CHAPTER IV
The next morning was clear and bright and Bob was awakened by the sunlight streaming into the room. He looked about and saw that his companions were still sound asleep.
"Here, get up, you sleepy heads," he cried, giving each a vigorous shake.
But as this brought nothing from them but muffled grunts, he took harsher measures. He pulled off all the bedclothes.
This might have worked in Winter, but on this warm Summer morning it was no hardship and the drowsy boys refused to budge.
"No help for it," muttered Bob to himself, and filling a glass with water, he divided it impartially, throwing half on the face and neck of each sleeper.
There was a howl and a jump as Frank and Sammy started from their beds in chase of their tormentor, but Bob had his clothes ready at hand and darted off into the adjoining room, where he turned the key in the lock just as Frank and Sammy, hot in pursuit, banged up against the door.
"What's the matter, fellows?" called Bob from the other side. "You seem to be excited about something."
"It'll be a pitcher full for you instead of a glassful, the next time we wake up first," threatened Sammy.
"It certainly will," confirmed Frank, rattling vainly at the door knob.
"Then I'm safe enough," mocked Bob, "for you lazybones will never wake up first in a thousand years."
They did not answer and retired to their room, muttering dire threats against mischief-making Bob, while that youth, with a happy grin on his face, finished his dressing. He then looked carefully through the keyhole to see that the coast was clear and made a dash for the stairs.
He did not get off scot free, however, for Frank had a slipper near at hand and sent it down the stairs after him. It struck Bob plump on the shoulder and brought a grunt from him that pleased Sammy and Frank immensely.
"Now I feel better," grinned Frank.
"Yes," laughed Sammy. "Bob's pretty slick but he can't always get away with it."
A truce was declared while they gathered around the breakfast table. Mrs. Bouncer had prepared an especially good meal in honor of the boys' last day in Lighthouse Cove.
They were to leave on the early afternoon train, and as there was a good deal to do before that time, Mrs. Bouncer sent the boys out of doors right after breakfast so that she might have a free hand.
The boys wandered around taking a last look at the places where they had had such a happy time that Summer. To be sure they had had times, too, that were full of danger and anxiety. But these, at any rate, had kept their experience from being tame, and now that they were safely over they were not unpleasant to look back upon.
"We certainly have had a bully time here," remarked Sammy.
"Yes," said Frank. "I half hate to leave the old place."
"We'll have lots to tell the boys when we get back to Fairview," observed Bob.
"Won't their eyes stick out when we tell them about our drifting out to sea and picking up theMary Ellen?" said Sammy.
"I'll be almost afraid to tell them everything for fear they'll think we're making some of it up," put in Frank.
"Well, if they do, we can show 'em the newspaper stories, and I guess that will hold 'em for a while," crowed Bob, triumphantly.
Before long they ran across the old fisherman, Hamp Salina, sitting on an overturned boat on the beach and mending his nets.
"Howdy, boys," he greeted them, taking his pipe from his mouth as they came up. "What's this I've heerd about your folks goin' away? I kind o' thought you was goin' to stay here all Summer."
"We did mean to when we came down," replied Bob, "but we boys have had an invitation to go out West on a ranch for the last part of the Summer, and we've made up our mind to go."
"Dew tell!" exclaimed Hamp. "Well, that beats all! I shall be sorry to hev you boys go. You've brought a bit of life into this sleepy old place, and I like to hev you around."
This was an unusually long speech from Hamp, and the boys appreciated the old sailor's friendly feeling.
"We're sorry to go too for lots of reasons, Hamp," said Sammy.
"We've just been talking of the fine times we've had here this Summer," put in Frank.
"Even if ye haven't diskivered any pirate gold?" said Hamp with a chuckle and a sly glance at Sammy.
"We haven't found any yet," Sammy replied, sticking to his guns. "But, just the same, we might have run across some if we'd been able to stay here all Summer. We don't know what there may be in that old wreck over yonder. We started to swim over there yesterday but Bob got a cramp and we had to give it up."
"That's too bad," said Hamp, gravely. "But that wreck hez been there a good many years and it's likely t' be there fer some time yet. Maybe if ye come down next Summer ye'll hev another chance to take a hack at the gold."
There was a twinkle in his eye that showed he was not banking very much on the boys' chances, and Sammy thought it might be just as well to change the subject.
They chatted a little while longer and then parted with mutual good wishes. Hamp, with a sigh of regret, went back to his net mending, while the boys went back to the Bouncer cottage to make final preparations for their journey.
