The Rival Campers Afloat: or, The Prize Yacht Viking

There came a smart tug at the line, and Little Tim was up like a rabbit out of its hole. He seized the line and began hauling in rapidly.

“Tim’s got some more seaweed,” said Allan Harding. “Too bad there isn’t money in that. He’s pulled enough up alongside the boat to make us all rich.”

“No, it isn’t!” cried Tim, excitedly. “Look, there’s a fish coming in – hooray! It’s a mackerel, too. See him shine.”

Little Tim yanked the fish out of water, with a jerk that sent fish and mackerel-jig higher than his head. But there was no mistake about it. There was a mackerel, flopping and jumping in the bottom of the boat, glistening and gleaming, with its mingled shades of green and black and white.

“Isn’t he a beauty?” exclaimed Tim, dancing about in wild excitement. “It isn’t a No. 1 size – only a ‘tinker;’ but it’s a mackerel sure enough, and they don’t come alone, these fellows. There are more. Get out the lines.”

But his companions, no longer scoffing, were as excited as he. Joe Hinman had the boat up into the wind, in a twinkling. The other two boys had the sail down on the run, and furled, with a couple of stops about it, and they were drifting slowly, the next moment, with lines out on every hand.

However, Little Tim proved to be more of a discoverer than prophet. The fish, if there were more of them about, were not running in large numbers. They caught a few more scattering ones, but they could see no school in sight. They stuck to it, however, till the middle of the afternoon.

“They’re coming in, though,” said Joe Hinman; “and we are the only ones that know it. We haven’t the bait for much fishing, anyway; so let’s run up to harbour while the wind lasts, tell Jack and Henry Burns, and we’ll all come down here again early in the morning, before the other boats get out.”

Little Tim, winding up his line reluctantly, drew one more fish in before they set sail, well-nigh going overboard in his excitement.

They reached Southport Harbour about five o’clock, and ran close alongside the Viking, which lay at its mooring.

“We’ve got something good for supper, Henry,” said Little Tim to Henry Burns, who was busily engaged cleaning up the decks of the yacht, with a broom which he dipped overboard now and then.

“Better send up and invite young Joe down,” said Henry Burns, paying little attention to the new arrivals. “Jack and I are going into the tent, to eat supper with Tom and Bob.”

“All right,” said young Tim. “It may be your only chance, though, to eat one of these this summer.” Henry Burns glanced up from his work at the string of six mackerel which Tim proudly displayed. Then he flung down his broom and ran to the companionway.

“Jack, come out here,” he cried. “They’ve got some mackerel. They’ve come at last.”

Harvey emerged hurriedly from the cabin, and gave a whoop of exultation when he saw the fish.

“We want to go down first thing in the morning,” said Joe Hinman, “before any of the other boats get out. There’ll be money in the first catch, if we have any luck.”

“We won’t wait till morning,” said Henry Burns, decidedly. “We’ll start to-night, and be on the grounds first thing. I’ll get Tom and Bob out. You fellows get your lines ready and we’ll go and catch some bait right off.”

Henry Burns, while not of excitable temperament, had a way of doing things sharply and promptly when occasion demanded. He went below and presently gave a signal of three short toots on the fish-horn, in the direction of the camp. Bob was alongside next moment, in the canoe.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Get ready for a trip down the bay,” replied Henry Burns. “We’re off to-night, just as soon as we get the bait. The mackerel are in. Tim’s found them at last.”

Tim showed the crew’s catch.

“Fine!” exclaimed Bob. “I’ll tell you what,” he added, “I’ve got supper under way. Let me take those fish, and I’ll cook them, too, and get supper ready for all of us, while the rest of you catch the bait. Tom will come out and help you.”

Tim tossed the fish into the canoe, and Bob hastened ashore.

They were all out in the cove shortly, with lines down close to the muddy bottom, for flounders and sculpins. The tide, at half-flood, served them fortunately, and soon the fish began to come aboard. Then, when they had their catch, they rowed around to the wharf, dropping Henry Burns ashore near the Warren cottage.

The Spray was gone from harbour; but Henry Burns left word for the Warren boys to follow, in the morning, impressing the importance of secrecy on Mrs. Warren, with a solemnity as great as if they were going after hidden gold.

