XV.A CHANGED SKY.
ALLAN was awakened just as dawn was breaking by a sensation of cold, and found McConnell tugging at the coverings in an effort to bury his head without uncovering his feet.
“Are you cold, McConnell?” Allan asked.
“About frozen,” was McConnell’s plaintive response.
“Let us get up and stir around.”
They both climbed out without disturbing Owen, and soon had the breakfast fire started.
“I never knew it was so cold early in the morning,” said McConnell.
Just then a head appeared from under the canvas shelter of theArabella. “How about that swim, McConnell?”
“No, you don’t!” retorted McConnell. “A little later in the day will do for me.”
Owen laughed as he emerged from the boat, which now was afloat again. “I’m going to try for a fish,”Owen announced; but the best he could accomplish was a very small weakfish, which he cleaned with as much satisfaction as if it had been a ten-pound bass.
Small as it was, the fish gave a delicious relish to the breakfast.
“This is simply gorgeous!” exclaimed Owen.
“Yes,” said Allan, as he sipped his coffee from the tin cup, “a millionaire in his fifty-thousand-dollar yacht couldn’t live any sweller than this.”
“Before we go,” said Owen, “I want to make a picture of the camp. Guess I’ll do it now—from that point over there,” and Owen extracted his camera from the waterproof blanket in the bow, told Allan and McConnell to stay where they were, and clambered over to the view-point he had chosen. The morning was so still that at a distance of over a hundred and fifty feet they could hear the click of his shutter.
Cool as the early morning had been, the day was pleasantly mild when the sun shone, and theArabellasailed away with the boys in high spirits. Allan made his course to the north again, with the wind west and freshening. They decided upon a landing at a picturesque point three miles up the river, before turning about for a leisurely journey home.
Allan and McConnell brought forth their cameras and looked them over as a huntsman might his gun, or a fisherman his rod.
“I want to make some shore pictures,” said McConnell, “with long, quivering reflections in the water.”
“And a white sail,” added Allan, “somewhere against the green of the shore.”
“And a man in a small boat in the foreground,” Owen offered in supplement.
All of these elements seemed to be present at onetime or another. The shore was rich in interesting bits. The river-sailing craft gleamed in the mellow early sun. From private docks and invisible coves small boats drifted into the open. It was a fresh, buoyant morning. During the short run to the point the boys had fixed upon for another landing, the breeze became still more energetic, and the boys were delighted with the spirited way theArabellabehaved when Allan brought her up into the wind preparatory to landing.
With the breeze blowing inshore, they dropped anchor and landed from the stern. After all three had clambered out with their cameras, Owen and Allan went aboard again, lowered the sail, and drew a stern line to a boulder on shore.
From the point where they had landed, the river looked beautiful indeed. Ruffled by the wind, the river had no placid lines of reflection save in the turns of the shore, but the changing lines of the water under the tumbling white clouds, the smudge of New York’s smoke far away to the south, the variegated river craft, coal and ice barges, tow-boats, lighters, river steamers, ferries; the gulls circling from the white of the clouds to the white of the steamers’ wake—these were sights to make a boy reach for his camera now and then, until it seemed that no more plates could be devoted to the river.
They climbed to the brow of the bluff, a picturesque, wooded place, and discussed a view-point for a picture which should have a queer twist of the rocks and trees for a foreground, and for the distance the blue crest of the Palisades with the blue-green river between.
“With the breeze like this,” said Allan to Owen, “I shouldn’t want to try tripod work just here.”
Owen had just returned from a little run overland, where he found a waterfall and an abandoned bit of orchard. Presently the three boys followed the line of the bluff to the north, and at a distance of a quarter of a mile they came upon what at first seemed like an abandoned hut, but which turned out to have for an inhabitant a queer old man, who sat just within the open door smoking a pipe.
The old man nodded to the boys and then stared past them at the river.
“I suppose he’s a hermit,” whispered McConnell.
“He does look rather lonesome,” said Owen.
“And savage,” said Allan.
“If he didn’t look so savage,” McConnell suggested, “I’d like to take him sitting there at the door.”
Probably Owen and Allan had been thinking the same thing. Yet when they stood looking out over the river they heard a rustle in the tall grass and the queer old man had come close behind them.
“Cameras?” asked the old man in a strange voice.
“Yes,” answered Allan.
“Take me,” said the old man. “You will find nothing in the river so interesting as I am,” and he smiled a smile so extraordinary that the boys unanimously grew uneasy.
“You are polite boys,” said the old man, “and you do not say ‘who are you?’ Nevertheless I will tell you. I am Alexander Hamilton.”
To this the boys said not a word.
“A picturesque, wooded place.”
“A picturesque, wooded place.”
“A picturesque, wooded place.”
