Four Afloat: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the Water

“You go and take a nap,” said Nelson. “I’ll look out for her awhile.”

“All right,” agreed Dan, “I guess I will. The fact is” – he grinned apologetically – “I’m feeling the motion a bit.”

“I should say you were!” answered Nelson. “You’re as white as a sheet! Go on down and see if you can’t get to sleep.”

“Well – is everything all right?”

“Yes. This is only a squall, I guess. There’s no danger, anyway, although it’ll be pretty wet for awhile.”

Dan went down and Nelson made himself comfortable in the lee of the cabin. It seemed earlier than it really was, but that was due to the clouds and rain squalls. At about six Bob put his head out, with surprise written large on his features.

“What’s happened?” he asked.

“Oh, a nice little blow from the sou’west,” answered Nelson. “The old Vagabond thinks she’s doing a Highland fling.”

“How long’s it going to last?” asked Bob, with a dubious look about him.

“Not long, I guess. I hope not, anyhow, for we’re not likely to find a tow while it keeps up. Wake Tommy and get him to start breakfast, will you? A cup of hot coffee might taste nasty, but I don’t think so.”

Bob’s eyes brightened as he drew back out of the wind to awaken the chef and finish dressing; “hot coffee” surely has a grateful sound on a wet deck at six o’clock in the morning. And it tastes a whole lot nicer than it sounds; everyone would have agreed to that half an hour later, especially Nelson, who drank his coffee from a tin cup and ate his bacon and eggs from the top of the cabin, where the end of the tender sheltered the plate from the rain.

“I’m just as well pleased that we didn’t try to go to New York with the others,” observed Bob after breakfast. “About this time they must be down around the mouth of Buzzard’s Bay, and I’ll bet it’s blowing up nasty there.”

“Well, there was no danger of our getting there,” said Nelson.

“Why?”

“Because we had no gasoline, of course.”

“That’s so; I’d forgotten that. But, say, I’m glad I’m not on the Sue about this time!”

“I wonder which will win,” said Dan.

“So do I,” said Nelson. “Well, we’ll find out if we ever get to land. Hang this wind, anyway! Last night we might have used the tender and towed a bit, but we couldn’t do that now in this sea to save our lives.”

“I hope it won’t be necessary to try it,” said Bob dryly.

And as it proved, it wasn’t. For before nine the wind died down, the sun came out strongly, and the sea, while still choppy, calmed considerably. Nelson set the yachting ensign upside down as a signal of distress, and the Four kept a sharp watch for boats. Little by little the shoreline showed clear and sharp to the west, and sails and smoke showed here and there on the water. But it was all of an hour before any craft came near enough to see the Vagabond’s dilemma. Then it was an ocean-going tug, which bore down on them from the north with a schooner in tow. The boys waved and used the megaphone, and the tug presently altered her course and ran up to them.

“Broke down?” shouted a man from the door of the pilot house.

“Yes,” answered Nelson. “We’re out of gasoline. Have you got any?”

“No, we don’t use it,” laughed the other.

“Can you give us a tow, then?”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere we can get more gasoline.”

“Well, I’m bound for Sanstable. If you want to make fast to the stern of the schooner back there you can. But I cal’ate if you wait awhile you’ll find some feller bound toward Boston.”

There was a hurried conference. They were tired of lying there, and Sanstable sounded as good as any other place.

“We’ll go with you,” answered Nelson.

“All right. Get your mud hook up and be ready to throw a line to the schooner as she goes by.”

The tug started on slowly, the boys pulled the anchor up, and Nelson found a sixty-foot rope which would serve as a towline. By good luck, the man on the schooner caught it at the first throw, ran aft with it, and made it fast, and in another moment the Vagabond was sliding through the water once more at a seven-mile gait. The crew of the schooner, the Lizzie and May of Rockport, laden with big blocks of granite, came aft and smoked their pipes and observed the launch with phlegmatic interest.

“When will you reach Sanstable?” shouted Nelson.

One of the men took his pipe from his mouth, spat over the rail, and cocked an eye at the sun.

“’Bout three o’clock,” he answered finally.

“Thunder!” muttered Nelson. Then, “How far is it?” he asked.

The pipe came forth again and the informant let his gaze travel around the horizon as though he were looking for a milestone.

“’Bout thirty or forty miles,” he said.

“Thanks!” shouted Nelson. There was no reply to this. Doubtless the sailor thought it a waste of time to remove his pipe for a mere polite formality. Presently he and his companions, all save the man at the wheel, disappeared.

