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

CHAPTER XIII – AFTER THE STORM

“Listen! is that somebody shouting?” cried Frank, after they had run along the road in a southerly direction for half a mile.

“Sounds like it to me,” ventured Will, between pants for breath.

“Now, on my part,” declared Bluff, “I thought it must be the screech of a locomotive; because, you know, there’s a railroad line on both sides of the river right along up here.”

“But there it is again,” Frank insisted; “and you can make out yelling now.”

“Yes, and it comes out of there, away back from the river. See here, Frank,” observed Jerry, “we just can’t plunge into the woods, and make for that fire; can we?”

“Now, my opinion is, there might be some other cross-road below here, and the fire is on that,” said Frank; “we’ll go a piece further, anyhow, and find out.”

The others were quite willing to do anything Frank proposed, and so they again started to run at quite a good pace.

It turned out just as he said; for about half a mile further down they suddenly came on a road that left the river highway, and turned abruptly into the hills. Besides, they could now see the fire itself, which, as usual, did not seem to be so very far away; though Frank knew how deceptive distances were apt to prove under such conditions.

Turning into this smaller road, they kept on running. Now and then Frank would drop into a walk, for he knew that Will must be tiring, though the other would never have admitted the fact if he dropped in his tracks with fatigue.

“Further than we thought, fellows!” gasped Bluff, who had to carry a heavy gun, and by now he almost wished he had left it on the boat.

“But now we’ve come this far we’d better keep on; eh, Frank?” suggested Jerry.

On that score the chums seemed to be agreed. Like all boys, they disliked very much to give up anything they had started to accomplish. All that hard running would go for nothing; and they were naturally curious to learn what sort of a fire it could be.

“A barn, I reckon,” Jerry had said.

“Perhaps it’s only a chicken coop,” Will had in his turn mentioned.

“Now, I’d think it more likely a pig pen,” observed the weary Bluff, as he changed his gun from one hand to the other for the twentieth time, refusing to let Frank relieve him of it.

“Jerry is right, according to my way of thinking,” Frank said. “The chances are that’s what it is. Perhaps it looked at one time as if the fire would jump to the farmer’s barn, too, and that was what all that shouting meant.”

They finally drew closer to the scene, though Frank feared they had gone twice as far as seemed wise, under the circumstances.

It was fully an hour after they had left the houseboat before they reached the place; and then it was to find the fire about out; with a dozen men, and as many women and children, gathered in clusters, talking it all over with the man who had lost his barns, and what new crop of hay he had just been putting in them, together with several cows that could not be rescued in time.

The boys hung around for a little while talking with some of the farm hands. Frank asked a few questions about various things, and even found that he could secure a small amount of information concerning the river below that point, since some of these young fellows had lived near it all their lives, and even taken boats of produce to Rock Island below.

An hour later, and Frank proposed that they start back to the boat. While the boys were engaged in listening to all that was being said concerning the fire, the sky had clouded over, and it was now quite dark. Indeed, the growl of thunder could be heard down the river, and some of the farmers were even then hurrying off.

One fellow, who happened to live not a great way from the location of the houseboat, as described by Frank, said he would keep company with the boys, in whose trip down the big water he seemed to be deeply interested. And while they thought little of that fact at the time, it afterwards turned out worth a great deal to them.

Louder came that noise from behind them, the storm having swung across the river apparently, so that it was now heading almost from the south direct. Will doubtless wished deep down in his heart that he was snug inside the cabin of the houseboat about that time, when the gale would have small terrors for any of them. But he did not say a word along those lines, only ran at the heels of the others, doing the very best he could.

“She’s going to catch us, boys!” remarked the young farmer, who had given them his name as Seth Groggins.

“Could we find any sort of shelter?” asked Bluff – and then, as if fearing that his motive might be misconstrued, he hastened to add: “not that I care a cent whether I get wet or not; but I’d hate to have my gun soaked. Steel rusts so easy, you know.”

“Might get under a big tree that lies a little way ahead,” remarked Seth; “only I’ve heard it isn’t the best thing to do in a thunderstorm.”

“No, I’d rather stand many duckings than take chances that way,” Frank declared, positively; for he had known of fatal cases following the action of men in a harvest field seeking shelter under a tree during an electrical storm.

