BON VOYAGE!
"Now, you see," said Pee-wee, "how a good turn can evolute."
"Can what?" said Tom.
"Evolute."
"It could neverlute with me," observed Roy. "Gee, but we've fallen in
soft! You could have knocked me down with a toothpick. I wonder what our
sleuth friend, the sheriff, will say."
The sheriff said very little; he was too astonished to say much. So were
most of the people of the town. When they heard that "Old Man Stanton"
had given Harry Stanton's boat to some strange boys from out of town,
they said that the loss of his son must have affected his mind. The boys
of the neighborhood, incredulous, went out on the marsh the next day
when the rain held up, and stood about watching the three strangers at
work and marvelling at "Old Man Stanton's" extraordinary generosity.
"Aw, he handed 'em a lemon!" commented the wiseacre. "That boat'll never
run--it won't even float!"
But Harry Stanton's cruising launch was no lemon. It proved to be
staunch and solid. There wasn't a rotten plank in her. Her sorry
appearance was merely the superficial shabbiness which comes from disuse
and this the boys had neither the time nor the money to remedy; but the
hull and the engine were good.
To the latter Roy devoted himself, for he knew something of gas engines
by reason of the two automobiles at his own house. They made a list of
the things they needed, took another hike into Nyack and came back laden
with material and provisions. Roy poured a half-gallon or so of kerosene
into each of the two cylinders and left it over night. The next morning
when he drained it off the wheel turned over easily enough. A set of
eight dry cells, some new wiring, a couple of new plugs, a little
session with a pitted coil, a little more gas, a little less air, a
little more gas, and finally the welcome first explosion, so dear to the
heart of the motor-boatist, rewarded Roy's efforts of half a day.
"Stop it! Stop it!" shrieked Pee-wee from outside. "I hung the paint
can on the propeller! I'm getting a green shower bath!"
He poked his head over the combing, his face, arms and clothing
bespattered with copper paint.
"Never mind, kiddo," laughed Roy, "It's all in the game. She runs like a
dream. Step a little closer, ladies and gentlemen, and view the leopard
boy. Pee-wee, you're a sight! For goodness' sakes, get some sandpaper!"
The two days of working on the _Good Turn_ were two days of fun. It was
not necessary to caulk her lower seams for the dampness of the marsh had
kept them tight, and the seams above were easy. They did not bother
about following the water-line and painting her free-board white; a coat
of copper paint over the whole hull sufficed. They painted the sheathing
of the cockpit a common-sense brown, "neat but not gaudy," as Roy said.
The deck received a coat of an unknown color which their friend, the
sheriff, brought them saying he had used it on his chicken-coop. The
engine they did in aluminum paint, the fly-wheel in a gaudy red, and
then they mixed what was left of all the paints.
"I bet we get a kind of blackish white," said Pee-wee.
"I bet it's green," said Tom.
But it turned out to be a weak silvery gray and with this they painted
the cabin, or rather half the cabin, for their paint gave out.
They sat until long after midnight in the little cabin after their first
day's work, but were up and at it again bright and early in the morning,
for Mr. Stanton's men were coming with the block and falls at high tide
in the evening to haul the _Good Turn_ back into her watery home.
Pee-wee spent a good part of the day throwing out superfluous junk and
tidying up the little cabin, while Tom and Roy repaired the rubbing-rail
where it had broken loose and attended to other slight repairs on the
outside.
The dying sunlight was beginning to flicker on the river and the three
were finishing their supper in the cabin when Tom, looking through the
porthole, called, "Oh, here comes the truck and an automobile just in
front of it!"
Sure enough, there on the road was the truck with its great coil of
hempen rope and its big pulleys, accompanied by two men in overalls.
Pee-wee could not repress his exuberance as the trio clambered up on the
cabin roof and waved to the little cavalcade.
"In an hour more she'll be in the water," he shouted, "and we'll----"
"We'll anchor till daylight," concluded Roy.
In another moment a young girl, laden with bundles, had left the
automobile and was picking her way across the marsh. It proved to be the
owner of the fugitive bird.
"I've brought you all the things that belong to the boat," she said,
"and I'm going to stay and see it launched. My father was coming too but
he had a meeting or something or other. Isn't it perfectly glorious how
you chopped up the stanchions----"
"Great," said Roy. "It shows the good that comes out of breaking the
law. If we hadn't chopped up the stanchions----"
"Oh, crinkums, look at this!" interrupted Pee-wee. He was handling the
colored bow lamp.
"And here's the compass, and here's the whistle, and here's the
fog-bell," said the girl, unloading her burden with a sigh of relief.
"And here's the flag for the stern and here--look--I made this all by
myself and sat up till eleven o'clock to do it--see!"
