Arthur, after rowing away from the yacht, dropped his baited hook overboard, and for a time waited eagerly for something to happen; but as the water remained as before, the sun shone down with unabated ardor, and the heat waves danced over the shining sea, he soon lost interest, and sat drowsily holding the line loosely in his hand, his white canvas hat drawn over his eyes.
Suddenly there was a jerk, and the line began to burn through his fingers; he gripped it hard, and was nearly pulled overboard. The thing at the other end, surprised at resistance, stopped an instant and gave Arthur time to recover himself.
“Gee! I’ve got something,” he shouted. He certainly had, or something had got him; it was some time before he could make up his mind which it was.
The fish began to move. Arthur determined he should not, and the consequence was that they all moved, the fish, “His nibs” and Arthur, straight for the open Gulf.
“Here, where are you going?” Kenneth’s voice came faintly over the water to him.
“I don’t know,” Arthur shouted back, his eyes on the taut line.
“Cut loose!” The voice from the yacht was fainter. Arthur thought that he must be moving away fast, but he determined that he would not give up. He watched the line closely, and presently noticed that it was taking a longer and longer slant; evidently the fish was coming to the surface. “His Nibs” rushed along at a great rate, its bow low down with Arthur’s weight and the stress of the towing; its stern was almost out of water. The line rose slowly until it was almost parallel with the surface. Arthur watched it excitedly as it cut the water like a knife and the drops were thrown aside by its vibrations. At length a sharp fin rose out of the water, and cut a rippling V in the blue sea.
“By Jove! it’s a shark,” said Arthur between his teeth.
The boys on the yacht evidently saw, too, for a faint cry reached the ears of the boy in the boat. “Let him go!” they shouted. “Let him go!”
“I’ll be hanged if I do.” Arthur did not waste his breath by speaking the words aloud; he needed all his strength to hold on to the small line. The cord cut his fingers, and the pull made his arms ache, but he would not give in. “That beast must get tired some time,” he thought. Suddenly the fin turned, there was a miniature whirlpool behind it, and Arthur’s arms were nearly wrenched out as the shark put helm to port and struck out in a new direction. Arthur looked up, saw that they were heading straight for the “Gazelle,” and he took courage.
“If he’ll only go near enough,” thought the boy; but the capture was not to be counted on, as it dashed from side to side and made rushes this way and that, in a vain endeavor to get away from the maddening hook. Its general direction, however, was toward the yacht. Arthur shouted: “Soak him, if you get a chance. I’m nearly done.”
In one of its mad rushes the shark came within ten yards of the yacht, when Frank, making a lucky cast with the heavy sounding lead, landed it on the beast’s most vulnerable spot, the nose, and stunned him. Arthur got out an oar and paddled over to the yawl, handed the line over to Frank and got aboard. Frank made the line fast to the bitts forward, then cried exultingly: “Go ahead, old tow-horse, and tow away. Pleased to have you, I’m sure.” The shark’s gameness was broken, however, and after a few heroic struggles to get free, came within easy sight of Frank, who speedily put a bullet into him and ended the tragedy. They pulled the great fish alongside and measured him.
“A good twelve-footer, I bet,” Frank asserted, after measuring the big tiger of the sea with an oar. “And look at that jaw! Jonah could only have got past those teeth in sections.”
“Well, you did do something,” Kenneth remarked, as he glanced at the long, lithe creature floating alongside. “But I did not expect you to catch a towboat.”
“Suppose—say, I’ve got a bright idea”—Frank looked up from his inspection of Arthur’s catch—“suppose we drop a couple of baited lines forward, made fast to the bitts, catch a team of sharks and get towed to our next port, or why not the whole distance?”
“It might be all right to start, but how the mischief would we stop?” Arthur rubbed his muscles, strained in the efforts which he had already made in that direction.
“Oh, just anchor, hobble our team by the tails and go on about our business. It’s as simple as can be. They could soon be taught port and starboard.”
“Coming down to plain facts, I wish we had a breeze; even a foot-pump would help us.” Kenneth shielded his eyes from the glare and looked over the glittering blue waters for a wind ripple.
“Yes, like that fellow back in Michigan, who proposed to put a motor in his boat with an air blower, so that when the wind gave out he could blow himself along.”
Only enough breeze ruffled the smooth waters of the Gulf to allow them to creep back into harbor and wait for a new day.
The shark was cast loose, in spite of Arthur’s impractical protest that he wanted to keep it as a souvenir.
The next morning all hands were up early and were greeted as they came on deck by a spanking southwest wind. It was more than a breeze; it might be ranked as a reefing wind, but the “Gazelle” was under-canvassed and so hoisted full sail safely. The whole aspect of the sea had changed. Deep, blue and rippling under the steady wind, it had lost the brazen glare of the day before. The palms along shore waved their graceful fronds in gentle salutation, and the white-crested breakers made obeisance at their feet.
“Up anchor, and away, boys!” Kenneth shouted, exhilarated by the ozone in the air. Frank and Arthur started to work the small hand windlass. “Put your backs to it, boys; we’ll be off the sooner.”
In a minute the anchor broke ground, the yacht began to pay off, and was under way in earnest.
“Gee! this is better than your old shark-towing scheme,” Arthur said, as he and Frank coiled down the gear and made all snug for the long day’s run. “There’s nothing like a wind-jammer, say I.”
“Right you are, Art,” Frank acknowledged. “My! I am hungry, though; my breastbone is flat against my spine.”
“Well, it’s up to you, old man,” Kenneth sang out from his place in the cockpit. “Chase it along; I feel as if I could eat Arthur’s shark.”
