[Illustration]
FOR over a week Allan was so busy over school matters that he had no
time to do more than develop his foot-ball negatives; but those gay
October days seemed like the best of all outing days. “I want to take
that cat-boat cruise just as soon as I can,” Allan said to McConnell.
“Then you had better begin signing your crew,” said McConnell.
“What berth would you like?” Allan asked.
“Well, I don’t suppose you would make me first mate. I’d be satisfied
with second mate. I know Owen will want to be first mate.”
“I wish we three could go,” mused Allan.
“Would you take the _Snorter_ or the _Arabella_?”
“The _Arabella_, of course. She’s quicker, and I really think she’s
safer. Would your mother object to your going?”
“Not with you,” promptly replied McConnell. “She thinks _you’re_ pretty
safe.”
“Does she? I must try to deserve that. Anyway, I try not to take any
risks when I’m off with a cat-boat. To tell you the truth, I shan’t be
willing to take the _Arabella_ unless I can have a fellow as big as Owen
along. After all, a boat like the _Arabella_ is safer in every way than
one of these little boats.”
The _Arabella_ was only twenty feet long, but she was large among the
little fleet in which she moored at Kantry’s dock.
“My idea,” pursued Allan, “is to start Friday afternoon and make up the
river as far as we can before dark, then camp inshore.”
“To camp over night?” exclaimed McConnell. “That’s good. I haven’t
camped since last summer, and that didn’t count. We were right near some
houses. Then what would you do next day?”
“Next day I think we might boat a good deal, make pictures, fish some if
we wanted to, and get home by dark. As the tide is setting up in the
afternoon now, I suppose it would be best to get down into our latitude
by the middle of the day, so that if the wind weakened we should have a
better chance of getting in.”
“And we’ll carry lots of grub,” suggested McConnell.
“We shall each chip in supplies—but we are arranging the whole plan
without Owen. We had better wait until we see him.”
Owen came down to the club that evening. “That’s a good plan,” he said,
when Allan found him and had set forth his programme. “But I don’t think
you can get the _Arabella_.”
[Illustration:
“Stowing provisions and cooking utensils on the _Arabella_.”
]
“Why?”
“Because some one told me yesterday that Kantry had sold her.”
“Now, that’s too bad!” said Allan, despondently. “It doesn’t seem as if
any other boat could be so good as the _Arabella_.”
“Why not take the _Evangeline_?”
Allan shook his head. “There wouldn’t be room for us three and our
cameras in that. And we never could sleep in it.”
“No,” Owen admitted; “we couldn’t sleep in it.”
“But you will go?” asked Allan.
“Yes, count on me,” said Owen.
The next morning Allan went down to Kantry’s before going over to the
Academy, and that afternoon he met Owen with the news—
“Who do you think bought the _Arabella_?”
“Couldn’t guess.”
“Detective Dobbs! And I went to see him and he says we’re welcome.”
“To take the boat for the cruise?”
“Yes.”
“That’s luck.”
Early on Friday morning the boys were down at the river stowing
provisions and cooking utensils on the _Arabella_. Indeed, they had been
down the afternoon before getting the craft into shape. They wanted to
be able to lift sail and start up the river the minute they were free
from school on Friday afternoon.
“You would think we were going away for a month,” laughed Owen.
“Well,” said Allan, “there are a good many preparations we have to make
just because we are going for such a short time. We want to enjoy every
bit of it when we do go.”
And it certainly was with this determination that the boys made sail on
Friday afternoon.
“It’s good we are not old salts,” remarked Owen, as the sail filled, and
the _Arabella_ slid into the open river, “as the whole crew would mutiny
over our starting on Friday.”
“Somebody told me,” said McConnell, pulling at the sheet, “that Friday
is a lucky day now.”
“It’s the best we have, anyhow,” said Allan, his hand on the tiller. “I
think any day is a lucky day when you can get away like this with a
bright sky and plenty to eat on board, and plenty of ammunition in your
cameras.”
“By the way,” said Owen, “I must wrap up those cameras; we might forget
it.”
They had carried along a large waterproof blanket in which to wrap the
cameras, in case the _Arabella_ shipped too much spray, and (on Mr.
Wincher’s advice) in which to wrap them at night, when the dampness of
the river might injure the plates and the film rolls.
“We shan’t take any pictures until to-morrow, anyway,” said Allan.
“And suppose it should rain?” remarked McConnell.
“If it rains, we’ll take some rain pictures.”
“You’re right,” said Owen. “I think everybody takes too many sunshine
pictures. It makes all photographs look alike. The painters aren’t
always painting sunshine.”
“But I like sunshine,” said McConnell, ducking his head as the boom came
around.
“Oh, I don’t know,” mused Allan. “I’ve had lots of fun in the rain. The
best fishing I ever had was in the rain one day.”
“Oh, yes—fishing,” McConnell admitted; “fishing is different. The fish
like it.”
“And don’t you remember that ball game we finished in the rain? Wasn’t
it great? And the whole of that Indian Cave trip was made in the rain.”
“If you like rain, you’re welcome,” grunted McConnell. “Sunshine is good
enough for me.”
“So it is for me. I’m sort of getting a waterproof on my spirits in case
it does rain. Will you please notice how the _Arabella_ is scooting
along just now? What are you doing, Owen?”
“Getting out the feeding things.”
“Already?”
“Yep. Just want to be sure things are ready.”
“Owen always has a hunger on,” laughed McConnell.
