THE MYSTERIOUS BLUR ON THE HORIZON.
"I just thought it'd turn out to be a whopper of a yarn!" said Jimmy,
frowning as if grievously disappointed all the same.
"What's that?" asked Frank.
"Why, all that tommyrot about the queer old fleet of boats that vanished
right before your eyes, and then bobbed up somewhere else, like a flock
of submarines, or a school of blooming porpoises," returned the
disgusted one.
At that Jack laughed.
"Why, it sounds like Jimmy really believed the whole thing," he
remarked; "and has been expecting the mysterious fleet at anchor the
very minute he glimpsed Hudson Bay."
"But I did expect to hit on something different from this," said Jimmy.
"Somebody, tell me, would you please, what's so remarkable about this
thing? I've seen many a stretch of salt water that looked just like it,
shore line and all."
"Why not?" observed Ned; "I never thought we'd find Hudson Bay country
any different from other Northern lands. There are the same trees,
moss-covered rocks, peculiar sedge grass, and the like. But don't be so
quick to jump at conclusions, Jimmy. Give me half a chance to take a
look through my field glasses here, and perhaps I can tell you something
interesting."
With those words Ned unslung the glasses, and adjusted the same to his
eyes. The others of the party, standing there knee-deep in the rank
grass that grew along the border of the woods, watched him with renewed
interest. They even forgot about the wild fowl that were sporting in
flocks out where the waves broke upon a line of rocks, with a subdued
roar.
Carefully did Ned train his powerful field-glasses on a certain part of
the horizon. Looking in that quarter some of the others began to rub
their eyes.
"Seems to me there is something there," remarked Frank, straining his
eyes in the endeavor to make sure.
"It may be a low-lying cloud on the water-line of the horizon," Teddy
added.
"Anyhow, it's too far away for us to tell with the naked eye," Jack
announced; "and so we'll have to depend on Ned to give us the
information."
Just then the leader lowered the glasses.
"Take a look for yourself, Jack," he said; and there was a slight smile
on his face while speaking, that told of a discovery of some sort.
While Jack was fixing the glasses to suit his needs, for everybody's
eyes are not just alike, Jimmy was trying to make use of his doubled-up
hands in order to help his vision.
"'Tis meself that believes it's smoke!" he declared, with animation.
"How about it, Jack?" demanded Teddy.
The one indicated did not keep them in suspense needlessly.
"Yes, Jimmy hit the bull's-eye that time," he remarked.
"Then it _is_ smoke?" queried Frank.
"Not only that, but I can make out what seem to be a number of small
objects that must be vessels of some sort," Jack went on to say.
"The disappearing fleet!" gasped Jimmy.
"Well, they haven't skipped out of sight yet," continued Jack, chuckling
as he handed the glasses over to Frank to have a try.
In turn all of them took a look, and no one found reason to differ from
what Jack had ventured to declare in the beginning. They were, without
question, looking then and there on the clump of boats about which there
had been so much talk made. Of course, at that distance there was no way
of finding out the character of the several boats, or more than guess at
what they were doing, away out from the shore.
"Strikes me that it might be some queer sort of mirage, like that you
sometimes see on the sandy desert." Teddy suggested, after he had gazed
intently at the picture for a full minute through the lenses of the
field-glasses.
"Oh! they have the same sort of deception at sea," declared Jack; "only
sailors call it the _fata morgana_. When you're on the desert, it
generally takes the form of a lovely running stream of water, which
you're crazy to reach and suck up. But the shipwrecked tar always sees
a vessel coming to his relief, which keeps on rushing through the water,
right up over reef and everything and disappears over the island leaving
him broken-hearted at the deception caused by conditions in the
atmosphere."
Jack knew considerable about these things, for he had been in strange
lands, even before he took to roaming around with Ned, when the latter
entered the employ of the Government Secret Service.
"All you say is true enough, Jack," the patrol leader told him, "but in
this case it isn't a deception. All of us can see the smoke hanging low
down, that tells of steam vessels of some type out there, possibly
trawlers, fishing. But we didn't enlist in this business intending to
solve any riddles connected with Hudson Bay. I've been told that there
is no place in Northern latitudes where so many strange stories have
originated, as this same big sheet of salt water. Four-fifths of it have
never been fully explored, so that they do not yet know what may be
here."
