AMONG THE ISLANDS
The yacht _Spray_, with six jubilant boys aboard, sailed slowly away from
Heron and Spring Islands, shaping its course for a group of outer islands
of some considerable size, about two miles away. It was nearly seven
o’clock, but the southerly breeze had not wholly died with the going down
of the sun, and the tide, which had just begun to ebb, was favourable.
“I think we can get across to-night,” said George Warren. “This wind is
going to hold for some hours yet and maybe all night; and we know our way
into Cold Harbour at any hour of the twenty-four. I don’t think Captain
Sam will start to run out of the Little Reach at all to-night, for when
the tide drops there are some bad ledges all along that thoroughfare,
and, besides, he won’t want to run the risk of drifting out here in the
bay, in case the wind should drop. We shall have twelve hours start of
him, anyway, and once among the islands we can keep out of sight for
days.”
“I’d have given something to see the colonel and the squire when they
found we had slipped away from them at the very moment they thought they
had us,” said young Joe. “Didn’t they look funny, standing up there on
the rock, watching us sail away?”
“Captain Sam has my sympathy,” said Henry Burns, dryly, and the very
thought of the disappointed trio arguing it out together sent the boys
into fits of laughter. They fairly rolled over on the seats and hugged
one another.
“It’s the richest joke of the season,” said young Joe.
And so, for the time being, in their elation, the consciousness that they
were runaways, fleeing from possible arrest, was forgotten. The stars
came out, and a lighthouse far and near gave them their course. The water
gleamed with phosphorescence, and the yacht _Spray_ left a wake of
gleaming silver and gold and flashing jewels. By and by the moon came up
out of the sea and threw a radiant path across the waters, and the
islands ahead stood out in huge black shadow.
It was glorious sailing, with the soft summer night air blowing in their
faces; and they sang as they sailed, and yo-hoed all the sea choruses
they knew, and felt so free and irresponsible that the yacht _Spray_, as
though it absorbed some of their spirit, rolled along in a merry,
swinging fashion, rocking gently from billow to billow, dipping and
tossing in time to the music.
The still shores of Eagle Island rang with their songs as they rounded to
in Cold Harbour somewhere near midnight, and came to anchor close to
shore in the deep water, within the shadow of the hemlocks that rose up,
tall and black, almost from the water’s edge, where the tide swashed
gently against the rocks. High up in the thick branches of the great
trees some fish-hawks, startled by the unwonted noise, rose up from their
nests and uttered shrill, piercing screams of fright. And this was their
only welcome, for on all the island there was no other sign of life.
“It’s fairly certain they won’t pursue us to-night,” said George. “But it
won’t do to be caught napping. We’ve got to set watch regularly every
night now, and we might as well begin to-night. Somebody’s got to walk
out on the point of rocks yonder and look out for sails. Two will be
enough till morning. We will split the time from now till six into two
three-hour watches.”
“I’ll begin it,” said Bob.
“My next,” said Tom, not to be outdone by his chum.
Bob rowed ashore in the little tender, and set off at once for a point of
rocks some half-mile distant, which commanded a view of the bay. The
others were sound asleep by the time he was half-way there.
When Tom awoke, about seven hours later, it was broad daylight and the
sun was streaming into the hatchway. He scrambled out in a hurry as Bob’s
voice hailed him from the deck.
“Hulloa! Hulloa!” came the voice. “Are you fellows going to sleep all
day?”
“Why didn’t you come back and rouse me to take my turn?” asked Tom,
reproachfully.
“Well, I wasn’t sleepy,” answered Bob, “and it grew light soon, and I got
to watching a mink fishing for his family, and carrying cunners to them
along the rocks, and I thought I’d let you sleep. It’s tough to wake up,
you know, when one has just dropped off. Come on, we’ll take a swim now.
The water is fine.”
Tom bared a muscular young form, and he and Bob dived off the rail of the
_Spray_, making such a splashing and commotion in the water and bellowing
so like young sea-lions, that the others gave up trying to turn over for
another nap, and came sprawling out of the cabin, diving overboard, one
after another, to join them. Then they had a race ashore, which was won
by Tom, with Bob and Henry Burns a close second; after which they lay on
the beach sunning themselves, and then swam back to the yacht for
breakfast.
“There’s not a sail in sight, and the whole bay is as smooth as glass,”
Bob had announced on his arrival; and, as not a breath of wind was yet
stirring, there was no need of setting watch for the present. So they all
sat down to hot coffee and griddle-cakes, and ate like wolves.
