Henry Burns, having in due time made the acquaintance of the Warren boys, as well as a few other youths of his age, had no idea of ending up his evenings’ entertainments at ten o’clock each and every night; so he set about to discover some means of evading the espionage of the colonel and Mrs. Carlin. It did not take him more than one evening of experimenting to find that, by stepping out on to the veranda that ran past his own and Colonel Witham’s windows, he could gain the ascent to the roof by a clever bit of acrobatics up a lightning-rod. Once there, he found he could reach the ground by way of the old part of the hotel, in the manner before described. It is only fair to Henry Burns to state that he did not take undue advantage of this discovery, but kept on the whole as good hours as most boys of his age. Still, if there was a clambake, or some other moonlight jollification, at the extreme end of the island, where Henry Burns had made friends among a little fishing community, he was now and then to be seen, sometimes as the village clock was proclaiming a much later hour than that prescribed by Mrs. Carlin, spinning along on his bicycle like a ghost awheel. He was generally known and well liked throughout the entire island.
On the night following the arrival of Tom and Bob, the sounds of a violin, a clarionet, and a piano, coming from the big parlour of the Hotel Bayview, told that a dance was in progress. These dances, withal the music was provided by the guests themselves, were extremely irritating to Colonel Witham. They meant late hours for everybody, more lights to be furnished, more guests late to breakfast on the following morning, and, on the whole, an evening of noise and excitement, which interfered more or less with his invariable habit of going to bed at a quarter after ten o’clock every night of his life.
They brought, moreover, a crowd of cottagers to the hotel, who were given anything but a cordial welcome by Colonel Witham. He argued that they spent no money at his hotel, and were, therefore, only in the way, besides adding to the noise.
The guests at the Bayview were, on the whole, accustomed to the ways of Colonel Witham by experience, and really paid but little attention to him. They went ahead, planned their own dances and card-parties, and left him to make the best of it.
This particular evening’s entertainment was rather out of the ordinary, inasmuch as it was given by a Mr. and Mrs. Wellington, of New York, in honour of their daughter’s birthday, and, on her account, invitations to the spread, which was to be served after the dancing, were extended to the young people of the hotel. In these invitations Henry Burns had, of course, been included; but Mrs. Carlin and Colonel Witham were obdurate. It was too late an hour for him; his eating of rich salads and ices was not to be thought of; in short, he must decline, or they must decline for him, and that was the end of it.
“Never you mind, Henry,” said good-hearted Bridget Carrington, who was Mrs. Carlin’s assistant, and with whom Henry Burns had made friendship. “It’s not you that’ll be going without some of the salad and the ice-cream, not if I know it. Sure, and Mrs. Wellington says you’re to have some, too. So just breathe easy, and there’ll be a bit for you and a little more, too, a-waitin’ just outside the kitchen window about nine o’clock. So go on now and say never a word.”
So Henry Burns, with the connivance of Bridget, and by the judicious outlay of a part of his own pocket-money, in the matter of sweet things and other delicacies dear to youthful appetites, had prepared and planned for a small banquet of his own in his room, next to that of Colonel Witham.
“But how will you manage so that Colonel Witham won’t hear us, as he will be right alongside of us?” George Warren, who was a partner in Henry Burns’s enterprise, had asked.
“Leave that to me,” said Henry Burns.
The evening wore on; the strains of the music sounded merrily along the halls; dancing was in full swing,—everybody seemed to be enjoying the occasion, save Colonel Witham. He had at least conceded to the occasion the courtesy of a black frock coat and an immaculate white tie, but he was plainly ill at ease. He stood in the office, the door of which was open into the parlour, his hands twisting nervously behind his back, while he glanced, with no good humour in his expression, now at the blaze of lights in the parlour, and now at the clock, which, however, even under his impatient gaze, only ticked along in its most provokingly methodical fashion.
The outer door opened and in walked young Joe Warren, recognized by Colonel Witham as one of the plagues of his summer existence.
“Good evening, Colonel Witham,” said young Joe, with studied politeness, and in a tone that ostensibly anticipated an equally cordial response.
“Good evening!” snapped the colonel.
“Good evening, Colonel Witham,” chimed Arthur Warren, close at his brother’s heels.
The colonel responded gruffly.
“Good evening, colonel,” came an equally cordial greeting from Tom and Bob, and from George Warren, smiling at Colonel Witham, as though he had extended them a hearty invitation to be present.
