Smith Ruel Perley
The Rival Campers: or, The Adventures of Henry Burns

Over hills and through woods ran Harvey, his arms pressed close to his sides and his head down. He had gone about a mile in this way when, upon emerging from a dense clump of bushes and ascending at the same time a little hill, he paused to survey the prospect ahead.

The sight that met his eyes astounded him. Up against the black morning sky there streamed a broad flaring of red, irregular and uncertain. Now it streamed up in a widely diffused glare. Again it darted up in a series of sharp streaks of red.

“Heavens!” cried Harvey. “It’s the hotel and it’s all on fire! Now I know it’s Chambers, for certain. Now I know why he struck me down. Now I know what we’ll hunt him for and what we’ll catch him for.”

Harvey, redoubling his speed, raced for his camp.

While this strange chase of Harvey after the man had been going on, even more exciting things had been happening at the hotel.

Shortly before the time the man had run into Harvey in the pasture and knocked him down, the boys had finished an absorbing game of billiards, had put cues and balls carefully away, extinguished the lights, and left the hotel.

They were in high spirits at their harmless adventure, as they walked a short distance together, and then separated.

“I think I’ll go along with you,” said Henry Burns to Tom and Bob, “if you’ll give me that spare blanket to put down on the floor.” And the boys locked arms with him in answer, as they said good night to the Warrens. They were soon inside the tent, and, too weary to undress, threw themselves down with their clothes on to sleep.

But scarcely had they closed their eyes when the sound of persons running hard roused them, and they recognized the voices of the Warren boys, calling to them in excited tones.

The next moment the tent was burst open, and George and Joe Warren thrust their heads inside.

“Get up! Get up, boys, quick!” they cried, and Arthur, appearing the next instant, added his voice to the others. “Hurry!” they screamed. “The hotel’s afire and the flames are pouring out of the basement windows. We’ve got to give the alarm, and there’s no time to be lost.”

Tom and Bob and Henry Burns groaned in anguish; but the three sprang up and darted out of the door.

“Could we have done it? Oh, how could it have happened?” moaned Bob, as his teeth fairly chattered with excitement.

“I don’t see how,” answered Arthur Warren. “I put the lights out myself, and we didn’t light a match in all the time we were there.”

“Never mind,” said Henry Burns. “We’ve got to give the alarm. We’ve got to see that everybody gets out, and let the rest take care of itself.”

And they started on the run for the hotel. The fire was already plain to be seen, for the flames were gaining the most rapid headway, and a dense cloud of smoke mixed with flame poured out of the basement windows.

They rushed madly up the hotel steps, found the doors locked, smashed in one of the big front windows opening into the parlour, and one and all crawled inside, screaming “Fire!” at the top of their lungs.

Almost the first person they encountered was Colonel Witham, rushing down the front stairs to the office, his red face looking apoplectic with excitement.

“What’s this?” he yelled, as he came down-stairs two steps at a time. “Some more of your practical joking, I’ll be bound.” But then, as he breathed a choking cloud of smoke that by this time had begun to pour in from the direction of the parlour, he changed his tone.

“Good for you, boys!” he cried. “I guess you’ve saved us this time. Scatter through the halls now, quick. You can do it quicker than I can. We mustn’t let any one burn to death.”

The colonel was, indeed, out of breath and nearly helpless, and could be of little assistance.

The boys needed no urging. They ran from one end of the long halls to the other, up-stairs and down, pounding on every door and startling the inmates of the rooms from sleep.

The guests, rushing out on each floor into darkened halls, and smelling the all-pervading smoke, were ready to jump from windows in panic; but the boys ran quickly among them, explained just where the fire was, just what the particular danger was, and guided them all to escape.

Thanks to them, not a life was lost, although there were several narrow escapes. Once when the guests had assembled and a count was taken to see that no one was missing, some one exclaimed: “Well, where’s Mrs. Newcome? Has any one seen her?”

Then there was a rush and a scurrying for the second floor, but the guests were met on the stairs by Joe Warren and Tom Harris, carrying the little old lady in their arms. They had knocked at her door and had received no response, and so, hurling themselves at the flimsy door, had burst it in, and found her on the floor in a dead faint.

“Perhaps this will kind of square accounts with the poor old lady,” said Joe Warren, as they laid her gently down at a safe distance from the fire. “She used to complain that we made more noise than a band of wild Indians, and were always disturbing her afternoon naps, but I guess she won’t complain of our disturbing this nap.” Then the boys left her in the care of the guests, and hurried back to the fire.

