CHAPTER XXIV.A LUCKY MOVE.The wind began droning like a monster pipe-organ through the wood. The thunder of the surf sent its solemn cadence to their ears from the seaward side of Storm Island. Night was shutting down threateningly and pregnant with the possibility of coming disaster.They were comfortable enough under the break of the hill. If worse came to worse, they could clip aboard theSpoondriftand take shelter in her cabin. She was not likely to pitch much here in the cove, with the wind in its present quarter.Red took Peewee in his arms, despite that infant's strenuous objections, and sang to him:"Rock-a-bye, baby, on the tree top!When the wind blows the cradle will rock.""I'll bounce a rock off your top story—that's the sort of a rock I'll give you!" threatened Hicks. "What do you think you're doing, nursing a first-form kid?"The evening promised to be tempestuous, both in the tent and out. The atmospheric pressure has something to do with the brittleness of human temper at such times. Midkiff and Cloudman got into a wrangle that Kingdon had to settle with some abruptness, and Hicks had a chip on his shoulder most of the time. After a while, getting tired of it, Rex called sharply:"Stop the fussing. I have something serious to say. This tent isn't right. I haven't been satisfied with its position since it was raised. It isn't properly sheltered from the wind, and we're going to have some wind to-night, my husky lads. Come on, let's move it before it gets any darker.""Move it!""It should be at least twenty yards over here to the east," insisted Rex. "No time like the present. Give a hand." He began to pull up stakes."You're crazy, Rex," Midkiff said."Let the tent alone!" cried Cloudman."Ain't to-morrow another day?" queried Peewee shrilly, almost in tears. "I don't want to work any more to-night.""This tent is going to be moved to-night," asserted the leader of the party."You're foolish, Rex," Midkiff again said."What's the matter with you?" demanded Peewee. "I don't see——""You don't have to," Kingdon said with sharpness. "Come, now! Think I'm going to do this all alone? Want to get it set up again before the rain comes.""I won't do it!" Phillips protested. "It's foolishness. You're using the steel fist without any reason."Midkiff yielded. "Rex is within his rights. He's captain. If he says it's moving day, why move we must. But to-morrow we'll see about this.""You'll have to show us why and what-for to-morrow, then," said Cloudman morosely. "I can obey orders as well as the next one. But these are tyrannical. I didn't know what I was letting myself in for. This will need a lot of explaining to satisfyme."It was a grouchy bunch that tackled the job. Before starting for the summer camp Rex had been unanimously chosen captain, and they had agreed to obey every order given by him. This, of course, was quite necessary aboard theSpoondrift. Discipline had become somewhat lax ashore, but Kingdon still had the right to command, if he wished to enforce it.It was necessary to get out the lanterns before they were through, and ere the job was finished it had begun to rain.Some of their "dunnage" got damp, and when Hicks got into his nightshirt the bottom of it was sopping wet. He almost frothed at the mouth beneath the chaffing of the others.The rainfall began and continued without the roll of thunder or the flash of lightning. It was a tempest, nevertheless. Harder and harder the rain drummed on the canvas roof. The torrential downpour would have drowned conversation had the boys attempted it.Their five cots were arranged just as they had been before, but somehow they did not now seem so comfortable. Peewee growled about his nightshirt, and Cloudman snickered. In the dark the little fellow tried to smash his tormentor with his own hard, hay-stuffed pillow. When he got hold of it again the pillow was wet."The water's leaking in under the tent, King!" snarled Peewee. "You got us in a nice mess!""In the morning you shall take a pick and shovel, honey, and dig a nice trench all around.""I'll see you hanged first!" bawled the rebel."Go to sleep and forget it," advised Red.They all got to sleep finally. But it was not yet morning when they were awakened again by Peewee, who seemed to be having a nightmare."That blamed infant!" Midkiff was saying with shocking emphasis. "I never did see such a pestiferous insect."Hicks was squealing: "Stop it! Stop! 'Tain't time to get up. That's only the first bell. Slop any more of that water on me, and I won't leave you enough to wash your face in!""Somebody please hit him on the head with the hatchet," urged Phillips."Ouch!" bawled the now thoroughly awakened Peewee. "I'm all afloat.""What d'ye mean—afloat?" demanded Kingdon, sitting up."Water's dripping ri-right into my ear," wailed Hicks."Ahoy! She's sprung a leak! Man the lifeboats!" came from Red Phillips. "All hands to the pumps."Then they heard something which at first they thought was the rain increasing. It seemed to be rushing down the hill upon them in a regular flood. Then, with a rumble and roar that seemed to rock the earth itself, an avalanche fell upon the plateau.Kingdon sprang up, seized the lantern that was burning low, turned up the wick, and got outside as quickly as possible. Midkiff was at his heels. In bare feet, they slopped through the two-inch flood that ran all around the tent. The rain was pouring steadily down. Through the darkness and the downpour they saw, just about where the tent had formerly stood, a bulky object around which the rain smoked."Mercy, Rex! What is it?" Midkiff gasped."The bowlder," Kingdon said in a muffled, almost choky voice."Bowlder?""It overhung the camp. I—I was afraid of it. That's why I had the tent shifted.""Good boy!" Midkiff patted his shoulder. "Your hunch saved us."Both recovered themselves as the others rushed out of the tent. No boy cares to reveal, even to his closest friend, the deeper feelings of his nature, and Rex and Midkiff said nothing more about appreciating the wisdom that had saved them all from disaster."Look at that rock!" gasped little Hicks, staring and shivering. "Rex, you kept us from being smashed by making us move.""It—it was lucky, Rex, that you made us do that," admitted Cloudman."You're a wonder!" Red exploded. "If we'd been there we'd been driven three feet under ground. They'd never had to bother to bury us."Midkiff pointed to the east. "It's almost daybreak. No more sleep.""I should say not!" Cloudman agreed."The rain washed the rock free and sent it down the hill," decided Phillips. "I can understand that, all right. But why did it fall just now? Of course, there's nothing fishy about it, Rex?""I couldn't say. A fish might have done it, but he'd had a stiff climb up to where that rock was.""After that I'm sorry thatyoumoved! There's nobody would have done such a thing, anyway.""Even that scaley Injun wasn't on the island," Applejack added."I don't believe our beloved Horace, or any of his bunch, would have strolled out in such a rain," Red went on carelessly."Hush!" chided Kingdon. "Evil to him who evil thinks.""It's knocked all the think out of me," said Cloudman, grinning in a sickly way.All five felt a seriousness that they feared to display. Boys are prone to consider any show of deeper feeling unmanly.They started to dress, and found that the most of their garments were more or less wet. As for putting on shoes and socks, that was foolish. The driest place they could find was the cabin of the catboat, and as it was almost high water they easily got aboard. When the oilstove was lighted, Cloudman started to fry soft clams and bacon for breakfast."Talk about paradise!" sighed Red, stretching and crowding Peewee into a space about as wide as a knife-edge. "This is it.""It distinctly isnotit," denied Hicks. "A sardine in a can feels lonesome, 'side ofme. Move over, and let a fellow breathe."Kingdon had not come aboard to stop. Getting into his oilskins, he climbed the hill above the camp alone. He was in a pretty serious mood. The bowlder had sheared the sod off the hillside for its entire course. The water was running in a brown flood down the path of the avalanche.Where the bowlder had been set was a hole all of two feet deep, and full of water. The drainage from above, pouring down the hill, seemed to have excavated the earth from all around the station of the bowlder. It might be that the huge rock was merely washed out of its bed by the rain and started in its plunge down the hill.Kingdon looked farther up the hill. Through the still falling drizzle he mounted the slope a few yards and found the sapling that he had before noted. It had been brought out of the woods and apparently had been put to criminal use. The smaller stone, still in position as a fulcrum, pointed to one answer to the problem. The leverage of that green stick might easily have started the bowlder to rolling. The rain had merely helped cover the fact.In Rex Kingdon's mind a thought took form: "An enemy hath done this!"CHAPTER XXV.THE EIGHT-OARED SHELL.The sun broke gloriously through the clouds, and it became a lovely morning. The Walcott Hall boys began finally to feel more cheerful. They spread out their belongings to dry in the sun, and Peewee actually took spade and pick and went to work on the shallow trench and drains that should surround every tent, no matter how good the natural drainage is.While he was sweating and grunting over his work, he looked off on the water, and promptly called:"See the ca-noe! Do you see the ca-noe? What is the ca-noe doing?""That Indian and Kirby are just getting back from Blackport," said