The colonel snorted impatiently, while the colour in his red face deepened. He did not respond to their salutations.
The boys seated themselves comfortably in the office chairs, and listened to the music.
“You needn’t think you’re going to get Henry Burns to go off with you,” the colonel said, finally. “It’s half-past nine now, and his bedtime is ten o’clock. I wonder where he is.”
Arthur Warren chuckled quietly to himself. He could have told the colonel just where Henry Burns was at that moment; that he was busily engaged in conveying a certain basket of supplies from outside the kitchen window, up a pair of back stairs, to his room on the second floor above.
“You go and keep an eye on Colonel Witham,” he had said to Arthur Warren, “and if he starts to look for me, you go to the door and whistle.”
Which accounted for the sudden appearance of all the Warrens and Tom and Bob in the presence of Colonel Witham.
Fifteen minutes elapsed, and one by one they had all disappeared.
“Good riddance,” was the colonel’s mental ejaculation when he found them gone.
Great would have been his amazement and indignation could he have but seen them, a few minutes later, seated comfortably on the bed in Henry Burns’s room. It was approaching ten o’clock.
“Where’s Bob?” asked Henry Burns, as the boys quietly entered, and he made the door fast behind them.
“Hm!” said Tom, shaking his head regretfully. “It’s a sad thing about Bob. It’s too bad, but I don’t think he will be here, after all.”
“Why, what’s the matter?” exclaimed Henry Burns, with surprise. “He isn’t hurt, is he? I saw him a few hours ago, and he seemed all right.”
“No, he isn’t hurt,—at least, not the way you mean, Henry. The fact is, he was dancing out on the piazza about half an hour ago with pretty little Miss Wilson,—you know, the one in the cottage down on the shore,—and the last I saw of Bob he was escorting her home. I’m afraid we shall have to give him up for to-night.”
“That’s too bad,” said Henry Burns, solemnly, as though some grievous misfortune had come upon Tom’s chum. “And the worst of it is, it may last all summer. Well, Bob will miss a very pleasant surprise-party to Colonel Witham, to say nothing of the spread. That, by the way, is stowed away in those baskets over behind the bed and the wash-stand,—but, first, we’ve got to clear the coast of Colonel Witham.”
“We’re yours to command, Henry,” replied George Warren. “Tell us what to do.”
“Well, in the first place,” said Henry Burns, opening one of his windows that led out on to the veranda, as he spoke, “the rest of you just listen as hard as ever you can at my door, while George and I make a brief visit to the colonel’s room. If you hear footsteps, just pound on the wall, so we can get back in time. It’s pretty certain he won’t be here, though, until we are ready for him. He hasn’t missed a night in weeks in getting to bed exactly at a quarter past ten o’clock. He’s as regular as a steamboat; always on time. And he’s a good deal like a steamboat, too, for he snores like a fog-horn all night long.”
Henry Burns and George Warren disappeared through the window and were gone but a moment, when they reappeared, each bearing in one hand a lamp from the colonel’s room.
“The colonel is always talking about economy,” explained Henry Burns, “so I am not going to let him burn any oil to-night, if I can help it. My lamps happen to need filling,—I’ve borrowed an extra one for this occasion, and so, you see, I don’t intend to waste any of the colonel’s oil by throwing it away. I’ll see that not a drop of the colonel’s oil is wasted.”
Henry Burns carefully proceeded to pour the oil from each lamp which he and George Warren had brought from the colonel’s room into those in his own room.
“There,” he said, “there’s enough oil in each of those wicks to burn for several minutes, so the colonel will have a little light to start in on. But we don’t want to return his lamps empty, and so I’ll just fill them up again. I’m sure the colonel would approve of this economy.”
And Henry Burns carefully refilled the colonel’s lamps from his water-pitcher.
“It won’t burn very well,” he said. “But I’m sure it looks better.”
“Now, we’ll just take these back again,” he continued, addressing George Warren. “And there’s another little matter we want to arrange while we are in there. The colonel is always finding fault with the housemaids. Now we’ll see if we can’t improve on their work.”
Again the two boys disappeared, while the remaining three stood watch against the colonel’s sudden appearance.
Once in the colonel’s room, Henry Burns seized hold of the bedclothes and threw them over the foot-board. Then he snatched out three of the slats from the middle of the bed, replacing them with three slender sticks, which he had brought from his own room.
