Chapter VIII: The Storm

"Oh, Jack!" cried Cora, as she had a hasty glimpse of her brother making a rather ungraceful dive over the side of the _Corbelbes_. "Oh!"

Her words were echoed by Bess and Belle, and while they started up, overturning the chairs on which they had been sitting, Cora, alive to the emergency, quickly threw in the reverse clutch, and a smother of foam arose under the stern of the boat as it lost way.

Nor had Walter and Paul been idle. The former seized a canvas covered cork life ring, and, waiting a moment to catch a glimpse of the bobbing head of his chum, threw the ring to him, with a cry of:

"There you are, Jack!"

"I'll go after him in the boat!" called Hazel's brother, for a small dingey was riding astern of the larger boat, and Paul now hauled this toward the side.

There was no need for any one else to go overboard, for Jack, as his boy and girl chums well knew, could swim excellently, and he had fallen in with only overalls and jumper on, which made raiment almost as light as a bathing suit. True, he had on his shoes, but in several tests at summer camp Jack had swum across a lake with all his heavy clothes on.

Still Paul was not sure but what his chum might have struck his head going overboard, and in this case it would be advisable to have the little boat ready.

"There he is--he's all right," cried Walter, as he saw Jack striking out for the motor boat, ignoring the life ring.

"Get it, Jack! Get it!" cried Cora, indicating the white, floating object.

"Don't need it!" Jack sung out, cheerfully enough. "What do you think I am, an invalid?"

However, he was glad enough to crawl into the smaller boat, which Paul sent over toward him, for Jack found his shoes heavy, and the side of the _Corbelbes_ was high out of water, making it difficult for one to reach the gunwale.

"All right?" asked Cora, as Jack sat dripping on the stern seat.

"Sure I'm all right. I was going in for a swim anyhow, and this saved me the trouble."

"Well, come on board and we'll start again," Cora said. "Pick up the ring, Paul. I don't want to lose it!"

"Aye, aye, my captainess!" and he saluted with an oar.

"How did it happen, Jack?" asked Walter, when his chum, dripping, was safe on board again.

"Somebody pushed me! I think it was Hazel," and he winked at the others while he gazed as severely as possible (which was not greatly) at the blushing girl.

"Oh, Mr. Kimball! I--I did not!" cried Hazel.

"My goodness, how very formal! _Mr._ Kimball!" mocked Bess. "Since when, Hazel?"

"Since he accused me that way."

"Oh! I'll withdraw the accusation if you'll only call me Jack! I love to hear you say that, Hazel! Call me Jack."

"Silly!" muttered Cora.

"Mushy, I call it," declared Bess. "Downright mushy!"

"You're jealous," added Walter.

"Say Jack!" commanded the dripping owner of the name, "or I'll come over and sit by you, Hazel, and I'm almost sure that blue dress of yours spots."

"It does! Oh, don't let him come near me!" begged Hazel, trying to retreat into the cabin.

"Say Jack then!" commanded the relentless one, dripping at every step as he pursued her.

"Oh--Jack!" she complied.

"Your brains seem to have gone overboard, and not to have come back with you," said Cora to her brother. "Quit your fooling. You're getting the cushions all wet."

Jack subsided after blowing a kiss to his sister, and sprinkling her with water from his dripping hair. Then the boat was put back on her course, the dingey was made fast, the life ring put in place, and there was peace and quietness once more, broken only by Jack's grunts and exclamations as he struggled to get off his wet shoes.

"Cora," called Jack, from the curtained cabin, where he was changing into dry garments, "I didn't put an extra pair of shoes in your valise; did I?"

"I rather guess not," was the quick answer.

"Then I haven't any," wailed Jack. "I'll have to borrow a pair of you girls' slippers. The biggest I can get--don't all speak at once."

There were some subdued giggles.

"Did I hear Cora say hers would be too big for me?" asked Jack.

"Oh, do get sensible!" commanded his sister. "There's a pair of worsted bedroom slippers of mine you can take until your shoes get dry. You can't stretch them any too much. Put your shoes near the muffler. They'll dry there."

"Yes, and get all out of shape," objected Jack. "I'll put them on the forward flag staff and let the gentle breezes dry them. 'Tis Nature's way."

"You'll do nothing of the sort!" groaned Cora. "What would people say on seeing a pair of shoes at the top of the staff? Please put them near the muffler and they'll dry all right."

This Jack did, the iron cylinder that received the burned gases from the engine being quite hot, so that the wet garments and shoes bid fair to dry speedily. Jack, meanwhile, donned a pair of his sister's slippers--a pink one and a blue one, Cora not having been able to find mates.

"I don't know what's in him to-day," Cora confided to Hazel.

