The Adventure Club Afloat Part 26

In the meanwhile, after a day of uncertainty, the _Follow Me_ was located by telegraph at Jonesport. "All well. Sailing for Camden tomorrow. Meet you there" was the reply from Harry Corwin. Steve and Phil, watching seaward from the deck of the _Adventurer_, sitting high up on a marine railway, thought that they made out the _Follow Me_ about ten o'clock the next morning, but couldn't be sure. The two boys, captain and first mate, lived aboard and took their meals wherever they could get them. They were there just six days and had a very happy if unexciting time. Several absurd epistles reached them from Camden, all of which indicated that the other members of the Adventure Club were enjoying themselves hugely. At last, s.h.i.+ning with new paint and polished bra.s.s and refurnished with new curtains, the _Adventurer_ slid down the railway again, floated out from the cradle and pointed her nose toward Pen.o.bscot Bay. In the middle of a bright Friday afternoon she dropped anchor alongside her companion craft, Phil doing wild and ecstatic things with the whistle and eliciting no response from the _Follow Me_.

Steve and Phil donned proper sh.o.r.e-going togs and tumbled into the dingey. The _Follow Me_ was totally deserted, which accounted for the fact that, while their noisy arrival had aroused not a little interest on other craft, the _Follow Me_ had received them very coldly. They found some of the party at the hotel and the others rounded up later.

Everyone was flatteringly glad to see the new arrivals again, but none more so than Perry. Perry was absolutely pathetic in his greetings and refused to let Steve out of his sight for an instant.

"I'm quite taken by surprise," declared Steve. "I knew you loved me devotedly, Perry, but this is--this is really touching!"

Perry grew a trifle red and coughed. "Er--well--I hope so," he blurted.

"You hope so? Hope what?"

"Hope it's touching," explained the other, grinning. "You see, I'm flat broke, Steve, and so is everyone else, or pretty near, and if you could lend me a couple of dollars--"

"I feared it wasn't all just affection," sighed Steve, reaching for his purse. "But it was worth the price, Perry!"

"Much obliged! You--you might make it three, if you don't mind. I owe Han fifty cents and Ossie a quarter--no, thirty-five--"

"Here's five, you spendthrift. Let me have it back as soon as you can, though, for I'm down near the bottom myself."

"I will, Steve. I've sent for some and it ought to be along in a day or two. Money doesn't last any time here!"

Friends and acquaintances made during their former visit had done everything possible to make the boys' stay so very more than pleasant, and when the matter of going on was introduced the suggestion met with scant sympathy. However, Steve was not at all averse to a week or so of lotus eating and, having satisfied his conscience by the proposal, he settled down, to enjoy himself with the rest. His friends ash.o.r.e were lavish with hospitality, while "Globbins the Speed Fiend," as Perry had dubbed the freckle-faced proprietor of the restless automobile, was indefatigably attentive. A second letter from Neil, forwarded from one port of call to another in their wake, reached them one day, and they composed a reply between them and all hands signed it. Neil was having rather a dull time of it, they gathered, and they hoped their letter would cheer him up a bit.

At last, when they had, after two postponements, fixed a day of departure, a storm that tied up s.h.i.+pping all along the North Atlantic Coast for four days caused a final delay, and consequently it was well toward the last of August when they said good-bye and set forth for Squirrel Island. No one particularly cared to visit Squirrel Island save Han, who had friends there, but as there was still a full week at their disposal they were in no great hurry and one port was as good as another. They remained there a day and then made Portland. At Portland supplies were put in, and one Wednesday morning they picked up the anchor at a little after six o'clock and started for Provincetown with the fine determination to cover the distance of approximately a hundred and twenty-five miles before they sat down to supper. That they didn't do so was no fault of either the _Adventurer_ or the _Follow Me_.

It was about half-past eight that Phil, sitting on the forward cabin roof with his back braced against the smokestack, called Steve's attention to an object far off to port. They had then put some thirty miles between them and Portland and were twenty miles off Cape Nedd.i.c.k.

The morning was lowery, with occasional spatters of rain, and the storm, which had blown off to the northward the day before, had left a heavy sea running. For an hour the _Adventurer_ and the _Follow Me_ had been climbing up the slopes of grey-green swells and sliding down into swirling troughs, and for a minute Steve couldn't find the dark speck at which Phil was pointing. When he did at last sight it over the tumbled mounds of water he stared in puzzlement a moment before he took the binoculars from their place and fitted them to his eyes. He looked long and then silently handed the gla.s.ses through the window to Phil, punched two shrill blasts on the whistle and swung the wheel to port.

"Looks like a wreck," said Phil, after an inspection of the distant object. "Going to see?"

Steve nodded. "Might be someone aboard," he answered. "We can tell in another mile or so, I guess."