“Those will do to support the bedclothes and the mattress,” he explained, “though I’m really afraid they would break if any one who was kind of heavy should put his weight on them.” Then he carefully replaced the mattress and the bedclothes, making up the colonel’s bed again in the most approved style, with his friend’s assistance.
“You take notice,” he said to George Warren, as he opened a closet door in the colonel’s room, “that I am careful to destroy nothing of the colonel’s property. I might have sawed these slats in two, and left them just hanging so they would support the bedclothes, and would not have been any more trouble; but, being of a highly conscientious nature, I carefully put the colonel’s property away, where it can be found later and restored.”
“I’m afraid the colonel wouldn’t appreciate your thoughtfulness,” said George Warren.
“Alas, I’m afraid not,” said Henry Burns. “But that’s often the reward of those who try to look after another’s interests. However, I’ll put these slats in this closet, shut and lock the door, and put the key here on the mantelpiece, just behind this picture. It would be just as easy to hide the key, but I don’t think that would be right, do you?”
“Certainly not,” laughed George Warren.
“There,” said Henry Burns, taking a final survey of everything. “We’ve done all we can, I’m sure, to provide for the colonel’s comfort. If he chooses to find fault with it, it will surely be from force of habit.” They took their departure by way of the colonel’s window, closing it after them, and quickly rejoined their companions in the next room.
“I deeply regret,” said Henry Burns to his guests, “that this banquet cannot begin at once. But we should surely be interrupted by the colonel, and, on the whole, I think it is best to wait until the colonel has taken his departure for the night from that room,—which I feel sure he will do, when the situation dawns fully upon him.
“It also pains me,” he added, “to be obliged to invite you all to make yourselves uncomfortable in that closet for a short time. At least, you will hear all that is going on in the colonel’s room, for the partition is thin between that and his room. So you will have to be careful and make no noise. I feel quite certain that the colonel will make me a sudden call soon after he retires, if not before, and he really wouldn’t approve of your being here. He’s likely to have a decidedly unpleasant way of showing his disapproval, too.”
“I think we can assure our kind and thoughtful host that we fully appreciate the situation,” said Arthur Warren, gravely, “and will be pleased to comply with his suggestion to withdraw. Come on, boys, let’s get in. It’s after ten now, and time is getting short.”
“You take the key with you,” said Henry Burns, “and lock the door on the inside. It’s just an extra precaution; but I can say I don’t know who has the key, if anything happens. I won’t know which one of you takes it.”
The four boys stowed themselves away in the stuffy closet, turned the key in the lock, and waited. Henry Burns quickly divested himself of his clothing, put a bowl of water beside his bed, placed a clean white handkerchief near it, set a lamp near by on a chair, turned it down so that it burned dim, unlocked his door so that it could be opened readily, and jumped into bed.
He did not have long to wait. Promptly at a quarter past ten o’clock the heavy, lumbering steps of the corpulent colonel were heard, as he came up the hallway. The colonel was puffing with the exertion which it always cost him to climb the stairs, and muttering, as was his custom when anything displeased him.
“Suppose they’ll bang away on that old piano half the night,” he exclaimed, as he passed Henry Burns’s door. “And every light burning till midnight. How do they expect me to make any money, if they go on this way?”
He opened the door to his room and went inside, locking it after him. Henry Burns pressed his ear close to the wall and listened.
The colonel, still talking angrily to himself, scratched a match and lighted one of the lamps. Then he divested himself of his collar and tie, threw his coat and waistcoat on a chair, and reseated himself, to take off his boots.
All at once they heard him utter a loud exclamation of disgust.
“What on earth is the matter with that lamp?” he cried. “That comes of having hired help from the city. Never look after things, unless you keep right after them. How many times have I spoken about having these lamps filled every day!”
The colonel scratched a match. “Hulloa,” he exclaimed, “it’s full, after all. Well, I see, the wick hasn’t been trimmed. There’s always something wrong.” The colonel proceeded to scrape the wick. Then he scratched another match. The wick sputtered as he held the match to it.
“Confound the thing!” yelled the colonel, now utterly out of temper. “The thing’s bewitched. Where’s that other lamp? Oh, there it is. We’ll see if that will burn. I’ll discharge that housemaid to-morrow.”
He scratched still another match, held it to the wick of the other lamp, and was evidently satisfied with that, for they heard him replace the lamp-chimney and go on with his undressing.
In a few minutes more there came another eruption from the colonel.
