CHAPTER VI.
AN OLD RIVAL'S STRATAGEM.
The great event of the day, the finals of the hundred yards' swim,was reserved for the last. All the other events were over and everyone was looking eagerly forward to the trial of speed between FrankArmstrong and Peters, for every one who had watched the early heatsin this event knew that it lay between these two for first place. Itwas Seawall against the Point, or even more than that, for Peters wasone of the best swimmers at the school he attended in New York City.It was then Seawall against the country! No wonder excitement ranhigh.
"All ready for the finals in the hundred yards' swim," shouted thereferee through his megaphone. Out of their dressing rooms ran thesix swimmers and lined up on the edge of the float. There was muchcraning of necks in the stand and everywhere to get a good look atthe contestants.
"My money on Peters," said the individual who had proclaimed himselfearlier in the day. "He'll show your Seawall champion the way."
"He'll show him the way to lose, maybe," said the Codfish. "Theycan't beat that boy Armstrong." Every one was taking sides as to theoutcome, while the referee was stationing the six young athletes onthe float edge. Little time was lost in preliminaries.
"Are you ready?" queried the high-pitched voice of the referee.
"Get set!"
"Crack!" went the pistol, and as if shot from a cannon the six hitthe water together. Peters with a longer spring immediately shot outin front of the bunch, his arms flying like flails and his long legsbeating the water rhythmically.
"Hurrah, see Peters go! He'll win easily," cried the friends of theNew Yorker.
"Wait a minute; the race is just beginning," said another. "Wait tillArmstrong strikes his gait. There, see him go up!"
Frank was indeed gaining. In none of his races was he ever able toget under way fast at first, but he could always quicken up when hehad been going for a few seconds. This was what happened now. Slowlybut surely he drew up on Peters and Bates, the friend of Peters, whohad won the heat from Frank. At the half distance, he had shaken offthree competitors and was closing on the fourth. Slowly he gained,when suddenly Bates, just ahead of him, swerved from his course.Frank looked up just in time to prevent running into him, but he wasobliged to change his direction a trifle in order to pass. The swervelost him ground, for Peters at this moment seemed to put on a freshburst of speed.
Over the last twenty yards the race was a terrific one, the partisansof both sides yelling like mad for their favorites. On the boys camelike whirlwinds. The water churned up into spray as they smashedthrough it. Thirty feet from the float Frank took his last look andhis last gulp of air for that race, then, burying his head, he putevery pound of strength he had left into driving himself forward. Hewas now so close to Peters that he could feel the eddy of water fromhis hand as it swept backward. Ten feet from the float, he fairlythrew himself out of the water. He was alongside the leader now, andnext thing he knew he crashed full tilt into the float. He raised hishead to hear the shout:
"Peters wins! Peters wins!"
It was true Frank had touched only a fraction of a second too late.It was Peter's race. Frank dropped off the float and swam backslowly, all but exhausted.
Jimmy was at the starting float, and as he lent the tired racer ahand to mount to the planks, his face was white with rage.
"Wasn't good enough, was I?" gasped Frank.
"Good enough!" yelled Jimmy; "of course you were. That chump who wasswimming behind Peters got in your way. I saw him cut across andblock you."
"I don't think so," said Frank; "he was all in and didn't do it onpurpose."
"I know better than that, and I'd swear it was a put-up job. You canbeat Peters any day from ten yards to a million miles," said theindignant Jimmy. "I kicked to the referee about it, but he wouldn'tallow a foul because Bates didn't touch you. Did he?"
"No," said Frank; "I had to shift a little for him and it put me outa bit. I don't think it made any difference in the race. Peters wastoo fast for me."
"Get out," said Jimmy, still hot and angry; "you know he isn't.I'd bet my boots you could beat him any day, and if I were you, I'dchallenge him for a race with no one around to get in your way."
"I've had enough for to-day," said Frank. "We ought to get dressedand headed for home as soon as we can. There are some black cloudscoming up over there in the west."
It was as Frank said. The day had been a warm one and thunder headswere now showing in the west. Down toward the horizon the clouds werepiled thick and black, and every now and then the denser masses wereedged by a little ribbon of fire. The lightning was beginning toplay. The top of the pile was still white, for the lowering sun wasshining full upon it; but soon this white top, climbing rapidly, shutoff the sun.