“Well, here she is; but as you say so, we’ll give her the go-by,” the farmer called out over his shoulder, as he ran on past the big tree, standing close to the road. “If we could only make the old lime kiln I reckons as how the lot of us’d be able to find some sorter shelter thar. It’s jest a leeetle way further on, boys. Hit it up agin; kin ye?”

Even Will seemed to take another brace, for the din of the storm behind was surely enough to make any fellow try his level best to get out of its reach. What with the roar of the wind, the sound of falling trees, the terrible crash of the thunder accompanying each vivid flash of lightning, and the roar of the deluge of rain that followed, no one need be ashamed for wanting to find a place of refuge.

The rain began to come, and the boys would soon have been drenched to the skin only, as luck would have it, they reached the deserted lime kiln just then, and were able to hastily crawl under a low shed.

Although this threatened to carry away bodily with the fierce gusts of wind, approaching the force of a tornado at times, it seemed to have been sturdily built in the first place; and was also somewhat sheltered by the kiln, so that it managed to withstand the gale.

And thankful that they had found even so poor a shelter, the boys crouched there, waiting for the fury of the storm to subside, when they might go on their way to the moored houseboat, not more than half a mile off, Frank believed.

“Wow! listen to that; would you?” cried Bluff, as a crash followed a blinding flash of lightning, although the rain had now stopped.

“That hit something, sure!” quavered Will, who had no fancy for such a terrible display of electrical force.

“Say, I wouldn’t be surprised if that big tree got it thet ’ere time!” declared the farmer. “Kim right from thet ways; an’ she lies thar. An’, by hokey, I thort I ketched a crash o’ branches as the ole lightnin’ stripped her bare, like it does, sometimes.”

Frank was of the same opinion; and felt deeply grateful in his heart that they had been wise enough to give that shelter the go-by when it offered. If it was really the big tree that had been struck, what would have been their fate had they foolishly taken refuge under its wide-spreading limbs?

As Frank had truly said: far better a wet jacket any time, than to take chances under a tree that seems to especially invite the attention of the lightning, either by its being alone in a field, or standing higher than its fellows.

A short time later, and they once more started along the flooded road. All of them were wet, but made light of it, in view of the fact that they had managed to get off so lightly. And this was the first occasion Frank found for feeling glad the young Illinois farmer had accompanied them; since otherwise they would not have known about the shed at the old lime kiln.

The storm had gone raging up the river, and far in the distance they could still hear the dull roar of the thunder peals, and see the flash of each successive bolt of lightning, as it either passed from one cloud to another, or else sought the earth in a zigzag downward plunge that was most terrifying.

“I guess we ought to call ourselves lucky for once,” Jerry was saying, as they left the river road, and headed through the patch of timber, just beyond which all of them knew the boat had been left, securely fastened.

The young farmer kept along with them. He had told Frank that he would like to see for himself just how they were fixed; and had promised in the morning to fetch them a supply of fresh eggs, some newly-made butter, and milk from his Jersey cows.

“An’ ev’ry night you jest tie up alongside the bank, you say?” he remarked, as he kept at the side of Jerry, with regard to whom he seemed to have taken an especial fancy, for some reason or other.

“Why, yes, that’s the easiest way of doing with a houseboat, which, after all, is pretty much the same as one of your shantyboats, used to carry potatoes and truck down to market,” Frank had taken it upon himself to answer.

“Now, here’s just where we had our camp fire,” Bluff, who was in advance, remarked. “It got squdged by that downpour of rain, all right, I should say. And here you see, we tied the – Frank, Frank, she’s gone!” he suddenly ended with an excited yell, as he saw the well-known spot where the Pot Luck had been moored, vacant, and not the first sign of their floating home.

Will clung to Frank in the first shock of his dismay; while Jerry echoed the loud cries of the first discoverer of this new calamity that seemed to have overtaken them.

CHAPTER XIV – THE RUNAWAY HOUSEBOAT

They all stared as if they could hardly believe their eyes. The moon had set about the time the storm started; but since the sky was already clearing, the stars gave a certain amount of light. And especially on the river it was possible to see for some distance.

Frank was almost as dumbfounded as his chums when this alarming fact burst upon them. Without the houseboat, their cruise down the Mississippi must come to an end.