Jimmy had been silent while all this talk was going on. But it could be
readily believed that his restless mind was not inactive. He proved this
by suddenly nodding his head, and looking up at Ned in that shrewd way
he had of doing, whenever a particularly brilliant idea appealed to him.
"Chances are they're a blooming bad lot, that's what," he went on to
say, as if he meant every word of it. "I wouldn't be a bit surprised if
they turned out to be bloody pirates after all."
"Oh! perhaps Captain Kidd and his men come back to life again, eh,
Jimmy?" suggested Teddy, with a laugh.
Jimmy turned and gave the speaker a scornful look.
"Think you're smart to get that off on me, don't you, Teddy?" he
remarked; "but how're you goin' to prove that it ain't even as bad as
that? Don't they say this here fleet comes and goes like ghosts of the
past? Mebbe they are the spirits of Kidd, Blackbeard, Morgan, Lafitte,
and all that gay crowd of buccaneers that flourished in the early days
of our country. Supposin' I said I believed that way, it'd be up to you
to prove me wrong, wouldn't it? Let's see you do it. Call 'em up on the
wireless limited or the telephone and interview the commodore. Bah!
don't be so quick to poke fun at everybody that's got an idea you happen
to think stretched. I'll even say that I've got half a sneakin' notion
that it might be old Kidd himself, come back to see how the pickings are
these fine days."
When Jimmy showed this fighting disposition the others were generally
careful not to knock the chip off his shoulder. He had acquired habits
when living on the Bowery long ago as a bootblack that could not be
easily shaken off; though any one formerly acquainted with Jimmy would
never have recognized him nowadays.
"It would be worth coming all the way up here if we could run across
something like that, wouldn't it now?" remarked Jack, trying to look
sober. "Think of how we could take the breath away from the rest of the
troop at home, when we told them of meeting up with a lot of those old
huskies, we've all read about in history. Jimmy's been devouring one of
Clark Russell's stories, '_The Frozen Pirate_,' while on the train
coming through Canada, and that's what makes him think of that crowd.
But as we haven't any boats, and the smoke keeps on hanging miles away,
likely enough we won't get any chance to know what kind of men are
aboard those vessels out yonder."
"Besides," put in Ned, "we mustn't forget that we've got some serious
business on hand of a different character from looking up pirates. Land
sharks are enough for me to tackle just now. I'm wondering whether we'll
be lucky enough to find where this mine is located near here. Once we
get on the track of that and things are likely to warm up a bit."
"Then I reckon we'll just have to comb the whole country roundabout, so
as to learn what's what," suggested Jack, always a hard one to give up
anything on which he had set his mind.
"The sooner we begin that job the better," added Frank, anxious to be
doing something that would count.
That was the way with these energetic fellows. Whenever they had a
charge committed to their care, they were eager to get it moving. Ned
often had to hold them in check, for fear lest they show too much
ambition.
He looked around in the endeavor to decide which direction they had
better choose, in order to seek traces of the working which was marked
on the map so plainly. It was given such prominence that one might
easily believe he would find all manner of shafts, sunk, with machinery
throbbing busily, and scores of brawny miners hard at work, bringing out
the rich deposit of copper ore.
Ned, however, did not deceive himself into such a belief. He had had
some little experience with stories of this type, and knew the vast
difference between the reality and the wonderful things prospective
sellers were apt to mark upon the maps they had prepared. These usually
described things as they might appear in case all went well, and the
mine turned out a splendid success.
So far as indications went, Ned believed that they would have a better
chance of success, if they turned abruptly to the left and made up the
shore. At least, the character of the rocky country favored this idea.
As far as he could see, it grew more and more inviting, looked at from
the viewpoint of a miner, or a prospector for precious minerals.
