THE ABANDONED BOAT
Bob and Frank were so surprised by Sammy's sudden call that they could
only stare stupidly at him, and try to rub some of the sleepy feeling
from their eyes. Then, as the bumping and grinding sound still kept up,
Sammy cried again:
"Fellows, we sure have struck something. Maybe we're at a dock! Oh, I
hope so! I guess our voyage has ended!"
"Good!" cried Bob.
Frank went to the forward bull's-eyes and looked out. It was getting
daylight.
"You've got another guess coming, Sammy," he said. "We're still out on
the ocean, it looks to me. We couldn't be at a dock and be moving this
way."
The motor boat in which they had so strangely been blown to sea was
still heaving up and down, though by the silence outside the boys
realized that the storm was over.
"Well, we're certainly up against something," insisted Sammy. "Listen to
it bump!"
There was no doubt about this. The motor boat was grinding and bumping
up against some object it had collided with on the ocean. And still the
boys, from the cabin windows, could see nothing.
"Maybe," began Sammy, as his eyes grew big with wonder, "maybe it's a
whale!"
"A whale!" cried Bob. "Listen to him, would you! That's as bad as the
pirate gold."
"It sure is," agreed Frank, as he began to dress.
"Pooh!" exclaimed Sammy. "It might happen just the same, and if we find
a dead whale outside you fellows won't be so ready to laugh!"
"Oh, a dead whale--maybe yes," agreed Bob, for more than once Sammy had
been right in his queer guesses, though a number of his wild dreams of
sensational things had not proved to be true.
"Yes, or a live whale either," went on Sammy, who was following Frank's
example in getting into his clothes, as was Bob. "Didn't you ever read
of whales scraping themselves against ships to get the barnacles off
'em."
"Off the ships?" asked Frank, with a smile.
"No, off the whales themselves. Anyway, I think it's barnacles. It's
some kind of stuff that grows on a whale and he doesn't like it, so he
scrapes it off whenever he can. Sometimes he scrapes up against a ship,
and maybe that's what's happened now."
"Well, we can soon see," spoke Frank. "But if it is a whale I hope he
doesn't scrape too hard. He might upset this boat."
"Well, we lived through one night, adrift on the ocean," remarked Sammy,
as he finished dressing. "Now we'll see what it's like outside."
"It's stopped raining, anyhow," went on Frank. "The storm is over."
"I'm glad of it," remarked Bob. "Now we can eat breakfast without
spilling things in our laps."
"That's right--it is time to eat," added Sammy.
"But first let's see what we're bumping into, or what's bumping us,"
suggested Frank.
The boys were feeling much better now. They had been rested and calmed
by their night's rest, and they had slept more soundly than they knew,
for they were tired out. Sleep was the best thing for them, as it kept
them from worrying.
And they had good cause for worry. Three small boys, who knew little if
anything of managing a motor boat, were adrift in one on the big ocean.
The only wonder is that they were as brave as they were.
"I wonder what mom thinks?" said Bob, as he slid back the bolt of the
cabin door.
"She couldn't help worrying--I know mine would," spoke Sammy. "But I
think we'll be rescued to-day. Silas is most likely out looking for us
with some of his sailor friends."
"Well, I hope he finds us soon," remarked Frank. "It's all right in
books, to read about being adrift at sea, but It isn't so much fun when
it comes to you. I'd rather be in Lighthouse Cove."
"So would I!" cried his two chums.
The three Fairview boys went out on the open deck of the _Skip_, and, as
they emerged from the cabin a cry of surprise came from all of them. For
the motor boat's stern was bumping and rubbing up against the side of a
small two-master schooner, which, with some sails set, was drifting
about on the ocean, abandoned, and seemingly as much at the mercy of the
wind and waves as was the _Skip_ herself.
"Would you look at that!" cried Sammy.
"A ship!" gasped Bob.
"And that's your whale!" went on Frank. "Say, how did this happen?"
None of the boys could answer. They looked off across a waste of waters.
Not another craft was in sight, and they could not see land. The sun
came up, seemingly out of the ocean itself, with the promise of a fair,
hot day. And those two vessels--the motor boat and the schooner had,
somehow, drifted together.