Phillips, after glancing in the same direction."They must have started mighty early," Midkiff said. "They've had to beat up the sound against a stiff breeze."Kingdon said nothing, but he watched the two in the canoe make a landing. The light craft was heavily laden. He was quite sure it had made no quick passage from Blackport Channel; and at sunrise the weather had not cleared.With an idea in his head that he did not mention to the others, Kingdon wandered away by himself for a tramp along shore, strolling westerly. His chums had expressed their wonderment regarding the rolling of the bowlder, all through breakfast and afterward; but they suspected nothing. They were quite satisfied that it had been set in motion by the heavy rain.Storm Island was several miles long, and it was no inconsiderable walk to the western point of it. As he came within half a mile or so of the high clay bank under which he believed he had seen the small boat take shelter the previous afternoon, he looked sharply as he went along for signs of a landing on the beach.He found the place for which he was searching. The canoe had been lifted out and carried into a narrow, sandy and well-drained gulley. It had been overturned, and its cargo sheltered beneath it. The marks of two human beings who had crouched under the overturned boat were likewise plainly visible.Presently he went back to his friends, and found that the boys from the other camp, with the exception of the Indian, had come to see what the bowlder and debris on the plateau meant. They had spied the heap soon after the canoe arrived. Horace, of course, was reserved in his observations, as usual. Ben Comas was silent. Pudge was openly congratulatory that nobody was hurt. Kirby did the most talking."Wonder our fellows here didn't hear it," he remarked."It ought to have been heard in Blackport," Kingdon said grimly."You chaps must have slept like the dead, over there at the camp," said Kirby. "I'm sure I should have heard it if I'd been there.""Perhaps I did hear it," drawled Pence, "but thought it was only Pudge snoring."Kingdon continued cheerful and talkative while the visitors remained. He did not appear to, but he made friendly advances to Kirby."You had a bad night, didn't you?" he questioned. "I guess I saw you and Bootleg making the Clay Head just before the storm burst.""Wha-at?" cried Kirby. "We didn't either! We stayed at Blackport all night.""Where'd you stay?" Kingdon asked curiously, with raised eyebrows."On—on the wharf. A feller let us sleep on some bags in a fish-shed. If you saw anybody land here last evening, it wasn't us."He was so voluble and eager to deny it that he attracted Horace's attention. "What's the matter with you, Harry?" the black-eyed fellow drawled. "Having a fit? I heard you say you slept in the fish-house, which is believable; for both you and Joe Bootleg seem to carry a rather fishy odor about you this morning. It wouldn't have been a crime if youhadreached the Clay Head last night, and were afraid to sail the rest of the way up here." He laughed his unflattering laugh.Kingdon wondered. He had left the rusted hatchet he had found in the woods stuck in a rotting log in plain view. Pudge came across it."My goodness!" said the fat boy, growing red in the face. "I feared that had been lost. Do you know, Hicks, I don't remember bringing that hatchet back after I borrowed it. We found ours the next day.""Don't askme," Peewee said carelessly. "I don't know a thing about it.""I found it," Kingdon put in quietly, watching Pudge now."Did you?" asked the plump lad. "Where?""Where it was lost," returned the other laughing. "Don't need to worry about it. But you fellows don't want to cut green wood on the island. If one of the Manatee wardens should come over here and find out that you had——""Why, I never!" declared Pudge.Again Horace intervened. "What's all the row?" he queried, strolling up to the group at the log."I found a good sized stick cut, up there in the woods," Kingdon told him. "This hatchet that Pudge borrowed of us lay beside the raw stump. That'll never do, you know—cutting well grown saplings is a crime in the eyes of the lumber company.""You never said a word about it before, King," Hicks observed. "Thought we all understood there was to be no green wood cut.""We do," Horace said, his eyes narrowing."I never did it!" Pudge exclaimed again."I'll ask Joe. He's the only one that's likely to have used the hatchet," Horace said grimly. "You know how these Indians look at things, Kingdon. To such fellows a rule is only made to break.""I wonder," thought Kingdon, "if that isn't pretty nearly the attitude of everybody else?"To tell the truth, he was puzzled. Joe Bootleg, Kirby, Pudge, even Horace Pence himself, was under suspicion in Rex's mind. As for Ben Comas, sour as the chap appeared, somehow Kingdon did not consider him in any way connected with the affairs of the sapling-lever or the bowlder that had rolled down the hill.It was much too wet that day to get in any baseball practice, but the following afternoon the two parties of campers met on the field. Pence and his followers seemed rather more friendly than before. The two parties of boys mingled and spent an hour in a lively scrub game. Kingdon learned on this occasion that Horace was something of a batter."Over the fence and out, boy," the backstop said, grinning at Pence cheerfully. "Some wallop that. We've a real field at the Hall, and that fly would have gone pretty near to the lake. Old Jerry Lane never did better when he got a real clout at the sphere, eh, Red?""Lane couldn't do as well," Phillips agreed, with honesty, though still rather niggardly of praise regarding any of Horace Pence's achievements."Lane was our 'baby grand,'" laughed Kingdon. "He was some large person. Only trouble with Jerry was, his wits were in his feet and his feet were awfully slow. He ran bases like cold molasses. I bet Pudge could beat him. Made a fair football center, though.""You fellows at Walcott Hall go in for almost every kind of sport there is, I guess," observed Horace, almost as though he were interested."From tiddledywinks to button-button," Kingdon chuckled. "You should see our gym. There's few prep. schools can beat it, and some of the colleges have to lift their bonnets to Walcott Hall. Old Til loves clean sport himself, and some of the teachers aren't bad at tennis, golf, tatting, embroidery—even football. We've got a prof. of math, who is a regular shark at baseball. Used to coach for some southern college, I believe. Cloud can tell you. Cloud's known Yadkin since he was in pinafores. Cloud, I mean.""Look here," drawled Horace Pence, his black eyes twinkling, "don't you ever study at that school of yours?""Study!" exploded Phillips. "Man, they drive you like a dynamo at that institute of erudition.""But the dynamo's hooked up to plenty of fun, too," Kingdon hastened to say, favoring the clumsy Red with a frown. "Of course, we have to keep up in the lessons, without too many conditions.""Textbooks make me sick," yawned Horace. "I could almost like the sport end of it at Belding; but having to get lessons, and face the sour visage of an unappreciative faculty—not for me!""Why waste your time with that fellow, King?" complained Red, as they walked down to the camp together. "He's neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring. Thinks he's too old for school, whereas he doesn't know any more than little Peewee."Suddenly they both saw something in the cove below that brought a cry of surprise to their lips. Along beside theSpoondriftanother craft was just drifting in, its snowy sail rumpled on the deck."Pirates!" shouted Red to the boys behind them."That's theNothing To It," Kingdon added, striking into a trot.The five Walcott Hall youths came scampering down to the shore just as Yansey and his friends carried a line aboard theSpoondrift. The Blackport boys hailed the campers vociferously."Where's the rest of your band, Kingdon?" Yansey asked, after the greetings were over. "I see you've got two camps. We didn't know which one to anchor off of, but this was nearest.""The other fellows—Pence and his crowd—like that location best," Rex returned easily. "We eat in two squads, anyway. By and by we'll all go over there. I want you to know Horace.""Another of your Walcott Hall crowd?""Er—not yet," Kingdon admitted with a quiet smile.The skipper of theNothing To Itagreed. "We haven't got to hurry. There's a moon to-night, and we'll sail home by light of her. We're allowed to stay out late since we've put on long pants."Midkiff cooked a chowder. Cloudman fried fish and made biscuit. The Walcott Hall boys made great inroads on their choicest canned goods store, to balance the spread the Blackport Boat Club boys had previously given them.Kingdon found time to sound Yansey regarding the discarded eight-oared shell at the boat-builder's."No, he hasn't sold it for us yet. Not much chance of that till next spring when the rowing season opens.""Give you ten dollars for the use of it this summer," Kingdon offered."What for?""Well, we don't want to eat it.""You haven't the men to fill it.""Yes, I have. Fancy I can lick 'em into shape so as to give you Blackporters a practice race. I've offered ten dollars,——""Ten nothing!" cried the skipper of theNothing To It. "If you really think you can get up a crew——""Wait till you see us cutting circles round you," laughed Kingdon."I'll never live long enough to see that," said Yansey. "You can have the old skiff.""For ten dollars?""For ten kicks! We won't take your money. You look like a square chap to me, Kingdon. You're