PORK CHOPS PROVES HIS METAL.
It was impossible to consider rounding the island in the canoes in the
sea that was running; but this difficulty was got over by Ben, who
impressed a guide from the moonshiners' settlement to guide them around
to the spot where they had camped, and off which the _Carrier Dove_ was
moored. Arrangements were also made to have the canoes carried across
the island later by three strapping young crackers, who were glad of the
chance to earn a little money by proffering their services.
These arrangements completed the start across the island was made, and
after about three hours traveling the boys reached the spot where they
had camped. They hurried anxiously to the beach.
It was evident that the storm had not struck this side of the island
with anything like the violence with which it had broken on the other
shore. This raised the boys' hopes for a few moments but they were
destined to be as quickly dashed.
No _Carrier Dove_ rode at anchor.
In fact the usually placid sea, still heaving under the influence of the
squall which had now passed away, was as devoid of life as a desert as
far as their eyes could reach.
It was a bitter moment.
Neither Frank nor Harry dared trust their voices to speak. They
swallowed hard while their eyes brimmed at this wretched ending of their
hopes.
With the _Carrier Dove_ gone--and more than that with the _Golden Eagle
II_, at the bottom of the sea, it would be useless to keep on. They
would have to turn back and admit they had ignominiously failed.
As for Ben Stubbs, he removed his hat, scratched his head and remarked:
"Well, I'll be double-darned, horn-swaggled----"
That was all, but there was a wealth of meaning in his tone.
Lathrop and Billy stood to one side, both realized what the Boy Aviators
must be suffering at the sudden dashing to the earth of their high
hopes. A cruder disappointment could not in fact be imagined. The work
of their brains and the fruit of long experiment and research had been
swallowed by the same hungry sea that had destroyed two of their
enemies.
Practical Ben Stubbs broke the silence.
"Here you get along home and tell 'em to send us some grub," he ordered
the lanky young moonshiner who had escorted them. "I reckon we'll camp
out to-night."
When the man had hurried off, Ben set to work getting a fire. When he
had it in a bright blaze he shouted:
"All hands to the fire to get dry; no use of dying of rumatiz even if
the sloop is gone."
The boys, despondent as they were, saw the wisdom of his words and
crowded about the blaze. They stripped to their underwear and hung their
garments on a sort of long stick laid across two forked ones stuck in
the ground about six feet apart in front of the fire.
"Now, that's ship-shape," he remarked when a row of wet clothes were
hung on his handiwork to dry in the warmth, "next thing to do is to
consider the situation, as the young man said when they offered him a
good job as hangman."
Ben's flow of spirits had an effect on all the boys, who sat dejectedly
around the fire in their wet underclothes. To tell the truth the old
adventurer was far from feeling as cheerful as he tried to appear, but
like all men who have faced real hardships he knew the value of making
the best of a situation.
"Well," said Frank with a melancholy smile. "What do you make of it,
Ben?"
"What did that there poor fellow that's drownded say to you he done with
Pork Chops?" was the irrelevant reply.
"Oh, he said that they had put him ashore early to-day," replied Frank.
"I don't see what that's got to do with it."
"Might have a good deal," replied Ben. "I wonder where that black lubber
is. He'll have fifty-seven varieties of fits when he finds his boat's
gone--worse'n the skipper's cat that lost all his nine lives at once
when the shop's rats gave out."
"He can easily replace that rickety old sloop," said Harry irritably;
"to restore what we have lost will take months of work and more money
than we can get."
"If we can even get back to New York from this moonshining island we'll
be lucky," grumbled Lathrop.
"Oh, don't rub it in," muttered Billy.
It was very plain that all the young adventurers were overwrought. More
for the sake of creating a diversion than anything else, Ben said:
"Wonder what's become of that floating pumpkin-seed the Squeegee?"
"Washed away, I suppose," said Frank in an uninterested tone. The loss
of the ungraceful Squeegee didn't interest him much at that moment.
"She'd have been washed inshore by the waves," mused Ben, "if she'd been
driven anywhere; besides I hitched her to that tree yonder down by the
beach. Hullo, that's funny," he broke off suddenly and rapidly walked
toward the tree to which the Squeegee's painter had been hitched. He
examined the surface. There was no bit of rope hanging to it as he knew
would have been the case if the painter had been snapped.
