CHAPTER II. THE COLLISION
"Pleasant sort of a man, wasn't he?" commented Harvey, as the _Viking_left the pier astern, and the stranger could be seen walking briskly upthe road toward the town.
"Why, yes, he was, in a way," responded Henry Burns. "Most persons manageto make themselves agreeable while one is doing them a favour. Really,though, he isn't one of the open, hearty kind, though he did try to bepleasant. I don't know why I think so, but he seemed sort ofhalf-concealed behind that big moustache."
Harvey laughed.
"That's a funny notion," he said.
"Well," responded Henry Burns, "of course it wasn't just that. But, atany rate, he is the kind of a man that has his own way about things. Didyou notice, he didn't exactly ask us to take him into the boat. He said,right out at the start, that he was going along with us--of course, if wewere willing. But he was bound to come aboard, just the same, whether wewere willing or not."
"Hm!" said Harvey. "You do take notice of things, don't you? I didn't payany attention to what he said; but, now I think of it, he did have thatsort of way. However, we shall probably never set eyes on him again, sowhat's the odds?"
They were getting down near to the mouth of the river now, and already, amile ahead, the bay broadened out before their eyes.
The wind was blowing brisk, almost from the south by this time, and thefirst of the ebb-tide running down against it caused a meeting betweenthe two that was not peaceful. At the point where river and bay blended,and for some distance back up the river, there was a heavy chop-seatumbling and breaking in short, foam-capped waves. Farther out in the baythere was considerable of a sea running.
Harvey, lounging lazily on the seat opposite Henry Burns, suddenly sprangup and uttered an exclamation of surprise. Then he pointed on far ahead,over the port bow, to a tiny object that bobbed in the troubled waters ofthe river, low lying and indistinct.
"What do you make of that, Henry?" he cried.
"Why, it looks like a log from one of the mills up above," replied theother, after he had observed it with some difficulty. "Oh, no, it isn't,"he exclaimed the next moment. "There is something alive on it--or in it.Say, you don't suppose it can be Tom Harris and Bob White, do you? Thatis a canoe, I believe."
Without waiting to reply, Jack Harvey dodged quickly down thecompanionway, and returned, a moment later, from the cabin, holding aspy-glass in one hand.
"Hooray! clap that to your eye, Henry," he cried, when he had taken ahasty survey ahead with it.
"That's it!" exclaimed Henry Burns, taking a long look through the glass,while Harvey assumed his place at the wheel. "There they are, two ofthem, paddling away for good old Southport as hard as ever they can.There are two boys, as I make them out. Yes, it's Tom and Bob, sure asyou live. Won't it seem like old times, though, to overhaul them? Youkeep the wheel, Jack. We can't catch up with them any too soon to suitme."
"Shall we give them a salute?" cried Harvey.
"No, let's sail up on them and give them a surprise," suggested theother. "They know we own the boat, but they haven't seen her under sailsince we have had her. They may not recognize us."
While the yacht _Viking_ was parting the still moderate waves with itsclean-cut bows, and laying a course that would bring it up with the canoein less than a half-hour, the occupants of the tiny craft were bendinghard to their paddles, pushing head on into the outer edge of thechop-sea. They were making good time, despite the sea and the head wind.
"There go a couple of them Indians from away up the river yonder," sangout a man forward on a stubby, broad-bowed coaster to the man at thewheel, as the canoe passed a two-master beating across the river. Theboys in the canoe chuckled.
"Guess we must be getting good and black, Bob," said the boy who wieldedthe stern paddle to the other in the bow. "And our first week on thewater, at that, for the season."
"Yes, we've laid the first coat on pretty deep," responded his companion,glancing with no little pride and satisfaction at a pair of brown andmuscular arms and a pair of sunburned shoulders, revealed to goodadvantage by a blue, sleeveless jersey that looked as though it had seenmore than one summer's outing.
"What do you think of the bay, Tom?" he added, addressing the other boy.This youth, similarly clad and similarly bronzed and reddened, washandling his paddle like a practised steersman and was directing thecanoe's course straight down the bay, as though aiming fair at some pointfar away on an island that showed vaguely fifteen miles distant.
