Chapter XIV A Lively Time
“You don’t mean it, Rex?” asked Midkiff, seriously. Cloudman and Hicks were open mouthed.
The motorboat began to sputter. They saw Quibb pottering about in her cockpit, the red spark of his cigarette showing plainly as the boat moved slowly out from the island.
She had crossed not more than a cable’s length of the placid sound when there was a dull pop and a flare of light. Enos Quibb squealed affrightedly and tumbled sternward, seemingly surrounded by a halo of flame.
“Great Scott!” shouted Cloudman, bounding shoreward. “He’s touched off his gas tank with that fool cigarette!”
What had caused the explosion aboard the motorboat did not matter. It was the effect that held the attention of the Walcott Hall boys, who stampeded to the edge of the water after Cloudman. Before any of them reached the shore, Enos Quibb had pitched backward still yelling, over the boat’s stern, and disappeared under the surface of the water.
The boat, now well alight, kept on its way across the sound. There was no other craft in sight save the boats belonging to the two parties of campers on Storm Island.
Kingdon’s wits were quite as active in this emergency as they were while he was bandying words with the unfortunate constable. He hesitated not an instant in hauling on the mooring line of the Spoondrift.
“Come on!” he commanded. “Get aboard and help me up with a hand’s breadth of sail, you fellows. Maybe Quibb will drown if we don’t look sharp.”
“In this calm sea?” sniffed Midkiff, though first to assist his friend.
“You can’t tell. Maybe he can’t swim.”
“He doesn’t seem able even to float,” squealed little Hicks. “I don’t see him come up.”
“Keep your eye on the place he went down—hullo! Blacky to the rescue!” exclaimed Rex suddenly.
One of the canoes was darting from the direction of the other camp, and Horace Pence, alone in it, was making his paddle fly. Before Kingdon and his mates were fairly aboard the catboat the canoe was over the spot where Enos Quibb had disappeared.
“He’ll get him, King,” said Cloudman.
“No chance for us doing the rescue act,” Rex observed.
“Get a move on, you fellows!” commanded Rex. “Never know what may happen——”
“There he is!” shouted Hicks from the shore. “He’s come up.”
“There’s a pretty breeze,” said Kingdon. “Up with the sail! I wish I’d tinkered with this old engine instead of fooling around on shore to-day.”
Midkiff gave the flywheel a sharp turn. The spark began to sputter.
“What’s the matter with that?” cried Red. “And she pos-i-tive-ly refused to say a word out there when that squall struck us yesterday.”
“Great!” laughed Kingdon. “Give her some gas. That’s the boy! Never mind the sheet.”
The Spoondrift began to move, and Kingdon shoved the tiller down. Hicks shouted again from the shore:
“That man’s goin’ to have him overboard! There—she—blo-o-ows!”
The constable, perhaps more frightened than hurt, had come to the surface, blowing bubbles and sputtering like a bad exhaust. The moment the canoe came within reach, he had seized its gunwale.
Only one thing could happen then—to a canoe. She dipped and shipped several buckets of water. Pence began to bawl:
“Wait! Let me give you a hand, you idiot! Don’t tip her like that.”
But Enos Quibb bore his weight on the frail craft, and he was heavier—with all the water he had swallowed—than Horace. The latter could not balance the fragile craft, and, just as little Hicks let out his bellow, the canoe went over, and the black-browed youth was shot in a perfect parabola over the head of the sinking constable.
The latter went down again. It was plain that water was not his natural element. He remained under longer than Pence; but when he came to the surface for the second time, Pence seized him.
“Now we’ll see some fun,” prophesied Phillips as the Spoondrift slowly moved toward the spot. “Quibby has lost his head completely.”
“And no great loss,” muttered Midkiff. “Maybe he’d get some sense.”
“Hush! Hush! This is a serious moment,” breathed Kingdon, manipulating the tiller with care.
And it was a serious moment for the two struggling in the water. Quibb got a strangle hold almost immediately on Horace Pence, and they went under. Pence was a strong swimmer, but a person needs a chance to breathe if he is going to do anything in the water.
Their heads again showed above the surface, and the constable let out a gurgling yell. Horace was grimly silent. In that very exciting moment Kingdon felt a thrill of admiration for the leader of the other camping party.
“Hit him a clump on the head!” shouted Red Phillips, leaning over the catboat’s rail as she approached the imperiled pair.
Horace, however, was in no position to do that. He had his right arm around the constable, holding his head above water; and, as the man continued to struggle, his rescuer needed his other hand, as well as his feet, to paddle with. Besides, to strike a really heavy blow while in the water is all but impossible.
“Here, Mid! Take the hel-lum!” cried Kingdon.
He had already kicked off his canvas shoes. As his roommate seized the tiller, Rex poised on the dipping rail and took a long dive. He merely skimmed under the surface of the water, rising directly beside the overturned canoe.