They had been so used to going round in their bathing suits and loose, comfortable clothes, that it was quite an ordeal to be dressed up stiffly in their best, but they took it as a necessary evil and made the best of it.
They caught the train in plenty of time, and Mrs. Bouncer gave a sigh of relief after the noisy, tumultuous group had found seats and settled into place.
Sammy had received his promised letter by the morning mail, but had been too busy so far to open it. The main thing with him was that his folks were going to let him go, and he could wait to find out the details. But now that he was comfortably settled in his car seat he opened the letter and read it over.
It told him of the surprise that his father and mother had felt when they had received the news that upset all their plans for Sammy for the Summer. There had been a good deal of hesitation and doubt before they had finally decided, but the knowledge that the other boys were going and the thought of how Sammy would feel if he were left behind had turned the scale. So they had hurried to send the telegram, and now were anxiously awaiting his return home.
"It's all right, is it, Sammy?" asked Mrs. Bouncer, who had been studying his face while he read.
"It's more than that," grinned Sammy, handing over the letter for her to read.
Bob took advantage of his mother's absorption in the letter to snatch Sammy's cap and throw it into one of the racks on the other side of the car. But Sammy got back at him by snatching his cap in turn and holding it out of the open window.
"You get that cap of mine back mighty quick, Bob, unless you want me to drop yours alongside the railroad track," threatened Sammy.
Bob's face lengthened.
"Aw, you wouldn't do that, Sammy," he pleaded.
"Wouldn't I?" retorted Sammy. "Just watch me."
Bob hesitated a moment.
"My fingers are getting kind o' cramped," said Sammy, calmly. "The cap may slip out of them any minute."
Bob still hesitated. He hated to eat humble pie.
"You'd better hurry up," warned Sammy. "If I don't get my cap back before we pass the next twenty telegraph poles alongside the track, I feel it in my bones that something's going to happen."
Bob held out till he counted fifteen poles. Then as Sammy said nothing further but kept his lips moving as he counted each pole, Bob thought it was best to take no chances. He reluctantly went over, reached up and got Sammy's cap and threw it in his lap.
"There's your old cap," he remarked. "Now give me back mine."
"Sure thing," said Sammy, with a grin of satisfaction at having carried his point. "Here's your cap, Bob; and you'd better put it on. I'd hate to have you catch cold on my account."
"Honest to goodness, Sammy," inquired Frank, who had been a grinning spectator of the little byplay between his chums, "would you have dropped the cap anyway?"
"Of course not," laughed Sammy. "That was just a little bluff and Bob fell for it."
The rest of the journey passed without special incident, and all the party were delighted when just before dark they found themselves once more in Fairview. After all, this was home, where most of their happiest hours had been spent, and though they liked to get away from it at times for a change of scene they were always glad to get back again to the old home town.
Sammy and Frank got a loving welcome from their folks and each home became at once a beehive where every one was kept busy preparing for the trip. There was a lot to do and not much time to do it in.
Frank, and even Sammy, had still cherished a sneaking hope that their parents might look on the gun question a little more favorably than Bob's parents had, but they soon found out that they were mistaken. Both families cried out in horror at the idea, and it began to look as though the Indians and outlaws were safe as far as the boys were concerned.
"There's no use," said Sammy, shaking his head mournfully when he met his chums the next morning. "Our only chance will be to pick up some guns after we get out there."
"Well, perhaps after all there'll be more fun getting them that way than if our folks bought them for us," put in Bob, who usually saw the bright side of things.
"Yes," agreed the practical Frank. "Only if our folks bought them we'd besureof having them, while the other way is only a chance and not much of a chance at that."
But whatever disappointment the boys had on this score was more than made up for by the sensation they created among the other boys of Fairview the moment it became known they were going out on a real ranch among real cowboys. The news spread like wildfire and whenever they appeared on the street they found themselves the center of interest and the recipients of a lot of eager questions.
"I suppose you'll be riding those bucking bronchos we see in the movies," said Hank Blair in an envious voice.
"I suppose so," said Bob with a rather bored air, as though bucking bronchos were an old story with him.
"Maybe you'll have some scalps to bring home," suggested Jim Eaton.
"Maybe so, if the red fiends don't get ours first," said Sammy, darkly.
"Maybe road agents will hold up the coach you ride over to the ranch in," put in little Johnny Jones.
"We'll have our money hidden in our shoes," declared Frank. "We know how to get the best of those fellows."
