Chapter 17

IN WHICH DAN PLAYS A JOKE

Long before sunset the Vagabond was berthed for the night at the end of an otherwise empty pier scarcely a stone’s throw from the railroad station at New London.

“I don’t know who this wharf belongs to,” said Nelson as he passed the bow line up to Dan, “but there isn’t any notice to keep away and so we might as well use it.” “I think it’s an orphan pier,” said Dan as he ran the line through a ring and made it fast. “Anyhow, that’s the way it appears,” he added. Nelson groaned.

“That’ll do for you,” he said. “Leave plenty of slack there to allow for the fall of the tide. If those trains make as much noise to-night as they’re making now we’ll wish we’d anchored across the river.”

“Yes, I do hope the noise won’t keep Tommy awake,” said Dan concernedly.

“I think,” replied Tom, who was trying to make Barry stand on his hind legs and beg for a strip of bark torn from a spiling, “that it’s rather fun seeing trains again. I love engines, anyway. I used to think I’d be an engineer when I grew up.”

“Well, I think you’d make a success on the railroad,” said Bob thoughtfully, “but not as engineer.”

“What, then?” demanded Tom unsuspiciously.

“Why, you’d make a dandy sleeper, Tommy,” was the reply.

Presently they landed, crossed the railroad tracks, and skirted the little open space with its monument, erected, as Tom declared, to commemorate the discovery of New London by Thomas Ferris, the famous explorer. And just then they made another discovery. It was the eve of the Fourth of July. That fact was extremely evident. Up and down the street the sound of exploding firecrackers was deafening. Dan started to sing “The Night before the Fourth,” but Tommy darted into a store and when the others reached him he already had his arms full of crackers and Roman candles. Then they visited other shops and bought all sorts of things from news-papers to canvas shoes. Finally Dan was despatched to the launch with the purchases and the others went on up the hill to the big hotel. When Dan joined them he brought exciting news of a show which was announced for that evening at the local theater and during dinner they unanimously decided to attend.

“You ought to see the posters,” said Dan. “Oh, great! There’s one picture where the hero in a false yellow beard has got into the counterfeiters’ den and is holding them all at bay with a pistol in each hand, saying ‘The first to move is a dead man!’ Oh, it’s swell!”

“What’s it called?” asked Tom eagerly.

“‘The Counterfeiter’s Bride.’”

“Did you see the bride?” asked Bob.

“Yes, she was there, too; in a corner, with her face over her hands and——”

“With what?” shouted the others.

“I mean with her hands over her face. She has beautiful golden hair and wears black; they always do. Then there’s a terribly funny picture of the comic fellow jumping out of a second-story window with a life-preserver strapped around his waist.”

“That doesn’t sound terribly funny,” remarked Bob.

“With a life-preserver on him?” demanded Dan. “It was a fire.”

“You didn’t say it was a fire. I thought he was jumping into a river or something.”

“Well, he isn’t; he’s jumping into the street.”

“Still,” hazarded Nelson, “maybe he put the life-preserver on to save him from automobiles. You know it’s a mighty dangerous thing, jumping into the street nowadays.”

“Oh, you fade away!” growled Dan. “I’m going to see it, anyway.”

“We all are,” said Bob. “I haven’t been to a theater since Christmas vacation.”

So go they did, and had a fine time. After they got back to the launch and had been welcomed by Barry Tom and Dan reproduced the second act in the engine room, Dan playing the rôle of the Secret Service hero and Tom doing the distracted bride. Barry somewhat marred the effectiveness of the supreme situation by thinking the whole affair organized for his amusement and trying to shake Dan off his feet just when the latter had covered Nelson and Bob with a pair of “sneakers” and was in the act of declaiming in a blood-curdling voice: “The first to move is a dead man!”

Nelson’s and Bob’s laughter drowned the line, but Tom, who had his face covered with his hands, continued to emit his piercing shrieks long after and had to be forcibly persuaded to desist. Then they went up on deck and set off Roman candles and firecrackers, a proceeding which sent Barry into paroxysms of excitement.