She unfolded a cheese-cloth pennant with the name _Good Turn_ sewed upon
it. "You have to fly this at the bow in memory of your getting my bird
for me," she said.
"We'll fly it at the bow in memory of what you and your father have done
for _us_," said Tom.
"And here's some fruit, and here's some salmon, and here's some pickled
something or other--I got them all out of the pantry and they weigh a
ton!"
There was no time for talking if the boat was to be got to the river
before dark, and the boys fell to with the men while the girl looked
about the cabin with exclamations of surprise.
"Isn't it perfectly lovely," she called to Tom, who was outside
encircling the hull with a double line of heavy rope, under the men's
direction. "I never saw anything so cute and wasn't it a fine idea
giving it to you!"
"Bully," said Tom.
"It was just going to ruin here," she said, "and it was a shame."
It was a busy scene that followed and the boys had a glimpse of the
wonderful power of the block and falls. To an enormous tree on the
roadside a gigantic three-wheel pulley was fastened by means of a metal
band around the lower part of the trunk. Several other pulleys between
this and the boat multiplied the hauling power to such a degree that one
person pulling on the loose end which was left after the rope had been
passed back and forth many times through the several pulleys, could
actually move the boat. The hull was completely encircled, the rope
running along the sides and around the stern with another rope below
near the keel so that the least amount of strain would be put upon her.
They hitched the horses to the rope's end and as the beasts plunged
through the yielding marsh the boat came reeling and lurching toward the
road. Here they laid planks and rollers and jacked her across. This was
not so much a matter of brute strength as of skill. The two men with the
aid of the Stanton chauffeur were able, with props of the right length,
to keep the _Good Turn_ on an even keel, while the boys removed and
replaced the rollers. It was interesting to see how the bulky hull could
be moved several hundred feet, guided and urged across a road and
retarded upon the down grade to the river by two or three men who knew
just how to do it.
Cautiously the rollers were retarded with obstructing sticks, as the
men, balancing the hull upright, let her slowly down the slope into the
water. Pee-wee stood upon the road holding the rope's end and a thrill
went through him when he felt the rocking and bobbing of the boat as it
regained its wonted home, and at last floated freely in the water.
"Hang on to that, youngster," called one of the men. "She's where she
can do as she likes now."
As the _Good Turn_, free at last from prosaic rollers and plank tracks,
rolled easily in the swell, pulling gently upon the rope which the
excited Pee-wee held, it seemed that she must be as pleased as her new
owners were, at finding herself once more in her natural home. How
graceful and beautiful she looked now, in the dying light! There is
nothing so clumsy looking as a boat on shore. To one who has seen a
craft "laid up," it is hardly recognizable when launched.
"Well, there ye are," said one of the men, "an' 'tain't dark yet
neither. You can move 'er by pullin' one finger now, hey? She looks
mighty nat'ral, don't she, Bill? Remember when we trucked her up from
the freight station and dumped her in three year ago? She was the
_Nymph_ then. Gol, how happy that kid was--you remember, Bill? I'll tell
_you_ kids now what I told him then--told him right in front of his
father; I says, 'Harry, you remember she's human and treat her as such,'
that's what I says ter him. _You_ remember, Bill."
Roy noticed that the girl had strolled away and was standing in the
gathering darkness a few yards distant, gazing at the boat. The clumsy
looking hull, in which the boys had taken refuge, seemed trim and
graceful now, and Roy was reminded of the fairy story of the ugly
duckling, who was really a swan, but whose wondrous beauty was
unappreciated until it found itself among its own kindred.
"Yes, sir, that's wot I told him, 'cause I've lived on the river here
all my life, ain't I, Bill, an' I know. Yer don't give an automobile no
name, an' yer don't give an airyplane no name, an' yer don't give a
motorcycle nor a bicycle no name, but yer give a boat a name 'cause
she's human. She'll be cranky and stubborn an' then she'll be soft and
amiable as pie--that's 'cause she's human. An' that's why a man'll let a
old boat stan' an' rot ruther'n sell it. 'Cause it's human and it kinder
gets him. You treat her as such, you boys."
"How did Harry Stanton die?" Tom asked.
The man, with a significant motion of his finger toward the lone figure
of the girl, drew nearer and the boys gathered about him.
"The old gent didn' tell ye, hey?"
"Not a word."
"Hmmm--well, Harry was summat older'n you boys, he was gettin' to be a
reg'lar young man. Trouble with him was he didn' know what he wanted.
First off, he must have a horse, 'n' then he must have a boat, so th'
old man, he got him this boat. He's crusty, but he's all to the good,
th' old man is."
"You bet your life he is," said Pee-wee.
