wharf to those who were bound farther down the bay; the steamer began to glide away from the wharf, when suddenly somebody shrieked:
“The dog! The dog! Run! Run! He’s broken loose.”
And before the crowd had time to scatter, the dog, infuriated with the tormenting it had received at the hands of Tim Reardon, dashed toward it. Men, women, and children fled in terror. ”

“ Then the sail dropped and the man went below.
“Whoever they are aboard there, they don’t seem inclined to be sociable,” said Henry Burns. “Well, they don’t have to be, if they don’t want to.”
“Guess they’re afraid we’ll keep them awake,” said George Warren. “They are fishermen, by the looks. See, she carries no topmast, so she is not a pleasure yacht, though she looks from here like a fast boat. They make them good models now, since Burgess began it.”
“I guess that’s so,” said Arthur Warren. “Those fishermen like to sleep nights, after a hard day’s work, without being disturbed. ”

“ You know the night you went to Henry Burns’s party you ate so many nuts and raisins you woke up dreaming that somebody was trying to tie you into a square knot, and when you got fully awake you wished somebody would, and I had to get up and pour Jamaica ginger into you. Don’t try to eat more than enough for three ordinary persons this time, Joe, and you’ll be all right. ”

“ And the captain waded off to the rocks of Spring Island and clambered up the bank, closely followed by the colonel and the squire.
“There they go, slipping along as slick as eels,” exclaimed the captain, as he and his panting companions achieved the ascent of the highest bit of rock on Spring Island and looked down the bay. “They’re off down among the islands,” he continued, “and here we stand like natural-born idiots and bite our fingers. If ever I get into a mess like this again, I’ll resign my office of constable and hire out to Noddy Perkins for a clam-digger.” ”

“ Henry Burns, having in due time made the acquaintance of the Warren boys, as well as a few other youths of his age, had no idea of ending up his evenings’ entertainments at ten o’clock each and every night; so he set about to discover some means of evading the espionage of the colonel and Mrs. Carlin. It did not take him more than one evening of experimenting to find that, by stepping out on to the veranda that ran past his own and Colonel Witham’s windows, he could gain the ascent to the roof by a clever bit of acrobatics up a lightning-rod. ”

“ And so they rolled this strange and mysterious bit of gossip over, while the fire burned to coals and the coals died away to ashes.
“Tom,” said Bob, as they launched the canoe from the shelving beach some time after ten o’clock, “it’s too glorious a night to go right home to bed. What do you say to a short paddle, just a mile or so out in the bay, to settle that terrible mixture of pie and clams that we’ve eaten? We’ll sleep all the sounder for it.” ”

“ Moreover, the wind continued to increase.
“Now, fellows,” said George Warren, as they came abreast of the end of Big Gull Island, “everybody up to windward and hold on hard. She’s going to lay over when she gets these seas broadside. Hoist the sail, Arthur, just as we begin to head in.”
Arthur sprang to the halyards, but they were tangled and did not pull true. Try as best he could, the sail would hoist but a little ways on the mast. It bagged out like a huge balloon, holding the wind and nearly capsizing them. Henry Burns, handling the main-sheet, let it run just in time to save them. ”

“ The moon was at its full, and the tide crept up on the beach almost to the bed of coals that remained from the fire and still showed red. The islands far off across the bay seemed to have drifted nearer in to shore, and showed clear and distinct.
Henry Burns’s story of the day’s adventures lost nothing of its interest, told down there on the shore by the firelight and under the stars. His account of his visit to the banker’s, and how he had gained admittance to Mr. Curtis’s private office, filled them with glee. ”