BANDY-LEGS IN TROUBLE.
At noon on the following day there was more or less excitement around
the spot where the boathouse stood. The canoes, already loaded, lay
moored near by, awaiting the word to be given that would send the little
expedition on its way up-stream.
Of course the news had got abroad, though Max would much rather have
kept it a secret, if they could. But Herb and his friends, as well as
some other boys of the river town, were on hand to see the start.
And as was natural, a heap of good-natured chaffing was indulged in. All
sorts of dismal predictions were made by Herb, and those of his comrades
who had been in his company at the time of their wild midnight flight
from Catamount Island.
"We'll expect to see you to-morrow, all right, fellows!" cried one.
"Yes, and we're going to keep tabs on you, if you don't show up,"
remarked still another. "It won't be fair to sleep on the mainland, and
just go over in the day. You've got to stay right there a whole week,
night after night, to win out. See?"
"A week," answered Steve, laughing in a scoffing manner; "why, if it
wasn't a waste of good time, we'd have made it a month. But we've got
other fish to fry, and don't want to spend all our vacation on that
measly old island."
"Yes, say what you like," called Herb, as the canoes began to leave the
shore, and the paddles to flash in the noonday sun's bright rays;
"you'll have another story to tell when you show up to-morrow, or I miss
my guess."
"Wait till you see that old cabin, that's what!" called out another, in
a mysterious way that somehow caused Bandy-legs to look uneasy, Max
thought.
He knew that if there was going to be a weak link in the chain it would
lie in that quarter; for the short chum had a few silly notions
concerning certain things, and was not wholly free from a belief in
supernatural happenings. But with the backing of four sturdy chums,
Bandy-legs ought to brace up, and show himself a true boy of nerve.
"Look at that Shack Beggs making faces after us!" remarked Steve, who,
as usual, threatened to take the lead in the push up the Evergreen
current.
"I noticed him hangin' around all the time," added Bandy-legs; "and
every now and then he'd seem to grin, and shake hands with himself, like
he felt nearly too good to keep the thing quiet. Whatever ails him, d'ye
think, Max?"
"Well, as I never stood for a mind reader, I can't tell you," was the
reply of the one addressed; "but as we know he belongs to that Ted
Shafter crowd, it's easy to understand that he just believes something
terrible is going to happen to us up on Catamount Island."
"Oh! I hope he's barking up the wrong tree, then!" exclaimed Bandy-legs.
"Just what he's doing, take my word for it," Owen put in, from the stern
of the big war canoe, which he and Toby were urging against the flowing
current with lusty strokes, and evident keen enjoyment.
"How does it go?" asked Max, who was in a sixteen-foot canvas canoe like
the one Steve handled so dexterously; while Bandy-legs, fearing to trust
to anything so frail, had insisted on getting one of the older type
lapstreak cedar boats, that were so marvelously beautiful in his eyes.
"Fine as silk!" announced Steve, from up ahead.
"Ditto here!" echoed Toby, and Owen added his words of praise.
"It seems like bully good fun!" declared Bandy-legs, who was puffing a
little, his boat being somewhat more weighty than the other two single
canoes, and who consequently was somewhat behind the rest; "but I wish
you'd get a rope on Steve there, and hold him in. He ain't fit to be the
pace-maker. I just _can't_ keep going like wildfire all the time."
"That's right, too" remarked Max. "We ought to let up a little in the
start. It never is good policy to do your best in the beginning of a
race. And we've really got loads of time to make that island before
nightfall."
Of course Steve could do as he pleased; but since the others dropped
back a little so as to accommodate the less skillful Bandy-legs, he had
to follow suit, or be all alone in the van. Steve grumbled more or less
because some fellows never could "get a move on 'em," as he complained;
but outside of making an occasional little spurt, and then resting, he
stuck pretty well by his mates during the next hour or two.
Then something happened, something that they had never once dreamed of,
and which was at first utterly beyond the understanding of any of the
paddlers.
Bandy-legs seemed to find more or less trouble about getting himself
settled in the best attitude for his work. It was all pretty new for
him, though Max thought the other did very well for a greenhorn. He
wriggled about in his cedar boat like an uneasy worm, changing his
position often, and each time thinking that he had improved his paddling
powers, only to find the same old fault.
All at once he set up a whoop that startled his chums.
"Hi! looky here, what's happenin' to this old coffin!"
The others saw nothing wrong, save that Bandy-legs himself seemed to be
engaged in scrambling about more or less, as though he had suddenly
discovered a venomous spider crawling out from under the false bottom of
his delicate craft.
"What ails you?" called out Max, stopping the use of his handy spruce
blade, as he turned his head toward the one who appeared to be in
trouble.
"Wow! I tell you she's sinkin'!" continued Bandy-legs, as if aghast.
"What! your canoe?" cried Owen, as if unable to believe his ears.
"Sure she is, boys! Water's just bubbling up in her to beat the band! I
felt it gettin' wet down by my feet, and looked just in time. What'll I
do--jump over and swim for the shore right here?"
"Don't be silly, Bandy-legs!" cried Max. "If something has happened to
your boat, why, head for the shore, and paddle hard. It ain't so far
away but you can reach it easy enough. You must have hit a snag, and
punched a hole in the skin of the canoe."
"I never hit nothin'!" called back the other, as in his clumsy fashion
he managed to presently change the course of his boat, and start for the
nearest bank, with the war canoe and that of Max accompanying him.
"Hey, what you goin' to do, have a snack?" yelled Steve, who at that
moment chanced to be a little way ahead of the others.
"Bandy-legs is sinking, and we've got to see what ails his boat!"
answered Max, making a speaking tube or a megaphone of his hands.
