Chapter IV A Landing in the Dark
As suddenly as it had swept down upon the catboat, the squall passed. But the veering wind drove the billows in from the open sea until, before it arrived in the shelter of the eastern point of Storm Island, the Spoondrift was riding a series of rising waves that would have threatened the safety of a much larger craft.
Her centerboard, however, aided in keeping the boat on even keel. The coolness of her steersman, and his knowledge of how to handle a cat, did the rest. The wind, driving behind, threatened no danger once the craft was headed right. There were five young fellows aboard the Spoondrift. Four of them were lined up along the weather rail and hanging on for dear life. Their expressions of countenance were as varied as their characters.
The red-haired chap, stout and stocky of build, looked calm enough; but the lids of his eyes were narrowed and his steady glance seldom left the foaming seas boiling under the lifting bow of the boat. His keen attention was given to what lay ahead.
Beside him was a little fellow with rosy cheeks, who clutched the “lubber line” till his knuckles were white. He was plainly excited and, perhaps, not a little fearful. At every plunge or kick of the boat he seemed to jump and grip the line more tightly if possible.
The third youth in the row was a long-limbed chap—a giant beside the little fellow—whose brick-red countenance, glistening with spray, gave no hint of fear, only of wonder. He was staring out over the tumbling waves with wide open orbs.
“What d’ye think of it, Applejack?” squealed the younger lad shrilly. “Not much like your bounding plains, eh?”
“She’s a-bounding all right,” croaked the one addressed. “And then some!”
The fourth chap uttered a harsh laugh. “It’s only a squall. Wait till you see a real storm, Cloudman,” he said.
“This is sufficient—ab-so-lute-ly!” squealed the little fellow. “Old Mid takes this like he does everything else—as though it were for the good of his soul.”
The person thus referred to was rather a grim looking chap. His eyes were gloomy, his brow frowning, his lips set in a tight line. There was more strength and determination in his features than beauty, that was sure. Only when his gaze turned upon the steersman, standing like a young Viking at the helm, did his expression seem to soften.
The latter was curly haired and comely of both face and figure. Even the bulky oilskins he wore could not hide the grace of his posture. He smiled, too, as he handled the kicking tiller and gazed out over the tumbling sea as though he really enjoyed it and was exhilarated by the danger of the moment.
The red-haired youth turned suddenly and yelled to the steersman: “Hi! You peroxide beauty, you’re running in too close to that point! You’ll have her stubbing her toe on some sandbar, first you know.”
“No such animal hereabout, Larry,” drawled the helmsman serenely. “I didn’t wrestle with that chart for nothing. Leave it to your noble pilot. The beach there drops away to four fathoms within thirty yards of high water mark. Hold your breath, fellows; I’m going to tack again.
“Great glory, Rex! You’ll have the stick out of her!” shrieked the more than a little frightened Peewee Hicks.
“Calm yourself,” urged the other, smiling indulgently at the little fellow. “Don’t be such a calamity howler. Now! Low bridge, everybody.”
Larry Phillips—he of the auburn hair—handled the sheet. The boom swung over, the hand’s breadth of sail filled on the other tack, and it seemed as though on the instant the Spoondrift darted into comparatively calm water, the shoulder of the island intervening between them and the wind. But the rain, now descending in torrents, quite blotted out all view of the land so close to them.
“Get over the iron, Jawn,” advised the fellow at the tiller, speaking to the dark and gloomy-looking chap. “We don’t want her to climb aboard the island. Careful, boy! Don’t throw yourself after the anchor. Whew! I think this shower will lay the dust on the ocean.”
“Now you’ve said something, Blue Eyes,” grunted Phillips. “It’s just as wet rain as ever I felt.”
“Looka the boat,” complained Peewee Hicks. “It’s all a-wash.”
“Reach into the locker there, get a bailer and set to work,” ordered the skipper of the Spoondrift. “You need exercise, Runt.”
“I didn’t ship aboard this old hooker to work.”
“We know you came to give us the pleasure of your society, but right now it’s up to you to imitate the busy little bee.”
“Didn’t you tell us this would be a pleasure trip?” demanded Hicks. “I thought I could bank on your word, Rex Kingdon.”
“Of all the ungrateful persons!” cried Red Phillips. “You shipped as cabin boy, and you haven’t done a lick of work yet.”
“I feel like I’d been working for the last hour, all right. Hand’s blistered holding onto that line to keep from flopping overboard. Ouch!”
“Never mind that,” grunted the serious Midkiff. “It would have been small loss.”
“And that’s off your chest, Grouch,” laughed Phillips.
“There aren’t any of you fellows worked on this voyage but Kingdon and me,” quoth the heretofore silent Cloudman. Despite the pouring rain he had fished an apple out of some pocket underneath his oilskins, and now he bit deeply into it.
“Oh, we’ll do our share later,” Phillips said airily. “Don’t worry about the division of labor, Applejack.”
“That’s right, Rusty; but I always notice you dodge everything that looks like work, if you can,” Cloudman returned.
“That’s what he does,” sputtered Hicks, who was splashing about in the cockpit, his trousers rolled up to his knees, and trying to use a tin bailer effectively. “And the rest of you are in the same class. Why don’t you come on and help me? Think I can bail the whole Atlantic Ocean out of this blame’ boat, alone?”
