The Rival Campers Afloat: or, The Prize Yacht Viking. Smith Ruel Perley

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      The yacht buoyed by the numerous casks and lifted by the tackle, had, indeed, hung on bottom only for a moment. Then, released by the strain from the ledge and the seaweeds and slime that had gathered about it, it had come to the surface with a rush. Loaded with ballast as it was, however, and with the weight of water still within it, it could not rise above the surface. Its rail showed just at the top of water, and the cabin deck slightly above.

      “Hooray! that’s great!” cried Harvey, slapping Henry Burns on the shoulder. “That will do now. Let’s have some breakfast.”

      “It’s about time,” said young Joe.

      They spent little time at breakfast, however, for they were eager to resume. With each yacht alongside the Surprise, they began bailing that yacht out with pails tied to ropes, which they slung aboard. When they had lightened her sufficiently, two of them sprang over into the cockpit and bailed to better advantage there.

      Then, while they took turns at the pump, the others got up a part of the floors, and began lifting out the pieces of pig-iron ballast, passing them aboard the other two yachts. Finally they rigged the tackle on to the mast of the Surprise and, with great care so as not to wrench the boat, lifted it clear and lowered it into the water alongside.

      Now it would be safe to beach the yacht; and this they did at high tide that afternoon, towing it in on to a beach that made down in a thin strip between the ledges, and drawing it up as far as it would float, where they made it fast with a line passed ashore to a small spruce-tree.

      It had been a good job, and Henry Burns surveyed it proudly. But he merely remarked to young Joe, “Well, she’s up, isn’t she?”

      The yacht Surprise was at present a sorry-looking sight. The bottom was very foul, covered with long streamers of slimy grass and encrusted with barnacles. These had fastened, too, upon the mast and spars; and inside the yacht was in the same condition. The sails were slime-covered and rotten. Everything was snarled and tangled, twisted and broken about the rigging. The bowsprit had been broken off short in the collision of the fall before. This, with the carrying away of the bobstay, necessitated the taking out of the mast now. Rust from the iron ballast had stained much of the woodwork.

      “There’s a job,” said Harvey, eying the wreck. “There’s a good week’s work, and more, in scraping and cleaning her, and cleaning that ballast. We wanted to get to fishing, too.”

      “Well, you go ahead and leave us to begin the work,” said Joe Hinman, speaking for himself and the crew. “It’s no more than fair that we should do it, seeing as we are to have the use of the yacht this summer. Just leave us a little coffee and some cornmeal and some bread and a piece of pork and one of the frying-pans. We’ll catch fish, and live down here for a week, till you come for us.”

      “Where will you stay?” inquired Harvey. “The other yacht is going back to Southport, you know.”

      “Up in the old shack there,” replied Joe, pointing back to where there stood a tumble-down shelter that had been used at some time to store a scant crop of hay that the island produced. “Give us a blanket apiece and we’ll get along. You’ve got to go back to the harbour before you go fishing, and you can get ours down at the camp.”

      “All right,” said Harvey, “I guess we’ll do it. You can run things, Joe, and there won’t anybody trouble you.”

      So with this prophecy – which might or might not hold good – Harvey proceeded to install his crew in temporary possession of the yacht Surprise, and of the little island where they had dragged it ashore, which was one of the chain of narrow islands that lay off Grand Island.

      Late that afternoon the two yachts sailed out of the Thoroughfare and went on to Southport, leaving the crew masters of their island domain and of the wreck.

      The next morning Henry Burns and Jack Harvey were up before the sun, for Harvey had waked and found a light west wind blowing, and this was a fair one for the trip down the bay. They roused the campers in the tent on the point, and soon Tom and Bob, their canoe loaded with blankets and provisions, were paddling out to the Viking. They made two trips, and then, leaving the canoe up on shore alongside the tent, fastened that good and snug. Henry Burns took them aboard the Viking in the tender.

      The mooring which they had put down for the season was slipped, the sail hoisted, a parting toot-toot sounded on the great horn in the direction of the Warren cottage, and the Viking’s voyage in search of work had begun.

      The course the Viking was now shaping was about due south from the harbour they had just left. Far away to the southward, some twenty-two miles distant, lay the islands they were seeking, at the seaward entrance to East Samoset Bay. Some six miles ahead on the course lay a group of small islands, on one of which was erected a lighthouse. Beyond these, to the southwest, a few miles away, lay two great islands, North Haven and South Haven. Off to the eastward from the foot of these, across a bay of some six miles’ width, lay Loon Island, with little Duck Island close adjacent.

      As the day advanced, the promise of wind did not, however, have fulfilment. It died away with the burning of the sun, and when they had come to within about a mile of the first group of islands, it threatened to die away altogether. It sufficed, however, to waft them into a little cove making into one of these islands at about two hours before noon.

      “Well, we’ve got to Clam Island, anyway,” said Harvey. “We’ll load up our baskets, and be in time to catch the afternoon’s southerly.”

      Clam Island well merited its name. Its shores were long stretches of mud-flats, corrugated everywhere with thousands of clam-holes. It would not be high tide until three in the afternoon, and the flats were now lying bare.

      Equipped with baskets and hoes, the boys set to work, with jackets off and trousers rolled up. In two hours’ time, each one of them had filled a bushel basket to the brim, for the clams were thrown out by dozens at every turn of a hoe.

      “That’s enough bait for a start,” said Harvey, wiping his forehead. “We can buy more of the fishermen if we run short.”

      “My!” exclaimed Henry Burns, straightening himself up with an effort. “My back feels as though it had nails driven into it. I don’t wonder so many of these old fishermen stoop.”

      The day was very hot, and the boys went in for a swim. Then, when they had eaten, they stood out of the little harbour; but the wind had dropped almost entirely away, and, with the tide against them, they scarce made headway.

      “I’m afraid we won’t make Loon Island to-day,” said Tom.

      “Oh, perhaps so,” said Harvey. “See, there’s a line of breeze way down below.”

      A darkening of the water some miles distant showed that a southerly breeze was coming in. They got the first puffs of it presently, and trimmed their sails for a long beat down the bay.

      The Viking was a good boat on the wind, the seas did not roll up to any great size, as the wind had come up so late in the day, and it was easy, pleasant sailing in the bright summer afternoon. Still, the breeze was too light for any good progress, and they had only reached Hawk Island, on which the lighthouse stood, and which was fifteen miles from Loon Island, by two o’clock.

      They were going down a long reach of the bay now that rolled some six miles wide, between North and South Haven on the one hand, to starboard, and a great island on the other. Back and forth they tacked all the afternoon, with the tide, turning to ebb just after three o’clock, to help СКАЧАТЬ