CRAZY JANE MAKES A DISCOVERY
"Wait!"
Jane sprang forward, and grasping the rope, lifted it from the water and
began hauling in on it. She uttered a shout of joy.
"There's no 'Red Rover' on the other end of this rope, Harriet," she
cried.
"Then it has broken away and sunk," answered Harriet gloomily. "Let's
get into the rowboat and go out yonder."
"In a minute. I want to see what is at the other end of this rope,
Harriet, dear. There's nothing like beginning at the right end. This is
the right end; after we get the rope in we will move on to the other
end. We may have to dive, but you and I know how to do that, don't we
darlin'?"
Harriet nodded. The long rope came in dripping, so cold to the touch as
to make Jane's fingers numb.
"There!" exclaimed Jane, slamming the rope down on the wharf. "There's
the old thing. Didn't I tell you there was no 'Red Rover' on the end of
it."
"Then we had better take to the rowboat. I don't understand this at
all," said Harriet, in a troubled voice.
"Just a minute, Harriet. Will you look at this and tell Jane McCarthy
the meaning of it?" She extended the end of the rope toward Harriet. The
latter took it, permitting the dripping rope to lie across the palm of
one hand for a minute. Harriet glanced up at her companion with troubled
eyes.
"Do you know what has been done to it?" asked Harriet.
"I think so," nodded Jane.
"The rope has been cut," reflected Harriet.
"It has," agreed Jane.
"But, who could have done such a thing?" Harriet wondered.
"If I knew, I'd make him suffer for this piece of work," retorted Jane.
"I don't know; I can't even think," answered Harriet solemnly. "What do
you suppose has become of the boat, Jane?"
"Goodness knows," replied Jane.
"I'm going to search the lake." Harriet ran around the end of the pier,
where, shoving off the rowboat, she leaped in. Jane followed her. "I'm
going to the west. The wind is blowing that way."
Jane McCarthy nodded understandingly. Harriet was rowing, Jane sitting
in the stern of the boat.
"Watch the shore, Jane. I will do the rowing. I am going to tell you
what I discovered that day we first went aboard the houseboat. I put my
hand on the stove quite by accident that morning. The stove was so hot
that it burned my hand."
"You don't say?"
"Yes. Now explain how that stove happened to be hot," continued Harriet.
"That's easy. Somebody had had a fire in it," nodded Jane.
"Exactly. And not long before we went aboard. Then there were bread
crumbs on the floor. Jane, some person had been living on that boat. You
remember how anxious Dee Dickinson was that we should not go to the boat
until he had first been there?"
"Yes, but what has that to do with the cutting of the rope, last night,
and losing the boat?"
"I don't know. That the two puzzles have some connection I am positive.
What we wish most, just now, is to find the 'Red Rover.'"
"There's something red on the shore; it looks like a fire!" cried Jane,
pointing excitedly. "Oh, if it should be the boat."
Harriet ceased rowing and quickly turned her head over her right
shoulder. She gazed, at first half startled, then uttered a cry of
delight.
"It's the 'Red Rover.' Don't you see? Hurrah! We've found the boat. It's
the sun shining on those red sides that made it look like a fire."
Harriet swung the prow of the boat and began rowing shoreward with all
her might. After a few minutes of rowing she drove the boat in alongside
of the "Red Rover," then leaped out on the shore. The unknown miscreant
having cut her from her moorings the houseboat had drifted down the
lake. She had stranded among a forest of rushes, the bottom of the boat
being hard and fast on the gravel.
The girls breathless with excitement, climbed aboard. The after-half of
the house floor was under water. There were fully two feet of water in
the stern. In the after cockpit were several bushels of sand and gravel
that had been thrown up by the wind and waves during the night.
"Oh, the villains, to do a thing like this!" raged Jane. She started to
run aft for a pail but losing her footing on the slippery floor she went
sprawling and splashing into the water. Jane scrambled up, wet from head
to feet.
"Oh, me! Oh my! What a mess!"
Harriet leaned against the side of the cabin screaming with laughter.
Jane looked at her an instant, then, joined in the merriment.
"You are a sight!" gasped Harriet.
"Why shouldn't I be? I've been in the water? Are we going to stand here
and laugh all the morning, or are we going to get busy?"
For answer Harriet Burrell picked up a pail and began bailing out the
cockpit. Jane, dripping, took up another pail and together the girls
worked feverishly. There were several barrels of water in the cockpit,
so their backs were aching by the time they had finished bailing out the
water. The stern of the boat now floated clear, but the forward end was
hard and fast on the ground.
"The next thing is to get the boat off the gravel," announced Harriet.
"Maybe we can hitch the rowboat on and drag the 'Red Rover' off,"
suggested Jane.
Harriet shook her head.
"It won't work. We shall have to drag it off by main force. You can't be
any wetter, and I'm not afraid of a little water. Let's get outside the
boat and see what we can do."
A few seconds later as they took hold and directed their strength to the
task of moving the heavy boat, Harriet's feet slipped from under her.
