Ruel Smith - The Rival Campers - or, The Adventures of Henry Burns

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 the Surprise several miles off in the bay that evening, and concluded that the evening meal had been long delayed. The Surprise now 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.”