The fire had gained rapid headway, and there was no hope of saving the new part of the hotel, at least. The old-fashioned town fire-engine came rattling up in charge of Captain Sam, but, though the guests and villagers and the boys all took turns at the pumps, the machine could do little more than throw a feeble stream up as high as the base of the second-story windows. The water-supply of the hotel, which was pumped by a windmill at a distance, was of more avail, but it was helpless against the headway that the flames had gained.

Soon the whole front end of the hotel collapsed, sending up a fierce cloud of smoke, ashes, and sparks.

“Lucky we’re not in there now,” exclaimed one of the guests. “By the way, has anybody stopped to think that we should all probably have been burned to death if it hadn’t been for these boys that we’ve been complaining of all summer? Guess we’ll owe them a vote of thanks, at least, when this is over.”

“We can’t be too thankful that everybody’s saved,” said another.

“That all may be,” growled Colonel Witham, “but I can’t see so much to be thankful for in watching a twenty-five thousand dollar hotel burn to pieces, and I’ve got the lease of it – ” But his sentence was interrupted by a piercing wail that came from the scene of the fire, and, following the sound of the noise, one and all looked up in time to see a large, handsome tiger cat leap from a window from which smoke was pouring to a narrow ledge which was as yet untouched by the flames. There it crouched, crying with fear.

“Oh, it’s poor Jerry! It’s my poor Jerry!” cried a thin, piping voice, and old Mrs. Newcome, roused from her faint, came forward, trembling and waving her hands helplessly. “Oh, can’t somebody save him?” she cried. “He knows more than lots of these boys. Why don’t somebody do something?”

“Can’t erzactly see as anybody’s goin’ ter risk his life for a fool cat,” muttered one of the villagers. “There ain’t no ladder’ll reach up there. Guess Jerry’s a goner, and lucky it ain’t a baby.”

Waving her hands wildly and moaning, Jerry’s old mistress was a pathetic sight, as Henry Burns went up and spoke to her.

“I’m afraid I can’t do much,” he said, “but I’ll try. You just wait here, and don’t take on so. I know some things about climbing around this hotel that the others don’t.” And he gave a quiet smile. Then he suddenly darted across to the old hotel, and, before any one could stop him, disappeared up the stairs. Wholly unmindful of the fact that a human being was risking his life for that of a dumb animal, old Mrs. Newcome took fresh hope and screamed shrilly, in words intended to encourage the terrified Jerry.

All at once the crowd of guests and villagers saw a boy’s slight figure at the edge of the hotel roof in relief against the sky.

“Who’s that?” they screamed. “I thought every one was safely out,” cried one to another.

“It’s that Burns boy, and he’s going to save Jerry,” piped old Mrs. Newcome. “He’s – ”

A howl of indignation drowned her voice, and a chorus of voices rose up to Henry Burns, demanding that he return.

But, helpless now to prevent, they saw him coolly divest himself of his coat, seize hold of a lightning-rod, and go hand over hand quickly to the top. Then he stood for a moment on the only remaining wall of the hotel, for the rest of the roof, though not yet aflame, had caved in and broken partly away from the end wall.

Along this narrow strip of wall crept Henry Burns; but when he had come to the end of it there was a sheer drop of ten feet down to the ledge where the cat crouched, wailing and lashing its tail.

“Go back! Go back!” screamed those below. “You can’t do anything.”

But Henry Burns, paying not the least attention, reached one hand into his pocket, drew from it a piece of rope, which he proceeded to lower till it dangled within reach of the unfortunate Jerry.

“Grab it, Jerry! Grab it!” piped old Mrs. Newcome; and, whether in answer to the familiar voice or from an appreciation of the situation, Jerry fastened his claws into the rope, clawed at it furiously till all four feet were fast, and so, miaowing shrilly, was drawn up to safety by Henry Burns.

Back along the wall he crawled, and, sliding down the lightning-rod, was once more on the roof of the old hotel. Then, with Mrs. Newcome’s cat perched on his shoulder, he shortly reappeared below, amid the cheering of the crowd.

“I’ll never say you boys are bad again and ought to be horsewhipped,” sobbed old Mrs. Newcome, as she fondled her pet.

