The Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island Part 13

"Oh! we can afford to take the chances of that!" laughed Allan.

As the wind had gone down, and the waves with it to a considerable extent, it was decided that they might make a start after an early lunch. Thad consulted his Government Survey charts, and marked a place that he believed would make them a good harbor, and which they ought to reach with any reasonable luck.

This being settled they got underway about half-past eleven; and when the little cruiser left the shelter of the cove, and once more breasted the rising and falling waves, b.u.mpus shook his head dismally, and loudly hoped he would not once more have to spend all his time feeding the fishes. But his fears proved groundless, for they had apparently become used to the motion of the waves, and not one of them became seasick again that day.

CHAPTER XIII

UP AGAINST IT AGAIN

"Everything is lovely, and the goose hangs high! This makes the fifth day since we started out; and things seem to be going along right smoothly at the old stand, don't they, fellows?"

Giraffe asked this question. He was lying on his back on top of the hunting-cabin of the little cruiser, taking what he termed a "sun bath;"

but which some of his chums always called "being too lazy too move."

"And so far none of us have felt the least bit seasick again," remarked Step Hen, with what sounded like a fervent note of thanksgiving in his voice, as though of all the mean things he could imagine, that of feeling a sinking sensation at the pit of the stomach excelled.

"And I'm still leading Giraffe by three fish," declared b.u.mpus; "besides having caught the biggest fish and the longest one in the bargain.

Better wake up, and get a move on you, Giraffe, or be counting on doing all the drudgery when we have that blow-out supper on our return home."

"I ain't worrying any, b.u.mpus," lazily returned the other; "fact is, it tickles me just to see you hustle around in your great fishing stunt.

Sure you're getting peaked, and as thin as anything, after such unusual exertions. I wouldn't be surprised if some show offered you a job as the Living Skeleton, if this thing keeps up much longer, because you're fading away right along."

b.u.mpus looked himself all over, and if there was a shade of anxiety on his rosy face it did not stay there long.

"I only wished what you said was half-way true, Giraffe," he sighed; "but seems like nothing is ever agoing to take off two pounds from my weight. I can't honestly see where there's a mite of a change; and I know you can't neither. Stop your kidding, and get your lines out again. I had a sure-enough nibble right then, and if you don't look out, I'll be pulling in a dandy fish."

"Wake me up when you do, and I'll start in. You get 'em worked-up like, and then I'll show you how to do the trick. Up to now I've just been playing possum, you know, but look out whenever I do get going."

"Bah! who's afraid?" scoffed the fat scout, finding a use for his favorite expression, to show his contempt for the threat of Giraffe.

"But we've gone over a heap of ground during the five days we've been afloat on this inland sea, haven't we, boys?" remarked Step Hen.

"I'd like to, know why you call it ground, when, we've been moving over water all the time?" observed Davy, who was not as happy as most of his chums, because this way of living offered him no chance to climb trees, and hang from limbs, as was his favorite habit; and therefore time hung heavy on his hands, so that he grew restless.

"Oh! well, it doesn't make any difference that I can see," replied Step Hen; "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, they say. But we have covered a heap of distance, you'll admit, Davy."

"Yes, and had lots of fun in the bargain," Allan put in.

"Thanks to the weather man for keeping things nice for us, and not allowing any storm along," suggested b.u.mpus.

"Well, you may have reason to change your tune soon, old fellow," warned Giraffe with an ominous shake of his head.

"Now, what makes you go and say that, Giraffe? Do you know anything, or are you just trying to bother me on general principles?" demanded the stout boy, aggressively.

"Well, perhaps you didn't know it," remarked the other, carelessly, "but latterly I've taken a notion to study to become a weather prophet. On the sly I've been getting all the information about goose bones, and all sorts of signs, wherever I could strike the same. Then I've studied up how the fellows down at Washington make their guesses, and I'm getting there right smart. Why, every morning now, for the last three days I've told myself it was agoing to be fair, and she was, sure pop. Understand that, b.u.mpus?"

"I thought something was bothering you, and keeping you from getting as many fish as I did; but what about this morning, Giraffe, did it look any different to you; and is the good weather acoming to an end?" asked b.u.mpus.

"The signs all pointed to a change this morning," replied the other.

