WHAT THE WATER GAUGE SHOWED
"Well, here is a pretty kettle of fish!" grunted the disgusted Jud. "We
seem to take to sandbars and mud flats today to beat the band."
Paul had stopped the motor, since it seemed useless. But of course he did
not mean to give up trying to get the boat off.
"One thing's sure," he said, positively, when the others gathered around
him, as if in this emergency they looked to the scout master to invent
some method of beating the sticky mud at its own game; "every minute we
stay here makes it all the worse for us."
"Yes, because our weight is sure to make the boat sink deeper in her
nest!" declared Little Billie, leaning far over the side, as if to see
how far down in her muddy bed the boat lay.
"Yes, that's one thing," added Paul; "but another is the fact that the
creek is falling all the time. Unless it rains, there'll soon be nothing
but mud around us. Now, every fellow crowd back here, and leave the bow
as free as we can. That might loosen the grip of the mud; and when I
turn on the motor at full speed again, let's hope she'll move."
It was a sensible suggestion; and indeed, about the only thing possible,
since the other boat, being in the same fix, could not come near, either
to give a friendly tug, or take off the _Comfort's_ crew.
When he had them all as far in the stern as they could get, with a
warning not to allow themselves to be shaken loose, unless they wanted a
mud bath, the skipper started his motor working.
When it was going at full speed the boat quivered and strained, but did
not move, so far as any one could see; and they were all eager to detect
the first sign of motion.
"No good!" sighed Jud. "Might as well look the thing in the face,
fellows. Here we stay, and eat up all our grub, day after day. Ain't it
fierce, though? How d'ye suppose we'll ever stand it? If anybody had a
pair of wings now, and could fly ashore, we might get help to pull us
out. But we couldn't use our wigwag flags, even if we tried, because
who'd see 'em? Oh! what tough luck!"
Paul may have felt somewhat discouraged himself, but he was not the
fellow to betray the fact--so early in the game, at least.
"Well, Jud," he said, soberly, "perhaps we may have to stick it out
here for a while, but I hope it won't be as bad as you say. And make
up your mind that if we do, it'll be a mighty strange thing, with
eighteen wide awake scouts to think up all sorts of schemes and dodges
that we can try."
"That's the stuff, Paul!" exclaimed Phil Towns. "Every fellow ought to
get right down to hard pan, and try to think up some way of beating this
old sticky mud. What's the use of being scouts, if we let a little thing
like this get the better of us? If I could only wade ashore, I'd fix a
hawser to a tree back there, and then by workin' the engine p'raps we
might pull the boat off. I've seen 'em do that with a steamboat, away
down on Indian River, when I was with my folks in Florida last winter.
And it worked, too."
"Well, try the wading; it looks fine!" laughed Joe Clausin.
"Don't think of it," called out Gusty Bellows at that moment. "I stuck
this pole down in the soft slush, and my stars! it goes right through to
China, I reckon. Anyhow, I couldn't reach bottom. And if you jumped over,
Phil, you'd be up to your neck at the start. Let's tie a rope under your
arms first, anyhow."
But Paul quickly put an end to all this sort of talk.
"There's no use trying anything like that," he said. "Even if you did
reach the shore, we haven't got a rope long and strong enough to do the
business. Besides, we may have help soon."
With that all the boys began craning their necks, as if they expected to
see some kind of a queer craft that could pass over mud as easily as
other boats did water, bearing down on them, with the design of dragging
them from the bank,
"Say, what does he mean? For the life of me I can't glimpse anything
worth shucks; and the blooming old _Speedwell_ seems to be sticking tight
and fast, just the same way we are. Loosen up, Paul, and put us wise;
won't you?" pleaded Phil.
"I didn't mean that any living thing was going to hold out a hand to
us," remarked the smiling scout master; "but look aloft, boys, and see
what's coming."
With that they followed his instructions.
A general shout went up.
"Whee! rain a-comin' down on us! Get the curtains ready to button fast,
boys, or we'll have all our fine stuff soaked through and through."
Little Billie called, himself setting things in motion by seizing one of
the rolled curtains, and letting it come down, to be fastened around the
cockpit by means of gummets and screws.
"But Paul meant something else," declared Jud Elderkin, wisely. "You see,
if only that rain does come, and it's heavy enough, there's going to be
a lot more water in this old canal than we need to pull through with. You
know how quick the Bushkill River rises; and I guess it's the same way
with the Radway."
"Oh! don't we wish that there'll just be a little old cloud-burst!" cried
Gusty Bellows. "I could stand anything but staying here seven or ten
days, doin' nothing, only eat, and stare at this mud, and wish I was back
home. Come on, little clouds; get a move on you, and let's hear you growl
like thunder."
They had by now called the attention of the others to the prospects for
rain. Indeed, as soon as the first curtain fell, some of Jack's crew took
note of the significant fact, and they could be seen looking up at the
blackening heavens. There had been very few times in the past when those
boys had hoped it would rain. Perhaps, when they were kept home from a
picnic--for reasons--some of them may have secretly wished the clouds
would let down a little flood, so that those who had been lucky enough to
go, might not have such a laugh on them after all.
But certainly they never felt just as they did now, while watching the
play of those gathering storm clouds.