“There goes the other one,” he yelled. “I know what’s the matter. Somebody’s been fooling with those lamps. I’ll make ’em smart for it.” The colonel unscrewed the part of the lamp containing the wick, took the bowls of the lamps, one by one, over to his window, opened them, and poured the contents of the lamps out upon the veranda.
“Water!” he yelled. “Water! That’s what’s the matter. Oh, but I’d just like to know whether it’s that pale-faced Burns boy, or some of those other young imps in the house. I’ll find out. I’ll make somebody smart for this. Wasting my oil, too. I’ll make ’em pay for it.”
The colonel set down the lamps, rushed out of his room into the hall for the lamp that usually occupied a standard there. He did not find it, because Henry Burns had taken the pains to remove it. The colonel made a sudden dash for Henry Burns’s door, rattled the door-knob and pounded, and then, finding that in his confusion he had failed to discover that it was unlocked, hurled it open and burst into the room.
What the colonel saw was the pale, calm face of Henry Burns, peering out at him from the bed, as that young gentleman lifted himself up on one elbow. Around his forehead was bound the handkerchief, which he had wetted in the bowl of water. The lamp burning dimly completed the picture of his distress.
“Hi, you there! You young—” The colonel checked himself abruptly, as Henry Burns slowly raised himself up in bed and pressed one hand to his forehead. “What’s the matter with you?” roared the colonel, completely taken aback by Henry Burns’s appearance.
“‘WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU?’ ROARED THE COLONEL”“‘WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU?’ ROARED THE COLONEL”
“‘WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU?’ ROARED THE COLONEL”
“Oh, nothing,” said Henry Burns, resignedly. “It’s nothing.”
The colonel little realized how much of truthfulness there was in this answer.
“Did you want me for anything?” asked Henry Burns, in his softest voice.
“No, I didn’t,” said the colonel, sullenly. “Somebody has been fooling with my lamps, and I—I thought I would use yours, if you didn’t mind.”
“Certainly,” replied Henry Burns. “I may not need mine again for the rest of the night.” Again he pressed his hand dismally to his forehead.
“I won’t take it!” snapped the colonel. “You may need it again. Why don’t you tell Mrs. Carlin you’ve got a headache? She’ll look after you. It’s eating too much—eating too much, that does it. I’ve always said it. Stop stuffing two pieces of pie every day at dinner, and you won’t have any headache.”
With this parting injunction, the irate colonel abruptly took his departure, slamming the door behind him.
Henry Burns dived beneath the bedclothes and smothered his roars of laughter. The colonel, disappointed in his quest for a lamp, and not caring to search further in his present condition of undress, returned once more to his room and finished undressing in the dark.
“I’ll make somebody smart for this to-morrow,” he kept repeating. “Like as not that little white-faced scamp in the next room had some hand in it. I can’t quite make him out. Well, I’ll go to bed and sleep over it.”
The colonel rolled into bed.
There was a crash and a howl of rage from the colonel. He floundered about in a tangle of bedclothes for a moment, filling the room with his angry ejaculations, and endeavouring, helplessly, for a moment, to extricate himself from his uncomfortable position on the floor. Then he arose, raging like a tempest, stumbling over a chair in his confusion, and nearly sprawling on the floor again.
He rang the electric button in his room till the clerk in the office thought the house was on fire, and came running up, breathless, to see what was the matter.
“Fire! Who said there was any fire, you idiot!” shrieked the colonel, as his clerk dashed into the room and ran plump into him. “There isn’t any fire,” he cried. “Somebody’s been breaking the furniture in here; tearing down the beds, ruining the lamps. Get that room on the next floor, down at the end of the hall, ready for me. I can’t stay here to-night. Don’t stand there, gaping like a frog. Hurry up. Get Mrs. Carlin to fix that bed up for me. She’s gone to bed, do you say? Well, then, get somebody else. Don’t stand there. Go along!”
The clerk hurried away, as much to prevent the colonel seeing the broad grin on his face as to obey orders. The colonel, stumbling around in the darkness, managed to partly dress himself; and, five minutes later, the boys heard him go storming along the hall to the stairway, which he mounted, and was seen no more that night.
The closet door in Henry Burns’s room swung softly open, and there rolled out helplessly on the floor four boys, choking with suppressed laughter, the tears fairly running down their cheeks.
Henry Burns, calm as ever, quietly arose from bed, removed the bandage from his brow, slid into his clothes, and remarked, softly, “I feel better now.”
