Kitabı oku: «Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast; or, Through Storm and Stress to Florida», sayfa 7

CHAPTER XIV.
NICK BAGS HIS GAME

"Whoop! I got him!"

That was certainly Nick shouting in an exultant strain; and as Jack glanced in the direction of the lean-to he saw the fat boy hunching his pudgy figure out, gun in hand – for the moon had not yet set in the west.

Then Jack caught the sound of something struggling in the brush close by. Not knowing what it might prove to be, he was in no hurry to jump over that way.

"What did you shoot at, Nick?" he demanded, as the excited boy scrambled awkwardly to his feet, and appeared anxious to renew the engagement; at the same time Jack made sure to lay hold on the other's gun, lest he open fire recklessly.

"I d – d – don't know for sure," stammered Nick; "but it looked awfully like a tiger."

"What?" exclaimed Jack, astonished. "Why, don't you know there isn't such an animal in North America?"

"Might have been a striped skunk, Jack?" suggested Josh, who had poked his head out from the cabin of the Comfort.

"Or a zebra escaped from a menagerie," Herb remarked.

"All right, have all the fun you want, fellows," said Nick, doggedly; "but all the same, whatever it was, I got it."

"That's just what he did, boys, I reckon," Jack declared; "because you can hear it kicking its last over yonder in the bushes. Here, where's that lantern of ours, Jimmy? I let you have it, remember? Light up, and show me the way in there."

Jimmy quickly applied a match to the wick, and as the light flared up, he swung the lantern in his hand.

"Who's afraid?" he said, boldly, as he started toward the spot where silence now reigned. "Come along after me, Jack, darlint; and please remimber that if the beast springs at me, I depind on you to knock spots out of him. Keep back, the rest of ye, now, till we solve the puzzle."

Jack kept his gun in readiness, for there could be no telling what lay beyond that fringe of bushes.

"I do be seein' somethin' there on the ground, Jack. Looky yonder, honey, an' sure ye can't miss the same, by the token," Jimmy presently said, in a low, strained voice, as he pointed a trembling finger ahead.

"Yes, I see something," Jack admitted. "Go on, Jimmy, take a few more steps. No matter what a ferocious monster it may prove to be, I rather guess Nick nailed it with that charge of shot at close range."

They kept on advancing, and the nearer they drew the bolder Jimmy seemed to grow, until presently both boys stood over the victim of Nick's fire.

Then they broke out into a shout that made the weird echoes leap out of the depths of Dismal Swamp.

"Tare and ounds!" burst forth Jimmy, "if 'tisn't a shoat afther all he killed."

"Say rather a full grown razorback pig," laughed Jack, as he noted the sharp snout of the rooter, and its slab sides.

Jimmy immediately bent down and gripped the beast by one of its hind legs.

"'Tis a roast of frish pork we'll be afther havin' the morrow," he declared. "They do be sayin' that these same Virginia pigs have the flavor of the bist Irish pork; an' I've always wanted to try the same. Think of Nick being the one to give us this trate. And if we iver run up against the owner, it's Nick must stand the cost. A tiger, did he say? He must have been saing double stripes the time."

When they backed into the camp, and the defunct pig was shown, a chorus of yells arose from the balance of the crowd. Even Nick joined in the whooping.

"Laugh all you want to, fellows," he remarked, as he assumed a proud attitude, leaning on his gun as though posing for his picture, with that wild boar at his feet, as the spoils of the hunt. "I thought it was a wild beast about to attack the camp; and as the only one awake at the time, I believed it my solemn duty to give him both barrels, which I did. And what's more, you see that I got him. Now, what do you say about my marksmanship, Josh Purdue?"

"Not a word," returned that worthy, throwing up both hands. "Why, you peppered the poor beast from bow to stern. Won't we have a fine time picking the shot out of our teeth, if we try to eat him? But Jack, do they ever make use of such awful thin-looking hogs as this?"

"Of course, they do," replied the other, quickly. "All razorbacks are thin. They live in the woods and swamps, feeding on mast, which means acorns and nuts and sweet roots. That's what gives their flesh the sweet taste it has, a sort of gamey flavor, they say, though I never really ate part of a genuine razorback."

"But you will now, I hope," remarked Nick. "This is my treat, and I hereby cordially invite you, one and all, to partake with me when our chef has a chance to cook one of these fresh hams."

