CHAPTER XXXVIII.
LITTLE KO-WIK-A SAILS OUT TO SEA.
THERE was a long swell heaving in over the bar at the
mouth of the river, but no breakers; and the little fleet, crossing it
easily, laid a course down the coast. A stretch of twenty miles lay
before them ere they would find another opening into which they could
run for shelter, and they were therefore desirous of making the run
before night. On most waters this would not have been difficult; but
just here was a strong head current, that of the Gulf Stream, running
fully three miles an hour, and they knew that to overcome this, and
also to make twenty miles during the day, would tax the sailing powers
of their small craft to the utmost. Nor could they all sail. The Hu-la-lah
had no centerboard, and with the wind somewhat forward of abeam, the
use of her sail would only have driven her off shore. The Lieutenant
was therefore obliged to rely upon his paddle and keep close to the
coast. The cruiser, being a slow sailer close-hauled, kept him company,
but the Psyche and Cupid drew gradually ahead, and were
soon out of hailing distance.
It was so delightful to find themselves again sailing, and
their canoes were doing so splendidly, that the boys hated to stop. And
why should they? There was nothing to fear. They knew where they were
going, the others were in company, and a halting place for the night
had been agreed upon. They would stop when they reached it, and that
would be soon enough.
Until noon the breeze was very light, but after that it
freshened and soon came off the land in angry little gusts that
suggested the propriety of reefing. With a single reef in each of their
sails, they ran until late in the afternoon, when they sighted a cut
leading into the great landlocked sheet of Biscayne Bay. They were to
enter this bay and cruise down behind its outer keys to Cape Florida,
but it had been decided that they should camp on the upper side of the
cut for that night.
The wind had increased in strength until now even
double-reefed sails could hardly be carried on the canoes. The whole
sky was covered with dark clouds, while a bank of inky blackness was
rising in the west. It was evident that a wind squall of unusual
violence would shortly burst upon them, and almost at the same moment
both the canoemates lowered their sails, jointed their paddles, and
headed straight in for land. As he lowered his sail and cast a glance
astern in search of the other boats, Sumner noticed a large steamer
coming down the coast. lie wondered if she were not too close in for
safety, but the immediate demands of his situation quickly drove all
thoughts of her from his mind.
In the teeth of the spiteful gusts, and facing the ominous
blackness, they worked their way in until they could see the very place
that the station keeper had described to them as being a suitable
camping ground. Five minutes more would take them to its shelter. Just
then Sumner shouted to Worth, and drew his attention to a strange craft
that he had been watching for several minutes. It was coming out of the
cut, running dead before the wind, but yawing and gybing in a manner
that indicated either utter recklessness or absolute ignorance on then
part of its crew. The two canoes were so close together that Worth
could hear Sumner plainly as he shouted:
"It's an Indian canoe, and apparently unmanageable. I'm
going to up sail and run down for a look at it. Do you paddle in to
shore, and be out of harm's way before that squall bursts."
"Oh, Sumner, don't run any risks!" shouted Worth.
"All right, I'll be careful. But you'll make things a
great deal easier for me if you will start at once for shore. That's a
good fellow."
So Worth did as his friend desired, and Sumner, hoisting
his double-reefed mainsail, bore down on the strange canoe, which would
otherwise have passed him at quite a distance. It was going at a
tremendous pace, and as the two craft neared each other, Sumner saw to
his consternation that the sole occupant of the dugout was a child who
stretched out its little arms imploringly towards him. He saw this as
the runaway canoe, under full sail, shot across his bow.
A tumult of thought flashed through the boy's mind like
lightning. He was near enough to land to reach it in safety. That
child, if left alone, was rushing to certain destruction. He might be
able to rescue it, and he might not. The chances were that he would
lose his own life in the attempt. Very well; could he lose it in a
better cause? What would his father have done under similar
circumstances? That last question was sufficient. There was no longer
any room for argument.
