CHAPTER V

THE SINKING OF THE _Sachem_

He still lived!

Dirk drew himself up on one elbow, choking. His mouth was filled with powdery dust, and every bone ached. Frenziedly, he thrashed about, and found he had shaken free of the rope that had bound his hands together. He reached up and tore off his blindfold.

In the light of the waning crescent moon, he looked up. A few inches above his head lay the bank from which he had leaped into the unknown. Standing there, doubled with silent laughter, were the three figures of his torturers. Instead of jumping to death from a precipitous cliff, he had plunged dramatically from a ledge barely a foot high!

He knew where he was now. To his scattered senses came the knowledge that he had landed sprawling in the dirt road that led to camp. The tents could not be far away, although, blindfolded, he had thought that Ryan and his gang had led him for miles through the woods. He scrambled painfully to his feet and ran up the road.

Behind him rose an alarmed, muffled shout from Brick Ryan. “Head him off, Kipper! He’s goin’ back to camp! Get him, Ugly!” The shout only made him run faster. Up the rutted road he sped, flying to security—anywhere, away from the clutches of those who had so brutally mistreated him. His pursuers scattered, seeking to head through the woods and cut him off from the tent. Dirk lost a slipper, but did not pause. If they got their hands on him again——!

A shape darted out at him from behind a tree. He dodged, and raced ahead, gasping for breath. Now he could see the gray sheets of canvas that marked the tents close beside the dark silhouette of the lodge. Behind him hammered the running feet of Brick Ryan. He was almost upon him!

Dirk stumbled into Tent One, and fell upon the bunk where Sax McNulty slept the sleep of the weary councilor.

“Save me! They’re after me!”

The leader started up open-mouthed, blinking his eyes. “What—who——” he mumbled. “Get off!”

“Save me, sir! It’s Brick Ryan, and he made me jump over a cliff, and they chased me—— Don’t let him get me again!”

Others in the tent stirred. Slim Yerkes, in the bunk above the councilor, sat up and silently looked at the sobbing figure beneath him. Young Eddie Scolter woke and giggled uncomprehendingly at the scene.

“Why, it’s Van Horn!” exclaimed McNulty. “Having a nightmare, old chap? Wake up!”

Brick Ryan had halted just outside the tent, and taking advantage of the commotion, sought to gain his bunk unobserved. He had not intended that his captive should escape him and return thus to the tent and arouse the ire of the leader. He began shedding his garments quickly, hoping to be found peacefully snoring when Sax should waken sufficiently to take charge. But McNulty caught a glimpse of him just as he was pulling the blankets over his head, and read the situation in an instant.

“This some of your work, Brick?” he asked grimly. “There, there, calm down, Van, old man—why, you’re shaking like a leaf! What happened?”

“They hazed me!” Dirk gulped back the tears. “I’m sorry to make such a fuss, but it hurt——”

The councilor snapped on the flashlight he always kept under his pillow, and examined the haggard boy at his side. “Anything serious the matter with you? No bones broken, or anything like that?”

“I—I don’t think so, sir. I’m ashamed to act this way,” Dirk stammered bravely, “but you see, there were three of them, and they were pretty rough——”

“All right. Now, just get back to bed, and we’ll straighten things out in the morning. We’ve already roused the whole tent, so don’t make any more noise tonight.” McNulty climbed from his bunk, helped the shaking boy to his own blankets, covered him gently, and looked about the tent to assure himself that all was well. Then he crossed to where Brick Ryan lay crouched, listening furtively.

“You know what the Chief thinks about hazing, Brick,” he said sternly. “You’ll start the day tomorrow with two hours on the wood-pile.”

“All right, Sax,” the Irish boy answered sullenly. “But I didn’t know the big baby was going to run and tattle! Why didn’t he take it like a man?”

“That’s enough! Now, everybody get to sleep again. We’ve had enough riot for one night.”

Dirk stretched out his aching body, and closed his eyes. Through the dark drifted the vengeful tones of his enemy.