The sun grew warmer and the sea calmer. The wind had stolen around into the south and blew mildly across the sparkling waves. There was nothing to do save take life easily, and so Bob and Dan stretched themselves out on the cabin roof, Tom went to sleep in the bow, and Nelson stayed in the cockpit where he could get to the wheel if the necessity arose. At twelve Tom was awakened out of a sound but not silent slumber, and sent below to cook luncheon, and at a little before two bells they ate. By this time they were near enough the shore so that they could distinguish objects. Plymouth was passed at two, and at three the tug was heading into the shallow harbor of Sanstable.

“How much are you going to offer him?” asked Bob.

“The tugboat fellow? I don’t know. What do you think?” said Nelson.

“Well, I suppose he could demand a lot if he had a mind to, but I think ten dollars would be about right, don’t you?”

Nelson thought that it would, and so when the tug slowed down and the man at the wheel of the Lizzie and May tossed them their line Nelson dropped into the tender, which had been put over, and rowed to the tug.

“Ten dollars!” said the captain. “Why, say, young man, I’d tow you around the world for that! No; you give me a couple of dollars for the boys and we’ll call quits.”

“Well, we’re awfully much obliged,” Nelson assured him as he handed up the money.

“That’s all right,” answered the captain, who, on nearer acquaintance proved to be a squat, broad-shouldered man with a grave face lighted by a pair of twinkling blue eyes, “that’s all right. Maybe you can give me a tow some day!” And he chuckled as Nelson assured him of his willingness to do so. The tug and schooner proceeded on up the harbor along the waterfront, and Nelson rowed back to the Vagabond. There Dan joined him with the towline, and the two pulled the launch up to the nearest wharf. The harbor was not large, nor were there many piers, but it was well filled with pleasure craft and small schooners, and every slip was occupied. As there was no chance of getting up to a wharf, they decided to tie up to a schooner – the Henry Nellis– which was landing a load of pine boards.

“We’ll have to stay here until morning,” said Nelson, “so we might as well make the best of it. As soon as we get some gasoline aboard we can run out and anchor in the harbor.”

Luckily they were able to buy their fuel at the head of the wharf where they had berthed, but it was hard work getting it aboard, since they had to carry it down from the little store in five-gallon cans, lug it across the schooner’s deck, and hand it down the side. Dan stayed aboard the launch and the others carried. It was awkward work, and they decided that they would take aboard merely enough for a two days’ run and fill again where things were more convenient. So they put in thirty gallons and called it off. It was then four o’clock, and they decided to go ashore awhile before taking the launch out to her anchorage. After they had reached the village street Nelson stopped.

“Say, I forgot to lock that hatch,” he said. “I wonder if I’d better go back.”

“You closed things up, didn’t you?” asked Bob.

“Yes.”

“Oh, it will be all right, then. Come on!”

They found the post office, and Nelson wrote a brief account of their adventures to his father. When he had signed his name to the postal card he paused and chewed the end of the pen for a moment. Then —

“Look here, fellows,” he said to the others, who were watching the village life through the dusty window, “we ought to decide where we’re going, so that dad can send our mail to us.”

“That’s so,” agreed Tom.

“Let’s keep on to New York, now that we’ve started,” said Bob.

“Well, but you wanted to go to Portland,” answered Nelson doubtfully.

“Never mind Portland. Maybe we can run up there when we come back. Let’s make it New York.”

“All right. Then I’ll tell dad to send our mail to the general delivery at Newport, and we’ll stop for it there the day after to-morrow. How’s that?”

“Sounds good to me,” said Dan.

An hour later they were back at the wharf, having given their legs a good stretching, and were making their way through the piles of lumber which covered the pier.

“It’s time we got here,” observed Bob. “The schooner’s through unloading, and there comes a tug to take her out. Let’s get a move on.”

He led the way across the deck of the schooner and was hailed by a thin, red-faced man, who came hurrying back from the bow.

“Hi, there! Where you going?”

Bob explained.

“Oh!” said the other. Then, “Say,” he asked, “you ain’t seen a young feller about fourteen around here, have yer?”

Bob replied that he had not.

“Well, if you do, you let me know,” said the captain of the Henry Nellis savagely. “He’s my boy, and if I catch anyone helpin’ him to run away from this ship, there’ll be trouble.”

“Oh, run away, has he?” asked Dan.

“What’s that to you, young feller?” asked the man angrily.

“Nothing,” replied Dan, flushing. “Only if he has, I hope he keeps out of your way.”

