Kitabı oku: «The Motor Girls at Camp Surprise: or, The Cave in the Mountains», sayfa 3
CHAPTER VI – OFF TO CAMP
“Really, were they bogus tickets?” asked Cora after a pause.
“And wouldn’t they let you in?” Bess cried.
“How could they tell they were counterfeits?” was Belle’s question.
“’Cause some one else had our seats, or the seats our tickets called for,” said Miss Magin, the manager of the tea room. “This is how it was. I got all ready to go – it was my day off, you know, and I had a new dress. Had my nails manicured and went to a hair dresser, for I wanted to look nice. My friend is some swell dresser himself, and you know how it is. You want to be a credit when a person goes to the trouble to take you out.”
“I know,” Cora murmured.
“Well, I did look nice, if I do say it myself,” went on Miss Magin, “and I was quite pleased when I handed my friend back a dollar.
“‘What’s this for?’ he asked me.
“‘What I saved on the tickets,’ I told him, and I mentioned how I’d bought two from the fellows who were here trying to sell some railroad transportation as well. My friend was quite pleased, of course, for he has to work hard for his money. ’This’ll do to help get a lunch after the show,’ he said, and I was glad.
“Well, we got to the opera house all right, but they wouldn’t let us in. That is, they wouldn’t give us the seats our coupons called for. We did get in, but when we went to the seats there was a couple already in them.
“My friend thought the usher had made a mistake, and there was a mix-up for a while. Then the usher got the other couple’s coupons and they were the same number as ours. They called the manager, and he said our tickets were counterfeit.
“First my friend wouldn’t believe it, but the manager showed by the other tickets taken in that ours were different. The print was the same, and so was the color of the pasteboard, but it was stiffer than the regular tickets. There was no way out of it. We had been cheated, and so had some other people who had bought tickets from those fellows. There was quite a disturbance.”
“It’s too bad!” exclaimed Cora. “Then you didn’t see the opera after all?”
“Oh, sure I did!” exclaimed Miss Magin. “My friend wouldn’t see me disappointed. He bought other tickets, though they weren’t as good as the ones I had – or thought I had.”
“And they really were counterfeit?” repeated Bess.
“Yes, but cleverly done. It was only the quality of the paper, or pasteboard, that showed,” went on the tea room manager. “If we had gotten there first we might have had our seats without any trouble, though of course when the folks came in that had the real tickets it would have been found out, I s’pose.”
“And you say others also bought the bogus tickets?” Cora asked.
“Yes, quite a few. Got them from the same fellows, too, who told the same story about being hard up for cash, and wanting to sell the tickets they’d purchased.”
“Were they the same young men?” asked Belle.
“The descriptions were the same as the two who were here, and who must have taken your auto, Miss Kimball. When I found out our tickets were worthless I told the manager about your car, though of course he had heard of it from reading the paper. Oh! I just wish I could have them arrested!”
“So do I,” agreed Cora.
“Could they find out where the tickets were printed?” asked Bess.
“Not just by looking at them,” answered Miss Magin. “The bogus ones looked for all the world like the real ones, even to the company’s name that was printed on them. But the opera house manager kept those my friend and I turned in and said he’d make an investigation. Say! I felt pretty cheap when it turned out I’d bought bogus tickets with my friend’s money.”
“Oh! you couldn’t help it,” Cora said, her chums murmuring their agreement.
“Well, I meant all right,” Miss Magin went on, “but I cost my friend more than if I hadn’t a’ been so soft-hearted wanting to help out those fellows who told a hard-luck story.”
“They’ll be caught some day,” declared Bess. “Printing bogus theatrical tickets isn’t easily done. Care has to be used, and sooner or later those fellows will be arrested.”
“The sooner the better,” said Cora. “I want my car back.”
The girls and the manager talked for some little time longer about the happenings of the night before. Presently a man alighted from a taxicab, or rather, one of the town’s few jitney cars, and entered the tea room. He looked rather sharply at our friends – at least so Cora thought – and, taking a seat at a table not far away, ordered a cup of coffee and a sandwich.
He spoke casually to the waitress, and as Miss Magin, as was her custom, walked up to see if the service was satisfactory, he spoke also to her pleasantly, and she replied.
“Was it one of the young ladies here who recently purchased some bogus theatre tickets?” the man asked, after some casual remarks.
“I hope you haven’t any more to sell!” retorted the manager, a bit sharply.
