A LUCKY MEETING.
“Do you know this nephew of Mr. Sperry, and is he a decent sort of
fellow?” asked Hugh of Tip Lange, as the three of them started down the
slope toward where the floating boathouse was moored to a tree, having
long since been pushed far back of its original landing.
“Never knew he had a nephew,” replied the other over his shoulder. “I
reckon he must have come from some other town, and is only visiting
here. But he would be a poor sport if he wouldn’t ask us to get aboard
and help out. Come on, we’ll soon know what’s what!”
They pushed in through the open door of the boathouse. The first thing
Billy saw was that the boy bending over, doing some oiling apparently to
the engine of the launch, wore a faded suit of khaki. He felt like
giving a cheer, his sense of relief was so great. Instead he simply
clutched Hugh by the arm and pointed.
Hugh nodded his head. They could not see the boy’s face, but the sight
of that uniform was certainly pleasant to the patrol leader. He seemed
to feel a sudden surety that the one who wore it must have subscribed to
the rules by which all scouts are governed, and if so he could not well
refuse to accept them as comrades in arms.
Tip Lange coughed loudly, which, of course, was intended to let Mr.
Sperry’s nephew know of their presence. At that the stooping boy raised
his head to look.
Hugh could hardly believe his eyes. As for Billy Worth, he let out a
wild whoop.
“Why, what’s this?” he cried. “It sure looks like our chum, Monkey
Stallings. Hey! are you Mr. Sperry’s nephew? Well, if this doesn’t beat
the Dutch!”
The boy whom Billy called by such a queer name, and who also answered to
that of Eben when at home or in school, was in fact an Oakvale scout,
and a member of the Fox Patrol. He had only been in Oakvale a
comparatively short time, but being full of enthusiasm had managed to
work his way up to the grade of a second-class scout.
He came by his absurd title honestly enough; indeed his comrades could
not have dubbed him by any fairer nickname than that of “Monkey,” for he
was a regular athlete, and could do all manner of wonderful stunts, from
turning flip-flops to hanging by his toes from the limbs of trees,
walking a tight rope, and in fact everything that a circus star of the
sawdust ring could do.
“What! you here in Lawrence, Hugh; and Billy, too?” he burst out,
apparently as much astonished at seeing them as they had felt at sight
of him.
“I came here on some business with a lawyer for my folks, and Billy
wanted to keep me company,” explained Hugh. “When the trains were
abandoned we found we had to stay over, so here we are. But I had no
idea you had left Oakvale, Monkey.”
“I only had time to catch the train after my ma asked me to come up and
visit Uncle Henry for the Easter holidays, as he always thought a heap
of me when we all used to live up in Maine. Then, hang the luck! I
hardly got here before I ate something that doubled me up like a
jackknife, and I’ve been sick ever since. But when he came back a little
while ago and told me how terrible things were getting, I made up my
mind I was going to take the launch out and see if I couldn’t help some
poor folks save their stuff.”
“That’s just what brought us here,” declared Tip Lange, who had
witnessed this meeting of chums with evident delight, since it smoothed
away all their difficulties like magic.
“And we’re going off with you to assist in the good work, hear that,
Monkey?” asserted Billy, with the manner of a dictator who would not
take no for an answer.
“Sure thing!” sang out the Stallings boy, with a happy grin. “Say,
having our assistant scout master along is going to take a load of
responsibility off my poor shoulders, don’t you forget it.”
“How is the engine?” asked Hugh, without noticing the compliment,
although Tip Lange looked toward Billy and nodded his head as much as to
say: “I see he’s held in just as high esteem at home as he will be here
in Lawrence, when people stop to think of all he’s done for the place.”
“Seems to be in apple-pie shape,” replied Monkey Stallings promptly. “I
was just giving her a little more oil when you came. Uncle keeps her up
to the scratch all the time. He’d make a good scout, because he’s so
particular about doing things the very best he knows how. But say, what
about this he was telling me of some stranger in town who wore scout
duds snatching a boy off the bridge when it was just in the act of being
swept away by a driftwood pack!”
Billy chuckled aloud.
“Can’t you guess, Monkey?” he demanded, with a knowing wink.
At that the Stallings boy gave a shout.
“Then it was some of Hugh’s work, was it?” he exclaimed. “I might have
guessed as much. I thought it smacked of the Wolf Patrol way. Some other
time you’ve got to tell me all about it, Billy, won’t you?”
“I promise you, Monkey,” replied the other, as he clambered aboard the
launch, and then looking about him continued: “Seems to me this boat
ought to hold quite a raft of people if pushed. It’s the boss thing for
the work we’re going to start out on now.”
“Uncle says it has held twenty by crowding,” Stallings assured him.
Meanwhile Hugh was busy at the engine. In addition to numerous other
qualifications that made him a good scout with a wide range of
information, Hugh possessed a practical knowledge of motors that had
proved of considerable value to him on many occasions.
After a little examination of the one which he now expected to handle,
he soon had it throbbing noisily. When the moorings were cast off they
ran easily out of the boathouse and upon the broad expanse of water.