"He just wants us to be in it as deep as he is, so if the owner shows up we'll stand by him," chuckled Josh.

"Well, we ought to stand back of him," asserted Jack; "because Nick really rested under the belief that he was protecting the camp from the prowling monster. Of course, we accept your kind invite, Nick; and now, let's get back under the blankets as fast as we can, because it's kind of cool out here."

All of them made haste to do so save Nick, who lingered for some time to fairly gloat over his quarry. Seldom had the fat boy been enabled to bring down any species of game worth mentioning, so that his excitement was easily understood.

On the next morning Jack cut up the lean pig, having a fair knowledge of the methods employed in such a case. Of course, none of them just fancied living off some man's property, and if they could only find out who the owner of the razorback was they would have only too gladly paid whatever it was worth.

But whether they ever did find him out or not, it would be a wicked shame to let all that sweet meat go to waste. And that very morning they had some pretty nice chops from the pig's ribs, which gave them a taste at any rate.

That morning they continued to move south through Currituck Sound. There were some ducks in sight, and more arriving, but only an occasional discharge of a gun came to their ears. Once Jack pointed to a wedge-shaped line of geese standing out against the clear sky far above, and heading still further south for some favorite feeding bar.

That night they camped on Roanoke Island, and the boys knew that they had made gallant progress through a portion of North Carolina.

"Tomorrow we will, I expect, get through Albemarle Sound, which is something like twenty-five miles in length," Jack remarked, as around a cheery fire that night they talked of what lay just before them.

"And after that, what?" questioned Herb.

"There's a lighthouse at the head of the narrower Croaton Sound, and if you look over there to the east right now you'll see the one on Body Island at Oregon Inlet. We've got to cross there first of all, you see."

"More inlets beyond that, are there?" asked George, trying to look indifferent.

"Two more before we reach Hatteras in Pamlico Sound, and known as New Inlet and Loggerhead. That last one is a hummer, too, I understand; but it can't be any worse than some we've successfully negotiated," Jack answered.

"Particularly that Watchapreague one," chuckled Josh, "where the jolly mermaids lie in wait to coax all handsome fellows overboard."

"Huh! that's right," remarked Nick; "and I noticed that you stayed aboard all right, Josh."

"Nothing to bother about with any of them, if only the boats behave half way decently," declared Jack. "If the engine of the Wireless hadn't balked just when it did, George wouldn't have had any trouble."

"And I'd have been saved my bath," chuckled Nick.

"But what of me, kind sors?" broke in Jimmy, in his thickest brogue, assumed, no doubt, for the occasion. "I'd have lost me chanct to win immortal glory. Didn't I be afther fillin' that beast of a shark with lead, so that his cronies they tore him into bits, an' devoured him in a jiffy. Give the divvle his dues, boys."

"Yes," Jack hastened to say, "give Jimmy all that's coming to him, fellows. He deserves it," at which there was a roar.

Starting again in the morning, the southward run was resumed. All were now in a good humor. They seemed to be able to surmount any and all difficulties as fast as they arose; and this disposition made them light-hearted in the extreme.

One of the hams had been cooked in an oven on the preceding night, and proved to be very tender eating after all.

Albemarle Sound was passed, and the one beyond it. Even the dreaded Loggerhead Inlet proved to be a hollow mockery, in so far as giving them any real trouble went, for they crossed it with the utmost ease.

With several hours of daylight still ahead, they entered upon the great wide Pamlico Sound, which in places is all of twenty miles from shore to shore. As it is extremely shallow in many places, this body of water makes a treacherous sailing ground, and many a boat has met with disaster while navigating it.

They had not been an hour afloat on Pamlico before Jack was sorry he had started. Once more clouds had scurried above the horizon, and were mounting with great fleetness. And this time he believed that the storm would not prove a tempest in a teapot, as the last one had turned out to be.

Vainly they looked about them for a haven of safety. There was absolutely no point of land where the water was of sufficient depth to allow of their finding a temporary harbor.

The clouds were climbing higher with a rapidity that told of the wind that must soon sweep across that wide body of water with cruel violence.

"Whew! perhaps we ain't in for it now!" called George, as he drew up closer to the others, to find out what Jack had to say; for strange as it might seem, when peril confronted the boys of the Motor Boat Club, they seemed to turn toward Jack with much the same confidence the needle shows in pointing directly to the north.

