The Adventure Club Afloat Part 9

"I don't quite know," replied the other thoughtfully, "but I think it was chiefly because I didn't like to be beaten."

"Dinner!" called Ossie from the forward cabin. "All hands to dinner! Get a move on!"

CHAPTER VIII

PERRY LOSES HIS WAY

They stayed aboard all that day, for the fog held tight, and, if Steve's calculations were right, the _Adventurer_ lay well down toward the entrance to the harbour and the nearest settlement was a good mile and three-quarters away. None of the seven felt sufficiently ambitious to put out for sh.o.r.e in that smother of mist. They managed to pa.s.s the time without much trouble, however. There was always the graphophone, although they were destined to become rather tired of the records, and Steve, Joe, Han and Neil played whist most of the afternoon. Phil curled up on a couch and read, and Ossie and Perry, after having a violent argument over the proper way to make an omelet decided to settle the question then and there. By the time the two omelets were prepared the whist players were ready to stop and the entire ship's company partook of the rival concoctions and decided the matter in favour of Ossie.

"Although," explained Joe, "I'm not saying that Perry's omelet is bad.

If he had remembered to put a little salt in it--"

"I did!" declared Perry resentfully. "You don't know a decent omelet when you see it. Look how light mine was! Why, it was twice as high as Ossie's!"

"That's just it," said Steve gravely. "It was so light that it sort of faded away before you could taste it. An omelet, Perry, should be substantial and filling."

"That shows how much you know about it," jeered Perry. "There were just as many eggs in mine as there were in his. Only I made mine with water and beat the eggs separately--"

"Ah, there it is, you see," drawled Joe. "You beat the poor little eggs.

I'm surprised at you, Perry. Any fellow who will beat an inoffensive egg--"

"Huh, I found one that wasn't inoffensive by a long shot! Someone will have to get some eggs tomorrow, for there are only eight left."

"What!" Han viewed Perry in disgust. "Mean to say you went and used them all up making those silly omelets?"

"I notice you ate the silly omelets," said Ossie. "One egg apiece is enough for breakfast, isn't it?"

"Not for me. The doctor ordered two every morning. If I don't have two eggs for breakfast I shall mutiny."

"If you do you'll be put in irons," said Joe. "Or swung from the yard-arm. Say, how long before we're going to have something to eat, Ossie? I'm hungry. That egg thing sort of whetted my appet.i.te."

"Gosh, you fellows would keep me cooking all the time," grumbled the steward. "It's only five, and we don't have supper until six. So you can plaguey well starve for an hour."

"Then I shall go to sleep and--um--forget the pangs of hunger. Move your big feet out of the way, Phil."

"I like your cheek, you duffer! Go on back to your own bunk."

"Too faint for want of food," murmured Joe, stretching himself out in spite of Phil's protests. "Someone sing to me, please."

Supper went very well, in spite of the mid-afternoon luncheon, and after that the riding light was set for the night, the hatches drawn shut and all hands settled down to pa.s.s the evening in whatever way seemed best.

But bedtime came early tonight and, by half-past nine, with the sound of a distant siren coming to them at intervals and the yacht's bells chiming the hours and half-hours, all lights were out below and the _Adventurer_ was wrapped in fog and silence.

The fog still held in the morning, although at times it took on a yellowish tinge and made them hopeful that it would burn off. Steve said it was not quite so thick, but no one else was able to see much difference in it. Han managed to subsist on one egg, in spite of gloomy predictions, but after breakfast he and Perry decided to paddle ash.o.r.e and find a place where they could purchase more. They tried to add to the party, but no one else wanted to go, and so they disappeared into the mist about nine o'clock, agreeing to be back at ten-thirty, at which time, unless the fog should have lifted, those aboard the boat were to sound the whistle.

They landed on a narrow beach after a short row, and, stumbling through a fringe of coa.r.s.e sand, discovered a lane leading inland. They stopped and strove to remember the location of the boat, and then followed the lane. The fog was amber-hued now and the morning was fast losing its chill. Perry broke into song and Han into a tuneless whistle that seemed to give him a deal of satisfaction. They soon found a main-travelled road and, after fixing the turn-off in their minds, wheeled to the left.

"It would be a fine joke if we couldn't find the dingey again," chuckled Han.