"Oh, it's all right," answered Tom. "It's all right for this evening.Plenty of rough water from now until seven or eight o'clock to-night, butit's just the usual sea that a southerly raises in the bay. We won't getinto any such scrape as we did last year, when we came down here, notknowing the bay nor the coast of Grand Island, and let a storm catch usand throw us out pell-mell on the shore. We'll not give our friends, theWarren boys, another such a fright this year. We can get across allright--that is, if you don't mind a bit of a splashing over the bows."
"It won't be the first time,--nor the last, for that matter, I reckon,"responded Bob.
"And I always get my share of it, in the end, too," said the other boy;"because when it sprays aboard it runs down astern and I have to kneel init. Well, on we go, then. It's fifteen miles of rough water, but thinkhow we'll eat when we get there."
"Won't we?" agreed Bob. "Say, now you speak of it, I'm hungry already. Icould eat as much as young Joe Warren used to every time he took dinnerat the hotel. He used to try to make old Witham lose money--do youremember?--and I think he always won."
"Hello!" he exclaimed, a moment later, as he looked back for an instanttoward the stem. "Just glance around, Tom, and take a look at that yachtcoming down the river. Isn't she a beauty? I wouldn't mind a summer'scruise in her, myself."
"Whew!" exclaimed the other, as he held his paddle hard against thegunwale and glanced back. "She is a pretty one, and no mistake. She'sabout as fine as we often see down this way. I don't recall seeinganything handsomer in the shape of a yacht around the bay last summer,unless it was the one Chambers had--you know, the man that set the hotelafire.
"I believe it is the very yacht," he continued. "There isn't another onelike it around here. You remember the boys wintered her down the river."
"Yes, but wouldn't they hail us?" asked Bob.
"Perhaps not," answered Tom. "Henry Burns likes to surprise people. Theyare due down the bay about this time. At any rate, we shall have a chanceto see the yacht close aboard, for she is heading dead up for us."
The yacht _Viking_ was indeed holding up into the wind on a course thatwould bring her directly upon the canoemen, if she did not go about. Shekept on, and presently the boys in the canoe ceased their paddling andwatched her approach.
"She won't run us down, will she, Tom?"
"No, they see us, all right."
There was evidence of this the next moment, for a small cannon, somewhereforward on the deck of the yacht, gave a short, spiteful bark that madethe canoemen jump. There followed immediately the deep bellowing of a bigfog-horn and the clattering of a huge dinner-bell; while, at the sametime, two yachtsmen aboard the strange craft appeared at the rail, wavingand blowing and ringing alternately at the occupants of the canoe. Amoment later, the yacht rounded to a short distance up-wind from thecanoe, and the hail of familiar voices came across the water:
"Ahoy, you chaps in that canoe, there! Come aboard here, lively now, ifyou don't want that cockle-shell blown out of water. Hurry up before weget the cannon trained on you! We know you, Tom Harris, and you, BobWhite, and you can't escape."
"Well, what do you think!" exclaimed Tom Harris, raising himself up fromhis knees in the stem of the canoe, with a hand on either gunwale, "ifthere isn't that old Henry Burns and Jack Harvey. Say, where in the worlddid you fellows steal that yacht, and where are you running off to withit? Don't tell us you own it. You know you don't."
"Just hurry up and co
me alongside here and we'll show you," cried HenryBurns, joyfully. "Our ship's papers are all right, eh, Jack?"
The boys in the canoe needed no urging. A few sharp thrusts with thepaddles brought them under the lee of the _Viking_; a line thrown aboardby Bob White was caught by Harvey and made fast; and the next moment, BobWhite and Tom Harris were in the cockpit, mauling Henry Burns with mockferocity--a proceeding which was received by that young gentlemanserenely, but with interest well returned--and shaking hands with theother stalwart young skipper, Jack Harvey.
The bow-line of the canoe was carried astern by Harvey and tied, so thatthe canoe would tow behind; and the yacht was put on her course again.
"You don't mind taking a spin for a way in the good ship _Viking_, doyou?" asked Harvey. "I have hardly seen you since we got this yacht, youknow, as my folks moved up to Boston the last of the summer."