At the wharf, near the beach, a huge sort of coffee-mill was set up, which the mackerel fishermen used for grinding bait – but which had had no service thus far this year. Chopping the fish into pieces, they threw these into the mill, whence they dropped into a big wooden bucket, ground into a mess that might, as Little Tim remarked, look appetizing to a mackerel, but didn’t to him.

“There, we’ve got ‘chum’ enough,” said Harvey, when the bucket was two-thirds filled. “We’ll need the rest of the fish to bait the hooks. Come on, before any of the fishermen see what we are doing.”

They rowed around quickly to the camp, whence the odours of supper emerged, appetizingly. Bob had been as good as his word, and everything was ready. They sat about the opening of the tent, and did full justice to Bob’s cooking.

“Lucky it’s going to be a good night,” said Henry Burns, glancing off at the sea and sky. “Looks like a little breeze, doesn’t it, Jack?”

“I hope so,” replied Harvey. “We’ll start, anyway. It’s clear, and it won’t be like drifting about down off Loon Island, if we get becalmed.”

“Can’t stop to clean up dishes to-night,” said Bob, as he piled the stuff into the tent, as soon as they were finished. “We usually leave things more shipshape, don’t we, Tom?”

They tied the flap of the tent carefully, saw that the tent-pegs were firm, and the guy-ropes all right, and departed. By half-past seven o’clock they were out aboard, and the two yachts were under way.

“Too bad the Spray isn’t coming along,” said Henry Burns; “but I’ve left word for them to follow in the morning.”

There was a light westerly breeze blowing, which was favourable for a straight run to the islands, with sheets started a little, and everything drawing. They set the forestaysail and both jibs and the club-topsail on the Viking; and, there being no sea, with the wind offshore, they made fast time.

The Surprise, with everything spread, followed in the wake of the larger yacht.

“We’ll tell the mackerel you are coming,” called Henry Burns to the crew.

“They know it already. We told them we were coming back. We saw ’em first,” responded Tim.

They were among the islands by ten o’clock, though the wind had fallen. They anchored in the lee of one, and prepared to turn in.

“We ought to be out early,” said Harvey; “but how are we going to wake up? I’m sure to sleep till long after sunrise, unless somebody wakes me. We ought to have some alarm to set, to wake us.”

“Don’t need it,” replied Henry Burns. “I’ll set myself. I don’t know how I do it, but if I go to bed thinking I want to wake up at a certain hour, I almost always do wake at about that time. How will four o’clock do?”

“Early enough,” said Harvey; “but don’t over-sleep.”

Sure enough, Henry Burns was awake next morning by a few minutes after four o’clock; but he was not ahead of Little Tim, this time, who was so excited that he had slept all night with one eye half-open, and who had been up once or twice in the dead of night, thinking it must be near morning. He was over the rail of the Viking, at the first appearance of Henry Burns, and, between them, there was no more sleep for anybody.

It was dead calm over all the bay; and, one thing was certain, there was as yet no news of the mackerel having come in, for there were no boats out.

“We’ve stolen a march on the fishermen for once,” exclaimed Tom, as they ate a hurried breakfast and got the lines ready. “I wonder if the mackerel are looking for breakfast, too.”

They put out, shortly, in the two dories, rowing down a half-mile to where the crew had seen the fish the night before. There was no sign of the water breaking, anywhere, to denote the presence of a school.

“Never mind, we’ll throw out, anyway,” said Harvey. “Sometimes they’re around when they don’t break. They may be feeding deeper.”

Taking a long-handled tin dipper, he filled the bucket of bait nearly to the brim with sea-water, and stirred it vigorously for a moment. Then he took a dipper of the stuff and threw it as far from the boat as he could, scattering it broadly over the surface of the water.

They waited, watching eagerly, but the bits of ground fish sank slowly, undisturbed.

“Don’t seem to be at home,” muttered Harvey. “Row out a little farther, and we’ll try them again.”

They repeated the manœuvre several times, but each time the bait was untaken. It sank slowly, each tiny particle clearly defined in the still water, settling in odd little patches of discoloration.

Then, of a sudden, there was a sharp severance of one of these patches, as though an arrow had been shot through it. The next moment, there was a darting here and there and everywhere. The pieces of fish disappeared in tiny flurries. At the same time, the surface of the water broke into myriads of tiny ripples, as though whipped up by a breeze.

“They’re here,” whispered Harvey. “Get out the lines.” He filled the dipper once more and threw it broadcast, but this time nearer the boats. They threw out the lines, baited with the shining pieces of flounder.