welcome to the use of our old boat. Perhaps youmightbeat some of the other crews in August.""We're going to break our backs to beat you Blackport fellows, I warn you," said Rex seriously."I admire your nerve!" chuckled Yansey. "But don't expect me to furnish liniment for your broken backs."CHAPTER XXVI.PENCE DEFENDS KIRBY.They went over to the other camp immediately after supper. It was still twilight, and the other campers saw them coming in good season. But the only one of Horace Pence's comrades that got away was Joe Bootleg. He did not linger to meet the fellows from Blackport."These are the chaps we can get that shell from, Horace," Kingdon explained, after the brief introductions. "Fact is, they sort of dare us to get into it and show 'em how much we don't know about rowing.""Perhaps we can surprise them by showing what we do know about it," laughed Pence."No wonder you don't wear hats over here on Storm Island," said Yansey. "None made big enough for your heads.""Can that fat chap row?" demanded another of the Blackport boys."Course I can," spoke up Pudge resentfully. "I'm not so heavy as I look." If there was one form of exercise the fat youth did not shy at it was rowing."It's lucky you're not as heavy as you look to be below the ears," drawled Yansey. "You'll make ballast, all right. Five and three are eight, and there's little nubbin for cox. Didn't see him at first.""I suppose not," sneered Hicks, who nearly always took offense when his physical proportions came into question. "There's a whole lot of things you Blackporters have never seen.""I suppose we'll have our eyes opened when you fellows get to rowing," laughed the skipper of theNothing To It."Quite likely," Phillips chimed in. "Give us two weeks of good weather and we'll show you something in the line of rowing that'll make you blink."He said this chaffingly, although he was enthused with the spirit of confidence. Even Midkiff showed interest. Cloudman was the only green hand. He had never given much thought to any sport but baseball.Before they returned to the cove where the catboats lay, Kingdon said to Horace Pence: "Come on over with me in theSpoondriftto-morrow, and we'll get the shell.""You mean to try it?""Try what?" asked Rex."To beat those fellows at their own game. All these long-shore chaps can row.""It won't hurt us if they beat us," Kingdon returned. "It'll give us something to do for excitement, anyhow.""I don't know that I can get our fellows to agree," Horace said slowly. It was the first speech Kingdon had ever heard him make that did not reek of self-confidence."You've got influence enough for that," Phillips told him. "Get 'em interested, and we'll keep 'em interested.""I'll try," Pence promised.Pence strolled over to the Walcott Hall camp in the morning, soon after breakfast, and signified his readiness to sail for Blackport.When theSpoondriftwas out of the cove and headed down the sound under her engine, the breeze being light, Phillips, the third member of the party, asked:"All your fellows like the idea of rowing? How about Comas?""Didn't have any trouble with Ben, for a wonder," Pence answered with a lift of his lip. "Ben kind of likes himself in a boat, anyway. But Harry——""That's Kirby?" Kingdon put in carelessly, as Pence hesitated."He's always been a shark on boating," the black-eyed chap stated. "I fairly had to tease him to agree to this scheme. I don't know what's got into him. Didn't act like himself at all. Almost as sour as Joe Bootleg."Pence said this more as a soliloquy than in open answer to Kingdon's question. As mentioned before, Horace was no great talker.When they were moored in the basin off the boat-builder's yard before noon, Rex and Pence went ashore. The two looked over the Boat Club boys' abandoned shell, and Kingdon noted with glee that Horace betrayed interest in, as well as familiarity with, shell construction, which seemed to prove that he had not been foolishly boasting about his prowess as an oarsman. The boat was rubbed a good deal, and somewhat battered; but there was nothing serious the matter with her. When she was lifted into the water she didn't leak enough to keep her "sweet.""She's an all-right shell," the master boat-builder said. "Only these rich young fellers over to the Boat Club wanted something fancier. Yes, Mr. Yansey was down here this morning, and said I was to let you have her if you showed up."By the way," the man pursued, "you're the party that's camping on Storm Island this summer? Well, you've got canoes over there, haven't you? Didn't two of you come over here t'other day?"Pence was the one to answer in the affirmative this time, and Kingdon saw that his eyes narrowed and he showed sudden curiosity."What of it?" Horace interrogated."Nothing," returned the boat-builder, "only I saw that canoe run down to the channel just before the blow came up, and I was a little worried. They got to the island all safe?""Next morning?" Pence said quickly."I mean that night. They ran out through the channel about ha'f after five.""They made the island all right," Kingdon coolly interposed, and without looking at Pence. "They landed at Clay Head, and spent the night there."Horace was a good actor. He controlled his surprise and postponed his questions. Kingdon spied a light cedar boat with nice lines, and before he got through he had made a bargain with the boat-builder to hire that craft as well."We've got to have something to try them out in singly," he explained to Pence. "Canoes are no good for that. Besides, we fellows have felt the need of a tender to theSpoondriftever since we reached the island."When they got under way again the shell was balanced and lashed across the deck of the catboat, while the rowboat bobbed behind, in tow. Red was forward, lying half asleep on the deck, when Horace said in a low tone to Kingdon:"You knew all the time that Joe and Kirby stayed at Clay Head that night?"Kingdon nodded. "Thought I saw them making a landing just before sunset. Next morning I went over there and found the place where they spent the night. They must have had a nice dry time of it in that howling rainstorm.""I did not know it," Pence said simply. "I believed what Harry said about their sleeping in the fish shed."Kingdon made no rejoinder. After looking at him with apprehensive gaze for a minute, the black-eyed fellow asked: "What are you going to do about it?""Nothing worth publishing in the newspapers.""You've got it in your head that they had something to do with shooting that rock down on you fellows?""How does it look to you? Somebody had something to do with it, that's sure. They tried to do it before the rain. I found the lever, and saw an attempt had been made to pry loose the bowlder. That's why when I thought I saw those two landing at Clay Head just before nightfall, I had the fellows move the tent.""Rest of your crowd wise to it, too?" Pence asked."Guess not. They think I had a hunch. Call me a wizard." Kingdon chuckled. "I'm not spilling anything to them about it—yet.""Why not?" Horace's eyes were flashing."Because I am not sure who did it—who cut the sapling, dug the hole under the bowlder, and set the other stone there for a fulcrum," Kingdon told him calmly."But you believe it was Joe and Kirby?""One of them—or both.""Not both.""You ought to know about that better than I," Kingdon returned significantly."I can't be sure about that Indian," Horace admitted."Who ever can be sure about one of those fellows? I have a faint suspicion he's got it in for me. I punched him hard that first night.""But why should Harry take up with him?" Pence's tone was savage."You should know, if Kirby is so thick with the aborigine. Look as though they might be brothers in the same boat, belong to the same lodge, as it were. Kirby may be heap big Injun, too," Kingdon laughed lightly."Oh, he's an Indian all right," gloomily agreed Horace Pence, "but not Joe Bootleg's kind. I never knew Harry to do a really mean thing. He's too white a fellow, I believe, to lend himself to a job like that."Kingdon had it on his tongue to suggest that he did not think Pence the best judge of what was "white" in a chap's character, but he refrained."It seems to me," he stated, "that whoever tried to roll the bowlder the first time couldn't make it. One chap wasn't heavy enough on the end of the lever; but two——""I won't believe it!" cried Horace suddenly. "I've known Harry Kirby since he was a little shaver.""Keep your opinion of him, then, till you find out you're wrong," advised Kingdon. "The truth is bound to come to the surface. You can't keep a cork under water. Murder will out, and that came near being murder if the rock was actually started by human means. Now, let's talk about the weather. Do you think it's going to rain or snow?"His seriousness tossed aside, Rex was his usual sunny, light-hearted self. But Horace remained grim and thoughtful throughout the return trip.CHAPTER XXVII.VISITORS.Unless one or the other of the two camping parties on Storm Island sailed across to a weir for a mess of fish, they seldom saw a stranger to speak to. Fishermen and others kept away from the island because of the well-known rules of the Manatee Lumber Company against trespassing.Had the two camping parties not become friendly to a degree, neither would have had so enjoyable an outing. Rex Kingdon, with his never-failing insight and clever ideas, had brought about a situation better than an "armed neutrality." The boys of the two camps met on grounds of common interest at two points, baseball and rowing.Each forenoon they spent an hour or two practicing on the ball field. Under