CHAPTER X
THE _FOLLOW ME_ DISAPPEARS
There had been talk of going through the Cape Cod Canal and so obviatingthe outside journey, but most of the voyagers thought that would be tootame and unexciting. Besides, a barge had managed to sink herself acrossthe channel near the Buzzard's Bay end a week or so before and no oneseemed to know for certain whether she had yet pulled herself out andgone on about her business, and, as Steve pointed out, they'd feel a bitfoolish if they got to the canal entrance and had to turn back again.They had fair weather and light breezes all the way to New Harbour andfrom there, the next day, around the tip of the Cape to Provincetown.They dropped anchor off the yacht club landing at Provincetown at fouro'clock Friday afternoon and went ashore as soon as the boats wereberthed and sought the post-office. Provincetown had been selected asthe first certain port of call and most of the thirteen boys found mailawaiting them. Only Neil, however, received tidings of importance, andhis letter from his parents brought an exclamation of dismay to hislips.
"Anything wrong?" asked Ossie, sitting beside him on the rail of thehotel porch.
"Rotten," replied Neil disgustedly. "I've got to go home!"
"Go home!" echoed the other. "What for?"
"Dad's got to go to England on some silly business or other," explainedNeil gloomily, "and he wants me to stay with mother. Of course I oughtto. Mother's sort of an invalid and there's no one else. But it's rottenluck." He stowed the letter in his pocket and stared disappointedly atthe passing traffic. "I was having a bully time, too," he muttereddisconsolately.
"That's a shame," said Ossie sympathetically. "When will you have togo?"
"He wants me to meet him in New York Sunday. He sails early Mondaymorning. I suppose I'll have to go tomorrow. Guess I'd better get a timetable and see how the trains run."
"Gee, I'm sorry," murmured Ossie.
And so, for that matter, was every other member of the _Adventurer's_company for Neil was well liked. And the _Follow He's_ crew werescarcely less regretful. A study of the railroad schedule showed thatthe next train for Boston left at five-fifty-five in the morning andthat the only other train was at two-forty in the afternoon.
"Five-fifty-five's a perfectly punk time for a train to leave anywhere,even Provincetown," objected Neil. "And the two-forty will get me toBoston too late for anything but a midnight train to New York."
"Bother trains," said Steve. "We'll run you to Boston tomorrow in theboat. We can do it in four hours or so. If the _Follow Me_ crowd want tostay here another day we'll wait for them at Boston, or we'll go on andmeet them further up the shore."
"But I don't want to hurry you chaps away from the Cape," expostulatedNeil. "You were going to Plymouth, weren't you?"
"Yes, we were, but there's nothing important about that. Hold on,though! I say, look up the Plymouth trains, Neil. There must be more ofthem from there and we can put you across to Plymouth in a couple ofhours."
They found that a train leaving Plymouth at ten would put Neil in Bostonshortly after eleven, in plenty of time for the one o'clock express toNew York, and so it was decided that the _Adventurer_ was to leave herpresent port at seven in the morning. The _Follow Me_ was to followmore leisurely and the boats would spend the next night at Plymouth.Neil and Ossie went off to send telegrams and the others roamed aroundthe town until it was time for supper. Afterwards Neil packed hisbelongings in two pasteboard laundry boxes, having no bag with him, andconstantly bewailed his ill-fortune. Later the _Follow Me_ crowd cameover and they had quite a jolly evening and Neil cheered up vastly.