She fell over into the water, coming up coughing, the water streaming
from her hair and shoulders, and falling into the lake in a shower. Jane
screamed with delight. "You're wet all right, now! No mistake about
that," jeered Crazy Jane. "And what have we done? Moved the old tub
three quarters of an inch. At this rate we'll have her afloat about
supper time. I wish I had my car hitched to it. I'd drag the old thing
out so fast it would make her dizzy."
Harriet had grasped the edge of the boat, tugging with all her might.
Jane dashed around to the other side, adding her strength to the task.
The boat gave way with such suddenness that both girls fell into the
lake. But they did not care. They could get no wetter. Therefore they
laughed and joked over their bedraggled condition. The "Red Rover"
floated clear of the rushes.
"Do the best you can. I'll get the rowboat," cried Harriet, splashing
toward the shore. Her clothes were so heavy with water that they impeded
her movements. She shoved the rowboat out, and, leaping in, rowed it out
into the lake with strong sweeps of the oars. In a few moments she was
alongside.
"The rope is too short. What shall we do?" called Jane.
"There is a rope attached to this boat. I think it will be long enough
for towing. Wait, I'll toss it to you. Make it fast. The boat is heavy
and we are going to have a hard pull, but I don't dare leave it here
until we can get help."
Jane waded over to the rowboat for the rope. She made it fast; then,
getting behind the houseboat, she pushed while Harriet rowed. The "Red
Rover" started but slowly. It was all the two girls could do to get it
in motion. Then when, finally, they had gotten under way with it, Jane
was obliged to wade out in water nearly to her neck to reach the
rowboat. She nearly upset it in getting aboard. Two pairs of oars,
instead of one, were now bent to the work of towing the houseboat. The
boat went broadside to the waves, nearly pulling them overboard. They
saw that it would be impossible to tow it to the Johnson dock in this
fashion.
"One of us must row and the other steer," declared Harriet.
"I'll do the rowing. You've had your share," cried Jane. "Wait, I'll
pull you alongside."
"No. You must keep the oars going, or the big boat will drift back into
shallow water again. I'll get back there all right." Harriet unshipped
her oars and stood up in the boat. She took a clean, curving dive into
the lake. Jane shouted delightedly.
"What a beauty!"
Harriet came up, shaking her head to free it from water, then struck out
for the houseboat. Getting aboard, weighted down by her clothes as she
was, was not an easy task. Finally, however, the girl managed to get one
foot over the edge. She clung there for a moment breathing heavily, then
slowly climbed aboard.
"Hur-r-r-ro-o-o-o!" wailed Jane. "They can't stop a Meadow-Brook Girl
with fire or water."
"Now pull," shouted Harriet, "I'll change places with you when you get
tired."
"I'll rest when I get tired," was the very practical reply of Crazy Jane
McCarthy.
Harriet took the tiller and straightened out the scow's course, though
she discovered that the old boat was a most unmanageable craft. It
simply would not keep on any one course for more than thirty seconds at
a time. Jane was shouting her directions, making sarcastic remarks about
Harriet's steering, but the latter merely smiled. She knew she was doing
the best she could, and that was all any one could do. Jane was making
but slow headway. They had not yet rounded the point that hid the
Johnson dock from view. Her strokes became uneven, and jerky. All at
once the rope broke. Crazy Jane McCarthy landed in the bottom of the
rowboat.
"Save me," she screamed.
Harriet, who could not see the small boat, the deck house being in the
way, continued on her course, smiling good-naturedly at Jane's noisy
objections. But all at once a crash and a yell startled Harriet. She
threw the tiller over and leaned far out. The rowboat was
bottom-side-up, with Crazy Jane McCarthy struggling in the water. Her
mouth was too full of water, just at that moment, to allow her to raise
an outcry. The momentum of the houseboat carried it alongside the
overturned rowboat, Harriet leaned over and grasped one of her
companion's arms.
"Why, Jane! You shouldn't have stopped rowing to go in for a swim."
"Go in for a swim!" exploded Jane. "And didn't you run me down. Look at
the boat, will you! Now, what are we going to do, will you tell me?"
"The first thing is to get you on board. After that I don't know."
Crazy Jane was dragged aboard the "Red Rover." She lay clinging to the
gunwale, laughing immoderately.
"It's a fine start we are having, darling isn't it, now!"
"A wet one," amended Harriet. "See! The rowboat is drifting ashore. You
stay on board. I'm going after it. I'm not tired. Keep the houseboat
away from the shore, if you can."
Harriet sprang into the water, swimming leisurely shoreward. Reaching
the rowboat, she took hold of and clung to it, drifting ashore with it.
The houseboat also was coming in. Jane was shouting to her companion to
hurry. Harriet was doing the best she could under the circumstances,
struggling with all her strength to right the rowboat. By the time she
had succeeded in doing so, the "Red Rover" was fairly on top of her.
"Steer out!" cried Harriet warningly.
"I can't steer in or out," flung back Jane.
Harriet began tugging at the rowboat to get it out of the way of the
oncoming houseboat. The former had grounded in the shallow water. The
houseboat caught the stranded rowboat, turned it over and slowly ground
it under its prow, accompanied by the sound of crushing planks. Harriet
was caught and thrown down, disappearing under the bow of the "Red
Rover."