Kingdon's coaching they began to work together quite smoothly, although they lacked a complete nine to play against. But Yansey had threatened to bring over a nine of Blackport boys who could show them some "real baseball," and the Storm Island lads were hoping he would not forget about it.Towards evening of each day, as it grew cooler, they began practicing in the eight-oared shell. Meantime Kingdon and Pence were getting the fellows singly into the cedar boat to test their individual rowing.Not a word had been said about who should be "captain." Pence had once rowed stroke in a freshman eight at Belding. Frequently the chap in that place is captain of the crew, but not always."You've got a fat chance to be captain," scoffed Harry Kirby, one evening when he and his three friends were by themselves. Joe Bootleg did not count, for he kept strictly away from the white boys unless he was told to do something by Ben, to whom he looked for his wages. "A fat chance," repeated Kirby in the most irritating tone he could command. "Kingdon kid hogs everything. He doesn't give anybody else a bite.""Talking about biting, you can growl, can't you?" said Horace, placidly."Oh," returned the other, "I don't care about myself. I don't care where I row—or if I row at all. I'm only doing it, anyway, to keep peace in the family.""Peace is sometimes hard to come by, isn't it?" murmured Pence, with his cap over his eyes and an air of exaggerated carelessness that was bound to irritate a fellow as much worked up as Kirby was just then."You can make believe you don't care——""Certainly I care! I've gone into this for one thing—just one thing," Pence declared with sudden sharpness."I'd like to know what it is. We'll bust up in a row with those fellows. I come near licking that redheaded guy to-day.""You'd have a nice time doing it, Kirby," put in Ben Comas, delighted to see his two comrades on the verge of a scrap. "Phillips could eat you up. I saw him boxing with Kingdon the other morning, and, take it from me, he has a punch. King had hard work to keep away from it.""King!" snarled Kirby, like an angry dog. "You've got the disease, too, Comas!""What disease is that?" asked the lazy one, startled."Calling that curly-haired pet King. He's a fine king! If it wasn't for his name, he wouldn't be leading that bunch. He's got 'em under his thumb, and now he's starting in on you fellows.""Hear him rave," grunted Pudge MacComber, widely agrin. "Never did hear Harry take on so.""The whole thing will end up in a fight," insisted Kirby, subsiding."That'll be nice," chuckled Pudge."You won't be in it, if you see it coming," drawled Pence. "We may be sure it suits Kingdon. He says he loves to fuss with us.""I'd like to give him all he's looking for," mumbled Kirby."Don't try it, old chap," advised Pence. "I've had the gloves on with Rex Kingdon myself. Phillips may have a punch, but Kingdon has a whole flock of them hidden in his sleeves."Kirby fell silent, feeling that they were all against him. Nevertheless, he stopped quarreling about Kingdon—for the time being, at least.To the casual observer it would have seemed that Horace Pence worked with Kingdon in perfect harmony as they began to whip the crew into shape."Horrors knows a thing or two about rowing," Rex said to his friends, "and there's no reason he shouldn't put it into practice.""He'll do something to queer the whole business," predicted Midkiff. "He's too erratic.""Erratic fiddlesticks!" returned his roommate in Old Hall. "He's got grit and some foresight. I notice that his judgment in anything but pitching is fine."Red laughed. "Don't let him hear you say that. He'd be dead sore. But he's improving at pitching, even, Rex.""Seems to be improving in general, if you'll pardon me for saying so," Kingdon said. "He's doing his bit. It isn't for Walcott Hall exactly. So, if we come a cropper over this rowing business, why shed tears?"Red Phillips' sturdy back and his rowing ability made him the choice of both Kingdon and Pence for bow oar. Number Two fell to Ben Comas. The latter stirred himself sufficiently to be valuable as an oarsman because he chanced to be very fond of the sport. Pudge MacComber fell heir to Number Three, because it seemed that he balanced the boat better in that place, Midkiff's bulk occupying the next seat, Number Four.Cloudman splashed a good deal in the beginning, and the fellows behind him kicked about it; nevertheless they made him Number Five. "Unless you want to give him your seat, Midget," Kingdon chuckled, "and try to row against Kirby, here, at Six.""If I couldn't do better than Applejack, I'd eat my oar," Peewee maintained with his usual modesty."Just fancy yourself on a wild bronc, little one," Phillips told the perky coxswain, "and think of what kind of a show you'd make beside Applejack's performance. He's at home on a bronc.""And Peewee would be at home in a peanut shell," chuckled Cloudman."If I wasn't more at home in this shell than you seem to be, Applejack," scoffed Hicks, "I'd write a letter of introduction for myself before I tried to climb aboard."Cloudman really intended to learn to row. He was a determined fellow—nor could he be deterred by trifles from any point he wished to gain. He splashed less as time passed, and as Number Four, began to pull a strong oar. He possessed good muscle, did that Western boy!Kirby was the best of all Pence's band; Rex had seen that from the start. Short of Horace himself he pulled the strongest oar. They tried him in almost all the positions in the shell and he made good wherever he was placed. Kingdon saw, however, that Kirby seemed much more silent and sullen than he at first had been. He came to the ball-field and to rowing practice with a somber face; Horace was talkative as compared with Harry.At other times Kingdon often saw the latter wandering about alone, or lying by himself under the trees and taking no part in the general activities or conversation of his comrades. He seemed to have nothing to do with Joe Bootleg. Indeed, the Indian was treated like a servant by the other members of Pence's crowd. Joe kept strictly to himself, too. He did not even come down to the waterside to watch the rowing practice.For a full week Kingdon and Pence were busy getting the boys properly disposed of in the shell. Then it seemed to come about naturally that Kingdon was put in as Number Seven and Pence took Number Eight oar."Set the pace, Horrors," said Rex. "You've got to stroke us. Let's see if we can't work up speed enough to make those Blackport fellows hustle a little, at least.""Think I'm the best candidate for crew captain?" Pence asked almost in a whisper. "Really mean it?""I'd take it myself in a minute if I didn't think you know more about the game than I do," answered Kingdon frankly. "For the good of the crew, old boy!"Horace Pence stared at him for several seconds. "I'm willing to try it because you say so, Kingdon," he muttered presently in a queer voice."'Nuff said. Now we'll do our prettiest to work up a little surprise for our Blackport friends."Following Kingdon's advice, they declined to show off in the shell when theNothing To Itwas loafing about in the sound, and did most of their rowing toward evening; for at that time it was less likely that any of the Blackport crowd would be in sight.When Yansey brought over his nine of ball players one Saturday afternoon, however, the Storm Island boys were more than ready to play them."Give your eyes a treat," urged Peewee to Kingdon and Pence, before the game. "Those huskies they've brought from the sawmill and the shipyard ought to be in the big league. Methinks they've played as far south as Providence. Look at that feller warming up over there. He ought to be pitching for McGraw.""Get a foot warmer," chuckled Rex. "Don't let the size of 'em scare you, my child. We will protect you.""How kind of you!" murmured Hicks. "I hope Middy bounces a fast one off his dome, just the same. He acts like he owned the earth and was just whitewashing the fence around it.""Let's take care he doesn't whitewash us," said Kingdon.The visitors won the toss and chose the field. The Storm Island boys did get whitewashed the first inning, while the Blackport players began to hit Midkiff rather freely. Nevertheless, they pushed only one man around to the scoring station, although it was more by good luck than good management that the island nine held them down so well.Kirby started grumbling when the islanders were back under the trees for the first half of the second inning. "I thought you Walcott Hallers could play ball," he said. "What kind of a pitcher is that Midkiff, Kingdon? I call him a frost."Midkiff was batting at that moment, but Kirby had not tried to keep his voice down, and John's face seemed to indicate that he had heard. The situation was tense at the start of the game, and there was danger that trouble would be hatched in the ranks of the home nine. If Kirby's critical attitude was going to become general, Rex knew the Blackport nine would not have much trouble in winning.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A LUCKY MOVE.
The wind began droning like a monster pipe-organ through the wood. The thunder of the surf sent its solemn cadence to their ears from the seaward side of Storm Island. Night was shutting down threateningly and pregnant with the possibility of coming disaster.
They were comfortable enough under the break of the hill. If worse came to worse, they could clip aboard theSpoondriftand take shelter in her cabin. She was not likely to pitch much here in the cove, with the wind in its present quarter.
