Frank Roscoe's Secret Part 20

The boys started back for camp. Though the three were, naturally enough, very curious as to where Frank had been, and his object in slipping away, they did not question him. On his part Frank did not again refer to his night's absence, but, when he reached the tent, he crawled into his bed and stayed there until late in the afternoon, for he was very tired.

"I wish we had our boat here," remarked Ned, as later on the four chums strolled off in the direction of the little stream.

"It would be too big for this creek," observed Ned. "If we had a smaller boat, or a canoe, it would do very well."

"Let's make one," suggested Fenn. "There's lots of birch bark here and we can do it in a few days."

"All right," agreed Bart. "We'll start it in the morning. I never made a canoe, but we can't do any worse than try, at any rate."

The boys found it harder work than they had expected, but they had plenty of time and knew something of boat building, for they had constructed several small craft.

They had their knives, and two small hatchets. They used young saplings for keel and the ribs, and, with patience, they managed to strip off enough of the birch bark to cover the canoe.

It took them two days to get all the materials together and then, when the canoe was roughly shaped, they had to spend much more time on it, rendering it water-proof by smearing the seams with pitch and gum which exuded from several trees near at hand. They had used withes of willow to bind the boat together, and, though it was a very crude looking affair, the boys thought it would serve for what they wanted.

They chopped out some rough paddles, and on the fifth day the boat was ready to try. They put it into the water in the evening, and, to their delight, it floated on an even keel, and would hold two of them at a time.

"We'll take turns making a trip to-morrow," said Bart. "It doesn't leak hardly any. It wouldn't take a prize, and it's not much on looks, but it's something to have made a canoe off in the midst of the woods, and with scarcely any tools."

His chums agreed with him, and that night they went to bed thinking of the fun they would have the next day.

Ned was the first to awake. He got up, in accordance with the rule that the earliest riser must build the fire. He looked over toward the cots where his companions slept. As he did so he gave a start.

"Frank is gone!" he called, and Bart and Fenn awakened.

CHAPTER XVIII

A CANOE TRIP

When the completed canoe had been set into the water that evening, a daring plan had entered Frank's mind. On his visit to the sanitarium he had noticed that, at the foot of the cliff, there flowed a stream of water. He thought it might be the same one that ran past the camp, and he determined to learn if this was so.

"If it is, I can make the trip much more quickly than I did before," he said to himself. "I'll try it when the others are asleep."

Frank noted that the boat floated well on the water. It was light, and with one pa.s.senger could easily be propelled, so as to make swift time.

"I'll have the current with me going," the boy thought, as he noted that the stream ran in a general direction toward the sanitarium. "I'll have to paddle back against it. Of course maybe this is not the same creek or river that flows past the cliff, and there may be falls or rapids in it that I can't take the boat through. But it will do no harm to try."

He was all impatience for his companions to go to bed. Fortunately for him they were tired out with the day's labor on the canoe. They prepared an early supper, and, after talking a while around the campfire, discussing what they would do, now that they had a boat, the boys went to their cots.

Frank's bed was nearest the back wall of the tent, and he was glad of this, as it would make his exit easier. He thought his chums would never go to sleep, but at length their heavy and regular breathing told him they were slumbering.

Cautiously he gathered his clothes in a bundle and shoved them out under the tent. He had, unknown to his companions, made up a package of food, as he did not want to get caught again with nothing to eat. Making no noise, he crawled under the tent, as he had done before. He looked at his watch. It was a little after ten o'clock. He hurriedly dressed outside the tent, and then, securing the paddle, he made his way to where the canoe floated in the creek.

It was a bright moonlight night, warm, calm and still. Frank felt just a little uneasiness as he stepped into the boat and shoved off. It was rather a queer thing to do, he thought, and he wondered what his chums would say if they saw him. But, he reflected, it was important to him to solve the secret which bothered him so greatly.

Paddling cautiously, Frank sent the frail craft out into the middle of the stream. There was not much current, but what there was helped him along. He urged the boat forward more rapidly as he left the camp behind, and soon he was half a mile on his strange night journey.