Phil gave up the gla.s.ses to the others, who had cl.u.s.tered to the bridge, while the _Follow Me_ altered her course in obedience to the signal, her company probably wondering why Steve had suddenly chosen to stand out to sea. At the end of ten minutes it was plainly to be determined with the aid of the binoculars that the object which had attracted their attention and curiosity was without any doubt a wreck, and as the _Adventurer_ drew momentarily closer her plight was seen to be extreme.

Whether anyone remained aboard was still a question when the cruiser was a mile distant, but everything pointed against it. The craft, which proved to be a small coasting schooner, had evidently seen a lot of trouble. Both masts were broken off, the foremast close to the deck and the mainmast some dozen feet above it. She lay low in the water, with her decks piled high with lumber. A tangle of spars and ropes hung astern, but save for her cargo the decks had been swept clean. She was a sad sight even at that distance, and more than one aboard the _Adventurer_ felt the pathos of her.

"No sign of life," said Steve. "If anyone was aboard there'd be a signal flying. And the boats are all gone, too, although that wouldn't mean much in itself because they might have been swept away. I guess, though, it got a bit too strenuous and the crew remembered the 'Safety First'

slogan. There's nothing we can do, anyway."

He started to swing the cruiser about again, but Perry intervened.

"She's a whatyoucallit!" he exclaimed excitedly. "She's--"

"No, little one," Joe corrected gently, "she's a wreck."

"She's a derelict," persisted Perry eagerly, "and no one belongs to her!

If we got her she'd belong to us, Steve! Wouldn't she?"

"I suppose she would," replied Steve dubiously, his hand hesitating on the wheel, "but finding her and getting her are two mighty different things, Perry. If we _could_ get her she'd be a nice prize, I guess, for lumber's worth real money these days, and although she isn't very big it's safe to say she's got quite a bunch of it on her, below deck and above. I guess that lumber is what kept her afloat, from the looks of the hull."

"Let's see what we can do," said Han. "Someone will find her and--"

"It might as well be us," added Perry enthusiastically. "Couldn't we tow her, Steve!"

"Tow her! Gee, she'd follow about as easily as a brick house!"

"But if we both pulled--"

"Well"--Steve cast an appraising eye at the weather--"I'm game to try it if the rest of you say so. Full steam ahead, Mr. Chapman!"

CHAPTER XXI

ON BOARD THE _CATSPAW_

Steve communicated the project to those aboard the _Follow Me_ which had now drawn up as near as she dared, and there followed a moment of blank amazement aboard the smaller boat. But discussion there was brief, and almost at once Harry Corwin raised his megaphone again and bellowed across:

"Go to it! What do you want us to do, Steve?"

"Nothing yet," was the answer. "We're going to board her first and see how she looks. If we take on the job we'll want your heaviest cable."

Harry signalled a.s.sent. By this time they were within a hundred yards of the derelict, and, with engines just moving, they tossed about on the long swells and had a better look at the schooner. She was about eighty feet long, with a beam of probably twenty-two, and displaced approximately a hundred tons. She was square-sterned and blunt-nosed, evidently built for capacity rather than speed. Her name, in gold letters on the bow, was quite distinct: _Catspaw_. Later, when they rounded her stern, they saw that her home port was Norfolk. Her cargo, or at least so much of it as was above deck, consisted of rough pine boards, and every available foot of s.p.a.ce was occupied with it. The deck-house was all but hidden. The mainmast dragged by a tangle of ropes aft of the starboard beam and was acting as a sort of sea-anchor. For the rest, her lumber-piled deck was swept clean save for a splintered gaff that had become wedged in the boards. Her hull had been painted black, but not very recently, and a dingy white streak led along the side.

The two cruisers worked cautiously around to the leeward side of the _Catspaw_, the _Adventurer's_ tender was dropped over and Steve, Joe and Han climbed in. Boarding in that sea was no child's work, for the big swells, which slammed into and sometimes over the schooner without much effect, tossed the dingey high in air. But by rowing hard at first and then taking advantage of the quieter water near the schooner they at last reached the old black hull in safety and, while Han managed the boat-hook, the other two scrambled aboard.

As they had suspected, the hulk was utterly deserted, and the fact that the forecastle and the captain's quarters were bare of anything of value and that the davits were empty indicated that the vessel had been abandoned in order. There was a good deal of water in her, but, as Steve pointed out, she wouldn't sink in a dozen years with that load of lumber to hold her up. "She wouldn't show much speed," he said when they had completed their investigations and were once more on deck, "and she'll tow about as easy as a lump of lead, but it's only thirty miles or so to Portsmouth, and even if we make only two miles an hour, and I guess we won't make much more, we can get her there tomorrow. That is, we can if our cables hold and the weather doesn't get nasty. I don't much like the looks of that same weather, though."