Red took Peewee in his arms, despite that infant's strenuous objections, and sang to him:
"Rock-a-bye, baby, on the tree top!When the wind blows the cradle will rock."
"Rock-a-bye, baby, on the tree top!When the wind blows the cradle will rock."
"Rock-a-bye, baby, on the tree top!
When the wind blows the cradle will rock."
"I'll bounce a rock off your top story—that's the sort of a rock I'll give you!" threatened Hicks. "What do you think you're doing, nursing a first-form kid?"
The evening promised to be tempestuous, both in the tent and out. The atmospheric pressure has something to do with the brittleness of human temper at such times. Midkiff and Cloudman got into a wrangle that Kingdon had to settle with some abruptness, and Hicks had a chip on his shoulder most of the time. After a while, getting tired of it, Rex called sharply:
"Stop the fussing. I have something serious to say. This tent isn't right. I haven't been satisfied with its position since it was raised. It isn't properly sheltered from the wind, and we're going to have some wind to-night, my husky lads. Come on, let's move it before it gets any darker."
"Move it!"
"It should be at least twenty yards over here to the east," insisted Rex. "No time like the present. Give a hand." He began to pull up stakes.
"You're crazy, Rex," Midkiff said.
"Let the tent alone!" cried Cloudman.
"Ain't to-morrow another day?" queried Peewee shrilly, almost in tears. "I don't want to work any more to-night."
"This tent is going to be moved to-night," asserted the leader of the party.
"You're foolish, Rex," Midkiff again said.
"What's the matter with you?" demanded Peewee. "I don't see——"
"You don't have to," Kingdon said with sharpness. "Come, now! Think I'm going to do this all alone? Want to get it set up again before the rain comes."
"I won't do it!" Phillips protested. "It's foolishness. You're using the steel fist without any reason."
Midkiff yielded. "Rex is within his rights. He's captain. If he says it's moving day, why move we must. But to-morrow we'll see about this."
"You'll have to show us why and what-for to-morrow, then," said Cloudman morosely. "I can obey orders as well as the next one. But these are tyrannical. I didn't know what I was letting myself in for. This will need a lot of explaining to satisfyme."
It was a grouchy bunch that tackled the job. Before starting for the summer camp Rex had been unanimously chosen captain, and they had agreed to obey every order given by him. This, of course, was quite necessary aboard theSpoondrift. Discipline had become somewhat lax ashore, but Kingdon still had the right to command, if he wished to enforce it.
It was necessary to get out the lanterns before they were through, and ere the job was finished it had begun to rain.
Some of their "dunnage" got damp, and when Hicks got into his nightshirt the bottom of it was sopping wet. He almost frothed at the mouth beneath the chaffing of the others.
The rainfall began and continued without the roll of thunder or the flash of lightning. It was a tempest, nevertheless. Harder and harder the rain drummed on the canvas roof. The torrential downpour would have drowned conversation had the boys attempted it.
Their five cots were arranged just as they had been before, but somehow they did not now seem so comfortable. Peewee growled about his nightshirt, and Cloudman snickered. In the dark the little fellow tried to smash his tormentor with his own hard, hay-stuffed pillow. When he got hold of it again the pillow was wet.
"The water's leaking in under the tent, King!" snarled Peewee. "You got us in a nice mess!"
"In the morning you shall take a pick and shovel, honey, and dig a nice trench all around."
"I'll see you hanged first!" bawled the rebel.
"Go to sleep and forget it," advised Red.
They all got to sleep finally. But it was not yet morning when they were awakened again by Peewee, who seemed to be having a nightmare.
"That blamed infant!" Midkiff was saying with shocking emphasis. "I never did see such a pestiferous insect."
Hicks was squealing: "Stop it! Stop! 'Tain't time to get up. That's only the first bell. Slop any more of that water on me, and I won't leave you enough to wash your face in!"
"Somebody please hit him on the head with the hatchet," urged Phillips.
"Ouch!" bawled the now thoroughly awakened Peewee. "I'm all afloat."
"What d'ye mean—afloat?" demanded Kingdon, sitting up.
"Water's dripping ri-right into my ear," wailed Hicks.
"Ahoy! She's sprung a leak! Man the lifeboats!" came from Red Phillips. "All hands to the pumps."
Then they heard something which at first they thought was the rain increasing. It seemed to be rushing down the hill upon them in a regular flood. Then, with a rumble and roar that seemed to rock the earth itself, an avalanche fell upon the plateau.
Kingdon sprang up, seized the lantern that was burning low, turned up the wick, and got outside as quickly as possible. Midkiff was at his heels. In bare feet, they slopped through the two-inch flood that ran all around the tent. The rain was pouring steadily down. Through the darkness and the downpour they saw, just about where the tent had formerly stood, a bulky object around which the rain smoked.
"Mercy, Rex! What is it?" Midkiff gasped.
"The bowlder," Kingdon said in a muffled, almost choky voice.
"Bowlder?"
"It overhung the camp. I—I was afraid of it. That's why I had the tent shifted."
"Good boy!" Midkiff patted his shoulder. "Your hunch saved us."
Both recovered themselves as the others rushed out of the tent. No boy cares to reveal, even to his closest friend, the deeper feelings of his nature, and Rex and Midkiff said nothing more about appreciating the wisdom that had saved them all from disaster.
"Look at that rock!" gasped little Hicks, staring and shivering. "Rex, you kept us from being smashed by making us move."
"It—it was lucky, Rex, that you made us do that," admitted Cloudman.
"You're a wonder!" Red exploded. "If we'd been there we'd been driven three feet under ground. They'd never had to bother to bury us."
Midkiff pointed to the east. "It's almost daybreak. No more sleep."
"I should say not!" Cloudman agreed.
"The rain washed the rock free and sent it down the hill," decided Phillips. "I can understand that, all right. But why did it fall just now? Of course, there's nothing fishy about it, Rex?"
"I couldn't say. A fish might have done it, but he'd had a stiff climb up to where that rock was."
"After that I'm sorry thatyoumoved! There's nobody would have done such a thing, anyway."
"Even that scaley Injun wasn't on the island," Applejack added.
"I don't believe our beloved Horace, or any of his bunch, would have strolled out in such a rain," Red went on carelessly.
"Hush!" chided Kingdon. "Evil to him who evil thinks."
"It's knocked all the think out of me," said Cloudman, grinning in a sickly way.
All five felt a seriousness that they feared to display. Boys are prone to consider any show of deeper feeling unmanly.
They started to dress, and found that the most of their garments were more or less wet. As for putting on shoes and socks, that was foolish. The driest place they could find was the cabin of the catboat, and as it was almost high water they easily got aboard. When the oilstove was lighted, Cloudman started to fry soft clams and bacon for breakfast.
"Talk about paradise!" sighed Red, stretching and crowding Peewee into a space about as wide as a knife-edge. "This is it."
"It distinctly isnotit," denied Hicks. "A sardine in a can feels lonesome, 'side ofme. Move over, and let a fellow breathe."
Kingdon had not come aboard to stop. Getting into his oilskins, he climbed the hill above the camp alone. He was in a pretty serious mood. The bowlder had sheared the sod off the hillside for its entire course. The water was running in a brown flood down the path of the avalanche.
Where the bowlder had been set was a hole all of two feet deep, and full of water. The drainage from above, pouring down the hill, seemed to have excavated the earth from all around the station of the bowlder. It might be that the huge rock was merely washed out of its bed by the rain and started in its plunge down the hill.
Kingdon looked farther up the hill. Through the still falling drizzle he mounted the slope a few yards and found the sapling that he had before noted. It had been brought out of the woods and apparently had been put to criminal use. The smaller stone, still in position as a fulcrum, pointed to one answer to the problem. The leverage of that green stick might easily have started the bowlder to rolling. The rain had merely helped cover the fact.
In Rex Kingdon's mind a thought took form: "An enemy hath done this!"
CHAPTER XXV.
THE EIGHT-OARED SHELL.
The sun broke gloriously through the clouds, and it became a lovely morning. The Walcott Hall boys began finally to feel more cheerful. They spread out their belongings to dry in the sun, and Peewee actually took spade and pick and went to work on the shallow trench and drains that should surround every tent, no matter how good the natural drainage is.
While he was sweating and grunting over his work, he looked off on the water, and promptly called:
"See the ca-noe! Do you see the ca-noe? What is the ca-noe doing?"
"That Indian and Kirby are just getting back from Blackport," said Phillips, after glancing in the same direction.