Even during his moment of hesitation the boy had been
loosening the reef line of his mainsail, and simultaneously with his
decision a quick pull at the halyard exposed its full surface to the
wind. Over heeled the canoe, with Sumner leaning far out on the weather
side. Then her head paid off, and under the influence of the first
blast of the squall she sprang away like a frightened animal, in the
direction taken by the runaway.
That same afternoon a fleet of Indian canoes, containing
Ul-we and his companions, had crossed Biscayne Bay from the mainland.
Instead of descending the river on which they had left our explorers,
they had skirted the edge of the 'Glades to another that flowed into
the bay, the secret of which they did not choose to have Lieutenant
Carey learn. Although it still lacked a day of new moon, they decided
to take advantage of the fair wind, cross the bay, and spend the
intervening time in catching and smoking a supply of fish at a point
several miles above Cape Florida.
In the canoe with Ul-we was his six-year-old brother, the
little Ko-wik-a, who was sometimes allowed to hold the sheet while they
were sailing, and who considered himself fully competent to manage the
boat alone. However, being very wise in some things, he did not say
this nor express in words his longing for a chance to prove his skill.
He simply waited for an opportunity that was not long in coming.
After the Indians had pitched their camp, Ul-we, taking
Ko-wik-a with him, went up to the cut to set a net into which fish
would run with the flood tide. Beaching the place, he went into the
mangroves to cut some poles, leaving his little brother in the canoe.
This was Ko-wik-a's chance, and he was quick to seize it.
He would now show Ul-we that if he was little, he could sail a boat.
The big brother had hardly disappeared when the little one shoved the
canoe out from the mangroves and grasped the sheet in his chubby hands.
The sail was already hoisted. He did not try to steer, but the wind and
swiftly ebbing tide did that for him. n A minute later and he was
running out of the cut at racing speed, wholly jubilant over the
complete success of his experiment. When he got ready to turn round and
go back, he became a little frightened to find out that something more
than wishing to do so was necessary. When his craft shot out from the
cut, and, leaving the land behind, headed out into an infinitely larger
body of water than the little fellow had ever before seen, he became
thoroughly demoralized, and began to call loudly for Ul-we.
Poor Ul-we had just discovered that both his little
brother, whom he loved better than anyone or anything in the world, and
his canoe had disappeared, and was rushing frantically towards the
outer beach. His instinct told him what had happened, and his one hope
was to reach the end of the cut in time to swim off and intercept the
runaway.
When he did get there it was only in time to catch a
fleeting glimpse of his own well-known sail far out at sea, with
another much whiter and smaller one behind it. Then a cruel squall
burst over the ocean. In a cloud of rain and mist, borne forward by the
fierce wind, the two sails disappeared and the whole landscape was
blotted from view.
From a place of safety on the opposite side of the cut,
though unseen by Ul-we, Worth Manton strained his eyes for a last
glimpse of the Psyche's fluttering signal flag, and the others,
rapidly nearing him, wondered at his gesture of despair as it was
blotted out.
The squall was long and fierce, and by the time it had
passed, the darkness of night had shut in and the stars were shining.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
A BLACK SQUALL AND THE STRANDED STEAMER.
ALTHOUGH the Psyche was flying at racing speed
dead before the wind, which freshened with each moment, and was rolling
frightfully under her press of canvas, she was no match in running for
the long dugout of which she was in pursuit. Had the latter been
properly trimmed and steered, the light cedar canoe could never have
caught it. As it was, Sumner saw that he was gaining, but so slowly
that he could not hope to overtake it before being carried miles out to
Sea. In that weather and with night coming on, this was by no means a
cheerful prospect. Still he had no thought of turning back. He had
entered upon this race with a full knowledge of its possible
consequences, and he would either save the helpless little figure that
had appealed to him so imploringly, or perish with it.
So the clutch on his deck tiller tightened, and the taut
mainsheet held in the other hand was not slackened a single inch, until
the hissing rush of the black squall was in his ears. Then the canoe
was sharply luffed, the Sheet was dropped, the halyard cast off, and
the white sail fell to the deck like a broken wing. As it was gathered
in and made fast with a turn of the sheet, the squall burst on the
stanch little craft and heeled it far over. It offered too little
resistance to be capsized, and a minute later, steadied by the
double-bladed paddle, it was once more got before the wind and was
scudding under bare poles.
