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“Promise to read to me the log of your last trip, when you went down the big river.”
CHAPTER I – AFTER THE GAME
“That was a hard game for Macklin to lose, fellows!”
“I should say it was, Herb.”
“He nearly pitched his head off, too. Wow! how they did come in like cannon balls!”
“And talk about curves and drops, Little Clarence was roight there wid the goods,” said a stout boy; whose freckled face, carroty hair and blue eyes, as well as the touch of brogue to his voice, told of Irish blood.
“But Jack met his hot pace, and went him one better. Clarence may be a cracker jack in the box, but he can’t just come up to good old reliable Jack Storm ways, of the high school baseball club.”
“Oh, shucks! enough of that taffy, fellows,” laughed the object of this praise, as he swung the bat he was carrying; “why, you know right well I was up against the fence when they made that ninth inning rally. They had found me with the goods on. And you know who won that game for us – our never failing, heavy pinch-hitter, Buster Longfellow. When his bat got up against the horsehide I knew it was all over but the shouting for Clarence.”
“Wasn’t he mad, though? Hurrah for Buster! He’s not built for a runner, they say, but he’s got the batting eye. That hit was a peach!”
“Thanks, George. I believe I did help Brodie dash home with the winning tally. It’s awful nice of you fellows to appreciate talent!”
The boy called Buster made a mock bow as well as he was able. He was fat and chunky, so that his baseball suit seemed moulded to his figure. While his name was understood to be Nick Longfellow, he seldom heard it save at home or in school. To his fellows he was known by such significant names as “Buster,” “Pudding,” and “Hippopotamus.”
There were just five in the bunch, dusty, tired fellows, all on the way home from a most exciting game with a rival team, and the most bitter rivals for supremacy in the little river town along the upper Mississippi.
Besides Buster and Jack, there were the Irish lad, Jimmie Brannagan, who lived with the Stormways, being something of a ward of Jack’s father; Herb Dickson, and George Rollins, all of them members of the high school team.
These five boys, with the addition of another who was not present just then, composed the membership of a motor boat club, and between them owned three very clever craft. George’s was a narrow speedboat, called the Wireless, the powerful engine of which had a faculty for getting out of order just when most wanted. The one of which Jack was skipper was named the Tramp, and while not so fast as its dangerous competitor, could still make great time. Herb possessed a commodious launch, which he had very wisely christened the Comfort, for she was as staunch and reliable as a houseboat.
During the preceding autumn, taking advantage of the school being closed until New Year’s because of an epidemic in the town, these boys had made a long trip down the Mississippi river to New Orleans, being given permission by their parents or guardians.
To make the run more interesting Jack’s father had contributed a silver cup as a trophy; and the annals of that adventurous race have already been given in the first volume of this series. The boys for some time had been laying their heads together and planning another outing for the coming vacation; but for various good and sufficient reasons they were keeping their intended cruising ground a dead secret from everybody.
“Where’s Josh Purdue?” asked Herb, as the party swung into the main street of the town. “We want him along when we talk over that letter Jack had from Clayton, where our boats are going. What did you do about hiding their destination, Jack?”
“Yes,” said George, quickly. “You know we agreed that those chaps were nosing all about, trying to get a clew. Clarence has ordered a rattling motor boat from some eastern maker, and if he could only learn where we’re going to hang out this summer, wouldn’t he just try to make it warm for us, though? Ten to one you hadn’t left the station five minutes after fastening on the tags before he was reading the same.”
“I expected that, fellows,” laughed Jack, “and did the best I could to fool him. The boats are only sent to the address in Milwaukee. From there they will be rebilled to Clayton and shipped on a steamer through the lakes.”
“But he might even have the nerve to write to that agent and make some excuse for asking where they were sent. How about that, Jack?” asked Herb.
“I even thought of that,” replied the other. “You see, when you’re dealing with wide-awake, unscrupulous fellows like Clarence Macklin, and his toady, Joe Brinker, it pays to insure against trouble. And I’ve done it as well as I knew how.”
“Tell us about it, please,” asked Buster, anxiously.
“Well,” replied the one addressed, “I wrote the agent in Milwaukee, stating the circumstances. He turned out to be a jolly good chap; for he answered me and promised that if Clarence or Joe make inquiries he’ll put them on the wrong track.”
