Allen Quincy
The Outdoor Chums on a Houseboat: or, The Rivals of the Mississippi

CHAPTER I – GLORIOUS TIMES AHEAD

“Own up, Will, you’ve got hold of some great news, and you’re just keeping it back to tease us! How about that, Bluff?”

“You’re right, Frank, for I can see it in his face. His eyes are just dancing with a big secret. But wait up; here comes Jerry across the campus. Now he’ll just have to open the box, and show us.”

The college boy, called Will by his comrades, and whose last name was Milton, laughed good-naturedly, and then nodded his head.

“Why, fellows,” he said, “I saw Jerry coming, and meant to wait for him. When all four members of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club, who call themselves the Outdoor Chums, are present, I’ve got something to say that is going to set you all just wild.”

At that the young chap who went by the name of Bluff made frantic gestures for a fourth lad, just then heading in their direction, to hurry along.

Evidently this freshman must have suspected that something unusual was brewing, for he started on a run, and came up almost panting for breath.

“What’s in the wind, fellows?” he demanded, glancing from one eager face to the others. “Don’t tell me you’ve made up your minds where the club is going to put in the vacation just ahead of us, because that would be too good news. Who’s going to take pity on me, and relieve my suspense?”

“Why, Will here has got something to tell us, and wanted to wait till you joined the crowd,” said Frank Langdon, who was just a little taller, and more manly-looking than any other in the group; though they were all bright, able lads, who had seen considerable of life.

“Listen, boys,” said Will, who was inclined to be less given to healthy color than the rest, and who seemed to be not quite so sturdy in build; “I’ve had a letter from my Uncle Felix, down in New Orleans; and he made the queerest offer you ever heard about. You see, through my mother he must have learned about some of the adventures that came our way the last two years; and, what do you think? he wants the Outdoor Chums to take a voyage all the way down the Mississippi, just as soon as school closes.”

“What!” ejaculated Jerry Wallington, as though rather staggered by the sudden outlook; “a voyage down the Mississippi? What on; a floating log? – because we don’t happen to own any kind of a boat just now.”

“Well, Uncle Felix does, you see,” Will went on, coolly. “It’s some sort of a houseboat, that he used to live aboard for several years. For some reason, that he doesn’t take the trouble to explain, he wants it brought down to New Orleans, where he’s recovering from a bad accident, so that he just can’t come up himself. And, boys, he enclosed a check for a hundred dollars in the letter.”

“Wow! what was that for?” demanded Bluff Masters, who had a little habit of being impetuous, though at heart he was as true as steel to his chums, and always fair toward even his bitterest enemy.

“Why, to buy eats, of course!” declared Will. “You see, a houseboat doesn’t often have any way of moving along, only with the current, at least this one doesn’t, I know; and so it just has to wander down the river. That takes a heap of time; and four healthy boys have to eat sometimes five times a day to keep from starving to death; anyhow, Bluff here does, I happen to know.”

“Well, a hundred dollars ought to buy a heap of grub,” remarked Jerry, with a wide grin on his good-natured face. “But after we get there, how do you suppose we’re ever to get back home again, unless we draw some of our little nest-egg out of bank, and foot the railroad bill?”

“Trust Uncle Felix for that,” Will remarked. “He says he’ll see that we all get back home safe in good time. And, as he’s got bushels of money, and is a bachelor in the bargain, that part of the job needn’t worry us.”

“Where’s the houseboat now?” asked Frank,

“Tied up in the boatyard of a man named James Whittaker in St. Paul. There was an order on him to deliver the boat to us with all the fixtures, whatever that may mean,” Will continued.

“Oh! say, did you ever hear of such luck?” cried Bluff, throwing his cap up in the air and catching it deftly again as it fell.

“Perhaps it’s just like a palace, if a rich old bachelor has been knocking around in it for some years,” suggested Jerry.

Frank noticed that Will did not think to offer any information on this score, if he happened to possess the knowledge. Perhaps he was willing that his three chums should live in expectation, and be surprised by the wonders of the houseboat upon which Uncle Felix seemed to set such store.

“By the way,” continued Will, “there was one funny part to Uncle’s letter.”