"What can we do, Jack?" asked Nick, in more or less alarm, as they plainly heard the distant growl of thunder; and in imagination the fat boy could see himself in the cranky speed boat, as she caught the full force of the wind, and turned turtle in the twenty-mile sound, amid the crash of the storm.

CHAPTER XV.
A WARM WELCOME TO THE STORMY CAPE

There was no time to waste.

One last glance around told Jack the necessity for prompt action, if he wished to pull the little flotilla out of the bad hole in which they seemed settled.

The storm was racing up from the southwest, beyond the distant mainland. Consequently, the eastern side of the great shallow sound would presently become a boisterous place for craft the size of theirs.

"We've got to head into it, fellows!" was his decision, as he began to change the course of the Tramp to conform with his views.

It looked like heroic treatment, but neither Herb nor George murmured. They saw what the commodore had in mind, and that every mile they were able to forge ahead would decrease the peril. Indeed, if they could only manage to reach a point close in to that western shore, they would escape the brunt of the rising waves, and only have to think of holding their own against the wind itself.

"Full speed, Comfort?" called Jack, waving an encouraging hand toward the other.

Now George found himself perplexed as to what his course should be. He knew he could make almost twice the speed that the lumbering broad beam boat was able to display at her best. The question was, did he dare risk it?

True, the Wireless was in more danger out on that wide stretch than any of the others, and it seemed good policy for him to speed for shelter. But what if one of those exasperating breakdowns, to which the mechanism of the narrow boat seemed subject, should take place without warning?

George shuddered as he contemplated such a possibility. He could easily imagine his feelings upon being cast helplessly adrift in the midst of a raging gale, with his tried and true chums hidden from his sight by the rain and blowing spindrift.

And so his decision was quickly made. Of the two evils he chose what seemed to be the lesser. He would stick to the fleet. Then, in case of trouble, they could help each other like comrades.

Jack had kept an eye on the Wireless, for he guessed that just this puzzling question would come up for George to solve. And when he failed to see the speed boat shooting away, leaving the others in the lurch, he understood that the wise skipper had decided on the better way.

They were making fine headway, but all the same the storm was doing likewise; and unfortunately, at the time, they happened to be quite a few miles away from the shore that promised shelter.

"What ails George, do ye know?" questioned Jimmy, who could not understand why the other did not make with all speed ahead, as he had been known to do on a former occasion, considering that the best course.

"That sudden stop on the part of his engine gave him a bad feeling," was Jack's reply. "He doesn't trust it as he did, and is afraid that it may repeat when he is in the midst of the storm. So he's going to stick by us, through thick and thin."

"It does his head credit, I'm thinkin'," declared Jimmy; and then, as he stared hard into that inky space ahead, that was gradually creeping up toward them, he continued: "Sure now, do ye think we can make it, Jack darlint?"

"Well, we've just got to, that's all," the other replied, firmly. "If the wind doesn't blow us right out of the water, we'll keep on bucking directly into it. The fight will be a tough one, Jimmy; but make up your mind we must win out. Half the battle is in confidence – that and eternal watchfulness."

It was in this manner that Jack Stormways always impressed his chums with some of the zeal by which his own actions were governed. That "never-give-up" spirit had indeed carried him through lots of hotly contested battles on the gridiron or the diamond, wresting victory many times from apparent defeat.

So they continued to push steadily on. Jack counted every minute a gain. He kept a close watch upon the surface of the sound, knowing that here they must first of all discover the swoop of the gale, as its skirmishing breath struck the water.

The last movement of air seemed to have died out, yet this was the calm that often precedes the coming of the storm, the deadly lull that makes the tempest seem all the more terrible when it breaks.

Jack calculated that they had been some five miles from the western shore at the time they changed their southern course, and headed to starboard. And as Comfort could do no better than ten miles an hour, under the most favorable conditions, it stood to reason that about half an hour would be needed to place them in a position of safety.

"We won't get it, that's flat," he was saying to himself, as he noted the way in which the clouds gathered for the rush.

Picking up the little megaphone which he carried, he shouted a few sentences to the others. While the air around them remained so calm, the thunder was booming in the quarter where that black cloud hung suspended, so that talking was already out of the question unless one used some such contrivance for aiding the voice.