"And the best of the joke is," commented Jud, with a grin, "that lots of
the good folks at home right now are looking up at those same black
clouds, and pitying us boys. They don't realize how we're just praying
that the rain won't turn out a fizzle, after all. Wasn't that a drop I
felt?"
[Transcriber's note: Beginning of sentence missing from original text]
till that gray gets nearly overhead," remarked Paul, pointing up
at a line marked across the heavens about half-way toward the horizon,
and in the direction of the wind.
"It's getting dark, anyway," remarked Nuthin, rather timidly; for truth
to tell, the small boy had never ceased to remember how, earlier in the
season, when in camp up near Rattlesnake Mountain, a terrible storm had
struck them and as he clung desperately to the tent they were trying to
hold down, he had actually been carried up into the branches of a tree,
from which position only the prompt work of his fellow scouts had finally
rescued him.
"And look at that flash of lightning, would you?" echoed Joe Clausin.
"Wow! that was a heavy bang; wasn't it? Tell you now, that bolt must 'a
struck somethin'! Always does, they say, when it comes quick like that."
"How's the cover; just as snug as you can make it, boys?" demanded Paul;
"because we'll likely get a bit of a blow first, before the rain comes,
and it'd be a bad job if we lost this whole business. Stand by to grab
hold wherever you can. After that, if we weather it all right, there'll
be no trouble."
"And say, she's coming licketty-split, believe me," called Jud. "I c'n
hear it hummin' through the trees over there like the mischief. Take
hold, everybody; and don't let it get away from you!"
"We'll all go up together this time, then!" muttered little Nuthin; but
with the grit that seemed a part of his nature, once he started in to do
anything, he also seized the canvas covering at the bottom, and set his
teeth hard.
With a roar the wind struck them. Had it come from the right quarter Paul
believed it might have helped work them loose; but it happened
unfortunately that just the reverse was the case. If anything, they were
driven on the mud-bank all the harder.
But at any rate the tarpaulin canopy did not break loose, and that was
something to be satisfied with.
The wind whooped and howled for perhaps three minutes. Then it died down,
as if giving up the attempt to tear the boat's top out of the hands of
the determined boys.
"The worst's over, fellows!" called Paul, breathing hard.
"Hurrah! that's better'n saying it is yet to come. How'd the _Speedwell_
make out?" Jud asked, sinking back on a thwart, the better to find some
place to peep out.
"Seems to be all there," replied Nuthin, who had been quicker to look
than the more clumsy Jud. "She's got her cover on, and I guess that means
they're safe and sound; but she don't seem to be floatin' worth a cent.
"No more are we; but listen, there comes the rain. Now for it," observed
Paul, as with a rush the water began to descend, rattling on the roof of
the canopy cover.
"Fine! Keep right along that way for a while, and something's bound
to get a move on it, which I hope will be our two boats!" cried
Gusty Bellows.
"Did you ever hear it come down heavier than that?" demanded Old Dan
Tucker, as he looked anxiously around to see that none of the cargo was
exposed to the flood.
"Wonder if this old thing sheds water?" suggested Jud, looking up at the
heavy canopy as though he fancied that he felt a stream trickling down
the back of his neck.
"You can bank on it," declared Joe Clausin. "Anything Mr. Everett owns
has got to be gilt-edged. And he'd never stand for a leaky canopy.
What're you lookin' at out there, Paul?" for the scout master was leaning
a little out on the side away from their companion boat in misery.
"Why, you see," replied the scout master, drawing his head back, "I
fixed a little contrivance here, just before the storm broke, and I'm
looking now to see whether it shows the least gain in water. I marked
this pole with inches, and rammed it just so far in the mud. If the water
starts to rising any, I can tell as soon as I look."
"And is she going up yet?" asked Jud, eagerly,
"Well, it wouldn't be fair to expect that for some time yet," replied
Paul. "At the best I expect we'll have to stay here an hour or so, until
the water up-stream has a chance to come down. I hope it may surprise me,
and get here quicker than that. And boys, if we have to spend all that
time doing nothing, why we might try that little oil stove Mr. Everett
has, and see how it can get us a pot of coffee, with our cold lunch."
"What time is it now?" asked Jud; while Old Dan Tucker pricked up his
ears, at the prospect of "something doing" along his favorite line.
"Going on eleven; and I had my breakfast awful early!" remarked
Little Billie.
"And I had hardly a bite--reckon I was too much excited to eat--so I'm
mighty near starved right now," declared Dan Tucker; but then the boys
had known him to put up that same sort of a plea only an hour after
devouring the biggest meal possible, so they did not expect to see him
collapse yet awhile from weakness through lack of food.
All the same, Paul agreed that it might serve to distract their minds if
they did have lunch. He also asked Jud to get in communication with those
on the other boat, if the rain had let up enough for them to exchange
signals, and by means of the flag, tell them what those on the _Comfort_
meant to do.
Just as Bobolink, who answered, had informed them that those under Jack
were about to follow the same course, Paul took another glance at his
rude water gauge.
When he drew in his head, Jud, who had been waiting to tell what the
others reported, saw that Paul was smiling as though pleased.
"What's doing, Commodore?" he asked.
"The water has risen half an inch, and is still going up," replied Paul.
At that there was a roar of delight--only Old Dan Tucker was so busy
watching the lunch being got ready, he did not seem to hear the
joyous news.