"They must have started mighty early," Midkiff said. "They've had to beat up the sound against a stiff breeze."
Kingdon said nothing, but he watched the two in the canoe make a landing. The light craft was heavily laden. He was quite sure it had made no quick passage from Blackport Channel; and at sunrise the weather had not cleared.
With an idea in his head that he did not mention to the others, Kingdon wandered away by himself for a tramp along shore, strolling westerly. His chums had expressed their wonderment regarding the rolling of the bowlder, all through breakfast and afterward; but they suspected nothing. They were quite satisfied that it had been set in motion by the heavy rain.
Storm Island was several miles long, and it was no inconsiderable walk to the western point of it. As he came within half a mile or so of the high clay bank under which he believed he had seen the small boat take shelter the previous afternoon, he looked sharply as he went along for signs of a landing on the beach.
He found the place for which he was searching. The canoe had been lifted out and carried into a narrow, sandy and well-drained gulley. It had been overturned, and its cargo sheltered beneath it. The marks of two human beings who had crouched under the overturned boat were likewise plainly visible.
Presently he went back to his friends, and found that the boys from the other camp, with the exception of the Indian, had come to see what the bowlder and debris on the plateau meant. They had spied the heap soon after the canoe arrived. Horace, of course, was reserved in his observations, as usual. Ben Comas was silent. Pudge was openly congratulatory that nobody was hurt. Kirby did the most talking.
"Wonder our fellows here didn't hear it," he remarked.
"It ought to have been heard in Blackport," Kingdon said grimly.
"You chaps must have slept like the dead, over there at the camp," said Kirby. "I'm sure I should have heard it if I'd been there."
"Perhaps I did hear it," drawled Pence, "but thought it was only Pudge snoring."
Kingdon continued cheerful and talkative while the visitors remained. He did not appear to, but he made friendly advances to Kirby.
"You had a bad night, didn't you?" he questioned. "I guess I saw you and Bootleg making the Clay Head just before the storm burst."
"Wha-at?" cried Kirby. "We didn't either! We stayed at Blackport all night."
"Where'd you stay?" Kingdon asked curiously, with raised eyebrows.
"On—on the wharf. A feller let us sleep on some bags in a fish-shed. If you saw anybody land here last evening, it wasn't us."
He was so voluble and eager to deny it that he attracted Horace's attention. "What's the matter with you, Harry?" the black-eyed fellow drawled. "Having a fit? I heard you say you slept in the fish-house, which is believable; for both you and Joe Bootleg seem to carry a rather fishy odor about you this morning. It wouldn't have been a crime if youhadreached the Clay Head last night, and were afraid to sail the rest of the way up here." He laughed his unflattering laugh.
Kingdon wondered. He had left the rusted hatchet he had found in the woods stuck in a rotting log in plain view. Pudge came across it.
"My goodness!" said the fat boy, growing red in the face. "I feared that had been lost. Do you know, Hicks, I don't remember bringing that hatchet back after I borrowed it. We found ours the next day."
"Don't askme," Peewee said carelessly. "I don't know a thing about it."
"I found it," Kingdon put in quietly, watching Pudge now.
"Did you?" asked the plump lad. "Where?"
"Where it was lost," returned the other laughing. "Don't need to worry about it. But you fellows don't want to cut green wood on the island. If one of the Manatee wardens should come over here and find out that you had——"
"Why, I never!" declared Pudge.
Again Horace intervened. "What's all the row?" he queried, strolling up to the group at the log.
"I found a good sized stick cut, up there in the woods," Kingdon told him. "This hatchet that Pudge borrowed of us lay beside the raw stump. That'll never do, you know—cutting well grown saplings is a crime in the eyes of the lumber company."
"You never said a word about it before, King," Hicks observed. "Thought we all understood there was to be no green wood cut."
"We do," Horace said, his eyes narrowing.
"I never did it!" Pudge exclaimed again.
"I'll ask Joe. He's the only one that's likely to have used the hatchet," Horace said grimly. "You know how these Indians look at things, Kingdon. To such fellows a rule is only made to break."
"I wonder," thought Kingdon, "if that isn't pretty nearly the attitude of everybody else?"
To tell the truth, he was puzzled. Joe Bootleg, Kirby, Pudge, even Horace Pence himself, was under suspicion in Rex's mind. As for Ben Comas, sour as the chap appeared, somehow Kingdon did not consider him in any way connected with the affairs of the sapling-lever or the bowlder that had rolled down the hill.
It was much too wet that day to get in any baseball practice, but the following afternoon the two parties of campers met on the field. Pence and his followers seemed rather more friendly than before. The two parties of boys mingled and spent an hour in a lively scrub game. Kingdon learned on this occasion that Horace was something of a batter.
"Over the fence and out, boy," the backstop said, grinning at Pence cheerfully. "Some wallop that. We've a real field at the Hall, and that fly would have gone pretty near to the lake. Old Jerry Lane never did better when he got a real clout at the sphere, eh, Red?"
"Lane couldn't do as well," Phillips agreed, with honesty, though still rather niggardly of praise regarding any of Horace Pence's achievements.
"Lane was our 'baby grand,'" laughed Kingdon. "He was some large person. Only trouble with Jerry was, his wits were in his feet and his feet were awfully slow. He ran bases like cold molasses. I bet Pudge could beat him. Made a fair football center, though."
"You fellows at Walcott Hall go in for almost every kind of sport there is, I guess," observed Horace, almost as though he were interested.
"From tiddledywinks to button-button," Kingdon chuckled. "You should see our gym. There's few prep. schools can beat it, and some of the colleges have to lift their bonnets to Walcott Hall. Old Til loves clean sport himself, and some of the teachers aren't bad at tennis, golf, tatting, embroidery—even football. We've got a prof. of math, who is a regular shark at baseball. Used to coach for some southern college, I believe. Cloud can tell you. Cloud's known Yadkin since he was in pinafores. Cloud, I mean."
"Look here," drawled Horace Pence, his black eyes twinkling, "don't you ever study at that school of yours?"
"Study!" exploded Phillips. "Man, they drive you like a dynamo at that institute of erudition."
"But the dynamo's hooked up to plenty of fun, too," Kingdon hastened to say, favoring the clumsy Red with a frown. "Of course, we have to keep up in the lessons, without too many conditions."
"Textbooks make me sick," yawned Horace. "I could almost like the sport end of it at Belding; but having to get lessons, and face the sour visage of an unappreciative faculty—not for me!"
"Why waste your time with that fellow, King?" complained Red, as they walked down to the camp together. "He's neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring. Thinks he's too old for school, whereas he doesn't know any more than little Peewee."
Suddenly they both saw something in the cove below that brought a cry of surprise to their lips. Along beside theSpoondriftanother craft was just drifting in, its snowy sail rumpled on the deck.
"Pirates!" shouted Red to the boys behind them.
"That's theNothing To It," Kingdon added, striking into a trot.
The five Walcott Hall youths came scampering down to the shore just as Yansey and his friends carried a line aboard theSpoondrift. The Blackport boys hailed the campers vociferously.
"Where's the rest of your band, Kingdon?" Yansey asked, after the greetings were over. "I see you've got two camps. We didn't know which one to anchor off of, but this was nearest."
"The other fellows—Pence and his crowd—like that location best," Rex returned easily. "We eat in two squads, anyway. By and by we'll all go over there. I want you to know Horace."
"Another of your Walcott Hall crowd?"
"Er—not yet," Kingdon admitted with a quiet smile.
The skipper of theNothing To Itagreed. "We haven't got to hurry. There's a moon to-night, and we'll sail home by light of her. We're allowed to stay out late since we've put on long pants."
Midkiff cooked a chowder. Cloudman fried fish and made biscuit. The Walcott Hall boys made great inroads on their choicest canned goods store, to balance the spread the Blackport Boat Club boys had previously given them.
Kingdon found time to sound Yansey regarding the discarded eight-oared shell at the boat-builder's.
"No, he hasn't sold it for us yet. Not much chance of that till next spring when the rowing season opens."
"Give you ten dollars for the use of it this summer," Kingdon offered.
"What for?"
"Well, we don't want to eat it."
"You haven't the men to fill it."
"Yes, I have. Fancy I can lick 'em into shape so as to give you Blackporters a practice race. I've offered ten dollars,——"
"Ten nothing!" cried the skipper of theNothing To It. "If you really think you can get up a crew——"
"Wait till you see us cutting circles round you," laughed Kingdon.
