MAKING THINGS WARM
“Well, what are we going to do next, Jack?” asked Josh, pretending
not to hear those irritating words spoken by George; and evidently
determined to keep himself “in the swim” if anything was going on.
“The question is whether we’d better try to force their hand now, or
wait a while,” the one spoken to remarked.
“Why should we wait?” queried George, impatiently.
“First of all, there’s some sort of chance that Herb may be along pretty
soon, with his Comfort, and that would give us three more fellows,” Jack
observed.
“Huh! such as they are, yes,” the skipper of the speed-boat admitted.
“Three would make good showing, anyhow,” Josh broke in to say, seeing
his opportunity to agree with Jack, and in this way put George on the
other side. “And how’d they know, tell me, that Buster, Herb and our
new friend, Algernon, ain’t much on the scrap? Numbers look big,
sometimes.”
“Then again,” Jack continued, “as we float down the river we’re apt to
sight the lights of some town or city. And then George could go ashore
to tell the police what a great chance was passing their doors. I’m not
greedy about it, and willing enough to let the proper authorities do the
fighting, and get what there is in the game. And yet, it kind of goes
against my grain to just lie around here, doing nothing all the time.”
“Yes,” said George, eagerly, “and just think if we happen to drift
anywhere near the bank these fellows are apt to give us the laugh and
jump overboard, to swim ashore. Before we could get a boat started to
chase after ’em they’d land, and snap their fingers at the lot. I say
get a move on, and find some way to make ’em surrender. Let’s scare the
pair half to death. We c’n do it by setting the cabin on fire, and
paying for the damage done!”
“Whew! that’s just like George!” Josh was heard to say, breathlessly.
Jack glanced toward the two loggers.
“Is that sort of a thing possible; could the shanty be burned if we
tried?” he asked them.
“Don’t think it kin, son,” came the reply. “Course we never seen it
tried; but them logs are kinder green yet, and the spray’s jumped up
over the cabin sometimes when we had a headwind. They ain’t no winder in
the shack, jest a openin’ like round on the back. I cud crawl up and try
the fire game, if so yuh stand ready tuh pony up fur any damage tuh the
logs.”
Jack was thinking again.
“Well, it might pay us to make the try,” he said, presently.
“No harm done,” said George, giving Josh a triumphant look, as though he
would have him take notice that when really smart fellows started to do
things, they meant business every time.
Josh shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say that he was ready to be
convinced. Meanwhile Jack was talking with the two loggers, trying to
find out what their ideas might be with regard to getting a supply of
kindling ready. One of them strode off, and presently returned with an
ax. The other had picked up several strips of wood that seemed to be
fairly dry; and as soon as the sharp-edged tool came he started to cut
this into long splinters.
“By the way,” said George, “I’ve got some cotton waste aboard my boat
that’s just soaked with oil, and would burn like fun. I’ll get it.”
“And if you go aboard my boat, too, you’ll find a lot more close by the
engine, that I was going to throw overboard, because it was getting so
sticky,” Jack went on to tell the other, as he was hurrying off.
It really began to look like business, at any rate. Josh found himself
interested in spite of himself. No matter whose plan it might be, if it
won out he must show a spirit of fairness, and render all the aid he
could. Josh was not a small minded fellow, though he did love to tease
poor Buster on occasion; and often went out of his way to get a sly dig
at the good-natured fat boy.
The strips of wood having been reduced to kindling, and George coming
back with the cotton waste, saturated with oil that would burn, even if
it was not explosive, it began to look as though the thing was now up to
the logger who had offered to make the attempt.
“Here’s a little bottle, and it’s full of gasoline too,” remarked
George, as he handed the article over. “When you’re ready to set fire to
the pile, just scatter that stuff over it, and take care of your
eyebrows, for she goes off with a whoop.”
“Say, they’re on to us,” announced Josh just then.
Looking toward the cabin, Jack could detect a head thrust around the
corner; and from this he knew that one of the men had issued forth,
wishing to learn what the forces arrayed against himself and his partner
might be doing all this while.
So Jack made suggestive motions with his gun, as though tempted to
shoot; and the head was withdrawn immediately.
“Is there any opening on the back of the shack?” he asked the men.
“Nope, not that yuh cud notice, son,” came the reply.
“Course, they might dodge out and run around to blaze away at our fire
kindler, and then get back under cover again,” suggested George.
“I was thinking if I could work it so as to keep them quiet,” said Jack.
“Let’s all move around so as to cover the side where the open door is.
Then they’ll be liable to think we’re all there in a bunch. And if we
see either man trying to sneak out, I’ll give him a scare, all right.”