The others were watching him closely. They guessed something of the
nature of what must be passing through Ned's mind, for both Jack and
Teddy followed his gaze up the uneven shore. Jimmy had the glasses
again, and was busily engaged in scrutinizing the blur on the distant
horizon, which all of them had agreed must be smoke hovering close to
the water. Perhaps he half-believed the fanciful suggestion made by
Teddy, with reference to Captain Kidd, and was wildly hoping to discover
some positive sign that would stamp this fairy story with truth. All the
previous adventures that had befallen himself and chums would sink into
utter insignificance, could they go back home and show evidences of
having made such a romantic discovery up there in the Hudson Bay
country.
"See the feather they say he always wore in his hat, Jimmy?" asked
Frank.
"Nothing doin' _yet_ that way," replied the other, without allowing even
the ghost of a smile to appear on his freckled face; "so if you please,
we'll let the matter drop for the time bein'. Who knows what may happen
before we get back to New York? 'Tis a great old country, so they say,
for all sorts of queer things to crop up. You needn't be surprised at
anything here, they tell me. And I've made up me mind to take it as it
comes, and not let anything faze me. Put that in your pipe and smoke
it, Teddy."
"And I'm wondering," mused the one particularly addressed, "what that
ancient but bold explorer, Hendrick Hudson, said when he had sailed all
the way around this great bay, and found that it was after all a
land-locked arm of the sea. When he first entered it, history tells us
he had great hopes that he had found what Columbus was searching for
when he made his western voyage, a way of reaching the East Indies by a
water route. It must have been a keen disappointment when Hendrick had
to turn north, and then east again, always fended off by the land."
Ned had by now determined that they ought to turn to the left in
continuing the forward movement. He next looked for some landmark, by
means of which on their return that they might know just where they
should plunge into the woods, so as to follow their trail back to where
the precious canoes were secreted.
As though he found nothing in the arrangement of the shore or the trees
themselves to stamp it different from other places, Ned stooped down and
placed several stones upon each other at the foot of a stunted oak.
That was an old trick among the scouts. Many such a stone cairn had they
fashioned when playing some game of fox and geese, to serve as a sign to
those who were following in their wake.
"We ought to see this, and remember that it tells us where we struck the
beach," he explained to his chums, as he rose up again after completing
his work.
Both guides had been watching what he did with more or less interest. Of
course, they understood that the scouts had learned many of the ways
practiced by woodsmen, for by now the real meaning of the khaki uniforms
worn by the boys had been fully grasped by Francois and the Cree; though
for a long time they had had hard work to understand why Ned and his
chums were not to be looked upon as soldiers.
"Zere ees nozzing better zan a pile of stones to mark ze way," admitted
the voyageur. "I haf myself used zat many times. But be sure zat you
notice other things besides. It may be, an enemy he move ze stones some
ozzer place, and if zat be so you all get twist up when you try to come
back."
Ned nodded, as though he had already covered this ground.
"I had thought of that very same thing, Francois," he said, "and see,
here is where I made a little gash in the trunk of the tree. I expected
to look for that on the return trip. If I failed to find it I should
understand there was something gone wrong."
"Zat ees well, sare; ze one who gets ze better of you must wake up early
in ze morning, I am think!" he said softly, but in a way that told he
meant every word.
"So say we all of us," added Jack.
"Ned generally looks out for snags!" Frank declared.
"We'd have met up with many a wreck only for his watchfulness," came
from Teddy.
Jimmy did not like to be left out when there was any exchange of
sentiments. He had a great admiration for the gifts of Ned Nestor, and
wanted every one to understand what his sentiments were. So he started
to open his mouth to say something, when Ned lifted a hand and gave a
low sibilant hiss.
"'Sh! don't say anything more, but drop down in this grass and lie low;
because I'm sure I heard voices right then, also a husky cigarette
cough. Down it is, boys!"
He set them a good example by dropping flat and hugging the ground. They
had at the time been standing more than knee deep in lush grass that
grew beyond the woods, and where the salt water never reached, save in
flying spray possibly. All that was necessary, therefore, in order to
conceal themselves, was to fall on their knees and then straighten out
at full length. Even the two guides did this same thing, for they must
have caught the sound of approaching voices at about the same time Ned
Nestor did.