“You’re right,” confessed Owen. “Especially in a boat. Anywhere else I
just have a plain appetite. But the minute I get into a boat, my stomach
begins to howl for food. Besides, it’s after four o’clock and I didn’t
eat much lunch.”
“Then what do you say to a bite now?” asked Allan, “and then wait until
we anchor for real supper. We must make tracks as long as the sun
lasts.”
“I’m with you,” said Owen. “Of course McConnell doesn’t want anything.”
“Doesn’t he, though!” chimed in McConnell. “Just watch me!”
“That’s the way with these fellows that remark about other fellows’
appetites,” said Owen, his mouth full of biscuit. “Catch!” and Allan
caught a biscuit in his left hand.
The _Arabella_ was making good time in a southwest breeze, and was
heading straight up the broad, majestic river. The ripples whispered
under the bow, there was a chuckle in the rudder’s wake, and from the
throat of the boom came a grunt of contentment. The boys all shouted a
greeting as they passed Mr. Goodstone in his catamaran.
[Illustration:
“Mr. Goodstone in his catamaran.”
]
Allan suspected that the wind would wane at sunset, and in the course of
an hour turned the bow of the Arabella to the northwest, to which course
the wind was entirely favorable. Indeed, the wind freshened, and shortly
after five o’clock they were within half a mile of the western shore,
which now was in shadow.
Allan then turned north again while they debated where they should
anchor.
“Don’t anchor yet!” pleaded McConnell.
“If we are to make a ‘farthest north’ to-night,” said Allan, who had
read “Nansen” with enthusiasm, “and do our dallying to-morrow, I think
we should keep going for half an hour yet.”
“Suppose we try for that cove up beyond Rodlongs,” suggested Owen.
“There is a spring there, and a good place to anchor.”
“I remember that,” said Allan; “the Canoe Club landed there one night.
But I think it will take an hour yet.”
Owen thought they could do it in thirty or forty minutes, at the rate
they were then going; and they would have done so had not the wind
fallen slightly. As it was, the _Arabella_ reached the cove in
three-quarters of an hour, just as the twilight began to deepen.
[Illustration:
“The _Arabella_ was making good time.”
]
The boys lifted the centre-board, and pulled the bow of the boat into
the mouth of a little stream that trickled from the near-by hill, and
that was reënforced by the spring, to which McConnell presently started
with their tin bucket.
Owen built a fire while Allan lowered and stowed the sail, braced the
boom, and set about preparing for the night.
All three boys were prodigiously hungry, and Owen worked with great zeal
over his coffee, the smell of which was simply thrilling; over the
bouillon, which was to be warmed; over the unpacking of the stores.
A flat stone was selected for a supper table, and in the last of the
twilight, and side gleams from the fire, the boys attacked the spread
with which Owen, assisted by the others, had decorated the paper
covering of the stone.
“This is entirely too nice for sailors,” said Owen. “We are dudes. Think
of a spotless—I mean a spotted—table-cloth like this, bouillon, cold
roast beef, biscuits, sweet crackers, coffee, and fresh water.”
“You are spoiling us, Owen,” admitted Allan. “This is too good. And to
think that there is lots more left.”
“Are you saving the pies for to-morrow?” asked McConnell.
“Sure,” declared Owen. “Do you mean to say you want pie after all this?
Pretty soon, McConnell, you’ll be asking for the hard-boiled eggs we’ve
got for breakfast.”
“It seems to me I never was so hungry,” said McConnell.
“Wait till the morning,” said Allan. “That’s when real hunger gets in
its fine work.”
“That’s so, McConnell,” said Owen. “In the morning you could eat boiled
dog.”
“When are we going to get up?” demanded McConnell. “Can’t we have a
swim, then, if it isn’t too cold?”
“Of course,” answered Owen, “though it’s not quite correct. Sailors
never swim.”
“They don’t?” asked McConnell.
“It seems funny,” said Allan; “but they do say a great many sailors
don’t even know how.” “Why not?” persisted McConnell.
“Sharks, for one thing,” said Owen. “Deep-water sailors get in the habit
of being afraid of sharks.”
“I have been thinking,” said Allan, “that we had better, perhaps, draw
the _Arabella_ in a little farther, and let the tide leave her there. We
should be floated again about five in the morning.”
“Pshaw!” exclaimed McConnell. “I was hoping we could anchor.”
“But if we anchored far enough out to swing with the tide, we would need
to show a light.”
“I really don’t think we should need a light,” was Owen’s opinion. “It
is rather shallow here, and we shouldn’t need to be more than fifty feet
from the shore; though we’ve got our lantern, and we ought to leave it,
anyway, in case we get adrift. But I don’t see but that we shall be
better off right here out of sight, where we shall be handy to our
outfit for breakfast.”
“That’s how it seems to me,” Allan said.
McConnell was disappointed not to be able to actually sleep on the
river; but he was tired, and soon began to be too sleepy to worry very
much about where he was to sleep. The shore grew dark; lights gleamed on
the other side of the river; the Albany and Troy night boats, with their
search-lights, had passed out of sight and sound; the dark trees swayed
behind them; and the crickets and locusts had begun their drowsy night
chorus.
A piece of canvas, which they had brought for the purpose, was stretched
to form a tent, with the boom for its central support. The blankets were
unrolled and spread; Owen lay on one side of the centre-board, Allan on
the other, while McConnell completed the triangle, as he curled up
across the line of their feet.
Before this had been accomplished the tide had left the boat with her
keel resting in the little channel of the stream, and the _Arabella_
stood almost upright. The night noises floated down from the hillside.
Through the opening of the improvised tent they could see the stars.
------------------------------------------------------------------------