GRANT TO THE RESCUE.
Piper’s trembling hands clutched Grant and clung to him.
“I’m going too,” said Sleuth huskily. “It’s ten to one this old hut
comes down in the storm. I wouldn’t stay here, anyhow.”
“I don’t reckon I would myself,” acknowledged Rod.
“Then,” said Piper, tugging at him, “we’d better hustle. If I know
Springer, he won’t stop this side of Camp Oakdale, and we don’t want to
be left on this island with no way of getting off.”
“That wouldn’t be pleasant,” confessed Rod, “though I don’t opine Phil
would desert us. He’ll wait for us.”
“Don’t you believe it,” spluttered Sleuth as they reached the open air.
“If we want to stop him before he gets away with the canoe, we’ve got to
make tracks.”
Stumbling across the glade, they found the path, along which they
dashed, Piper in advance. Reaching branches whipped them across their
faces, and it seemed that the black thickets on every hand contained a
thousand menacing terrors. True, Grant was not as frightened as Piper,
but the moment he began running he was overcome to some degree by that
fear-compelling sensation known to every boy who has fled in the dark
from a menacing creation of his fancy. Occasional flashes of lightning
served only to blind them and make the ensuing gloom seem deeper and
blacker. The thunder-shocks beat upon their ears, but as yet no rain
fell.
Panting heavily, they came out suddenly upon the shore and realized they
were some distance from the place where the canoe had been left. In his
confusion and excitement Sleuth turned in the wrong direction, but Grant
checked him by calling sharply:
“This way, Piper—the canoe is this way!”
“No,” said Sleuth, “you’re wrong; it’s this way.”
But, fearing to be left alone on that terrible island, he turned and
followed Rod.
In a few moments they discovered Springer in the act of launching the
canoe, and Grant shouted at him angrily.
“What do you reckon you’re doing?” cried the exasperated Texan. “Are you
trying to run away and leave us, you coward?”
Phil’s face was almost ghastly, but he paused and waited for them. “I
wasn’t gug-going away,” he declared.
“It sure didn’t look like it!” retorted Rodney sarcastically.
“I was just gug-going to get the canoe into the water and wait for you,”
explained Springer. “I’m gug-glad you’ve come. It isn’t raining yet,
and——”
“But it will be right soon. We’re due to get a drenching if we start
out.”
“We’ll get a dud-drenching if we stay here.”
“We might,” suggested Sleuth, with pretended bravado, “succeed in
finding poor shelter beneath the thickest pines.”
“And a sus-soaking on the water won’t be any worse than one on land,”
argued Phil.
“I was not thinking of the rain,” said Rod, casting a glance toward the
black, lightning-torn clouds; “it’s the wind we’ve got to reckon on. We
don’t want to be swamped out in the middle of the lake.”
But now Piper joined Springer in urging him away, and, yielding, he got
into the canoe and seized one of the paddles.
“Lively!” he ordered. “Get in and push off. Show what you’ve got in your
arms, Phil.”
“You bet I will,” promised Springer.
Away from the island shot the canoe, propelled by all the vigor they
could muster. Only a few rods had they paddled when there arose from the
depths of the pines the mournful howling of a dog, which was drowned by
another tremendous peal of thunder. Even this, however, could not spur
them to put more strength into the paddle strokes, for already they were
doing their best.
Their one object, now, was to do their utmost to reach Pleasant Point
before the storm should come upon them in all its fury, or at least to
get as near the point as possible; for they knew that to be caught far
from shore in the canoe while the open lake was being swept by such a
burst of wind as often accompanies severe thunderstorms would be not
only most uncomfortable, but, in all probability, extremely perilous.
Between the thunder-claps they could hear afar in the mountains a low
and ominous moaning, but even Sleuth turned no backward glance toward
the black sky that seemed to shut down perpendicularly not far beyond
the white cross that marked Lovers’ Leap. As yet, although the surface
of the lake was broken and dark, there seemed little wind, save
occasional puffing blasts of short duration.
So intent were they upon their own business that it was some time before
they perceived the small white sail of a boat somewhat to the right of
their course. With each wind gust the sail filled and dipped, but
between the puffs it was barely taut, and the boat, a tiny, punt-like
affair, was moving slowly. Only one person could be seen, and he sat in
the stern of the boat, steering.
“That gent sure better hustle some,” observed Grant, “unless he’s
anxious to get a proper ducking. If he has oars, he’s foolish not to use
them. We’re traveling twice as fast as he is, and we’ll soon be passing
him.”
“A fellow might think him dud-deaf and dud-dumb and blind,” said
Springer. “If he hears or sees the storm, he’s a chump not to get a move
on.”
