The Corner House Girls on a Houseboat

Just as Neale was going to take a chance and hurry below to see what was delaying Hank, there came the vibration of the craft which told that the motor had been started.

“Now we’ll get somewhere,” cried Neale aloud. “I think I’d better head into the wind and try to make shore. If I can get her under the shelter of that bluff we passed this afternoon, it will be the best for all of us.”

He swung the wheel around, noting that the Bluebird answered to the helm, and then he dashed the water from his face with a motion of his head, shaking back his hair. As the craft gathered speed a figure came up the stairs and emerged on deck. It fought its way across the deck to the wheel and a voice asked:

“Are we making progress, Neale?”

“Oh, yes! But you shouldn’t have come up here, Aggie!” he cried, above the noise of the storm. “You’ll be drenched!”

“No, I have on Mr. Howbridge’s raincoat. I made him and Ruthie let me come up here to help you. You certainly need help in this emergency.”

“It’s an emergency all right!” declared Neale. “But we may come out of it safely.”

“Can’t I help you steer?” asked Agnes. “I know how.”

“Yes, you may help. I’m trying to make – ”

Neale never finished that sentence. A moment later there was a jar that made him and Agnes stagger, and then the Bluebird ceased to progress under the power of her motor and was again being blown before the fury of the storm.

CHAPTER XXII – ON THE ISLAND

“What’s the matter? What has happened?” cried Agnes, clinging partly to Neale and partly to the wheel to preserve her balance. “Are we sinking?”

“Oh, no,” he answered. “We either struck something, or the motor has gone bad and stopped. I think it’s the last. I’d better go and see.”

“I’ll take the wheel,” Agnes offered.

“You don’t need to,” said her companion. “She had no steerageway on her; and you might as well keep out of the storm. The rain is fierce!”

Agnes decided to take this advice, since staying on deck now would do no good and Neale was going below.

Neale raced to the motor room, where he found Hank ruefully contemplating the silent engine.

“What’s the matter?” asked Neale. “Is she broken?”

“Busted, or something,” was the answer. “If this was a mule, now, I could argue with it. But I don’t know enough about motors to take any chances. All I know is she was going all right, and then she suddenly laid down on me – stopped dead.”

“Yes, I felt it,” returned Neale. “Well, we’ll have to see what the trouble is.”

Agnes had gone into the main cabin where she found her sisters and Mr. Howbridge. Mrs. MacCall, in a nightcap she had forgotten to remove, was sitting in one corner.

“Oh, the perils o’ the deep! The perils o’ the deep!” she murmured. “The salty seas will snatch us fra the land o’ the livin’!”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Mr. Howbridge, for he saw that Dot and Tess were getting frightened by the fear of the Scotch housekeeper’s words. “Lake Macopic isn’t salty, and it isn’t deep. We’ll be all right in a little while. Here’s Agnes back to tell us so,” he added with a smile at his ward. “What of the night, Watchman?” he asked in a bantering tone.

“Well, it isn’t a very pleasant night,” Agnes was forced to admit.

“Why aren’t we moving?” asked Tess. “We were moving and now we have stopped.”

“Neale has gone to see, Tess. He will have things in shape before long,” was Agnes’ not very confident reply.

“Well, we’re nice and snug here,” said Ruth, guessing that something was wrong, and joining forces with Agnes in keeping it from Mrs. MacCall and the younger children. “We are snug and dry here.”

“I think I’ll go and give the sailors a hand,” Mr. Howbridge said. “Ruth, you tell these little teases a story,” he said as he shifted Dot out of his lap and to a couch where he covered her with a blanket.

“I’ll get this wet coat off,” remarked Agnes. “My, but it does rain!” She passed Mr. Howbridge his coat.

Ruth took her place as mistress of the little household of Corner House girls – mother to the three parentless sisters who depended so much on her.

“And now, children, for the story!” she said. “What shall it be about?”

This took the attention of Tess and Dot off their worries, and though the wind still howled and the rain dashed against the windows of the Bluebird, they heeded it not.

Meanwhile Mr. Howbridge had made his way to the motor room where a sound of hammering on iron told him that efforts to make repairs were under way.

“What is it, boys?” he asked as he saw Neale and Hank busy over the motor.