“All right! But anyway, he’s a tattle-tale, and I’ll fix him for it—you see if I don’t!”

The morning period of camp duty found Brick Ryan on the wood-pile, serving his time chopping sawn logs into stove lengths and vowing vengeance upon the boy who had brought the punishment on him. He looked darkly from time to time toward the rear door of the camp kitchen, where the rest of the Tent One campers were helping to make the ice-cream for the Sunday dinner. Among them lounged Dirk Van Horn, who now and then lent a hand at the job of turning the heavy churn in the freezer, or packed some more salted ice around the revolving container. Brick noted that his foe was now dressed in garments more suited to a Lenape camper—basketball shorts and a light, sleeveless shirt. If Van Horn didn’t watch out, Brick mused, he would be laid up with a bad case of sunburn, for his shoulders were pale and lacked the protective coat of tan that marked the boys who had already spent a month in the mountain sunshine.

“Some people never learn,” Brick muttered, viciously splitting a stick of smooth birchwood. “Runnin’ home to mama just because we was havin’ a little fun with him, and squealin’ to Sax so he’d make me do wood-pile duty! Well, all I can say is, my time will come yet!”

He was interrupted by the noisy clatter of the motor of the camp flivver which, driven by Mr. Lane, rattled down the road and drew up at the rear of the lodge. In the back of the small truck, tightly lashed to prevent jolting, was a long, curved object wrapped securely in burlap. As Brick watched, Dirk Van Horn gave a shout and ran to the driver, who was just descending.

“That’s my canoe you have there, isn’t it, sir? Listen—doesn’t it say it’s for Van Horn? That’s me!”

“Yes, it’s for you, I guess,” answered Lane; “and the dickens of a time I had bringing it over these roads up from Elmville. We’ve got plenty of canoes here at camp—what any boy wants with one all to himself, I don’t know.”

Dirk was not listening. He ran to the group around the ice-cream freezer, and summoned them excitedly.

“Come on, you chaps! I made my father buy me a new canoe because I promised to come to camp, and here it is! Help me unpack it, and then we’ll try it out. It’s a beauty!”

“Listen!” Lefty Reardon protested. “We’re on squad duty—we have to make this ice-cream, and if we go away now, it won’t freeze——”

His tent-mates paid no attention to his objection. Dirk darted into the kitchen and returned with a long butcher-knife, with which he began ripping the seams of the burlap that wrapped the canoe. In a few minutes the casing was torn away, and the beautiful slim craft, painted a bright crimson, lay on the ground with its paddles along its bottom.

Dirk was jumping around excitedly, pointing out the features of the superb workmanship that made the canoe a delight to the eye. “Look at her lines, you fellows! See those soft seats. Those duck-boards on the bottom are to keep your feet dry. I tell you, you have to pay plenty of money for a boat like this! She’s a real Indian canoe, and I gave her a real Indian name, too. See?” He pointed to the shapely bow, where in golden letters was blazoned the name _Sachem_. “Now, who wants to help me try her out?”

“Yes, let’s try her out!” echoed Eddie Scolter. “Come on!”

“Down to the lake!” shouted Dirk. “Here, Slim, grab hold of that end. She’s light as a feather—we’ll have her in the water in no time!”

Slim Yerkes obediently lifted one end; Eddie, Nig Jackson, and Joey Fellowes seized the sides, and led by the excited Dirk, the group made off down the path to the boat dock, bearing the gleaming canoe aloft, leaving her burlap wrappings to clutter the ground. Lefty, wrestling alone with the heavy churn of the ice-cream freezer, shouted a last warning to them, but by this time his truant comrades were out of sight down the hill, bent on taking part in the first launching of the lovely little vessel.

Brick gazed after them disdainfully, impressed in spite of himself. It was a swell canoe, all right, and no boy could help being proud of it. Think of hitting the Long Trail in a craft like that! But the fellows had no right to leave their squad duty and run off to play with Van Horn’s new toy——

An amazed shout rose from the back of the kitchen. Sax McNulty, who had been working up in the ice-house, digging out large blocks of ice and heaving them down to his young assistants, had finished and returned to the scene to find that his squad, with the exception of the faithful Lefty, had disappeared.

