Chapter XIV: The Return of the Voyagers

"After all the old cabin has had a pretty narrow escape, Will."

Frank, as he said this, pointed to where a tree had crashed to the ground close by. It lay with its head toward the northeast. Had the wind been more in the west at the time of its fall the roof of the log structure must have been crushed in like an egg-shell.

Will was just about to enter when Frank caught hold of his arm and held him back.

"What's the matter, Frank?" instantly questioned the other, looking around him in surprise.

"Why, I wonder how it comes that the door is ajar. We both know as well as anything that we made sure to shut it securely at the time we left."

"Then Bluff and Jerry must have got back home!" exclaimed Will, excited again. "Since they don't seem to be here, I reckon they've set off to search for us, believing we must have gone out for a stroll, and been caught in the storm."

"You forget one thing, Will."

"Do you mean the boat?" demanded the other, quickly. "Well, it doesn't seem to be around, for a fact, Frank; and, sure! it ought to be if they'd come home."

"Well, let's go inside now," remarked the other. "If they did come home, and have gone out again, I think they would have left some word for us."

No sooner had the two boys entered the cabin than they could see that some one had been there. A home-made chair was lying on its side on the floor; also some things had been swept from the heavy table which Frank had repaired so that it stood firmly on its four legs now.

Will looked around, and then turned his eyes on Frank.

"Somebody or some animal has certainly been in here since we left yesterday, or I miss my guess!" he announced.

"There's no question about that," returned Frank, a puzzled look on his face. "And as we fastened the door in the only way we have, which would prevent any but an educated monkey from opening it, I can't believe any wild beast entered here. Take that from me, Will."

"Then of course it must have been a human being," remarked Will, for Frank's decisions seemed to leave no other explanation possible.

"I'm wondering why he came in here, and what he did," continued the other, as he wandered about the place scrutinizing everything. "There's not a sign of anybody's sleeping in one of our bunks, and so far as I can make out there's been no cooking going on here since we had our lunch yesterday, because I remember just how I put everything away then."

"Frank, it's certainly a deep mystery."

"Oh, well! what's the use of bothering our poor heads over it when there was no mischief done. Let's get busy with something to eat. I'm as hollow as a drum right now, and I'm not ashamed to say it, either."

When presently the coffee began to throw out the most tantalizing odor, and the sizzling bacon added its quota to the aroma, the boys felt they could hardly wait until things were ready.

Munching some crackers helped them to hold off a bit, and presently, when things were done, the welcome call to breakfast sounded.

The lake must have been rough and high during the previous night's gale, for the waves still rolled up on the beach in places, though the wind had changed.

"Don't you think they must have started from over yonder by now?" Will was asking as he and Frank began to eat more slowly, having taken the fierce edge from their appetites.

"Yes, the sea has gone down enough by now to let them take chances," Frank admitted; "and after we're through eating we'll use the glasses to find out."

Although he had not said anything about it to his chum, Frank believed he had detected a moving spot far away on the water, and in the direction of the village, which he thought might be the camp boat with their two mates.

He did not hurry through his breakfast, for as the object was constantly drawing slowly but steadily nearer Cabin Point they would be better able to discover who the occupants of the boat were later on.

Will kept the other to his promise, and in good time the small but powerful pair of field glasses was brought out and adjusted.

Frank took the first look. He did not say a single word or betray the result of his survey by the faintest smile, only handed the glasses to Will.

"My sight must be different from yours, Frank, because I have to focus all over again. There, now I reckon I've got it O. K. because I can see the village over there as plain as anything. The boat ought to be this way--there, I've got it located. Oh, Frank, it's Bluff and Jerry, as sure as you live!"

"Of course it is!" declared the other. "And now you can see that I hit the right nail on the head when I tried to figure out what they'd probably do in the storm. They spent last night among the villagers, and started this morning just as soon as the water went down enough to make it seem safe."

"They're almost half-way here as it is," continued Will; "and rowing like fun, let me tell you! Well, that relieves my mind a heap. I couldn't feel altogether easy about the boys, knowing what an old tub that boat is at best. But it's all right, Frank; and I think I can drink another cup of coffee on that."

"We ought to have some ready for them when they get here," suggested thoughtful Frank; "though of course they'll have eaten breakfast at the village. But a cup of _our_ fragrant coffee is something to make you forget you're tired."

"Yes," agreed Will, "I warrant you they didn't get anything like that over there at the village tavern, or wherever they put up."