That was the noise which had awakened Sammy--the gentle collision of the
craft in the ocean. Had this happened when the storm was at its height
the smaller boat might have been sunk. But the storm had passed, and the
ocean only rose and fell in a gentle swell.
"What brought the two together?" asked Bob.
"The wind and the tide, I guess," said Frank. Later he learned that
objects in water have a sort of attraction for one another, as pieces of
metal are attracted to a magnet.
If you will take a basin of water, and scatter some pieces of wood or
cork on top, and then take care not to move or stir the water, you will
find, in a few minutes, that the pieces have drawn themselves together.
Sometimes only one or two will do this, and again the whole number will
form a mass to float about.
It is this which causes masses of driftwood to float in the form of
miniature rafts, and some scientists claim that often ships, which are
not under their own power, are thus drawn together in a collision. Some
even go so far as to say that a big war vessel, for instance, even in
motion, will draw another vessel, also in motion, toward it. And not
long ago a collision of a British warship and a merchant vessel was said
to be due to this cause.
But the boys did not stop to think of that then--indeed they had heard
nothing of it.
All they knew was that their motor boat was up against a much larger and
more substantial vessel, and they were glad of this, for they felt, in
case of a storm, that they could take refuge on the big schooner.
"How do you s'pose it happened that she got here?" asked Sammy,
motioning toward the ship.
"Is there anybody aboard?" was Bob's question.
"Let's go and see," suggested Frank, and this seemed most practical of
all.
It was easy to board the schooner from the rail of the motor boat, as
several ropes hung over the side of the larger craft, by means of which
the boys could pull themselves up.
"And we'd better do it while we're together," went on Frank. "If we
drift apart we might not be able to get together again."
"First let's yell, and see if there's anybody there," suggested Sammy.
"They may all be asleep, and might not like it if we went aboard."
"Not very likely that they're asleep," said Frank. "Someone would be on
the lookout, anyhow. And there'd be a man steering, with the sails set
as they are."
Two of the sails were indeed set, but the main sheets, or ropes, were
loose, and the boom swung back and forth with the motion of the vessel,
so that, even had the wind been blowing, she would have made little
headway. But it was now a dead calm.
"Come on--yell!" suggested Sammy, and the three boys raised their voices
in a shout. They waited a moment to see if they would get an answer, but
none came.
"Come on--let's go aboard!" cried Frank, as he made for the rail, to
reach a dangling rope.
"Wait!" suggested Bob. "Let's tie this motor boat fast, first. We may
want to come back in her again."
[Illustration: "Let's tie the motor boat fast".]
"Why?" asked Sammy.
"Because, we don't know anything about that schooner," went on Bob.
"Maybe all her crew died from smallpox, or something like that. Maybe
she's sinking, and we wouldn't want to stay on board if she was. You
can't tell what makes her this way. Tie our boat fast, I say, and then,
if we want to, we can come back on the _Skip_ if we don't like it on the
_Mary Ellen_," for that was the name of the drifting schooner, as they
could see painted under her stern.
"Good idea," exclaimed Sammy. "We can live on the _Skip_ for a while,
anyhow, if it doesn't storm again. But let's have a try on this
schooner. We'll have more room there, and if it does get rough we won't
mind it so."
They all agreed with this plan, and soon a rope from the motor boat was
made fast to a cable from the schooner. Then, making sure they would not
lose the _Skip_, the boys pulled themselves over the rail of the _Mary
Ellen_, and landed on her deck.
They looked about them curiously. There was not a sound except the
creaking of ropes in pulley blocks, and the rattle and bang of the sails
as they swung to and fro, not being held in check by the main sheets.
"There doesn't seem to be anybody here," said Bob. He spoke in a low
voice, as though someone were dead.
"Not a soul," went on Sammy, in the same quiet tones.
The big boom of the forward sail swung across the deck over the heads of
the boys. They ducked, but there was no need for it.
"We could make that fast, anyhow," suggested Frank.
"That's right," agreed Bob.
As my old readers know, the boys had sailed in the _Puff_ before it was
wrecked, and knew a little about such matters.
By hauling on a certain rope they pulled the end of the boom, or the
bottom stick to which the sail is fastened, around so that it could not
swing so far to either side. Then they did the same with the other sail.
"Come on, let's take a look below," said Frank.
The boys hesitated for a moment, and then started for the companionway,
or stairs, that led below.