"We will go along a little way till we strike the worst of the chop,"replied Tom Harris. "Our canoe will not tow safely through that. That is,we will, if you allow Indians aboard."
"Yes, and by the way, before anybody else has the chance to apply," saidBob White, "you don't want to hire a couple of foremast hands, do you,off and on during the summer? I'd be proud to swab the decks of thisboat, and wages of no account."
"We'll engage both of you at eighteen sculpins a week," answered HenryBurns. "But of course you know that the laws against flogging seamendon't go, aboard here. Harvey there, he is my first mate; and I make it arule to beat him with a belaying-pin three or four times a day, regular,to keep him up to his work. Of course you forecastle chaps will get itworse."
Harvey, surveying his more slender companion, saluted with greatdeference.
"How do you fellows happen to be up here?" he asked. "Haven't you gone tocamping yet?"
"Yes," replied Bob. "The old tent is down there on the point. We have hadit set up for three days. We had an errand that brought us up here."
"And the Warren boys?" inquired Henry Burns.
"Oh, they are down there in the cottage, sort of camping out, too; thatis, the family hasn't arrived yet. George and Arthur are working likeslaves trying to keep young Joe fed."
"_He's_ a whole famine in himself," remarked Henry Burns.
"Say, how is old Mrs. Newcome's cat, Henry, the one you saved from thefire?" asked Tom Harris.
"Why, the cat hasn't written me lately," answered Henry Burns. "But I gota letter from Mrs. Newcome a few weeks ago; said she hoped we would havea good summer in the yacht, lots of fun, and all that."
"My! but you are lucky," exclaimed Bob. "I have been as polite as mice toevery cat I've seen all winter, but I haven't received any presents forit."
Renewing old acquaintanceships in this manner, they were shortly inrougher water.
"Here!" cried Tom Harris at length, "we must be getting out of this. Thatcanoe will not stand towing in this chop much longer. We shall have toleave you."
"Pull it in aboard," said Jack Harvey.
"No, it would be in the way," replied Tom Harris. "Just as much obligedto you. We'll meet you at the camp. Say that you will come ashore and eatsupper with us, and Bob will have one of those fine chowders waiting foryou; won't you, Bob?"
"Ay, ay, sir," replied Bob.
"You mean that you will cook one while we sit by and watch you, don'tyou?" asked Harvey. "We shall get there before you do."
"Perhaps not," returned Bob. "You have got to beat down, while we pushright through. It is four o'clock now, and there's some fourteen miles togo. We can do that in about three hours, because when we get across thebay we can go close alongshore under the lee, in smooth water; while youwill have to stick to the rough part of the bay most of the time."
"All right," said Harvey, "we will have a race to see who gets therefirst. But we'll do it in half that time."
So saying, he luffed the _Viking_ into the wind, while Bob White drew thedancing canoe alongside. The canoeists and the yachtsmen parted company,the _Viking's_ sails filling with the breeze, as she quickly gatheredheadway, throwing the spray lightly from her bows; the canoe plungingstubbornly into the rough water, and forcing its way slowly ahead,propelled by the energy of strong young arms.
The _Viking_ stood over on the starboard tack, while the canoe made adirect course for the island; and the two craft were soon far apart. Inthe course of a half-hour the canoe appeared from the deck of the_Viking_ a mere dancing, foam-dashed object. But, in the meantime,another boat had appeared, some way ahead, that attracted the attentionand interest of the yachtsmen. It was a small sailboat, carrying amainsail and single jib. The smaller yacht was coming up to them from thedirection of Grand Island, and was now running almost squarely before thewind, with its jib flapping to little purpose, save that it now and thenfilled for a moment on one side or the other, as the breeze happened tocatch it.
"There's a boat that is being badly sailed," exclaimed Harvey, as the twowatched its progress. "Look at it pitch; and look at that boom, how nearit comes to hitting the waves every time it rolls. There's a chap thatdoesn't know enough, evidently, to top up his boom when running in aseaway. What does he think topping-lifts are made for, anyway, if not tolift the boom out of the reach of a sea like this?
"And let me tell you, running square before the wind in a heavy sea, witha boat rolling like that, is reckless business, anyway. It is much betterto lay a course not quite so direct, and run with the wind not squarelyastern, with the sheet hauled in some. That's no fisherman sailing thatboat."