“Hey, what’s happened? Where is everybody, Lefty? Have they walked out on the job?”

Lefty grunted, struggling with the freezer handle that grew stiffer at each turn. “Yeah, Sax—I told ’em not to beat it, but Van Horn just got a canoe, and they all took it down to the lake to christen it.”

“They did, eh? Well, they’ll have to learn that they can’t run away like this when their duty is still to be done. Here, let me take a turn at that, Lefty. When you’re rested, you can chop some more ice. Huh! If you hadn’t stuck to the job, the camp would be missing its dessert this noon, all right!”

The leader grappled with the freezer. Brick turned to his chopping once more, and at the sound of his ax, McNulty looked over toward the wood-pile and saw him.

“Oh, Brick! I guess you’ve served your time. Do me a favor, will you?”

“Sure, Sax. What do you want?” replied Brick, sinking the ax blade into the chopping block.

“Chase down to the lake and head off that bunch of runaways. Tell ’em to come right back and finish what they started, before playing around with canoes and things.”

Brick needed no urging. He wanted to see what would happen at the lake shore. By this time, the canoe was no doubt already in the water. He ran off down the hillside in a bee-line for the dock. Behind the lower row of tents he sped, across the stone wall, and cut across the edge of the baseball field to the grove of trees that fringed the rocky lake shore. Here he almost tumbled over the bent backs of Wally Rawn, director of water sports and captain of the camp life-saving crew, and the seven boys who made up his tent-group. Rawn had chosen as his squad duty the task of repairing the steps that led down the steep bank to the dock; and Brick had to circle around the busy group to gain the edge of the lake where the boat dock jutted out from the shore.

Here, in the shallows of the bathing beach, the _Sachem_ was already afloat, riding high above the rippling, shadowed waters of Lenape. She was held at one end by the proud Dirk, while the other boys gazed admiringly at her daintiness, that made the moored string of round-bottomed steel rowboats of the camp fleet look like clumsy craft indeed.

“Watch me get in her!” Dirk was shouting in a high voice. “Let me paddle her around a bit, and then maybe I’ll take you all for a ride!”

He drew the light vessel close beside the flooring of the dock, and balancing the paddles in one hand, started to step into the bow. Brick clattered on to the end of the pier.

“Say, you fellows!” he began. “Sax says to come back on the job right away. He’s pretty mad, too—you’re not supposed to sneak off squad duty.”

Dirk turned upon him coldly. “Don’t be foolish, Ryan. Can’t you see we’re busy christening the _Sachem_? If you don’t make a fuss, I’ll take you for a little spin after a while.”

“But——”

The blond boy was not listening. He was too much interested in making his maiden trip in the newly-launched crimson canoe. Teetering precariously, he stepped into the bobbing bow. Before he could clutch the piles of the dock to hold the craft steady, the _Sachem_ sheered off and, overburdened by the standing figure at one end, began rocking dangerously from side to side. Dirk swayed, trying to keep his balance as a wave slapped the dancing vessel.

“Sit down!” shouted Nig Jackson. “Look out, she’ll turn over!”

Dirk, alarmed, dropped the paddles overside and grabbed at the gunwale to keep himself from following them into the shallow waters of the beach. In sudden panic, he scrambled to a seat; but it was too late. The _Sachem_ heeled over across the wind; a sheet of water slid easily over the low side, slapped the light canoe to leeward, and dipped it once more below the surface. Water filled half the interior, sloshing about and rocking so that still more water was taken over the gunwale. Dirk gripped the seat desperately, trying to right the canoe; but his efforts were now of no avail.

Slowly, steadily, the _Sachem_ sank to rest on the pebbled shallows beneath the surface of the lake, and Dirk Van Horn, with a comic look of amazement on his face, found himself sitting waist-deep in the water with his lovely possession beneath him, out of sight.