After breakfast they went ashore to explore the island, roaming about
like young savages, leaving their clothing piled in a heap in the tender.
Every now and then, as the humour seized them, they raced down to the
shore, wherever they were, ran along on the fine white beaches, and
cooled themselves in the clear, still water.
They had it all to themselves, for nobody lived on this small island, the
fishermen on the mainland or neighbouring larger islands coming over in
the late summer only, to cut the grass and make the hay.
Then they went back to the tender and dressed, and Henry Burns, daunted
at nothing, tried to climb one of the giant hemlocks to a fish-hawk’s
nest, but gave it up when the birds screamed in his ears and beat at him
with their powerful wings.
They had dug some clams at the low tide in the forenoon and put them
away, covered with wet seaweed. Now, shortly after their noon luncheon,
as the tide flooded, they got out the lines from a locker in the _Spray_
and tried the fishing in Cold Harbour. There were plenty of small harbour
fish, flounders out in the middle where the water was muddy, and cunners
and small rock-cod in among the ledges. They soon caught a basket of
these, cleaned them, and put them away, covered with seaweed, like the
clams.
Then, toward the end of the afternoon, as the bay was still calm, they
set out along the shore and gathered driftwood, which they threw in a
great pile on a flat, clean ledge. As supper-time came, they set this
heap afire and let it burn for an hour or two, until the great flat ledge
was at a white heat. Then they made a broom of some branches of hemlock,
and swept the ledge clean of ashes, and brought the clams and poured them
out on the ledge, covering them all with clean, damp seaweed till there
rose clouds of steam, and, after a time, an appetizing odour.
The fish they cooked in much the same way, wrapping them in big green
leaves and setting them upon the hot stones to bake.
Then, as evening came on, they built the fire anew close by, for a fire
is the cheeriest of companions in a strange place, and sat feasting on
steamed clams and fish, with a great pot of coffee filling all the air
with a most delicious fragrance. They lolled about the fire and ate, till
even slim Henry Burns said he felt like an alderman. They told stories by
the firelight, and stretched out at ease till sleep nearly overtook them
as they lay there; for the day had been brimful of exertion. By and by,
long after the stars were out, and a gentle breeze from the south, coming
up softly from among the islands, just rippled the water, they rowed out
to the _Spray_, Tom returning ashore again to begin the night’s watch.
Then, later in the night, came George Warren’s turn to watch, and he
stayed it out till morning, for, with all the fun of the day, there was
something that would keep turning over and over in his brain, and which
took away the sleepy feeling and left in its stead a feeling of
unhappiness; a sense of something wrong. His father would have said it
was conscience, but George wrestled long and hard through the morning
hours to avoid recognizing it as that, for conscience would say, if
recognized, that it was all wrong, what they were doing,—and George
Warren wanted to think he was having a good time.
These moody thoughts began to dissipate, however, with the coming of the
warm golden glow in the east; and when the sun was at length up, and the
boys had had their morning swim, and sat about a fire awaiting breakfast,
George Warren seemed himself again.
But the breakfast was rudely interrupted by a series of whoops from young
Joe, who had taken his brother’s place on guard at the end of the point
of rocks, and who now came running down alongshore, crying out that there
was a sail that looked like the _Nancy Jane_ coming out from around the
islands across the bay, and they all raced back to have a look at it.
“It’s the _Nancy Jane_, sure enough,” said Henry Burns. “It’s her big
mainsail, with the high peak. She’s making slow headway, though, with
this breath of wind. However, we shall have to be off at once, if we are
going to try to escape.”
It was noticeable that Henry Burns said “if.”
However, as no one felt like proposing to give up, they lost no time in
getting aboard the _Spray_, and had sail on and the anchor up in what
Captain Sam would have called a jiffy. Heading out into the open bay that
lay between them and the outer islands, they bade good-bye to Cold
Harbour and began a long, slow beat to windward, in the light breeze.
“There’s more wind coming, down between the islands,” said Bob. “There’s
a line of breeze about two miles to the southward, and we shall catch it
a good half-hour before the _Nancy Jane_.”
“That’s so; it will give us a fine start,” said Arthur.
But, somehow, no one seemed wildly enthusiastic over their prospects.