“I can see your astonishment,” said the old man. “You had thought with the rest of them that I was killed in the duel with Aaron Burr. Ha! ha!” and the old man laughed as a disordered phonographlaughs. “Yes, you thought I was killed. But I am not killed—dangerously wounded, but not killed, and I crawled away out of their sight.”
Now Allan knew that the poor old fellow was crazy, but this did not make him less uneasy.
“Then you must be very old,” suggested Allan.
“One hundred and thirty one this year,” muttered the old man.
“The duel was in 1804, wasn’t it?” asked Owen.
The old man nodded. “You remember it, then?” he added with increased interest.
“No,” stammered Owen, “not exactly that—I remember reading of it.”
The old man’s outstretched hand pointed to the south. “On Weehawken Heights. It seems like yesterday. Ah! my dear boys, Burr was no gentleman! I wish I had time to show you my last letters to him, and my onion patch too. Do you like onions?” the old man suddenly asked McConnell.
“I like them pickled,” said McConnell.
“Dear me!” exclaimed the old man, “I haven’t one pickled. But suppose you photograph me anyway. I’m the oldest thing here except the hills and the river.”
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind standing in the doorway of your house,” ventured Owen.
“My house! Nonsense!” ejaculated the old man. “I am only living here temporarily. The place is but forty years old. I shall soon have to have another place. I outgrow them all. No; take me here with the trees. Just wait,” and the old man walked away to the hut and soon returned with a straw hat on his head. “I must look like a gentleman,” he said.
“You don’t mind us all taking you?” asked Allan.
“No,” returned the old man, “I don’t mind. It is a long time since I was photographed; it was on my hundredth birthday, I think, in 1857. Dear me! how time flies when you are busy with state papers and onions and things.”
“‘I must look like a gentleman,’ he said.”
“‘I must look like a gentleman,’ he said.”
“‘I must look like a gentleman,’ he said.”
“Poor old man!” said Owen as they moved away after thanking him.
“When people talk queer like that,” said McConnell, “it gives me a creepy feeling.”
“I wonder how he lives,” queried Allan, “and how long he has been gone that way. I wish I knew more about him.”
“Well, I don’t,” said McConnell. “Crazy people upset me. I’m afraid of them.”
“There was nothing to be afraid of,” Allan insisted; “the old fellow is evidently harmless.”
“Yes, I know,” McConnell said; “but these harmless people—ugh!” and he shuddered. “They are worst of all.”
The boys were again on the edge of the bluff. Just beyond the crest of the slope rose a shaft of rock,tufted on the top with grass, as you might fancy a stone giant with a shaggy wig. Owen made a picture from the north side, showing the shore and hills with the stone sentinel standing in the foreground.
Allan decided that if he could reach the top of the rock he could command the path by which they had come, the old man’s hut, the spur of the hills, and the anchorage of theArabella.
“I wouldn’t risk it,” said McConnell. “It looks rather narrow.”
“I can do it easily,” insisted Allan, “if one of you will hand up the camera afterward.”
Owen took charge of the kodak while Allan, by a long reach, caught a shelf of the rock, got foothold, and hauled himself safely to the top.
A beautiful scene spread out before him. Low trees swayed between him and the river bank. On the opposite side was the long ledge of grass and bush-grown land and the sloping hills. North and south were the irregular lines of the shore, lighted by patches of sunlight that were moved quickly by the scurrying white clouds overhead.
“I can just see theArabella,” said Allan, as Owen reached far out with the camera.
To stand firmly on the head of the rock proved to be no easy matter, by reason of the narrow space and the energy of the breeze. The difficulties Allan overcame successfully as he opened his camera and set his diaphragm and shutter. It was at the moment when, with the bulb in his hand, he was sighting the camera that a huge fragment of the weather-worn rock on which he stood crumbled away, carrying with it more than half of the tuft of grass on which he stood, and Allan, after a quick effort to preserve his balanceon the narrowed support, fell with the crumbling stone and disappeared from the sight of his companions.
McConnell rushed closer to the edge of the bluff with a startled cry, but he could see nothing through the fringe of leaves in the treetops below. Owen caught McConnell and pulled him back, then himself started to find a way to the river bank. McConnell started in the opposite direction, and by chance it was he who first found an opening through which he could slide and tumble to the lower level of the shore.
Tearing his way through the bushes in the direction of the shaft of rock, McConnell peered about him for some sign of Allan. When he did not find him immediately, his terror increased.
Turning farther from the foot of the rock he found the camera lying in some bushes, apparently unhurt. Then, in a little open space, he found Allan, lying on his back, his face white and still.
“Oh, Allan!” was all McConnell could say, with his heart beating so hard. The thought that Allan might be dead, stupefied him.
At the sound of Owen making his way through the bushes, McConnell sprang up and cried, “Here he is!” The sight of McConnell’s quivering lips prepared Owen for what he saw in the little opening. They knelt down beside Allan, and Owen bent closely over him, lifting his head on his arm. “He is breathing!” cried Owen.