Midkiff had come aft after pitching the anchor overboard. The catboat tugged at this mooring with the action of a calf jerking at a lead-line. It was not at all an easy matter to move about in the jouncing craft.
“Say,” said Midkiff to Kingdon, who seemed not at all troubled by either the beating rain or the pitching of the boat. “Say, can’t we crawl into the cuddy and get dry? I’m not in love with this.”
“Jawn,” drawled the good-looking skipper, “I’ve got a hunch.”
“What about?” asked Midkiff. “If it’s anything to do with getting dry and comfortable, I vote we follow it.”
“I think we’d better get our feet on terra firma as soon as possible,” said his friend more seriously.
“In this rain? We’ll get everything sopping wet. And it’s going to be dark pretty soon anyway.”
“You’ll find most of our plunder extremely damp, as it is,” returned Kingdon. “We took aboard a heavy cargo of water out there. Another night in this crowded cabin isn’t a thing I yearn for with joy, old scout. And then—I want to get on to that island as soon as possible.”
“Why the haste?” asked Midkiff eyeing Rex curiously.
“To satisfy an ingrowing suspicion,” was the smiling answer. “I don’t know that you saw what I saw when we were out yonder. Up on the heights of the island, I mean.”
“Didn’t see anything on the island,” grunted his friend. “Wasn’t even looking that way. The sea filled my eye, literally. And I should think it would have yours while we were floundering through those waves in this clumsy old cat.”
“Don’t imbitter your sweet young life, Jawn, by dwelling upon troubles past and gone,” drawled the skipper. “The old Spoondrift is considerable of a tub, I admit. She’d been all right, though, if that auxiliary engine hadn’t fainted dead away. But we’ll fix that.”
“Well, what about your hunch? What did you say you saw on the island?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Well, for the love of peace, say it!” implored Midkiff impatiently.
“Keep your hair on, Jawn,” drawled the blue-eyed chap, casting a hasty glance at their trio of friends and drawing Midkiff into the stern. Here, with their backs to the beating rain, they were quite out of earshot of the others. “Listen. Didn’t you see those fellows up there on the island?”
“What fellows?” demanded John Midkiff. “You told us the island was uninhabited, and that nobody would be allowed to camp there but us.”
“Ke-rect! The Manatee Company’s mighty strict, too. Just the same, my eagle eye perceived several figures on the heights on the other side of the island just as the squall broke,” Kingdon declared earnestly.
“How many? Men or boys?”
“The deponent knoweth not. I was too busy to scrutinize them with care,” admitted Kingdon. “But I yearn to know who, what and why they are—and particularly if they intend to linger around here.”
“There’s room enough for us all, I suppose,” muttered Midkiff.
“Probably. But I know right well, old man, that the company has only issued one permit for a party to camp on Storm Island this season. We got it. Anybody else is here without authority.”
“What’ll we do—run ’em off?”
“If they don’t run us off,” and Kingdon chuckled. “But we’re not hired to police the Manatee Company’s property, that’s sure. We’re not wearing bristles, either. Only——”
“What?”
“I have a remote notion that fellows who would come to Storm Island, where it is so well known that trespassing is forbidden, should not be clasped at once to our friendly bosoms.”
“I get your point. Perhaps they’re crooks hiding out from the police, or something like that.”
“Your perspicacity,” drawled the other, “is something wonderful. These fellows may be a bothersome crew. We should know what and who they are before we set up our lares and penates on these savage shores. Maybe they are pirates. Yo, ho, ho! And a bottle of grape-juice! I don’t want to get you infants into trouble with real bad men. I am weighted down by my responsibilities in the matter, Jawn.”
“I see,” said Midkiff. “It isn’t your idea that all of us shall pile ashore, then——”
“Nay! Nay! You and I, Jawn—just we-uns. Methinks this rain is going to keep on the job all evening. It will be dark soon. Those fellows must hole up somewhere for the night. I want to know where, and I want to know how they are fixed—if they are passing or permanent guests.”
“You’re going to call on them?” grunted Midkiff.
“That’s according,” Rex said lightly. “Say nothing to the other fellows. It’s going to be a dusty time getting supper, but we might’s well get it over with. Then you and I will adorn our manly forms in bathing suits and go reconnoitering.”
Midkiff had his doubts about the advisability of this venture in the dark, and on an island quite unfamiliar to them. But he was loyal and had to confess that Rex Kingdon’s ideas were almost always good.
As evening fell, the rain decreased in violence.
The bulk of the island was merely a huge shadow not more than two cable-lengths away. No light appeared upon it, nor did the crew of the Spoondrift hear a sound from the wooded shore.
Being curious when Rex and John got into their bathing togs, the others demanded an explanation.
“An exploring party,” said Rex briefly. “We’re going—Jawn and I—like those Thingumbobs of old, to see if this promised land is flowing with milk and honey. You’re in command here, Red. See that little Hicks doesn’t fall overboard and make a dent in the water, or that Cloudman doesn’t choke on an appleseed. We’ll return anon.”
He and Midkiff slipped silently into the water and struck out for the shore. In the shelter of the island the surge of the sea was not difficult to breast. Both being strong swimmers, they soon came close in under the black bulk of the land.
The beach was narrow. The island rising, almost from the edge of the sound, was heavily wooded. Their vision having become adjusted to that partial light always present on the surface of moving water even in the darkest night, they made an easy landing upon the pebbly beach.