CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER III.

ON THE ISLAND.

Under a tree they lunched, drank their beer and smoked cigars and cigarettes. They were jolly, seeming to have forgotten the adventure with the mysterious black schooner.

Browning stretched his massive frame on the ground and puffed away in serene laziness.

“I’d like to stay right here the rest of my life and do nothing but eat and drink and sleep,” he grunted.

“You’d miss the ball games this spring,” said Diamond.

“Go to!” said the big fellow. “What are the ball games? A lot of fellows get up and bat a ball around, while another lot of fellows chase it. They run and whoop and throw the ball and get covered with perspiration. It is a most distressing spectacle. Ball games, indeed! Go to, I say—go to!”

“And the spring boat race—you’d miss that,” said Harry.

“Another distressing spectacle. Nine men in a boat, eight of them working, working, working as if their lives depended on it. They strain every muscle, their faces are contorted with the agony of it, their eyes bulge with distress, their breasts heave as they try to breathe, and when the race is over some of them are like rags run through a wringer. Again I say, go to!”

“But you used to be enthusiastic over such things. You played football yourself.”

“Which goes to show what a fool a fellow can make of himself. Of all things football is the worst. That is a real battle for life between twenty-two mad and furiousfools, every one of whom is thirsting for gore. They tear at one another, like famished wolves, buck one another, fling one another to the ground, jump on one another. Did I play football?”

“Surely you did.”

“It’s a far reach from such folly to the wisdom of to-day. Ten thousand dollars would not induce me to engage once again in a real game of football.”

“But think of the excitement—the glory.”

“The excitement is the delirium of fools. The glory—what is glory? How long does it last? Last fall, when Merry carried the ball over the line for a touchdown on Jarvis Field, with half the Harvard team on his back, he covered himself with glory. For a little time he was the talk of the college. His picture was in the papers. He was dined, and he would have been wined—that is, if he would have been. But now—now how is it? Spring has come, football is forgotten and his glory is fading. Everybody is talking of baseball and the way the nine will be made up.”

“And you’ll find they are talking of Merry just the same,” declared Harry. “They haven’t forgotten that he twirls the sphere.”

“Oh, no, they haven’t forgotten; but what if he were not available—what if he should refuse? How long would his glory last! Another would arise to fill his place, and he would be forgotten. Glory! It is the dream of fools. Give me plenty to wear, plenty to eat and lots of time to rest, and the world may have its glory.”

Frank laughed.

“The same old Browning,” he said. “And yet you are as much of a football and baseball enthusiast as any man at Yale. It breaks your heart when Harvard or Princeton wins from Old Eli. You go into mourning anddon’t recover for a week. Oh, you put up a good bluff, old man, but I can read you like an open book.”

Bruce grunted derisively.

“Very astute,” he commented, and then relapsed into silence, as if it were a great effort to speak, and he had already exerted himself too much.

“And think of the pretty girls Merry wins by his popularity,” said Jack. “He has opportunities to kiss lots of them.”

“If a fellow has an opportunity to kiss a pretty girl he should improve it,” declared Hodge.

“Ah!” cried Rattleton; “such an opportunity could not be improved.”

To this all agreed, laughing, with the exception of Browning, who had closed his eyes and seemed to have fallen asleep instantly.

The boys talked of Yale’s prospects on the diamond, and Harry said:

“It strikes me that we are going to be weak behind the bat this year. What do you think, Merry?”

“There are several fellows who will try for the position.”

“Yes; but what do you know about them?”

“I don’t like to say.”

“Oh, come! You are with friends, and you may talk freely. What do you think of Ned Noon?”

“He is, in my estimation, one of the most promising men, but he can’t run, and bats weakly. Behind the bat he might work very well, but he would be weak in other directions.”

“That’s string as a straight—I mean, straight as a string,” cried Harry. “If Ned Noon stands a show to get on the ’varsity nine, there is hope for me.”

“Well, there’s Roger Stone,” put in Diamond. “What about him?”

“He can bat like a fiend,” said Frank, “but he is weak on his throwing. He’ll stop anything he can reach, but it takes him so long to get a ball to second base that a good runner can steal down from first every time. That is a big fault. Stone will not do.”

“Right again,” nodded Rattleton. “And those two men are the strongest of the new candidates.”

“Some man may show up who is not talked of at all now,” said Jack.

Harry gave Hodge a quick glance.