However, as they caught the fresher breeze, and the little _Spray_ stood
stiffly up into it and ate away to windward, their spirits rose. Then, as
the islands came plainly into view and they drew nearer and nearer to the
first, big Saddle Island, with its low range of little hills dropping
down in the centre in the shape of a horse’s back, the excitement became
intense; for the _Nancy Jane_ had not rounded the point of Eagle Island,
and it seemed as though they might be out of sight behind Saddle Island
before they could be seen by those aboard the pursuing yacht.
“Go it, old _Spray_! Good little boat!” cried young Joe, as the yacht
glided swiftly up into the shadow of the island. “We’re going to make it,
and, once behind old Saddle, who’s to know which way we have gone?”
“Five minutes more of this sailing, and we shall fool Captain Sam once
more,” said Bob.
The five minutes were nearly up. They had but another leg to run to round
the head of Saddle Island. They stood out till they had one and all
declared that they could clear it on the next tack; they were all ready
to go about. George Warren stood with one hand on the tiller and the
other ready to grasp the main-sheet. Joe and Arthur Warren were waiting
impatiently to trim the jib-sheets, and then—and then George Warren took
their breaths away.
All at once he jammed the tiller over, threw the _Spray_ clear off the
wind, let the main-sheet run, and before they scarcely knew what had
happened, instead of standing in to round the head of Saddle Island, the
little _Spray_ was running dead before the wind and heading squarely back
for the point around which the _Nancy Jane_ must soon come in sight.
It was so quickly done that at first they thought there was some mistake,
and Arthur and Joe and Bob rushed to the stern to help bring her around
again; but George Warren, with a firm, set look on his face, stood them
off.
“Oh, I say, George, you’re not going to give it up now, are you?” cried
young Joe, who had been in high spirits not a moment before.
“That’s what,” responded his brother, quietly. “I’ve thought it all out
at last, and I’ve come to the conclusion we are doing the cowardly thing
to run away. We have got to face the thing, and we may as well do it
first as last. Besides, we didn’t set out to run away when we started.”
“That’s a fact,” said Tom. “We have sort of drifted into this running
away business without realizing what we were doing. Now the best thing we
can do is to go back and have it out with Colonel Witham.”
“It’s not Colonel Witham that I hate to face,” said George. “It’s father
and mother. And the part they’ll feel worst about is that we did not stay
and talk it over with them.”
“That’s so,” added Arthur. “What a lot of loons we were to come down
here.”
“Shall I pull the centreboard up?” asked Henry Burns.
“You bet!” answered George Warren. “And we’ll take a leaf out of your
book, Henry, and we won’t worry over what cannot be helped. We’re doing
the right thing now, anyway, so there’s that much to feel good about.”
“There’s the _Nancy Jane_,” said Henry Burns.
Sure enough, Captain Sam’s pride was just turning the point, and Captain
Sam, looking at the _Spray_ coming down free and pointing its nose right
at him, could hardly believe his eyes.
“It’s them, all right,” he assured the squire and the colonel. “They are
coming back; tired of being runaways, I guess. Well, I thought they would
get sick of it after a night or two away from home. They ain’t the kind
of boys to enjoy running away.”
“Humph!” snorted the colonel.
“They’re a lot of young scamps and scapegraces,” snarled the squire.
Getting aground and spending a night in a bed that the colonel swore was
stuffed with pig iron and seaweed had not improved their tempers.
“Well, anyhow,” responded Captain Sam, “they are coming back of their own
accord, and that is something in their favour.”
The colonel and the squire only sneered.
Meanwhile the little _Spray_ came running down the wind in merry style,
and the end of the next hour found her swinging up into the wind, with
sails flapping, while the _Nancy Jane_ ran alongside.
The colonel and the squire were at last avenged.
Full of wrath was the one, and brimming with wrathful satisfaction was
the other.
“So we have caught you at last, have we?” exclaimed Squire Brackett.
“We seem to have sort of caught ourselves, squire,” answered George
Warren.
“Well, never mind about being smart,” said the colonel, hotly. “You are
under arrest for burning my hotel down. Perhaps that will take some of
the smartness out of you.”
“Under arrest!” George Warren’s face paled. “It isn’t right,” he added.
“We didn’t do it nor have any hand in it.”
“Guess you won’t attempt to deny that you were in the billiard-room, will
you?” broke in Squire Brackett. “Because, bein’ as I saw you all in
there, it might not do you any good to swear as how you wasn’t.”
“Don’t you dare accuse us of trying—” But young Joe got no further.