“Is he?” gasped McConnell; “I didn’t know.”
“Yes,” continued Owen, peering anxiously into Allan’s face; “perhaps he is only stunned. We must do something right away. If we only had some water!”
“He found Allan lying on his back, white and still.”
“He found Allan lying on his back, white and still.”
“He found Allan lying on his back, white and still.”
While Owen was lifting Allan so as to place him with his head resting more comfortably, McConnell rushed to the river and filled his joined hands with water. When he had struggled back, most of the water was gone, but they sprinkled this on Allan’s face and bathed his forehead.
“Do you think he has broken—anything?” asked McConnell.
“Somehow, I don’t,” Owen said. “It seems as if he had only knocked his head; but I can’t find a cut anywhere. If we could only get him up to the queer old man’s hut.”
“Yes,” assented McConnell. “We must do it. And I don’t see how.”
“You got down a shorter way,” said Owen. “We must carry him that way.”
But they both stared anxiously at Allan’s face.Wouldhe wake up again?
While they were carrying him toward the opening in the ridge by which McConnell had descended, Allan opened his eyes.
“What’s the matter?” asked Allan.
Then they set him down, and McConnell began to cry and laugh at the same time, and to dance around until Owen said, “McConnell, you’re as crazy as the old man of the hut.”
But McConnell didn’t care. He hugged Allan’s hand without a word until Allan said, “Whatareyou fellows doing?”
“Oh, nothing!” replied Owen. “Only trying to get you back where you started from.”
Allan put his hand to his head. “Yes,” he said slowly, “I slipped, didn’t I?”
“I should say you did.”
“And I grabbed a limb of the tree, and it broke with me, and my head struck another limb, I think, that swung me around. Yes, here it is—feel that walnut I’ve got here,” and Owen found the spot where Allan’s head had suffered in the tumble.
Allan started to his feet, then sank down again. “Oh, I’m not broken,” he faintly assured Owen; “but things are swimming around frightfully.Willyou keep still, McConnell?”
After a while Owen gave Allan a little help, and they pushed and dragged him up through the opening to the top, where the queer old man stood with his hands in his pockets.
“This way,” commanded the old man, as if he knew just what had happened; and he led the way toward the hut, at the door of which he paused, made Allan sit on the step, and disappeared within.
When he reappeared, the old man had a cup in his hand. “Drink this,” he said to Allan, extending his hand.
Allan hesitated. There was a dark liquid in the bottom of the cup.
“Drink it!” repeated the old man, and Allan did as he was told.
Whatever the liquid was, it made Allan feel much better, so much better that he soon began to make light of the accident and asked McConnell to go after the camera.
“These rocks are very old,” said the man of the hut, “older than I am. They are getting feeble. You must not trust their strength.”
“It was a close call,” Owen declared fervently. “I expected to have to piece you together. But you were only out of focus and very much fogged.”
“Your kodak seems to be all right,” said McConnell, coming up with the camera.
Allan looked curiously at the set lever of the exposer. “I must have squeezed the bulb, anyway,” he laughed. “The shutter went off.”
“I wonder what sort of a thing you got,” said McConnell.
“Probably some interesting sky,” was Allan’s opinion.
The sky! They had not noticed that within the last ten minutes the clouds to the south had grown heavier. The wind was now from the southeast and decidedly fresh.
Allan arose and felt quite steady again. “I’m all right. Good-by—Mr. Hamilton.”
“Good-by,” said the old man.
“I am very much obliged to you.”
“You are entirely welcome, sir.”
When he started to walk Allan found that he had bruised his right leg; but he sought to make light of this to himself as well as to the others; and, indeed, the stiffness which came into it while he sat on the step of the hut soon wore away.
TheArabellawas tugging at her anchor line as if impatient to be away.
Allan looked doubtfully at the river and sky. “We shall have to put in again somewhere if things get any fresher,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s going to be any worse,” was Owen’s opinion. “This is a fine breeze for a spin.”
“Well, we’ll try it.”
After the cameras had been stowed, they debated as to whether they had better eat lunch before starting, and decided that in case they had to anchor later itwould be best to spend the immediate interval in getting to a more sheltered position. “We can eat a bite on the way down,” said Owen.
But when they had turned the head of theArabellaeast to clear the point, and had made a half mile from the shore on this tack, the full force of the rising breeze became apparent, and the sky to the southeast was by no means reassuring. Allan gave the tiller to McConnell after they came about, and the two others set to work to take a reef in the sail—an undertaking to which Allan soon found that he was not equal. A peculiar weakness, the natural result of his mishap, made it imperative for him to drop on his knees and steady himself when theArabellacareened to starboard.
They realized now that they had been foolish in not reefing before starting, if they had not been unwise in starting at all.