Piper opened his lips to make a remark, but a jagged, hissing spurt of
lightning caused him to duck involuntarily and hold his breath, awaiting
the thunder that must follow. It came, crashing and flung back in
reverberations from the mountains, and Sleuth shrugged his shoulders and
shook his head.
“Next time I visit Spirit Island,” he declared, “I shall take special
pains to make sure there’s no thunderstorm on tap.”
“Nun-next time!” scoffed Phil. “I’ll bet there isn’t money enough to
hire you to go there again.”
“Speak for yourself, my friend,” retorted Sleuth, “and judge not the
courage of others by your own cowardice.”
“Cowardice! Bah! You were sus-scared almost stiff.”
“But I didn’t run away.”
The moaning sound was growing louder and more distinct, changing
gradually but swiftly to a suppressed, smothered roar. The black sky
seemed to close over Lovers’ Leap and blot it out. The rain was coming,
a few drops of the advance guard pattering around the canoe, in which
the two paddle-wielders continued to exercise the full strength of their
arms.
They had been seen by Crane and Stone, both of whom were now standing
well out upon the point, watching them with no small anxiety.
Like the trio returning from Spirit Island, the person in the
sail-driven boat seemed to be making for Pleasant Point, and they were
now so near that they recognized him as he, looking round, appeared to
discover them for the first time.
“Well, I’ll be dud-dished!” exclaimed Springer. “It’s our friend, James
Simpson, Esquire. Seems to me he’s planning to make a cuc-call at our
camp.”
“A right good time for him to come around if he intends to provoke
further trouble,” muttered Rodney. “I’d advise him to lower that sail
and use his oars. I opine there’s going to be something doing in the
hurricane line directly.”
“You bet,” agreed Piper, as the roaring sound increased with surprising
rapidity. “Here she comes now.”
“Hold the canoe steady, Phil,” admonished the Texan.
With a shriek the wind swept over them, tearing the surrounding water
into foam. In a twinkling, almost, it struck the sail of Simpson’s boat,
and in another twinkling the tiny craft upset, pitching its occupant
into the lake.
“I knew it, the chump!” cried Grant above the screaming of the wind.
“He’s got his ducking ahead of the rainstorm.”
“Wonder if he can sus-swim?” shouted Phil apprehensively. “Don’t want to
see the pup-poor feller drowned.”
“He sure ought to know how to swim, living near this lake,” returned
Rodney. “Where is he, anyhow?”
“There! there!” cried Sleuth, pointing, as a head appeared some distance
from the capsized boat. “Look at the idiot! See him throw up his hands!
Stone and Crane are shouting to us. Great marvels! He _can’t_ swim!”
Already, with a sweep of his paddle, Grant had pointed the canoe toward
the overturned boat and the youth who, splashing wildly only a short
distance from it, seemed quite unable to reach and grasp it for support.
“Pull, Springer—pull for all you’re worth!” he commanded.
The driving blast of wind aided in speeding them toward the imperiled
fellow.
“If he gets hold of this canoe he’ll upset it!” palpitated Piper.
Simpson’s head disappeared from view and was not seen again for several
moments, after which his frantic efforts shot his body above the surface
halfway to the waist line. Gulping, gasping, terrified by the experience
through which he was passing, the fellow turned his blanched face and
appealing eyes toward the three boys who were now bearing down upon him.
Almost invariably persons who find themselves in deep water and cannot
swim strive desperately to lift their bodies as high as possible and
thus aid in their own undoing, and this was precisely what Jim Simpson
did. Had he simply paddled gently with his hands and held his breath
whenever his head went under, lacking in a rudimentary knowledge of
swimming though he was, he might have kept afloat for some moments; by
his tremendous struggles, however, he baffled himself and made it
imperative that his would-be rescuers should reach him quickly.
“He’s gone—he’s gone again!” screamed Sleuth, as Grant once more
slightly altered the course of the canoe.
“Keep down! Keep low in the canoe and sit steady!” commanded Rodney.
Then, rising, he did a difficult thing to do under the most favorable
circumstances; he dove headlong from the canoe without upsetting it.
With three strong strokes beneath the water he reached Simpson, whose
collar he grasped with one hand at the back of the neck. They rose
together, the Texan holding the other off and striking out as well as he
could for the capsized boat.
[Illustration:
HE DOVE HEADLONG FROM THE CANOE WITHOUT
UPSETTING IT. —Page 230.
]
The excited boys watching from the point uttered a cheer. Then the rain
swept over the lake in a tremendous blinding cloud, shutting from their
view the canoe, its occupants, and the two fellows in the water.