“They must have been hiding somewhere near by,” lamented Will, “and saw the whole bunch of us scooting down the road; so that the chance they just wanted came along.”

“Say, Frank, he thinks it must have been Ossie Fredericks!” exclaimed Jerry; “but I say it was that Marcus Stackpole. He wanted to get that treasure Uncle Felix hid away on board so neat that even I never could find it. But Marcus, he’s bound to get it, even if he has to take the old boat, and tear her to flinders. Oh! what a bunch of gumps we were to leave her that way, to run to a fire.”

The countryman was listening to all they said, and trying to grasp the situation. Frank saw him step over to the tree to which they had fastened the cable of the boat so securely, as they thought.

“This whar you tied her up, boys?” asked the young farmer.

“To that tree, yes,” Frank replied. “What have you found – a piece of the rope left there?”

“Jest what I hev,” came the reply, as the other took out a match, and prepared to strike it.

“Sliced it off as neat as you please; didn’t they?” demanded Bluff, angrily.

“Wall, not as I kin see,” replied the farmer, bending closer to look, as the match flamed up. “This hyar rope, she’s gone and busted clear off!”

“No knife used, then, you mean?” asked Frank, jumping at conclusions.

“Nixy a knife,” came the answer, in a positive tone.

“Then that settles it,” Frank went on, turning to his comrades. “Our cable turned out a bad one, boys; and in the storm, when the wind struck the side of the cabin, the rope snapped off short!”

“Wow! what do you think of that, now?” cried Jerry.

“Then it wasn’t Ossie and his crowd; nor yet Marcus Stackpole, that did the little job for us?” observed Bluff, bottling some of his wrath for another occasion.

“We can lay it all to the storm,” Frank went on to say, as he too examined the frayed end of the piece of cable still hanging from the trunk of the tree; and which it was plain to be seen had never been severed by a sharp instrument.

“But that’s just about as bad,” Will plaintively struck up just then. “Perhaps our fine boat has been knocked to pieces before now; or even if she hasn’t, then she must be booming along in the middle of the river, turning around and around as she floats. Why, Frank, this happened half an hour ago, and by now where do you think the Pot Luck can be?”

“If she hasn’t been snagged and sunk in the storm,” replied Frank, “or upset by the hurricane wind, why, by now she may be floating peacefully along, all by herself, say about two miles, perhaps three, below here.”

“Think of that! And I was expecting to sleep aboard to-night!” Will exclaimed.

“I hope you may yet, if there’s any way by which we can overtake a runaway houseboat,” Frank said, as he tried to think.

Was there any means of obtaining a team of horses, and by following the country road, getting ahead of the houseboat that had gone adrift in the storm? The countryman ought to know, for he had been born and raised in that section of the State, and must be familiar with the lay of the land.

So Frank turned to Seth Groggins.

“You understand what has happened to us; don’t you, Seth?” he asked.

“Reckon I does; the pesky boat’s gone an’ played you all a mean trick.”

“Now, perhaps you might help us overtake our boat, Seth.”

“You jest tell me how, then, an’ see me jump,” answered the farmer, quickly, and with a friendly ring in his voice that pleased Frank very much.

“Have you got any fast horses at your place?” he asked next.

“That’s what I hev, as good a pair as kin be found ‘raound these hyar parts. An’ I sees wot you mean to try, Frank. Think it kin be did?”

“How far does this road follow the river?” Frank asked.

“Oh! many a mile,” came the answer. “She runs alongside the Mississippi for mebbe four miles, then takes a straightaway course two miles ‘cross a neck o’ land, savin’ somethin’ like five miles, and strikes the winding water agin beyond.”

“Just let me figure on that,” Frank went on, calmly, for he knew nothing could be gained by getting excited like Bluff and the others seemed to be. “Six miles from here by the road, and then we strike the river again. Now, how far do you suppose that boat would have to drift with the current before it struck that same point?”

“They do say that five miles kin be saved by cuttin’ acrost that neck. I reckon as haow it’d be all o’ three anyway,” the farmer declared, positively.

“We ought to be able to go twice as fast as the boat, I should think,” Frank continued, “and counting the saving, I believe we would have plenty of time to get to your place and be off, if you agreed. We’re willing to pay you five dollars for your trouble.”