Only for the light draught of the boat Frank would never have been able to get along. Even drawing but a few inches, the canoe several times touched sand bars over which it glided. Frank did not know the channel, and he had to trust to luck. But, as he went on he noticed that the stream was becoming wider and deeper, and he had no fear but that he might continue on for many miles.

"If only it goes in the right direction," he murmured. "It may be an altogether different creek than this which flows past the cliff. If it is I've had all my trouble for nothing. I want to get back before the boys wake up, if I can."

On and on he went. The moon threw fantastic shadows through the trees to the surface of the stream. Now the boat would glide along in the darkness, caused by the overhanging branches, and again it would forge ahead into a bright patch of silvery light.

"I wonder if the telephone line is anywhere in this locality," Frank mused, after he had paddled for an hour or more. "If I could get a glimpse of that I would be reasonably certain I was going in the right direction."

He glanced overhead several times, but could catch no sight of the wire.

Now the boat was going at a more rapid rate as the current was swifter.

The stream twisted and turned, until Frank did not know in which direction he was going.

Suddenly, as he was paddling, he heard a sound that made him draw the blade from the water, and listen intently. It was the noise made by water das.h.i.+ng on rocks, and it seemed but a short distance ahead.

"Falls!" exclaimed the boy. "I've got to get out and carry the boat."

He kept on until, in the moonlight, he could see where there came a break in the stream as it tumbled over a little cliff. Swinging the nose of the canoe ash.o.r.e, Frank grounded the craft and got out. He walked to the edge of the falls and looked at them. They made a beautiful picture in the moonlight, but it was a scene the boy found little pleasure in gazing at.

It meant that he would have to carry the boat around them.

"Well, there's no help for it," he said, with a sigh. "Luckily the canoe is light."

Frank picked it up, and put it over his head and shoulders, as the Maine guides carry their frail craft. The way was rough, and before he was half way past the falls, Frank began to fear he could not make it. But he kept on, and half an hour later he floated the canoe into the quiet waters at the foot of the waterfall. Then he began paddling again.

It was past midnight when the stream, which had now become a little river, took a sudden turn. As he rounded it Frank uttered a half-suppressed exclamation. There ahead of him, perched on the cliff, at the foot of which the river flowed, was the sanitarium.

"That's what I wanted to know," he said, as he steered the canoe over toward the cliff. "I can't do anything to-night, but I might as well go up and take a look around. It may come in useful later."

Frank tied the boat in a sheltered spot at the foot of the cliff. Then he began to look for a path to ascend. Luckily the moon shone brightly on the face of the rocky incline, and Frank observed a path that seemed to afford a way up. Cautiously he began ascending. Up and up he went, until he stood on the top. Before him was a fence, with high iron pickets, put there evidently for the double purpose of keeping certain persons out, and certain other persons from falling over the cliff.

"Too risky to scale that," Frank mused, as he noted the sharp-pointed palings. "I'll walk along it a bit."

He started to make a circuit, going along the edge of the cliff, for he thought there might be a gateway in the fence. As he was moving cautiously along, looking for an opening, he was startled by a sudden challenge:

"Who are you, and what do you want?"

Frank glanced up, to see a man looking at him. The fellow was attired in the uniform of an attendant at the sanitarium.

"What do you want?" the man repeated sharply.

Several plans flashed through Frank's mind. Should he make inquiries of the attendant concerning that which he so desired to know? He half resolved to, and then he realized that the man was but a keeper, and, probably, could not enlighten him.

"I'm looking for a friend," Frank said.

"No one allowed around here," the man went on. "This is private property.

Be off, now, before I set the dogs on you."

Frank knew he could gain nothing by staying. He had found out what he wanted to know, namely, that the stream near the camp ran to the sanitarium. He turned quickly, and made his way to where he had ascended the cliff. The man was watching him, but, when he saw the boy disappear he was, apparently, satisfied, and went on walking around his post on the grounds of the inst.i.tution.