“Be quiet, Joe,” said George Warren, calmly. And then, turning to the
colonel, he said:
“We are not going to deny anything, Colonel Witham. That is why we are
coming back of our own accord. We have got nothing to conceal, and we are
going to tell everything just as it happened.”
“That is just about what we are arresting you for,” said the squire,
sneeringly. “We calculate you’ll have to tell everything.”
“Hold on there a minute, squire,” cried Captain Sam. “Let’s not be too
hard on these boys. There may be some mistake, as they say. I hold these
’ere warrants, and I don’t see as there is any necessity of serving of
’em just yet. If these boys will give me their word to go along straight
as they can sail for Mayville, and agree to appear when wanted before
Judge Ellis, why, I guess maybe the warrants will keep till—say, just as
we go in the door. Or perhaps Judge Ellis will consent that they come
before him of their own accord, without serving these warrants at all,
considering as they are only boys.”
It is needless to say that Captain Sam’s legal experience was of the most
limited sort.
“Bully for you, Captain Sam!” cried Bob. “You’re a brick,—and you won’t
regret it.” And a yell of thanks from the others gave Captain Sam a warm
glow under his blue shirt.
The squire and the colonel were loud and furious in their denunciation of
such a course.
“It’s against the law,” cried the colonel; and he vowed he would make it
hot for Captain Sam when Judge Ellis found his orders were not obeyed.
But Captain Sam knew better than they of the warm corner in the judge’s
heart, and knew, moreover, that his old friend of years, the judge, would
never reprimand him for a breach of duty of this sort. So he shut his
lips firmly and let the squire and the colonel boil away as best they
might between themselves.
The captain shortened sail on the _Nancy Jane_, so that the two boats
kept along near together, heading back for Southport.
It was a sorry crew aboard the _Spray_ as the little craft silently
followed in the wake of the _Nancy Jane_. They might have been in
dreamland as they sailed all that day, for scarcely a word was spoken;
and when night dropped down and the boys, all but George Warren, piled
into the cabin to sleep, it was scarcely more quiet than by day.
Very late that night, as the _Spray_ and the _Nancy Jane_ ran into
Southport harbour and brought up for a few moments alongside the wharf,
to let a serious-looking man, and a tearful woman aboard, the boys were
still sleeping soundly; and George Warren and his father and mother sat
alone together till the sun rose, while the _Spray_, following the _Nancy
Jane_, ran along up the island and then stood across to Mayville, where
Judge Ellis would hold his court that morning.
“I don’t need you to make any denial about the fire,” Mr. Warren had
said, when he stepped aboard the _Spray_ and put his hand on his eldest
son’s shoulder. “I know you boys would not do such a thing as that; but I
fear your recklessness has gotten you into serious trouble, and Colonel
Witham seems inclined to press the matter to the extreme. So I want to
hear everything from beginning to end.”
And George Warren told him all.
There was another boat coming sluggishly up the bay that night, far
astern of the _Spray_, a handsome big sloop, beautifully modelled and
with finely tapered, shining yellow spars. But she carried little sail,
was reefed, in fact, though the breeze was very light; and she moved
through the water so like a dead thing, or like a creature crippled by a
wound, that a sailor would have seen at once that there had been some
mishap aboard, some injury to hull or spars that held her back.
The youth at the wheel of this strange, big sloop bore a striking
resemblance to Jack Harvey, though the yacht was not the _Surprise_, but
bigger and far more elegant. And the crew—yes, they were surely Harvey’s
crew—George and Allan and Tim and Joe,—and they addressed the boy at the
wheel as “Jack.”
And the _Surprise_—where was she?
Four days had passed since, on that morning following the fire, the
_Surprise_ had turned the point of the island that marked an entrance to
the thoroughfare where, a half-mile to leeward, a big black sloop was
coming fast up the wind.
“There he is!” Harvey had cried. “Come, boys, get into shape now; but
stay below till I give the word,—all but you, Joe,—and when I yell you
pile out and get aboard that sloop the quickest you ever did anything in
all your lives. He will fight, and we have got to act quick.”
If the thick-set, ill-visaged man who sat at the wheel of the black sloop
felt any concern at the sudden appearance of this new craft, dead ahead
and coming down the narrow thoroughfare toward him, his alarm must have
abated as on its near approach the apparent number of its occupants
became disclosed.
“She looks harmless enough,” he muttered, between his teeth. “Pshaw!
There’s only a couple of boys aboard. But it did give me a start for a
moment.” And he slapped a hand at his jacket pocket.