“Five dollars nothing!” exclaimed the young farmer. “What d’ye think I am, when, if it hadn’t been for you, like’s not I’d been crazy enough to hev camped, under thet same big tree, and jest think whar I’d be naow? Done it afore, more’n a few times. Reckon that ere lightnin’ was a layin’ for me, an’ she’d got me to-night sure. But come along, boys; my place ain’t far off.”

He led the way to the road, and up it at a fast run; the four chums following after him as best they could.

Inside of ten minutes they arrived at a wayside farmhouse; and without waiting to answer the calls of the old lady on the porch, who wanted to know all about the fire, country fashion, Seth led his new friends straight out to a big stable and barn.

The way that expert young countryman got out his horses, and hitched them to a light road wagon, made Frank ready to give him the palm for fast work. Why, in almost no time the ends of the lines were tossed over the seat.

“Jump in, boys, and we’ll be off, jest as soon as I shut the stable doors. You see, I never leave ’em open. Robbins lost his hull outfit one night, and I ain’t a-goin’ to take any chances with mine.”

Another minute, and they were making for the open gates, which Seth had seen to at the time they entered his grounds. The last the boys saw of the old lady she was standing there, where the light of a lamp issued from an open door, and looking after her boy, as though she wondered if he had taken leave of his senses.

“Tell her all erbout it, arter I gets back to hum,” Seth very sensibly remarked, as he used the whip, to send his horses galloping down the river road. “She allers arsks so many questions, you see, I jest natchly couldn’t hold up to satisfy her right now, when minutes are a-goin’ to count. Giddup, Bob! Hi! thar, Fanny, show us what you kin do!”

Both horses were already making great speed. Frank and Will sat beside the driver on the seat, while the others found as comfortable places as they could on the bottom of the light wagon.

The road was not everything that could be wished for, and in consequence, when they came to a little depression, or a “thank-you-mum,” which was intended to deflect running water, and save a washout, both Jerry and Bluff found it difficult to keep anything like an upright position. The latter especially, being still burdened with his gun, could only use one hand with which to hold on to the side of the wagon; and as a consequence he was bounding all over the bed of the vehicle, until Frank, noticing what hard lines had fallen to poor Bluff, took the gun away, which allowed him to have the use of both hands.

Mile after mile they put behind them in this fashion.

“Oh! I hope we will make it, Frank,” Will would say every little while; and at such times the other thought it his duty to cheer the doubting chum up by declaring that he felt sure they would, as they were making such splendid time.

“But even if we do see the poor old Noah’s Ark away out in the middle of the river, floating along, however in the wide world can we get to her?” Will asked.

“No use crossing a bridge till we come to it,” Frank told him. “When we understand the situation we’ll have some plan ready to meet it. Here’s where we leave the river; isn’t it, Seth?” as the driver urged his team over a little plank bridge at a point where the road turned abruptly to the left.

“Yep, that’s the ticket,” replied the other. “Two mile now, and then we strike her agin. Go ’lang thar, Fanny; gaddup, Bob, ye lazybones!”

But this was only “talk,” as Bluff expressed it, for both horses were doing the best they knew how, and making splendid time. After a while, Frank knew from the signs that they must once more be approaching the river. He could hardly still his own excited heart, so very much depended on the events of the next half hour.

Finally they burst into view of the swiftly flowing Mississippi again. Out over its broad bosom every eye went, seeking for some sign of the floating houseboat.

“Doan’t see nuthin’ o’ her, mister!” announced Seth, in a disappointed tone; “but then, I reckons as haow she ain’t hed time yet to float this far. Inside harf a hour we kin spect to see the runaway, if it stays as light as it is naow.”

Frank had not been looking in the same quarter as the others, who seemed to have taken it for granted that the houseboat, when she appeared, would be found far out on the flood.

He cast his eye closer to the shore that stretched away toward the north, until it became dim and uncertain in the starlight; for the heavens were now clear from horizon to horizon, and the air wonderfully pure after the thunder squall of the earlier evening.

“I think I see her coming up yonder, boys!” said Frank, as he pointed a trembling finger, to assist his chums locate the dark moving blur that had just caught his eye a little distance above the spot where they sat in the wagon.

CHAPTER XV – ON BOARD THE POT LUCK AGAIN

“Frank, you’re right!” exclaimed the delighted Will.