“Old man,” he cried, “why don’t you make a try for the nine?”

An embarrassed flush showed in Bart’s dark cheeks.

“That would be pretty fresh for a freshman, wouldn’t it?” he asked.

“Not so confounded fresh. Merry got on the first year he was in Yale.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“I am not Frank Merriwell, and there are not many fellows his equal.”

Frank laughed merrily.

“Come off!” he cried. “The world is full of them. In order to get on at anything, a fellow must seize his opportunities. At the time that I got on to the nine there was a great cry for a change pitcher. I laid out to fill the bill, and I managed to fill it. That’s all. Now there’s a cry for a catcher, as well as for pitchers. It will be somebody’s opportunity.”

Hodge was silent, but there was an eager look on his face.

“I have pitched to you, Bart,” Frank went on, “and I know what you are. We work well together. You are a dandy thrower, a good batter, and a bird on the bases.Take my advice, get into gear and make a try for the nine.”

“I don’t know how to do it.”

“There’ll be plenty of fellows to coach you,” said Diamond, quickly. “I am going in for a shot at third bag. I may get there, although several good men are looking in the same direction. If I fail, it won’t kill me. I know I am not the only cake of ice. There are others just as cool. Make a bluff at it, Hodge. It won’t hurt you to get left.”

“Perhaps not,” said Bart; but he felt in his heart that he would be cut keenly if he made a desperate try to get on the nine and some other fellow was chosen.

Browning sneezed and awoke.

“You’re catching cold, old man,” said Frank.

“No danger,” said Rattleton. “He’s too lazy to catch anything.”

“That’s got a long gray beard on it,” grunted Bruce, with an air of disgust.

The wind, chill and raw, began to blow. Black clouds were piling up in the west, and the sun was shut out. This came so suddenly that the boys were startled.

“Jove!” cried Hodge. “There’s a storm coming!”

“Remember what the old fellow on the tug said when we came out?” exclaimed Diamond. “He warned us.”

“That’s so!”

Frank was on his feet taking a survey of the sea and sky.

“If we want to get back to New Haven to-night we’d better get a hustle on,” he declared.

Then there was a hasty gathering of such things as they wished to carry back and a hurrying down to theJolly Sport. They clambered on board, stowed things away, cast off from the pier, ran up the sails, and made the first tack out to sea.

The sky became dark and overcast. Down near New York somewhere great rollers started and seemed to gather force and size as they surged along the sound.

The spray began to fly as the catboat plunged from roller to roller, and the boys saw a prospect of getting “good and wet.”

Frank was at the helm, and his face wore a serious look. He realized that they were in for a bad run, to say the very least.

And the wind was dead ahead!

Harry showed nervousness. He owned the boat, but it was not that he was thinking about. He remembered the story of the Yale crowd lost on the sound some years before.

“Mink we’ll thake it—I mean think we’ll make it all right, Frank?” he asked, with evident agitation.

“We must,” was all Merriwell answered.

The wind grew stiffer and stiffer. TheJolly Sportfloundered considerably, and the spray flew thicker and thicker.

“We’ve got to take in a reef,” cried Merry. “Get ready, all hands. Now—work lively!”

Lively work they made of it, but the catboat shipped a sea before the reefing was over and she was brought into the wind again.

The boys fell to bailing, and away went theJolly Sportlike a racer.

The wind continued to rise, and Frank found Harry’s boat had her faults.

“She’s no wind-jammer,” he said. “Can’t hold her close, and she will fall off, best I can do.”

“If we’d paid some attention to the old fellow who warned us there would be a blow,” regretted Harry.

“No use to cry over that,” came sharply from Diamond. “We’ve got to make New Haven harbor.”

Browning shivered.

“Don’t know why I was fool enough to come,” he grumbled. “Might be safe and warm in my room now.”

It was five o’clock, but was so dark that it seemed much later. Rattleton, for all of his nervousness, cracked several jokes. Diamond made an effort to look unconcerned, and succeeded very well. Hodge was grim and silent.

The wind was fitful. Now and then Frank would cry:

“Ease her off.”

Then they would let out the sail quickly, and the cat’s-paw would sweep over them.

“How is your old sheet, Rattles?” asked Diamond. “Will she hold?”

“Can’t say,” confessed Harry. “She isn’t new.”

“How are the halyards?”

“Strong enough so I have been up the mast with them.”