“Oh, don’t, Henry,” begged George Warren. “If you say any more I shall die. I can’t laugh now without its hurting me.”
“You need something to eat,” said Henry Burns. Pinning a blanket up over the transom to hide the light, and stopping his keyhole, to prevent any ray of light from penetrating into the hallway, and throwing down a blanket at the door-sill for the same purpose, Henry Burns lighted both his lamps, carefully locked his door, and made ready to entertain his guests.
“It’s not just according to the rules of etiquette,” he said, producing a package from the basket, “but we’ll have to start on the ice-cream first before it melts. Then we’ll work back along the line, to salad and ginger ale.”
He drew forth from the package, which proved to be a box filled with chopped ice, a small brick of ice-cream. It was beginning to melt about the edges, but they made short work of it.
“Now,” said Henry Burns, “if you please, we’ll start all over again. Here are the sandwiches.”
“It’s the finest spread I ever had,” said young Joe, appreciatively, as he stowed away his fourth sandwich and helped himself to an orange.
“Joe always goes on the principle that he may be cast away on a desert island before he has another square meal,” said Arthur, “so he always fills up accordingly.”
“It’s a good principle to go on,” responded Henry Burns. “George, you open the ginger ale.”
So they dined most sumptuously, and had gotten down to nuts and raisins, when Henry Burns, whose ears were always on the alert, suddenly sprang up, with a warning “Sh-h-h,” and, quickly stepping across the room, turned the lamps down, signalling at the same time for the boys to be silent.
Not one of the others had heard a sound; but now they were aware that soft footsteps were pattering along the hallway.
Presently some one came to Henry Burns’s door, turned the knob, and rapped very gently.
Not a sound came from the room.
Then a voice said: “Henry, Henry.”
There was no reply.
“Strange,” said the person outside; “I could have sworn that I heard his voice as I came up. Well, I must have been mistaken. He seems to be sound asleep. I guess his headache is better.”
They heard the footsteps die away again along the hallway.
“Whew!” said Henry Burns; “that was a narrow escape. That was Mrs. Carlin. Somebody must have told her I was sick. She sleeps all night with one eye and one ear open, they say.”
“Well,” said George Warren, “I reckon we’d better take it as a warning that it’s time to be going, anyway. It’s eleven o’clock, I should say, and we have got to get up early and overhaul theSpray. She’s up at Bryant’s Cove yet, and we have got to bring her down and have a new bowsprit put in, and reeve some new rigging. We’ve had a great time, Henry. Count us in on the next feed, and give our regards to Colonel Witham. Come on, boys.”
“Sorry to have to show you out the back way,” said Henry Burns, “but the front way would be dangerous now, and my lightning-rod staircase seems to be the only way. It’s a very nice way when one is used to it; but look out and don’t slip.”
By the time the last boy was on the roof, Henry Burns was half-undressed; and by the time the last one had reached the ground, his light was out and he was half-asleep. That was Henry Burns’s way. When he did a thing, he did it and wasted no time—whether it was working or playing or sleeping.
It was a little after eleven o’clock when Tom left the hotel. His mind was so occupied with the events of the evening that he started at once toward his camp, forgetting an intention he had earlier in the night of visiting the locality of Jack Harvey’s camp in search of the missing box. He stopped every few minutes to laugh long and heartily, as, one by one, the mishaps of Colonel Witham came to his mind.
All at once he remembered the missing box. He had nearly reached his tent by this time, but he stopped short. He called to mind the contents of the box; among other things, a certain big cake, with frosting on it, and, although he and Bob, as young athletes, were bound to hold such food in little regard, there was one thing about it which particularly impressed him just now, and that was the remembrance of how he had watched Bob’s sister, with her dainty little fingers, mould the frosting on the top, and how she had slyly wondered—as if there could be any doubt of it—whether they, meaning Tom, would think of her while they were eating it.
The thought of that cake falling into the hands of Jack Harvey and of Tim Reardon and the others of Harvey’s crew, and of the jokes they would crack at Tom’s expense, made his blood boil. He started in the direction of Harvey’s camp, then turned back to get Bob to accompany him,—and then paused and went on again, saying to himself that he would not awaken his chum at that hour of the night. He started off through the woods alone.