“Bully for him!” ejaculated Nick. “We’ll vote him thanks at our next meeting, fellows, that’s what, and call on him in a body as we go through to the steamer when on our way.”
“I wish the time was two weeks later,” remarked Herb. “I don’t see just how I’m going to stand it until after the exams are over.”
“Oh, well, the days manage to pass along; and this glorious victory ought to make you feel that life is worth living,” remarked Jack, with mock seriousness.
“As for me,” remarked Buster, taking in a long breath, as if in anticipation. “I just dream of the bliss of cruising aboard a steady, roomy boat like the Comfort. You can talk all you want, George, about the delights of flying through the water at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour; but me to the cozy home-like cruiser every time. Once is out for me, you remember.”
“Do we, boys?” jeered George, looking at the rest. “Well, will I ever forget how Buster used to sit there in the stern of my flier, looking like a stuffed pillow, with a cork life preserver belted around him all the time, and trying to keep his balance. And the less said about his cooking the better. It haunts me still.”
“Oh! but I’ve improved in that respect, George, very much,” the fat boy hastened to exclaim. “Don’t you worry about it, Herb. I’m taking lessons from our colored cook right now, and expect to branch out as a real prize box. You know when I once set my mind to a thing I generally get there, even if it does take time. Great bodies move slowly, they say. Didn’t I learn to swim after all my disappointments; tell me that, George Rollins?”
“Sure you did, thanks to Jack here,” replied the other. “But all through that trip you gave me the nightmare because you had lost some silly – ”
“Hold on! you solemnly promised you’d never say another word about that business and I’m going to keep you to it, George,” cried Buster. “We did have a glorious time of it, you know. And I can do a little once in a while to help the crowd forget their troubles, can’t I?”
“Why, to be sure you can, Buster, and I’m the last one to deny it,” declared George. “I don’t mean half I say. You know my weakness is a quick tongue. And after the grand way you belted that ball today, I’d be willing to forgive almost anything you’d ever done. Shake on that, old partner of my joys and woes.”
“The boats got off all right, that’s a comfort,” observed Herb.
“How do ye know?” demanded Jimmie.
“I saw them on the cars, and moving out of town, just in that ninth inning, when things looked so black for us,” was the reply. “You know my position out in right gives me a chance to look across the big field to the railroad. And as I was getting my breath, after chasing that tricky ball Carson Beggs whacked out, with two on bases, I had a glimpse of a freight passing, and counted all three boats on gondolas, fastened up in their waterproof covers. It just seemed to give me heart to go in and root harder than ever. It was a lucky omen, too, fellows.”
“Well,” Jack said, “of course they’ll be waiting for us at Clayton when we get there. And although we talked of taking the steamer ourselves, I think, on the whole, it would be wise to go by train. In that way we’ll save a couple of days. Besides, some time we mean to cruise all through the great lakes, and we’d better keep the trip until we can do it in our own motor boats.”
“That sounds good to me!” cried Nick.
“And I’m sure it hits my case to a dot, because it means less time to wait,” and Herb nodded his head in a way that plainly told how his mind was made up.
“That settles the lake trip, then,” laughed George, “because I never did care much about going that way. Jimmie, how do you stand on it?”
“Wid both feet,” replied the party addressed, emphatically. “The sooner we kin arroive at the Thousand Islands, the better I’ll be plazed.”
“Oh! well, let’s forget we ever mentioned going the other way,” said Jack. “But that won’t prevent our passing through Milwaukee, stopping to shake hands with that obliging agent, and finding if the boats got off all right.”
“You can learn that by writing in a few days, Jack,” observed Herb, sagaciously. “I only hope Clarence doesn’t have a friend in Milwaukee who would spy around and discover the truth, that’s all.”
“If he writes the agent you can make up your mind he hasn’t,” said Nick, as the party came to a pause on a corner, where, as a rule, they were accustomed to separating, each one heading for his own home.
“Wait a little, boys. I think I see Josh coming away back there,” remarked Jack, when one of the others made some remark about “seeing you later, fellows!”
“Looks like he was in a big hurry, too?” suggested Nick.
“Well, he is half running, to be sure,” admitted George.