But she got no farther, for a moment later the end wall, on which Henry Burns had stood shortly before, was seen to sway violently. Then, with a wrenching and tearing, as of beams split apart, and with grinding of timbers, it collapsed upon the roof of the old hotel, and a few minutes later that, too, was all ablaze, and there was nought to be done by any one but to stand helplessly and see the flames devour everything.

When morning lighted up the spot where on the previous day the hotel had stood, the pride of the village and the boast of Colonel Witham, the sun shone only on a charred and blackened heap of ruins.

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE FLIGHT

Southport, rudely awakened from sleep as it had been, and awake all the rest of the night by so unusual and stirring an event as a fire, was too much excited to go back to its slumbers, but stayed awake through the morning hours to discuss it. A group of villagers hung around the grocery-store all day long, adjourning only now and then to journey to the spot where the hotel had been, where they stood solemnly contemplating the ruins, with all-absorbing interest in the twisted and distorted fragments that still bore some resemblance to whatever part they had constituted in the structure of the building.

There were dozens of theories advanced as to how the fire had started. The oil had exploded from spontaneous combustion; rats had set the blaze by gnawing at matches, and so on through the list of ordinary causes of fires; but as for Colonel Witham, with his customary suspicion of all human nature, he was sure of one theory, because it was his own, and that was, that the hotel had been set on fire. This he doggedly asserted and as stubbornly maintained. The hotel could not have set itself afire; therefore, some one must have done it. This was as plain as daylight to the colonel.

He fiercely questioned John Carr as to whether any lights had been left burning, but John Carr was loud and persistent in his assurances that the hotel had been as dark as Egypt when he had retired for the night.

But throughout all the discussion, that ranged through cottages, along the streets, and that spread throughout the length and breadth of the island, there were six boys who were silent, who took no part in it, but who kept away from wherever a group was gathered.

They were a serious-looking lot of boys as they assembled on the shore in front of the tent; so much of anxiety and apprehension showing unconcealed in their faces that one happening upon their council might have read therein a key to the mystery. It would have been a mistaken clue, of course, but it would have sufficed for the village and for Colonel Witham.

For a few moments not one of them spoke, though each boyish brain was turning the one awful subject over and over, vainly seeking the answer for a problem that defied all attempts at solution.

Finally Bob broke the awful silence.

“How could it have happened?” he exclaimed. At which there was a universal whistle and a shaking of heads.

“You see,” continued Bob, “it’s absolutely necessary for us to decide in our own minds, the first thing, whether it was our fault or not. Because, if it was, I suppose we’ve got to own up to it sometime or other, and we may as well do it first as last.”

“Better now, if at all, than later,” said Tom. “They might have some mercy on us now, being grateful that they didn’t burn up.”

“All but Colonel Witham,” said young Joe. “Catch him being grateful for anything, with his hotel in ashes.”

“Keep quiet, Joe!” exclaimed George Warren, sharply.

The very mention of Colonel Witham’s name was irritating. It was only too certain that no mercy could be expected from the colonel.

“But,” said Arthur Warren, “we’re not to blame, so why should we consider that at all? You remember,” he continued, turning to Henry Burns, “how we waited after I had blown the last lamp out and the room was absolutely dark, and we had to stand still a moment till our eyes got accustomed to the darkness before we could find our way to the window?”

“I remember that,” answered Henry Burns; “and not one of us lighted any matches all the time we were there, because the lamps were all burning dimly when we went in; but,” he added, somewhat desperately for him, “that is not going to save us the moment an investigation begins, if they have one. The first time they begin to question one of us we’re done for. The moment they know we were in there last night, that will settle everything in their minds.”

“And what then?” asked young Joe.

“Well,” said Henry Burns, more calmly, “it means that we’ve got a twenty-five thousand dollar hotel to pay for.”

The proposition was so absurd that they burst out laughing; but it was a short-lived and bitter merriment, and they could just as easily have cried.

“What would our fathers say?” said Arthur Warren. “Ours told us we’d have to make our pocket-money go a long way this summer, because he rigged the boat all over for us. There couldn’t any of us pay for the hotel in all our lives.”

“Perhaps they’d send us to jail,” suggested young Joe.

This happy remark was received with howls of indignation, and the originator of it was invited to clear out if he couldn’t keep quiet.

