The Rival Campers Part 24

"Hulloa," he said, laconically. "You all ain't been over much to see us lately."

"No, but we thought we would make a call to-day," said George. "Will you come out and get us? We left the tender behind. We're going around the island."

For answer the man shoved his dory off the beach, stepped in, and sculled out to them with one oar out over the stern.

"Climb in here sort of easy like, now," said he, "and I guess I can take the whole of you ash.o.r.e at one load. If you two ain't used to this craft," he added, addressing Tom and Bob, "you want to look out some, for its tippery and no mistake, though there ain't no better boat when you know how to behave in it."

"I guess it's something like our canoe," said Tom. "We're used to that, so I think we'll manage. Perhaps you never saw a canoe."

"Not as I know of," returned the other. "Though I do recall seeing what I thought must be one, from what I've heard, going along the sh.o.r.e down below here about an hour ago."

"It couldn't have been a canoe," said Bob, "for ours is the only one on the island, and that is locked up safe at home in the Warren's shed."

"Mebbe not," replied Dave Benson. "I ain't sure at all. I just noticed there was two boys in it, and they were on their knees and pus.h.i.+ng it along with what you call paddles, I think."

Tom and Bob looked at each other blankly.

"It can't be possible," said Tom, at length. "I left ours locked up safe enough. Dave's made a mistake."

"Got any corn?" asked Arthur.

"Yes, there's some growing out there, I reckon. You can go out and pick what you want and gimme what you like for it. It's good and sweet, I reckon."

"And lobsters, how about them?" asked young Joe.

"Well, I haven't pulled the pots to-day," said Dave. "You can go and do that, too, I reckon. There ought to be some there. I baited them all fresh with cunners and sculpins last night."

"Let me go and pull them," said Bob. "I never caught a lobster. Come on, Joe, you can show me how and I'll do the work."

"Did you ever handle a dory?" asked Dave.

"No," answered Bob, "but I'm used to a canoe."

"And did you ever pull a lobster-pot?"

"No, never saw one."

"Then you want to look out," said Dave, and took himself off into his house, leaving the boys to themselves.

Bob got another oar, and, with young Joe in the stern, rowed out a few rods toward some ledges, where Dave had indicated that the lobster-pots were set.

"Did you ever pull a lobster-pot, Joe?" asked Bob, as they came in sight of half a dozen small wooden buoys, about as big as ten-pins, floating at a short distance from one another, with ropes attached.

"No, I never did," replied Joe; "but I've seen it done and it looks easy.

You just lift the pot aboard the boat and open a trap-door and take out the lobsters. Only you want to look out how you take hold of one of them, that's all. It's all right if you take him by the back."

On sh.o.r.e, seated on a huge stick of timber, washed ash.o.r.e long ago and half-imbedded in the sand, the other boys watched the proceedings with interest.

"Bob will do it all right, of course," said George, winking slyly at Arthur. "It's a simple enough trick, only it is harder in a dory than in a boat with a keel to it, for a dory slides off so."

"Just like a canoe," said Tom.

"By the way," he added, "is a lobster-pot heavy?"

"That's the deceptive part of it," replied George. "It's a great big cage made of laths with a bottom of boards, and it comes to the surface easy because the water buoys it up. It's the lifting it out that fools one.

It's got three or four big stones in it to weigh it down, and you have got to bring it out of water with a sudden lift or it will stick half-way."

In the meantime, Bob, having grasped one of the floating buoys, proceeded to haul in the slack of the rope, which was quite long, to allow for the tide, which was now low.

"It comes up easy," he said to Joe, as he drew it up slowly to the surface, hand over hand. "Here she comes now. Wait till it lands on the gunwale and then lean over on the other side, so we won't capsize." Bob grasped the slats of the big cage and lifted manfully.

The lobster-pot came up all right, as George had explained, till, just at the point where it should have left the water, it stopped suddenly and stuck like a bar of lead. Unluckily, Bob had not counted on that extra weight of stone inside, nor on the loss of the buoyancy of the water. At the same instant, moreover, young Joe, seeing the cage strike the gunwale, s.h.i.+fted over to the other side of the dory. This settled the matter. The pot lodged half-way over one gunwale, hung there for a moment, long enough to careen the crank thing down on its side; Bob and Joe both lost their balance and slid the same way, the dory filled with water, and boys and lobster-pot slumped into the sea.

The boys on sh.o.r.e set up a roar at the mishap of their comrades, while long Dave Benson, emerging once more from his cabin door, was heard to chuckle as he strode down to the sh.o.r.e and shoved off his rowboat.

"It's just like a canoe, exactly," he muttered, "just like it-only it's so different." And he doubled up at the oars and laughed silently.

Bob and Joe, coming to the surface, puffing and blowing water, were pleased to note the sympathy displayed for them in four boyish forms, rolling off the log and holding on to their sides with laughter. Nor did the keenness of this sympathy abate the whole evening long, for every now and then one of them might be heard to repeat the language of Dave Benson, as he glanced significantly at the others, "It's just like a canoe-only it's so different."

However, Bob and Joe, being duly scrubbed down and invested in a change of duck clothing from the locker of the _Spray_, did not relish any the less the supper that awaited them, of broiled live lobster, cooked over a glowing bed of coals on the beach, and corn that was as sweet as Dave Benson had promised. They took their chaffing as good fellows and comrades are bound to do, only vowing inwardly to bide their time for revenge.

Then, as night was coming on, they set up their fly-tent on a clean, dry part of the beach, well beyond the reach of the tide, spread down their blankets, and Tom and Bob and Henry Burns turned in to sleep there, leaving the little cabin of the _Spray_ for the Warren boys.

"Bob," said Tom, "did you hear what Dave Benson said as he brought in the capsized dory, with the lobsters, too?"

"He said it was 'just like a canoe, only-'"

"Oh, you dry up, Tom," exclaimed Bob. "Your turn will come next, so don't rub it in."

And they went off soundly to sleep.

The next morning, when they awoke, they found that the wind had altered and was beginning to blow up from the southward. They must, therefore, beat their way down to the foot of the island, some ten miles distant, against a head wind and sea, for a southerly always rolled in more or less of a sea after it had blown for an hour or so.

"Come again," called out Dave Benson, as they left his cabin astern, and he stood waving them farewell with his weather-beaten hat.

"I'd just like to know what he meant when he said he saw a canoe out here," said Tom. "I know ours is all right, but he certainly did describe a canoe, when he spoke about its being paddled, and ours is the only one I know of around here."

"Yes, and he saw it last night, or, rather, yesterday afternoon," said Bob, "and n.o.body would have disturbed ours in broad daylight, at any rate."

But about an hour later, they came suddenly to the conclusion that Dave Benson knew what he was talking about, when Henry Burns exclaimed all at once: "Why, there it is now. Dave Benson was right, after all. That's a canoe, down about a mile ahead, just off that white line of beach, and there are two paddling it."

The boys looked in amazement. There could be no mistaking it. Henry Burns had surely spied a canoe. They could make it out quite plainly, pitching slightly in the sea, with apparently some one at either end.

"Quick, get the gla.s.s, Joe," cried George Warren, who had the tiller.

"It's in the locker in the cabin, you know. That will show us just who it is."

Young Joe dived below and reappeared the next instant, bringing a small telescope.

"Here," he said, handing it to Tom, "take a look at them."