"Well, the barometer is rising," said Joe, "and that means--"

"Never mind your old barometer," laughed Steve. "Anyway, we'll have a go at this. If we have to give it up, all right, but we'd be silly not to try it. Come on and we'll get the cables aboard."

Two hours of hard work followed. With the cruisers tagging along nearby, suiting their pace to the slow drift of the schooner, the boys cut away the wreckage and rigged a jury-mast at the stump of the foremast. On this they spread a spare forestaysail which they dug from the sail locker. That it would aid greatly in the s.h.i.+p's progress Steve did not expect, but it would, he figured, make steering easier. Then the cruiser's heaviest anchor cables were taken aboard and made fast at the bow. A "prize crew" consisting of Joe, Han and Perry, from the _Adventurer_, and Wink and Bert, from the _Follow Me_, was placed in charge and enough food for two meals supplied them. The galley stove was still in running order, although it reeked of grease, and there was a fair supply of wood handy. Bert Alley, who had volunteered to do the cooking, objected to an inch or so of water that swashed around the floor, but the others pulled a pair of old rubber boots from a chest in the forecastle and he became reconciled. At noon they all returned to their respective cruisers and ate dinner, which, under the conditions, was no easy matter. They had to hold the dishes to the table and swallow their tea between plunges. Joe was inordinately proud of himself that day, for, in spite of the nasty motion--and there's nothing much more likely to induce sickness than a long ground-swell--he not only remained on duty but consumed his dinner with a fine appet.i.te. It rained quite hard for a half-hour about noon and then ceased just in time for them to set off to the _Catspaw_ again. It was decided that the _Follow Me's_ tender was to be left with the schooner, in case of necessity, and Joe acknowledged that he felt a bit easier in his mind when it had been hoisted, not without difficulty, to one of the davits.

"It's all fine and dandy to say that this old tub can't sink," he confided to Wink Wheeler, "but--um--suppose she _did_ sink? Then that little old dingey would be worth about a thousand dollars, I guess."

"It would be worth about ten cents," answered Wink pessimistically, "after we'd crowded five fellows into her in a sea like this!"

"Well, anyway, she's bigger than ours," said Joe. "And I saw a life belt downstairs--I mean below."

Joe and Wink were to take watches at the wheel, Perry and Han were to tend to the sail and keep a lookout and Bert was to cook. Steve issued his final directions at a little past one and then the two hawsers were stretched to the cruisers. Another squall of rain set in as the final preparations were made. A code of signals had been arranged between the three boats, a flag or piece of sailcloth to be used while the light held and a lantern after darkness. The "prize crew" cheered gaily as the others pulled away in the _Adventurer's_ dingey and were cheered in return, and five minutes later the two cables tautened, the water foamed under the overhangs of the motor-boats and, reluctantly and even protestingly, the _Catspaw_ obeyed the summons and started slowly to follow in the wakes of the distant cruisers.

Han and Perry, at the bow, waved caps triumphantly as the blunt nose of the schooner began to dig into the waves, and Joe, at the wheel, shouted back. The three-cornered sail was s.h.i.+fted to meet the following breeze and soon the _Catspaw_ was wallowing along slowly but, as it seemed, in a determined way at the rate of, perhaps, three miles an hour. Perry, protected by a slicker, seated himself on the windla.s.s and felt very important. Now and then someone aboard one of the cruisers waved a hand and Perry waved superbly back. Those cruisers were a long way off in case of danger, he reflected once, but he decided not to let his mind dwell on the fact.

Joe found that the wheel of the _Catspaw_ required a good deal more attention than that of the _Adventurer_, and his arms were fairly tired by the time he yielded his place to the impatiently eager Wink.

Steering the _Catspaw_ with the sea almost up to her deck line was a good deal like steering a scow loaded with pig-iron, Joe decided. Not, of course, that he had ever steered a scow of any sort, but he had imagination.

The _Adventurer_ and _Follow Me_ were heading West Southwest one-fourth West to pa.s.s Boon Island to starboard, and Kittery Point lay some thirty miles away. As it was then just short of three bells, and as they were making, as near as those aboard the _Catspaw_ could judge, very nearly three miles an hour, it seemed probable that by two o'clock that night they would be at anchor off Portsmouth Harbour. Of course, there was always the possibility of bad weather or a broken cable, but the _Catspaw's_ crew declined to be pessimistic. They were having a royal good time. There was enough danger in the enterprise to make it exciting, and, being normal, healthy chaps, excitement was better than food. Perry proclaimed his delight at last finding an adventure quite to his taste.

"Being wrecked on that island the other day was poor fun," he declared.