Chapter VI Getting Back to the Boat
At another time Rex Kingdon would have been more careful about striking such a blow with his bare fist, no matter how angry he might have been with his opponent, for there is danger of cracking a knuckle when one’s hand is ungloved.
The foot Joe Bootleg had trampled on, hurt him cruelly, however; he saw, too, that the Indian meant to repeat his unfair tactics. So it was “down and out” for the Indian, and the Walcott youth sprang away.
“Run, Mid!” he hissed. “This bunch is getting lively. There!”
Inside the tent somebody suddenly yelled: “That’s right, Horrors! Slit up the back canvas. We’ll show ’em!”
“They know there are only two of us, I guess,” said Midkiff. “But don’t you hate to show the white feather?”
“Too dark right now for anybody to see whether our plumage is white or some other color,” chuckled Rex. “The race is not always to the swift or the battle to the strong.”
“Huh!” grunted his friend. “Where’s that fellow who downed you?”
“I downed him. But he’s coming back to life again,” Rex said, having gone back for another look at the dazed Indian boy to make sure. “Whew! He’s strong, that chap. But he don’t know much about using his fists. Here they come! Scoot!”
He picked up the flash-lamp he had dropped in the fracas, and set the pace down the hill. But he hobbled, and Midkiff immediately noticed his chum’s lameness, although they were out of the radiance of the lighted tent in half a minute.
“That fellow hurt you, Rex,” exclaimed the big chap.
“Maybe I didn’t hurt him!” returned the other lightly. “Drop over this bank and get under cover. The hounds will scent the trail in a minute.”
Midkiff did not like to run. That wasn’t his way when he got into a row. But Rex was chuckling in spite of the pain he suffered.
“I believe we could have licked ’em if we had stayed,” growled the big fellow.
“Doubtless, Jawn. You could go out and slay a host of the Philistines with a jawbone——”
“The knuckle bones are good enough for me,” put in his friend, still disgruntled. “You always have all the luck, Rex. You’re the only one who struck a blow.”
“How about you hammering on that canvas?” demanded Kingdon.
“With your fist, I mean.”
“True. And I’m not so happy over that,” muttered the other.
They had scrambled down upon a narrow strip of beach under the high bank. This was not the spot where they had landed, as Kingdon well knew.
They hobbled along the beach where it was hard going, and Midkiff stepped on a pebble that gave him a pretty stone bruise.
“Let’s take to the water,” the big fellow proposed. “This is no fun.”
“Right! It doesn’t tickle one’s funny-bone to any extensive degree,” rejoined his friend. “But do you know where the Spoondrift is?”
“Of course not. That’s up to you.”
“Thanks. Well, I don’t know its location—not from here. We’ve got to get around to that place where we landed. I marked that.”
“Come on——” Midkiff choked his words short as there came a shout over their heads.
“This way, Horrors!” yelled the voice of the chap named Kirby. “They came this way. I heard ’em then.”
“Heard ’em what—splashing? They came in a boat—if they didn’t fly to the island,” was the reply.
“Heard ’em talking,” Kirby called back.
The two Walcott Hall youths had seized each other’s hand simultaneously, warning each other to silence. Now Kingdon stooped, secured a branch upon which he had stepped the moment before, and began to splash in the water with it.
“Sh, Clumsy!” gasped Midkiff, in a panic. “Want to bring the whole gang down upon us?”
Rex was splashing the water in quick, but rhythmic time. One of the fellows on the bank above cried out:
“They’ve got a rowboat—they’re getting away in it.”
“Then it can’t be that crew from the cat,” retorted the languid voice of the one called Horrors. “There was no tender trailing her.”
“Come on!” whispered Rex to his companion. “Let ’em stand there and argue about it.”
The two friends went hurriedly on along the beach, taking care how they stepped. When they were far enough away so that the voices of the campers were merely murmurs in the fog and rain, the big fellow said admiringly:
“Cute trick, Rex. They still believe we are at sea.”
“Whereas they are at sea,” chuckled his friend.
“What are we going to do about them in the morning? Reckon they’re a gang of toughs, eh?”