While doing all this, Sumner had been too busy to look
after the object of his pursuit. Now he could not see it, and he almost
choked with the thought that his brave effort had been made in vain,
after all. No, there it was, close at hand, but no longer showing a
sail or flying from him. Heeling over before the blast, its long boom
had been thrust into the water, and in an instant the slender craft had
been upset. Now, full of water, it floated on one side like a log. At
first, Sumner failed to see its tiny occupant, and the thought that he
had been drowned almost within reach was a bitter one. But no. Hurrah!
There he is! With head just above the water, and chubby hands clutching
at the slippery sides of his craft, the plucky little chap was still
fighting for life.
As the Psyche swept alongside, steered to a
nicety, Sumner reached out, and, nearly overturning his canoe by the
effort, caught the little fellow by an arm. The water was pouring in
over the cockpit coaming, and had the child been a pound heavier, the
next instant would have seen two helplessly drifting canoes instead of
one. As it was, he was hauled in and safely deposited in the inch or
more of water that swashed above the cockpit floor.
SUMNER RESCUES KO-WIK-A.
With infinite self-possession the child smiled up
into the face of his rescuer and lisped: "How, Summer !"
Then the boy recognized the little Ko-wik-a whose
acquaintance he had made in Ul-we's camp, and as a relief to his own
overstrained; nerves, called him a littler imp, and abused him roundly
for getting them into such a scrape. At the same time tears stood in
his eyes, and he could have hugged the child cuddling between his knees
and smiling so confidingly in his face.
Though the rescue of Ko-wik-a had been so happily
accomplished, they were still in a sad plight -- driving out to sea in
an eggshell, with no chance of battling back against the tempest, and
the darkness of night enshrouding them. With each moment the
storm-lashed waves were mounting higher. All Sumner's skill was
required to prevent the canoe from broaching to and turning over. How
much longer would his strength hold out? Already he felt it failing. He
would soon become exhausted, and then --
Hark! What was that? The note of a steam whistle? Yes, and
another, and still others, struggling back hoarsely against the wind;
Then a light twinkled through the darkness, and directly other lights
were outlining a huge black shape right in their track.
Sumner remembered the steamer he had seen just before
parting from Worth. Could this be she? What was she doing there,
apparently at anchor?
Driving under her stern, a few minutes' hard paddling
brought the canoe into the quiet calm of the towering lee. Then Sumner
shouted again and again, but the voice of the ship calling for aid in
her own distress drowned his cries. After a while the whistle notes
ceased, and he shouted again. This time he was beard, and an answering
hail came from the deck high above him, "Who is it, and where are you?"
Sumner answered, and in a few minutes a port low down in
the ship's side was flung open, and a flood of light poured from it.
Two ropes were lowered, and Sumner getting the bights under the bow and
stern of his canoe, it, with its occupants, was lifted to the level of
the open port. Strong arms first received the little Ko-wik-a, and then
helped the young canoeman aboard the steamer.
"Where is your vessel?" demanded the captain, who was
among those assembled to witness this unexpected arrival.
"There," answered Sumner, pointing to the Psyche.
"You don't mean to say that you are navigating the ocean
in that cockleshell?"
"Yes, I do; though I don't expect I should have navigated
it much longer if I hadn't fallen in with you just as I did. How do you
happen to be at anchor here, and what were you whistling for?"
"We are not at anchor. We are aground, and I was blowing
the whistle in the hope of attracting some vessel or vessels, into
which we could lighter our cargo. Now I suppose I shall have to throw
it overboard."
"What for?" asked Sumner. "With this offshore wind there
won't be any heavy sea, and unless you have stove a hole in her bottom
she ought to float with the flood tide."
"Flood tide! Isn't it the top of the flood now?" exclaimed
the captain.
"No; it's the very last of the ebb, and the flood will
give you a couple of feet more water."
"Are you certain of that?"
"Certain."
