The Rival Campers Ashore; or, The Mystery of the Mill

  THE RIVAL CAMPERS ASHORE

  Or, The Mystery of the Mill

  by

  RUEL PERLEY SMITH

  Author of "The Rival Campers Series," "Prisoners of Fortune," etc.

  Illustrated by Louis D. Gowing

  BostonThe Page CompanyPublishers

  Copyright, 1907by The Page Company

  Entered at Stationers' Hall, London

  All rights reserved

  Made in U. S. A.

  New Edition, May, 1925

  The Colonial Press

  C. H. Simonds Co., Boston, U. S. A.

  "HE HANDED THE PACKAGE TO COLONEL WITHAM."]

  CONTENTS

  I. AN INLAND VOYAGE

  II. TURNED ADRIFT

  III. THE OLD MILL

  IV. THE TROUT POOL

  V. SOME CAUSES OF TROUBLE

  VI. CAPTURING AN INDIAN

  VII. A LONG RACE BEGUN

  VIII. CONQUERING THE RAPIDS

  IX. AN EXCITING FINISH

  X. HENRY BURNS MAKES A GIFT

  XI. COL. WITHAM GETS THE MILL

  XII. THE GOLDEN COIN

  XIII. A SAILING ADVENTURE

  XIV. THE FORTUNE-TELLER

  XV. A HUNT THROUGH THE MILL

  XVI. THE GOLDEN COIN LOST AGAIN

  XVII. A STRANGE ADMISSION

  XVIII. GRANNY THORNTON'S SECRET

  XIX. THE MYSTERY OF THE MILL

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  "HE HANDED THE PACKAGE TO COLONEL WITHAM"

  "AT THE SOUND OF THE MAN'S VOICE, HENRY BURNS AND JACK HARVEY HAD SPRUNGUP IN AMAZEMENT"

  "THE WATCHERS ASHORE SAW THE CANOE SLOWLY TURN AND FACE THE SWIFTCURRENT"

  "HE SEPARATED THE LINE INTO TWO COILS, WHIRLED ONE ABOUT HIS HEAD ANDTHREW IT FAR OUT"

  THE RIVAL CAMPERS ASHORE

  CHAPTER I

  AN INLAND VOYAGE

  The morning train from Benton, rumbling and puffing along its waythrough outlying farmland, and sending its billows of smoke like searollers across the pastures, drew up, ten miles from the city, at alittle station that overlooked a pond, lying clear and sparkling at thebase of some low, wooded hills. An old-fashioned, weather-beaten house,adjacent the station, and displaying a sign-board bearing the one word,"Spencer's," indicated that Spencer, whoever he might prove to be, wouldprobably extend the hospitality of his place to travellers. Here andthere, widely scattered across the fields, were a few farmhouses.

  The locomotive, having announced its approach by a mingled clanging andwhistling that sent startled cattle galloping for the shelter of thethickets, came to a dead stop at the station; but, as though to showits realization of the insignificance of Spencer's, continued to snortand throb impatiently. Certain important-appearing trainmen, withsleeves rolled to the elbows, hastily throwing open the door of thebaggage-car, seemed to take the hint.

  Presently a trunk, turning a summersault through the air, landed,somewhat damaged, on the platform. A few boxes and packages followedlikewise, similarly ejected. Then, through the open doorway, thereappeared the shapely, graceful bow of a canoe. Whatever treatment thismight have received, left to the tender mercies of the trainmen, canonly be imagined; for at this moment two youths, who had descended fromone of the passenger coaches, came running along the platform.

  "Hold on, there," said the larger of the two, addressing a man who stoodwith arms upreached to catch the end of the canoe, "let me get hold withyou. We don't want to be wrecked before we start,--eh, Henry?"

  "Hope not," responded his companion, quietly taking the bow of thecanoe, which the larger youth relinquished to him, while the latterstepped to the car door and put a stalwart shoulder and arm under thestern, passed to him by a man inside.

  Together, the two boys deposited their craft gently on a patch of grassnear-by; the locomotive puffed away from Spencer's, dragging its train;the station agent resumed his interrupted pipe. Soon the only soundsthat broke the stillness of the place were the clickings of a singletelegraph instrument in the station and the scoffing voices of a fewcrows, circling about the tops of some pine trees that overlooked thefarmhouse.