“Oh, you do, eh? Well, you get off my deck, do you hear? Get, now!”

“Come on,” whispered Bob. But Dan’s ire was aroused.

“Don’t think I want to stay here, do you?” he asked sarcastically. “You aren’t laboring under the impression that your personal attraction is so great that I can’t tear myself loose, are you? Why, I’ve seen better-looking folks than you in the monkey cage!”

By that time Nelson and Bob were hurrying him unwillingly to the side of the schooner, and Tom, choking with laughter, was scrambling over the rail. The captain choked with anger for an instant. Then he found his voice, and the boys landed on the deck of the Vagabond amid a veritable thunder of abuse. He came to the side of the schooner and continued to give his opinion of them while they cast off.

“Go it!” muttered Dan. Then, seeing the boat hook in Bob’s hands, “Say, let me have that a minute, Bob,” he begged. “Just let me rap him one over the knuckles with it!”

But Bob refused, and the Vagabond slid astern under the amused regard of the crew, who had gathered as the storm broke. Dan waved farewell in the direction of the flaming red face which still regarded them savagely over the rail.

“Write often!” he called.

There was a quickly hushed howl from the crew, the captain disappeared from the rail, and from the subsequent sounds it was evident that he had transferred his attention to his subordinates.

“Gee, isn’t he an old bear!” marveled Dan.

“Don’t blame the boy for running away!” observed Nelson, as he shoved back the hatch and opened the doors. “Take the wheel, Bob, and we’ll run across there toward the bar, where we’ll be out of the way. See that spar over there? Sing out when we get almost up to it and I’ll shut her off.”

“Yes, sir! Very good, sir!” replied Bob, touching his cap ceremoniously.

Nelson went below, and as his feet touched the engine room floor he heard a shuffling sound in the stateroom beyond. With a bound, he was at the door. There was no one in sight. Evidently his ears had deceived him; probably he had heard some one moving on deck. Then, as he turned to go back to the engine, he saw that he had not been mistaken after all. Huddled in the corner of Tom’s berth lay a boy, whose anxious face gleamed pale in the dim light and whose wide, eager eyes stared pleadingly up at him.

CHAPTER VIII – TELLS HOW THEY OUTWITTED THE CAPTAIN OF THE HENRY NELLIS

“What are you doing here?” demanded Nelson sternly.

His first thought was that the boy had sneaked into the cabin during their absence, bent on theft, and that on hearing their return he had attempted to hide. But the other’s first words disillusioned him.

“Don’t you tell him! Don’t you, please, sir!” begged the boy in hoarse whispers. “I ain’t done any harm here, honest! And if he gets me, I’ll have to go back on the boat, sir, and she’s going away up to Newfoundland, and – and – I just can’t stand it any longer, I can’t!”

“Oh,” muttered Nelson, “I see! You’re – that boy of his.”

“I ain’t his boy, not really!” cried the other eagerly. “He told my mother he’d take me one voyage and make a sailor of me. And I wanted to go; I didn’t know what it was like. And I went up to Casco with him, and when we got here I wanted to go home, and he said I couldn’t because I’d signed on with him for a year. I never signed anything, sir; he was just lying! And we been here more’n a week, and he kept watchin’ me all the time. And to-day I saw your yacht, sir, and I thought maybe he wouldn’t miss me till you’d gone out again, and so I sneaked down here a little while ago. And I ain’t touched a thing; honest, sir, I ain’t! If you’ll just let me stay here till the Henry sails, sir, I’ll get out right away, I will. You ain’t going to tell him, are you, sir?”

“You stay here,” answered Nelson quietly, “and keep still. I’ll see what the other fellows say.”

“Don’t you, please!” whispered the boy, half sobbing. “If he catches me now he’ll whip me awful! Just let me stay a little while, sir, won’t you? I’ll do anything you say – ”

“Cut it out!” said Nelson kindly. “I dare say you won’t have to go back, but I’ve got to tell the other fellows and see what they think. Don’t you worry, though; I guess it’ll be all right.”

Nelson hurried back to the cockpit. The Vagabond was floating gently away from the wharf on the outgoing tide. Forty or fifty feet away a small tug was snuggling up to the Henry Nellis, preparatory to towing her outside the harbor. Bob was at the wheel, but he and Dan and Tom were looking intently toward the stern rail of the schooner, where the captain and one of the sailors, the latter a small, swarthy man with rings in his ears, were talking excitedly and looking toward the Vagabond. The next moment the captain hurriedly disappeared, the watchers heard an order given, and three sailors sprang to the stern davits and began to lower the small boat which hung there.

