There was only one fault to be found with Brandt Lake; there was hardly
anything to shoot in its vicinity. Occasionally a deer could be found;
but at the season of the year when the boys were at the lake it was
contrary to law to kill deer. It was known that there were bears in
that part of the country as well as lynxes--or catamounts, as they
are generally called; but they were so scarce that no one thought of
hunting them. Harry did succeed in shooting three pigeons and a quail,
and Tom shot a gray squirrel; but the bears, deer, catamounts, and
ducks that they had expected to shoot did not show themselves.
On the other hand, they had any quantity of fishing. Perch and cat-fish
swarmed all around the island; and large pickerel, some of them
weighing six or eight pounds, could be caught by trolling. Two miles
farther north was another lake that was full of trout, and the boys
visited it several times, and found out how delicious a trout is when
it is cooked within half an hour after it is taken out of the water.
In fact they lived principally upon fish, and became so dainty that
they would not condescend to cook any but the choicest trout, and the
plumpest cat-fish and pickerel.
It must be confessed that there was a good deal of monotony in their
daily life. In the morning somebody went for milk, after which
breakfast was cooked and eaten. Then one of the boys would take the gun
and tramp through the woods in the hope of finding something to shoot,
while the others would either go fishing or lie in the shade. Once
they devoted a whole day to circumnavigating the lake in the boat, and
another day a long rain-storm kept them inside of the tent most of the
time. With these exceptions one day was remarkably like another; and at
the end of two weeks they began to grow a little tired of camping, and
to remember that there were ways of enjoying themselves at home.
Their final departure from their island camp was caused by an accident.
They had decided to row to the southern end of the lake and engage
a team to meet them the following week and to carry them to Glenn’s
Falls, where they intended to ship the boat on board a canal-boat bound
for New York, and to return home by rail. To avoid the heat of the sun,
they started down the lake immediately after breakfast, and forgot to
put out the fire before they left the island.
After they had rowed at least a mile, Tom, who sat facing the stern,
noticed a light wreath of smoke rising from the island, and remarked,
“Our fire is burning yet. We ought not to have gone off and left it.”
Harry looked back, and saw that the cloud of smoke was rapidly
increasing.
“It’s not the fire that’s making all that smoke!” he exclaimed.
“What is it, then?” asked Tom.
“Perhaps it’s water,” said Joe. “I always thought that where there was
smoke there must be fire; but Harry says it isn’t fire.”
“I mean,” continued Harry, “that we didn’t leave fire enough to make so
much smoke. It must have spread and caught something.”
“Caught the tent, most likely,” said Tom. “Let’s row back right away
and put it out.”
“What’s the use?” interrupted Jim. “That tent is as dry as tinder, and
will burn up before we can get half-way there.”
“We must get back as soon as we can,” cried Harry. “All our things are
in the tent. Row your best, boys, and we may save them yet.”
The boat was quickly turned, and headed toward the camp. The fire was
rapidly increasing, and it was apparent that the dry underbrush must
have caught; in which case the fire would soon fasten on the trees, and
sweep over the whole of the little island.
[Illustration: THE EXPLOSION IN CAMP.]
“There’s one reason why I’m not particularly anxious to help put that
fire out,” Joe remarked, as they approached the island, and could see
that a really alarming fire was in progress.
“What’s that?” asked Harry.
“As near as I can calculate, there must be about two pounds--”
He was interrupted by a loud report from the island, and a shower of
pebbles, sticks, and small articles--among which a shoe and a tin pail
were recognized--shot into the air.
--“Of powder,” Joe continued, “in the flask. I thought it would blow
up, and now that it’s all gone I don’t mind landing on the island.”
“Everything must be ruined!” exclaimed Jim.
“Lucky for us that we put on our shoes this morning,” Tom remarked, as
he rowed steadily on. “That must have been one of my other pair that
just went up. I remember I put them in the corner of the tent close by
the powder.”
