Part 5 (1/2)
”If he can't paddle well on a full stomach, let him turn over on his back,” said Pod, then dodged when Fleet made a pa.s.s at him.
They found a crowd of boys collected about the canoes, but the boy they had hired as guard was defiantly standing them off, and nothing had been touched. The boys chipped in and gave the little fellow an extra coin, and the urchin immediately decided that the canoeists were ”bricks.”
The boys pushed off into the stream again. The sun was rather warm now, and paddling was not any great delight, so they contented themselves with a slow, easy movement. This was kept up for the better part of two hours, when an incident occurred that relieved the monotony of the cruise.
The boys were hugging the west sh.o.r.e, hoping the sun would soon hurry behind the highlands, when upon turning a bend in the river, a catboat was seen in midstream, headed south. She was perhaps a quarter of a mile away from them, and they could easily make out the form of a young lad at the tiller. It was some time before he caught sight of the canoes, but when he did, he started up in amazement. They saw him lash the tiller and tip-toe to the door of the little cabin down which he looked in a furtive manner. Then he advanced to the side of the boat and beckoned to the boys in the canoes.
”Wonder what that means?” said Fleet.
”He wants us to approach,” said Chot. ”Guess we'd better see what he wants.”
So they headed their canoes out into the stream, and at the same instant the boy seized the tiller of the boat and brought her around to the wind so that she lay, her sails flapping idly, waiting for them to come up.
CHAPTER IV-THE FIGHT ON THE CATBOAT
”Looks like he's afraid of something,” said Pod.
”Sure; this is the haunted sloop you've read about,” Fleet responded.
”If you can make a sloop out of a catboat, you're a dandy, Fleet Kenby,”
said Pod. ”Don't you know that a sloop has a bowsprit and a jib?”
Fleet was silent. He saw that his anxiety to bring in the ”haunts,” had led him into making a nautical error, so he subsided.
As the canoes approached the catboat, the lad at the tiller held his hand to his lips for silence, then pointed significantly toward the cabin.
”It may be a catboat, but it's haunted all right,” said Fleet. ”Don't you think we'd better clear out of this?”
”I don't see as this is half as scary as that hut I was shut up in on the east side of the river the night Kenton Karnes and his gang played kidnappers,” said Pod.
”Well, let's see what this boy wants,” said Chot. ”He is evidently in great fear from someone in that cabin.”
”Some_one_?” said Fleet. ”You mean some_thing_!”
”I mean what I said.”
”Push up alongside, fellows,” said Tom, ”and keep quiet unless the boy talks. He's trying to impress us to be silent.”
The lad was still holding the nose of the boat to the wind, and the sail still flapped in the breeze.
The boys paddled up alongside, worked their way around to the stern, where again the lad held a finger to his lips. On the stern of the catboat were the words: ”Nellie B. of Troy.”
”What's the matter?” asked Chot in a low tone.
”s.h.!.+ Easy there,” was the lad's reply. ”Captain's drunk. Can you fellows take me off this blooming boat?”
”Why do you want to leave?”
”Because I don't belong here. He kidnapped me-shanghaied me, I guess you'd call it.”