The night was warm and pleasant, though it was quite dark, as there was no moon. He passed by the cottages, and then turned into a foot-path that followed the windings of the shore. The path led for some distance through a thicket of alders and underbrush, from which at length it emerged into an open field. Crossing this, Tom again entered a growth of wood, the path winding among the roots of some old hemlocks and cedars.
All at once he saw a light shining indistinctly through the trees, and knew that it must be in the immediate vicinity of Harvey’s camp.
“So much the better, if they are up,” muttered Tom. “If they’re sitting around that fire they are sure to be talking.” He hurried on in the direction of the light, still following the path.
The fire soon became plainly visible. At a point where the path divided he could see the white tent, lit up by a big fire of driftwood that blazed in front of it. He could hear the sound of voices, and distinguished that of Harvey above the others. There seemed to be some insubordination in camp, for Harvey’s tones were loud and angry.
Tom concluded not to take the path to the left, which was the one leading direct to the camp, but continued on for a distance along the main path. It was well he did so, for presently he heard some one coming toward him. The paths were at this point so near together that he could not distinguish which one the person was taking; so he drew aside and crouched in the bushes, which were very dense between the two paths. A boy, whom he recognized as Tim Reardon, soon came in sight, and passed close by the spot where Tom was concealed. He carried a pail in his hand, and was evidently going to a spring near by for water. He was grumbling to himself as he passed along.
“I’m always the one!” he said. “Why don’t he make some one else lug the water part of the time? I’m not going to be bullied by any Jack Harvey, and he needn’t think I am.”
He kept on to the spring, however. Tom remained where he was, and Tim soon returned, carrying the pail filled with water. Tom waited till he saw Tim arrive at the camp and deposit the pail of water near the fire, before he again emerged from the clump of bushes into the path that led past the camp. He followed this cautiously. He could not as yet see whether all the members of the crew were present about the camp-fire, and he knew that to encounter any one of them at that hour near the camp would not only put an end to all hopes of recovering the box, by revealing to Harvey and his crew that he suspected them of having stolen it, but that, once an alarm being given, he should have the whole crew at his heels in a twinkling.
Tom was sufficiently acquainted with the reputation of Harvey’s crew to know that it would go hard with him if they found him there. He stole quietly along past the camp some little distance, and then, turning from the path, got down on his hands and knees and crept toward the camp through the bushes.
Near the camp was a hemlock-tree, with large, broad, heavy branches, that grew so low down on the trunk that some of them rested on the ground. It offered a place of concealment, and Tom, at the imminent risk of being discovered, reached it and crawled in between the branches. If the campers had been expecting any one, and had been on the watch, he must surely have been discovered, for several times branches cracked under him, and once so loudly that he thought it was all up with him, expecting them to come and see what had made the noise. But they took no notice of it, either because they were accustomed to hearing noises in the woods, of cattle or dogs, or thought nothing at all about it.
From where he now lay, Tom could see the entire camp, and hear everything the boys said. It was a picturesque spot which Harvey had chosen. The land here ran out in one of those irregular points which was characteristic of the shores of the island, and ended in a little, low-lying bluff, that overlooked the bay. On the side nearer the village, the shore curved in with a graceful sweep, making a perfect bow, and the land for some distance back sloped gradually down to the beach. The beach here was composed of a fine white sand, making an ideal landing-place for rowboats. On the side farther from the village, the waterfront was of a different character. It rounded out, instead of curving in, and the shore was bold, instead of sloping. It was not easily approached, even by small boats, as the water, for some distance out, was choked up with reefs and ledges, which were barely covered at high tide, and at low water were exposed here and there.
This apparently unapproachable shore had been taken advantage of by Harvey in a way which no one in the village had ever suspected. There was a channel among the reefs, which a small sailboat could pursue, if one were accurately acquainted with its windings. With this channel, which they had discovered by chance, the campers had become thoroughly familiar, at both low and high water.
The point had been cleared of undergrowth, and most of the larger trees had been cut down for some little distance back from the water. In the rear of this clearing there were thick woods, extending into the island for a mile or more.
The campers had pitched a big canvas tent at the edge of the clearing, where they lived in free and easy fashion, cooking mostly out-of-doors. They scorned the idea of making bunks, as smacking too much of civilization, and at night slept on boughs covered with blankets. They lived out-of-doors in front of the tent when the weather was pleasant, and, when it was stormy, they went aboard the yacht and did their cooking in the cabin, over a small sheet-iron stove.