As the day wore on, the waves grew larger, long, rounded rollers, that at times crested and were blown into spray by the wind. Huge, tumbling, rolling hills they were, like great playfellows, mighty but amiable. The boys felt a kind of fellowship for them, and enjoyed watching the blue-green slopes that rose and fell, now hiding the land from them, now lifting boat and all to a watery height, widening the horizon and giving the boys little thrills of delight as they coasted down into the hollows again.
Hour after hour they sailed on, the wind steady and true from the southwest, so that only the slightest shift of the helm was necessary, and ’tending sheet became a sinecure. The “Gazelle” even acted as if she were enjoying herself. She ran up the hill of one wave and down the slope of another, like a frolicsome dolphin with a superabundance of animal spirits. Indeed, the porpoises seemed to recognize in her a playfellow, for they somersaulted along in company with her for hours, mocked at her grace, raced with her and dove under her, for all the world like children at play.
“Jiminy! let’s have a swim with ’em,” said Arthur, who, fascinated by their easy antics, was positively envious. “If I could swim like that, I wouldn’t mind turning my feet into fins one bit.”
The delights of that day’s sail would fill a book. The strange fish which they caught glimpses of as the yawl flew along, brilliantly colored and flashing like jewels in the clear depths; schools of flying-fish, strange, spectre-like creatures, sprang out of the blue and scudded a hundred feet or so clear of the waves, then dropped as suddenly as they had risen, into their native element again.
Still the good yacht sped on swiftly, steadily, like a great tireless bird. To starboard the boys could see nothing but the same old sea; the same, but always changing, always new. To port, the land was fringed with white tossing breakers, and beyond that forests of trees, graceful palms, and sturdy live oaks, with their branches draped in swaying moss, made a background of exquisite beauty.
Here and there a veritable giant that had lost in its battle with the elements, rose up above the rest, bare, denuded and black, but a sturdy relic still.
After a four-hours’ trick at the stick, Kenneth gave up the helm to Arthur and went below to write up his log. For a time the other two boys could see him laboring with a pen at the big, ledger-like book, intent on doing what he considered his duty; but his hand travelled slowly, then more slowly still. He looked up to get ideas, glanced through the oval port lights, now shut in by a green wall of sunlit water, or giving a sudden glimpse of blue cloud-flecked sky and palm-clad land over the heaving waters. For a time he gazed, then, frowning, grasped his pen determinedly, and set to work again. A dozen lines, perhaps, were written, then his eyes were irresistibly drawn again to the ever-changing pictures of sea and sky in the oval frames.
“Better give it up, old man,” Frank shouted down the hatch, laughing. “Save your log till you can’t do anything else, or until it’s too dark to see. This is better than a hundred logs. Come on deck and see it all. You can tell about it later.”
“I can’t resist; that’s a fact,” Kenneth answered, coming on deck. “This beats anything I ever even heard of. Don’t the old boat sail through, though? Steady as a church—skates up and down the waves as if she enjoyed it.”
The boys went below only to eat. Frank and Kenneth washed dishes, because Arthur was sailing—this was according to the unwritten law, that the one who sailed was excused from house work, light or otherwise. The cook did not have to wash dishes, though he was perfectly welcome to do so if he desired.
The boys saw the sun rise that morning, and it was shedding its last glowing rays over the restless waters when they made the harbor of St. Joseph’s Bay. “Eighty miles in one day is not bad going for a thirty-foot boat,” said Ransom, exultingly, after measuring the charts.
ON THE GULF COAST.
“GRACEFUL PALMS AND STURDY LIVE OAKS.”
“Sure not,” chimed in Arthur. “If we could do that every day, the rest of the cruise would be an easy thing.”
“Let’s see,” said Frank, counting on his fingers; “eighty miles a day for thirty days would be 2,400 miles; at that rate we have only got about two months’ more cruising, including stops.”
“I hate to obstruct this beautiful two months’ trip, but think of yesterday and add a couple of months.” Kenneth, in his usual matter-of-fact manner, was throwing cold water upon these extravagant dreamers.
St. Joseph’s Bay, a deep indentation in the coast, afforded the young sailors a splendid anchorage, sheltered and easy of access. The rollers beat steadily on the beach outside, the roaring proclaiming the majesty of the sea; but within all was calm and still—gentle rollers rocked the yacht just enough to soothe—and the three youngsters slept like hibernating bears.
The soft breeze hummed gently through the rigging, the little waves lapped caressingly against the boat’s sides, fishes bumped their noses inquiringly against her bottom. “His Nibs,” made fast by a long painter, went on little excursions of its own as far as the line would reach, like an inquisitive dog; but the boys slept through it, perfectly unconscious of all the interesting nocturnal goings on. It was not until the warm sun came shining through the port lights, and upon the open hatch, that they finally waked up.
“Six bells, boys; up, all hands—rise and shine—shake a leg!” Kenneth shouted, rubbing his own eyes to pry them open. It was seven o’clock, and a long day’s sail to Appalachicola was before them. Each boy, as he rolled out of his bunk, shook off the few clothes he had on and flopped overboard. In a minute, the sleepy dust was washed out of their eyes, and the boys sported about like seals in the clear, warm salt water.
Frank climbed on deck and dove off, making a clear arching leap like a hunted fish; but his feet had hardly disappeared before his head showed above the surface again.
“Why, you couldn’t sink in this water if a mill-stone were hung round your neck,” he spluttered, shaking the water out of his eyes.
Thr............