The Rival Campers Part 25

Tom adjusted the focus of the gla.s.s and sighted the craft ahead, then exclaimed, excitedly: "Yes, it's them, sure enough. It's Harvey and Joe Hinman and it's the canoe. We've got them, too, if the _Spray_ can only catch them. We're sure to get the canoe, at any rate, for they can't run far or fast with that on their shoulders, if they see us and take to the sh.o.r.e. We know what it is to try to hurry with that."

"That we do," returned Bob. "Let me have a look, Tom."

"Cracky!" he exclaimed, as he put the gla.s.s down almost as soon as he had sighted it. "Who'd have thought they would have had the nerve to get that in broad daylight? They must know they are sure to be seen in it, too.

What on earth can Harvey be thinking of?"

"We'll set the club topsail and the other jib in a hurry," said George, "and perhaps we can overhaul them before they see us."

They got the extra sail on in a twinkling and laid the course of the _Spray_ a little closer into the wind. Fifteen minutes went by, and they had made rapid progress in overhauling the canoe. They made short tacks, so as not to be seen by the paddlers, if possible, by keeping so far as they could in a line with the stern of the canoe.

Presently, however, the boy who was wielding the stern paddle turned and looked back, and they could see plainly that it was Harvey.

He must have seen them, too, and been vastly surprised, for, carrying across the strip of land at the Narrows, he had surely expected to meet no familiar yacht in the western bay. The occupants of the canoe turned their craft more in toward sh.o.r.e, though not directly, and, at least so it seemed to the boys, began paddling desperately, as though they hoped to escape.

If they had thought they could run away from the _Spray_ in this way, they soon found out their mistake, for the Spray continued rapidly to overhaul them.

Turning squarely in toward the sh.o.r.e, Harvey and Joe Hinman soon reached it, jumped out, and drew the canoe far up on the beach. Their next move surprised the crew of the Spray. Leaving the canoe in full sight on the beach, Harvey and Joe Hinman walked deliberately away, without so much as looking back at their pursuers.

"That's a mighty strange performance," exclaimed George Warren. "I don't understand that at all."

There was no place to run the _Spray_ in close to sh.o.r.e, so they rounded to some thirty feet out, and Tom and Bob, hastily throwing off their clothes, dived overboard and swam to the beach.

Tom was the first to reach the canoe; but, as he came upon it and turned it over, he uttered a cry of astonishment.

"They've fooled us this time, sure enough," he said to Bob, who came panting up. "It isn't our canoe."

The canoe, in fact, was new.

It was enough like theirs to be its mate, both as to size and colour, but there was not a scratch upon it nor upon the paddles. The canoe could not have been used more than once or twice since it had left the maker's hands.

"The joke is on us," cried Bob to the boys in the _Spray_. "It's another canoe. Harvey's 'governor,' as he calls him, must have bought it for him and sent it down on the boat yesterday. He doesn't seem to be afraid to trust us with his property, which is more than we would do with him."

"Perhaps he would rather trust the canoe with us than to trust himself with all of us just at this time," replied Tom. "I feel like taking it along with us, to make him give up our tent, but I'm afraid that wouldn't do. We can't prove that he has it, either."

Harvey and Joe Hinman had clearly left the canoe to its fate, so there was nothing to do but to swim aboard the _Spray_ again, and the voyage down the island was resumed.

"There's one thing about it," said Tom, as he scrambled into his clothing once more, "if Jack Harvey is as reckless and as careless in that canoe as he is in his yacht it will be washed up on sh.o.r.e some day without him.

Not that I hope it will happen, but I look to see it."

"I don't think he was born to be drowned," said Henry Burns.

Toward noon they came in sight of the southern extremity of the island, or the extremities, to speak more accurately, for the end of the island here was divided into a succession of thin points of land of various shapes, affording a number of small, rockbound harbours, snug and secluded, and each making good shelter for small vessels.