“They couldn’t send us to jail,” said Arthur, gravely, “for, at the worst, we could convince them that it was accidental. We may be nuisances, but we’re not criminals. Wouldn’t it be better, on the whole,” he concluded, “to make a clean breast of it to father, and do whatever he says is best?”

“I’d do it in a minute,” said George Warren, “but when I know we didn’t set the fire, even accidentally, I hate to put all that trouble and worry on father; because, you see, we might not be able to convince him absolutely that we may not, in some way that we don’t know of, have been responsible. Of course, if it comes to it, we’ll tell him all, – and he’ll believe it, too. That is, he’ll believe that we are telling what we think is right, for we’ve always done that way, because he puts confidence in us.”

“Then,” said Bob, “we’ve got to keep out of the way for awhile till this thing blows over some. Everybody that sees us now will stop and ask us how we first saw the fire and all about it.”

“They’ve done that already to us,” said George Warren. “And, luckily, we could say truthfully that we first saw the fire from our cottage piazza. And we said we ran down to your camp and roused you boys. Now that is all right for a touch-and-go conversation, but suppose they see fit to follow it up, we’ll soon find ourselves either obliged to lie or to confess.”

“Then what are we going to do?” asked Tom.

“Take a fishing-trip,” suggested young Joe.

They looked at young Joe savagely, for each knew in his own heart that it was running away from danger, – but it was significant that not a boy objected.

“We’ve been planning one for a week or more,” urged Joe, in extenuation of his plan. “And we needn’t stay long. We can come back in a day or two and then start right out again, so as not to attract attention by being gone too long.”

“I suppose a little trip down among the islands wouldn’t be so bad for our health,” said Henry Burns, dryly; but it was clear he had no great liking for the plan.

And so, in a vain endeavour to escape from what seemed to them a most unfair and cruel predicament, and without realizing that it was the worst thing they could do, the boys agreed to start early on the following morning in the Spray for a cruise.

Much surprised was Mrs. Warren when informed of their plan.

“And just as everybody is telling what brave boys you were,” she said. “They all say that half the guests would have lost their lives if it hadn’t been for you.”

This was worse than punishment, and the boys groaned inwardly, for Mrs. Warren had taught her boys to respect her, and they valued her good opinion more than anything else in the world. They went off to bed soon after supper, “so as to get an early start in the morning,” they said.

It was early that same evening, while the boys were at tea, that Squire Brackett stepped ashore from his sailboat in a perfect fever of excitement.

“I knew it and I said it,” he muttered to himself, slapping one hard fist into the palm of the other hand. “When I saw that blaze across the water this morning, and knew that it couldn’t be anything else than the hotel, I says to myself, ‘Those boys have done it, with some of their monkey-shines,’ and that’s just the way of it. By Jingo! but won’t Colonel Witham jump out of his skin when I tell him what I saw through that window.

“P’r’aps them ’ere boys won’t be’ so much inclined to tying other people’s dogs to ropes and drowning them when they get caught for setting fire to a fine hotel!”

And so, nearly bursting with the magnitude of his secret, and bristling with more than his usual importance, Squire Brackett hurried up from the landing and lost no time in finding Colonel Witham and escorting him in great haste to his own home.

There on the veranda of Squire Brackett’s house sat the two worthies, while the squire poured out his news into the eager colonel’s ear.

“Whew!” exclaimed Colonel Witham, when he had heard it all. “We’ve got them at last and no mistake. What’s more,” he added, jumping from his chair and stamping vigorously on the piazza floor, “I’ll prosecute them, every mother’s son, to the extent of the law. It’s breaking and entering, too, – forcing their way into my hotel at night, – and the fire was caused by their criminal act. That’s serious business, as they’ll find before I get through with them. Blow me if I don’t take the boat for Mayville this very night, and see Judge Ellis and get the warrants for Captain Sam to serve first thing in the morning!”

“I’ll go with you, colonel,” cried Squire Brackett. “We’ll be back here before midnight, and be all ready at daylight to arrest them. Reckon we’ll surprise folks a little.”

And so, chuckling maliciously together, the squire and the colonel waited eagerly for the whistle of the little bay steamer, upon hearing which they walked arm and arm down to the wharf and went aboard, with their heads together, in great satisfaction.