It seemed as though every bait was seized at once; for, in a moment, every boy was pulling in, and a half-dozen mackerel came over the gunwales together.

They baited up anew, then, knowing that no bait serves so well for mackerel as a piece cut from the under side of the fish, itself. This, white and shiny, and pierced twice through the tough skin with the barb of the hook, would indeed often answer several times in succession, without rebaiting.

They rigged two lines for each fisherman, tying an end of each line to the gunwale, so that, when a bite was felt, one of the lines could be dropped while the fish on the other was hauled aboard. The mackerel, indeed, bit so ravenously that it was hardly necessary to stop to see if a fish was hooked, but only to catch up one line, as quick as a fish had been removed from the other and that line thrown out, and haul in again. Nine times out of ten there would be a mackerel on the hook. Standing up in the dories, to work to better advantage, they were soon half knee-deep in the fish.

“We’ll fill the boats, if they keep this up,” said Harvey. “Tom, you’re nearest the oars; just row back toward the yacht, easily, and we’ll toll them up that way.”

He threw out more bait, as Tom worked the dory back, and the whole school followed, hungrily. In a few minutes the boys had climbed aboard the yachts and were fishing from them, to better advantage.

A half-hour went by, and the fish had not ceased biting. The boys were drenched to the skin from their hips to their feet, with the drippings from the wet lines; for, in their haste, they had not stopped to don their oilskin breeches.

“We ought to have known better, with all the experience we have had this summer,” said Henry Burns; “but never mind, we’ll make enough out of this catch to buy new clothes, if the wind only serves us, later.”

By the end of an hour, the sun was up and gleaming across the water.

“They’re likely to leave us soon, now,” remarked Harvey; but, oddly enough, the fish still remained about the boats in such numbers that the water seemed fairly alive with them. However, with the warmth of the sun’s rays, the voracity of the mackerel abated somewhat, and they began pulling them in more slowly.

“I’m just as glad,” exclaimed Tom, whose arms, bronzed and muscular, were nevertheless beginning to feel the novel exercise. “My arms and wrists ache, and I know I’ll never be able to stand up straight again. My back is bent, and frozen that way, with leaning over this rail.”

Suddenly, after a quarter of an hour more, the fish began making little leaps half out of water, breaking the surface with little splashings and whirls.

“They’ll be gone now,” said Harvey. “Some bigger fish are chasing them. That’s what makes them act that way.”

This seemed to be true, for presently the water that, a moment before, had been alive with the darting fish, became still and deserted. They took one or two more, by letting their baits sink deep in the water, but the big catch was ended.

“It’s pretty near a record for hand-line fishing in a single morning around here, I guess,” said Harvey. “How many do you think we’ve caught, Henry?”

“Nearly five hundred, I should say,” answered Henry Burns.

“More than that, I’ll bet,” exclaimed his enthusiastic comrade. And for once, at least, Harvey was nearer correct than Henry Burns; for, when they had counted them, some hours later, there were five hundred, and eighteen more, in the Viking’s catch; and as for the crew of the Surprise, they were only fifty below this figure.

“Oh, but I’m hungry!” exclaimed Bob, dropping on to the seat. “And, say, it’s somebody’s else turn to cook breakfast.”

“I’ll do it,” said Tom.

“Well, you go ahead,” said Henry Burns, “and the rest of us will stow these fish down below, out of the sun.”

They went to work with a will, the crew of the Surprise doing likewise.

“Too bad to stow fish in this nice, clean cabin,” said Joe Hinman; “but never mind, we’ll have to turn to, by and by, and scrub it, that’s all.”

They had the luck with them, again; for hardly had they begun to prepare breakfast, than the water rippled with a second day’s westerly breeze. They got the two yachts under sail, without a moment’s loss of time.

“See here, Joe,” called Harvey, as the yachts began to fill away, “we’ll play fair with you. We can outsail you some, and we shall get to Stoneland before you do. We’ll take the big hotel in the harbour, and then the market. The market will buy all that either of us have left. We’ll leave you the other hotel, a half-mile up the shore. There are ’most as many guests there, and they’re all summer boarders, so they’ll take as many fish. If we break a stay on the trip over and get delayed, you give us the same chance, eh?”

“Ay, ay,” responded Joe. “Good luck!”