“Hold her as close as you can!” called Allan to Owen, as the latter took his place in the stern after abandoning the effort to reef. “We had better make straight for shelter.”
Presently it began to be plain that they could make little choice as to an anchorage. A low growl of thunder was accompanied by a spatter of rain, and in an incredibly short time the rain began to fall heavily. The wind whistled under the boom; whitecaps were all about them.
Allan and McConnell, who had drawn in on the sheet, now paid it out again, and Owen took care that the sail should not fill too full as he headed straight for the west shore.
With this precaution the boat made little headway, the sail was drenched, and its increased weight, addedto the strength of the wind, kept the end of the boom much of the time in the water.
Right ahead was a shallow place and ugly rocks. To lift the centre-board here and attempt to come up into the wind would mean being blown on the rocks and the destruction of theArabella.
“We must come up closer to the wind again!” cried Allan. “There is a cove a little farther to the south.”
But the savageness of the wind and the wet sail made this very difficult. When they drew in the sheet, theArabellatook water on the starboard side. The boys were wet to the skin, and were up to their ankles in water.
“Straight for the beech tree,” muttered Allan, “the water seems deep there. Don’t swing her until the last minute. I’ll be ready to lower away and drop anchor. McConnell, you take this other line. I’ll hold the sheet free with my left.”
Owen found no fault with the directions. Plainly it was the only thing to do. Owen did not put down the tiller until they were within forty feet of the shore. Then Allan let go the peak, pushed over the anchor, and they all sprang at the flapping sail.
Fortunately the cove afforded shelter from the full vigor of the wind, and made less difficult than might have been expected the task of lowering the sail. The slight shelter made it possible also to hold the lowered sail in a position to cover the pit of the boat.
“All hands to the pumps!” shouted Allan, and all three (McConnell with a drinking-cup) bailed energetically until the boat had again been made habitable. The rain fell heavily on the sail over their heads; but the situation had a pleasant flavor of adventure, andOwen distributed rations as successfully as the cramped situation would permit.
“I wish we had something warm,” said Owen. The rain had chilled them, and their clothes had no chance of drying in the present situation.
Owen finally made known his determination to get ashore and reconnoitre. He took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his trousers, and slid over the stern with a line which he fastened to the low branch of a tree that overhung the water.
When he returned, in ten minutes, it was with news of an empty old house at a short distance, a house with a fireplace where they could “get a chance to dry up.” They clambered up to the old house, entered through a broken kitchen window, and soon had a blaze going in the front room fireplace. McConnell carried up the cooking traps.
“How are you feeling?” asked Owen, with a suspicious glance at Allan.
“Don’t worry about me,” Allan replied. “I only want to get my feet dried—and a cup of coffee,” he added, glancing wistfully at the kettle.
“You’ll have your coffee, Captain, in three minutes. Move up to the fire. McConnell, skin out and get me some water.”
It still was raining heavily, though the wind had modified.
“If the storm keeps up,” said Allan, “we shall have to spend the night here, and we might as well make ourselves as comfortable as possible.” They carried up some boxes from the cellar and McConnell found an old rocker upstairs.
“The Captain, being wounded, has the rocker,” declared Owen.
“They clambered up to the old house.”
“They clambered up to the old house.”
“They clambered up to the old house.”
“The Captain doesn’t want to be babied,” said Allan. “The Captain will be as good as any of the crew in another hour.”
The prediction almost seemed to come true. Later in the afternoon, Allan insisted on going down with Owen and McConnell to make things more secure on theArabella, and to carry up the cameras, further supplies of food, and the three blankets. They couldn’t reach home before dark unless with a fair wind and smooth water, and tide, wind, and water were all against them now, not to speak of the rain which continued until after dark.
Thus it happened that they passed the night in the old house, the blankets folded up for beds. When he awoke in the morning, Allan caught sight of Owen in a far corner photographing the room and the sleepers.
“Keep still!” whispered Owen. “Let me surprise McConnell by and by, anyway.”
Their breakfast exhausted the resources of the commissary department. “You see,” said Owen, “we didn’t expect to be away until to-day, did we?”
“We’ll be late for church,” chuckled McConnell.
“We may be late for supper,” complained Allan. “Do you see the fog?”
“Yes,” said Owen; “you could cut it with a knife. We can’t budge until it lifts.”
“And all the grub gone,” sighed McConnell.
“We haven’t even a horn,” said Allan. “It makes you feel helpless. If it shouldn’t clear by this afternoon, we should have to strike over to a West Shore railroad station and get around that way. I shouldn’t want to worry the folks; but I haven’t but half a dollar with me.”
“I haven’t a cent in these clothes,” said Owen, as they stood looking out into the fog.
“Nor I,” said McConnell.
They returned to the boat, and, to be prepared for sailing the moment the fog should lift, stowed everything on board, and drew in the stern line.