The wind had just begun to pick up in puffs and eddies and thesailboats were scudding about like anxious swallows, when Mr.Armstrong hurried up to the dressing room where Frank was gettinginto his clothes. "Mother and I have a chance to go back on thetrolley. Hurry up, son," he said. "It looks so bad over there to thewest," jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of thetowering thunder-heads, "that I think you had better wait till thestorm is over. Mother is nervous about your going to Seawall in the_Black Duck_."
"Oh, I guess we could get home all right," said Frank. "It isn'tgoing to be very heavy, is it?"
For answer there came a blinding flash, and almost on its heelsa roar of thunder that made the bathing houses dance on theirfoundations. The wind was running before the storm with almosthurricane force, lashing the sea into whitecaps.
"Gee whiz!" exclaimed Jimmy, "that must have hit somewhere nearby.See the old _Black Duck_ jumping."
The _Black Duck_ was indeed jumping, even though she was boundsecurely and lay partly in the lee of the dock. The wind and the raincame together, scattering the stragglers on the walks to places ofshelter. In a few minutes the sea was beaten white and high wavessprang up like magic, their tops white-capped by the fierce drive ofthe gale.
"It is so heavy it can't last," said the Codfish, gingerlyside-stepping a rivulet of water that broke through the shelter ofthe boys. "Just like a chap who goes too hard at the first of hisrace--can't stick it out," he added sagely.
But this particular storm did stick it out for some time. After anhour, however, the wind dropped almost as suddenly as it had sprungup, the thunder muttered itself out, and the sea began to go down.Lacking the pressure of the gale behind it, the whitecaps soondisappeared, but in their place ran a long swell, down which thelittle sailboats at anchor coasted and rose again to the next, likesome kind of a seabird.
"We will have a tippy time of it going home," observed the Codfish,as in the last few sprinkling drops the boys sought the wharf.
"Yes, and we aren't going to have much company, I guess," said Frank.
"Their pedal extremities have congealed, evidently," observed theCodfish. "Here comes your father to say, 'No, thank you, Frank, wewill go up on the trolley to-night; we don't care for coasting.'" Theboys laughed. For that was just about what Mr. Armstrong had come torepeat. "And I guess the others of your excursion are going back thesame way," he added. "I saw the Slocums light out for Seawall in anautomobile five minutes ago."
"I'll wait a little while," said Frank, "for my party, and then ifthey don't come I'll dig out for home, too."
"I wouldn't wait too long," was his father's parting observation ashe turned to go. "Mother says she wishes you would leave the boatdown here to-night and come for it in the morning. How about it?"
"Oh, there's no danger. We'll be home in a jiffy. The tide is low andI'll have to go outside of Pumpkin Island to avoid the reef. Don'tworry about us. The four of us could take her to New York to-night.Couldn't we, Jimmy?"
"Sure thing," said that individual, who rather enjoyed the prospectsof the trip up. Lewis and the Codfish were not so hopeful, but theysaid they would stand by the ship. Mr. Armstrong turned again andleft the boys with a last warning word.
"Whe
re did the Human Fish, Peters, go to?" inquired the Codfish, asJimmy fussed with the motor and Frank sponged off the seats. Verylittle water had entered the boat, most of it having been shed by thevery efficient awning which covered her from bow to stern.
"Don't know," said Frank. "I wasn't interested in him after I sawthat he hit the float first."
"Oh," said Lewis, "I saw him jump into his motor boat with that chapwho got in your way, just as soon as the race was over, and lightout. Guess they were trying to get down to the Peters' dock beforethe storm came on so hard."
"He had good nerve, starting then," said Jimmy.
"Or bad judgment," said the Codfish. "Sometimes the one looks likethe other."
"Here, stop getting sarcastic and help with these ropes," growledFrank. "They are all in hard knots. What Indian tied them like this?"
Soon they freed themselves and the motor, under slow speed, began torevolve. They backed slowly out from the dock. Nothing was left ofthe gay scene of an hour or two before.
"Funny what a little water will do," observed the Codfish, turning tolook at the deserted stand, pier and floats.
"Yes, and it's funny what a little wind will do to water," commentedFrank as the _Black Duck_ got under way. He was driving her over thewaves at a little angle and she pitched and rolled tremendously.