Their trip must have been greatly to their liking, for some hours later found them coming ashore again, evidently in a most agreeable state of mind; and as they bade each other good night on the veranda of the squire’s cottage, the colonel might have been heard once more to exclaim, exultantly: “We’ve got ’em this time, squire! They can’t get away.” And so strode away, caressing in one hand some crisp, official-looking papers, which boded no good in their contents to six boys whose names the colonel had given with evil delight to the judge at Mayville.

Very early next morning good-hearted Captain Sam might have been seen at the door of his home, his fist clenched and his face burning with indignation. Colonel Witham and Squire Brackett stood by the stoop.

“Now look here, colonel,” exclaimed Captain Sam, hotly, “you surely ain’t going to ask me to serve these papers on them innocent young lads? There’s some mistake, somehow, and the way for us to do is to get them up here and just give them a talking to; ask them all the questions you want. I’ve watched them boys for a good many summers now, ever since they was little shavers no bigger’n mackerel, and I tell you they wouldn’t do no wicked thing like setting fire to a hotel full of people, and there ain’t nobody on this island mean enough to believe it.”

“We didn’t come here asking you for advice,” sneered the squire. “You’re a constable of this village, sworn to do your duty, and your duty is to serve these warrants, the same being legally drawn and signed by the judge. That’s all your part, and all we ask of you to do. We take all the consequences.”

“Well, it’s a shame. It ain’t the right thing to do, squire, as you ought to know, having a boy of your own. But, as you say, it’s my duty if you insist, and I’ll do it, – but it’s the hardest job I ever done in all my life.”

“Let’s go down to the tent first,” said Colonel Witham. “There’s always two of them down there, and sometimes more. If Henry Burns is there, I just want to get my hands on him. I suspect he’s been fooling me all along and playing his tricks on me, when I thought him in his room asleep.”

The dew was still heavy on the grass and the sun had not lifted its face above the distant cape when the three men walked down to the tent upon the point. Not a sound broke the early morning quiet, save the cawing of some crows in a group of pines, and the lazy swash of the sluggish rollers breaking on the shore.

“They’re fast asleep,” whispered Squire Brackett. “We’ll give them a little surprise – just a little surprise.” And he gave a hard chuckle.

Captain Sam, at this same instant, casting his eyes offshore and hastily surveying the bay with the quick, comprehensive glance of an old sailor, gave a sudden start, and, for a moment, an exclamation of surprise escaped him.

“What is it?” asked Colonel Witham. “Did you remark anything, Captain Sam?”

“Nothing,” answered Captain Sam. “I was just a-muttering to myself.”

And at this moment the squire threw open the flap of the tent, saying, as he did so, “If you boys will – ”

But as he and Colonel Witham poked their heads through the opening, the sentence was abruptly cut short.

“Empty!” gasped the colonel.

“Gone!” cried the squire.

The tent was, indeed, deserted.

“Where can they be?” asked Colonel Witham.

“I know,” answered the squire. “Up at the Warrens, of course. They are there half the time. It simply means we capture them all at once and save trouble. Come on, Captain Sam, you don’t seem to be in much of a hurry to do your duty, as you’re sworn to do.”

Captain Sam was, indeed, in no hurry. He loitered behind, stopped to tie his shoes, dragged one foot along after the other slower than he had ever done before, while every now and then, as he followed in the footsteps of the colonel and the squire, he cast a hasty glance over his shoulder out on the bay. What he saw must have pleased him, for on each occasion a broad smile spread over his face and a mischievous twinkle kindled in his eyes.

The colonel and the squire strode along impatiently, pausing now and then for Captain Sam to catch up with them; but as they drew near to the Warren cottage Captain Sam quickened his steps and halted them.

“You two will have to stay here,” he said, with an authority he had not shown before. “I’m commissioned with the serving of these warrants, and I’m going to do it; but Mrs. Warren is a nice, motherly little woman, and I don’t propose to have three of us bursting in on them like a press-gang and frightening her to death. I’m just going to break the news to her as best I know how, and I don’t want no interfering.”

So saying, and with face set into a reluctant resolve, the captain walked on alone, leaving the colonel and the squire much taken aback, and too much astonished by the sudden declaration of authority to attempt to dispute it.

What Captain Sam said to Mrs. Warren only she and he knew. There were no boys called in to listen to what was said. There were no boys there to see how Mrs. Warren’s face paled and how the tears rolled down her cheeks, nor to hear Captain Sam’s words of burning indignation as he tried to comfort her. No boys came to gather about her chair, to assure her it was all a dreadful mistake. There were no boys to face the colonel and the squire and declare their own innocence.

