Dab Kinzer - William O. Stoddard
"There!" he exclaimed: "I know it."
"Know what?" asked Annie.
"Know what you're thinking."
"Do you, indeed?"
"Yes: you think I'm like the crabs."
"What _do_ you mean?"
"You think I was green enough till you spoke to me, and now I'm boiled
red in the face."
Annie could not help laughing,--a little, quiet, Sunday-morning sort of
a laugh; but she was beginning to think her brother's friend was not a
bad specimen of a Long Island "country boy."
She briskly turned away the small remains of that conversation from
crabs and their color; but she told her mother, on their way home, she
was sure Dabney would be a capital associate for Ford.
That young gentleman was tremendously of the same opinion. He had come
home, the previous evening, from a long conference with Dab, brimful of
the proposed yachting cruise; and his father had freely given his
consent, much against the inclinations of Mrs. Foster.
"My dear," said the lawyer, "I feel sure a woman of Mrs. Kinzer's
unusual good sense would not permit her son to go out in that way if she
did not feel safe about him. He has been brought up to it, you know; and
so has the colored boy who is to go with them."
"Yes, mother," argued Ford: "there isn't half the danger there is in
driving around New York in a carriage."
"There might be a storm," she timidly suggested.
"The horses might run away."
"Or you might get upset."
"So might a carriage."
The end of it all was, however, that Ford was to go, and Annie was more
than half sorry she could not go with them. In fact, she said so to
Dabney himself, as soon as her little laugh was ended, that Sunday
morning.
"Some time or other I'd be glad to have you," replied Dab very politely,
"but not this trip."
"Why not?"
"We mean to go right across the bay, and try some fishing."
"Couldn't I fish?"
"Well, no, I don't think you could."
"Why couldn't I?"
"Because,--well, because, most likely, you'd be too sea-sick by the time
we got there."
Just then a low, clear voice, behind Dabney, quietly remarked, "How
smooth his hair is!"
Dab's face turned red again.
Annie Foster had heard it as distinctly as he had; and she walked right
away with her mother, for fear she should laugh again.
"It's my own hair, Jenny Walters," said Dab almost savagely, as he
turned around.
"I should hope it was."
"I should like to know what you go to church for, anyhow."
"To hear people talk about sailing and fishing. How much do you s'pose a
young lady like Miss Foster cares about small boys?"
"Or little girls, either? Not much; but Annie and I mean to have a good
sail before long."
"Annie and I!"
Jenny's pert little nose seemed to turn up more than ever, as she walked
away, for she had not beaten her old playfellow quite as badly as usual.
There were several sharp things on the very tip or her tongue, but she
was too much put out and vexed to try to say them just then.
Dab made the rest of his way home without any further haps or mishaps. A
sail on the bay was nothing so new or wonderful for him to look forward
to, and so that Sunday went by a good deal like all his other Sundays.
As for Ford Foster, on the contrary, his mind was in a stew and turmoil
all day. In fact, just after tea that evening, his father asked him,--
"What book is that you are reading, Ford?"
"Captain Cook's Voyages."
"And the other, in your lap?"
"Robinson Crusoe."
"Well, you might have worse books than they are, that's a fact, even for
Sunday, though you ought to have better; but which of them do you and
Dabney Kinzer mean to imitate to-morrow?"
"Crusoe!" promptly responded Ford.
"I see. And so you've got Dick Lee to go along as your man Friday."
"He's Dab's man, not mine."
"Oh! and you mean to be Crusoe number two? Well, don't get cast away on
any desolate island, that's all."
Ford slipped into the library, and put the books away. It had been
Samantha Kinzer's room, and had plenty of book-shelves, in addition to
the elegant "cases" Mr. Foster had brought from the city with him; for
Samantha was inclined to be of a literary turn of mind. All the cases
and shelves were full too; but not on any one of them was Ford Foster
able to discover a volume he cared to take out with him in place of
"Cook" or "Crusoe."
The next morning, within half an hour after breakfast, every member of
the two families was down at the landing, to see their young sailors
make their start; and they were all compelled to admit that Dab and Dick
seemed to know precisely what they were about.
As for Ford, that young gentleman was wise enough, with all those eyes
watching him, not to try any thing that he was not sure of; though he
carefully explained to Annie, "Dab is captain, you know. I'm under his
orders to-day."
Dick Lee was hardly the wisest fellow in the world, for he added
encouragingly,--
"And you's doin' tip-top, for a green hand, you is."