"Well, Harry an' Benty Willis--you remember Benty, Bill--him an' Benty
Willis was out in the _Nymph_--that's this here very boat. They had 'er
anchored up a ways here, right off Cerry's Hill, an' they was out in the
skiff floppin' 'round--some said fishin'."
"They was bobbin' fer eels, that's wot they was doin'," said the other
man.
"Well, wotever they was doin' it was night 'n' thar was a storm. An'
that's every bloomin' thing me or you or anybody else'll ever know about
it. The next day Croby Risbeck up here was out fer his nets an' he come
on the skiff swamped, over there off'n that point. An' near it was
Benty Willis."
"Drowned?" asked Roy.
"Drownded. He must o' tried to keep afloat by clingin' t' the skiff, but
she was down to her gunnel an' wouldn' keep a cat afloat. He might o'
kep' his head out o' water a spell clingin' to it. All I know is he was
drownded when he was found. Wotever become o' that skiff, Bill?"
"And what about Mr. Stanton's son?" Roy asked.
"Well, they got his hat an' his coat that he must a' thrown off an'
that's all. Th' old man 'ud never look at the launch again. He had her
brought over'n' tied up right about here, an' there she stood till the
floods carried her up over this here road and sot her down in the
marsh."
"Did the skiff belong with her?" Roy asked.
"Sure enough; always taggin' on behind."
"How did they think it happened?" asked Tom.
"Wall, fer one thing, it was a rough night an' they may uv jest got
swamped. But agin, it's a fact that Harry knew how to swim; he was a
reg'lar water-rat. Now, what I think is this. Th' only thing 't 'd
prevent that lad gettin' ashore'd be his gettin' killed--not drowned,
but _killed_."
"You don't mean murdered?" Tom asked.
"Well, if they was swamped by the big night boat, an' he got mixed up
with the paddle wheel, I don't know if ye'd call it murder, but it'd be
killin', sure enough. Leastways, they never got him, an' it's my belief
he was chopped up. Take a tip from me, you boys, an' look out fer the
night boat, 'cause the night boat ain't a-goin' t' look out fer you."
The girl, strolling back, put an end to their talk, but it was clear
that she, too, must have been thinking of that fatal night, for her eyes
were red and she seemed less vivacious.
"You must be careful," said she, "there are a good many accidents on the
river. My father told me to tell you you'd better not do much traveling
at night. I want to see you on board, and then I must go home," she
added.
She held out her hand and Roy, who was in this instance best suited to
speak for the three, grasped it.
"There's no use trying to thank you and your father," he said. "If you'd
given us some little thing we could thank you, but it seems silly to say
just the same thing when we have a thing like this given to us, and yet
it seems worse for us to go away without saying anything. I guess you
know what I mean."
"You must promise to be careful--can you all swim?"
"We are scouts," laughed Roy.
"And that means you can do anything, I suppose."
"No, not that," Roy answered, "but we do want to tell you how much we
thank you--you and your father."
"Especially you," put in Pee-wee.
She smiled, a pretty wistful smile, and her eyes glistened. "You did
more for me," she said, "you got my bird back. I care more for that bird
than I could ever care for any boat. My brother brought it to me from
Costa Rica."
She stepped back to the auto. The chauffeur was already in his place,
and the two men were coiling up their ropes and piling the heavy planks
and rollers on board the truck. The freshly painted boat was growing dim
in the gathering darkness and the lordly hills across the river were
paling into gray again. As the little group paused, a deep, melodious
whistle re-echoed from the towering heights and the great night boat
came into view, her lights aloft, plowing up midstream. The _Good Turn_
bobbed humbly like a good subject as the mighty white giant passed. The
girl watched the big steamer wistfully and for a moment no one spoke.
"Was your brother--fond of traveling?" Roy ventured.
"Yes, he was crazy for it," she answered, "and you can't bring _him_
back as you brought my bird back--you _can't_ do everything after all."
It was Tom Slade who spoke now. "We couldn't do any more than try," said
he. He spoke in that dull, heavy manner, and it annoyed Roy, for it
seemed as if he were making fun of the girl's bereavement.
Perhaps it seemed the same to her, for she turned the subject at once.
"I'm going to sit here until you are in the boat," she said.
They pulled the _Good Turn_ as near the shore as they could bring her
without grounding for the tide was running out, and Pee-wee held her
with the rope while the others went aboard over a plank laid from the
shore to the deck. Then Pee-wee followed, hurrying, for there was
nothing to hold her now.
They clambered up on the cabin, Roy waving the naval flag, and Pee-wee
the name pennant, while Tom cast the anchor, for already the _Good Turn_
was drifting.
"Good-bye!" they cried.
"Good-bye!" she called back, waving her handkerchief as the auto
started, "and good luck to you!"
"We'll try to do a good turn some day to make up," shouted Pee-wee.