The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat Part 8

Paul had stopped the motor, since it seemed useless. But of course he did not mean to give up trying to get the boat off.

"One thing's sure," he said, positively, when the others gathered around him, as if in this emergency they looked to the scout master to invent some method of beating the sticky mud at its own game; "every minute we stay here makes it all the worse for us."

"Yes, because our weight is sure to make the boat sink deeper in her nest!" declared Little Billie, leaning far over the side, as if to see how far down in her muddy bed the boat lay.

"Yes, that's one thing," added Paul; "but another is the fact that the creek is falling all the time. Unless it rains, there'll soon be nothing but mud around us. Now, every fellow crowd back here, and leave the bow as free as we can. That might loosen the grip of the mud; and when I turn on the motor at full speed again, let's hope she'll move."

It was a sensible suggestion; and indeed, about the only thing possible, since the other boat, being in the same fix, could not come near, either to give a friendly tug, or take off the _Comfort's_ crew.

When he had them all as far in the stern as they could get, with a warning not to allow themselves to be shaken loose, unless they wanted a mud bath, the skipper started his motor working.

When it was going at full speed the boat quivered and strained, but did not move, so far as any one could see; and they were all eager to detect the first sign of motion.

"No good!" sighed Jud. "Might as well look the thing in the face, fellows. Here we stay, and eat up all our grub, day after day. Ain't it fierce, though? How d'ye suppose we'll ever stand it? If anybody had a pair of wings now, and could fly ash.o.r.e, we might get help to pull us out. But we couldn't use our wigwag flags, even if we tried, because who'd see 'em? Oh! what tough luck!"

Paul may have felt somewhat discouraged himself, but he was not the fellow to betray the fact--so early in the game, at least.

"Well, Jud," he said, soberly, "perhaps we may have to stick it out here for a while, but I hope it won't be as bad as you say. And make up your mind that if we do, it'll be a mighty strange thing, with eighteen wide awake scouts to think up all sorts of schemes and dodges that we can try."

"That's the stuff, Paul!" exclaimed Phil Towns. "Every fellow ought to get right down to hard pan, and try to think up some way of beating this old sticky mud. What's the use of being scouts, if we let a little thing like this get the better of us? If I could only wade ash.o.r.e, I'd fix a hawser to a tree back there, and then by workin' the engine p'raps we might pull the boat off. I've seen 'em do that with a steamboat, away down on Indian River, when I was with my folks in Florida last winter.

And it worked, too."

"Well, try the wading; it looks fine!" laughed Joe Clausin.

"Don't think of it," called out Gusty Bellows at that moment. "I stuck this pole down in the soft slush, and my stars! it goes right through to China, I reckon. Anyhow, I couldn't reach bottom. And if you jumped over, Phil, you'd be up to your neck at the start. Let's tie a rope under your arms first, anyhow."

But Paul quickly put an end to all this sort of talk.

"There's no use trying anything like that," he said. "Even if you did reach the sh.o.r.e, we haven't got a rope long and strong enough to do the business. Besides, we may have help soon."

With that all the boys began craning their necks, as if they expected to see some kind of a queer craft that could pa.s.s over mud as easily as other boats did water, bearing down on them, with the design of dragging them from the bank,

"Say, what does he mean? For the life of me I can't glimpse anything worth shucks; and the blooming old _Speedwell_ seems to be sticking tight and fast, just the same way we are. Loosen up, Paul, and put us wise; won't you?" pleaded Phil.

"I didn't mean that any living thing was going to hold out a hand to us," remarked the smiling scout master; "but look aloft, boys, and see what's coming."

With that they followed his instructions.

A general shout went up.

"Whee! rain a-comin' down on us! Get the curtains ready to b.u.t.ton fast, boys, or we'll have all our fine stuff soaked through and through."

Little Billie called, himself setting things in motion by seizing one of the rolled curtains, and letting it come down, to be fastened around the c.o.c.kpit by means of gummets and screws.

"But Paul meant something else," declared Jud Elderkin, wisely. "You see, if only that rain does come, and it's heavy enough, there's going to be a lot more water in this old ca.n.a.l than we need to pull through with. You know how quick the Bushkill River rises; and I guess it's the same way with the Radway."

"Oh! don't we wish that there'll just be a little old cloud-burst!" cried Gusty Bellows. "I could stand anything but staying here seven or ten days, doin' nothing, only eat, and stare at this mud, and wish I was back home. Come on, little clouds; get a move on you, and let's hear you growl like thunder."