“He’s taking long chances, if he did but know it,” said Harvey, as the
big sloop came about after a tack close in shore. “That boat cannot more
than clear those ledges by an inch, if it does that. It’s a regular stone
field where he’s sailing. The channel here winds like a cow-path in a
pasture. However, if he can clear there, we can, so we’ll begin to crowd
him.”
It was no easy matter now to close in on a boat beating across the
thoroughfare and not arouse suspicion. To follow him, tack by tack, and
point so as to head him off every time he went about, must inevitably put
him on his guard long before the time came to strike, and might even
allow him, by clever sailing, to slip by.
With his cap pulled down over his eyes, so that the stranger could not by
any chance identify him as the youth he had knocked down in the pasture
the night of the fire, and his head bent low, Jack Harvey watched the
man’s every move, and calculated every inch of the way.
“Three more tacks will bring him up to us,” he said. “And there’s shoal
water to starboard and some ledges just beyond them. He’s got to meet us
about in that spot,” and Harvey laid his own course according to his
calculation and held to it steadily.
It must have served to allay the man’s suspicions, if he still had any,
but now, as he came about on the third tack, he viewed the oncoming
_Surprise_ with anger.
“Keep away, there!” he cried, in a fierce, violent tone. “Keep off! Can’t
you see you’re going to foul me if you don’t keep off?”
“Ready to jump, now, Joe,” said Harvey, in a low voice. “I’m going to run
him down. It’s the only way to be sure, though it may wreck us.
“Fellows,” he called, softly, to the boys below, “all ready, now. You
know what you’ve got to do the moment she strikes.”
The man at the wheel had risen to his feet, and he shook one fist
threateningly, while his other hand clutched the wheel, throwing his
sloop off as far as he could.
“Curse you!” he cried. “You’re running me down. Keep off, I say, or I’ll
blow your stupid head off your shoulders.”
The next moment Harvey, with a sudden turn of the tiller, threw the
_Surprise_ full tilt at the oncoming sloop. There was a sharp crash of
splintering wood, the tearing of head-sails, and a shock that shook the
yachts from keel to topmast, as the _Surprise_ rammed the big black sloop
just by the foremast stays, snapping her own bowsprit short off and
making an ugly hole in her own planking.
Leaping just as the boats crashed, and holding a coil of rope on his arm,
Joe Hinman landed on the top of the big sloop’s cabin in the very midst
of the confusion. A moment more and he had made a few quick turns about
the mast, lashing the two yachts fast together at the moment when Harvey,
followed by the rest of his crew, who came swarming out of the cabin,
sprang aboard the strange sloop.
“I’ll shoot the first boy that steps a foot on this boat,” cried the man;
but the words were scarce out of his mouth before they were upon him. He
had been in danger before and knew how to make the most of his chances,
and he stood, desperate but cool, as they made their rush.
There was a shot, and Jack Harvey, who was leading, gave a cry of pain,
for a bullet just grazed his left shoulder. He stumbled and fell full at
the feet of the man as another shot was fired and young Tim thought his
right hand was gone.
The next moment Harvey had the man by the legs, while Allan Harding and
George Baker and Joe made a rush for him. The man fell heavily, Joe
Hinman clinging with both hands to one wrist, so that he could not fire
again. They rolled over and over in the cockpit for a moment, the boys
and he. Twice the man got to his knees and twice they dragged him down
again; till, at length, young Tim, whose hand was not shot away, but only
slightly wounded, managed to run in and deal the man a blow with the end
of an oar, which stunned him for a moment, so that they got him flat and
had bound the loose end of a halyard about him before he came fully to
his senses. Then, as they proceeded to complete the job and tie him fast,
hand and foot, he recognized Harvey for the first time.
“Hulloa!” he exclaimed. “Why, where have I seen you before? You’re not
the chap in the pasture, are you?”
“The same,” said Harvey.
“Well, the game’s up,” said the man, coolly. “’Twas a mistake, and I knew
it the moment after I had done it. I was a fool to hit you that night.
It’s my temper, that’s what has beat me. It gets away from me sometimes.
I dare say if I had gone along about my business you wouldn’t have
followed me, eh?”
“Probably not,” answered Harvey. “That is why I am glad you knocked me
down,” and then, taking a quick glance over the side of the boat, he
cried:
“Joe! Allan! George! Out with the sweeps, lively! We’re going aground.”
Harvey sprang to the wheel, hauling in on the main-sheet as he did so.