They spent much of their time watching the approach of the boat. The sunbeams glinted from the flashing oars as they were methodically raised and lowered. All the while it came nearer and nearer.

"I can see that they're anxious about the camp, and wondering how we came through the storm," ventured Frank; "because every once in a while they stop rowing, seem to be talking together, and then turn around to stare this way."

"Let's step out in the open, and I'll wave my big red bandanna to them, Frank."

"They ought to see that easily enough," laughed the other; "I remember the old bull did that time he had you treed for several hours. Now stand ready, and as soon as I give the word start to waving, while we both shout."

It was easy to tell when the rowers looked around again, thanks to the powerful glasses; and while Will waved his red bandanna, both of them yelled vociferously.

"They see us, because they're waving their hats now!" observed Frank.

"Yes, and I can hear them shouting," added his companion.

Slowly the boat drew nearer, until in the end it was run up on the sandy beach of Cabin Point. Then Bluff and Jerry scrambled out, stretched their stiff legs, and picking up several bundles that had lain in the bottom of the craft, started toward the cabin, sniffing the welcome odor of coffee as they came.

"Looks as if you'd got what you went for," remarked Frank, as he hastened to relieve one of the boys of his burden, a cardboard box, evidently holding several dozen eggs.

"We did all of that," replied Bluff, "and then had to hold the fort through the night because of that nasty little tooter of a storm."

"Listen to him! Trying to make out it didn't amount to much after all!" laughed Jerry. "I wish you could have seen him holding on to the chair he was sitting in at the village inn, whenever there came a terrific blast that made the house shake all over. I even heard him ask the landlord if it was bolted down to its foundation."

"Well, to own up to the honest truth," said Bluff, with one of his wide grins, "it was a regular buster of a howler. I never saw such wind or rain, and my ears ring even yet from the smashing thunder-claps. Wow! but you two must have wondered what was coming when that big tree came tearing down to the ground not thirty feet away from the cabin."

"But we didn't hear it fall," said Will, mysteriously.

"What do you want us to believe by your saying that?" demanded Jerry.

"We didn't happen to be around these parts just then, you see," continued the artist, smilingly. "Fact is, we spent the night under a ledge of rock some miles away from here, hungry and cold as could be."

"Suppose you up and tell us what happened?" said Bluff. "Why so much mystery, I want to know? What took you away, and how did it come that you never noticed that old whooper coming up in time to hurry back to camp?"

"Oh, Frank and I took a little stroll after lunch," remarked Will. "You must know I've been wild to see that place belonging to Aaron Dennison, and snap off a view of it, because Bluff said it is such a remarkable affair. Well, we got the picture, all right, and also one of the owner of the ranch holding up a big cane as though about to strike Frank here."

"Gee whiz! tell us more about that!" begged Bluff, eagerly.

"After you get started on that coffee we made for you," said Frank. And while the two boys were enjoying their cups of hot coffee the story was related.

Then those who had gone to the village were asked about their trip. Nothing remarkable had happened except that on several occasions they were compelled to bail out, and had once to stop in order to pound more oakum into an opening that appeared in one of the seams of the boat.

"Excuse me from ever taking such a long trip again in an old rattletrap of a boat like that," declared Bluff. "Luckily for us, you insisted on our carrying a bunch of that oakum along, Frank. With it we patched up more seams this morning, and managed to pull through, though it's been a hard drive."

"But we've lots of dandy fresh eggs, and five pounds of new butter," added Jerry, proudly.

"The storm came up before you could start, I suppose?" questioned Will.

"Yes, and Bluff here wanted to pull out anyhow," Jerry replied, "but I kicked on that, and some of the villagers also warned him it would be suicidal--yes, that's the exact word they used, Bluff, and you know it. What if I'd given in to you, and we had been caught all of a sudden by that hurricane? Well, I'll bet deep down in your heart you're just as glad as anything I kept you from making that silly start."

"Sure I am, Jerry! and I hope you didn't really think I meant to go. I was only trying to keep up to my reputation and name as a bluffer. All the while I knew as well as anything we never could get a quarter of the way here. I've cut my eye-teeth for all I sometimes make out to be so brash and bold."

Frank and Will only laughed at the expression of disgust they saw creeping over Jerry's face. Surely all of them ought to know Bluff well enough by this time to understand that he did not always mean what he said.

"And now," remarked Frank, "see if either of you can figure out this mystery." With that he told them how he and Will had found signs of some one's having been in the old cabin on the point between the time they had left it and their late return on that morning.