CHAPTER II.
BANDY-LEGS IN TROUBLE.
At noon on the following day there was more or less excitement aroundthe spot where the boathouse stood. The canoes, already loaded, laymoored near by, awaiting the word to be given that would send the littleexpedition on its way up-stream.
Of course the news had got abroad, though Max would much rather havekept it a secret, if they could. But Herb and his friends, as well assome other boys of the river town, were on hand to see the start.
And as was natural, a heap of good-natured chaffing was indulged in. Allsorts of dismal predictions were made by Herb, and those of his comradeswho had been in his company at the time of their wild midnight flightfrom Catamount Island.
"We'll expect to see you to-morrow, all right, fellows!" cried one.
"Yes, and we're going to keep tabs on you, if you don't show up,"remarked still another. "It won't be fair to sleep on the mainland, andjust go over in the day. You've got to stay right there a whole week,night after night, to win out. See?"
"A week," answered Steve, laughing in a scoffing manner; "why, if itwasn't a waste of good time, we'd have made it a month. But we've gotother fish to fry, and don't want to spend all our vacation on thatmeasly old island."
"Yes, say what you like," called Herb, as the canoes began to leave theshore, and the paddles to flash in the noonday sun's bright rays;"you'll have another story to tell when you show up to-morrow, or I missmy guess."
"Wait till you see that old cabin, that's what!" called out another, ina mysterious way that somehow caused Bandy-legs to look uneasy, Maxthought.
He knew that if there was going to be a weak link in the chain it wouldlie in that quarter; for the short chum had a few silly notionsconcerning certain things, and was not wholly free from a belief insupernatural happenings. But with the backing of four sturdy chums,Bandy-legs ought to brace up, and show himself a true boy of nerve.
"Look at that Shack Beggs making faces after us!" remarked Steve, who,as usual, threatened to take the lead in the push up the Evergreencurrent.
"I noticed him hangin' around all the time," added Bandy-legs; "andevery now and then he'd seem to grin, and shake hands with himself, likehe felt nearly too good to keep the thing quiet. Whatever ails him, d'yethink, Max?"
"Well, as I never stood for a mind reader, I can't tell you," was thereply of the one addressed; "but as we know he belongs to that TedShafter crowd, it's easy to understand that he just believes somethingterrible is going to happen to us up on Catamount Island."
"Oh! I hope he's barking up the wrong tree, then!" exclaimed Bandy-legs.
"Just what he's doing, take my word for it," Owen put in, from the sternof the big war canoe, which he and Toby were urging against the flowingcurrent with lusty strokes, and evident keen enjoyment.
"How does it go?" asked Max, who was in a sixteen-foot canvas canoe likethe one Steve handled so dexterously; while Bandy-legs, fearing to trustto anything so frail, had insisted on getting one of the older typelapstreak cedar boats, that were so marvelously beautiful in his eyes.
"Fine as silk!" announced Steve, from up ahead.
"Ditto here!" echoed Toby, and Owen added his words of praise.
"It seems like bully good fun!" declared Bandy-legs, who was puffing alittle, his boat being somewhat more weighty than the other two singlecanoes, and who consequently was somewhat behind the rest; "but I wishyou'd get a rope on Steve there, and hold him in. He ain't fit to be thepace-maker. I just _can't_ keep going like wildfire all the time."
"That's right, too" remarked Max. "We ought to let up a little in thestart. It never is good policy to do your best in the beginning of arace. And we've really got loads of time to make that island beforenightfall."
Of course Steve could do as he pleased; but since the others droppedback a little so as to accommodate the less skillful Bandy-legs, he hadto follow suit, or be all alone in the van. Steve grumbled more or lessbecause some fellows never could "get a move on 'em," as he complained;but outside of making an occasional little spurt, and then resting, hestuck pretty well by his mates during the next hour or two.
Then something happened, something that they had never once dreamed of,and which was at first utterly beyond the understanding of any of thepaddlers.
Bandy-legs seemed to find more or less trouble about getting himselfsettled in the best attitude for his work. It was all pretty new forhim, though Max thought the other did very well for a greenhorn. Hewriggled about in his cedar boat like an uneasy worm, changing hisposition often, and each time thinking that he had improved his paddlingpowers, only to find the same old fault.
All at once he set up a whoop that startled his chums.
"Hi! looky here, what's happenin' to this old coffin!"
The others saw nothing wrong, save that Bandy-legs himself seemed to beengaged in scrambling about more or less, as though he had suddenlydiscovered a venomous spider crawling out from under the false bottom ofhis delicate craft.
"What ails you?" called out Max, stopping the use of his handy spruceblade, as he turned his head toward the one who appeared to be introuble.
"Wow! I tell you she's sinkin'!" continued Bandy-legs, as if aghast.
"What! your canoe?" cried Owen, as if unable to believe his ears.
"Sure she is, boys! Water's just bubbling up in her to beat the band! Ifelt it gettin' wet down by my feet, and looked just in time. What'll Ido--jump over and swim for the shore right here?"
"Don't be silly, Bandy-legs!" cried Max. "If something has happened toyour boat, why, head for the shore, and paddle hard. It ain't so faraway but you can reach it easy enough. You must have hit a snag, andpunched a hole in the skin of the canoe."
"I never hit nothin'!" called back the other, as in his clumsy fashionhe managed to presently change the course of his boat, and start for thenearest bank, with the war canoe and that of Max accompanying him.
"Hey, what you goin' to do, have a snack?" yelled Steve, who at thatmoment chanced to be a little way ahead of the others.
"Bandy-legs is sinking, and we've got to see what ails his boat!"answered Max, making a speaking tube or a megaphone of his hands.