"Then you are a trump!" cried the captain. "And I'm away
out of my reckoning, somehow. Your coming just as you have has
undoubtedly saved my cargo, for I should have begun heaving it
overboard by this time. You see, I was hugging the coast to escape the
force of the Gulf as much as possible, but was keeping a sharp lookout
for the red buoy that marks the end of the reef. I can't imagine how we
missed it, unless it has gone; but we did, and when Fowey was lighted,
I saw that we were too close in shore. I didn't know that we were
inside of the reef; but we struck within five minutes after I altered
her course, and that was nearly half an hour ago. We don't seem to have
hit very hard, and she lies easy without making any water; but she's
here to stay, unless, as you say, the flood tide will lift her off. You
are certain that this is the last of the ebb ?"
"As certain as that I am standing here," answered Sumner,
who had a very distinct recollection of how the current had rushed out
through the cut.
"Then let us go up into my room and have some supper.
There you can tell me how you happened to be out here in such weather
with a pickaninny aboard while we wait for the tide."
How safe and comfortable the great ship seemed, after that
wild race to sea in a canoe! How the captain and mates and passengers
marveled at Sumner's adventures, and what a pet they all made of little
Ko-wik-a. As for that self-possessed young Indian, he accepted all the
attentions lavished upon him in the most matter-of-fact manner, and
with the utmost composure. He expressed no surprise at anything he saw;
but his keen little eyes studied all the details of his novel
surroundings, and he stored away scraps of startling information with
which to astonish his young Everglade comrades for many a day.
The squall passed and the sea smoothed out its wrinkles
soon after the crew of the Psyche came aboard, and shortly
before midnight the rising tide lifted the great ship gently off the
reef. She was backed to a safe distance from it, and there anchored to
await the coming of daylight.
Knowing what anxiety his friends and Ko-wik-a's friends
must be suffering on their account, Sumner determined to return to them
at the earliest possible moment. The first signs of dawn, therefore,
found the Psyche, with her crew and passenger, once more
afloat. A hearty cheer followed the brave little craft as she glided
away from the great ship, and in less than an hour she was paddled
gently up to where the other canoes and the cruiser lay on the beach.
It had been a sad night to the inmates of that lonely
camp, and most of its long hours had been spent in a fruitless watching
for the return of the well-loved lad, whom most of them had such slight
hopes of ever again seeing. Only Worth had faith, and declared that
while he did not know how Sumner would manage it, he was confident that
he would turn up again all right somehow. Towards morning their anxiety
found relief in a troubled sleep, and as Sumner walked into the camp
there was none to greet him or note his coming.
"Hello, in the camp!" he shouted. "Here it is almost
sunrise and no breakfast ready yet!"
No surprise could be more complete or more joyful than
that. Worth was the first to spring to his feet.
"He's come hack safe and sound!" he shouted. "Oh, Sumner,
I knew you would! I was sure of it, and told them so!"
"The next time I let you away from my side it will only be
at the end of a long rope, you young rascal, you!" said the Lieutenant,
after the extravagant joy of the first greeting had somewhat subsided.
After an unusually late and happy breakfast, they sailed
through the cut and into the beautiful bay to which it led. They soon
discovered the camp to which Ko-wik-a belonged, and the canoe that had
rescued him had the honor of bearing him to it. He was received with a
wondering joy that was none the less real for its lack of extravagant
manifestation. As Ul-we took the child from Sumner's arms, be turned
his face away to hide the emotion that would be unbecoming in an Indian
and a warrior. It was there, however, and the look of intense gratitude
that he gave the boy was more expressive than any words that he could
have uttered.
Then the Indians broke their camp, and they and the whites
sailed away together to the appointed rendezvous on Cape Florida.
CHAPTER XL.
THE HAPPY ENDING OF THE CRUISE.
ON their entire cruise our young canoemates had not
enjoyed a day's run so much as they did this one in company with the
Indians who had crossed the Everglades with them, but of whom they had
seen so little. The wind was so fair that the boats without
centerboards could sail as well as those with, and the run was a series
of match races, of which the Psyche and Cupid were
winners in nearly every case.