They had by now called the attention of the others to the prospects for rain. Indeed, as soon as the first curtain fell, some of Jack's crew took note of the significant fact, and they could be seen looking up at the blackening heavens. There had been very few times in the past when those boys had hoped it would rain. Perhaps, when they were kept home from a picnic--for reasons--some of them may have secretly wished the clouds would let down a little flood, so that those who had been lucky enough to go, might not have such a laugh on them after all.

But certainly they never felt just as they did now, while watching the play of those gathering storm clouds.

"And the best of the joke is," commented Jud, with a grin, "that lots of the good folks at home right now are looking up at those same black clouds, and pitying us boys. They don't realize how we're just praying that the rain won't turn out a fizzle, after all. Wasn't that a drop I felt?"

[Transcriber's note: Beginning of sentence missing from original text]

till that gray gets nearly overhead," remarked Paul, pointing up at a line marked across the heavens about half-way toward the horizon, and in the direction of the wind.

"It's getting dark, anyway," remarked Nuthin, rather timidly; for truth to tell, the small boy had never ceased to remember how, earlier in the season, when in camp up near Rattlesnake Mountain, a terrible storm had struck them and as he clung desperately to the tent they were trying to hold down, he had actually been carried up into the branches of a tree, from which position only the prompt work of his fellow scouts had finally rescued him.

"And look at that flash of lightning, would you?" echoed Joe Clausin.

"Wow! that was a heavy bang; wasn't it? Tell you now, that bolt must 'a struck somethin'! Always does, they say, when it comes quick like that."

"How's the cover; just as snug as you can make it, boys?" demanded Paul; "because we'll likely get a bit of a blow first, before the rain comes, and it'd be a bad job if we lost this whole business. Stand by to grab hold wherever you can. After that, if we weather it all right, there'll be no trouble."

"And say, she's coming licketty-split, believe me," called Jud. "I c'n hear it hummin' through the trees over there like the mischief. Take hold, everybody; and don't let it get away from you!"

"We'll all go up together this time, then!" muttered little Nuthin; but with the grit that seemed a part of his nature, once he started in to do anything, he also seized the canvas covering at the bottom, and set his teeth hard.

With a roar the wind struck them. Had it come from the right quarter Paul believed it might have helped work them loose; but it happened unfortunately that just the reverse was the case. If anything, they were driven on the mud-bank all the harder.

But at any rate the tarpaulin canopy did not break loose, and that was something to be satisfied with.

The wind whooped and howled for perhaps three minutes. Then it died down, as if giving up the attempt to tear the boat's top out of the hands of the determined boys.

"The worst's over, fellows!" called Paul, breathing hard.

"Hurrah! that's better'n saying it is yet to come. How'd the _Speedwell_ make out?" Jud asked, sinking back on a thwart, the better to find some place to peep out.

"Seems to be all there," replied Nuthin, who had been quicker to look than the more clumsy Jud. "She's got her cover on, and I guess that means they're safe and sound; but she don't seem to be floatin' worth a cent.

"No more are we; but listen, there comes the rain. Now for it," observed Paul, as with a rush the water began to descend, rattling on the roof of the canopy cover.

"Fine! Keep right along that way for a while, and something's bound to get a move on it, which I hope will be our two boats!" cried Gusty Bellows.

"Did you ever hear it come down heavier than that?" demanded Old Dan Tucker, as he looked anxiously around to see that none of the cargo was exposed to the flood.

"Wonder if this old thing sheds water?" suggested Jud, looking up at the heavy canopy as though he fancied that he felt a stream trickling down the back of his neck.

"You can bank on it," declared Joe Clausin. "Anything Mr. Everett owns has got to be gilt-edged. And he'd never stand for a leaky canopy.

What're you lookin' at out there, Paul?" for the scout master was leaning a little out on the side away from their companion boat in misery.

"Why, you see," replied the scout master, drawing his head back, "I fixed a little contrivance here, just before the storm broke, and I'm looking now to see whether it shows the least gain in water. I marked this pole with inches, and rammed it just so far in the mud. If the water starts to rising any, I can tell as soon as I look."

"And is she going up yet?" asked Jud, eagerly,

"Well, it wouldn't be fair to expect that for some time yet," replied Paul. "At the best I expect we'll have to stay here an hour or so, until the water up-stream has a chance to come down. I hope it may surprise me, and get here quicker than that. And boys, if we have to spend all that time doing nothing, why we might try that little oil stove Mr. Everett has, and see how it can get us a pot of coffee, with our cold lunch."

"What time is it now?" asked Jud; while Old Dan Tucker p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, at the prospect of "something doing" along his favorite line.