The Iron Boys on the Ore Boats Part 18

Rush decided to investigate his island the next thing he did. So he climbed down to the beach again and began following the coast line. As he went on he found traces indicating that some one had been there.

There were chicken bones and the charred embers of a recent fire in one spot. Steve came to the conclusion that fishermen had been on the island not long since. If this were so there were hopes that they or some of their kind would visit the place again. Steve walked the greater part of the day. On one side of the island he saw a large bay. Across a point of what he judged to be the mainland, he could see another bay and beyond that a cloud in the sky that looked like smoke.

"There must be a large town or a city over yonder, but I don't know what it is. I do not even know whether I am in the United States or Canada."

All day long the lad tramped. When night came he was hungry, stiff and weak. Had it not been for his splendid const.i.tution and great endurance he would have given up long before that.

Just before dark he caught sight of a small sailboat slipping easily along, headed, he thought, for the larger bay on beyond the narrow point of land.

Steve hailed the craft. One man in the stern of the boat stood up and gazed sh.o.r.eward through a gla.s.s. Rush swung his arms and shouted that he wanted to be taken off the island. The man in the stern calmly closed his gla.s.ses and sat down, while the boat held steadily to her course.

Steve sat down, too. He was not so much discouraged as he was angry and disgusted.

"Why couldn't he have sailed somewhere so I wouldn't have seen him, instead of drifting by so tantalizingly near me?" he cried.

There being no answer to the question, Rush began looking about for a place to sleep. The best he could do was a spot just under a ledge of rock. The boy went down to the beach and brought back his life raft, the piece of a deck house door on which he had floated ash.o.r.e. This he carried up to his bedroom under the ledge and stood it against the rocks.

"That will do very well, in the absence of something better," he decided grinning as broadly as the drawn muscles of his face would permit him to do.

Then Steve crawled under this rude shelter, drawing his coat as closely about him as possible and went sound asleep.

Steve was exhausted bodily and mentally, and it was not to be wondered at considering what he had gone through in the last twelve hours.

Besides this he had had nothing to eat since supper on the previous day.

The following morning Rush did not awaken until the sunlight warmed his bedroom. He crawled out, rubbed his eyes and looked about him.

"Well, if it isn't morning! But maybe it's the next morning; maybe I slept a day and a night."

He had now lost all track of time. Steve sat down to think matters over calmly. His position was a serious one and he understood that full well.

"If I remain here another day I shall be unable to get away," he mused.

"Then I shall in all probability starve to death. That won't do. I don't propose to give up as long as I have any strength left in me, and I guess I have a little, even after what I have pa.s.sed through."

Rush sat studying the narrow stretch of water separating him from the slender neck of land that he had observed the day before.

"It can't be more than three miles across there. If I had had a good meal this morning I believe I could swim across to the other sh.o.r.e. That looks to me like the mainland. There is surely something on beyond there several miles away. I wonder if I dare try to swim it?"

A little reflection convinced the lad that such an attempt could end but one way--he would drown before he reached the neck of land.

His eyes roved about, after a while resting reflectively on the piece of deck-house door that had served his purpose so well after the sinking of the steamer. A look of new-found intelligence gradually grew in his eyes.

"The very thing! Hurrah!" he cried, springing up and dancing about, forgetful for the moment, that he needed all the strength he had left.

"I swam on the door all night. Surely I can stand a few hours more on it in the bright sunlight. Why didn't I think of it before?"

Rush lost no time in acting upon the suggestion that had come to him. He grabbed up the cabin door and began staggering down the rocks with it.

The door was heavy and he was weak. Once he stumbled and fell. The door went clattering down over the rocks, Steve bringing up in a heap some distance above it.

"There, I'll bet it's broken. If it is I'm done for."

But the door was not broken. It was tough enough to stand the hard usage to which it had been subjected. Steve was after it with a shout as soon as he saw that it had not been split.

After that he proceeded more carefully; within a few minutes he reached the beach with his burden. There the lad paused to think over the best way to go about his own rescue. He took off his coat slowly, folded and placed it on the door, then removing his suspenders he tied the coat fast to his raft.

"There, I think that's all I had better take off or I shall get chilled again."

After a final, sweeping glance at the sea, the lad shoved the raft, or rather one end of it, into the water and sat down on the beach to rest and gather courage for the great undertaking before him.

"It beats all what a man will do for the sake of a meal," he grinned. "I might stay on this island all summer, and have a pretty good time, were it possible for me to get along without food. But, no; I've got to eat or I'll die. Well, here goes."

He shoved the door out into the water, pushing it along ahead of him until the water was up to his shoulders. Rush then slid his body up on the raft and began paddling with his hands and kicking his feet, pushing himself along, heading around a curve of the island, for the extreme narrow point of land jutting out into the lake.

CHAPTER XI

BY PLUCK ALONE

AFTER half an hour of steady paddling, Rush shoved his coat up for a pillow and lay flat on the slender raft to rest himself. He was breathing hard from his exertions; in fact, he was well nigh exhausted.

But the Iron Boy's pluck was of the same quality as ever. Nothing could weaken that, no matter how dire his predicament.

"I could make better time swimming," he mused, raising his head a little and gazing longingly at the sh.o.r.e that now seemed farther off than before, "if I only dared. I don't mean that; I do dare, but it would not be prudent. I want to get to the mainland, and I think my present method is the best one to get me there. Well, I must start the engines going again," decided the lad, grinning at his own humor.

Had any one chanced to be looking in his direction from the sh.o.r.e, that person probably would have thought he was gazing upon some strange creature from the deep, for Steve was making the water foam all about him. His head and the end of the board were all that were visible above the surface. Once he paddled so fast as to cause him to lose his balance. His raft turned turtle, landing Rush on his back in the water.

Laughing almost gleefully at his own misfortune, the lad, in a few swift strokes, regained the door.

"That was just so much effort wasted," he remarked. "I must remember that I am not running a race. I ought to be in pretty good trim for one, though; if I get through with this one I shall be fit for most any kind of an old race that I come across."

For the rest of the journey Steve made no attempt to spurt. He paddled along steadily, making slow but sure progress toward the goal on which his eyes were continually fixed.

The sun was at its zenith when, slipping from the board, he found solid rock under his feet. Steve tried to shout, but he was too worn to raise his voice. He clung to the door until it grounded with a grating sound on the beach. Steve lay there for a few minutes. Then he staggered to his feet, making his way up the beach a few feet from the water, there to throw himself on the ground exhausted.

For nearly two hours he lay resting, having fallen into a deep sleep.

Then he awakened, sat up, resting his head in his hands for one last little wink, the wink that was to give the lad the strength and courage to take up his journey.

"h.e.l.lo, what's the matter?"

Rush started up suddenly. He saw before him a boy somewhat younger than himself, dressed in rough clothes. The boy was carrying part of a fish net.

"Say, I'm glad to see you, and don't you forget it," exclaimed the Iron Boy, striding forward and grasping the hand of the other lad, much to the latter's astonishment. "Who are you?"

"I'm Billy Trimmer. I am a fisherman--me and my father."

"Do you live near here?" asked Steve eagerly, with visions of a meal before him.

"Nope. We live over yonder," pointing to the cloud of smoke that was now much more plainly in evidence than before.

"Is that a town over there?"