The next morning dawned clear and hot and, after an early breakfast, the_Adventurer_ weighed anchor. The _Follow Me's_ whistle signalledgood-bye until they were half-way to Long Point and the _Adventurer_replied. Once around the point the boat headed across the wide bay forthe mainland at a good sixteen-mile clip. The voyage was uneventful andManomet Hill was soon sighted. Then Plymouth Beach stretched before themand presently they were rounding the head and pointing the_Adventurer's_ nose for the town. There was still the better part of anhour left after the anchor was dropped and they all tumbled into thedingey and found a landing and spent the next three-quarters of an hourrambling around the historic town, Ossie and Perry bearing Neil'sstrange-looking luggage. Neil insisted on viewing Plymouth Rock,declaring that he might never get another opportunity, and after thatthere was not much time left to them. They installed Neil on the trainimpressively, stowed his luggage around him and then took up positionsoutside the window, where, to the mingled curiosity and amusement ofother travellers, they conducted farewell exercises. These included anentirely impromptu and unsolicited duet by Perry and Han, a muchinterrupted speech by Joe, and, finally, as the train moved out of thestation, a hearty Dexter cheer with three "Neils!" on the end. In suchmanner the _Adventurer_ lost her cabin boy and the ranks of the clubwere depleted by one.
Neil's departure left a hole and as the others returned from the stationthey spoke of him rather as though he had passed on to a better world,recalling his good points and becoming quite sad in a cheerful way. Inview of their bereavement, they decided to have luncheon at a hotel andduring that meal recovered their spirits. More sight-seeing followed,but the day was a hot one and by half-past three they had had enough andso returned to the landing and pulled back to the cruiser. Steve, whohad supplied himself with yesterday's New York and Boston papers,pre-empted a seat on the bridge deck and stretched himself out on it,his legs crooked over the railing. The others found places in the shadeas best they could and talked and watched for the _Follow Me_ andlistened to occasional snatches of news from Steve. There waspractically no breeze and the afternoon was uncomfortably hot even underthe awning. Joe finally solved the difficulty of keeping cool bydisappearing below and presently re-emerging in his swimming trunks anddropping overboard. That set the fashion, and they all went in saveSteve, who was too absorbed in his papers to know whether he was warm ornot. The _Follow Me_ came up the harbour just before five and tooted agreeting as she swung around to a berth near the _Adventurer_. Thefellows, who were still in bathing attire, swam across to her, and veryshortly their ranks were increased by just half a dozen more. The sightof Steve's feet hanging over the canvas was too much for Perry and heyielded to temptation. Swimming up very quietly he deftly pulled off oneof Steve's "sneakers" and, in defiance of the owner's protests, theyplayed ball with it until the inevitable happened and it sank out ofsight before Wink Wheeler could dive for it. "Brownie" said then thatSteve might as well let them have the other one, since one shoe was nouse to him, but Steve's reply was not only non-compliant but actuallyinsulting in its terms. He took off the other "sneaker" and laid on it.
That bath left them feeling both refreshed and hungry and Ossie had ahard time finding enough for them to eat. Perry described theastonishment of some Plymouth fisherman when he opened a codfish somefine day and discovered a rubber-soled shoe inside. "You'll read allabout it in the paper, Steve, and won't you laugh!" he added.
Steve, who had been forced to don a pair of leather shoes, didn't seemto anticipate any great amount of amusement, however, and suggested thatit would be a gentlemanly act if Perry would hie himself to a store andpurchase a pair of number 8 "sneakers," a suggestion which Perry weighedcarefully and discarded. "You see," he explained, "it wouldn't be fairto make me spend my hard-earned money for two 'sneakers' when I onlylost one. If the store would sell me half a pair, Steve, I'd make goodin a minute, but you see my point of view, don't you?"
Steve didn't seem to.
While they were still at table Harry Corwin's voice was heard and Ossieinvestigated by the simple expedient of climbing on top of the galleylocker and thrusting his head through the open hatch. "He wants to knowif we'll go to the movies with them," said Ossie, ducking back intosight.
"Surest thing you know," agreed Perry.
"We might as well, eh?" asked Joe. "It'll be beastly hot, though."
"I'll go if they've got Charlie Chaplin," said Han. "Ossie,
ask him ifthey have, please."
"He says he doesn't know," responded Ossie after an exchange of remarks."I told them we'd go, though," he added, dropping to the floor. "They'regoing to wait for us on the landing in half an hour."