The wind was blowing right off shore, and did not seem to promise any
thing more than a smart breeze. It was easy enough to handle the little
craft in the inlet; and in a marvellously short time she was dancing out
upon the blue waves of the spreading "bay." It was a good deal more like
a land-locked "sound" than any sort of a bay, with that long, low,
narrow sand-island cutting it off from the ocean.
"I don't wonder Ham Morris called her the 'Swallow,'" said Ford. "How
she skims! Can you get in under the deck, there, forward? That's the
cabin."
"Yes, that's the cabin," replied Dab. "But Ham had the door put in with
a slide, water-tight. It's fitted with rubber. We can put our things in
there, but it's too small for any thing else."
"What's it made so tight for?"
"Oh! Ham says he's made his yacht a life-boat. Those places at the sides
and under the seats are all water-tight. She might capsize, but she'd
never sink. Don't you see?"
"I see. How it blows!"
"It's a little fresh, now we are getting away from under the land. How'd
you like to be wrecked?"
"Good fun," said Ford. "I got wrecked on the cars the first time I came
over here."
"On the cars?"
"Why, yes. I forgot to tell you about that."
Then followed a very vivid and graphic account of the sad fate of the
pig and the locomotive. The wonder was, how Ford should have failed to
give Dab that story before. No such failure would have been possible if
his head and tongue had not been so wonderfully busy about so many other
things, ever since his arrival.
"I'm glad it was I instead of Annie," he said at length.
"Of course. Didn't you tell me she came through all alone?"
"Yes; and she didn't like it much, either. Travelled all night. She ran
away from those cousins of mine. Oh, but won't I pay them off when I get
to Grantley!"
"Where's that? What did they do?"
"The Swallow" was flying along nicely now, with Dab at the tiller, and
Dick Lee tending sail; and Dab could listen with all his ears to Ford's
account of his sister's tribulations, and the merciless "practical
jokes" of the Hart boys.
"Ain't they older and bigger than you?" asked Dabney, as Ford closed his
recital. "What can you do with two of them?"
"They can't box worth a cent, and I can. Anyhow, I mean to teach them
better manners."
"You can box?"
"Had a splendid teacher. Put me up to all sorts of things."
"Will you show me how, when we get back?"
"We can practise all we choose. I've two pair of gloves."
"Hurrah for that! Ease her, Dick. It's blowing pretty fresh. We'll have
a tough time tacking home against such a breeze as this. Maybe it'll
change before night."
"Capt'in Dab," calmly remarked Dick, "we's on'y a mile to run."
"Well, what of it?"
"Is you goin' fo' de inlet?"
"Of course. What else can we do? That's what we started for."
"Looks kind o' dirty, dat's all."
So far as Ford could see, both the sky and the water looked clean
enough; but Dick was entirely right about the weather. In fact, if
Captain Dabney Kinzer had been a more experienced and prudent seaman, he
would have kept "The Swallow" inside the bar that day, at any risk of
Ford Foster's good opinion. As it was, even Dick Lee's keen eyes hardly
comprehended how threatening was the foggy haze that was lying low on
the water, miles and miles away to seaward.
It was magnificently exciting fun, at all events; and "The Swallow"
fully merited all that had been said in her favor. The "mile to run" was
a very short one, and it seemed to Ford Foster that the end of it would
bring them up high and dry on the sandy beach of the island.
The narrow "strait" of the inlet between the bay and the ocean was
hardly visible at any considerable distance. It opened to view, however,
as they drew near; and Dab Kinzer rose higher than ever in his friend's
good opinion, as the swift little vessel he was steering shot unerringly
into the contracted channel.
"Ain't we pretty near where you said we were to try for some fish?" he
asked.
"Just outside there. Get the grapnel ready, Dick. Sharp, now!"
Sharp it was, and Ford himself lent a hand; and, in another moment, the
white sails went down, jib and main; "The Swallow" was drifting along
under bare poles, and Dick Lee and Ford were waiting the captain's
orders to let go the neat little anchor.
"Heave!"
Over went the iron, the hawser followed briskly.
"That'll do, Dick: hold her!"
Dick gave the rope a skilful turn around its "pin," and Dab shouted,--
"Now for some weak-fish! It's about three fathoms, and the tide's near
the turn."
Alas for the uncertainty of human calculations! The grapnel caught on
the bottom, surely and firmly; but, the moment there came any strain on
the seemingly stout hawser that held it, the latter parted like a
thread, and "The Swallow" was all adrift!
"Somebody's done gone cut dat rope!" shouted Dick, as he frantically
pulled in the treacherous bit of hemp.
There was an anxious look on Dab Kinzer's face for a moment. Then he
shouted,--
"Sharp, now, boys, or we'll be rolling in the surf in three minutes!