“It’s the Pot Luck, as sure as you’re born!” cried Bluff.

“But she’ll just sail past us, fellows, and give us the merry ha! ha! How are we going to coax her to come in here?” Jerry asked, anxiously.

Frank was already pulling off his shoes, and making ready as if to take a swim.

“Leave that to me, boys,” he said, hastily, but with something in his voice that told his chums he would not be denied. “I’ll get aboard without much trouble. Here, take my clothes, and follow along the road in the wagon. Once on deck I’ll open the cabin with the key I’ll hold between my teeth when in the water. Then you can see the lantern I’ll light.”

“Will you throw the anchor over, Frank?” asked Bluff, wishing it had fallen to him to do this little affair; for Bluff was always willing to undertake any sort of hazardous task, either for fun or to accommodate a chum.

“I hope to work the big sweep first, and see if I can get her in to the shore alone,” came the reply, as Frank made ready to plunge into the rushing river at the proper moment.

“And if you can’t manage it, you’ll heave the anchor over, and come for us in the little skiff?” asked Will.

“Sure I will, after I get some dry clothes on; because by that time I’ll be feeling pretty cold. Here goes, fellows!” and Frank stepped into the dark waters of the Mississippi as unconcernedly as though he might be just meaning to enjoy a bath.

“Good luck!” shouted out Bluff; while the others added their blessing in various ways, each according to his own mind.

The floating houseboat was now nearby, and coming on at a fair speed, though, of course, the current was not nearly so swift close to the shore as further out toward the middle of the stream.

Eagerly the three chums and Seth watched to see if they could tell when the bold swimmer reached the drifting craft. They could not exactly make him out; but in the starlight there was some sort of disturbance on the water, which they believed must mark his progress.

Then the runaway houseboat passed them, about sixty or eighty feet away; and Will’s heart seemed almost in his throat with suspense as he strained his eyes to catch the welcome sight of Frank clambering aboard once more, to assume command.

“Hoop-la! there he goes!” suddenly shouted Bluff, whose vision proved the keenest after all.

Plainly now they all saw something white climbing up the side of the houseboat, and rolling over on the deck. Immediately afterward the big sweep was seen to begin to swing, and move through the water.

“Frank’s doing it!” cried the delighted Will, who had almost perfect confidence in the ability of Frank Langdon to accomplish any task that human ingenuity could perform.

“Into the wagon again, boys, and let’s follow him!” called Jerry, turning to make a rush toward the nearby road; and the others were at his heels, stumbling along “any old way,” as Bluff said, in order to reach the waiting horses as soon as possible.

Here and there the road came so close to the bank that they could look out; and with so many eager eyes on the alert it was not long before the floating houseboat was discovered again.

“She’s some closer, boys, as sure as anything; isn’t that so, Bluff – Jerry?” demanded Will.

“Frank’s doing it, all right,” answered the latter; “but it must be an awful job, handling that big sweep all by himself. And I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he gave it up soon.”

“Yes,” added Bluff, “it’d be a heap sight easier just to kick the anchor overboard and come to bring us off in the skiff, one at a time.”

“Say, you guessed it the fust shot, mister,” said the farmer just then; and all of them heard a big splash out on the river.

“She’s stopped, fellows!” shrieked Will. “Isn’t Frank the dandy one though for getting there. Now, give him a little time to hunt up some more clothes, and he’ll be after us.”

Will was as delighted over the changed aspect of things as a little boy with his first pair of long trousers, Bluff told him. But, indeed, all of them were pleased, even more than they would admit, because of the improved prospect before them.

The minutes dragged along. They finally saw a movement aboard the houseboat, and then the skiff, which had been hauled out on deck and secured for the night before they took that wild run in the direction of the fire, was dropped overboard.

“That’s good!” said Will, when they understood this fact; “because, you see, I was just a little bothered about that skiff. If it had been blown overboard and lost in the storm, what would we do then, boys?”

“Just what Frank did,” sang out Jerry, gaily; “swim for the boat; only in our case we’d have to make bundles of our clothes, and fasten ’em to the top of our heads to keep ’em dry. But here he comes, rowing after us.”

Frank soon landed, and his chums insisted in shaking hands with him as though he had been off on a perilous duty, instead of taking a little dip, Frank declared.