“No. I am a detective sent out by the agency which prints theatre tickets for many shows. This isn’t the first time we have had trouble, and I want, if possible, to get on the track of the persons responsible. Do you mind telling me all you can of this?”
Of course Miss Magin was only too glad to do so, and, incidentally, she mentioned the loss of Cora’s automobile. Naturally that brought our friends into the conversation, and the detective, who introduced himself as Mr. Boswell, went over to the girls’ table. He spoke of having been for some time unsuccessfully on the trail of the bogus ticket sellers.
“Taking automobiles is a new line for their activities, though,” said Mr. Boswell. “This may make it easier to catch them.”
“Of course,” suggested Cora, “we are not altogether certain that the same persons who sold Miss Magin the tickets took my auto.”
“Very likely they were,” declared the detective. “They probably realized that they had done all the illegitimate business possible in this neighborhood, and they wanted to get as far away as they could before the fact about the tickets became known. An auto offered the simplest means.”
“I should have locked the ignition switch,” said Cora. “I usually do when I get out. But we thought we would stay only a little while, so I didn’t do it this time.”
“Too bad,” said Mr. Boswell. “If I get on the track of your car, Miss Kimball, I’ll let you know.”
He made a memorandum of the description of the two men as furnished by Miss Magin, and took his departure, promising to let Cora hear from him in case anything developed.
“More of the mystery,” remarked Bess, as she and the others were on their way back in the automobile. “What with this and what may happen at Camp Surprise, I can see we are in for a busy summer.”
And busy enough the girls were during the next week. There were trunks to pack, messages to send to the caretakers at the camp, dresses to have finished in time, and many odds and ends to be looked after before leaving for so long a time.
“There’s a nice dancing pavilion not far away,” Cora told her chums. “And of course there’ll be one or two formal affairs at a neighboring hotel.”
Hazel Hastings had come on to be Cora’s guest and was staying at the Kimball house. She was the same sweet girl as before, though a little older, and not quite so timid as she had been.
Paul was the same jolly chap, quite engrossed in his automobile business, but not so much so that he could not enjoy the little outing in prospect.
“I’ve sent a description of your car, with the number of it, the number of the engine and other identifying marks, to all the second hand dealers,” he told Cora. “If it’s offered for sale to any one in the dealers’ association I’ll hear of it and there’s a chance that we’ll get it back for you.
“Of course there are some ‘outlaw dealers’ who do not belong to the association, and who might take a chance on buying a stolen car,” said the young automobile agent. “But we can’t help that. I think we’ll get your machine sooner or later.”
Cora was grateful for Paul’s efforts, but she had about given up hope. The police had secured no clews, and, though they professed to be active, there really was little for them to do.
The motor boat had been overhauled and put in shape for the trip up the Chelton river. Though the craft offered accommodations for sleeping on board they did not plan to use the berths on this occasion. They were to make an early start and reach Riverhead, the end of navigation on the Chelton, early in the afternoon. From Riverhead they would go to Camp Surprise in wagons of the buckboard type, made with wooden slats for springs, very comfortable to ride in over rough roads.
The boys were to go with the girls, Jack and his sister acting as chaperons for the others until camp was reached, when Mr. and Mrs. Floyd would perform this office.
Light baggage would be taken with them on the boat, the trunks being sent on ahead.
“And we’ll take lunch along, of course,” Bess said.
“Of course,” echoed her sister. “We don’t want to go hungry any more than do you.”
The day of departure came at last. Bess and Belle were early at Cora’s house, and found her, Jack, Paul and Hazel busy making the final preparations.
The valises and bundles were carried down to the motor boat, good-byes were said over and over again, various cautions were given by Mrs. Kimball and Mrs. Robinson, and then Cora, standing at the wheel of the craft, steered out into the middle of the pretty stream.
“Off for Camp Surprise!” she cried gaily.
CHAPTER VII – JACK’S BATH
Out into the sunlit Chelton river swung the smart motor boat with Cora at the wheel. The sun glinted on the water, it reflected from the polished brass rail and the white forward deck of the craft, it sparkled from the brass letters of the name —Corbelbes, and danced in javelins of light on the little waves.
The Corbelbes was the latest name of the motor boat which had been variously christened at times. The craft was owned jointly by Cora, Belle and Bess, and in accordance with their agreement they had in turn the privilege of naming it, such name to be used during a whole season.