“Tell us about it. If we’re going to make a cruise in the houseboat of a millionaire, we ought to know,” remarked Bluff.

“He says,” Will went on, “he’s mighty particular about whom he allows aboard his boat, and wants to impress upon us all that during the cruise we must keep off all undesirable characters.”

“Sure thing,” remarked Bluff, with a wise nod. “I’ve always heard that the Mississippi is a tramp’s paradise, and that they just swarm down there. It’s only right that a rich man would want us to keep such characters off his fine houseboat.”

“Hold on there,” broke in Will, “I haven’t said it was such a palace, have I, Frank? Here Bluff keeps on getting more and more extravagant with his adjectives every time he mentions the boat.”

“Oh! well,” the other ventured, “it stands to reason that a rich old chap who spends lots of his time on board a pet boat would have things just scrumptious. Me for the first choice of bunks aboard! Wonder if he has silk eiderdown quilts for covers. Yum! yum! we’re just the luckiest lot of freshmen that ever squeezed through their first year at college; and, Will, I feel like giving you a bear’s hug for bringing us this great news.”

“Please don’t!” cried Will, half alarmed, for Bluff was a bit rough in his way; “because I’m carrying a bunch of lantern slides in my pocket; and I’d hate to have them broken;” but the observing Frank detected what seemed to be a gleam of suppressed amusement on Will’s face, that gave him an inkling as to the true state of affairs.

Will had always been the official photographer of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club, and was something of an expert at snapping pictures to commemorate stirring and unusual events in the outdoor experiences of the chums.

“Was that all he said about not letting strangers aboard unless they brought letters of introduction?” asked Jerry.

“He warned us to be particularly careful not to harbor a certain party named Marcus Stackpole, who seems to be some sort of particular enemy of my uncle, though just why he would want to get aboard the houseboat I can’t imagine.”

“Say, that’s queer, now,” remarked Bluff.

“Guess he’s had some reason for believing this Stackpole to be a thief, and he thinks he’s run away with some of the things your uncle carries aboard,” Jerry suggested.

Will simply elevated his eyebrows as he replied, evasively:

“I don’t know, and that’s all I can say, fellows; but suppose we go over to my rooms, where we can read the letter again, and take a look at the course of the Mississippi River from St. Paul to New Orleans.”

It happened that Will and Frank had rooms at some little distance from the college buildings, making quite a walk along the road that ran beside the little river. And as they are trudging along, indulging in considerable excited talk, we can devote a few paragraphs to some of the pleasant things that in times past were experienced by these four comrades.

The organization of the club, and what happened to the boys shortly afterward, has been detailed, at length, in the first book of this series, called: “The Outdoor Chums; Or, The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club.” In the second story are given some of the wonderful happenings that befell them while camping on an island in Camelot Lake, which had, up to that time, been shunned by most people, because of the fierce bobcats that were said to hold possession there. These exciting events you will find narrated in “The Outdoor Chums on the Lake; Or, Lively Adventures on Wildcat Island.”

During the Easter holidays another campaign was undertaken in search of excitement and pictures, as well as camping experiences. It had been reported that a ghost roamed over a certain section of the country some miles away from the town of Centerville; and the four boys determined to find out the truth of this rumor. As to what befell them, the reader will find the full details in the third volume, called “The Outdoor Chums in the Forest; Or, Laying the Ghost of Oak Ridge.”

When Christmas came, the chums received permission to pay a visit to the Sunny South. And what strange things happened to them on a Florida river, as well as upon the great Mexican gulf, have been told in the fourth book, under the title of “The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf; Or, Rescuing the Lost Balloonists.”

Then came a delightful visit to the Far West, where they saw what life on a cattle ranch was like, and had some thrilling times among the wild animals that Will was always anxious to take pictures of, at no matter what risk to himself. You can find all these narrated at length in the fifth book, just preceding this, and bearing the title of “The Outdoor Chums After Big Game; Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness.”

“There’s that fancy dresser, Oswald Fredericks, and some of his chums, coming this way, Frank!” remarked Bluff, as the four boys were walking along the road.