The next day, instead of continuing westward along the shore, they headed the Vagabond up the Thames River and had a Fourth-of-July excursion up to Norwich between smiling green hills against which nestled comfortable white farmhouses. Nelson grew reminiscent and retold the story of the only Harvard and Yale boat race he had witnessed, pointing out the quarters of the rival crews as they passed along. They spent a couple of hours in Norwich and came back in the afternoon. After they had passed under the railroad bridge and left New London behind Dan had an idea.

“Say, fellows,” he said, “instead of keeping on let’s stop along the shore here somewhere and camp out for the night. We can cook dinner on the beach and rig up a tent with the awning. What do you say?”

They said yes, instantly and enthusiastically. And at five they found a place that suited them, ran the launch into a little shallow cove and set about disembarking. Three trips were made in the tender, and before the last was completed Bob had a stone fireplace set up and Tom had gathered enough fuel to last a week. By mutual consent Bob became chef pro tem.

The cove was skirted by a little pebbled beach and in one place a tumble-down stone wall ambled out of the woods nearby and fell to pieces in the water, affording a very handy landing place for the tender. There was only one mishap, and that occurred when Tom strove to relieve Dan of a load of frying pans and dishes, lost his footing on a slippery stone and went into two feet of water with his burden. Luckily nothing was broken and Tom, by standing in front of the fire and turning slowly around, was soon able to get dry again. They locked the cabin on the Vagabond and made everything shipshape for the night. Then, at a little after six they squatted around the fire and ate fried eggs and bacon, baked potatoes and smoky toast and washed the repast down with smoky tea. But they all declared that it was the best supper they had tasted for a long time.

“It’s sort of a relief,” said Nelson, “to have things seasoned with wood smoke for a change. I was getting a little tired of Tom’s kerosene flavor.”

“It isn’t my fault,” defended Tom. “Your old stove smokes like the dickens.”

After supper they set to work with the deck awning and, not without several failures and many tribulations, at last rigged it up into the semblance of a tent. Then they discovered that they had left bedding entirely out of their scheme, and Bob and Tom rowed back to the launch for blankets. By that time it was twilight and the river and the Sound, just below them, were golden in the afterglow.

“Mighty pretty, isn’t it?” asked Bob as he drew in his oars and got ready to lay hold of the launch.

“Yes,” Tom answered without enthusiasm, “but I think it would be a heap more comfortable to sleep on the boat where we have decent mattresses than to lie on the ground.”

“Tommy, you’re a sybarite,” said Bob, as he climbed onto the launch.

“I don’t know what that is,” grumbled Tom as he followed, “but if it’s something that likes a decent bed I’m it.”

They kept the fire going until bedtime and watched its flames leap and writhe in the purple darkness. Then the moon came up and dimmed the firelight and showed them the Vagabond floating quietly at anchor a little way off. Tom looked toward it longingly.

“Wish I was there,” he murmured. And, after a moment, “What’s a sybilite, Dan?” he asked. Bob laughed.

“A ‘sybilite,’ Tommy,” he said, “is a person who’d rather sleep on a launch than on the ground.”

“That’s me,” sighed Tom. “I thought, though, it was a fellow who told fortunes, or something like that.”

“Oh, no,” said Dan, “that’s a gypsyite.”

“Hope you choke,” muttered Tom. “I’m going to bed, although I don’t suppose I’ll be able to sleep any.”

“Only about twelve hours,” jeered Dan.

When they awoke in the morning it was to a gray, wet world. A fine mist was falling, everything outside the improvised tent was sopping and the other side of the river was shut from view.

“There’s no use trying to make a fire with this wood,” yawned Bob. “I vote we go on board.”

Dan and Nelson agreed. Tom was silent, for after one disgusted look at the outside world he had turned over and promptly gone to sleep again.

“Let’s leave him,” whispered Dan.

“But we need the awning,” Nelson demurred. Dan chuckled.

“Sure, and we’ll take it. He’ll never wake up.”

So very quietly they gathered the things together and bore them to the landing. Two trips of the tender were sufficient, and on the second one they took the awning. Back at the edge of the woods, with the mist falling gently on his upturned face, slept Tom.

Barry seemed to appreciate the change of quarters as much as anyone and was soon curled up in a corner of Bob’s bunk. The dampness had got into their bones and all were stiff and full of queer little aches when they stretched their muscles.

