Jim Spurling, Fisherman Part 41

Percy felt like dancing for joy. Nearer and nearer came the schooner.

The boys could see her crew staring curiously at them from along her rail. Fifty yards off she shot up into the wind and prepared to launch a boat. They could read the name on her starboard bow.

"The _Grade King_," spelled Spurling. "I know her. She's a Harpswell vessel. Come out to seine herring. Bet she left Portland early this morning. Her captain's Silas Greenlaw; he used to sail with Uncle Tom.

He'll use us O. K."

A dory with two men in it came rowing toward the buoy.

"How long've you fellows been hanging on here?" shouted a red-sweatered, gray-haired man in the stern.

"Since six last night. We blew down from Tarpaulin Island in the norther. Don't you know me, Captain Greenlaw?"

"Why, it's Jim Spurling, Tom Sprowl's nephew!" exclaimed the astonished captain. "So the gale blew you down from Tarpaulin, eh? Well, all I've got to say is that you were confounded lucky to hit the buoy and not the breaker. How long since you've had anything to eat or drink?"

"Forty-six hours since we've had a swallow of water, and about twenty since we finished our last hard bread."

"Well, well! You must be hungry and thirsty! Come right aboard and we'll see what we can do for you."

Gladly the boys cut the lashings that bound them to the bails. The whistle gave a screech of farewell as they tumbled stiffly into the boat. The solid deck of the _Gracie_ felt good beneath their feet.

"You can have all the water you want, boys; but you'd better go light on food at first," cautioned the captain.

It seemed to Percy as if he could never get enough to drink. Gradually, however, his thirst was quenched. He began to realize that he had not slept for two days and a half.

"I'd like to carry you right back to the island," said Captain Greenlaw, "for your friends must be worrying. But there are lots of herring here, and I've got to get a load first. That may take two or three days. I'll land you at Tarpaulin on my way home. Better turn in and sleep."

The boys were shortly wrapped in a heavy, dreamless slumber. It seemed to them as if they had just closed their eyes when they were shaken awake again.

"Here's the cutter!" exclaimed the captain. "They got a wireless to hunt you up. Going to run in to Rockland, and can land you at Tarpaulin this evening. What do you say?"

Tired though they were, Jim and Percy were only too glad of a chance to get home speedily. So they were transferred to the _Pollux_, and their leaking dory hoisted aboard. Swung in hammocks in the seamen's quarters, they were soon slumbering dreamlessly again.

At eight that night the _Pollux_ stopped off the island. The dory, made sound and tight by the ship's carpenter, was dropped overboard, and the boys rowed into Sprowl's Cove.

Their appearance transformed the gloom that overhung Camp Spurling into the wildest joy. Budge, Throppy, and Filippo burst out of the cabin and raced headlong down the beach, waking the echoes with their shouts of welcome. Even before the dory grounded they tumbled aboard and flung their arms about the castaways. No brothers, reunited after deadly peril, could have given one another a warmer greeting.

Jim freed his hands at last, stooped, and picked up a package which he tossed out on the gravel. There was a suspicious moisture in his eyes.

"There's the piston-rod!" said he in a rather choky voice. "I guess we'll get our set all right day after to-morrow."

XX

SQUARING AN ACCOUNT

It was almost noon the next day before Jim and Percy rolled out of their bunks in Camp Spurling. One of Filippo's best dinners satisfied the last cravings of their appet.i.tes; but for a week they felt the strain of their forty-seven hours in the dory and on the buoy.

"When did you reach the _Pollux_, Throppy?" asked Jim.

"I didn't reach her at all. When you didn't show up that night I wirelessed Criehaven, and the operator there hit the cutter thirty miles to the westward the next forenoon. She began hunting for you right away, but it wasn't until twenty-four hours later that she found you on the _Gracie King_. We picked up a message from her some time after she took you off the schooner. Perhaps it didn't relieve our minds!"

Jim drew a long breath as he glanced round the cabin.