The Codfish didn't like it at all, and Lewis, after five minutes ofthis kind of going, began to look white in the failing light.
Frank headed his craft well out beyond the Pumpkin to avoid thetreacherous rock teeth that showed white in a long broken line. Hehad a great respect for their destroying abilities. The tide, too,was on the turn, and he dreaded getting caught in the suck of it.Many boats had met disaster there. So he headed her straight out intothe bay, so straight indeed that the Codfish finally cried out:
"Where in thunder are you heading for--France, or is it Spain?"
"Don't be impatient," said the captain, "we'll turn in a minute."
He had hardly spoken the words when the motor began to miss fire.Instead of the steady hum of the exhaust, it was now an irregularchattering. The boat checked materially as the pistons choked inthe dead cylinders. Frank threw on more gas and for a minute or twothe engine picked up and resumed its regularity. Then it missed,sputtered, choked, gave one or two expiring explosions and diedcompletely.
"Well, this is a nice mess you've got us into, isn't it?" whimperedLewis. There was a note of grave anxiety in his voice. "I didn't wantto come, but I thought you knew all about your old boat."
"What's the matter, Old Mother Goose?" cried the Codfish whimsically."We're not dead yet. Keep your lip stiff. Frank will have it fixed ina minute."
Frank was working over the batteries with a face on which worrimentshowed in spite of himself. He gave the battery box a shake,tightened up the connections and cranked the motor. There werehalf a dozen explosions and silence fell again, broken only by thelapping of the running tide against the _Black Duck's_ sides. Hastilyhe disconnected the wires and tried for a spark on the individualbatteries. Then he connected the batteries in series, and triedagain. There was a faint flash, very different from the long, hotspark from full batteries.
Frank dropped the terminals and looked up into the faces of the threeboys, who were intently watching him.
"What's the matter?" inquired Jimmy. "Batteries?"
"Just that and nothing else. There isn't enough juice in the wholelot of them to light a grain of powder."
"Nice pickle we're in," grumbled Lewis. "Isn't it up to the captainto have his batteries all right?"
"Oh, shut up," commanded Jimmy. "It isn't Frank's fault that the oldbatteries are in trouble."
"No," said Frank; "I renewed them, you remember, only day beforeyesterday--six brand new ones, at twenty-five cents per. The rainmust have got in somehow and short-circuited them. The shaking by themotor gave them life enough to carry us out here and then they died.See, there isn't a bit left." He tried again, rubbing the ends of theterminals together, but for all the result in the way of ignitionthey might as well have been made of wood.
"Well, never mind," said Jimmy, "we're drifting the right way. Lookat us go! That's Seawall over there, and while we are going sideways,like a crab, we may fetch up all right."
"Sure thing," said Frank, "we are going sideways and fast, too. Thetide here runs like a mill-race, but night is coming faster thanwe are going, and it's going to be as black as your shoes in tenminutes."
"That's an encouraging sign," said the Codfish, "for my shoes areyellow, and I don't mind yellow nights in the least." The Codfish wasalways cheerful under difficulties.
Not so Lewis. He grumbled and growled and blamed everybody for theplight in which they found themselves. "If I don't turn up by dark,mother will have a fit," he added.
"Well, I guess all our mothers will have fits," observed Frankquietly, "but that isn't going to help us out of this trouble."
"Do you know how the drift of this tide goes?" inquired the Codfish."It might sweep us in shore far enough so that one of you fish-mencould jump overboard and swim ashore for help."
"Yes, that's a good scheme. Owing to the curve of the Seawall shorewe are now about a mile out. The current splits on Flat Rock, whichought to be showing pretty soon if we have light enough. If we haveluck to swing over to the shore side of the rock we will drift prettyclose, but if we go on the outside of it we are likely to go on upthe coast or out to sea."
"Fine mess we're in," growled Lewis, who grew more nervous as thenight drew down over the waters.
"Oh, say something new," snapped the Codfish sharply. "We've heardthat for a long time. Can't you think up an original remark?" Lewisglowered in silence, muttering to himself. Jimmy sat down on thebottom of the boat and began to tinker with the batteries, whileFrank and the Codfish stood up and peered into the gathering darkness.
"Listen, what was that?" whispered Frank. "Didn't you hear some onecalling?"
The four huddled together close. Jimmy left his tinkering and Lewisforgot his hard luck for the moment.