In turn the girls had adopted various more or less classical nomenclature. Each one’s time having expired, it came to Cora again, and she confessed that she did not know what to select.
“Let me name the boat for you,” suggested Jack. “I’ve thought of a swell name.”
“Something ridiculous, I’m sure of that,” ventured Cora.
“No, something really classy. How’s this,” and Jack quickly printed on a piece of paper the name now glinting on either bow of the craft.
“Corbelbes,” repeated his sister. “That isn’t half bad. What is it, Spanish or Latin?”
“It’s French for curling iron and face powder,” laughed Jack.
“You mean thing!”
“No, it isn’t, Sis. Don’t you see, it’s the first part of the names of all three of you.”
“Oh, so it is.” Cora was smiling now.
“What better name could you have for a boat?” Jack demanded. “It’s something distinctive and individual.”
Cora and her chums agreed with him, and the motor boat became the Corbelbes, and as such had remained.
“Does she steer all right, Cora, with the new tiller ropes on?” asked Jack, as he lolled lazily on one of the cushioned lockers, which, at night, could be turned into comfortable bunks.
“A bit stiff,” responded his sister.
“Well, the ropes will stretch, after they’ve been used a bit, so it’s just as well to have them tight now. You get quicker action when you turn the wheel, though the river will not be crowded after we get up a way.”
Bess, Belle and Hazel busied themselves setting to rights their various possessions in the little cabin, and then they sat out in the wicker chairs in the after part of the craft, where Jack and Walter were. Paul seemed to find entertainment up in the bow with Cora.
“Where are the eats?” demanded Walter, when they had been under way for perhaps a half hour. “Didn’t I see you smuggling something on board, Bess?”
“Eats? Now?” cried Jack. “And if you saw Bess have anything it was a box of chocolates.”
“It was not, Jack Kimball!” retorted the pretty, plump twin. “I’ve given up chocolates.”
“For how long?” he teased.
“For ever. I’m eating lime drops and lemon drops now. Have some?”
“I knew I saw you have something,” declared Walter. “Why, they’re chocolates after all!” he went on, as he helped himself to what Bess offered.
“I know they are, but the chocolate coating is very thin,” she said. “They’re sour inside.”
“Sort of Christian Science treatment,” remarked Jack. “Bess couldn’t altogether give up her chocolate, so she takes it in homeopathic doses. Whew! they are sour!” he cried, as he bit into one of the candies, making a wry face.
“Fruit acids make one thin, I read,” Bess stated, “so I had these made to order.”
“Bess Robinson, you never did!” voiced her sister in surprised accents.
“Why shouldn’t I? They didn’t cost any more than the others. All the candy shop did was to dip their regular lime and lemon drops into chocolate for me.”
“Well!” exclaimed Belle. “Did you hear that, Cora?”
There was no reply from the girl at the wheel. She and Paul were busy talking.
“Let her alone,” urged Bess. “She knows about my candy. I told her.”
“Yes, don’t disturb ’em,” agreed Walter. “But I want something more substantial than candy. Didn’t you bring anything else, Bess?”
“Yes, we have a nice lunch, but I’m not going to have you spoil your appetite by eating now,” declared Belle.
“You don’t know how hard it is to spoil his appetite,” laughed Jack. “I’ve tried several times to find out just where the vanishing point is, but I haven’t succeeded. I’ve begun to believe that his appetite is like the poor – always with us – or him.”
“Base traitor!” retorted Walter, reaching out to punch Jack, but finding him too far away he did not exert himself.
The Chelton river was a busy place in the neighborhood of the town where our friends lived. On the way up the Corbelbes passed a number of craft, some of them slow-moving coal or grain barges, others passenger steamers, and not a few pleasure craft. Those in charge of the latter recognized the Corbelbes and saluted her with the regulation three whistles, which Cora returned.
“We couldn’t have had a better day,” remarked Paul, as he sat beside Cora.
“No, it’s perfect. If the weather only behaves when we get to camp we’ll be in all sorts of ways obliged to it.”
“Oh, I guess it will,” was the comment. “Look out for that fellow, Cora. He doesn’t seem to know which way he wants to go.”
“I’ve been noticing him,” and Cora looked at a man in a rowboat who was yawing from side to side as though unfamiliar with the proper method of navigation.
Cora blew the whistle sharply as the man seemed about to cross her bows, and this further confused him so that he was really in danger of being run down.