“A wrench was jarred loose and fell into the flywheel pit,” explained Neale. “It stopped the motor suddenly, and until we get it loose we can’t move the machinery. We’re trying to knock it out.”

“Need any help?” asked the lawyer, who had donned an old suit of clothing.

“I think we can manage,” said Neale. “But you might take a look outside and see what’s happening. That is, besides the storm. We can hear that.”

“Yes, it seems to insist on being heard,” agreed the guardian of the girls. “You say the anchor is dragging, Neale?”

“No, it’s gone completely. At the bottom of the lake somewhere. I didn’t have a chance to examine the end of the cable to see if it was cut or not.”

“Cut!” exclaimed the lawyer in surprise.

“Well, it may have been cut by – accident,” went on Neale, with a meaning look which Mr. Howbridge understood.

“I’ll find out,” was the comment, and then the lawyer went out into the rain while Neale and the mule driver resumed their labors to loosen the monkey wrench which was jammed under the flywheel, thus effectually preventing the motor from operating.

Mr. Howbridge made his way along the lower deck until he came to where the anchor cable was made fast to the holding cleat. He pulled up the dripping rope, hand over hand, until he had the end on deck.

A lightning flash served to show him that the end was partly cut and partly frayed through.

“It may have chafed on a sunken rock or been partly cut on the edge of something under water,” thought the lawyer. “At any rate the anchor is gone, and unless I can bend on a spare one we’ve got to drift until they can get the motor going. I wonder if I can find a spare anchor. Captain Leed said nothing about one when he turned the boat over to me.”

Stumbling about the deck in the rain, storm and darkness, the lawyer sought for a possible spare anchor. Meanwhile Ruth kept up the spirits of her two smallest sisters and Mrs. MacCall by gayly telling stories. She was a true “little mother,” and in this instance she well deserved the appellations of both “Martha” and “Minerva.”

Fortunate it was for the Corner House girls that the Bluebird was a staunch craft, broad of beam and stout in her bottom planks. Otherwise she never would have weathered the storm that had her in its grip.

Lake Macopic was subject to these sudden outbursts of the furious elements. It was surrounded by hills, and through the intervening valleys currents of air swept down, lashing the waters into big waves. Sailing craft are more at the mercy of the wind and water than are power boats, but when these last have lost their ability to progress they are in worse plight than the other craft, being less substantial in build.

But the Bluebird was not exactly of either of these types. In fact the craft on which the Corner House girls were voyaging was merely a big scow with a broad, flat bottom and a superstructure made into the semblance of a house on shore – with limitations, of course. It would be practically impossible to tip over the craft. The worst that could happen, and it would be a sufficient disaster, would be that a hole might be stove in the barge-like hull which would fill, and thus sink the boat. And the lake was deep enough in many places to engulf the Bluebird.

Mr. Howbridge realized this as he stumbled about the lower deck, looking for something that would serve as an anchor. He soon came to the conclusion that there was not a spare one on board, for had there been it naturally would have been in plain view to be ready for use in emergencies.

Having made a circuit of the deck, not finding anything that could be used, Mr. Howbridge debated with himself what he had better do next. He stepped into a small storeroom in the stern of the craft above the motor compartment where Neale and Hank were working, and there the lawyer flashed the pocket electric torch he carried. It gave him a view of a heterogeneous collection of articles, and when he saw a heavy piece of iron his eyes lightened.

“This may do for an anchor,” he said. “I’ll fasten it on the rope and heave it overboard.”

But when he tried to move it alone he found it was beyond his strength. He could almost manage it, but a little more strength was needed.

“I’ll have to get Neale or Hank,” mused Mr. Howbridge. “But I hate to ask them to stop. The safety of the Bluebird may depend on how quickly they get the motor started. And yet – ”

He heard some one approaching along the lower deck and a moment later a flash of lightning revealed to him Ruth.

“I heard some one in here,” said the Corner House girl, “and I came to see who it was. I thought maybe the door had blown open and was banging.”

“I was looking for an anchor, and I have found one, though I can’t move it alone,” the lawyer said. “But why have you left your sisters?”

“Because Mrs. Mac is telling them a Scotch story. She has managed to interest them, and, at the same time, she is forgetting her own troubles. So I came out. Let me help move the anchor, or whatever it is.”