"Trust us to keep our eyes wide open," observed Bob, impressively.
"I wish I were going along with you fellows," said Jed Burr.
Jed had formerly been something of a bully and the boys had not liked him at all. But there had been a great change in him lately, and he seemed to be trying to do the right thing. Ever since he had risked his life in trying to save one of the smaller boys when it was thought that the school was on fire, Frank and his chums had felt very friendly toward him.
"I wish you were, Jed," responded Sammy, warmly.
"So do I," came from Frank and Bob.
"We'll tell you boys all about it when we get back anyway," continued Sammy. "That is if we get back at all."
He folded his arms in a gloomy manner that spoke volumes of the possible danger of the trip, and the other boys felt rather shivery. In imagination they could see the bones of the young adventurers bleaching on the western plains.
"If we do get back," went on Sammy, when he had let this sink in far enough, "we'll bring you fellows something that we've picked up out there. Maybe it'll be the rattles of a snake——"
"Or the teeth of a grizzly bear," put in Bob, hopefully.
"I'd rather have a scalp," put in Hank Blair.
"The claws of a panther would be good enough for me," said Jim Eaton.
The boys began to feel that with all these commissions they were getting into deep water. Still they kept a stiff upper lip and promised vaguely that they would do their best, and with this their admiring audience was forced to be content.
In various ways during the next day or two Sammy and his chums tried to live up to their rather misty ideas of cowboys and ranch life.
Frank had heard that the legs of most cowboys were slightly bowed because they were so much in the saddle, and he began to turn his toes in until his family remonstrated.
"What's the matter with you, Frank?" asked his brother George. "You're waddling like a duck."
His mother's comment was less brusque but went right to the point.
"Now look here, Frank," she said. "I've taught you to walk straight and turn out your toes. But I declare to goodness, this last day or two you're actually walking bandy-legged. Now stop that or I'll get you a pair of braces."
And Frank, with an inward sigh at the extremely practical and unromantic views of his family, was forced to yield.
Sammy's folks, too, were not without troubles of their own. Somebody had told Sammy that trappers and hunters had wrinkles under their eyes from constantly straining their sight and looking off into distant spaces, and Sammy right away began to develop quite a squint.
"Stop drawing your eyes together that way, Sammy," commanded his observant mother, "or I'll have Dr. Wilson up here to take a look at you. It looks to me for all the world as though you were getting a case of St. Vitus' dance."
As for Bob he had gone no further than to get hold of the kitchen carving knife as often as he could without detection, and practise hurling it at the back yard fence. About one time out of ten he was able to make it stick, and he was in high feather over his progress until the knife went over the fence, nearly slicing the ear off the neighbor's cat.
BOB PRACTISED HURLING THE KNIFE AT THE BACK FENCE.
BOB PRACTISED HURLING THE KNIFE AT THE BACK FENCE.
BOB PRACTISED HURLING THE KNIFE AT THE BACK FENCE.
This brought a quick remonstrance from the unsympathetic neighbor, and Bob's activities were suddenly cut short.
"Never mind," said Sammy, when the boys were discussing the obstacles their families put in their way. "Let's get to work practising calls and signals. We ought to get the call of the cuckoo and the whip-poor-will down fine. Then if any one of us should be captured by outlaws the others could creep up at night and tell him by the calls that help was near."
This seemed reasonable and had the further advantage that here at least their families were not likely to interfere. They practised until they were hoarse, and if their relatives surmised the meaning of the unearthly noises they smiled wisely and said nothing.
While the boys were thus getting ready for their trip their parents had been as busy as beavers in a more practical way. The trunks were packed and tickets bought and by Wednesday night in the week following their return from Lighthouse Cove everything was ready for the start. On the following morning they were to take the local train which would connect at the Junction with the flyer for Chicago, and their long journey two-thirds of the way across the continent would have begun.
George Haven, as the oldest, was to be in general charge of the party, and many were the injunctions showered upon him by the anxious parents. Each one of the young travelers came in too for a lot of advice from his parents. The fathers clapped them on the shoulders and told them to behave themselves and be careful. The mothers hugged and kissed them and gave last words of advice.
The boys felt a little tightening at their throats when they came to say good-bye to father and mother and clamber on the train. They thrust their heads out of the window and waved their hands and handkerchiefs to the loving faces that looked after them as long as the train was in sight. Then they sank back in their seats and looked at each other.
At last the Fairview boys were off for the ranch!