“Now, what’s he up to?” asked Dan resentfully. But before anyone could answer him, Nelson had called to them.

“Here a minute, fellows,” he said softly. “Keep on looking, but move over this way so you can hear me. That boy that the captain spoke of – ”

“He’s getting into the boat,” interrupted Bob.

“I’ll bet he’s coming over here, too,” said Dan. “If he tries to come aboard, I’ll plaguey well dump him into the water!”

Nelson paused and watched proceedings. If the captain came aboard, he was certain to find the boy. Perhaps he had every right to, but Nelson didn’t like the idea of giving the youngster up to him.

“Here he comes!” muttered Dan.

“Stand by the wheel, Bob,” said Nelson. “I’m going to start her.” He darted below, turned the gasoline valve, threw on the switch, and bent over the wheel. Once, twice, thrice he turned it over, but the engine refused to start. Perplexedly Nelson stood up and ran his eye over the motor. Then he remembered that the gasoline had not been turned on at the tank since the latter had been filled. It was too late now to run away before the captain of the Henry Nellis reached them. But he hurried forward, opened the outlet valve at the tank, threw a warning glance at the boy, who still sat huddled in the dim corner of the bunk, and returned to the engine. One more lift of the wheel and the engine was running. But he didn’t throw the clutch in and start the boat. Voices outside told him that the captain was already alongside. He hurried up the steps, striving to look unconcerned. The boat from the schooner was bobbing about a couple of yards away. It was manned by two sailors, one of them the man with the earrings, and in the stern sat the captain.

“Say, Nel,” said Bob, as the former appeared, “this gentleman wants to know if he can’t see the launch. Says he’s very much interested in launches.” Bob was very sober, but his left eye, out of the captain’s range of vision, winked meaningly.

“Why, I’m sorry,” answered Nelson, turning to the captain, “but we’re just leaving. The fact is, we’ve got quite a ways to go before dark.”

“Where you going?” asked the captain, smiling ingratiatingly.

“Duxbury,” answered Nelson on the spur of the moment.

“Well, that won’t take you long. You let me see your engine, like a good fellow. I’ve been thinkin’ of getting one of them naphtha launches for a good while.” He made a slight motion with his hand and the sailors dipped their oars.

“Sorry,” replied Nelson firmly, “but we can’t stop. And I shall have to ask you not to come alongside unless you want to take a trip with us. All ready, Bob?”

“All ready.”

Over on the schooner the crew was lining the stern rail, and the tug, too, held its small audience. Nelson turned toward the engine-room door.

“Hold on a bit,” exclaimed the captain. “You listen to me, now. You’d better. You don’t want no trouble and I don’t want no trouble, eh?” He smiled with an attempt at frankness, a smile that made Nelson shiver and caused Dan to clench his fists. “My boy’s run away, and this man here says he seen him getting on to your boat.” He nodded at the sailor with the earrings, who grinned and bobbed his head. “That boy’s bound to me for a year – signed papers, he did – and I’m his lawful guardeen and protector. His mother give him into my care. How am I going to answer her when she asks me where is her boy, eh?”

“More than likely he’s halfway home by this time,” suggested Bob politely.

“If I was sure o’ that,” answered the captain, with a shake of his head, “I wouldn’t mind so much. ’Cause I think a heap o’ that boy, I do, and I wouldn’t have no harm come to him for half my vessel, I wouldn’t.” One of the men in the boat, the one who didn’t wear earrings, choked, and, finding the captain’s baleful glare on him, took a quid of tobacco from his mouth and tossed it overboard as though it were to blame for his seeming mirth. “No, that boy’s on your boat, I tell you,” continued the captain sorrowfully. “He was seen a-climbin’ down into her. Of course, I ain’t sayin’ as you knew anything about it; that ain’t likely, ’cause it’s agin the law to harbor deserters; but he’s there, I’ll take my oath. And so you just let me come aboard and talk to him kindly. I’m like a father to him, and I can’t think what’s got into his head to make him act this way. Pull in, Johnnie.”

“Hold on!” cried Nelson. “I’ve told you that you can’t come aboard, and I mean it!”

The captain’s smiles vanished and gave way to a very ugly scowl which dwelt impartially on the four boys.

“Mean it, do ye?” he growled. “And I mean to have that boy. I’ve got the law on my side, let me tell you that, you young dudes, and I can have you put in jail!”