Frank frowned. If there was one fellow in all the hundreds attending college with whom he had never been able to get on, it had been the rich man’s son, Oswald Fredericks. They had never actually come to blows, but for some reason the other had shown jealousy toward Frank, and seldom let an opportunity pass for sneering at him, or doing some small thing to indicate what his feelings toward Frank were.

“And we’re bound to meet the bunch just in that narrow part of the road, too, where the river runs close beside it,” remarked Will, in disgust.

“Well,” spoke up fiery Bluff, “you don’t expect that we’re going to stand here, and wait for the procession to pass by; do you? I guess four of us ought to be a match for as many of the Fredericks crowd, if they try to muss us up.”

“Oh! I don’t think Fredericks would try anything like that,” Frank remarked.

“You never know what such a fellow might do,” declared Jerry. “Once I used to like him; but he got going with a fast set, and I had to cut him dead. He isn’t altogether bad, but apt to feel himself superior because his dad’s a millionaire.”

“And the queer thing about it,” broke in Will just then, “is that he lives in St. Paul, where we have to go after our houseboat, and I’ve often heard him tell about the dandy craft his father owns, used for making cruises down the river. It’s got an engine aboard, too, and can run like a steamboat.”

“Oh! shucks! I just wish he’d take a notion to make a cruise about the same time as we did,” said Bluff in a low voice, for the other party was now quite close by. “Say, wouldn’t we have some bully times, though, running races with his old tub?”

Frank somehow felt that the other students were up to mischief. He had noticed that they kept their heads together, and seemed to be whispering suspiciously.

On that account he was on the lookout for trouble. Consequently, when, just as the two parties were passing, some of the others gave Oswald a sudden shove, as doubtless arranged beforehand, and he was thrown toward Frank, the latter deftly jumped aside.

The consequence was that the well-dressed Oswald, not running up against the object he had anticipated shoving over the edge of the bank into the river, made a few wild movements of his arms, as though seeking something to stay his own progress; and then quickly vanished from view over the edge, to the dismay of his companions, and the delight of Bluff and Jerry.

They heard him give a sharp yelp; and then a splash announced that he had plunged into the swiftly-running stream.

CHAPTER II – LAYING PLANS

“Listen to that, will you?” cried Bluff Masters. “He’s in, all right!”

The boys hastened to the edge of the bank. The river ran about six feet below, and as there was a fair stage of water at this time of year, Oswald had ducked completely under when he fell in.

He was making frantic efforts to drag himself out, and was spouting water like a geyser. One of his comrades immediately hastened to lower himself by means of some friendly rocks, so as to give the unfortunate Oswald a helping hand.

Dripping from head to foot, and looking like a half-drowned rat, the son of the St. Paul millionaire finally managed to regain the road. He was certainly a forlorn-looking figure. Even a couple of his friends grinned a little behind his back; while Bluff and Jerry made no pretense of hiding their delight. Frank half expected that the other would attack him, though there was not the slightest reason for it, since he had not even touched young Fredericks when so deftly stepping aside.

“What did you do that for, Langdon?” spluttered the other, shivering, either with the cold, or the excitement following his unexpected dip in the water.

“I don’t know that I did anything, except to get out of your way,” returned Frank, quietly. “You seemed to want the whole road, and I was for giving it to you. What do you find about that to complain of, Fredericks?”

“Oh! go on,” sneered the other. “You knew mighty well that if you jumped out of the way I’d go into the river.”

“Well,” remarked Frank, steadily, keeping his eyes on Oswald, “it was either you or me; and I wasn’t at all anxious to get wet; so since you would have it, I let you have first choice. If you’d kept to your side of the road nothing would have happened. You’ve only yourself to blame. You tried to put up a little game on me, and the biter got bitten himself; that’s all there is to it.”

“Think you’re pretty smart; don’t you, Langdon?” snarled the other, who in his anger quite forgot his elegant ways, and seemed ready to descend to the manner of a common bully. “You set up that game on me, and you know it. Didn’t I see you telling Bluff Masters what you would do if I happened to brush up against you? I’ve a good notion to give you what you ought to have had long ago.”

“You don’t say?” remarked Frank, pleasantly; “and suppose you tell me what that might be, Fredericks.”

“A sound drubbing; and I can do it, too, I want you to know!” snarled the other, making a forward movement, though two of his boon companions managed to get a grip on his shoulders and hold him back.