"I'll never live long enough to see that," said Yansey. "You can have the old skiff."
"For ten dollars?"
"For ten kicks! We won't take your money. You look like a square chap to me, Kingdon. You're welcome to the use of our old boat. Perhaps youmightbeat some of the other crews in August."
"We're going to break our backs to beat you Blackport fellows, I warn you," said Rex seriously.
"I admire your nerve!" chuckled Yansey. "But don't expect me to furnish liniment for your broken backs."
CHAPTER XXVI.
PENCE DEFENDS KIRBY.
They went over to the other camp immediately after supper. It was still twilight, and the other campers saw them coming in good season. But the only one of Horace Pence's comrades that got away was Joe Bootleg. He did not linger to meet the fellows from Blackport.
"These are the chaps we can get that shell from, Horace," Kingdon explained, after the brief introductions. "Fact is, they sort of dare us to get into it and show 'em how much we don't know about rowing."
"Perhaps we can surprise them by showing what we do know about it," laughed Pence.
"No wonder you don't wear hats over here on Storm Island," said Yansey. "None made big enough for your heads."
"Can that fat chap row?" demanded another of the Blackport boys.
"Course I can," spoke up Pudge resentfully. "I'm not so heavy as I look." If there was one form of exercise the fat youth did not shy at it was rowing.
"It's lucky you're not as heavy as you look to be below the ears," drawled Yansey. "You'll make ballast, all right. Five and three are eight, and there's little nubbin for cox. Didn't see him at first."
"I suppose not," sneered Hicks, who nearly always took offense when his physical proportions came into question. "There's a whole lot of things you Blackporters have never seen."
"I suppose we'll have our eyes opened when you fellows get to rowing," laughed the skipper of theNothing To It.
"Quite likely," Phillips chimed in. "Give us two weeks of good weather and we'll show you something in the line of rowing that'll make you blink."
He said this chaffingly, although he was enthused with the spirit of confidence. Even Midkiff showed interest. Cloudman was the only green hand. He had never given much thought to any sport but baseball.
Before they returned to the cove where the catboats lay, Kingdon said to Horace Pence: "Come on over with me in theSpoondriftto-morrow, and we'll get the shell."
"You mean to try it?"
"Try what?" asked Rex.
"To beat those fellows at their own game. All these long-shore chaps can row."
"It won't hurt us if they beat us," Kingdon returned. "It'll give us something to do for excitement, anyhow."
"I don't know that I can get our fellows to agree," Horace said slowly. It was the first speech Kingdon had ever heard him make that did not reek of self-confidence.
"You've got influence enough for that," Phillips told him. "Get 'em interested, and we'll keep 'em interested."
"I'll try," Pence promised.
Pence strolled over to the Walcott Hall camp in the morning, soon after breakfast, and signified his readiness to sail for Blackport.
When theSpoondriftwas out of the cove and headed down the sound under her engine, the breeze being light, Phillips, the third member of the party, asked:
"All your fellows like the idea of rowing? How about Comas?"
"Didn't have any trouble with Ben, for a wonder," Pence answered with a lift of his lip. "Ben kind of likes himself in a boat, anyway. But Harry——"
"That's Kirby?" Kingdon put in carelessly, as Pence hesitated.
"He's always been a shark on boating," the black-eyed chap stated. "I fairly had to tease him to agree to this scheme. I don't know what's got into him. Didn't act like himself at all. Almost as sour as Joe Bootleg."
Pence said this more as a soliloquy than in open answer to Kingdon's question. As mentioned before, Horace was no great talker.
When they were moored in the basin off the boat-builder's yard before noon, Rex and Pence went ashore. The two looked over the Boat Club boys' abandoned shell, and Kingdon noted with glee that Horace betrayed interest in, as well as familiarity with, shell construction, which seemed to prove that he had not been foolishly boasting about his prowess as an oarsman. The boat was rubbed a good deal, and somewhat battered; but there was nothing serious the matter with her. When she was lifted into the water she didn't leak enough to keep her "sweet."
"She's an all-right shell," the master boat-builder said. "Only these rich young fellers over to the Boat Club wanted something fancier. Yes, Mr. Yansey was down here this morning, and said I was to let you have her if you showed up.
"By the way," the man pursued, "you're the party that's camping on Storm Island this summer? Well, you've got canoes over there, haven't you? Didn't two of you come over here t'other day?"
Pence was the one to answer in the affirmative this time, and Kingdon saw that his eyes narrowed and he showed sudden curiosity.
"What of it?" Horace interrogated.
"Nothing," returned the boat-builder, "only I saw that canoe run down to the channel just before the blow came up, and I was a little worried. They got to the island all safe?"
"Next morning?" Pence said quickly.
"I mean that night. They ran out through the channel about ha'f after five."
"They made the island all right," Kingdon coolly interposed, and without looking at Pence. "They landed at Clay Head, and spent the night there."
Horace was a good actor. He controlled his surprise and postponed his questions. Kingdon spied a light cedar boat with nice lines, and before he got through he had made a bargain with the boat-builder to hire that craft as well.
"We've got to have something to try them out in singly," he explained to Pence. "Canoes are no good for that. Besides, we fellows have felt the need of a tender to theSpoondriftever since we reached the island."
When they got under way again the shell was balanced and lashed across the deck of the catboat, while the rowboat bobbed behind, in tow. Red was forward, lying half asleep on the deck, when Horace said in a low tone to Kingdon:
"You knew all the time that Joe and Kirby stayed at Clay Head that night?"
Kingdon nodded. "Thought I saw them making a landing just before sunset. Next morning I went over there and found the place where they spent the night. They must have had a nice dry time of it in that howling rainstorm."
"I did not know it," Pence said simply. "I believed what Harry said about their sleeping in the fish shed."
Kingdon made no rejoinder. After looking at him with apprehensive gaze for a minute, the black-eyed fellow asked: "What are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing worth publishing in the newspapers."
"You've got it in your head that they had something to do with shooting that rock down on you fellows?"
"How does it look to you? Somebody had something to do with it, that's sure. They tried to do it before the rain. I found the lever, and saw an attempt had been made to pry loose the bowlder. That's why when I thought I saw those two landing at Clay Head just before nightfall, I had the fellows move the tent."
"Rest of your crowd wise to it, too?" Pence asked.
"Guess not. They think I had a hunch. Call me a wizard." Kingdon chuckled. "I'm not spilling anything to them about it—yet."
"Why not?" Horace's eyes were flashing.
"Because I am not sure who did it—who cut the sapling, dug the hole under the bowlder, and set the other stone there for a fulcrum," Kingdon told him calmly.
"But you believe it was Joe and Kirby?"
"One of them—or both."
"Not both."
"You ought to know about that better than I," Kingdon returned significantly.
"I can't be sure about that Indian," Horace admitted.
"Who ever can be sure about one of those fellows? I have a faint suspicion he's got it in for me. I punched him hard that first night."
"But why should Harry take up with him?" Pence's tone was savage.
"You should know, if Kirby is so thick with the aborigine. Look as though they might be brothers in the same boat, belong to the same lodge, as it were. Kirby may be heap big Injun, too," Kingdon laughed lightly.
"Oh, he's an Indian all right," gloomily agreed Horace Pence, "but not Joe Bootleg's kind. I never knew Harry to do a really mean thing. He's too white a fellow, I believe, to lend himself to a job like that."
Kingdon had it on his tongue to suggest that he did not think Pence the best judge of what was "white" in a chap's character, but he refrained.
"It seems to me," he stated, "that whoever tried to roll the bowlder the first time couldn't make it. One chap wasn't heavy enough on the end of the lever; but two——"
"I won't believe it!" cried Horace suddenly. "I've known Harry Kirby since he was a little shaver."
"Keep your opinion of him, then, till you find out you're wrong," advised Kingdon. "The truth is bound to come to the surface. You can't keep a cork under water. Murder will out, and that came near being murder if the rock was actually started by human means. Now, let's talk about the weather. Do you think it's going to rain or snow?"
His seriousness tossed aside, Rex was his usual sunny, light-hearted self. But Horace remained grim and thoughtful throughout the return trip.
CHAPTER XXVII.
VISITORS.
Unless one or the other of the two camping parties on Storm Island sailed across to a weir for a mess of fish, they seldom saw a stranger to speak to. Fishermen and others kept away from the island because of the well-known rules of the Manatee Lumber Company against trespassing.