  The prospect that met the eyes of the boys was most enticing. On onehand lay the little pond, reflecting some great patches of cloud thatflecked the sky. All about them, as far as eye could discern, stretchedthe country, rolling and irregular, meadow and pasture, corn and wheatland, and groves of maple, pine and birch.

  Flowing into the pond, a thin, shadowy stream wound its way throughalders and rushes, coming down along past Spencer's, invitingly from thefields and hills. It was the principal inlet of the pond, flowing hencefrom another and larger pond some miles to the westward.

  "Well, Henry, what do you say?" said the larger boy. "Looks great,doesn't it?"

  "Ripping, Jack!" exclaimed the other. "I feel like paddling a mile aminute. Let's pick her up and get afloat."

  They reached for the "her" referred to--the light canoe--when thestation agent, welcoming even this trifling relief from the monotony ofSpencer's, approached them.

  "That's a right nice craft of yours," he remarked, eying it curiously."Going on the pond?"

  "No, we're going around through the streams to Benton," replied theelder boy. "Think there's water enough to float us?"

  "Why, p'raps," said the station agent. "It's a long jaunt,though--twenty-five or thirty miles, I reckon. Calc'late to do it in oneday?"

  "Why, yes, and home in time for a late supper. We didn't think it wasquite so far as that, though. How far do you call it to the brook thatleads over into Dark Stream?"

  "Oh, two or three miles--ask Spencer. He knows more'n I do 'bout it."

  Spencer, a deliberate, sleepily-inclined individual, much preoccupiedwith a jack-knife and a shingle, "allowed" the distance to be a matterof from a mile and a half, to two miles, or "mebbe" two and a half.

  "Henry Burns, old chap, get hold of that canoe and let's scoot,"exclaimed his companion, laughing. "Tom and Bob said 'twas a mile.Probably everyone we'd ask would say something different. If we keep onasking questions, we'll go wrong, sure."

  Henry Burns's response was to pick up his end of the canoe, and theywent cautiously down through the tangle of grasses to the stream. Thebuoyant craft rested lightly on its surface; they stepped aboard, HenryBurns in the bow, his companion, Jack Harvey, in the stern, dipped theirpaddles joyously together, and went swiftly on their way.

  It was about half-past seven o'clock of a June morning. The sun waslightening the landscape, yet it was by no means clear. The day had, infact, come in foggy, and the mist was slow in burning off from thehills. Often, at intervals, it hung over the water like a thin curtain.But the mystery of an unknown stream, hidden by the banks along which itwound deviously, with many a sharp twist and turn, tempted them ever tovigorous exertion.

  Just a little way ahead, and it seemed as though the narrow stream wereending against a bank of green. Then, as they approached, an abruptswerving of the stream one way or the other, opened up the course anewfor them. This was a matter of constant repetition. Theirs were thedelights, without danger, of exploration.

  "Warming up a bit, isn't it, Jack?" said Henry Burns, laying aside hispaddle for a moment and peeling off a somewhat dingy sweater. "I'm notso sure about getting the sun for long, though."

  "Nor I," replied his companion, driving the canoe swiftly with hissingle paddle till the other had freed himself of his garment and wasbraced, steadily, once more; when he, too, laid his paddle across thegunwales and stripped for the work. "I don't just like the looks ofthose
clouds. If we were in the old Viking now, I'd say put on all sailand make for harbour; for it looks like rain by and by, but no wind."

  "Well, this is all one big harbour from here to Benton," laughed HenryBurns. "Avast, I sight a cow off the port bow. Never mind the cow? Allright, on we go. If it rains hard, we'll run ashore and hunt for a barn.Wouldn't Tom Harris and Bob White laugh to see us poking back by train,instead of making the trip?"

  "Oh, we won't turn back," said Harvey. "Besides, there's no train in toBenton till night. Fancy spending the day at Spencer's station! It'sthrough the streams for us now, rain or shine."

  As though to demonstrate more fully his determination, Harvey dippedwith a sharper, quicker stroke, put the strength of two muscular armsinto his work, and they sped quickly past the turns of their windingcourse. Perhaps either Tom Harris or Bob White, of whom Henry Burns hadspoken, might have wielded the paddles with a bit more of skill, havekept the course a little straighter, or skimmed the turns a trifle moreclose; but neither could have put more of life and vim into the strokes.A large, thick-set youth was Harvey, strongly built, with arms bronzedand sinewy--clearly a youth who had lived much out of doors, and haddeveloped in sun and air.