Haul away, Dick! Haul with him, Ford! Up with her! There, that'll give
us headway."
Ford Foster looked out to seaward, even while he was hauling his best
upon the sail halyards. All along the line of the coast, at distances
varying from a hundred yards or so to nearly a mile, there was an
irregular line of foaming breakers--an awful thing for a boat like "The
Swallow" to run into!
Perhaps; but ten times worse for a larger craft, for the latter would be
shattered on the shoals, where the bit of a yacht would find plenty of
water under her; that is, if she did not, at the same time, find too
much water _over_ her.
"Can't we go back through the inlet in the bar?" asked Ford.
"Not with this wind in our teeth, and it's getting worse every minute.
No more will it do to try to keep inside the surf."
"What can we do, then?"
"Take the smoothest places we can find, and run 'em. The sea isn't very
rough outside. It's our only chance."
Poor Ford Foster's heart sank within him, as he listened, and as he
gazed ahead upon the long white line of foaming surf and tossing
breakers. He saw, however, a look of heroic resolution rising in
"Captain Kinzer's" face, and it gave him courage to turn his eyes again
towards the surf.
"The Swallow" was now once more moving in a way to justify her name;
and, although Ford was no sailor, he could see that her only chance to
penetrate that perilous barrier of broken water was to "take it nose
on," as Dick Lee expressed it.
That was clearly the thing Dab Kinzer intended to do. There were places
of comparative smoothness, here and there, in the tossing and plunging
line; but they were bad enough, at the best, and they would have been a
good deal worse but for that stiff breeze blowing off shore.
"Now for it!" shouted Dab, as "The Swallow" bounded on.
"Dar dey come!" said Dick.
Ford thought of his mother, and sister, and father; but he had not a
word to say, and hardly felt like breathing.
Bows foremost, full sail, rising like a cork on the long, strong
billows, which would have rolled her over and over if she had not been
handled so skilfully as she really was; once or twice pitching
dangerously in short, chopping seas, and shipping water enough to wet
her brave young mariners to the skin, and call for vigorous baling
afterwards,--"The Swallow" battled gallantly with her danger for a few
moments; and then Dab Kinzer swung his hat, and shouted,--
"Hurrah, boys! We're out at sea!"
"Dat's so," said Dick.
"So it is," remarked Ford, a little gloomily; "but how on earth will we
ever get ashore again? We can't go back through that surf."
"Well," replied Dab, "if it doesn't come on to blow too hard, we'll run
right on down the coast. If the wind lulled, or whopped around a little,
we'd find our way in, easy enough, long before night. We might have a
tough time beating home across the bay, even if we were inside the bar,
now. Anyhow, we're safe enough out here."
Ford could hardly feel that very strongly, but he was determined not to
let Dab see it; and he made an effort at the calmness of a Mohawk, as he
said, "How about fishing?"
"Guess we won't bother 'em much, but you might go for a bluefish.
Sometimes they have great luck with them, right along here."
CHAPTER XI.
SPLENDID FISHING, AND A BIG FOG.
There is no telling how many anxious people there may have been in that
region that night, a little after supper; but there was no doubt of the
state of mind in at least three family circles.
Good Mrs. Foster could not endure to stay at home and talk about the
matter; and her husband and Annie were very willing to go over to the
Kinzers' with her, and listen to the encouraging views of Dabney's
stout-hearted and sensible mother.
They were welcomed heartily; and the conversation began, so to speak,
right in the middle.
"Oh, Mrs. Kinzer! do you think they are in any danger?"
"I hope not. I don't see why there need be, unless they try to return
across the bay against this wind."
"But don't you think they'll try? Do you mean they won't be home
to-night?" exclaimed Mr. Foster himself.
"I sincerely hope not," said the widow calmly. "I should hardly feel
like trusting Dabney out in the boat again, if he should do so foolish a
thing."
"But where can he stay?"
"At anchor somewhere, or on the island; almost anywhere but tacking all
night on the bay. He'd be really safer out at sea than trying to get
home."
"Out at sea!"
There was something really dreadful in the very idea of it; and Annie
Foster turned pale enough when she thought of the gay little yacht, and
her brother out on the broad Atlantic in it, with no better crew than
Dab Kinzer and Dick Lee. Samantha and her sisters were hardly as steady
about it as their mother; but they were careful to conceal their
misgivings from their neighbors, which was very kindly indeed in the
circumstances.
There was little use in trying to think or talk of any thing else beside
the boys, however, with the sound of the "high wind" in the trees out by
the roadside; and a very anxious circle was that, up to the late hour at
which the members of it separated for the night.