“Spoken like Martha!” said Mr. Howbridge. “Well, perhaps your added strength will be just what is needed. But you must be careful not to strain yourself,” he added, anxiously.

“I am no baby!” exclaimed Ruth. “I want to help! Where is it?”

Flashing his light again, her guardian showed her, and then, while the wind seemed to howl in fiercer fury, if that were possible, and while the rain beat down like hail-pellets, they managed to drag out on deck the heavy piece of iron, which seemed to be some part of a machine.

The storeroom opened on that side of the deck where the superstructure of the houseboat gave some shelter, and, working in this, Ruth and Mr. Howbridge managed to get the frayed end of the anchor rope attached to the heavy iron.

“Now if we can heave this overboard it may save us from drifting on the rocks until Neale and Hank can get the engine to working again,” said the lawyer.

“We’ll try!” exclaimed Ruth. Her guardian caught a glimpse of her face as the skies flashed forth into flame again. Her lips were parted from her rapid breathing, revealing her white teeth, and even in the stress and fury of the storm Mr. Howbridge could not but admire her. Though no one ever called Ruth Kenway pretty, there was an undeniable charm about her, and that had been greater, her guardian thought, ever since the day of Luke Shepard’s entrance into her life.

“It’s our last hope, and a forlorn one,” Mr. Howbridge said dubiously, looking at their anchor.

Together they managed to drag the heavy piece of iron to the edge of the deck. Then, making sure the rope was fast about the cleat, they heaved the improvised anchor over the side. It fell into Lake Macopic with a great splash.

“What was that?” cried Neale, coming out on deck, followed by Agnes, who had been down watching him work at the engine.

“Our new anchor,” replied the lawyer. “It may serve to hold us if you can’t get the engine to working,” and he explained what he and Ruth had done.

“Good!” exclaimed Neale. “I hope it does hold, for it doesn’t seem as if we were going to get that monkey wrench out in a hurry. I’m looking for a long bar of iron to see if we can use it as a lever.”

“There may be one in the storeroom where we found the anchor,” remarked Ruth.

“I’ll have a look.”

The Bluebird was not living up to her name. Instead of skimming more or less lightly over the surface of the lake she was rolling to and fro in the trough of the waves, which were really high. Now and then the crest of some comber broke over the snub bow of the craft, sending back the spray in a shower that rattled on the front windows of the cabin.

Anxiously the four on deck waited to see the effect of the anchor. If it held, catching on the bottom of the lake, it would mean a partial solution of their troubles. If it dragged —

Neale hastened to the side and looked down at the anchor cable. It was taut, showing that the weight had not slipped off. But the drift of the boat was not checked.

“Why doesn’t it hold?” asked Ruth.

“Is it dragging?” came from the lawyer.

“I don’t believe it is touching bottom,” replied Neale. “I’m afraid the rope is too short. We are moving faster than before.”

Just as he spoke there came a vivid flash of lightning. Involuntarily they all shrank. It seemed as though they were about to be blasted where they stood. And then, as a great crash followed, they trembled with the vibration of its rumble.

The next instant Ruth and Agnes cried simultaneously:

“Look! We’re being blown ashore!”

Neale and Mr. Howbridge peered through the darkness. Another lightning flash showed their peril.

“We’re going to hit the island!” shouted Neale.

A few seconds later the wind blew the Bluebird, beams-on, upon a rocky shore.

CHAPTER XXIII – SUSPICIONS

The shock of the sudden stop, the tilting of the craft, which was sharply careened to one side, the howl of the wind, the rumble of the thunder, the flash of the lightning, and the dash of the rain – all these combined to make the position of those aboard the Bluebird anything but enviable.

“Are we lost! Oh, are we lost?” cried Mrs. MacCall, rushing out of the cabin. “Ha the seas engulfed us?”

“No, nothing of the sort!” answered Mr. Howbridge. “Please don’t get excited, and go back to the children. We are all right!”

“Yes, I believe we are,” added Neale, as another flash showed what had happened. “At least we are in no danger of sinking now.”

For they had been sent before the fury of the storm straight upon the rocky shore of one of the large islands of Lake Macopic. And there the houseboat came to rest.

As Neale had said, all danger of foundering was passed, and in case of need they could easily escape to substantial land, though it was but an island. But tilted as the Bluebird was, forming a less comfortable abode than formerly, she offered a better place to stay than did the woods of the island, bending as they were now to the fierce wind, and drenched as they were in the pelting rain.