"He's awfully jolly, I think," said Paul's sister.

"Jolly? You wouldn't think so if you had to live with him as long as I have had to."

"Is he always this way?"

"No, thank goodness; it goes by streaks, like the lean and fat in a piece of bacon."

"The idea of comparing Jack to a piece of bacon!" commented Bess, who overheard.

"Well, he is that way," insisted Cora.

"I hope my shoes get dry by the time we reach Riverhead," Jack confided to Paul and Walter. "I have another pair in my trunk, but that may not be there when we get to camp. And I do hate wet shoes to dance in."

"Who said we were going to dance?" asked Walter.

"I did," replied Jack. "There's a hotel not far from the camp, I hear, and the season ought to be partly in swing now. Well, if you fellows don't want to go I can borrow your shoes."

"Who said we didn't want to go?" Paul cried.

"Oh, well, don't bite me!" pleaded Jack, in falsetto accents.

The little excitement caused by Jack's involuntary bath gradually subsided. He made a final and fairly successful effort to rid his hands of the grime caused by cleaning the carburetor, and then, attired in dry garments, and with one pink and one blue slippered foot resting "nonchalantly" (as he called it) on the rail, he watched the receding, wooded shores of the Chelton.

From somewhere in the distance a factory whistle blew.

"One o'clock!" cried Jack. "Is dinner ready? I say, Cora, I have a wonderful appetite!"

"Never knew you when you didn't have," she replied.

"Why, we just had lunch--just before Jack fell overboard!" ejaculated Hazel.

"That won't make a bit of difference to him--or them," said Belle, with a resigned air. "We'll have to serve another meal I suppose."

"A regular one this time, if you please," begged Walter. "Those olives, anchovies and the caviar sandwiches only made me a bit keen."

The girls were nothing loath to put out the food again, for, truth to tell, the river air had given them, as well as the boys, an appetite. They had brought plenty with them, for though they had requested Mr. Floyd to have supper ready when they reached the bungalow (the first meal in camp the boys were to share with the girls), still Cora had feared they would arrive late, and had made arrangements accordingly.

They had as much fun over the regular lunch as they had had over the "temporary" one, as Walter and the boys designated the first meal, and the afternoon waned pleasantly.

"I hope we shall get to Riverhead before the storm," observed Cora, as she came back to take her place at the wheel again, a post she had abandoned while she helped the girls put away the dishes and what was left of the food.

"What storm?" asked Paul.

Cora indicated a bank of sullen-looking clouds in the west. They were sufficiently ominous to cause Cora to speed up the motor a bit, and to request her brothers and his chums to see to the side curtains.

"We ought to get in long before that breaks," Jack declared.

But he did not count on the speedy approach of the storm, nor on the fact that the boat ran into a shallow section of the river, where there grew long grass which got entangled in the propeller.

Though the _Corbelbes_ managed to force her way through this patch of "seaweed" as Jack called it, when she emerged into free water again the motor could hardly turn the screw. It was necessary to reverse the engine, to unwind the grass, and even then some had to be pulled away with the boat hook--no easy task.

And then, when they were once more under full speed, the storm came down with a rush and a roar, with blinding sheets of rain, with a wind that caught the boat broadside, where the rubber curtains made a wide sail area, and heeled her over at no small angle.

With the rain came thunder and lightning, sufficiently fierce and loud for a time to terrify at least Belle, who was the most nervous of the girls.

"I can hardly see to steer," said Cora, peering out of the rain-drenched windows of the cabin.

"Want me to take the wheel?" asked Jack.

"No, thank you, I think not. We ought to be almost there now. But I don't know about going over the mountain trail in this storm."

"Maybe it will stop," suggested Belle.

"It doesn't act so," commented Walter.

The thunder had almost ceased, and the lightning was not so startling, but the rain came down harder than ever.

"I declare I can't see either bank of the river," Cora said. "I hope I shan't run into anything."

They kept on for perhaps an hour longer, the rain never ceasing. But they were good and dry in the snug motor boat.

"I think we'd better put ashore and find out where we are," suggested Jack, after a bit. "We may have run past Riverhead, Cora."

"Run past it! How could we, Jack? The river's almost too shallow for a rowboat past Riverhead. We'd be aground."

"Not necessarily. They've lately dredged a channel about a mile beyond, to let boats bring ice down from the houses up above. You may be in the channel," Walter said.

"I don't believe--" began Cora, when suddenly the boat ran against an obstruction. The occupants were almost thrown off their feet. A grinding, scraping sound was heard and Cora threw out the gears.

"Why--why!" she cried, as she looked out into the dark mist of the storm. "We've run ashore!"