“And there he goes waving his hand to us,” mentioned Herb. “I guess Josh wants us to wait up for him here. Perhaps he’s got something to tell us.”
“Or it may be he just wants to wring the hand of our friend Buster, and tell him, with tears in his eyes, how delighted he was to have him save the day for our team,” and Jack, as he said this, winked at George; for it was a notorious fact that Josh and the fat boy were forever playing pranks on each other, and often saying disagreeable things; that, however, ended in nothing harder than a little froth and bubble, since it was only surface and make-believe animosity after all.
“Don’t you believe it,” declared the hero of the late game, shaking his head in an aggressive way. “Josh was the next batter up, and I just know he thinks I swatted that ball to cheat him out of the glory. For he had his mind made up to send the horsehide over the fence for a home run.”
“Well,” laughed Jack, “never wait to see what the next batter is going to do. When the chance comes you just poke that ball out into deep center, and then roll down to first as fast as you can. Then perhaps he’ll bring you home with his big hit. But Josh is getting here, and we’ll soon know now what ails him.”
“Don’t you go to borrowing trouble too soon?” warned Herb. “I know Josh pretty well, and how he likes to joke. He’s a false alarm, that’s what.”
“But he looks serious enough right now,” said George, with whom the runner was to keep company on this new cruise they had planned; and who, therefore, felt an especial interest in Josh.
The newcomer was a rather slender fellow, taller than any of the others, and the best runner on the team. In times past Josh had been troubled with indigestion; but the month and more spent during their memorable Mississippi cruise had about cured him of this, so that he was looking better than ever before in all his life. That was one reason why his parents were only too glad to allow him the chance of getting in the open again during the coming vacation; for they believed it would be the making of the lad.
Josh stopped running when close to the others, as though husbanding his wind so that he could communicate the news he bore.
“It’s all up, fellows!” he cried, as he finally reached the corner, where the other five gathered around him.
“What do you mean?” asked Jack, anxiously.
“Yes, explain, Josh. What’s up?” demanded George.
“They know where our boats have gone!” gasped Josh, excitedly. “Somebody must have leaked, that’s what. And they’re going to have their new motor boat shipped to the Thousand Islands, too. Now, see what a peck of trouble we’re going to have this summer!”
CHAPTER II – CHUMS, TRIED AND TRUE
“Josh, hold up your hand, and look me in the eye!” said Jack, sternly.
“Oh! you don’t believe me, do you? But I never was more serious in my life!” exclaimed the newcomer, meeting Jack’s look squarely.
“Then I’m sorry, that’s all,” declared the other. “If Clarence Macklin has found out where we expect to cruise this summer, he’ll lie awake nights trying to lay plans how to give us all the trouble he can.”
“How d’ye know all this, Josh?” demanded Nick, rather tremulously.
“I just happened to be near where Clarence and Joe were having their heads together, and the idea came to me to listen. I only thought they were explaining how the game was lost, and I wanted to hear Clarence say how somebody sent a ray of sunlight into his eyes with a pocket mirror, just when he was handing out that ball Buster knocked out in deep center. You know his way, fellows, and how he squirms out of every hole so smoothly?”
“Yes, yes, of course we do, Josh; but go on;” cried Herb.
“Don’t you see you’ve got us keyed up to the breaking pitch? Let loose, and tell what you heard!” exclaimed George, always nervous and anxious to make speed.
“Well, it wasn’t much, but it counted for a heap,” replied the narrator. “About as near as I can remember, and repeat, this was what Clarence said: ‘Never mind, Joe, we’re going to get even soon. Wait till our dandy boat gets to Clayton. Say, mebbe there won’t be a lot of surprised fellows then, as we cut circles around ’em, and make ’em wish they hadn’t blackballed us. You wait and see, that’s all.’”
Various exclamations broke out from the other boys.
“Oh, yes, they must know, all right!” said Herb, bitterly.
“All I can say is it’s mighty queer, after we’ve taken such pains to keep everything a dead secret, so even our folks don’t know yet where we’re going,” Josh continued to say, meaningly.
Somehow or other, as if by mutual arrangement, every eye seemed to be gradually focussed on poor Nick, who turned as red as a turkey cock.