"Now, don't expect me to go into particulars, because there ain't any need of more'n one weather sharp in our crowd. And say, just cast your eye over there to the southwest; don't you see that low bank of clouds along the horizon? Well, when they get to moving up on us, we're bound to have, high winds, and p'raps a regular howler of a storm."

b.u.mpus' face a.s.sumed a serious look as he turned quickly to the scout-master.

"What do you say, Thad?" he queried, for it was never possible to know whether Giraffe were working off one of his little practical jokes or not, he had such a way of looking very solemn, even while chuckling inwardly.

"I don't count much on his knowledge of telling in the morning what sort of a day it's going to be," replied the other, with a shake of the head; "but what he says about those clouds is as near facts as Giraffe ever gets."

"Then there is a storm bound to swoop down on us?" demanded b.u.mpus, as he cast a nervous glance around at the watery expanse; for they were far out on the lake.

"I'm afraid we'll have a rough night of it," Thad confessed; "but if we're only safe in a harbor by evening, we won't need to bother our heads any about that."

"Then we won't have any trouble about making that safe harbor, will we?"

continued b.u.mpus, who could be very positive and persistent whenever he wanted to know anything, so that it was a difficult thing to shunt him aside.

"If the engine holds out we ought to be there by five, I expect," Thad answered.

b.u.mpus transferred his attention to the working motor; and his look of anxiety increased.

"Seems to me you've been pottering more'n a little with that thing today, Thad," he went on to say.

"Yes, and right now it don't work decent," observed Step Hen. "It misses an explosion every third one, and acts like it might go out of business any minute on us, that's right, fellows."

Some of the rest began to look sober at this. Giraffe, who had thought to have a joke at the expense of his plump rival, no longer lay there, sprawled upon the roof of the hunting cabin of the launch; but sat up to observe the singular actions of the engine for himself. Nor did he, appear to get much consolation from what he discovered.

"I declare now if it ain't a fact, boys," he said, seriously. "She acts mighty like she wanted to throw up the sponge, and let us hustle to get ash.o.r.e the best way we could. Of all the contrary things commend me to a balky engine on a cruiser. And Dr. Hobbs was thinkin' his friend was doing us the greatest favor going to loan him this old trap, that like's not he keeps heavily insured, in the hopes that some fine day she'll go down, when he can buy a newer and better, model with the money he collects."

"Oh! I wouldn't say that, if I were you, Giraffe,"' remarked Thad.

"From the way the gentleman wrote to Dr. Hobbs I'm sure he thought he was doing us a favor; and you know it's bad manners to look a gift horse in the mouth. If he was charging us a round sum for the use of the boat we, might say something; but outside of the gasoline we consume we don't have to put out a cent."

"But do you really expect the rickety old engine'll go back on us before we get to that harbor you're heading for?" demanded b.u.mpus.

"How can I tell?" Thad replied. "I'm doing everything I know of to coax it to be good. If anybody has a scheme for helping along, the rest of us would be glad to listen to the same, and take it up too, if there was a ghost of a show that we could profit by doing that."

Apparently n.o.body did have any idea of bettering conditions as they now prevailed; for not a word came in reply, to Thad's request for several minutes. During this time the boys sat there and watched the queer actions of the engine that Thad was bending over, now doing this and again that in order to see whether he could not obtain more profitable results from the laboring motor.

"I s'pose now," b.u.mpus finally did muster up courage enough to say, "if it came to the worst, and you saw we couldn't make that harbor, why, you might head her on to the beach, so that we could get ash.o.r.e, no matter what, happened to the old ship?"

"Yes, how about that, Thad?" questioned Step Hen, as though somehow a thought along the same lines might have been pa.s.sing through his mind just then.

Thad shook his head in the negative.

"That would be a risky proceeding, at any time," he observed, "when you consider that the sh.o.r.e along here is composed of sharp-pointed rocks, and that if there was any sea on at all we'd probably be wrecked long before we could land. That must mean we'd all be thrown into the surf, and perhaps lose our lives trying to swim ash.o.r.e among the rocks. No we'll have to try some other plan than that, or else stick to the boat, and hope the storm won't be so very bad after all."

"Well, one thing sure," said Davy Jones, who had not taken any part in this conversation thus far, "the clouds are coming along right speedy.

Since I first took note they've crept up till they look twice as big now."