“Look here, Mr. Whatever-your-name-is,” said Dan impatiently, “you’re talking a whole lot of nonsense. Can’t you see that we haven’t got your boy, and never saw him? If we did have him, you might have reason to kick, for I’m hanged if I’d give him up to you!”

“You’re lying!” cried the other angrily. “He’s in the cabin! You go look and see if he ain’t.”

“No use in my looking,” answered Dan carelessly. “Nelson’s been down, and there’s no place anyone could hide there. You haven’t seen anything of his plaguey boy, have you, Nel?”

Nelson had been fearing that question, and for an instant he found himself in a quandary. He didn’t mean to lie about it, and in spite of the fact that the captain evidently had the law on his side, as he claimed to have, he hated to give the boy up. Already suspicion was creeping into the captain’s face when a way out of the quandary suggested itself. Nelson looked thoughtful.

“Well, it doesn’t seem possible,” he said slowly, “that he could be in the cabin without my seeing him, but what the captain says is so, I guess. If he is here, I suppose it’s our duty to give him up. There’s no harm in being sure, anyhow, and so I’ll take a look around down there. Is he big enough to make a fight?”

“Fight? Him? No; he ain’t got the spunk the Lord gave a duck!” answered the captain disgustedly. Nelson’s manner had imposed on him thoroughly. “But when you find him you call me and I’ll get him out in a shake. I knew you didn’t want to obstruct the law, boys.”

“Oh, I guess he isn’t worth going to law about,” laughed Nelson. “I’ll see if he’s there.”

He turned and made for the door. Bob was still at the wheel. As he passed him he whispered softly: “Ready!”

He disappeared, and Bob slowly, idly turned the wheel.

“He ain’t a bad boy,” said the captain, no longer frowning, “but he’s dreadful stubborn. I told his mother I’d make a man and a first-class sailor of him, and I mean to do it, but it’s – Hi! Stop her! You come back here!”

The quiet throbbing of the engine, running light, had suddenly changed to a deeper note; there was a quick churning at the stern as the propeller lashed the water, and on the instant the Vagabond shot at full speed in a wide curve toward the entrance of the harbor.

“I’ll have the law on you, you robbers!” shouted the irate captain of the Henry Nellis, shaking his big fist after them. “If you don’t stop, I’ll have every last one of you arrested. Hear me, do you?”

Dan knelt on the seat and put his hands to his mouth.

“Say! You go to thunder, will you?” he bawled.

“Hush up, Dan!” said Bob. But he smiled, nevertheless, as he straightened the Vagabond for a run through the channel. Back of them the little boat was bobbing erratically in the wake of the launch, and the captain was still hurling invective after them. Nelson put his head out of the cabin and viewed the scene with satisfaction.

“Is he du-du-du-du-down there?” asked Tom excitedly. Nelson nodded.

“What?” cried Dan. “The kid’s on board? Well, I’ll be blowed!” Then he sat down on the stern seat and laughed till the tears came. “Oh, say, this is great! And there I stood, lying up and down to him! Say, don’t you know he’s peeved?”

“Well, you didn’t know he was here,” said Nelson, “so you weren’t really lying.”

“Pshaw!” said Dan. “I’d have said the same thing if I had known. It isn’t lying to fool an old brute like that!”

“A lie’s a lie, no matter who you tell it to,” answered Tom.

“Look out for that schooner coming in, Bob,” Nelson cautioned. “When you pass the Point, swing her straight across the bay. We’ll try for Provincetown, seeing that I told him we were going to Duxbury.”

“Hello!” cried Dan. “Look there!”

The boat containing the captain of the Henry Nellis was returning as fast as oars could send it, and now it was alongside the tugboat and the captain had leaped aboard her.

“What’s he up to?” muttered Dan.

The Vagabond was dipping her nose into the waves of the bar.

“Oh, he’s beaten,” said Tom, “and he knows it!”

“Like fun he does!” cried Dan. “They’re casting off the tug, and he’s still aboard. I’ll bet you anything – ”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Nelson.

“Nonsense be blowed! He’s after us in the tugboat!”

Dan turned and faced the others with a broad smile.

“Now for some fun!” he chuckled.

At that moment the Vagabond swung around the Point and shook herself clear of the harbor waters. But over the low sandspit a sudden cloud of black smoke floated upward, showing that the captain had taken up the chase.

CHAPTER IX – PROVES THAT A STERN CHASE IS NOT ALWAYS A LONG CHASE