“Look out!” cried Paul again, instinctively, though he knew Cora knew how to manage the boat.
And she proved that she did by quickly reversing the propeller, while a series of sharp blasts informed any craft coming astern to look out for themselves.
“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Paul, as the Corbelbes passed the man in the rowboat. “You ought to take lessons before you come out on the river.”
The man looked frightened but did not answer, pulling awkwardly away.
“What are you trying to do, Cora?” demanded Jack. “Have an accident before we’re fairly started? Better let me steer.”
“I will not, indeed! It wasn’t my fault!”
“I should say not!” cried Paul. “That fellow was a dub!”
That was the only near approach to a collision, though the river was unusually crowded that morning. In a little while, however, the water traffic thinned out, and Cora did not have to devote so much attention to the wheel.
“Say, isn’t it time for lunch now?” demanded Walter, insinuatingly.
“It’s only eleven,” announced Belle, with a look at her wrist watch.
“That’s his regular feeding time – at least he’ll say so,” put in Jack, before his chum had a chance to answer.
“I had an early breakfast,” put in Walter in extenuation.
“Oh, well, give the child something,” laughed Bess, “and let us have peace!”
Sandwiches, cake and other things were brought out, set on a table which unfolded from the side of the boat, and the merry chatter was soon interspersed with periods of silence to allow a chance to eat.
“We’ll get there in good season,” Cora was saying, when the engine gave a sudden combined cough, wheeze and sneeze, and stopped.
“No gasoline!” cried Walter.
“Indeed not!” answered Cora. “Both tanks are full.”
“Ground wire broken,” suggested Paul.
A hasty look at the conductors proved this theory to be wrong.
“Then it’s the carburetor,” Jack affirmed. “The worst possible place for trouble. I’ll look after it, Sis. I’ve had the dingus apart, and if anybody knows about its insides I do. Throw that anchor overboard, Wally, and I’ll tinker with the troublemaker.”
A small anchor splashed into the river, while Jack, putting on an old jumper and overalls, kept for such emergencies, took off the carburetor and proceeded to examine it, from cork float to butterfly valve.
“Must be poor gasoline they’re serving us lately,” he said. “It’s awfully dirty. Look!” and he held up his grimy hands.
“Have you found the trouble?” Cora asked.
“Yes, it was the air intake valve. Little speck of carbon in it prevented the proper mixture. I’ll have it fixed in a jiffy.”
Jack proved the truth of his assertion by replacing the carburetor, and, a little later, by starting the engine without any trouble.
“Hurrah!” cried Paul. “That’s what it is to have a good mechanician aboard.”
“It’s a wonder you wouldn’t qualify yourself,” said Jack grimly. “Look at me! I’ll have to take a bath!” and he held up his hands, grimier than ever.
“There’s some of that mechanic’s soap – with pumice stone in it – in one of the lockers,” volunteered Cora. “Use that, Jack.”
The anchor was hauled in and the Corbelbes started up the river once more. Jack knelt down on one side of the stern deck, and, reaching down into the river, wet his hands, rubbing on them some pasty soap, guaranteed to remove grime of all kinds and leave most of the original skin.
“Where’s the camera?” asked Bess.
“What for?” demanded her sister.
“I want a view of Jack at his bath. Doesn’t he look cute?”
“Wait until I pose for you,” Jack suggested, making a lather of the soap. “I’m a dandy when it comes to poses. Just watch me.”
He stood up on the after deck, but his foot slipped on a bit of the lather that dropped from his hands, and, a moment later, Jack plunged overboard.
CHAPTER VIII – THE STORM
“Oh, Jack!” cried Cora, as she had a hasty glimpse of her brother making a rather ungraceful dive over the side of the Corbelbes. “Oh!”
Her words were echoed by Bess and Belle, and while they started up, overturning the chairs on which they had been sitting, Cora, alive to the emergency, quickly threw in the reverse clutch, and a smother of foam arose under the stern of the boat as it lost way.
Nor had Walter and Paul been idle. The former seized a canvas covered cork life ring, and, waiting a moment to catch a glimpse of the bobbing head of his chum, threw the ring to him, with a cry of:
“There you are, Jack!”
“I’ll go after him in the boat!” called Hazel’s brother, for a small dingey was riding astern of the larger boat, and Paul now hauled this toward the side.