The wind not only came sharp and strong, an hour later, but there were thunder-clouds in the sky, down near the horizon-line, and the breeze was full of quick flaws and was treacherous. Before they were half-way over to Stoneland, they were sailing under two reefs and making the water fly.

“It’s great!” cried Harvey, hugging the wheel, in his delight. “Let her blow good and hard as long as it doesn’t storm. We’ll do the fifteen miles in an hour and a half, at this rate.”

The two yachts were lying well over in the water, crushing it white under the lee-rail, and making fast time.

“We’ll get a storm, too, by nightfall,” said Henry Burns, looking weather-wise at the sky. “But we shall have sold our fish first, and we’ll be snug behind the breakwater. So let it come.”

The yachtsmen were in great spirits. Even Henry Burns betrayed symptoms of excitement as they ran into the harbour, early in the forenoon, and brought the Viking up neatly at the hotel wharf.

A few minutes later, Henry Burns and Jack Harvey approached a somewhat important-appearing person on the hotel veranda, who had been pointed out to them as the proprietor.

“Fish? No, I don’t buy fish,” he answered, shortly, in reply to Henry Burns’s question. “See the steward. He attends to that.”

Harvey reddened, but Henry Burns smiled and said:

“That’s all right, Jack. We’re only fishermen, you know. Come on, we’ll see the steward. We’ll make him pay more for the fish, just because the proprietor was haughty.”

Henry Burns was fortunate enough to catch the steward in the hotel office, where he stated his errand, coolly, before some of the guests.

“Good!” exclaimed one of them. “You’d better get ’em, Mr. Blake. You haven’t given us any fresh mackerel this season.”

“He’ll have to buy some, now, whether he wants to or not,” said Henry Burns to Harvey, as they followed the steward into his private office.

“Now see here,” said the steward, “I’ve got some six hundred guests in this house, and I need about three hundred fish. I want a fairly easy price for that many.”

“Twenty cents apiece, right through,” answered Henry Burns, promptly.

“Ho! That’s too much,” said the steward. “Can’t do it. Try again.”

“That’s the figure,” insisted Henry Burns. “You’ll have to pay more, if we sell them to the market, you know. Then there’s the hotel up the shore. What would your boarders say if we took them up there and sold them?”

Steward Blake looked at Henry Burns sternly for a moment; then a grim smile played about the corners of his mouth.

“You’re kind of sharp, aren’t you?” he asked. “Well, I guess you’ve got me there, as these are the first of the season. Throw in an extra dozen for good measure, and it’s a bargain.”

“All right,” said Henry Burns.

A few moments later, with three twenty-dollar bills tucked away in a wallet in his inner waistcoat pocket, Henry Burns, with Harvey, was going briskly down to the wharf, where he and his comrades were soon engaged in loading the fish into the hotel wagon.

“We can be haughty now, ourselves,” he said, as they got under way once more and stood down for the market.

Ten cents apiece was the marketman’s figure, and they let the remainder go for that. Then, with eighty dollars for the entire morning’s catch, they went aboard the Viking and punched and pummelled one another like a lot of young bears, from sheer excess of joy.

“I wonder how the crew will come out,” said Harvey. “I’m afraid they won’t do as well at a bargain as you did, Henry.”

“Perhaps so,” said Henry Burns. “They’ve got Little Tim aboard, and he’s pretty shrewd, sometimes.”

And indeed, it was at Little Tim’s suggestion that the Surprise went on up the coast, after the crew had done business with the hotel left for them according to the agreement, and they sold the remainder of their catch at the hotel at Hampton, three miles farther on. And they, too, found themselves rich at the end of their bargaining, with sixty dollars to divide among the four of them.

Then, as the day wore on threatening, with the thunder-clouds slowly mounting higher, and the wind coming in fiercer gusts, the yachts, each in a safe harbour, laid up for the day. The respective crews wandered about the towns as if they were each, individually, the mayor, or at least were a party of the selectmen.

The Warren boys, having returned on the previous evening, and being apprised by Mrs. Warren of the news confided to her care, were disappointed not to have joined the party; but they made ready, the next morning, to follow. Then the early morning steamer from Bellport brought them a letter, saying that Mr. Warren, senior, would arrive on the night-boat from Benton, and had arranged for a week’s cruise with them, among the islands. So they changed their plans to a short run down toward the foot of Grand Island, to be back at nightfall.