It was altogether a romantic and picturesque sight that Tom saw as he looked out from his hiding-place. At a little distance from the tent the fire was blazing, while the members of the crew either sat around it or lay, stretched out at full length, upon the ground. A pot of coffee was placed on a flat stone by the side of the fire, near enough to get the heat from it, and the delicious odour of it as it steamed made Tom hungry.
The members of Harvey’s crew were utterly without restraint, saving that which was imposed capriciously by Harvey himself. Harvey was not naturally vicious. His mind had been perverted by the books he had read, so that he failed to see that his acts of petty thievery were meannesses and acts of cowardice of which he would some day be ashamed.
He fashioned his conduct as much according to the books he read as possible, and, if he had been but trained rightly, would have been proud to do courageous things, instead of playing mean jokes, for he had at heart much bravery. He rarely wore a hat, and was as bronzed as any sailor. The sleeves of his flannel blouse were usually rolled up to the elbows, showing on his forearms several tattooed designs in red and blue ink. He was large and strong.
The boys around the fire were telling stories and relating in turn incidents of adventure that had taken place since their arrival on the island. At the close of their story-telling, they arose and began making preparations for a meal. Near by the fireplace they had built a rough table, of stakes driven into the ground, and boards, with benches on either side of it, fashioned in the same way. Two of the boys went to the tent and brought out some tin dishes, and the steaming pot of coffee was taken from the stone and set on the table.
Then Joe Hinman, taking a long pole in his hand, went to the fire and proceeded to scatter the brands about, while a shower of sparks rose up and floated off into the forest. Presently Joe raked from among the embers a dozen or more black, shapeless objects. These he placed one by one on a block of wood and broke the clay—for such it was—with a hatchet. The odour of cooked fish pervaded the camp and saluted Tom’s nostrils most temptingly. Inside of the lumps of clay were fish of some kind, which Tom took to be cunners. As fast as they were ready, Tim Reardon carried them to the table, where they were heaped up on a big earthen platter.
The boys then fell to and ate as though they were starving. Tom wondered for some time if this could be their usual hour for supper; but remembered that he had seen theSurpriseseveral miles off in the bay that evening, and concluded that the evening meal had been long delayed. TheSurprisenow lay a few rods offshore, with a lantern hanging at her mast.
The boys continued to talk, as they ate, of tricks they had played and of raids they had taken part in, down the island. In fact, the good citizens of Southport would have given a good deal for the secrets Tom learned from his hiding-place that night. Tom waited impatiently, however, for some mention of the missing box. Could he be mistaken in suspecting them of having taken it? No, he was sure not. That they were capable of doing so, their own conversation left no room for doubt. Tom felt certain the box was in their possession.
But he began to feel that his errand of discovery to-night would be fruitless. They must, he argued, have some sort of storehouse, where they hid such plunder as this, but no one had as yet made the slightest mention of it. It was clearly useless for him to grope about in the vicinity of the camp at night, and he began to think it would be better after all to wait until day and select a time for his search, if possible, when all the members of the crew were off on the yacht. But that might come too late, and Tom wondered what to do.
All at once Joe Hinman made a remark that caused Tom to raise himself upon his elbow and listen intently.
“Boys,” said Joe, “I’ve got a little surprise for you.”
The crew, one and all, stopped eating, rested their elbows on the table, and looked at Joe curiously.
“I’ll bet it’s a salmon from old Slade’s nets,” said George Baker. “Joe’s sworn for a week that he’d have one.”
“He’s all right, is Joe,” remarked Harvey, patronizingly. “There isn’t one of you that can touch Joe for smartness.”
Thus encouraged, Joe told how he had seen the box that had been a part of Tom’s and Bob’s luggage left on the wharf the night it arrived; how he had ascertained that it contained food, by prying up the cover; and how, early on the following morning, he had rowed up under cover of the fog, and had brought back the box to the camp.
“It’s down in the cave now,” said Joe. Tom gave a start. “There’s a meat-pie in it that is good for a dinner to-morrow, and a big frosted cake, if you fellows want it to-night.”
“Hooray!” cried Jack Harvey. “You and I will go and get it.” Whereupon he and Joe sprang up and made directly for the spot where Tom lay, passing by so close that he could have reached out and touched them, and hurried along the bank, down to the shore.
Tom allowed them to get well in advance before he ventured to crawl from his hiding-place and follow them. He saw them at length disappear over the bank at a point where there grew a thick clump of cedars. He turned from the path into the woods, made his way cautiously past the place where he had seen them disappear, turned into the path again, and then climbed down the bank, which was there very steep, holding on to the bushes, and looked for the boys, but they were nowhere to be seen.