But out on the bay, with all her white sails set to catch the morning breeze, the yacht Spray was beating down toward a distant goal among the islands. And aboard her were six boys, whose hearts were heavy and whose faces were drawn with an ever present anxiety. For a time they cast apprehensive looks back at the disappearing village, but as the morning wore on and no pursuing sail appeared, they became more cheerful; and to forget so far as they could the real cause of their flight, they talked hopefully of the fish they expected to catch and the swimming and other sport along the white sands of the island beaches.

But although no familiar craft as yet followed where they sailed, there was, far in the lead of them and some miles down along the island, a yacht they all knew, and in whose mission, had they but known it, their deepest interests, their very fate, in fact, lay.

Jack Harvey had lost little time in reaching his camp. While he ran the fire blazed brighter and brighter, sending an angry glare over the waters of the bay and lighting up the country around. Looking back now and then, he could see men and women running about in the light of the fire, and the frantic, though unavailing, efforts of the village fire department to stay the flames.

“Seems funny,” he muttered to himself, “to be running away from a fire, and the greatest fire we ever had on this island at that. I never did such a thing before, but I guess there’ll be something more exciting ahead than a fire before we get through.”

Harvey found his camp deserted, as he had expected. Not a sign of life showed about the place.

“They’re all up to the fire,” said Harvey; “but I’ll bring them soon enough, though I reckon they’ll be mad at first to have to leave when the fire is just at its best.”

And he began ransacking the camp, rolling up blankets, tying them into compact bundles and hurrying down to the shore with them, where he deposited them in a rowboat.

He made a pile of the rude dishes that the camp afforded, a saucepan, a fry-pan, tin dippers, and a few tin plates, tying them all together in a bundle and rattling them all down to the shore in great haste.

Finally he got a boatload of the stuff, and, jumping in, sculled the little craft out to the Surprise. Leaping aboard, he rushed down into the cabin, threw open a locker, drew forth a big tin horn, which he raised to his lips, and blew four loud, long blasts in succession.

“The hurry signal will surprise them, I reckon,” he exclaimed; “but they’ve always answered it before, and I guess they’ll come, – even from a fire.” And Harvey began stowing the stuff away aboard the yacht. Then he proceeded to untie the stops in the mainsail, and was thus engaged when a voice hailed him from the shore.

“Halloo, Jack!” came the call. “What’s the matter? Why aren’t you up to the fire? What’s up?”

“Wait a minute,” answered Harvey. “I’m coming ashore. Are the others on the way?”

“Yes,” answered the boy on shore, who proved to be Joe Hinman; “but they don’t like it a bit. It’s a shame to lose this fire, Jack. Why, you ought to see Colonel Witham. He’s the craziest man I ever saw, running around and begging everybody he sees to rush into the blaze and save his old office furniture.”

“Well, Joe,” said Harvey, as he stepped out of the small boat on to the beach, beside the other, “we’ve got some work cut out for us that beats watching a fire all to pieces. I’ll tell you all about it, but there isn’t one half-minute to lose now. Believe me, you fellows won’t regret it, – hello, here are the others!”

The three other members of the crew, George Baker, Allan Harding, and Tim Reardon, burst out of the woods into the clearing, gasping from running, and amazed beyond expression that Harvey should have called them from the fire.

“Fellows,” said Harvey, “I’ll tell you the whole story just as soon as we get aboard and up sail. This is the greatest thing we ever did in all our lives; but it’s the minutes that count now, and we have got to get under way the quickest we ever did yet.”

And then, as the boys hesitated, and Joe Hinman ventured the question, with something of suspicion in his tone that he could not all conceal, “Why, Jack, there’s no trouble, is there – no trouble – about the fire?” it suddenly dawned on Harvey that this sudden departure did have a queer look to it, and that he was, indeed, open to their suspicion.

“Yes,” he cried, “there is trouble, and it’s about this fire; but it isn’t our trouble. The trouble is for the man that set it, – and we are going to make it for him. We’re going to catch him. Now will you hurry?”

“Will we?” exclaimed George Baker. “Just watch us!”

And every boy made a dash for the camp to secure anything he might need on a cruise down the bay.

Harvey and Joe Hinman seized two big jugs and made off for the spring, whence they returned quickly. Then the entire crew piling into the small boat, they were soon aboard the Surprise.