There was no need for any one else to go overboard, for Jack, as his boy and girl chums well knew, could swim excellently, and he had fallen in with only overalls and jumper on, which made raiment almost as light as a bathing suit. True, he had on his shoes, but in several tests at summer camp Jack had swum across a lake with all his heavy clothes on.
Still Paul was not sure but what his chum might have struck his head going overboard, and in this case it would be advisable to have the little boat ready.
“There he is – he’s all right,” cried Walter, as he saw Jack striking out for the motor boat, ignoring the life ring.
“Get it, Jack! Get it!” cried Cora, indicating the white, floating object.
“Don’t need it!” Jack sung out, cheerfully enough. “What do you think I am, an invalid?”
However, he was glad enough to crawl into the smaller boat, which Paul sent over toward him, for Jack found his shoes heavy, and the side of the Corbelbes was high out of water, making it difficult for one to reach the gunwale.
“All right?” asked Cora, as Jack sat dripping on the stern seat.
“Sure I’m all right. I was going in for a swim anyhow, and this saved me the trouble.”
“Well, come on board and we’ll start again,” Cora said. “Pick up the ring, Paul. I don’t want to lose it!”
“Aye, aye, my captainess!” and he saluted with an oar.
“How did it happen, Jack?” asked Walter, when his chum, dripping, was safe on board again.
“Somebody pushed me! I think it was Hazel,” and he winked at the others while he gazed as severely as possible (which was not greatly) at the blushing girl.
“Oh, Mr. Kimball! I – I did not!” cried Hazel.
“My goodness, how very formal! Mr. Kimball!” mocked Bess. “Since when, Hazel?”
“Since he accused me that way.”
“Oh! I’ll withdraw the accusation if you’ll only call me Jack! I love to hear you say that, Hazel! Call me Jack.”
“Silly!” muttered Cora.
“Mushy, I call it,” declared Bess. “Downright mushy!”
“You’re jealous,” added Walter.
“Say Jack!” commanded the dripping owner of the name, “or I’ll come over and sit by you, Hazel, and I’m almost sure that blue dress of yours spots.”
“It does! Oh, don’t let him come near me!” begged Hazel, trying to retreat into the cabin.
“Say Jack then!” commanded the relentless one, dripping at every step as he pursued her.
“Oh – Jack!” she complied.
“Your brains seem to have gone overboard, and not to have come back with you,” said Cora to her brother. “Quit your fooling. You’re getting the cushions all wet.”
Jack subsided after blowing a kiss to his sister, and sprinkling her with water from his dripping hair. Then the boat was put back on her course, the dingey was made fast, the life ring put in place, and there was peace and quietness once more, broken only by Jack’s grunts and exclamations as he struggled to get off his wet shoes.
“Cora,” called Jack, from the curtained cabin, where he was changing into dry garments, “I didn’t put an extra pair of shoes in your valise; did I?”
“I rather guess not,” was the quick answer.
“Then I haven’t any,” wailed Jack. “I’ll have to borrow a pair of you girls’ slippers. The biggest I can get – don’t all speak at once.”
There were some subdued giggles.
“Did I hear Cora say hers would be too big for me?” asked Jack.
“Oh, do get sensible!” commanded his sister. “There’s a pair of worsted bedroom slippers of mine you can take until your shoes get dry. You can’t stretch them any too much. Put your shoes near the muffler. They’ll dry there.”
“Yes, and get all out of shape,” objected Jack. “I’ll put them on the forward flag staff and let the gentle breezes dry them. ’Tis Nature’s way.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” groaned Cora. “What would people say on seeing a pair of shoes at the top of the staff? Please put them near the muffler and they’ll dry all right.”
This Jack did, the iron cylinder that received the burned gases from the engine being quite hot, so that the wet garments and shoes bid fair to dry speedily. Jack, meanwhile, donned a pair of his sister’s slippers – a pink one and a blue one, Cora not having been able to find mates.
“I don’t know what’s in him to-day,” Cora confided to Hazel.
“He’s awfully jolly, I think,” said Paul’s sister.
“Jolly? You wouldn’t think so if you had to live with him as long as I have had to.”
“Is he always this way?”
“No, thank goodness; it goes by streaks, like the lean and fat in a piece of bacon.”
“The idea of comparing Jack to a piece of bacon!” commented Bess, who overheard.
“Well, he is that way,” insisted Cora.