"Someone untied that rope," said Ben to himself in a tone of deep
conviction.
Hastening up the beach to where the boys were grouped Ben confided his
discovery to them.
"Who do you suppose took it?" asked Frank.
"Some no-good moonshiner, I suppose," snorted Ben indignantly. "Keelhaul
those fellows, they're a natural born pest, the whole boiling of them."
"Do you think they could have weathered the squall in her?" asked Billy.
Ben laughed incredulously. "No, sir," he replied. "I doubt he'd last out
a squall as long in that craft as it would take a sailor to eat a piece
of plum-duff. Whoever took that boat is at the bottom of the sea by now
and the Squeegee along with him."
It was dusk when the young moonshiner returned loaded with provisions
for which the boys against his protest insisted on paying. There was a
big piece of roast venison, sour-dough bread, roast land crab, a
plethoric pot of beans and a plentiful supply of cassava cakes--even
coffee had not been forgotten. Everybody cheered up a little at the
sight of the food. It is wonderful what heart a good meal, even in
prospect, can put into a healthy boy, and our young adventurers were no
exception to the rule. Declining their invitation to stay and share the
meal the young moonshiner plunged off hurriedly into the home trail.
In fifteen minutes Ben had the coffee ready and the cassava cakes heated
on hot stones. After a hearty meal, of which indeed they stood in need,
the party donned their clothes,--which were now thoroughly dry,--and
earnestly discussed their prospects. Only Ben, who sat apart, took no
hand in the conversation. Only once, however, he irrelevantly remarked:
"Keelhaul that Pork Chops, where is he?"
That the boys did not sleep their usual peaceful slumbers that night may
be imagined. For hours they tossed and turned under their blankets and
watched the fire die down and fade first to a ruddy glow and then to
blackness.
It might have been an hour after midnight when the moon rose and
shimmered over the sea, now perfectly smooth. Had their minds been at
ease the boys would have been enraptured with the beauty of the tropic
night. As it was, however, the coming of the moon and the illumination
of the sea merely served Frank as an opportunity further to scan the
scene for any trace of the _Carrier Dove_.
Casting off his blanket he hastened to the strip of beach on which the
smooth swells were breaking with a milder thunder than usual. With his
night-glasses he swept the midnight sea from horizon to horizon. There
was no result. Thoroughly dejected he cast himself at the foot of a huge
palmetto and gazed intently out to sea riveting his mind on the present
situation of himself and the little band of which the Boy Aviators were
the leaders.
Suddenly the current of his gloomy thoughts was broken in on by an
occurrence which brought him to his feet with a bound.
A low lying group of brilliant stars just above the horizon had been
blotted out. Something had passed between the boy and the stars. That
something could only be a sail, and a sail meant at least rescue from
the island.
With a bound Frank, glasses in hand, was knee-deep in the surf.
It was a sail!
With trembling hands he brought the glasses to a better focus. Intently
he gazed till his eyes burned in his head.
The craft was a sloop!
Hardly daring to admit to his mind the wild hope that had suddenly
arisen, Frank watched the strange sail as it grew nearer. Before the
gentle breeze the craft advanced slowly to within a hundred yards of
shore and then a dark figure bounded along her decks and there was a
loud rattle from her cable as the anchor was let go and she swung into
the wind with flapping mainsail. Another moment and her canvas was
lowered with a run and she lay at anchor.
With his heart in his mouth Frank hailed:
"_Carrier Dove_, ahoy!"
"Dat you, Marse Frank--bress de Lawd--bress de Lawd!" came back across
the water in Pork Chops' rasping voice; but had it been the golden tones
of an opera singer that answered his hail the sound could not have been
sweeter to Frank's ear at that moment than Pork Chops' frog-like croak
of welcome.
_The Golden Eagle II_ was safe!
Before the echo of the _Carrier Dove's_ noisy arrival had died out in
the woods, the young adventurers, hand-in-hand, were dancing in a wild
circle round the bewildered Ben Stubbs, yelling like Comanches.
"Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!"