But there were other troubled hearts in that vicinity. Old Bill Lee
himself had been out fishing all day, with very poor luck; but he forgot
all about that, when he learned, on reaching the shore, that Dick and
his white friends had not returned. He even pulled back to the mouth of
the inlet, to see if the gathering darkness would give him any signs of
his boy. He did not know it; but while he was gone Dick's mother, after
discussing her anxieties with some of her dark-skinned neighbors, half
weepingly unlocked her one "clothes-press," and took out the suit which
had been the pride of her absent son. She had never admired them half so
much before, but they seemed now to need a red necktie to set them off;
and so the gorgeous result of Dick's fishing and trading came out of its
hiding-place, and was arranged on the white coverlet of her own bed,
with the rest of his best garments.
"Jus' de t'ing for a handsome young feller like Dick," she muttered to
herself.
"Wot for'd an ole woman like me want to put on any sech fool finery?
He's de bestest boy in de worl', he is. Dat is, onless dar ain't not'in'
happened to 'im."
Her husband brought her home no news when he came, and Dick's good
qualities were likely to be seen in a strong light for a while longer.
But if the folk on shore were uneasy about "The Swallow" and her crew,
how was it with the latter themselves, as the darkness closed around
them, out there upon the tossing water?
Very cool and self-possessed indeed had been Captain Dab Kinzer; and he
had encouraged the others to go on with their blue-fishing, even when it
was pretty tough work to keep "The Swallow" from "scudding" at once
before the wind. He was anxious, also, not to get too far from shore;
for there was no telling what sort of weather might be coming. It was
curious, moreover, what very remarkable luck they had; or rather, Ford
and Dick, for Dab would not leave the tiller for a moment. Splendid
fellows were those blue-fish, and hard work it was to pull in the
heaviest of them. That was just the sort of weather they bite best in;
but it is not often that such young fishermen venture to take advantage
of it. No, nor the old ones either; for only the stanchest old "salts"
of Montauk or New London would have felt altogether at home in "The
Swallow" that afternoon.
"I guess I wouldn't fish any more," said Dab at last. "You've caught ten
times as many now as we ever thought of catching. Some of them are
whoppers too."
"Biggest fishing ever I did," said Ford, as if that meant a great deal.
"Or mos' anybody else, out dis yer way," added Dick. "I isn't 'shamed to
show dem fish anywhar."
"No more I ain't," said Dab; "but you're getting too tired, and so am I.
We must have a good hearty lunch, and put 'The Swallow' before the wind
for a while. I daren't risk any more of these cross seas. We might get
pitched over any minute. They're rising."
"Dat's so," said Dick. "And I's awful hungry, I is."
"The Swallow" was well enough provisioned for a short cruise, not to
mention the bluefish, and there was water enough on board for several
days if they should happen to need it; but there was little danger of
that, unless the wind should continue to be altogether against them.
It was blowing hard when the boys finished their dinner, but no harder
than it had already blown several times that day; and "The Swallow"
seemed to be putting forth her very best qualities as a "sea-boat."
There was no immediate danger apparently; but there was one "symptom"
which Dab discerned, as he glanced around the horizon, which gave him
more anxiety than either the stiff breeze or the rough sea.
The coming darkness?
No; for stars and lighthouses can be seen at night, and steering by them
is easy enough.
Nights are pretty dark things, sometimes, as most people know; but the
darkest thing to be met with at sea, whether by night or by day, is a
_fog_, and Dabney saw signs of one coming. Rain, too, might come with
it, but that would be of small account.
"Boys," he said, "do you know we're out of sight of land?"
"Oh, no, we're not!" replied Ford confidently. "Look yonder."
"That isn't land, Ford. That's only a fog-bank, and we shall be all in
the dark in ten minutes. The wind is changing, too, and I hardly know
where we are."
"Look at your compass."
"That tells me the wind is changing a little, and it's going down; but I
wouldn't dare to run towards the shore in a fog, and at night."
"Why not?"
"Why? Don't you remember those breakers? Would you like to be blown
through them, and not see where you were going?"
"Well, no," said Ford: "I rather guess I wouldn't."
"Jes' you let Capt'in Kinzer handle dis yer boat," almost crustily
interposed Dick Lee. "He's de on'y feller on board dat un'erstands
nagivation."
"Shouldn't wonder if you're right," said Ford good-humoredly. "At all
events, I sha'n't interfere. But, Dab, what do you mean to do about it?"