They selected one of these, and, as they knew the waters to be filled with a species of small cod, they determined to lay up here for the afternoon and night, starting out again the next morning. They brought the _Spray_ well in to the head of the harbour which they selected, so that it was almost wholly land-locked when they dropped anchor and furled their sails.

Toward evening the wind decreased, dying out almost entirely. Big banks of clouds piling up in the northwest told them that they might expect the breeze from that quarter in the morning.

It was getting dusk and they were cooking their supper in the little cabin of the _Spray_, when young Joe, looking out of the companionway, exclaimed: "Why, here comes company; another yacht's going to lie in here for the night, too."

Looking out, they saw a big black sloop coming slowly into the harbour.

She had come up from the southward before the wind, and had only her mainsail set. There was hardly breeze enough to bring her in. She drifted in slowly, with one man at her wheel, and, as she came within hailing distance, young Joe, going forward, swung his cap and shouted, "Ahoy."

The man at the wheel did not respond, but, strangely enough, at the sound of young Joe's voice the yacht slowly turned again, heading completely about, and stood out of the harbour again.

"Doesn't seem to like our company," said Henry Burns.

"Guess he'll have to have it, whether he wants it or not," said George Warren. "There's not wind enough to take him out again, as he will find when he gets the set of the tide at the entrance."

If the helmsman aboard the strange yacht had really intended to quit the harbour again, he found the tide to be as George Warren had said. After vainly trying to make out for a few moments, he left the wheel, ran forward, and the next moment they heard the splash of his anchor. Then the sail dropped and the man went below.

"Whoever they are aboard there, they don't seem inclined to be sociable,"

said Henry Burns. "Well, they don't have to be, if they don't want to."

"Guess they're afraid we'll keep them awake," said George Warren. "They are fishermen, by the looks. See, she carries no topmast, so she is not a pleasure yacht, though she looks from here like a fast boat. They make them good models now, since Burgess began it."

"I guess that's so," said Arthur Warren. "Those fishermen like to sleep nights, after a hard day's work, without being disturbed. I remember one night we laid up in a harbour and began singing college songs, and a crew of them rowed over to us and threatened to lick us if we didn't keep quiet. This fellow doesn't want to be disturbed."

"I'll hail him, anyway, if he comes on deck again," said Henry Burns, "and find out where he is from. I like to know my neighbours."

But the man aboard the strange yacht was not inclined to be neighbourly.

He did not appear on deck again. A thin wreath of smoke curled out of the funnel in his cabin, and they knew he was getting a meal. That was the only sign of life aboard.

Sometime that night-he did not know the hour-Henry Burns awoke, conscious of some sound that had disturbed his light slumbers. Presently he became aware that it was the sound of a sail being hoisted. Getting up softly without disturbing his companions, he crept out of the cabin and looked across the water. The moon was shining, and he could see a lone figure aboard the strange yacht, getting the boat under way.

Henry Burns saw him go forward and labour for awhile at the anchor rope.

Then, for a wind had arisen, the man ran aft to the wheel, and Henry Burns saw the strange yacht go sailing out of the harbour.

"That's a queer thing to do," muttered Henry Burns. "There's something strange about it. He tried to get out before, the minute he saw us.

Cracky! You don't suppose-- No, that's nonsense. I'm getting altogether too suspicious ever since I came across that man Craigie upon the roof of the hotel."

And Henry Burns went back to his bunk again.

CHAPTER XIII.

STORM DRIVEN

When they awoke next morning the wind was blowing heavily from the northwest, and, while the sun was as yet shining brightly, the sky was darkened here and there with banks of clouds, which moved with great rapidity, driven by violent currents. Inside the snug harbour the water was calm, but, looking out beyond on the bay, they could see its surface broken already into big waves.

"Looks like a nasty day outside," remarked George Warren. "I wonder whether we ought to lie in here to-day, or take the chance of clearing the foot of the island before it gets heavier."

"I'd hate to stay here another whole day," said Joe.

"Do you think it's going to blow much harder, George?" inquired Tom.

"I can't say for certain," replied the other, "but it looks as though the wind was going to increase right along."