“We’re here for the night, at least,” said Neale, as the continued lightning revealed more fully what had happened. “We shall not drift any more, and though there’s a lot of excitement going on, I guess we can keep dry.”

He and Mr. Howbridge, with Ruth and Agnes, stood out on the open, lower deck, but there was a shelter over their heads and the sides of the house part of the boat kept the rain from them. The storm was coming from the west, and they had been blown on the weather side of the island. The lee shore was on the other side. There they would have been sheltered, but they could not choose their situation.

“We’d better take a turn with a rope around a tree or two,” suggested Hank, as he came up to join the little party. “No use drifting off again.”

“You’re right,” agreed Neale. “And then we can turn in and wait for morning. I only hope – ”

“What?” asked Agnes, as he hesitated.

“I hope it clears,” Neale finished. But what he had been going to say was that he hoped no holes would be stove in the hull of the boat.

It was no easy task for him and Hank to get two lines ashore – from bow and stern – and fasten them to trees. But eventually it was accomplished. Then, as if it had worked its worst, the storm appeared to decrease in violence and it was possible to get a little rest.

However, before turning in again, Mrs. MacCall insisted on making a pot of tea for the older folk, while the small children were given some bread and milk. As the berths where Dot and Tess had been sleeping were uncomfortably tilted by the listing of the boat, the little girls were given the places occupied by Ruth and Agnes, who managed to make shift to get some rest in the slanting beds.

“Whew!” exclaimed Neale as he went to his room when all that was possible had been done, “this has been some night!”

As might have been expected, the morning broke clear, warm and sunny, and the only trace of the storm was in the rather high waves of the lake. Before Mrs. MacCall served breakfast Neale, Mr. Howbridge, Agnes and Ruth went ashore, an easy matter, since the Bluebird was stranded, and made an examination. They found their craft so firmly fixed on the rocky shore that help would be needed before she could be floated.

“But how are we going to get help?” asked Ruth.

“Oh, there may be fishermen living on this island,” said Mr. Howbridge. “We’ll make a tour and see.”

“And if there is none,” added Neale, “Hank or I can row over to the next nearest island or to the mainland and bring back some men.”

The Bluebird carried on her afterdeck a small skiff to be used in making trips to and from the craft when she was at anchor out in some stream or lake. This boat would be available for the journey to the mainland or to another island.

An examination showed that the houseboat was not damaged more than superficially, and after a hearty breakfast, Neale and Mr. Howbridge held a consultation with Ruth and Agnes.

“What we had better do is this,” said the lawyer. “We had better turn our energies in two ways. One toward getting the disabled motor in shape, and the other toward seeking help to put us afloat once more.”

“Hank can work on the motor,” decided Neale. “All it needs is to have the monkey wrench taken out of the pit. In fact the space is so cramped that only one can work to advantage at a time. That will leave me free to go ashore in the boat.”

“Why not try this island first?” asked Ruth. “If there are any fishermen here they could help us get afloat, and it would save time. It is quite a distance to the main shore or even to the next island.”

“Yes, it is,” agreed Neale. “But I don’t mind the row.”

“It is still rough,” put in Agnes, looking over the heaving lake.

“Then I think the best thing to do,” said Mr. Howbridge, “is for some of us to go ashore and see if we can find any men to help us. Three or four of them, with long poles, could pry the Bluebird off the rocks and into the water again.”

“Oh, do let’s go ashore!” cried Agnes, and Tess and Dot, coming up just then, echoed this.

Mrs. MacCall did not care to go, saying she would prepare dinner for them. Hank took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves and started to work on the motor, while the others began their island explorations.

The houseboat had been blown on one of the largest bits of wooded land that studded Lake Macopic. In fact it was so large and wild that after half an hour’s walk no sign of habitation or inhabitants had been seen.

“Looks to be deserted,” said Neale. “I guess I’ll have to make the trip to the mainland after all.”

“Perhaps,” agreed the lawyer, while Ruth called to Tess and Dot not to stray too far off in their eagerness to see all there was to be seen in the strange woods. “Well, we are in no special rush, and while our position is not altogether comfortable on board the Bluebird, the relief from the storm is grateful. I wonder – ”

“Hark!” suddenly whispered Ruth, holding up a hand to enjoin silence. “I hear voices!”