Frank deliberately took off his coat, and handed it to Will Milton.

“That’s a new coat,” he said, calmly, “and I wouldn’t want to get it soiled by rubbing up against your dirty and wet clothes. Now, suppose you start in, and give me what you say I need; because to-morrow may be too late, as we start for home in the morning. This is a nice, quiet spot, and we stand little chance of being bothered by any outsiders.”

“Let me go; can’t you, fellows?” cried Oswald, making a great show of trying to break away from the detaining hands of his chums; though Bluff noticed that it was something of a pretense after all.

“Don’t be a fool, Ossie,” said Raymond Ellis, in a low voice; “you know that Langdon’s said to be as strong as an ox. He made the baseball team, and will be in the football squad next fall. Let it drop; can’t you? It was a bad job all around, and you got caught in your own trap.”

“But I tell you I can do him up right now, if you only let me loose!” declared Fredericks, with another vain effort to break away, making his friends only seek the harder to keep him back, the third one now lending a hand, and trying to soothe him with soft words. “What have I been taking boxing and wrestling lessons all winter for, if not just this opening? I knew some day we’d have it out; and why not now? Let loose, Duke Fletcher; I want to show him!”

“Well, you just can’t right now, and that’s all there is about it,” declared the lad last named, as he tightened his grip. “You’re soaked to the skin, and excited in the bargain; while he’s as cool as a cucumber. Just hold your horses, and maybe some fine day you’ll get your chance on even terms.”

They started to lead the expostulating Oswald away. Every little while he would break out into another wild series of exclamations, and struggle with the chums who kept their detaining hands on him.

Frank quietly recovered his coat and put it on. There was a curl to his lips as he turned his face toward his chums.

“What do you think of it, boys?” he asked.

“He never wanted to fight, even a little bit!” declared Bluff, scorn in his tones.

“That’s right,” remarked Jerry. “For all his squirming, he didn’t want to break away from his friends. Why, he could have done it in the start, easy enough; but it was all a big bluff. But say, did you ever hear a splash like that, fellows?”

“It certainly did make a noise,” remarked Frank, laughing.

“Noise!” echoed Bluff, doubling up with laughter; “why, if you didn’t know what happened, you’d think a house had dropped kerplunk into the river. Only time I can remember anything like it, was when Jerry here went overboard once – ”

“That’ll do for you, Bluff,” interrupted the one mentioned; “I could refer to a few of your troubles in the past when it comes to speaking about splashes. Just drop personal things, and let’s speak about Fredericks.”

“Oh! if I’d only had my little snapshot camera along,” exclaimed Will, suddenly remembering what a startling picture he might have taken of Oswald going over the edge of the bank; to be followed with another showing him as he climbed, dripping, out of the river.

“Well, that’s nearly always the way,” grunted Bluff. “What wonderful things we do see when we haven’t got a gun.”

“But he’s going to set that bath down against you, Frank; and some day try to hand you back something in return,” remarked Jerry.

“How could you be so cruel as to side-step, and let the poor chap go over into that cold water?” asked Bluff.

They were all in high spirits as they started once more for the room where Will and Frank boarded. Healthy boys see no shadows ahead when fortune beckons. And these chums knew of no reason why they should not look forward with delight to that long trip in a houseboat down the Father of Waters.

“I’m going to take the pains to tell Duke Fletcher what our plans are for the summer,” said Jerry, who was by long odds far from being one to seek trouble; but in this case he seemed to think it might liven things up if only Oswald and several of his cronies chose to make a similar cruise, and that fortune threw them together now and then.

Frank rather doubted the wisdom of notifying the others of the intended voyage; but he neglected to ask Jerry not to mention it, and so the fact was forgotten until later.

Once they arrived at the room, the letter, with its enclosures, was produced, and for a full hour the boys studied it.

“I declare I can’t make head or tail of it,” Jerry finally admitted, with a puzzled expression on his face.

“Me, too!” declared Bluff, ready to confess himself “stumped,” as he called it. “What do you suppose there is so valuable about this houseboat that would make anybody like Marcus Stackpole want to get it, if only he got on board?”