“What we need,” said Nelson, “is some hot coffee and lots of it.”

“And right away quick,” added Dan.

So Bob got busy at the stove while the others put the awning back over the cockpit. While they were doing it they cast many amused glances across at the shore where Tom still slumbered under his gray blanket.

“I tell you what,” said Dan presently. “Let’s go on down the river around that point. Then when Tom wakes up he’ll think we’ve gone off without him. What do you say?”

Nelson laughed and agreed. So they pulled up the anchor, started the engine, and went slowly downstream until a point of woods hid them from the cove. Here they let down the anchor again and had breakfast. They were intensely hungry and spent the better part of half an hour at table.

“We’ll keep something hot for Tommy,” said Bob. “I’d just like to see his face when he wakes up and finds us gone!”

“So would I!” said Dan with a chuckle. “Poor old Tommy! Won’t he be fine and damp?”

“Don’t suppose he will catch cold and have rheumatism, do you?” asked Nelson doubtfully.

“Tommy? Catch anything? He’d never move fast enough,” laughed Dan. “I wonder what he will do, though, when he finds the launch gone.”

“Hope he doesn’t go hunting upstream instead of down,” said Nelson.

“Thunder! That would be awkward,” said Dan. “I say, maybe we’d better go back, eh? He ought to be awake by this time, and looking for us. And if he gets it into his silly head that we’ve gone up the river instead of down——!”

“I don’t believe he’s awake yet,” said Bob. “If he was we’d have heard him yelling for us.”

“I don’t know about that,” answered Nelson. “We must have come a good third of a mile downstream.”

“Anyway,” insisted Dan uneasily, “I think we’d ought to go back.”

“All right,” said Nelson. “Come on and we’ll hoist anchor. It seems to me we don’t do anything else nowadays; I’m getting a crick in my back over it.”

They went across the engine room and stepped out into the cockpit. Then they stared about them in surprise. There was nothing to be seen. The fog had crept up since they had gone below and was now stealing silently past them, blown landward before a tiny southeast breeze. Nelson and Dan looked at each other inquiringly.

“Isn’t this the dickens?” asked Dan.

“It surely is,” was the reply. “O Bob! Come out here!”

Bob appeared. After a moment of surprise he asked:

“Where’s the shore?” Nelson pointed off to starboard.

“Sure?” asked Bob.

“Yes, pretty certain. The tide’s still running in and so we can’t have swung around.”

“Hang these old fogs, anyhow!” growled Dan. “What are we going to do now?”

“Go back for Tommy,” answered Nelson. Bob looked doubtful.

“Can we do it?” he asked. “Aren’t you afraid of running into something?”

“No, I guess not. We’ll keep the whistle going, you can take the wheel, I’ll stand at the engine, and Dan can keep a lookout from the bow. We don’t draw much water and there weren’t any shallows as far as I could see coming down here. Besides, we ought to be able to see the shore at least ten feet away. If Dan keeps a good lookout and yells quickly, and you pass the word on down to me we’ll manage all right, I guess. Let’s get the mud-hook up.”

That done, Bob took the wheel, Dan perched himself in the bow, and Nelson started the engine at the slowest speed. The Vagabond, with a shrill screech from her whistle that so surprised Dan that he nearly tumbled off the bow, pushed the fog aside and crept through the silence. All went well for a moment. Then came a quick warning from Dan.

“Back her!” he yelled. “Land dead ahead!”

“Back her!” called Bob, swirling the wheel around. There was a sudden commotion under the launch’s stern as the propeller was reversed and, at the same instant, a tiny jar as her bow settled on to the sandy bottom. Dan ran back and seized the boat hook.

“Tell Nel to keep her backing,” he called, “and I’ll see if I can’t shove her off.”

But it was a five minutes’ task, and had not the tide been coming in instead of running out it is likely that the Vagabond would have stayed where she was for a good twelve hours. But finally her bow was free once more and Dan shoved and panted over the boat hook until the launch was headed away and the dim line of shore was gone from sight again.

“All right now,” he called, and Nelson again threw the clutch forward. In the excitement of getting afloat they had forgotten the whistle, but now Nelson made up for lost time, and the launch poked her way gingerly along to an accompaniment of distressful shrieks.