As Ul-we's canoe had been lost the night before, the
Lieutenant invited both him and the little Ko-wik-a to a sail in the Hu-la-lah,
and
even the self-contained young Indian was compelled to express his
admiration of the graceful craft. When he ventured to ask what such a
canoe would cost, and the price was named, his face indicated his
despair at ever being able to accumulate such a sum, and he murmured:
"Heap money! Injun no get um."
At Cape Florida, while the camps were being pitched but a
short distance from each other, the boys went with Ul-we to set another
fish trap, such as he had been about to prepare when Ko-wik-a ran away
with his canoe the day before. The little fellow went with them, but he
no longer showed any inclination to go sailing on his own hook. After
Ul-we had fixed his trap they went over to a submerged bank that
extends southward several miles from the cape. Here, while the boys
waded in the shoal water collecting sea porcupines, urchins, tiny
squids, bits of live coral, and numberless other marine curiosities,
Ul-we was busy gathering and throwing into his canoe a quantity of big
greenish shells that looked like so many rocks. When they were ready to
go back, and Sumner saw this novel cargo, he exclaimed:
"Good! Now we will have some conch soup for dinner!"
"How do you know?" asked Worth.
"Because here are the conchs, and Ul-we has enough for all
of us."
"Those things!" cried Worth, in a tone of disgust. "You
surely don't mean that they are good to eat?"
"Yes, I do," laughed Sumner, picking up one of the shells
and showing Worth the white meat with which its exquisitely pink
interior was filled. "I mean that these fellows can be made into the
very best soup I know of."
"Seems to me I have seen that kind of a shell before,"
said Worth, "but I never knew that any one ever ate their contents."
"Of course you have seen the shells. You will find them in
half the farmhouses of the country, where, with the point of the small
end cut off, they are used as dinner horns. As for the eating part, you
wait till Quorum gives you a chance to test it this evening. If you
don't find it fully as good as sofkee, then I shall be mistaken."
The boys had been greatly disappointed at not finding
either the Man tons' yacht nor the Transit awaiting them at the
cape. Several times in the course of the afternoon they climbed to the
top of an abandoned lighthouse tower near their camp, in the hope of
sighting a sail bound in that direction. As they did so just before
sunset, they saw several far over towards the mainland, but they were
too distant for their character to be distinguished.
Never had they seen anything so exquisitely beautiful or
so royally gorgeous as that Southern sunset, and they lingered at the
top of the tower until the last of its marvellous flame tints had
burned out, and the delicate crescent of the new moon was sinking into
the 'Glades behind the distant pine trees of the mainland.
At supper time Worth was introduced to conch soup, and he
agreed with Sumner that it was fully equal to sofkee.
After supper the boys strolled over to the Indian camp, to
which Lieutenant Carey was attracted soon afterwards by their shouts of
laughter. He did not recognize the boys until they spoke to him, for
they had persuaded Ul-we to array them as he had after the forest fire,
and they were now in full Indian costume.
In the mean time the distant sails that they had sighted
from the top of the old tower had been running across the bay before a
brisk breeze, and two vessels had quietly come to anchor just inside
the cape. The glow of the campfires could be seen from these, and from
one of them a boat containing several persons pulled in to the beach. A
minute later two gentlemen, whose footsteps were unheard in the sand,
stood on the edge of the circle of firelight, and one of them said to
the other, in a low and disappointed tone:
"It's only an Indian camp after all, Tracy,"
"So it is," replied the other, regretfully. "Still, they
may be able to give us some news. Let's go in and inquire."
At that moment the attention of the Indians was equally
divided between Sumner, who was apparently accumulating a fortune by
taking half dollars from little Ko-wik-a's mouth and ears, and Worth,
who was attempting to dance what he called a clog with Indian
variations, to the music of Lieutenant Carey's whistle. Suddenly little
Ko-wik-a, who was nervously excited over Sumner's wonderful
performance, uttered a startled cry and sprang to one side, staring
into the darkness.