“Oh! yes, look at me, won’t you?” he exclaimed, spluttering more or less as was his habit when unduly excited. “You think I’m the one who leaked, just because I stopped to talk with Clarence the other day on the street, and George saw me. He never even said a single word about boats, but asked me something else. Look all you want too, but I tell you, once for all, that if there was a leak, it didn’t come through me! I never told a single soul!”
“Oh! nobody has accused you, Buster,” said Jack, soothingly, for he was fond of the good-natured fat boy.
“That’s all right, but I guess I’ve got feelings, and I can tell what every one of you is thinking,” the other went on, in an aggrieved tone.
“Just forget it, Buster,” Jack continued, for he knew only too well how the fat boy liked to harp on anything that worried him, and in this way make life miserable for the others of the club. “The mischief is done. Like as not we may never know how it happened. And there’s no need of our bothering our heads now about spilt milk. The question is, shall we change our plans, and go somewhere else this summer?”
“I say no!” exclaimed Herb, immediately and with firmness.
“That’s my case, too,” Josh echoed. “After we’ve made all our fine arrangements, it would be cowardly to back down just because those two mean skunks choose to tag after us and try to give us trouble.”
“Niver give up the ship! Thim’s my sintiments!” observed Jimmie, aggressively. “And I say the same,” remarked Nick. “Sooner or later you’ll find out how they learned our plans, and then you’ll all be sorry for putting it on me, that’s what.”
“Then it seems settled that we make no change,” said Jack, with a stern look on his face; “for I’m of the same opinion as the rest. We’ll go to the St. Lawrence, and if Tricky Clarence and Bully Joe try to upset our plans, they’ll find themselves barking up the wrong tree, that’s all.”
“And so he thinks he’s got a wizard boat that will cut circles all around my Wireless, does he?” said George, with the light of anticipated rivalry in his black eyes. “All right. Perhaps Clarence has got another guess coming. He’ll find me on the job all right, and ready to give him a warm run for his money.”
“When did we start talking seriously for the first time about choosing the Thousand Islands, and the St. Lawrence for our summer outing?” asked Herb, who seemed almost as anxious as Nick to find out the truth concerning the leak.
“I can tell you that,” replied the fat boy, quickly. “It was that afternoon when Jack asked us to stay after school, and meet him in the clubroom for a little talk. Don’t you remember, he read that letter he had from Clayton, the first one; and we soon voted to make the St. Lawrence our cruising ground this summer.”
“Buster is right about that, for I remember it distinctly,” remarked Jack.
“That was the little room in school that Mr. Sparks allows the various clubs and organizations to use when they ask permission – the one on the second floor? Am I right, fellows?” Herb went on.
“Sure ye arre,” declared Jimmie. “Doan’t I just remember that we wint till the door ivery two minutes to say if the inemy would be sphyin’ around in the hall.”
“But there was no sign of them, you also remember that?” observed Jack, quickly.
“Niver a wan,” Jimmie hastened to reply.
“Then it would stand to reason that they didn’t overhear us talking. I know you couldn’t in the next room, for I’ve been in there during recitation, and the wall is dead. I only mention this, because that same day, after I left the rest of you down-town, I found that I’d forgotten a book I needed to study, and hurried back to the school. And I met Clarence coming along the street. He said he had been kept in by Miss Stryker to do a task. But it looks as though the leak could not have been at that time.”
“Somebody must have talked in their sleep,” suggested Josh, humorously.
“Perhaps some one in the post office got on to Jack receiving a letter from Clayton, and writing there,” Herb put in.
“Well, now,” remarked Jack, “there may be something in that idea; though just now I can’t think of anybody in the post office who would be that mean. I know all the clerks, and none of them have ever been thick with either Clarence or Joe.”
“Suppose we give the matter a rest,” said Herb, with an uneasy look toward Nick; for the fat boy was to be his partner during the coming cruise, and he feared lest Buster would get to brooding on the unjust suspicions that had been directed toward him, with the result that he must be forever speaking about it, and suggesting the most astonishing explanations of the riddle.
“Agreed,” Jack replied, readily, falling in with the idea. “After all, the coming of these fellows may add some spice to our trip, who knows.”