"It may be some one caught out who doesn't know how to get back," saidHenry Burns. "See, there he is, waving to us. He is in some trouble orother. Let's stand on up close to him and see what the matter is."
"Well, I'll take the chance," replied Harvey. "There, he's doing betternow. He is pointing up a little bit. We'll keep on this tack and runpretty close to him, and hail him. I'll just sing out to him about thattopping-lift, anyway; and if he doesn't like our interfering, why he cancome aboard and thrash us."
As the sailboat drew nearer, there appeared to be a single occupant, ayouth of about Harvey's age, perhaps a year older, holding the tiller.His hat was gone and he was standing up, with hair dishevelled, glaringwildly ahead, in a confused sort of way. The boom of the sailboat waswell out on the starboard side. Harvey kept the _Viking_ on the starboardtack, and near enough to have passed quite close to the other boat.
A little too close, in fact, considering that the youth at the tiller ofthe oncoming boat had, indeed, completely lost his head. Suddenly,without warning, he put his tiller over so that the sailboat headed awayfrom the _Viking_ for an instant. Then, as the wind got back of his sail,and the boat at the same time rolled heavily in the seas, the boom jibedwith terrific force. The sailboat swung in swiftly toward the starboardbeam of the _Viking_, and the wind and sea knocked it down so that thewater poured in over the side, threatening to swamp it. At the instant,Jack Harvey had thrown the _Viking_ off the wind to avoid a crash withthe other boat. The boom of the sailboat swept around with amazingswiftness, and then, as the boat careened, threatening to founder, theend of the boom brought up with a smashing blow against the _Viking's_starboard quarter, breaking off several feet of the boom and tearing thesail badly.
The sailboat, half-filled with water, fell heavily into the trough of thesea and rolled threateningly; while at every pitch the boom struck thewaves as though it would break again.
The _Viking_, under Jack Harvey's guidance, stood away a short distance,then came about and beat up in to the wind a rod or two above the wreck.
"Get that mainsail down as quick as ever you can!" shouted Jack Harvey tothe strange youth, who had dropped the tiller, and who stood now at therail, dancing about frantically, as though he intended to jump overboard.
"I can't," cried the youth, tremulously. "Oh, come aboard here quick,won't you? I'm going to sink and drown. This boat's going down. I don'tknow how to handle her."
"We guessed that," remarked Henry Burns, and added, reassuringly, "Don'tlos
e your head now. You know where the halyards are. Go ahead and getyour sail down, and we'll stand by and help you."
Henry Burns's calm manner seemed to instil a spark of courage into theyouth. He splashed his way up to the cabin bulkhead, where the halyardswere belayed on cleats on either side, and let them run. The sail droppeda little way and then stuck. The youth turned to the other boysappealingly.
"Pull up on your peak-halyard a little," said Jack Harvey, "and let thethroat drop first a way. Then the throat won't stick."
The youth made another attempt and the sail came nearly down, hanging inbagging folds.
"Lucky that's not a heavy sail nor a heavy boom," exclaimed Jack Harvey,"or the boat would be over and sunk by this time. I think I could liftthe boom inboard if I could only get aboard there."
"Here," cried Harvey, coiling up a light, strong line that he had dartedinto the cabin after, "catch this and make it fast up forward--and mindyou tie a knot that will hold."
He threw the line across, and it was clutched by the boy aboard thesmaller boat. The boy carried it forward and did as Harvey had directed.
"Now," said Harvey to Henry Burns, as he made fast the line astern, "themoment we get near enough so that I can jump aboard, you bring the_Viking_ right on her course, with a good full, so she won't drift backon to the wreck completely."
He, himself, held the wheel of the _Viking_ long enough to allow theyacht to come into the wind a little. Thus it lost headway sufficientlyso that the seas caused it to drift back, without its coming about orlosing all steerageway. Then, as the _Viking_ drifted within reach of thesmaller boat, he leaped quickly and landed safely on the deck. At thesame time, or an instant later, Henry Burns threw the wheel of the_Viking_ over so that the yacht gathered headway again and tautened therope that connected the two boats.