No doubt Steve, impatient to reach their destination, and make campbefore dark, would be saying things not at all complimentary to thesufferer, as he retraced his course, in order to join them.
Meanwhile, when the canoes reached a pebbly stretch of shore, they werebeached; and then Max set to work to ascertain what could have happenedto the cedar boat to make it start sinking in such a mysterious way.
First the bundles were taken out, and they all observed that it wasfortunate they had decided at the last minute to let Bandy-legs have oneof the tents instead of the foodstuff he had been given in thebeginning.
"Give me a hand here, fellows," remarked Max, "and we'll turn her overto let the water get out faster. I can see right now where the troublelies, and it's right down in the bottom. There's a leak as sure asanything!"
"Then its good-by to my bally little canoe right in the start, Ireckon," complained the owner, sadly. "I'm a Jonah, all right. All sortsof things keep happening to _me_. What does it look like, Max?" as theboat was finally turned completely over, so that the bottom was fullyexposed.
Max uttered an exclamation that told of astonishment.
"Well, that is queer!" they heard him mutter, as he thrust a fingerthrough the hole in the garboard streak of the boat.
"What strikes you as so funny, Max?" asked Steve, who had by now joinedthem.
"Look for yourself," replied the other, moving back.
Four heads were instantly bent over, as the boys took his advice.
"Must have been a round snag, all right," commented Steve; "becausethat's as pretty a circular hole as I ever saw."
"Tell you I never struck no snag!" declared the indignant Bandy-legs;"guess I'd 'a' felt it, wouldn't I, Max?"
"Listen, fellows," said the one appealed to, in a tone that caused theothers to stop their wra
ngling, and pay attention; "as Bandy-legs says,he didn't run foul of any snag on the river since we left home. Thathole was made by an auger, or a bit held in a brace. Some mean fellowhad the nerve to lay this trap for our chum, in order to give us all thetrouble he could."
"Shack Beggs!" shouted Steve, always quick to make up his mind.
"That was why he kept grinning like he did, when he watched us go off,"observed Owen, in a disgusted way. "When do you suppose he could havefound a chance to do such a dirty trick, Max?"
"Well, we don't know for a certainty whether it was Shack or one of hiscrowd," replied the other, shaking his head; "but whoever did it musthave found some way to get into the boathouse after we left last night.You remember, boys, we've got a ratchet brace there, and several bits.One of them would just about fit this hole. But he must have been mightycareful to take away every little splinter, so as not to make us suspectthere'd been any funny carryings-on."
"How d'ye suppose he fixed it, so as to keep the water out till justnow?" asked the bewildered owner of the canoe.
For answer Max made a crawl underneath, and almost immediately came outagain holding something in his hand, which he showed them. It wasapparently a plug of wood, and must have come from the hole that hadcaused the sudden flooding of the cedar canoe.
"There, you can see what a neat little game he played!" Max exclaimed.After he bored that round hole he made this plug and drove it in fromabove. Underneath he made sure that it was evened off so it wouldn't beseen unless any one examined the bottom of the canoe close. Then he hadit fixed so when Bandy-legs got to moving about, as he always does, youknow, any time he was liable to loosen the plug and the pressure of thewater'd do the rest.
"Oh! what a wicked shame!" cried the owner of the wrecked canoe.
"H-h-he ought t' b-b-be hung f-f-for it!" exclaimed Toby, just asindignant as though it had been his own boat that was injured sowantonly.
"What can we do, Max, to fix her up?" asked Owen, quietly.
"Oh!" put the plug in again, and make sure that it will hold this time.Later on, when we get back, we'll have to get the boat builder in Carsonto put a new streak of cedar planking in, to take the place of thisone."
"Sure you can fix it so there won't be any chance of my going down?"asked the anxious owner.
"Easy enough. Just give me ten or fifteen minutes, and I'll answer forit," came the confident response, as Max immediately set to work.
"While this is going on the rest of us can rest," remarked Owen,dropping down on the ground.
"Here's the sandwiches I made this morning; might as well take a bite,now we've got to hang out here a spell," and Bandy-legs began passingthem around.
"Looks to me like we had reached the junction of the Big Sunflower andthe Elder," observed Steve, as he munched away contentedly at his hamsandwich.
"Just what we have," Max spoke up, working away at his little job, andstopping occasionally to snatch a bite. "It lies right around that bendyonder. I remember it well, and how we made our first haul of themussels there."
"Yes, and found a bully old pearl in the first lot," declared Steve,watching Bandy-legs poke around in the grass nearby; for the boy withthe short legs was of an investigating turn, and liked nothing betterthan to search for things; "hey! what you think you'll find there,diamonds this time?"
"Oh! I just run across a lot of wriggling little snakes, about as longas lead pencils, and I'm seein' 'em twist and turn. It's just fun towatch the little beggars get mad."
"Huh!" grunted Steve, as he turned his attention to what Max was doing;"some fellers get fun out of mighty little things, sometimes."
A minute or so later they heard Bandy-legs laugh again.
"Say, let up with that silly play, and come in," called Steve, testily;"we're 'bout ready to load up again and go on."
"You'd die laughing to see her try to get a whack at me," called backBandy-legs. "It's the mother of all them little snakes, I reckon. My!but she's mad though; just coils up here, and jumps out at me every timeI touch her with my stick!"
Max felt a shudder pass through his person as he looked at Owen. Forsuddenly he seemed to realize that the rattling sound, which he had ofcourse thought was caused by a noisy locust on a nearby tree, was infact the deadly warning that an enraged rattlesnake gives when strivingto strike its fangs into an enemy!