"I think you've got a punk idea of humour," responded Perry. "Anyway, all we'd have to do is find the beach and keep along until we barked our skins on the boat. Bet you, though, this pesky fog will be gone in an hour."

The road left the sh.o.r.e presently and the travellers found that the fog was thinner and sometimes lifted entirely over small s.p.a.ces, and it wasn't long before they stopped to take off their jackets and swing them across their arms. Possibly they pa.s.sed houses, but they saw none, and the only incident occurred when the sound of wheels came to them from the highway ahead and, presently, a queer, old-fashioned two-wheeled chaise drawn by a piebald, drooping-eared horse pa.s.sed slowly from the mist ahead to the mist behind. The boys gazed at it in wonderment, too interested in the equipage itself to heed the occupants. When it was out of sight again Han e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed: "Well, I'll be switched, Perry! I didn't suppose there was one of those things left in the world!"

"Neither did I. And there won't be pretty quick, I guess, for it looked and sounded as if it would fall to pieces before it got to--to wherever it's going. Bet you anything that was the deacon's one-horse chaise in the poem!"

"_Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay That was built in such a logical way It ran a hundred years to a day?_"

quoted Han. "Wouldn't that look funny alongside a Rolls-Royce, Perry?"

"It would look funny alongside a flivver," answered the other. "Say, how far do we have to walk? Seems to me we've done about five miles already."

"Rot! We haven't walked more than a mile. Not being able to see things makes it seem farther, I guess." The encouraging sound of a cow mooing reached them the next minute. "That must be the one we heard yesterday,"

said Han. "I suppose there's just one on the island and it's set to go off at the same time every day."

"If there's a cow over there," said Perry, staring into the fog, "maybe there's a farmhouse. Let's have a look."

"All right, but we're just as likely to walk into a swamp as find a house."

But a very few steps off the highway put them on a narrow lane and presently the big bulk of a barn loomed ahead. The house was soon located and ten minutes later, having purchased two quarts of milk and four dozen eggs, they retraced their steps. The fog had now apparently changed its mind about lifting, for the yellow tinge had gone and the world was once more grey and chill. They donned their coats again and, carrying their precious burdens, trudged on. Occasionally a puff of air came off the sound and the fog blew in trailing wreaths before them.

When they had walked what they considered to be the proper distance they began to watch for that lane. And after they had watched for it for a full quarter of an hour and had walked a deal farther than they should have they reached the entirely justifiable conclusion that they were lost!

Perry set down the battered milk can on which they had paid a deposit of twenty-five cents, took a long breath and, viewing the encompa.s.sing fog, exclaimed melodramatically: "Lost on Martha's Vineyard, or The Mystery of the Four Dozen Eggs!"

"Well, we won't starve for awhile," laughed Han. "Say, where _is_ that lane we came up, anyway? Think we've pa.s.sed it?"

"About ten miles back," sighed Perry. "Come on and let's try dead reckoning. The beach is over there somewhere and if we can find it--"

"Great! But when we have found it, which way shall we go?"

Perry pushed his hat back and thoughtfully scratched his head. "Give it up!" he said at last. "You might go one way and I another. Anyway, let's find the old beach."

They scrambled across a wall into a bush-grown tract, Han discovering in the process that he had chosen a place prettily bedecked with poison-ivy. "That does for me," said Han gloomily. "I'll have a fine time of it now for a couple of weeks. I can't even look at that stuff without getting poisoned!"

"Maybe it didn't see you," said Perry cheerfully. "In this fog--"

"Don't be a silly goat," interrupted the other fretfully. "I tell you I'll be all broken out tomorrow! And it's perfectly beastly, too. You have blisters all over you and they itch so you can hardly stand it."

"Too bad," said Perry, trying to sound sympathetic but failing because he caught his foot in a bramble at the moment and almost pitched on his face.

"Well," continued Han, more cheerfully, "there's one good thing. Salt water is fine to bathe in when you have ivy poisoning, and there'll be plenty of that around."

"Sure; and it won't cost you a cent, either." They reached the beach then and gazed hopelessly about them as they crossed the softer sand.

"If only they'd blow their old whistle we'd know where we are."

"If I had some alcohol I might backen it," observed Han.