All the others looked in the same direction, and probably
the dignified Mr. Manton was never more surprised in his life than when
a young Indian bounded to his side, flung his arms about his neck, and
called him "Dear father!" His brother was equally amazed when another
young Indian sprang to where he was standing, seized his hand, and
called him "Mr. Tracy!"
THE SURPRISE AND DELIGHT OF THE TWO GENTLEMEN CAN BETTER
BE IMAGINED THAN DESCRIBED.
When they discovered, by their voices and by what
they were incoherently saying, that these young Indians were not
Indians at all, but the very boys of whom they were in search, tanned
to the color of mahogany, and dressed in borrowed finery, the surprise
and delight of the two gentlemen can better be imagined than described.
"Is it possible," cried Mr. Manton, holding Worth off at
arm's-length so that the firelight shone full upon him, "that this can
be the pale faced chap with a cough who left me in St. Augustine a
couple of months ago? Why, son, you've grown an inch taller and, I
should say, six in breadth!" Then, turning to the other boy, and
scanning his features closely, he added: "And is this Sumner Rankin,
the son of my old schoolmate Rankin, whom I lost sight of after he went
into the navy? My boy, for your father's sake, and for the sake of what
you have done for Worth; this winter, I want you hereafter to regard me
as a father, and continue to act as this boy's elder brother. Ever
since Tracy told me of you T have been almost as impatient to meet you
as to rejoin Worth, for as schoolmates your father and I were as dear
to each other as own brothers."
While this joyful meeting was taking place, a boat from
the Transit had come ashore, and Ensign Sloe was reporting to
Lieutenant Carey. Then the whole party had to sit down where they were,
and, surrounded by the grave-faced Indians, tell and listen to as much
of the past two months' experience as could be crowded into as many
hours.
The Mantons were charmed with Lieutenant Carey, and he
with them, while towards Ul-we their gratitude was unbounded. Old
Quorum, too, was introduced, and warmly thanked for his fidelity to the
young canoemates.
Be fore the schooners sailed for Key West, which they did
the next day Lieutenant Carey presented Ul-we with the Hu-la-lah,
and
Worth
gave him the handsomest
rifle in his father's collection, besides promising to
send little Ko-wik-a a light canoe for his very own. Mr. Manton and
Uncle Tracy between them not only purchased from the Indians, at
fabulous prices, the costumes in which they found the boys, but
everything else they could think of that would aid in reproducing their
present appearance and surroundings for the benefit of their Northern
friends. The properties they thus acquired included bear, wolf,
panther, and deer skins, and even a sofkee kettle with its great wooden
spoon. Besides this, they and the Lieutenant so loaded the Indian
canoes with provisions, tobacco, cartridges for their rifles and
shotguns, and other useful things, that this occasion formed a theme
for conversation about every campfire throughout the length and breadth
of the Everglades for many a long day. Should Lieutenant Carey and his
party ever care to penetrate those wilds again, they will be certain of
a hearty welcome, and of being allowed to go where they please.
Then the two yachts set sail for their run down the reef
to Key West, where another joyful greeting awaited the young canoemates.
Before the Mantons left there, it was arranged that Mrs.
Rankin should dispose of her Key West home as soon as possible, and
sail for New York, where Mr. Manton said he had a cosy little house
waiting for just such tenants as herself and Sumner.
"Be sure and come as quickly as you can," he said, "for I
want my new boy to design and build me a yacht this summer for next
winter's cruising."
"I shall need one too," added Uncle Tracy, "and I think I
know of several more that will be wanted."
"Don't forget to bring the Psyche with you,
Sumner!" shouted Worth, the last thing.
"As if I would!" answered Sumner. "Whatever boats I may
own, I will never part with that dear canoe so long as I live."
That evening, as the boy and his mother sat discussing
their pleasant prospects for the future, Sumner said:
"Well, mother, I have learned one thing from the past two
months' experience, and that is that wealthy people can be just as kind
and considerate, and may be as dearly loved, as poor ones. I didn't
believe it at one time, but now I know it."
THE END.
..
© 2001 Craig O'Donnell, editor & general factotum.
May not be reproduced without my permission.
Go scan your own damn
stuff.
|