“‘Ray! Rex! King! King!” cheered Peewee from the shore. “That’s the lad!”
Midkiff brought the catboat sharply around, and shut off the engine. Kingdon had seized the now weakly struggling Quibb.
“Let him go—I’ve got him,” he advised Horace Pence. “The boys will give you a hand over the rail, and then we’ll get this fellow aboard.”
But Pence needed no help, once freed of the incubus of Enos Quibb. He scrambled aboard, while Kingdon raised the constable so Red and Cloudman could get hold of him.
“Oh, boys! boys!” gasped Enos. “I’m drownded!”
Kingdon was laughing at him as he climbed aboard. “You would have been, all right, if it hadn’t been for Blacky here,” he said. “You want to remember him in your will, Mr. Squibb.”
“Quibb,” corrected Enos faintly.
“Excuse me, Fibb. Hold on, Pence! Where you going?” asked the Walcott Hall youth as the black-browed one started forward with the boathook.
“Want to spear that canoe. I can get her over—and yonder’s the paddle,” Horace responded.
“Why so hurried a departure?” demanded Kingdon, smiling at him. “Aren’t we hospitable enough?”
Horace made no answer, quickly drawing the overturned canoe within reach. Cloudman helped him, and they soon had the canoe out of the water, emptied, and again on its keel.
“Why the rush?” Kingdon asked.
Pence, still speechless, got into the canoe with care. His paddle was within reach, and he seized upon it. Then he drove the canoe back toward his own camp at an easy clip.
“Social sort of a beggar,” grumbled Red Phillips. “Didn’t even stop to thank us for saving him from a watery grave.”
“Better get after that launch, Rex,” Midkiff said. “She’s still burning.”
“Right-o!” agreed the curly-haired chap. “If she keeps on she may bump her nose into those rocks across the sound. See if you can start our engine again, Jawn.”
The Spoondrift’s engine, after some sputtering, concluded to pop regularly, and Rex went back to the helm. The speed of the catboat under its auxiliary was not great; but the breeze was so light that they would have made small progress by hoisting sail.
The constable crept down into the cockpit, coughing and ill.
“You’re not much of a fish, Mr. Squibb,” Kingdon said, smiling at the man cheerfully. “You’d ought to do your sailing in a shallow spot.”
“And you ought to do your smoking ashore,” advised Midkiff. “What’s the idea of carrying a lighted cigarette near your gas tank?”
“It leaked,” said Enos feebly.
“What leaked? The cigarette?” chuckled Red.
“There’s a leak somewhere—no fear,” Kingdon said with grimness. “Any grown human being who would smoke one of those things—and near gasoline—Well! You want to have a care, Squibb.”
“Quibb,” faintly corrected the constable.
“Is it your launch?” Cloudman asked.
“Yes,” Enos said gloomily. “And I guess ’twon’t be wuth much. Oh! I’m jest as sore as a bile where I was burned.”
“Gosh!” drawled Phillips. “You’re like the man that tried to commit suicide. You was somewhat undecided whether to burn or drown, I s’pose.”
“No laffin’ matter,” whined Enos.
They overhauled the launch without much trouble, for her engine had gone dead. Only the woodwork in the stern was scorched; but the tattered awning had gone up in smoke. There was little serious damage done.
“Better luck than you had a right to expect, Mr. Constable,” Kingdon told him cheerfully. “Don’t believe you’d better go on to your destination to-night. We’ll tow your launch back to our anchorage, and give you some supper. You’ll be welcome.”
“Wal;—I dunno but I’d better,” Enos groaned. “Oh! them burns do smart.”
When they got back to the camp both boats were carefully moored and far enough apart so that they would not scrape sides in the night. Kingdon was prepared with a first-aid kit, and he anointed the burns of the victim of the accident, while Red Phillips heated up some canned beans and some of the panbread for him.
Mr. Quibb elected to sleep aboard his own boat. When he had departed for the night and the boys crowded together at the tent opening, there was a general—and somewhat excited, if low-voiced—discussion.
“It’s so, I suppose,” Kingdon yielded finally. “Our black-browed friend, Horrors, has got the permit. Swiped it out of my jacket pocket up there at the diamond. I am positive it was in my coat when we went up there.”
“Sure!” cried Peewee. “This constable tells us he saw it. Of course Horrors displayed it as his own.”
“Then he’s posing under your name, Rex,” Midkiff said, in anger.
“I tell you what!” said Phillips. “Let’s go over there and take it away from them. The cheap scrubs! I bet that letter isn’t the first thing they’ve stolen.”
“No, Larry,” Kingdon said quietly, and shaking his head. “That isn’t the way to go about it. I’ve got a better scheme than that.”