Had the two camping parties not become friendly to a degree, neither would have had so enjoyable an outing. Rex Kingdon, with his never-failing insight and clever ideas, had brought about a situation better than an "armed neutrality." The boys of the two camps met on grounds of common interest at two points, baseball and rowing.
Each forenoon they spent an hour or two practicing on the ball field. Under Kingdon's coaching they began to work together quite smoothly, although they lacked a complete nine to play against. But Yansey had threatened to bring over a nine of Blackport boys who could show them some "real baseball," and the Storm Island lads were hoping he would not forget about it.
Towards evening of each day, as it grew cooler, they began practicing in the eight-oared shell. Meantime Kingdon and Pence were getting the fellows singly into the cedar boat to test their individual rowing.
Not a word had been said about who should be "captain." Pence had once rowed stroke in a freshman eight at Belding. Frequently the chap in that place is captain of the crew, but not always.
"You've got a fat chance to be captain," scoffed Harry Kirby, one evening when he and his three friends were by themselves. Joe Bootleg did not count, for he kept strictly away from the white boys unless he was told to do something by Ben, to whom he looked for his wages. "A fat chance," repeated Kirby in the most irritating tone he could command. "Kingdon kid hogs everything. He doesn't give anybody else a bite."
"Talking about biting, you can growl, can't you?" said Horace, placidly.
"Oh," returned the other, "I don't care about myself. I don't care where I row—or if I row at all. I'm only doing it, anyway, to keep peace in the family."
"Peace is sometimes hard to come by, isn't it?" murmured Pence, with his cap over his eyes and an air of exaggerated carelessness that was bound to irritate a fellow as much worked up as Kirby was just then.
"You can make believe you don't care——"
"Certainly I care! I've gone into this for one thing—just one thing," Pence declared with sudden sharpness.
"I'd like to know what it is. We'll bust up in a row with those fellows. I come near licking that redheaded guy to-day."
"You'd have a nice time doing it, Kirby," put in Ben Comas, delighted to see his two comrades on the verge of a scrap. "Phillips could eat you up. I saw him boxing with Kingdon the other morning, and, take it from me, he has a punch. King had hard work to keep away from it."
"King!" snarled Kirby, like an angry dog. "You've got the disease, too, Comas!"
"What disease is that?" asked the lazy one, startled.
"Calling that curly-haired pet King. He's a fine king! If it wasn't for his name, he wouldn't be leading that bunch. He's got 'em under his thumb, and now he's starting in on you fellows."
"Hear him rave," grunted Pudge MacComber, widely agrin. "Never did hear Harry take on so."
"The whole thing will end up in a fight," insisted Kirby, subsiding.
"That'll be nice," chuckled Pudge.
"You won't be in it, if you see it coming," drawled Pence. "We may be sure it suits Kingdon. He says he loves to fuss with us."
"I'd like to give him all he's looking for," mumbled Kirby.
"Don't try it, old chap," advised Pence. "I've had the gloves on with Rex Kingdon myself. Phillips may have a punch, but Kingdon has a whole flock of them hidden in his sleeves."
Kirby fell silent, feeling that they were all against him. Nevertheless, he stopped quarreling about Kingdon—for the time being, at least.
To the casual observer it would have seemed that Horace Pence worked with Kingdon in perfect harmony as they began to whip the crew into shape.
"Horrors knows a thing or two about rowing," Rex said to his friends, "and there's no reason he shouldn't put it into practice."
"He'll do something to queer the whole business," predicted Midkiff. "He's too erratic."
"Erratic fiddlesticks!" returned his roommate in Old Hall. "He's got grit and some foresight. I notice that his judgment in anything but pitching is fine."
Red laughed. "Don't let him hear you say that. He'd be dead sore. But he's improving at pitching, even, Rex."
"Seems to be improving in general, if you'll pardon me for saying so," Kingdon said. "He's doing his bit. It isn't for Walcott Hall exactly. So, if we come a cropper over this rowing business, why shed tears?"
Red Phillips' sturdy back and his rowing ability made him the choice of both Kingdon and Pence for bow oar. Number Two fell to Ben Comas. The latter stirred himself sufficiently to be valuable as an oarsman because he chanced to be very fond of the sport. Pudge MacComber fell heir to Number Three, because it seemed that he balanced the boat better in that place, Midkiff's bulk occupying the next seat, Number Four.
Cloudman splashed a good deal in the beginning, and the fellows behind him kicked about it; nevertheless they made him Number Five. "Unless you want to give him your seat, Midget," Kingdon chuckled, "and try to row against Kirby, here, at Six."
"If I couldn't do better than Applejack, I'd eat my oar," Peewee maintained with his usual modesty.
"Just fancy yourself on a wild bronc, little one," Phillips told the perky coxswain, "and think of what kind of a show you'd make beside Applejack's performance. He's at home on a bronc."
"And Peewee would be at home in a peanut shell," chuckled Cloudman.
"If I wasn't more at home in this shell than you seem to be, Applejack," scoffed Hicks, "I'd write a letter of introduction for myself before I tried to climb aboard."
Cloudman really intended to learn to row. He was a determined fellow—nor could he be deterred by trifles from any point he wished to gain. He splashed less as time passed, and as Number Four, began to pull a strong oar. He possessed good muscle, did that Western boy!
Kirby was the best of all Pence's band; Rex had seen that from the start. Short of Horace himself he pulled the strongest oar. They tried him in almost all the positions in the shell and he made good wherever he was placed. Kingdon saw, however, that Kirby seemed much more silent and sullen than he at first had been. He came to the ball-field and to rowing practice with a somber face; Horace was talkative as compared with Harry.
At other times Kingdon often saw the latter wandering about alone, or lying by himself under the trees and taking no part in the general activities or conversation of his comrades. He seemed to have nothing to do with Joe Bootleg. Indeed, the Indian was treated like a servant by the other members of Pence's crowd. Joe kept strictly to himself, too. He did not even come down to the waterside to watch the rowing practice.
For a full week Kingdon and Pence were busy getting the boys properly disposed of in the shell. Then it seemed to come about naturally that Kingdon was put in as Number Seven and Pence took Number Eight oar.
"Set the pace, Horrors," said Rex. "You've got to stroke us. Let's see if we can't work up speed enough to make those Blackport fellows hustle a little, at least."
"Think I'm the best candidate for crew captain?" Pence asked almost in a whisper. "Really mean it?"
"I'd take it myself in a minute if I didn't think you know more about the game than I do," answered Kingdon frankly. "For the good of the crew, old boy!"
Horace Pence stared at him for several seconds. "I'm willing to try it because you say so, Kingdon," he muttered presently in a queer voice.
"'Nuff said. Now we'll do our prettiest to work up a little surprise for our Blackport friends."
Following Kingdon's advice, they declined to show off in the shell when theNothing To Itwas loafing about in the sound, and did most of their rowing toward evening; for at that time it was less likely that any of the Blackport crowd would be in sight.
When Yansey brought over his nine of ball players one Saturday afternoon, however, the Storm Island boys were more than ready to play them.
"Give your eyes a treat," urged Peewee to Kingdon and Pence, before the game. "Those huskies they've brought from the sawmill and the shipyard ought to be in the big league. Methinks they've played as far south as Providence. Look at that feller warming up over there. He ought to be pitching for McGraw."
"Get a foot warmer," chuckled Rex. "Don't let the size of 'em scare you, my child. We will protect you."
"How kind of you!" murmured Hicks. "I hope Middy bounces a fast one off his dome, just the same. He acts like he owned the earth and was just whitewashing the fence around it."
"Let's take care he doesn't whitewash us," said Kingdon.
The visitors won the toss and chose the field. The Storm Island boys did get whitewashed the first inning, while the Blackport players began to hit Midkiff rather freely. Nevertheless, they pushed only one man around to the scoring station, although it was more by good luck than good management that the island nine held them down so well.
Kirby started grumbling when the islanders were back under the trees for the first half of the second inning. "I thought you Walcott Hallers could play ball," he said. "What kind of a pitcher is that Midkiff, Kingdon? I call him a frost."
Midkiff was batting at that moment, but Kirby had not tried to keep his voice down, and John's face seemed to indicate that he had heard. The situation was tense at the start of the game, and there was danger that trouble would be hatched in the ranks of the home nine. If Kirby's critical attitude was going to become general, Rex knew the Blackport nine would not have much trouble in winning.