To do this they had to go some little distance from the three tied-up
motor boats; but Jack knew they could reach them long before the
fugitives might, should they conceive the wild idea of making a dash
that way. Besides, as a last resort, did he not have his gun, and were
there not two trusty shells in its barrels?
Having taken up their position they gave the man who had remained behind
the signal that he should get busy. And he started to advance toward the
rear of the cabin on the raft.
When he had gone perhaps half way, a figure was seen to push out of the
opening. Jack immediately called out:
“Get back there, or I’ll fill you full of shot!” at the same time
brandishing his gun in a very threatening manner; which warning appeared
to have an influence upon the fellow, since he slipped back again.
But no doubt he had discovered the logger who was advancing toward the
rear of the shack, his arms filled with fuel; and it would have to be a
very dull person who could not guess what his object must be.
Then there sounded a sudden report. One of the men in the shack had
found some small chink between the logs, through which he was firing his
revolver. Perhaps he had shot at the logger; and then again it might
have been done just to alarm him, and thus cause the scheme for firing
the cabin to be given up.
When the man seemed to drop, Jack’s heart was in his throat, for he
thought he was looking on a tragedy; but the other logger chuckled, as
he remarked:
“Don’t be skeered ’bout Fritz; he ain’t teched a whiff; but jest drapped
so’s to crawl out’n range. See him gittin’ over ground right smart now,
and notice thet he ain’t let go any o’ the stuff, be he?”
“You’re right, Hanky,” said Josh, promptly enough.
“Bully for Fritz!” burst out the gratified George, whose heart had no
doubt taken just as quick a jump as had Jack’s, when that report sounded
in a half muffled way, from being inside the cabin.
Another shot followed. But the marksman was evidently shooting at
random, and without having a target. At any rate, the logger kept right
on creeping toward the shack, and it began to look as though he were
bound to get there, too.
But would he be successful in getting the logs to burn?
Jack was rather inclined to doubt it, though of course much depended on
whether they were fairly dry, or wet with the spray that may have
dashed up over the raft when the wind, being up-river, had made a choppy
sea.
“What if the whole blooming raft goes up in smoke?” was the awful
suggestion which Josh put forward.
George laughed out loud, it seemed to strike him as so absurd.
“Yes, and worse still, Josh, whatever will we do if we set the river on
fire? They’ll certainly have it in for us, believe me. But one thing
sure, no danger of you ever setting the river afire with any scheme you
think up.”
“Shucks! I don’t believe it’ll work a cent,” remarked Josh. “’Cording to
my calculations it’d take more’n that kindlin’ to set logs a-goin’.”
“Don’t forget the oiled rags, Josh,” said George, tauntingly; “yes, and
the little bottle of gasolene I let our friend have. Seems to me all
that’s going to build up some fire. And as for the rest we’ll have to
trust to luck. Perhaps it’ll catch fire, and again she may kick and
balk.”
“Like some engines we know about, f’r instance,” Josh wound up with.
“You never saw a motor do better than mine did coming down river, and
you know it. I have had a lot of trouble with the thing in the past;
but that’s all over now; and I’m on Easy Street with my dandy Wireless.
Oh! you can laugh all you want to, Josh, but wait and see.”
“Proof of the puddin’ lies in the eatin’ of the same, George,” said
Josh, “and I know you too well to believe you’ll ever be satisfied to
run along like Jack and Herb do. But see there, our fire kindler’s got
up to the shack, all serene. And now he’s bending down to fix his
kindlin’ right. We’ll soon know, George, and if she goes, since it’s
your scheme, I’m willing to say you done it with your little hatch-it.”
Just as Josh said, the logger had managed to gain the shelter of the
back wall of the shack. Now, in order to keep out the rain without
bothering with a door, the cabin had been made with its only opening on
the side up-river; so that what the boys had been calling its back was
really the front side.
And with the movement of the raft always down-stream; and the night air
being from the south just then, if the fire were ever properly started,
it would be fanned constantly, and helped along by this process.
Jack kept watch on the dark opening that stood for the entrance, and
means of exit. He meant to shoot, if any figure was seen to appear
outside this; not with the idea of doing bodily injury, but in the
expectation of frightening the man back, before he could make use of his
weapon upon the fire-kindler.
So the seconds crept along, until several minutes had passed.
“Gee! why don’t he get a move on?” remarked George, to whom the time
hung as if it were weighed down with lead.
“Let him be,” said the other logger, named Hanky. “Fritz is sum slow,
but then he gits there in the end. Watch his smoke, son, an’ see!”