No doubt Steve, impatient to reach their destination, and make camp
before dark, would be saying things not at all complimentary to the
sufferer, as he retraced his course, in order to join them.
Meanwhile, when the canoes reached a pebbly stretch of shore, they were
beached; and then Max set to work to ascertain what could have happened
to the cedar boat to make it start sinking in such a mysterious way.
First the bundles were taken out, and they all observed that it was
fortunate they had decided at the last minute to let Bandy-legs have one
of the tents instead of the foodstuff he had been given in the
beginning.
"Give me a hand here, fellows," remarked Max, "and we'll turn her over
to let the water get out faster. I can see right now where the trouble
lies, and it's right down in the bottom. There's a leak as sure as
anything!"
"Then its good-by to my bally little canoe right in the start, I
reckon," complained the owner, sadly. "I'm a Jonah, all right. All sorts
of things keep happening to _me_. What does it look like, Max?" as the
boat was finally turned completely over, so that the bottom was fully
exposed.
Max uttered an exclamation that told of astonishment.
"Well, that is queer!" they heard him mutter, as he thrust a finger
through the hole in the garboard streak of the boat.
"What strikes you as so funny, Max?" asked Steve, who had by now joined
them.
"Look for yourself," replied the other, moving back.
Four heads were instantly bent over, as the boys took his advice.
"Must have been a round snag, all right," commented Steve; "because
that's as pretty a circular hole as I ever saw."
"Tell you I never struck no snag!" declared the indignant Bandy-legs;
"guess I'd 'a' felt it, wouldn't I, Max?"
"Listen, fellows," said the one appealed to, in a tone that caused the
others to stop their wrangling, and pay attention; "as Bandy-legs says,
he didn't run foul of any snag on the river since we left home. That
hole was made by an auger, or a bit held in a brace. Some mean fellow
had the nerve to lay this trap for our chum, in order to give us all the
trouble he could."
"Shack Beggs!" shouted Steve, always quick to make up his mind.
"That was why he kept grinning like he did, when he watched us go off,"
observed Owen, in a disgusted way. "When do you suppose he could have
found a chance to do such a dirty trick, Max?"
"Well, we don't know for a certainty whether it was Shack or one of his
crowd," replied the other, shaking his head; "but whoever did it must
have found some way to get into the boathouse after we left last night.
You remember, boys, we've got a ratchet brace there, and several bits.
One of them would just about fit this hole. But he must have been mighty
careful to take away every little splinter, so as not to make us suspect
there'd been any funny carryings-on."
"How d'ye suppose he fixed it, so as to keep the water out till just
now?" asked the bewildered owner of the canoe.
For answer Max made a crawl underneath, and almost immediately came out
again holding something in his hand, which he showed them. It was
apparently a plug of wood, and must have come from the hole that had
caused the sudden flooding of the cedar canoe.
"There, you can see what a neat little game he played!" Max exclaimed.
After he bored that round hole he made this plug and drove it in from
above. Underneath he made sure that it was evened off so it wouldn't be
seen unless any one examined the bottom of the canoe close. Then he had
it fixed so when Bandy-legs got to moving about, as he always does, you
know, any time he was liable to loosen the plug and the pressure of the
water'd do the rest.
"Oh! what a wicked shame!" cried the owner of the wrecked canoe.
"H-h-he ought t' b-b-be hung f-f-for it!" exclaimed Toby, just as
indignant as though it had been his own boat that was injured so
wantonly.
"What can we do, Max, to fix her up?" asked Owen, quietly.
"Oh!" put the plug in again, and make sure that it will hold this time.
Later on, when we get back, we'll have to get the boat builder in Carson
to put a new streak of cedar planking in, to take the place of this
one."
"Sure you can fix it so there won't be any chance of my going down?"
asked the anxious owner.
"Easy enough. Just give me ten or fifteen minutes, and I'll answer for
it," came the confident response, as Max immediately set to work.
"While this is going on the rest of us can rest," remarked Owen,
dropping down on the ground.
"Here's the sandwiches I made this morning; might as well take a bite,
now we've got to hang out here a spell," and Bandy-legs began passing
them around.
"Looks to me like we had reached the junction of the Big Sunflower and
the Elder," observed Steve, as he munched away contentedly at his ham
sandwich.
"Just what we have," Max spoke up, working away at his little job, and
stopping occasionally to snatch a bite. "It lies right around that bend
yonder. I remember it well, and how we made our first haul of the
mussels there."
"Yes, and found a bully old pearl in the first lot," declared Steve,
watching Bandy-legs poke around in the grass nearby; for the boy with
the short legs was of an investigating turn, and liked nothing better
than to search for things; "hey! what you think you'll find there,
diamonds this time?"
"Oh! I just run across a lot of wriggling little snakes, about as long
as lead pencils, and I'm seein' 'em twist and turn. It's just fun to
watch the little beggars get mad."
"Huh!" grunted Steve, as he turned his attention to what Max was doing;
"some fellers get fun out of mighty little things, sometimes."
A minute or so later they heard Bandy-legs laugh again.
"Say, let up with that silly play, and come in," called Steve, testily;
"we're 'bout ready to load up again and go on."
"You'd die laughing to see her try to get a whack at me," called back
Bandy-legs. "It's the mother of all them little snakes, I reckon. My!
but she's mad though; just coils up here, and jumps out at me every time
I touch her with my stick!"
Max felt a shudder pass through his person as he looked at Owen. For
suddenly he seemed to realize that the rattling sound, which he had of
course thought was caused by a noisy locust on a nearby tree, was in
fact the deadly warning that an enraged rattlesnake gives when striving
to strike its fangs into an enemy!