"George, better fall in just ahead of us, where we can get a line to you in case you have engine trouble. Two sharp blasts will tell us that you want help. Herb, try and keep as close to me as is safe! We must stick it out together, hear?"

Both of the other skippers waved their hands to indicate that they understood, and doubtless George was given fresh courage to find how calm and confident Jack seemed to face the approaching difficulty.

The land was now less than two miles away, and a faint hope had begun to stir in Jack's heart that there might be enough delay to allow their reaching a point of safety.

This, however, was dissipated when he suddenly discovered a white line that looked as though a giant piece of chalk had been drawn along the water. The squall had pounced down upon Pamlico, and was rushing toward them at the rate of at least a mile a minute.

"Hold hard!" shouted Jack through his megaphone.

Then he devoted himself to engineering the Tramp's destiny. Jimmy knew what was expected of him in the emergency, and was nerved to acquit himself with credit. While his skipper showed himself to be so cool and self-possessed Jimmy could not think of allowing the spasm of fear that passed over him to hold sway. What if that line of foamy water was increasing in size as it rushed at them, until it assumed dreadful proportions? The Tramp had passed safely through other storms, and with Jack at the wheel all must be serene.

So Jimmy crouched there at the motor, ready to do whatever he was told – crouched and gaped and shivered, yet with compressed teeth was resolved to stand by his shipmate to the end.

Then the foam-crested water struck the flotilla with a crash. First the narrow Wireless was seen to surge forward, rear up at a frightfully perpendicular angle, until it almost seemed as though the frail craft must be hurled completely over; and then swoop furiously down into the basin that followed the comber.

George held her firmly in line, and somehow managed to keep her head straight into the shrieking wind, though he frankly confessed that his heart was in his mouth when she took that header.

But almost at the same instant the other boats tried the same frightful plunge, and they, too, survived. Jack gave a sigh of relief when he saw that all of them had passed through the preliminary skirmish unharmed, for it had been that which gave him the greatest concern.

And now the work began in earnest. They had to fight for every foot they won against the combined forces of wind and wave. Had they been a mile or so further out in the sound, so that the seas had a better chance to become monstrous, nothing could have saved any of them. And Jack's chums once again had reason to be thankful for the far-seeing qualities which their commodore developed when he changed their course, and headed into the teeth of the coming gale.

At least several things favored them now. George's boat seemed to be behaving wonderfully well, for one thing. Then again, after that first swoop the gale had slackened somewhat in intensity, as is frequently the case; though presently they could expect it to become more violent than ever, when it caught its second wind, as Jerry expressed it.

Then, another hopeful thing was the fact that with every yard passed over they were really getting the benefit of drawing closer to the shore that was serving as a sort of shield from the wind.

The seas too gradually declined, since there was lacking the water necessary to build them up.

Jack had one thing to worry over. He knew that on such occasions considerable water would be swept from the western side of the sound, and this was apt to send the boats aground unless luck favored them. Such a condition would keep them from going further in any great distance, since the risk of striking became too pronounced.

"It's all right, Jimmy!" he called to his helper, knowing how anxious the latter must necessarily be; "we've got to a point now where we're safe. We could even drop our mudhooks over right here, and ride it out, if we wanted. But it's better to go on a little further."

"Whoo! wasn't the same a scorcher, though?" Jimmy shouted, a sickly grin coming over his good-natured, freckled face.

"It was some wind, I'm thinking," Jack admitted. "I wasn't a bit afraid about the Tramp or the Comfort, but there's no telling what that trick boat, Wireless, will do, when you don't expect it. But everything is lovely, and the goose hangs high."

"Sure it will, if ever ye get a sight on one with that bully little gun; and it was poor hungry Nick I heard sayin', by the same token, that he liked roast goose better than anything in the woide worrld except oysters!"

Ten minutes later and Jack blew a blast upon his conch shell horn that told the others they were to come to anchor. Whereupon there was more or less hustling, as the crews got busy.

Presently the three little motor boats rode buoyantly to their anchors, bobbing up and down on the rolling waves like ducks bowing to each other. And as they had made out to select positions within the safety zone of each other, it was possible for those aboard to hold conversations, if they but chose to elevate their voices more or less, in order to be heard above the shrieking wind and dashing waves.