  Harvey's companion was considerably slighter of build, but of awell-knit figure, whose muscles, while not so pronounced, played quicklyand easily; and whose whole manner suggested somehow a reserve strength,and a physique capable of much endurance.

  Had they possessed, however, more of that same skill and familiaritywith canoeing which comes only with practice, they would have perceivedmore clearly the speed with which they were travelling, and how great adistance already lay between them and the point where they had embarked.

  "Queer we don't come to that inlet," remarked Harvey, at length. "Ihaven't seen anything that looked like the land-arks: the two houses,the road and a bridge, that Tom spoke of."

  "No," replied Henry Burns, but added, reflectively, "unless we passedthem at least three-quarters of a mile back. But there wasn't any inletthere. Hang it! Do you suppose Spencer was right after all?"

  "May be," said Harvey. "Let's hit it up a little harder; but watch sharpfor the brook."

  "Aye, aye, skipper," said Henry Burns.

  But at this moment the glassy surface of the stream dimpled all overwith the sudden fall of raindrops; a compact, heavy cloud wheeleddirectly overhead and poured its contents upon them, while, afar off,the fields were still lit with patches of sunlight. They scrambled ashastily as they could into their sweaters again.

  "Let it come," said Henry Burns, resuming his wet paddle; "it's only acloud-bank that's caught us. We'll work out of it if we keep on. Thenthe sun will dry us."

  They pushed on in the rain, peering eagerly ahead for some signs of thelandmarks that would show them the brook. Then, all at once, to theiramazement, the stream they were following divided into two forks; theone at the right coming down from higher land, broken in its course, asfar as they could see, by stones and boulders that made it impassableeven for the light canoe; the other branch emerging from a thick tangleof overhanging alders and willows.

  "Well now, what do you make of that?" cried Harvey, in disgust. "Thatcan't be the brook, to the right, and the other doesn't look as thoughit led anywhere in particular." He stopped paddling, and squeezed thewater out of his cap.

  "We've come past the brook," replied Henry Burns. "It's rainy-day luck.We've got to go up to that farmhouse on the hill and find out where weare."

  "I haven't seen a farmhouse for more than half an hour," exclaimedHarvey.

  "No, but there are cattle in that pasture, and a track going up throughthe grove," said Henry Burns. "We'll follow that. It won't be anyblinder than this stream."

  They brought the canoe in upon the muddy bank, slumped into the ooze,pulled the canoe half out of water and started off.

  "Nice trip!" said Henry Burns. "And the worst of it is, I have asuspicion I know just where that brook is. I can see it now. There was atiny bit of a cove, a lot of rushes growing there, and two houses backabout a quarter of a mile. But it was dry--no water running--and it wasso near the station I didn't suppose that could be the place."

  "It isn't so dry by this time," remarked Harvey.

  "No, and neither are we," said Henry Burns. "Look out!"

  He dragged one leg out from a mud-hole into which he had sunk to theknee. The path they were following led through clumps of fern andbrake, almost waist high. These, dripping with rain, drenched them asthey pushed their way through. Some fifteen minutes of hard travellingbrought them to a little rise of land, from the top of which they couldsee, down in a valley beyond, a farmhouse.

  "More wet day luck," muttered Harvey. "We're in for it, though. It's agood half mile more."

  They tramped on, in silence. The particular cloud that had first wetthem had blended much with others by this time, and it was stillraining. But they came up to the house soon, and, the big barn doorstanding open invitingly, they entered there. A man and two boys, busilyengaged mending a harness, looked up in surprise.

  "Sort er wet," the man commented. "Come from the city, eh? Well, I guessit's only a shower. What's that? The brook that runs into Dark Stream!Huh! You're two miles past it."

  Henry Burns and Harvey looked at each other helplessly. Then Harveygrinned.

  "It's so tough, it's almost a joke, Henry," he said.

  "Great--if it had only happened to somebody else, say your friend HarryBrackett," replied Henry Burns. "Guess we won't tell much about thispart of the trip to Tom and Bob, though. What do you want to do, go backto the station, or keep on?"

  "Back!" exclaimed Harvey. "Say, I'm so mad, I'd keep on now if everydrop of rain was as big as a base-ball. I'll never go back, if it takesa week--that is, if you're game?"

  "Come on," said Henry Burns quietly.