The flood was constantly widening its sweep as it sought out new places
for invasion. There was a perceptible current nearly everywhere, though,
of course, it was fiercest in the original river bed, where the sweeping
waters met with no obstructions to their progress, now that the
passenger bridge had been carried off.
Hugh immediately turned toward the lower part of the town. They could
see some people along the shore waving to them and shouting, but what
they said none of those aboard the motorboat understood, nor could they
take the time to try and find out.
Hugh was very careful how he steered his boat, for there were snags to
be met with, and should they strike one while going at such speed, it
might prove the finish of the _Idler_, as the boat was named.
They could see that there was a considerable bustle about this section
of the town. The poor folks living here were doing all in their limited
power to save some of their scanty but nevertheless precious belongings.
They were wading hip deep in the cold water in some cases, bearing beds,
clothes, and one even had a small cook stove thus elevated.
Others were trying to make excuses for rafts out of any stray pieces of
lumber they could get their hands on. In most cases these were so
flimsily patched together that there was a strong likelihood of their
parting as soon as any sort of a load had been placed on them.
“Yap-yap-yap!”
“Hello! that sounds like the Otter signal!” exclaimed Billy Worth,
pricking up his ears; “I’ve heard Alec Sands and Buck Winter give it
many a time. But we’re in Lawrence, not Oakvale, it happens.”
“But they may have had an Otter Patrol in their troop; how about that,
Tip?” remarked Hugh, still guiding the launch with the dexterous hand of
a born pilot, and at the same time keeping one eye on the throbbing
motor.
“To be sure we have, and Wash Bradford is the leader of the Otters,”
came the prompt reply. “There’s a boat right now; and yes, that’s Wash
himself loading it with some household stuff the others are passing out
of that window to him.”
“He’s beckoning to us,” said Stallings. “You can work in closer to them,
can’t you, Hugh? It might be he wants to put us wise to something of
importance.”
“No trouble getting there with this boat, if only there’s enough water,”
the steersman answered, with a confidence that he believed was not going
to be misplaced. “Billy, you’re up in the bow, so suppose you take that
pole and keep finding what the depth is. Sing out to me as often as you
dip.”
“But gee whittaker, Hugh! I don’t know what a fathom is,” protested
Billy, although he did snatch up the push pole indicated, and commenced
dipping it straight down.
“Then go by feet, so long as you tell me of any shoaling,” explained
Hugh.
“Three feet, then. Now two and three-quarters. Going at two and
three-quarters. Two and a half! Are you all done? Oh! Two and a quarter,
and sold to the gentleman over there. How’s this, Hugh?”
“We’re in close enough, and I’ll try to hold her here against the
current while Tip has a confab with his comrade,” announced the pilot,
who wished to let the local boys have all the say possible in the
management of things, so that they might feel the responsibility that
rested on their shoulders, and at the same time reap the full reward
that was to come.
“What is it, Wash?” asked Tip, flushing with pleasure when he heard Hugh
designate him as the one to do the talking, when some fellows would have
monopolized all rights to that themselves; and it increased his respect
for the visiting comrade more than ever.
“We’re getting on hunky-dory here, Tip,” replied the leader of the boat
party, as he took a package of bed clothes from one of the other scouts
who appeared at the open window just then and deposited it in the stern
of the craft, where a woman and three children were huddled, looking the
picture of despair.
“Then you didn’t want any help, I take it?” questioned Tip Lange.
“Not that we know of, Tip. But this woman says her sister must be in a
terribly bad way. She lives in a tumble-down shanty of a house around
the next corner, that must be a heap deeper in the water than this one
is. If it hasn’t floated away before now it’s apt to go any old time.
The current is too swift for us to hold our own with oars, and besides,
this is such a heavy boat.”
“Then you want us to try for it, do you, Wash?” demanded Tip. “How about
it, Commodore? Will the launch stand out against that current?”
“I believe so,” replied Hugh, and then, turning to Wash, he continued:
“Did you say it was around that corner, and to the left toward the
river?”
Wash looked at the woman, who had been listening to this talk while
wringing her hands in anguish. She eagerly nodded her head and
exclaimed:
“Yes, yes, it is that way, Mister. She’s got three childer, too, and her
man he is working on the railroad plenty miles away. Please get them
safe; and do not forget to bring the bed clothes, too. The childer
freeze without some covers.”
She waved both hands distractedly, as though beseeching them to hurry.
Indeed, with that terrible current growing more and more violent with
the passage of time, as the flood kept on rising, there was indeed much
need for haste. And some of the flimsily built dwellings of the poorer
classes in the manufacturing town of Lawrence had already washed away,
the boys had heard, being carried off piecemeal by the greedy waters.
Hugh did not linger. All they had to do was to back away until the boat
could be turned, and then manage to round the designated corner. They
would very likely discover the house where the woman and the three
“childer” lived, and who had been trapped by the flood.
Once they cleared the sheltering wall the full force of the speeding
current struck them, so that Hugh found it absolutely necessary to put
the little three-horse engine to its best “licks” in order to make
headway.
“I see the house!” cried Billy, on the lookout. “There are youngsters in
the upper windows waving bits of white rag to us. We’ve got to hurry,
boys, or we’ll be too late after all. That old shanty is ready to go to
pieces right now!”