"Swing a lantern at the mast-head, and sail right along. You and Dick
get a nap, by and by, if you can. I won't try to sleep till daylight."
"Sleep? Catch me sleeping!"
"You must; and so must Dick, when the time comes. It won't do for us to
all get worn out together. If we did, who'd handle the boat?"
Ford's respect for Dabney Kinzer was growing hourly. Here was this
overgrown gawk of a green country boy, just out of his roundabouts, who
had never spent more than a day at a time in the great city, and never
lived in any kind of a boarding-house; in fact, here was a fellow who
had had no advantages whatever,--coming out as a sort of hero.
Ford looked at him hard, as he stood there with the tiller in his hand,
but he could not quite understand it, Dab was so quiet and
matter-of-course about it all; and, as for that youngster himself, he
had no idea that he was behaving any better than any other boy could,
should, and would have behaved in those very peculiar circumstances.
However that might be, the gay and buoyant little "Swallow," with her
signal lantern swinging at her mast-head, was soon dancing away through
the deepening darkness and the fog; and her steady-nerved young
commander was congratulating himself that there seemed to be a good deal
less of wind and sea, even if there was more of mist.
"I couldn't expect to have every thing to suit me," he said to himself.
"And now I hope we sha'n't run down anybody. Hullo! Isn't that a red
light, through the fog, yonder?"
CHAPTER XII.
HOW THE GAME OF "FOLLOW MY LEADER" CAN BE PLAYED AT SEA.
There was yet another gathering of human beings on the wind-swept
surface of the Atlantic that evening, to whose minds the minutes and
hours were going by with no small burden of anxiety to carry.
Not an anxiety, perhaps, as great as that of the three families over
there on the shore of the bay, or even of the three boys tossing along
through the fog in their bubble of a yacht; but the officers, and not a
few of the passengers and crew, of the great iron-builded ocean-steamer
were any thing but easy about the way their affairs were looking. It
would have been so much more agreeable if they could have looked at them
at all.
Had they no pilot on board?
To be sure they had, for he had come on board in the usual way, as they
drew near their intended port; but they had somehow seemed to bring that
fog along with them, and the captain had a half-defined suspicion that
neither the pilot nor he himself knew exactly where they now were. That
is a bad condition for a great ship to be in at any time, and especially
when it was drawing so near a coast which calls for good seamanship and
skilful pilotage in the best of weather.
The captain would not for any thing have confessed his doubt to the
pilot, nor the pilot his to the captain; and that was where the real
danger lay, after all. If they could only have choked down their pride,
and permitted themselves to talk of their possible peril, it would very
likely have disappeared. That is, they could at least have decided to
stop the vessel till they were rid of their doubt.
The steamer was French, and her captain a French naval officer; and it
is possible he and the pilot did not understand each other any too well.
It was a matter of course that the speed of the ship should be somewhat
lessened, under such circumstances; but it would have been a good deal
wiser not to have gone on at all. Not to speak of the shore they were
nearing, they might be sure they were not the only craft steaming or
sailing over those busy waters; and vessels have sometimes been known to
run against one another in a fog as thick as that. Something could be
done by way of precaution in that direction, and lanterns with bright
colors were freely swung out; but the fog was likely to diminish their
usefulness somewhat. They took away a little of the gloom; but none of
the passengers were in a mood to go to bed, with the end of their voyage
so near, and they all seemed disposed to discuss the fog, if not the
general question of mists and their discomforts. All of them but one,
and he a boy.
A boy of about Dab Kinzer's age, slender and delicate-looking, with
curly light-brown hair, blue eyes, and a complexion which would have
been fair, but for the traces it bore of a hotter climate than that of
either France or America. He seemed to be all alone, and to be feeling
very lonely that night; and he was leaning over the rail, peering out
into the mist, humming to himself a sweet, wild air in a strange but
exceedingly musical tongue.
Very strange. Very musical.
Perhaps no such words had ever before gone out over that part of the
Atlantic; for Frank Harley was a missionary's son, "going home to be
educated;" and the sweet, low-voiced song was a Hindustanee hymn which
his mother had taught him in far-away India.
Suddenly the hymn was cut short by the hoarse voice of the "lookout," as
it announced,--
"A white light, close aboard, on the windward bow."
That was rapidly followed by even hoarser hails, replied to by a voice
which was clear and strong enough, but not hoarse at all. The next
moment something, which was either a white sail or a ghost, came
slipping along through the fog, and then the conversation did not
require to be shouted any longer. Frank could even hear one person say
to another out there in the mist, "Ain't it a big thing, Ford, that you
know French? I mean to study it when we get home."