RANDY'S PROPOSITION
At the moment when Clay's situation seemed most hopeless--and while his
horrified companions were looking on with the silence of despair--Nugget
leaned forward in his canoe, opened the hatch, and drew out a big ball
of cord.
"Ned! Ned!" he shouted eagerly, "can you do anything with this outline?
I forgot I had it."
Ned's face flushed with joy, and paddling alongside of Nugget he
snatched the cord.
"Follow me to the shore," he cried, "and you too, Randy."
An instant later the three lads were standing on the gravel beach,
separated from the whirlpool by no less than sixty or seventy feet.
Ned waved his hand to Clay, and shouted hoarsely: "Fight hard, old
fellow! We'll save you in a minute."
Then turning quickly to his companions he demanded: "How long is this
line?"
"One hundred and forty feet," answered Nugget. "The man I bought it from,
said so."
Ned tied the end of it to a ring in the stern of the Pioneer, and ran
down the beach, unrolling the ball as he went. Sixty feet away he
stopped and cut the cord, then he hurried back with the remainder in his
hand. He tied a short stick to the end of the ball, and throwing both
into his canoe scrambled after them.
"Now you fellows keep tight hold of that," he directed, pointing to the
cord that lay outstretched on the beach. "Pay it out as I go, and when I
give the word pull with all your might."
Randy and Nugget began to understand now, and they allowed the line to
trail through their fingers as Ned paddled furiously away, heading for a
point a little above the whirlpool.
It was a critical and intensely exciting moment. Clay had divined what
Ned intended to do, and with this gleam of hope to animate him, he was
fighting desperately to keep away from the gurgling hollow which was
slowly sucking him into its embrace.
There was scant time to spare when Ned ceased paddling a few feet above
and to the right of the whirlpool, and allowed the canoe to drift down
stream broadside. But he was wonderfully cool headed and self-possessed,
as, with deft fingers he unwrapped the ball of cord and coiled it
between his knees. Then he twisted one end about his left hand, and with
the right seized the short, heavy stick.
He was now directly opposite Clay, and measuring the distance with a
quick eye, he flung the stick straight out. It rose in the air, dragging
the cord gracefully after it, and fell across the combing of Clay's
canoe.
Ned uttered a sigh of relief, and Randy and Nugget cheered wildly from
the shore.
But the danger was not over yet, though Clay had instantly seized the
line. The canoe would upset at once if an attempt were made to drag it
broadside out of the whirlpool.
Clay comprehended this, and he was quick witted enough to solve the
problem. Though his canoe was now verging on the trough of the
whirlpool, he calmly tied the line around one blade of his paddle and
pressed this with all his might against the big screw eye that was set
in the bow of the canoe.
"All right," he shouted hoarsely.
Ned turned and waved his hand to Randy and Nugget. They understood the
signal, and instantly began to haul on the line.
The Pioneer moved slowly toward shore, and the next instant the strain
reached Clay. It was concentrated in the right place, too, and after a
couple of refractory tugs, as though the whirlpool was loath to
surrender its victim, the Neptune headed about and slowly followed the
Pioneer.
This was, if possible, a more exciting moment than any that had preceded
it. So much depended on the two lines. If either broke disaster would
follow.
But the cords did their duty nobly, and soon Clay was beyond the
swirling circles. A few seconds later the Pioneer touched shore, and
then three willing pairs of hands dragged the Neptune in so forcibly
that a great wave rolled before the bow.
The boys had to help Clay out and prop him against a tree; and for
nearly five minutes he sat there so white and helpless that they feared
he would faint. A drink of water seemed to revive him some, and finally
the color came back to his cheeks.
"I'm all right now," he said, as he got up and walked a few steps. "For
a little while I felt like keeling over, and no wonder, after what I
went through out there."
"It was a close call," asserted Ned. "Nugget didn't remember about that
line a minute too soon. The credit of your rescue belongs to him."
"No it doesn't," said Nugget bashfully. "You did the work."
Clay looked from one to the other, and then held out his hand to Nugget.
"It was your outline and your suggestion," he said in a low voice. "You
saved my life. Will you forgive me, old fellow? I put that snake in your
canoe this morning, and am awfully sorry I did it."
Nugget hesitated an instant. Then he blushingly accepted the proffered
hand and said:
"We'll let the matter drop, Clay. I know you won't do anything like that
again."
"No, I won't," replied Clay earnestly. "I'm done with practical jokes.
It was only a garter snake, though I caught it with a forked stick."
Ned and Randy had been at first inclined to pitch into Clay, but seeing
that he was sincerely repentant they wisely concluded to ignore his
fault, hoping that the lesson would really prove beneficial, and cure
him of the fondness for playing tricks.
After a light lunch the Jolly Rovers started off again. They were
anxious to get as far as possible from the whirlpool. During the early
part of the afternoon they paddled and drifted by turns, for Clay was
still a little weak from his experience.
Between three and four o'clock a bend of the creek brought into view an
old wooden bridge. The piers were mossy and crumbling to ruins, and the
roof and sides had been guiltless of paint for many a long year.
