Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast; or, Through Storm and Stress to Florida

So, sighing like a martyr, Nick felt compelled to clamber into the speed boat.

"You ought to have one for your own sweet self," declared George, as he grasped the gunnel to keep from being tossed overboard, for Nick careened the boat dreadfully upon climbing in. "Why, you just don't know how fine the old Wireless acted on the way over, with only me aboard."

"I wish I did have a boat, as big as a house," declared Nick. "I'm wasting away to a mere shadow trying to keep my balance in this wedge. If I forget to breathe with both lungs at the same time he tells me I'm upsetting the equilibrium of the blessed thing. I feel most all the time like I'm the acrobat in the circus trying to stand on one toe on top of a flagpole."

After they had tied up, Herb was dispatched for the mail, while Jack went to buy a few provisions. Nick bombarded him with such a fearful list of things he wanted him to purchase that Jack had to thrust his fingers in his ears.

"What do you take me for, Nick, a dray horse?" he laughed. "I'd have to be, to carry the load you'd want. I've got a list of things we must have, and that's all I'll promise to lug down here. If you want anything else, you'll have to go after it yourself."

"All right, I'll do that," said Nick, promptly.

"Sure; and please tell me where you expect to stow all that truck?" demanded George, immediately, with a frown. "Not aboard the Wireless, I promise you, my boy. She's got all she can carry in hauling you around, without a sack of potatoes, a ham, and all that truck you mentioned. Hire a float, and perhaps we'll tow it behind us."

Nick said not another word, being completely squelched, as Josh put it.

Leaving Norfolk, they started up the broad Elizabeth River, meaning to take the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, which had long ago been cut through the Great Dismal Swamp and connected with Currituck Sound, that noted ducking place where so many large gun clubs have their headquarters.

Entering this canal, they moved along steadily through the balance of the afternoon. On all sides lay the most interesting sights; for the moss hung heavily on the dismal-looking trees, and the boys thought they had never seen a more depressing picture than was now presented to their gaze.

"Say, Jack, do we get out of this place tonight?" asked Herb, who was not particularly fond of swamps and such ghostly places.

"No, we made out to start a little too late to get to the little river beyond before night sets in," Jack replied.

"But there's a pretty good sized moon now, you remember, and we might keep on. I'm afraid it'll give me the jim-jams to sleep in this horrible old swamp," Herb went on to say.

"Like to oblige you," laughed Jack; "but the fact is we're going to tie up mighty soon now. Only looking for a half way decent place."

"What's all the hurry?" grumbled the pilot of the Comfort.

"Look aloft and you'll soon see," came the reply, which caused Herb to cast his eyes upward.

"Holy smoke! we're going to get some storm, I take it!" he immediately exclaimed, as he saw heavy clouds mounting upward. "And to think that nobody discovered the fact but you, Jack. Yes, I reckon, then, we'll have to tie up, and get George's boat tent up before she comes. I'll just have to grin and bear it."

"That's the way to talk, Herb," said Josh. "What difference does it make to us, tight in our snug little hunting cabin? If anybody made a kick it ought to be the poor Wireless crew."

"Here, don't you waste your breath pitying us, now," flashed the jealous George, who could never bear to have any one but himself run his boat down.

There seemed but little choice of a camping place, since the shores of the canal proved to be pretty much alike; so presently Jack threw up his hand as a signal that he meant to stop, and the three boats were soon being tied to trees.

"You'd think Herb expected a tornado, and wanted to make sure his old houseboat didn't get carried away," laughed George, as he watched the other secure both ends of the Comfort with cables, that he tested again and again.

"Oh, well, you never can tell," replied the other, without showing the least ill will; "and 'a stitch in time saves nine,' they taught me at home. 'What's worth doing at all is worth doing well', and sometimes it pays."

"It always pays in a contented mind," remarked Jack, who admired this positive trait in Herbert's nature, so different from George's flighty ways.

It was the case of the hare and the tortoise over again with these two; and while the speedy hare lay down to take a nap, confident of winning, the slow going tortoise was apt to come along and get to the goal first, after all.

The rain held off for a while, and they were able to cook supper ashore, though Josh kept as anxious eye on those dark clouds overhead while he worked.

"It's going to prove a big fizzle after all," remarked Nick, after a little water had come down, and the moon peeped out of a break in the clouds.

"Perhaps so; you never can tell what the weather will do," Jack laughed. "But all the same we'll be apt to sleep aboard again, for fear it does rain before morning."

"You bet we will," remarked Herb; "at least this chicken does. Ugh! I'd wake up, and think a raft of snakes was creeping out of that old swamp there. Are you all of the same mind about bunking aboard?"

"If anybody will go me, I'll stay ashore," announced Nick, to the surprise of his chums; but then they knew the narrow confines of the speed boat cramped his ample form, and that explained his boldness. "That is, if George will only let me have his gun too."

"Sure I will, and only too glad," declared that worthy, eagerly. "I'd like to stretch all over the bally old boat myself, for once."

Jimmy took up Nick's offer, and so Jack set to work making them a rude sort of canopy that was calculated to shed water fairly well. It was composed of branches from nearby trees, and might be called a hunter's lean-to.

When the time came for retiring, the two boys lay down under this, drawing their blankets around them, for the night air was chilly.

"If it rains too hard, crawl in where you belong," was the last instruction Jack gave them before seeking the bed he had made in the Tramp's interior.

Later on all was silent about the camp on the canal. From the swamp near by various queer sounds might have been heard, had any one remained awake to listen; but as the boys were all pretty tired, no doubt they slept well.

It might have been in the middle of the night that Jack was aroused by a loud shout, which he recognized as coming from Nick. Wondering what it meant, he immediately started to climb out of the boat, gun in hand, when there came a tremendous report. Evidently Nick, whether he had seen something suspicious or was dreaming he did, had fired George's borrowed gun!

CHAPTER XIV.

NICK BAGS HIS GAME

"Whoop! I got him!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And after that, what?" questioned Herb.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XV.

A WARM WELCOME TO THE STORMY CAPE

There was no time to waste.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Hold hard!" shouted Jack through his megaphone.

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

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

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

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

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