“How are we going to know when we get back to where we left Tommy?” asked Bob down the companion way.

“We’ll just have to guess at it,” was the answer. “If we get where Tommy can hear the whistle we’ll be doing all right.”

Several minutes passed. Then came another caution from the bow.

“Land on the port bow,” called Dan. “Hold her off a bit more, Bob.”

“All right,” said Dan a moment later. “Can’t see anything now. Seems to me, though, we ought to be far enough.”

“I guess we are,” answered Bob dryly. “We’re out on the bar, I should say.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you feel the swells? If we aren’t in the Sound we’re pretty near it.”

“But how can we be? We’ve been going up the river toward New London, haven’t we?”

“I thought we had, but we haven’t, I guess. Say, Nel, come up here a minute.”

Nelson appeared and agreed with Bob.

“Either we are somewhere around the mouth of the river or else we’re in a steamboat’s wake; and we haven’t heard any pass. Wait a bit.” He went down and stopped the engine. “Now,” he said as he came back, “let’s have that boat hook a minute.”

Dan passed it to him and he dropped it into the water, keeping hold of the end. The submerged portion floated back against the hull. Nelson pulled it up and tried again over the stern.

“We’re just about broadside to the current,” he announced. “And I’m blest if I know where we are. Best thing we can do is to drop anchor, I guess.”

“Not if we’re in the middle of the river,” said Bob. “Let’s keep on a bit farther. Dan saw land a moment ago over there. Suppose I head that way and we creep over until we find it again. Then we won’t be in danger of being run down by somebody.”

“That’s so,” answered Nelson. “Keep your eyes open, Dan.”

So the Vagabond took up her travels again, groping her way through the gray mist, with Dan peering anxiously from the bow. It was rather exciting while it lasted and the monotonous screech of the whistle breaking the silence lent an uncanny touch to the adventure. Then——

“Stop her!” called Dan, and Bob repeated the injunction to Nelson at the engine. The propeller stopped and the launch floated softly through the mist. “Star-board a little,” said Dan. Bob turned the wheel. “All right,” said Dan. “How’s this, Nel?”

Nelson had joined him and was peering perplexedly through the fog.

“I don’t see any land,” he said finally.

“Over there. I can’t see it myself now, though. Wait a bit and the fog will thin. There it is,” said Dan. “See that dark line?”

“Yes. Let’s put the anchor down. Stand by the cable, will you? It’s all snarled up.” There was a splash which sounded momentously loud in the stillness and the cable ran out for some ten feet. “We must be pretty well in toward shore,” said Nelson.

“Now what?” asked Bob, working his way forward over the slippery deck. They looked from one to another. Finally——

“Stay here until the fog lifts and we can find Tommy, I guess,” said Nelson.

“Hang Tommy, anyhow,” said Bob disgustedly. “He’s always getting lost in the fog.”

“Yes, it’s the easiest thing he does,” agreed Dan. “He ought to write a book about it when he gets home. ‘Fogs I Have Met, by Thomas Courtenay Ferris.’”

“Supposing we shoot off that revolver of yours a few times?” Nelson suggested.

“All right,” said Bob. “I’ll get it.”

“It was a dandy joke of yours, Dan,” said Nelson. Dan shrugged his shoulders and wiped the drops from his face against his sleeve.

“How the dickens was I to know this fool fog was coming up?” he asked. “Here, let me shoot that, Bob.”

“You run away,” answered Bob, as he filled the chamber of his revolver.

“But I feel that I am to blame in the matter,” said Dan earnestly, “and I ought to be allowed to do all I can to—er—remedy things.”

“Well, you can’t shoot my revolver,” answered Bob dryly. “But you can hold the cartridges.”

“Let me shoot once,” Dan begged. Bob relented and between them they banged away into the air until there was a good-sized hole in the contents of the cartridge box and Bob called a halt. Then they listened attentively.

“There!” whispered Dan.

“Steamboat whistle,” said Bob, and Nelson nodded concurrence.

“Let’s shout,” said Dan. They shouted. Then they stopped and listened again. There was not a sound to be heard save the faint lapping of the waves against the shore.