Just below the bridge the Creek widened to a kind of pool. At the foot
of a ledge of rocks on the left shore sat three men holding long fishing
poles. Their attention seemed to be given to a fourth man, who was
sitting in a boat near by, talking earnestly, and pointing from time to
time out on the creek.
A spring was visible a little above the fishermen, and as the boys
happened to be thirsty they paddled over to it.
The canoes immediately became objects of interest, and a friendly
conversation was started.
The man in the boat stepped out, and picked up Randy's gun.
"That's a purty nice weapon," he observed in a mournful voice. "It ain't
unlike the one I lost, only mine was longer, and a leetle bit lighter.
It was a muzzle loader, though, and this is one of them new fangled
kind."
"How did you lose yours?" inquired Randy.
"It sunk out there," replied the man, pointing toward mid-channel. "I
was driftin' along when I seen a muskrat in the reeds on t'other shore.
I stood up to reach the gun, an' just as I got holt of it my foot
slipped on a wet board, an' down I come. The weapon went overboard, an'
that was the end of it. It riles me bad, 'cause that gun belonged to my
old daddy."
"When did this happen?" asked Randy.
"'Bout half an hour ago; anyway not much mor'n that."
"But the gun surely isn't lost for good. Why don't you dive after it?"
The man thrust his hands into his pockets and stared blankly at Randy.
The three fishermen smiled and nudged each other.
"Why don't you dive after it?" repeated Randy. "If you can tell me the
exact location I'll get it for you."
"You will, will you?" exclaimed the man impressively. "Waal, I reckon
you'd have a stiff contract. Did you fellows never hear of Rudy's Hole?
Thar it lies right in front of you, and there ain't no bottom to it."
"Hold on, Mose Hocker," exclaimed one of the fishermen. "There must be
bottom somewheres, of course, but it's mighty far down."
The boys looked at one another incredulously and smiled. The idea of a
bottomless hole in the Conodoguinet was ridiculous.
At that moment an old man with bent back and white hair hobbled down
the path from the road above, leaning heavily on his cane, which was his
constant companion.
"Good afternoon, Daddy Perkiss," exclaimed Mose Hocker. "I'm glad you
come along. I lost my gun out in the Hole a while ago, and this chap
here offers to dive arter it. You've lived around these parts nigh onto
eighty years. Tell him how fur down he'll have to go to reach that
weapon."
"Ho! Ho!" cackled Daddy Perkiss, as he tremblingly sat down on a drift
log, "the lad wants to dive in Rudy's Hole, does he? Well, let him try,
let him try."
The old man was silent for a moment, and his bleary eyes had a far away
expression as though they were looking into the dim past.
"It be sixty years since Jonas Rudy were drowned out here," he mumbled
in a shrill voice, "an they ain't found the body to this day. I were
away at the time, drivin' a teamster's wagon to Pittsburg, but I mind
hearin' the story when I come home. Many a time I've heard tell how they
tried to find bottom the next spring after Jonas was drowned.
"Mike Berry, the blacksmith over at Four Corners, brought his anvil, an'
the men made the women folks give up their clotheslines. Then they went
out on the hole in the old ferryboat, and let down the anvil. There was
two hundred feet of line in all, an' when half of it were out the men
lost their grip. The rest went like greased lightnin', an' the end got
coiled around Mike Berry's yaller dog, an' took it along. The poor
beast never came up again."
Daddy Perkiss paused for sheer want of breath, and looked around to note
the effect of his story.
"That yarn was started years ago," whispered Mose Hocker, coming close
up to the boys, "an' Daddy has told it so many times that he believes
every word. I reckon the most of it's true though. It would take more'n
one clothesline to reach bottom out here."
"But has the place never been sounded?" asked Ned. "Have you never tried
it yourself?"
Mose Hocker shook his head vigorously. "What would be the use?" he
replied. "Nobody doubts it. Why, Rudy's Hole is known an' dreaded for
miles around."
Evidently regarding this argument as a clincher he turned aside, and
began to talk to Daddy Perkiss.
About this time Randy was doing a good deal of thinking. He had listened
with incredulous interest to the old man's narrative, and knowing how
prone country folk are to accept any fanciful story--especially a long
standing tradition--without ever attempting to verify it, the conviction
had forced itself upon his mind that Rudy's Hole was a myth--in other
words that its depth was nothing extraordinary.
Randy was a good swimmer, but a far better diver. He was long winded,
and his staying qualities under water had always been a source of
admiration and envy to his companions.
It now occurred to him, with irresistible fascination, what a fine
thing it would be to recover Mose Hooker's gun, and show these people
what a delusion they had been laboring under all their lives.
It took Randy but a short time to make up his mind, and walking over to
Mose Hocker, he asked abruptly: "Could you tell me just where your gun
fell in?"
"I reckon I could if there was any need of it," was the drawling reply.
"I happened to notice my bearings at the time. I was straight down from
that rock out there, and straight out from the big button wood tree on
yonder shore--right over the deepest part of the Hole."
"All right!" said Randy quietly. "Now if you will lend me your boat for
about ten minutes I think I can restore you your gun."