"Seems good to be here! Not a bad old camp, is it, Perce?"

"Never saw a hotel I'd swap it for," replied Percy, promptly.

Two mornings later Budge and Percy started in the sloop for Vinalhaven after a load of herring. Jim did not accompany them, as he had decided to spend a forenoon hauling and inspecting the lobster-traps. The _Barracouta_ ran in alongside Hardy's weir at nine o'clock and took aboard thirty bushels of small fish. She then went around to Carver's Harbor to purchase supplies and fill her tank with gasolene.

It was Percy's first visit to the town since July 4th, the occasion of his disastrous encounter with Jabe. In actual time, his defeat lay only a few weeks back; but, measured by the change that had taken place in himself, the period might well have been years in length.

Percy was treading hostile ground, and he knew it. Prudence might have counseled him to remain on board the _Barracouta_ while Budge was making his purchases. Instead, he chose to stroll carelessly along the main street. At a corner he pa.s.sed a group of small boys, who recognized him at once.

"It's the fresh guy Jabe licked on the Fourth," he heard one mutter in a low tone. "Let's have some fun with him!"

"Sh!" exclaimed another. "Jabe's over in Talcott's grocery. We'll get 'em together again!"

Never interrupting his leisurely saunter, Percy pa.s.sed out of hearing.

But his heart was beating a little quicker and he was conscious of a tightening of nerves and muscles. Weeks of secret, painstaking preparation were drawing to a climax.

Half-turning his head, he saw a barefooted urchin dash across the street and into a store on the other side. Percy began to whistle cheerfully as he strode along, alive to all that was taking place behind him.

Crossing the street, he was able to glance back without appearing to do so; and he was just in time to see a stout, freckle-faced, bullet-headed youth shoot out of the store and come hurrying after him, with an eager crowd of small fry trailing behind.

Still feigning unconsciousness of the approaching peril, Percy proceeded, whistling blithely. Through a gap between two buildings he had caught sight of a barn standing alone, some distance ahead and well to one side of the main street; its door was open, revealing a broad stretch of empty floor. He quickened his pace, and presently turned down the short street leading to the structure. Jabe and his retinue were less than fifty yards behind, and gaining rapidly. As Percy turned the corner they broke into a run.

At that same instant young Whittington also began to sprint at top speed; and he kept up this pace as long as he felt sure the building on the corner concealed him from his pursuers. The second the sound of their approaching feet became audible he dropped into his former gait.

He was now almost opposite the open door of the barn.

His ears told him that Jabe and his crew had also swung into the cross-street.

"Hey, there!" shouted a voice, roughly.

Percy halted at once and wheeled about with affected surprise. A side glance into the barn told that its mows were well filled and that its floor was strewn with hayseed. Standing at ease, he awaited the approach of his foes.

Jabe dashed up on the run. Five feet from Percy he came to a sudden stop and pushed his bulldog jaw out belligerently.

"Well," he growled, scowling darkly, "I've got you at last just where I want you. You can't cry baby now and run to that big, black-haired fellow. I'm going to lick you good!"

Percy stared at his enemy in mild wonder.

"What for?" he queried, innocently.

But the outward calm of his tones and manner did not betray, even remotely, what was going on beneath. His heart was pumping like an engine, the blood coursed hotly through his arteries, and all over his body his wiry muscles had tensed and knotted. Nine weeks of vigorous life in the open, combined with systematic exercise, taken with the possibility in view of some time squaring his account with Jabe, had made of him an antagonist that even an older, heavier boy might well hesitate to tackle.

Of all this Jabe was ignorant. He saw before him the same fellow he had mastered on the evening of the Fourth, a little browner and clearer-eyed, possibly a little straighter and stouter, but still the same foe his fist had sent to the ground. Jabe knew of no reason why he could not easily repeat his victory, and he burned to do so in the presence of his admirers. Percy's harmless query roused him to unreasoning anger.