But it was too late. There was a gentle shock that shook the sloop from
end to end, a dull, grating sound, and the next moment the big sloop
rested firmly on a jagged rock of the reach, listing as she hung, and
wrenching the bilge so that she made water rapidly.
“Whew!” cried Harvey. “Here’s a mess. We’re wrecked, and badly, too. How
in the world are we ever going to get out of this?”
It was, indeed, a serious problem. The _Surprise_, her bow planks ripped
open by the collision, had sunk within a few minutes, and now lay on
bottom, with her deck covered. The big sloop, hard aground and full of
iron ballast, was not a thing to be moved easily.
“This is a scrape and no mistake,” said Harvey. “Here we are, where a
boat may pick us up in a day or a week, but more likely not for a week.
We’ve got our man, but the reefs have got us. Well, we have got to figure
out some way to get out of it ourselves.”
But first they took account of their wounds, which had, now that the
excitement was over, begun to sting and smart. They found that neither
Harvey’s nor Tim’s wound was at all serious, mere surface flesh-wounds.
The back of young Tim’s hand was bare of skin for the length of three
inches across, and Harvey’s shoulder bled badly till it was cleansed and
bandaged, but it was the price of victory, and they accounted it cheap.
All of them had honourable scars of battle, bruises and scratches without
number, and every one of them was proud of his, and wouldn’t have had one
less for the world.
Taking their prisoner, securely bound, they all rowed ashore to survey
their surroundings, build a fire and get breakfast, and make plans for
getting away.
“There’s only one thing to be done,” said Harvey, after they had finished
breakfast and sat by the shore, surveying the wrecks of the yachts. “The
_Surprise_ is done for. We can’t raise her. But the big sloop is not so
badly hurt but what we can repair her, if we can only float her. The
first thing we have got to do, when the tide goes out, is to get all that
pig iron out of her, and that’s a day’s job, at the least. Then we may
beach her at high tide and patch her up. It’s a big contract, though.”
That day they brought the spare sails of the sloop ashore and pitched a
tent with them; and, when the tide was low enough for them to work, they
began the hard labour of lightening the big sloop of its ballast.
They worked all that tide like beavers, and by night the yacht was light.
They camped on shore that night, standing watch by turns over their
prisoner.
The next day at low water they found the worst of the leaks in the sloop,
and made shift to patch them up temporarily with strips of canvas tacked
on and daubed with paint, which they found in the sloop’s locker, and by
recaulking some of the seams with oakum. By the next high tide, with hard
pumping, she was sufficiently lightened to float clear of the reef,
though still leaking badly, and they got her around to a clear, steeply
shelving strip of beach, where they rested her more easily when the tide
fell, and so could work on the repairs to better advantage.
Another night in camp ashore, and the next day they floated the sloop off
again at high tide and loaded about half of her ballast in again.
“That will keep her right side up till we can get back to Southport,”
said Harvey. “I think we can make it, if we carry short sail, so as not
to strain her and open up those places where we have patched her. We will
try it, anyway, for I have half an idea that our running off so soon
after the fire may have made talk about us, and the quicker we get back
and put an end to that the better.”
So that afternoon they began their voyage home again, looking very
serious as the mast of the yacht _Surprise_, sticking out of water, faded
from their view, but swelling with pride and satisfaction as they peered
in now and then at a form that lay secure on one of the cabin bunks.
They sailed all that night, for the breeze held fair and light, and by
daybreak of the following morning they came into the harbour of
Southport.
Harvey and Joe Hinman rowed ashore, soon after they came to their old
moorings off the camp, to see how the land lay; but came back on the run
in about twenty minutes, and made the water boil as they rowed out to the
yacht.
“We’re off for Mayville,” cried Harvey. “We’ll put on more sail, too, if
it pulls the bottom out of her. Why, what do you think! Who’s arrested
for the fire?”
And he told the news, to the amazement of young Tim and George Baker and
Allan Harding.
“I’ve got a score to pay to Tom Harris and Bob White,” he exclaimed.
“Why, they saved your life, Jack,” said young Tim.
“That’s what,” said Harvey. “I owe them one for that. Here’s a chance to
get square, if we can only make it in time.”
“And only to think,” muttered the man in the cabin, as he looked out at
the stalwart but boyish figure at the wheel, “that I had that young
fellow in the same boat with me at night in the middle of Samoset Bay!
Well, if I had only done as I set out to, then, I wouldn’t be here now,
that’s all. But how is a man to look ahead so far?”