Tom knew they could not have passed him. They had not reappeared over the edge of the bank, and they were nowhere in sight along the shore. There could be but one conclusion. The entrance to the cave must be located in the clump of cedars.
It seemed to Tom that he had waited at least a quarter of an hour, though, in fact, it was not more than five minutes, when he saw the boys reappear. Tom groaned as he saw the big cake in Joe’s hand. Joe laid it down on the ground, while he and Jack picked up several armfuls of loose boughs lying about, and threw them up carelessly against the bank. Then Joe took up the cake again, and they emerged from the cedars, climbed up over the bank, and disappeared in the direction of their camp.
Tom lost no time in scrambling to the spot. The hiding-place was cunningly concealed. It was an awkward place to crawl to from any part of the bank, and no one would have thought of trying to land there in a boat. The entrance to the cave might have been left open, with little chance of its ever being discovered. Tom threw aside the boughs sufficiently to discover that beneath them was a sort of trap-door, made of pieces of board carelessly nailed together. Then he replaced the boughs and, without even attempting to lift the board door, regained the path at the top of the bank.
“There’ll be time enough to explore that later,” he muttered. “I’m not the only one that will have lost something out of that cave before morning, though.” He made his way cautiously past the camp once more, and then started on a run for his own camp. His hare and hounds practice at school stood him in good stead, and he did not stop running till he had come to the door of his tent. He unfastened the flap and entered, panting for breath. Bob was sleeping soundly. He shook him, but Bob was loath to awake, and resented being so roughly disturbed.
“Wake up, Bob! Wake!” cried Tom, shaking him again.
Bob opened his eyes. “Why, is it morning, Tom?” he asked.
“No, it isn’t, Bob, but it soon will be. I’ve found the box, Bob. Harvey’s got it, and I know where it is hidden,—down near his camp in a cave.”
Bob shivered, for Tom had pulled the blanket off the bed, and the moist sea air penetrated the tent. He dressed, stupidly, for he was not fully rid of his drowsiness.
The boys went down to the beach, and Bob washed his face in the salt water.
“I’m all right now, Tom, old fellow,” he said, “but, honest, Tom, I feel ugly enough at being waked up, not at you, though, to just enjoy a fight with those fellows.”
“There’s little prospect of that, if we are careful,” answered Tom. “What we want to do is to show them we are smart enough to get the box back, and, perhaps, play them a trick of our own.”
Then they carried the canoe down to the shore, launched it, and set off. It was about one o’clock in the morning. They paddled away from the tent and down along the shore, noiselessly as Indians. Past the village and past the cottages, and not a sign of life anywhere, not even a wisp of smoke from a chimney. The canoe glided swiftly along, making the only ripples there were on the glassy surface of the bay.
As they came to the beach near Harvey’s camp, they landed, and Tom crept up over the bank to reconnoitre. He came back presently, reporting that the crew were all sound asleep, and everything quiet around the camp. Then they paddled quickly by the end of the bluff and along the bold shore beyond, picking their way carefully among the reefs, as they could not have done in these unknown waters with any other craft than the buoyant canoe.
They disembarked at the clump of cedars, and made the canoe fast to the trunk of one that overhung the water. Tom took from the bow of the canoe a lantern, and they scrambled up the bank. Throwing aside the boughs, they disclosed the trap-door, which they lifted up. Tom lit the lantern and they entered the cave.
They found it much larger than the opening indicated. It was excavated from the hard clay of which the bank was composed, and, though not high enough for them to stand quite erect, it was about eight feet long and five feet wide.
It was filled with stuff of all sorts. There were spare topsails and staysails,—possibly from coasters that had anchored in the harbour,—sets of oars from ships’ boats, several boxes of canned goods, that the grocer of the village had hunted for far and wide, coils of rope, two shotguns, carefully wrapped in pieces of flannel and well oiled, to prevent the rust from eating them, four lanterns, two axes and a hatchet, and odds and ends of all descriptions useful in and about a camp or a yacht.
The roof of the cave was shored up with boards, supported by joists. In one corner of the cave was the box for which they sought, broken into, and with the gorgeous cake gone; but that was all. The rest of the contents were untouched.
They took the box, carried it down to the shore and placed it in the canoe. Tom started to return to the cave.