"Half an hour!" grumbled Perry. "You told them that so I couldn't getenough to eat, you stingy beggar! Got anything more out there?"
"Great Jumping Jehosaphat!" ejaculated Ossie wildly. "I've cooked twomesses of potatoes and toasted a hundred slices of bread--"
"Oh, all right. Bring on the dessert, then."
"The dessert's on now," answered Ossie shortly. "Cookies and jelly.That's all you get, Piggie."
"Won't we have to buy some more grub pretty soon?" asked Steve.
Ossie nodded and glanced darkly at Perry. "If _he_ stays around wewill," he answered. "We've got enough for three or four days yet,though. Better have some canned stuff, I guess. And some flour andsugar."
"How's the treasury, Phil?" inquired Han.
"Still holding out. Where's the next stop, Steve?"
"We said Portsmouth, but Harry wants to put in at Salem. I don't supposeit matters much."
"Then we cut out Boston altogether?"
"Why, yes, it's out of the way a bit. Besides, we didn't start out onthis cruise to visit cities."
"We started out to look for adventures," said Perry sadly, "but I don'tsee many of them coming our way."
"What do you call adventures?" asked Han. "Didn't you have a fine timebeing lost in the fog the other day?"
"Huh!" replied Perry, scraping the last of the jelly from the glass."Being lost in the fog isn't an adventure. It's just plain punk. What Imean is--is pirates and--and desert islands and--and that sort ofthing."
"You were born a hundred years or so too late," said Joe, shaking hishead. "Toss me a cookie, Han. Thanks. If you saw a pirate, Perry,you'd--um--you'd drop dead."
"If I saw a pirate," replied Perry indignantly, "I'd--um--live as longas you would! Besides, I've got a perfect right to drop dead if I wantto."
"Go ahead," said Joe lightly. "Any time you like, old chap."
"The reason I spoke of Boston," reverted Phil, "was that I thought itmight be a good place to buy our supplies. There's no use paying anymore for them than we have to and going broke before the cruise is halfover."
"Yes, but don't forget that gasoline's pretty expensive stuff thesedays, Phil," said Steve. "I guess we'd burn up enough gas getting toBoston to make up for any saving on supplies, eh? I suppose there arestores in Salem."
"Thought it burned up awhile ago," said Han.
"Part of it did, but I don't suppose it stayed burned up, you idiot.What time is it? We'd better beat it for shore."
"Right-o," agreed Han. "I hope they have Charlie Chaplin, though."
By some strange inadvertency, however, Mr. Chaplin's eccentric personwas missing from the screen. In spite of that, though, Han managed toenjoy the evening. Afterwards Perry suggested light refreshments andthey set out in search of a lunch counter. But anyone who knows Plymouthwill realise the hopelessness of their search. After roaming around thequiet and deserted streets and at last being assured by a policeman thattheir quest was worse than idle they went back to the tenders. "Isuppose," said Perry disgustedly, "they close all the stores early sothey can go to the movies. I wish now we'd had some soda at that drugstore where the man had insomnia."
"We've got food on board," said Ossie. "I'll fix up some sandwiches. Iwish you'd get enough to eat for once, though," he added as he took hisplace in the dingey. "Don't they ever feed you at home, Perry?"
"Huh, I'll bet you're as hungry as I am! What are they yelping aboutover there?"
The other tender had left the landing a moment before the _Adventurer's_boat and now its occupants were heard shouting confusedly across themoonlit water.
"Can you make out what they're saying?" asked Steve of the rest.
"Just nonsense, I guess," answered Phil, tugging at his oar.
"Stop rowing a minute and listen," Steve directed. "Now then!"
"Something about the boat," murmured Han. "I can't make it out, though."
"By Jove, I can!" exclaimed Steve. "The _Follow Me's_ gone! She musthave slipped her anchor or dragged or something. Row hard, fellows!"