It certainly did, as will be made manifest shortly; but just then none of the motor boat boys suspected what a strange series of exciting adventures was to be their portion, all through the decision of their rivals to choose the same cruising grounds for their summer outing, and to be as malicious and troublesome as possible.
Nick seemed to have thrown aside the temporary gloom that had fallen upon him, because of the unjust suspicions of his mates. He was naturally so cheery that trouble and he could never hitch up together for any great length of time.
“If those two cronies do chase after us,” he said, “perhaps the long standing trouble between Joe and myself may be settled. You know we’ve been growling at each other for going on a year now. And some day there’ll be a surprise due him.”
When Nick talked in that vein the others knew he was himself again, and ready to joke. So Jack, pretending to be surprised, went on to remark:
“Why, Buster, do you mean to say you’d pick on that poor fellow, who has never been able to whip more than three boys at a time in all his life? I’m surprised to hear you talk so savagely.”
“Oh! well, the thing is brooding, and bound to come off some day. Bully Joe will go just a little too far, and get his. Why, there was one time, not so long ago either, when I’d just about made up my mind to lick him for keeps. And I give you my word, fellows, I’d have wiped up the ground with him, only that I was grabbed from behind and held back!”
“Wow! listen to the war chief, would you?” exclaimed Josh, pretending to shrink away from the belligerent fat boy, who was doubling up his pudgy fists, and assuming a warrior’s pose.
“He’s sure got on his fighting togs today!” echoed Herb, soothingly.
“Say, Buster,” remarked George, when Jack nudged him in the side, “tell us who was so mean as to grab you that way, and hold you back!”
“Shucks! I just knew you’d never rest till you asked that!” cried the other, as he pretended to show disgust. “Why, that was Joe, don’t you see!”
At that there was a howl; and Jimmie doubled up like a jack-knife in the violence of his merriment.
“I can see Joe’s finish, if he keeps on trying such tricks,” whooped George.
“Oh!” Buster went on, in a calm manner, “I’ll try and be as easy with him as any one could expect. Perhaps after he’s had one good lesson, Joe may reform. It’s keeping bad company that’s been his downfall. Clarence Macklin has oodles of money; and his dad used to be a sporty sort of a Wall street man they say, when he lived east; so he don’t care much what his hopeful does, so long as he keeps out of jail.”
“Well, if he goes on much longer the way he has, I reckon he’ll land there after a bit,” Herb remarked, soberly; for he had suffered on several occasions at the hands of the vindictive Clarence, as was well known to his chums.
“All right,” Jack put in. “And now, if there’s nothing further before the house, I move we adjourn. For one I know I’m as hungry as a bear, and ready to tackle a good dinner after all that hot work on the diamond.”
“Dinner!” exclaimed Buster, whose one weak point lay in his love of eating. “Wow! don’t you remember what bully good meals we had when we all got together on that dandy Mississippi trip, and Josh here slung the pots and pans? He’s sure the best cook in seven counties. I hear he’s getting up a book on camp dinners. And right now I subscribe for the first copy that’s printed; if it don’t cost over ten cents.”
“Just you wait,” returned Josh, with one of his wide grins. “It won’t be long now before you’ll have to get up and hustle the tin pans and things, whenever you have that longing for grub steal over you. No sitting down to the table and cleaning up everything in sight for you then. It’s work before you can eat. Herb is going to keep you down to brass tacks, ain’t you Herb?”
“Oh! Buster and myself expect to get on first rate,” the one addressed hastened to say; for Herb was a lover of peace. “I’m ready to pitch in and help him out on occasion. Everything is going to be lovely, and the goose hang high, aboard the good, staunch old Comfort, when we sail the stormy waters of the St. Lawrence, eh, Buster?”
“Well,” remarked Josh, as he started away, “anyhow, I’m glad you’ve decided to give our friend Buster the upper berth!”
A shout followed after him, and the last glimpse he had of the fat boy, Buster was shaking both fists in his direction, and pretending to display tremendous rage, though secretly chuckling with good-natured laughter. Happy the boy who is so constituted that he can in the best of humor take a joke that is leveled at himself; and that was Nick Longfellow to a dot.
The rest of the bunch soon scattered, as their homes lay in various directions; and this particular corner usually served as a gathering point as well as the place where they separated.