“They ought to be all right.”

Sizz—boom! A big wave struck the bow, the spray flew in a thick cloud, and they were drenched to the skin.

“Awfully jolly!” grinned Harry.

“Yes, more fun than a barrel of monkeys!” said Jack, sarcastically.

“That’s nothing but the beginning,” assured Frank, consolingly. “It’ll be a regular picnic before New Haven is reached.”

“How nice!” groaned Browning.

They took turns at bailing till all were weary and exhausted. Diamond’s temper was beginning to rise, while Hodge was holding his down with an effort.

“Don’t anybody ever again ask me to go sailing on an April day!” snapped the Virginian.

Darkness came down without the moon they desired.

“I wish we were back on the island,” said Bart.

“Can’t we run back there now?” asked Harry.

Frank looked away over the water and then shook his head.

“It’s more than even we’d run straight out to the open sea,” he said.

Frank took full command, and his sharp orders were obeyed unhesitatingly, showing they all had confidence in him.

TheJolly Sportlurched and staggered. She fell off amazingly. Frank gave orders that another reef be taken, and the boys sprang to obey, Browning making a show of haste.

Frank put two men on the sheet when the reef had been made, a laborious task, for their fingers were numb with the cold. The boat shook ominously.

But under the double reef she rode better.

All at once a cry broke from Bart’s lips.

“Luff! luff!” he screamed. “Hard a-port, or we’re goners!”

He pointed, and they all saw a dark mass that was bearing down upon them with the speed of an express train. It seemed to loom above them like the black shadow of doom. It sent a shudder of horror to their hearts.

“A vessel!” screamed Diamond.

“A vessel!” thundered Browning. “Look out, Merry!”

With all his strength Frank jammed down the tiller, and the boat came about on the other tack, although she seemed to do so with deathly slowness.

Every lad held his breath, expecting to hear a crash, feel the shock, or be hurled into the sea.

There was a slight jar, a scraping sound, and the black mass fled past.

“It’s the black schooner!” shouted Diamond.

The same thought had come to Frank. There seemed to be something familiar in this overshadowing peril of the deep.

Past them flew the strange vessel. The wind was making a great racket, but high above its clamor the boys in the catboat heard a cry that must have come from human lips. It was wild and weird, and it sent a shudder through them.

On sped the mysterious vessel.

Round came theJolly Sport, and, almost before anybody was aware of it, the catboat was running after the schooner.

Running before the wind theJolly Sportwas a wonder. She flew like a bird.

“What are you going to do, Merry?” shouted Rattleton, in amazement.

“I am going to try to get back to the Thimbles before it is pitch dark.”

“It can’t be done!” declared Diamond.

“It’s our only show. The night is going to be blacker than a stack of black cats. We’ll be run down here on the sound, or the seas will swamp us. We can’t make New Haven against this wind. It is utterly impossible.”

The others felt that Frank was right. The boat had shown that she was but little good against the wind, but she could run like a deer before it. They had been a long time beating off from the Thimbles, but it could not take them long to run back.

Then they thought of the vessel that had so nearly run them down.

“Did you hear that cry, Merry?” asked Rattleton.

“Yes, I heard it,” nodded Frank.

“What do you think it was?”

“Hard to tell.”

“Sounded like a cry of distress.”

“Yes, that was what it sounded like.”

Then all the boys thought of the girl they had seen onthe mysterious schooner. It occurred to each one of them that it was possible the cry had come from her lips.

For all that theJolly Sportseemed to fly, the vessel was making still greater speed, and she was soon lost in the gloom.

The boys felt that the chance of making the Thimbles and running into the snug little harbor was small indeed, but they trusted everything to Frank Merriwell’s judgment.

They had been bailing all along, thinking the water was coming in over the rail, but when they had turned about a startling discovery was made.

The water was coming in as fast as ever, although but little spray flew into the boat.

“She’s leaking!” cried Hodge.

Frank had made that discovery some time before, and it was for that reason he had turned about so suddenly and unexpectedly. He hoped to strike the Thimbles, and, as a desperate resort, he could pile theJolly Sporthigh and dry on the beach.

Frank knew the boat would not hold to continue the desperate attempt to beat across the sound. He was not sure she would hold to reach the islands.

But what if they missed the islands entirely?

They would be driven out to sea, and the chances were a thousand to one that not one of them would ever live to again place a foot on dry land!

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