“I hope my shoes get dry by the time we reach Riverhead,” Jack confided to Paul and Walter. “I have another pair in my trunk, but that may not be there when we get to camp. And I do hate wet shoes to dance in.”
“Who said we were going to dance?” asked Walter.
“I did,” replied Jack. “There’s a hotel not far from the camp, I hear, and the season ought to be partly in swing now. Well, if you fellows don’t want to go I can borrow your shoes.”
“Who said we didn’t want to go?” Paul cried.
“Oh, well, don’t bite me!” pleaded Jack, in falsetto accents.
The little excitement caused by Jack’s involuntary bath gradually subsided. He made a final and fairly successful effort to rid his hands of the grime caused by cleaning the carburetor, and then, attired in dry garments, and with one pink and one blue slippered foot resting “nonchalantly” (as he called it) on the rail, he watched the receding, wooded shores of the Chelton.
From somewhere in the distance a factory whistle blew.
“One o’clock!” cried Jack. “Is dinner ready? I say, Cora, I have a wonderful appetite!”
“Never knew you when you didn’t have,” she replied.
“Why, we just had lunch – just before Jack fell overboard!” ejaculated Hazel.
“That won’t make a bit of difference to him – or them,” said Belle, with a resigned air. “We’ll have to serve another meal I suppose.”
“A regular one this time, if you please,” begged Walter. “Those olives, anchovies and the caviar sandwiches only made me a bit keen.”
The girls were nothing loath to put out the food again, for, truth to tell, the river air had given them, as well as the boys, an appetite. They had brought plenty with them, for though they had requested Mr. Floyd to have supper ready when they reached the bungalow (the first meal in camp the boys were to share with the girls), still Cora had feared they would arrive late, and had made arrangements accordingly.
They had as much fun over the regular lunch as they had had over the “temporary” one, as Walter and the boys designated the first meal, and the afternoon waned pleasantly.
“I hope we shall get to Riverhead before the storm,” observed Cora, as she came back to take her place at the wheel again, a post she had abandoned while she helped the girls put away the dishes and what was left of the food.
“What storm?” asked Paul.
Cora indicated a bank of sullen-looking clouds in the west. They were sufficiently ominous to cause Cora to speed up the motor a bit, and to request her brothers and his chums to see to the side curtains.
“We ought to get in long before that breaks,” Jack declared.
But he did not count on the speedy approach of the storm, nor on the fact that the boat ran into a shallow section of the river, where there grew long grass which got entangled in the propeller.
Though the Corbelbes managed to force her way through this patch of “seaweed” as Jack called it, when she emerged into free water again the motor could hardly turn the screw. It was necessary to reverse the engine, to unwind the grass, and even then some had to be pulled away with the boat hook – no easy task.
And then, when they were once more under full speed, the storm came down with a rush and a roar, with blinding sheets of rain, with a wind that caught the boat broadside, where the rubber curtains made a wide sail area, and heeled her over at no small angle.
With the rain came thunder and lightning, sufficiently fierce and loud for a time to terrify at least Belle, who was the most nervous of the girls.
“I can hardly see to steer,” said Cora, peering out of the rain-drenched windows of the cabin.
“Want me to take the wheel?” asked Jack.
“No, thank you, I think not. We ought to be almost there now. But I don’t know about going over the mountain trail in this storm.”
“Maybe it will stop,” suggested Belle.
“It doesn’t act so,” commented Walter.
The thunder had almost ceased, and the lightning was not so startling, but the rain came down harder than ever.
“I declare I can’t see either bank of the river,” Cora said. “I hope I shan’t run into anything.”
They kept on for perhaps an hour longer, the rain never ceasing. But they were good and dry in the snug motor boat.
“I think we’d better put ashore and find out where we are,” suggested Jack, after a bit. “We may have run past Riverhead, Cora.”
“Run past it! How could we, Jack? The river’s almost too shallow for a rowboat past Riverhead. We’d be aground.”
“Not necessarily. They’ve lately dredged a channel about a mile beyond, to let boats bring ice down from the houses up above. You may be in the channel,” Walter said.
“I don’t believe – ” began Cora, when suddenly the boat ran against an obstruction. The occupants were almost thrown off their feet. A grinding, scraping sound was heard and Cora threw out the gears.
“Why – why!” she cried, as she looked out into the dark mist of the storm. “We’ve run ashore!”