“Just about as tough as you and Red are,” returned Rex. “They’re only boys, same as ourselves.”
“That was no boy you were walloping,” exclaimed Midkiff.
“Wasn’t much more, I guess. One of these tame Indians that hire out for camp work to summer parties. Joe Bootleg is a famous name.”
“Huh?”
“Maine is full of ’em. ‘Bootleggers,’” Rex chuckled. “The decent majority are fighting them all the time.”
“So you had to do your share?” grinned Midkiff.
“He’s strong as a bull, and as ugly. Sorry I had a muss with him,” Rex Kingdon confessed. “These people with Indian blood in their veins aren’t like white folks. They’re revengeful and unforgiving. Have to watch out for Joe Bootleg.”
“Pshaw! I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it,” Midkiff said. “These fellows will have to get off the island. That’s plain.”
“Not as plain as the nose on your face, Jawn,” chuckled Rex.
“We’re not going to let them have the island and we go somewhere else?” demanded the big fellow in surprise.
“Hardly.”
“Going to fight ’em, then?”
“Arbitrate. Maybe. Oh! Great smoke!”
Suddenly he had tripped over something and splashed on hands and knees into shallow water. It was as dark as a pocket down there under the bank.
“Rope,” explained Midkiff, having caught hold of it.
“Don’t tell me!” murmured Rex, touching his shin tenderly. “It raked me up and down. Lost some peeling that time, I did!”
“It’s hitched to a boat,” whispered Midkiff.
“That’s what I thought,” grunted Rex. “Haul her in. Reckon we’ve found something now.”
“Give us a flash of your lamp, Rex,” begged the other. “Let’s see what sort of a tub this is.”
The other did so, and the bow of a heavy canoe was revealed.
“There’s another,” Kingdon exclaimed under his breath. “Two-paddle boats, each. Bet that’s what these fellows came in. They must have hired a dory to bring over their camp stuff.”
“Well, come on!” urged his friend. “Let’s get back to our own boat. What’s the good of fooling here? What are you doing, Rex? Untying that canoe?”
“Untie the other, Buddie,” whispered Rex. “And don’t raise your voice again. You’ll have that bunch down here.”
“Going to set them adrift? Then they can’t get away if they want to,” grumbled Midkiff, yet obeying the other’s command. “What’s the idea?”
“Give me the other rope. Now into the water with you, Jawn. We’re going to coax these away—not set them adrift.”
“Steal ’em?” gasped Midkiff.
“Don’t use such rude language,” advised his friend. “Hypothecate—embezzling—spoliation—my boy! There are lots nicer terms than the vulgar ‘stealing.’”
“Huh!” grunted Midkiff. “They all lead to the same old vulgar jail.”
Rex chuckled. Both waded in to shoulder depth. Midkiff said, shortly: “Where are the paddles?”
“Ashore, I should hope. Those chaps couldn’t have been foolish enough to leave ’em in the canoes. Come on! We’ll tow ’em out to the Spoondrift. We don’t need paddles.”
“Don’t see what good it’s going to do us,” grumbled his friend.
“How would you feel yourself if you were stuck on that island without any means of getting off?”
“Huh?”
“Think it over. Those chaps might object to our landing there in the morning—and there’s sure as many of them as there is of us.”
“But we got a right there, haven’t we?” demanded Midkiff, excitedly. “Can’t we go to the authorities?”
“You don’t mean that, Jawn,” drawled Rex. “You wouldn’t be a tattle-tale?”
“Aw——”
“We’ll arbitrate, just as I said,” chuckled Rex. “They’ll be willing to concede several things—-perhaps—for the sake of getting these canoes back. Anyway, we’ll wait and see.”
“Oh!”
“Come on, now, and swim. The cat’s just off yonder. Push along, Jawn.”
“But I don’t get you,” sputtered his friend. “Why do you want to mix it up with these fellows at all?”
“Maybe for instance,” laughed Rex. He did not tell Midkiff that he suspected the party encamped on Storm Island was actually expecting the arrival of the crowd from Walcott Hall.