“Say, perhaps Uncle Felix keeps some of his expensive curios aboard, and this Stackpole knows it, and means to get hold of ’em. I’m going to make it my job to find out if that’s so, and you fellows needn’t be surprised to see me poking around in any old dark corner, and tapping the walls of the cabin to find concealed treasures.”

“That sounds just like you, Jerry; always thinking you’re going to strike it rich,” jeered Bluff. “Now, I’ve got a notion it’s the craft itself that’s so expensively built, and Stackpole, who must have wanted to buy it from Uncle Felix, and has been refused, is just bound to get hold of it.”

Frank laughed at all these wild theories. He did not know himself what the solution of the mystery could be, but felt positive that it was along different lines from anything as yet suggested in the fertile brains of his companions. Besides, he wondered what that occasional smile he saw upon the face of Will meant. Evidently the other was keeping back something from his chums; and it must have a connection with the houseboat.

As they expected to start home on the following day, it would not be long before they would arrive in St. Paul, ready to purchase their provisions for the beginning of the river trip, and start down stream.

It was the last night at college for that term and all sorts of affairs were going on among the students, who would separate for two months and more on the morrow. When morning came there was a grand exodus, and the station of the college town presented a gay appearance, as scores of young fellows, with suitcases in their hands, boarded the train that pulled out.

Those who were going later gave the college yell when the whistle of the engine announced that the parting minute had arrived. And amid a shrieking of hundreds of voices the train started that was to bear the four chums to their homes in Centerville.

“There’s your dear friend, Oswald Fredericks, Frank!” said Will, as the party hung partly out of a couple of windows in the car they occupied.

“And he’s got his eye glued on you, too; don’t forget,” remarked Jerry.

“Oh! he’s a good hater, all right,” said Bluff. “If he didn’t have any reason to wish you all sorts of bad luck before, that souse in the river settled it. From now on he’ll never hear the name of Frank Langdon without getting mad, you mark me. And some day, sooner or later, he hopes to have a chance to even up the score.”

“Huh! it may come sooner, then,” remarked Jerry, significantly.

“See here,” remarked Frank, turning to look at the last speaker, “did you keep your word, and tell Duke Fletcher about our plans this summer?”

Jerry nodded his head coolly.

“Course I did,” he admitted. “You heard me tell I was going to do it, and nobody said a word. I like to have things going on all the time! What’s the use of living, if you can’t have some excitement once in a while? Besides, I’m hoping Oswald will find a chance to ‘hop’ Frank here. You see, I know what will follow; and he needs a lesson, that upstart does, to take the conceit out of him.”

“Oh! well,” remarked Frank, with a whimsical smile, “I believe the old Mississippi is something of a river; and even if they do start down in another houseboat, the chances of running across us wouldn’t amount to much, anyhow. So what’s the use of worrying? We’ve got all we want to do to keep watch for this tricky Marcus Stackpole, the man Uncle Felix seems to think will try to either rob the boat, or steal the entire outfit.”

“Somebody pinch me,” said Bluff, as they sat down facing each other in the double seat; “because I just can’t believe it’s so, all these fine times ahead of us, with a houseboat all our own for weeks, and we living on the fat of the land as we go, taking toll of game and fish by the way.”

“Huh!” grunted Jerry, “much game you’ll get, with the law on nearly everything that flies; and Frank here a regular stickler for obeying what the law says. But say, we take our guns along, I certainly hope, boys?”

“That’s a settled thing,” Frank replied. “We might need them in lots of ways; and while Uncle Felix may have a stock of firearms aboard his boat, we would be foolish to take any chances.”

“Hear! hear! that makes me happy!” Bluff exclaimed.

“Now he’s just thinking about that pump-gun he owns, and what havoc he can make if ever he sees a flock of ducks on a sand bar!” chuckled Will; for the gun had never been a favorite with either himself or Jerry, who declared it was unsportsmanlike to be able to send a volley into a bevy of quail, from a repeating shotgun, though with a rifle the case was different.

And, throughout all that long journey, from the college to their home town, the four chums talked of hardly anything else but the pleasure they anticipated when once they were launched on the mighty Mississippi, bound for the distant Southern metropolis, known as the Crescent City.