When they reached the island they could not at first land, on account
of the heat of the flames; but they could plainly see that the tent and
everything in it had been totally destroyed. After waiting for half an
hour the fire burnt itself out, so that they could approach their dock
and land on the smoking ash heap that an hour before had been such a
beautiful, shady spot. There was hardly anything left that was of any
use. A tin pan, a fork, and the hatchet were found uninjured; but all
their clothing and other stores were either burnt to ashes or so badly
scorched as to be useless. Quite overwhelmed by their disaster, the
boys sat down and looked at one another.
“We’ve got to go home now, whether we want to or not,” Harry said, as
he poked the ashes idly with a stick.
“Well, we meant to go home in a few days anyway,” said Tom; “so the
fire hasn’t got very much the better of us.”
“But I hate to have everything spoiled, and to have to go in this sort
of way. Our tin pans and fishing-tackle aren’t worth much, but all our
spare clothes have gone.”
“You’ve got your uncle’s gun in the boat, so that’s all right,”
suggested Tom, encouragingly. “As long as the gun and the boat are
safe, we needn’t mind about a few flannel shirts and things.”
“But it’s such a pity to be driven away when we were having such a
lovely time,” continued Harry.
“That’s rubbish, Harry,” said Joe. “We were all beginning to get tired
of camping out. I think it’s jolly to have the cruise end this way,
with a lot of fireworks. It’s like the transformation scene at the
theatre. Besides, it saves us the trouble of carrying a whole lot of
things back with us.”
“The thing to do now,” remarked Tom, “is to row right down to the
outlet, and get a team to take us to Glenn’s Falls this afternoon. We
can’t sleep here, unless we build a hut, and then we wouldn’t have a
blanket to cover us. Don’t let’s waste any more time talking about it.”
“That’s so! Take your places in the boat, boys, and we’ll start for
home.” So saying, Harry led the way to the boat, and in a few moments
the _Whitewing_ was homeward bound.
The boys were lucky enough to find a man who engaged to take them to
Glenn’s Falls in time to catch the afternoon train for Albany. They
stopped at the Falls only long enough to see the _Whitewing_ safely
on board a canal-boat, and they reached Albany in time to go down the
river on the night-boat.
After a supper that filled the colored waiters with astonishment and
horror, the boys selected arm-chairs on the forward deck, and began
to talk over the cruise. They all agreed that they had had a splendid
time, in spite of hard work and frequent wettings.
“We’ll go on another cruise next summer, sure,” said Harry. “Where
shall we go?”
Tom was the first to reply. Said he, “I’ve been thinking that we can do
better than we did this time.”
“How so?” asked the other boys.
“The _Whitewing_ is an awfully nice boat,” Tom continued, “but she is
too small. We ought to have a boat that we can sleep in comfortably,
and without getting wet every night.”
“But, then,” Harry suggested, “you couldn’t drag a bigger boat round a
dam.”
“We can’t drag the _Whitewing_ round much of a dam. She’s too big to be
handled on land, and too little to be comfortable. Now, here’s my plan.”
“Let’s have it,” cried the other boys.
“We can hire a cat-boat about twenty feet long, and she’ll be big
enough, so that we can rig up a canvas cabin at night. We can anchor
her, and sleep on board her every night. We can carry mattresses, so we
needn’t sleep on stones and stumps--”
--“And coffee-pots,” interrupted Joe.
--“And we can take lots of things, and live comfortably. We can sail
instead of rowing; and though I like to row as well as the next fellow,
we’ve had a little too much of that. Now we’ll get a cat-boat next
summer, and we’ll cruise from New York Bay to Montauk Point. We can
go all the way through the bays on the south side, and there are only
three places where we will have to get a team of horses to drag the
boat across a little bit of flat meadow. I know all about it, for I
studied it out on the map one day. What do you say for that for a
cruise?”
“I’ll go,” said Harry.
“And I’ll go,” said Jim.
“Hurrah for the cat-boat!” said Joe. “We can be twice as moral and
piratical in a sail-boat as we can in a row-boat, even if it is the
dear little _Whitewing_.”
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber using
the original cover as the background and is entered into the
public domain.