There, again, the fortune of sailing was against them. By mid-afternoon, when they would have put back, the storm threatened.

“No use,” said George Warren, reluctantly. “We’ll have to wait for it to blow over. We’ll be glad enough of this good harbour in a half-hour more.”

The storm broke soon after, heavily. By five o’clock it was pouring in torrents, with sharp flashes of lightning illumining the darkened waters of the bay. By six o’clock it eased up a little.

“Well, one of us is in for it,” said George Warren. “Somebody’s got to tramp up the island, home. Father will be down, and he won’t like it, to find us gone. The other two can sail the yacht up in the morning. We’ll draw lots to see who goes.”

To the immense relief of his brothers, the lot fell to him. They consoled him, but with satisfaction not all unconcealed. He took it in good part, however.

“Don’t feel too bad about it, Joe,” he said, as he bade them good night. “I know you wanted to go home, but I’ll tell the folks you’re comfortable.”

He started off in the drizzle. They had run down about seven miles, and there was that length of muddy road ahead of him. It was not his fortune to accomplish much of his journey, however. Three miles up the island, the storm resumed its fury, blowing the rain fiercely in his face, while the whole island seemed to shake with the crashing of the thunder. It was useless to contend against it, and, at length, he turned in at a farmhouse by the roadside, and sought shelter.

“Yes, indeed,” said the housewife, to his request. “There’s the spare room at the end of the hall up-stairs for you, and welcome. There’s wood in the wood-box, too, and you can build up a fire in the fireplace and dry your clothes. You’re as wet as a drowned cat. When you’re dried out, come down-stairs and I’ll have a cup of tea for you. We’ve had a boarder for two days in that room, but he went away yesterday; and I’m glad he’s gone, for your sake.”

George Warren scrambled up the stairs, at the risk of the lamp which the woman had handed to him, lighted. Inside the room, he took a handful of kindling from the wood-box, and soon had it ablaze, with the aid of a few scraps of old newspaper. Then he laid some larger pieces of driftwood across, and quickly had a cheerful fire roaring up the chimney.

He threw off his wet clothing, wrapped a blanket about him, and crouched by the fire to enjoy its warmth – for he had been chilled through.

The huge, old-fashioned fireplace would seem not to have been used for a long time; for, in the corners of it were odds and ends and scraps of paper, that had evidently been swept up from the floor and thrown in there, as the most convenient place for their disposal. George Warren poked some of this stuff into the fire and watched it blaze. He picked up a few scraps of paper and threw them in.

Then, as he repeated this action, there was the half of an envelope that the light of the fire illuminated, as he held it in his hand. Part of the address remained, and, even as he consigned it to the flames, he read it clearly:

“Carleton,“Bellport,“Me.”

“Hello! that’s funny,” he remarked. “That’s Mr. Carleton’s name – and he was over at Bellport, too. I thought he had gone away to Boston. I’ll have to ask about him in the morning.”

But, in his hurry next morning, George Warren forgot about the letter until he was a half-mile up the road.

“I’ll have to tell Henry Burns and Harvey about that, anyway,” he said, as he walked along. “Henry Burns likes mysteries. He’ll have some queer notion about why Mr. Carleton was down there, I’ll bet.”

But George Warren failed to inform either Henry Burns or any one else about his discovery; for he went on a week’s cruise, next day, and when he returned it had passed out of his mind. At least, he didn’t think of it till about two weeks later.

CHAPTER XVIII.

TWO SECRETS DISCOVERED

Squire Brackett sat in his office, deep in thought. To say that he was out of temper, would be putting it mildly. Something that he was trying to do baffled him; and, being thwarted, he was irritable and unhappy. Now when Squire Brackett was unhappy, he usually succeeded in making everybody else with whom he came in contact likewise unhappy. Therefore, when he betook himself to his office, of an afternoon, and sat himself down at his desk, to attempt to solve a certain puzzle, as he had done now for several weeks, at intervals, the members of his household kept discreetly aloof.

Before the squire, on the shelf of his desk, lay the paper on which he had pasted the scraps of Mr. Carleton’s letter. The first effort at a solution of the puzzle had been one more of curiosity than aught else on his part. He had thought it would be rather a smart achievement, to discover something which another man had attempted to destroy, though it probably would be of no particular importance to the discoverer. But, from that condition of mind, he had progressed to a state wherein he thought he saw, hidden in the fragments of the letter, something of more than ordinary import.