“Will, you go first,” said Jerry, generously.

“The boat will hold two, besides the rower, so you come along, too, Jerry; I’ll be back for Bluff; and if Seth will tie his horses and come aboard, we’ll be glad to have him,” Frank called out.

“Jest what Seth’s goin’ to do, fellers,” remarked the young farmer; who had taken quite an interest in these wide-awake boys from the North, and was very glad of any chance to see how they lived aboard the houseboat, which took his fancy very much.

So the ferry did double duty, and the entire party finally reached the deck of the anchoredPot Luck. Jerry and Will had managed to light the big lamp and the second lantern while Frank was absent on his second trip, so that the interior of the cabin looked particularly cheery to the boys, after their recent experience.

Jerry was also now busily engaged in starting a fire in the little rusty stove; for as they had managed to get somewhat wet during the storm, it would do them no harm to experience the genial heat that soon began to emanate from the stove.

The countryman was soon asking scores of questions, which the boys answered to the best of their ability. He wanted to know everything, and was seen many times to shake his head, and sigh heavily; as though he would have given much for the privilege of an outing after this style.

As the boys felt that they were deeply indebted to Seth, they insisted on his accepting the five dollars promised by Frank, though he seemed ashamed to take pay for what little he had done, and protested that it had given him the greatest pleasure he had known for a long time.

“Buy something for the old lady, then,” said Frank, as he pushed the bill into Seth’s vest pocket.

“Or some young lady, if there happens to be one, Seth!” said Jerry, giving the countryman a friendly poke in the ribs.

“Well, if you just make me take it, boys, I reckon I must,” Seth remarked, seeing that they would not take no for an answer; “and I’m a-goin’ to write you arter you get back home, to tell you jest what I did buy with that five dollars, and what she thort of it. ’Cause, you see, I must hear haow you fetched up, away daown in Orleans; and what happened to you on the way.”

“And we’ll make sure that you do, Seth,” Frank assured him; for he had taken quite a fancy to the strapping young farmer, who seemed an honest fellow, and a hard worker as well. “I’ve got your post office address on the rural free delivery route, and you’ll hear from me more than once while we drift down South. But here’s Jerry gone and made a nice pot of hot coffee; stop long enough to have a cup with us; won’t you, Seth?”

“Doan’t keer if I do,” replied the other, briskly, once more seating himself. “She smells right fine, I tell you, fellers. I’ll never forgit this naow. Allers did hev a sneakin’ ijee I’d like to take a trip on a shantyboat daown to Orleans, an’ I jest envies you the chanct.”

“Well, suppose you fix it up, and take your honeymoon trip that way, Seth,” proposed Jerry, mischievously; but to the surprise of them all Seth slapped a big hand on his knee and exploded with a delighted cry.

“Say, that’s the very ijee; funny I never did think o’ it myself,” he declared. “I’ll talk it over with Mirandy to-morry night, sure. In the fall we hev potatoes to sell, and I kin load up a boat, and kerry ’em daown South to sell. That’s a bully ijee, Jerry. I’ll do it, sure as shootin’!”

They were all sorry to see Seth go over the side, Jerry volunteering to ferry the young farmer ashore. Short as their acquaintance with him had been, the honest fellow had seemed to take a great fancy to all the voyagers; and they knew they would always remember him with pleasure.

And so, after all, no real damage had resulted from the exciting events of that night. The run to the fire; the terrible storm that overtook them on their return; the discovery of the absence of the houseboat; and the wild chase, ending in Frank’s swimming out, and boarding the drifting craft – all these things would form the subject for many a camp fire talk in the future.

But the chances were that none of the boys would remember that one crash of lightning that seemed to dazzle their eyes, and the awful crash of thunder actually accompanying it, without feeling thankful deep down in their hearts that Frank had been wise enough to forbid the halt under the seemingly friendly branches of the big tree; because Seth afterwards wrote them that it had indeed been shattered to pieces by the electric bolt, and some of the splintered parts scattered over a distance of sixty feet.

So a period of peace followed the tumult of fire and gale; and if the tired boys woke up at all during the balance of that eventful night, it was only to feel that all was well; for the gurgle of the river against the end of the staunch houseboat and the sigh of the night wind were the only sounds that came to their ears.