They all heard them a moment later.

“I guess some one lives here after all,” remarked Mr. Howbridge. “The talk seems to come from just beyond us.”

“Let’s follow this path,” suggested Neale, pointing to a fairly well defined one amid the trees. It skirted the shore, swung down into a little hollow, and then emerged on the bank of a small cove which formed a natural harbor for a small motor boat.

And a motor boat was at that moment in the sheltered cove. All in the party saw it, and they also saw something else. This was a view of two roughly dressed men, who, at the sound of crackling branches and rustling leaves beneath the feet of the explorers, looked up quickly.

“It’s them again! Come on!” quickly cried one of the men, and in an instant they had jumped into the motor boat which was tied to a tree near shore.

It was the work of but a moment for one of them to turn over the flywheel and start the motor. The other cast off, and in less than a minute from the time the Corner House girls and their friends had glimpsed them the two ragged men were on their way in their boat out of the cove.

“Look! Look!” cried Ruth, pointing at them. “They’re the same ones!”

“The men we saw at the lock?” asked Neale.

“Yes, and the men who robbed us – I am almost positive of that!” cried the oldest Corner House girl.

“The rascals!” exclaimed the lawyer. “They’re going to escape us again! Fate seems to be with them! Every time we come upon them they manage to distance us!”

This was what was happening now. The tramps – such they seemed to be, though the possession of a motor boat took them out of the ordinary class – with never a look behind, speeded away.

“How provoking!” cried Agnes. “To think they have our jewelry and we can’t make them give it up.”

“You are not sure they have it,” said Mr. Howbridge, as the motor craft passed out of sight beyond a tree-fringed point.

“I think I am,” said Ruth. “If they are not guilty why do they always hurry away when they see us?”

“Well, Minerva, that is a question I can not answer,” said her guardian, with a smile. “You are a better lawyer than I when it comes to that. Certainly it does look suspicious.”

“Oh, for a motor boat!” sighed Neale. “I’d like to chase those rascals!”

“Yes, it would be interesting to find out why they seem to fear us,” agreed Mr. Howbridge. “But it’s too late, now.”

“I wonder why they came to this island,” mused Ruth. “Do you think they were fishermen?”

“They didn’t have any implements of the trade,” said Mr. Howbridge. “But their presence proves that the island is not altogether uninhabited. Let’s go along, and we may find some one to help get the boat back into the water.”

They resumed their journey, new beauties of nature being revealed at every step. The trees and grass were particularly green after the effective washing of the night before, and there were many wild flowers which the two little girls gathered, with many exclamations of delight.

Turning with the path, the trampers suddenly came to a small clearing amid the trees. It was a little grassy glade, through which flowed a stream of water, doubtless from some hidden spring higher up among the rocks. But what most interested Neale, Agnes, Ruth and the lawyer was a small cabin that stood in the middle of the beautiful green grass.

“There’s a house!” cried Dot. “Look!”

“It’s the start of one, anyhow,” agreed Mr. Howbridge.

“And somebody lives in it,” went on Ruth, as the door of the cabin opened and a heavily bearded man came out, followed by a dog. The dog ran, barking, toward the explorers, but a command from the man brought him back.

“I hope we aren’t trespassing,” said Mr. Howbridge. “We were blown on the island last night, and we’re looking for help to get our houseboat back into the lake.”

“Oh, no, you aren’t trespassing,” the man replied with a smile, showing two rows of white teeth that contrasted strangely with his black beard. “I own part of the island, but not all of it. What sort of boat did you say?”

“Houseboat,” and the lawyer explained the trouble. “Are there men here we can get to help us pole her off the shore?” he asked.

“Well, I guess I and my two boys could give you a hand,” was the slow answer. “They’ve gone over to the mainland with some fish to sell, but they’ll be back around noon.”

“We’ll be glad of their help,” went on the lawyer. “Do you live here all the while?”

“Mostly. I and my boys fish and guide. Lots of men come here in the summer that don’t know where to fish, and we take ’em out.”

“Were those your two sons we saw in a motor boat back there in the cove?” asked Neale, indicating the place where the tramps had been observed. Rather anxiously the bearded man’s answer was awaited.