CHAPTER IX. BY THE GREAT HORN SPOON!

By this time the wind had increased to a tempest, and never before had I seen such waves and such spray on Lake Ucayga. I should not have been willing to believe that any sea that ever raged on our beautiful sheet of water could make such a complete wreck of a boat, even with the aid of the rocks, as that we had just witnessed. The _Highflyer_ was as thoroughly broken up as though the work had been accomplished with axes and hammers, and the pieces were driven far up on the rocky shore.

The persecutors of Waddie had escaped; but they had probably been as effectually frightened as any four boys ever were before; and they were not likely to go into the business of navigation again on their own account very soon. They deserved a severe punishment; but, on the whole, I was rather glad that we had not been able to identify them, for the vengeance of Waddie and his father was also so disproportionate to the offense that, in the present instance, nothing less than absolute ruin of the ruffians, and even of their families and friends, would appease the wrath of the injured magnate and his son.

The _Belle_ behaved remarkably well. I was aware of her stiff and stanch character before I bought her; but she more than realized my expectations. She was as buoyant as a feather, and lifted her head to the seas as gracefully as though the tempest was her natural element. She took in torrents of spray, but she did not ship any water. Her mast bent like a reed in the blast, and, of course, I had to favor her when the heavy gusts struck her. Both Waddie and myself were wet to the skin, and both of us were shivering with the cold. It was not exactly pleasant, therefore, however exciting it was.

I ran the _Belle_ out into the lake, and then, at a single stretch, made the pier at the picnic grove, the point from which we had started before. I was afraid I should lose my mast, and I was not disposed to cripple the boat merely to see what she could do. Behind the pier we had tolerably smooth water, and I decided to put another reef in the mainsail.

“What are you going to do now, Wolf?” asked Waddie, his teeth chattering as he spoke.

“I’m going to put in one more reef, for I don’t like to risk my mast,” I replied.

“Are you going to try to run down in the teeth of this blow?” he inquired.

“I must get home myself, and get the boat home.”

“I thought you ran in here to wait for better weather.”

“No; only to put in another reef.”

“But I don’t know that I can quite stand this. I am not afraid of anything, but I am half-frozen.”

“I’ll warm you very soon, and you may go home as comfortably as though you were in the cabin of the _Ucayga_,” I replied. “We are in no particular hurry, but I don’t think we shall see any better weather to-day.”

I went into the cabin, and lighted the fire in the little stove, which was filled with kindling-wood, ready for the match. I rigged the little copper funnel on the forward deck, and in that wind the draft was so strong that the fire roared merrily in a few moments. Having secured the mainsail, I joined Waddie in the cabin, closing the doors behind me. In less than half an hour we had a temperature of at least ninety degrees, and both of us were thawed out. We took off our coats, and placed them near the stove. We were as warm as toast, and though I did not announce the fact, I believed that the _Belle_ was a great institution.

“I had something to eat on board of the _Highflyer_,” said Waddie; “but my dinner has gone to destruction with the boat.”

“I have some provisions on board, such as they are; but I suppose they will not suit one who sits at your father’s table.”

“Anything will suit me, Wolf. I am not dainty when I’m hungry; and I am as hungry as a bear.”

“Well, I’m as hungry as a wolf.”

“I suppose you are!” laughed Waddie, who appeared to be conscious that I had made a pun, though I did not regard it as a very savage one.

I took from the locker under the berth on which I sat a basket of “provender,” which my mother had put up for me. For common sort of people, I thought we lived very well, and I was not ashamed to produce the contents of my basket, even in the presence of the little magnate of Centreport. I had some slices of cold ham, some bread and butter, and an apple-pie. If the crust of the latter was a little coarse and dark-colored, it was still tender and healthful. I lowered the table and arranged the food upon it, using the dishes which constituted a portion of the boat’s furniture.

Waddie did me the honor to say that my dinner was quite as good, if not better, than that which he had lost in the _Highflyer_, and he soon proved his sincerity by eating a quantity which rather astonished me, liberal feeder as I was. I am sure I relished the meal all the more because he enjoyed it so much. I should have added hot coffee to the feast, only we had no milk, and both of us agreed that coffee would not be coffee without this important addition.

The dinner was finished. I cleared away the dishes and restored the cabin to its usual order. By this time we were quite dry, for an atmosphere of from ninety to a hundred makes sharp warfare upon moist garments. The heat was beginning to be oppressive to me, and I opened the slide a little way, to admit the fresh air so abundant that day on the lake. I took my coat and resumed my seat on the berth, for the cabin was not high enough to permit a standing-posture. Waddie sat opposite to me. He had been in deep thought for some minutes, while I was making my preparations to breast the storm again.

I had put on my coat, and was buttoning it close around my throat, to keep out the cold and the water, when my companion startled me by a demonstration as strange in him as it would have been in the Emperor Napoleon, if I had been admitted to the sacred precincts of the Tuileries. Suddenly he sprang forward and reached out his right hand to me across the table. I looked at it in bewildered astonishment, and with a suspicion that Waddie had suddenly become insane.

“Will you take my hand, Wolf?” said he, in the mildest of tones.

“Certainly I will, if you desire it;” and I clasped the offered member.

“Wolf, I have been your enemy,” said he, still retaining my hand. “I have hated you; I have used you meanly; I have despised you. Will you forgive me?”

“With all my heart, Waddie,” I replied, pressing his hand. “I never laid up anything against you.”

“Are we friends?” he asked earnestly.

“We are.”

“By the great horn spoon, Wolf, I shall stick to you now like a brother! Oh, I’m in earnest, Wolf. You needn’t smile at it!”

“I think you are sincere.”

“I know I am. It is not altogether because you got me out of a bad scrape to-day that I say all this, but because you behaved so handsomely after all my meanness toward you. I don’t understand it yet, Wolf. I don’t see how you could do it; but I know it is so, and that’s enough for me. I wish I could be like you.”

“I hope you will be better than I am,” I modestly replied.

“I don’t ask to be any better than you are. All the fellows like you--I mean all the decent fellows. My father is rich, and yours is poor; but that don’t seem to make any difference. The fellows on the other side would have mobbed Tommy Toppleton for your sake if he hadn’t broken his leg. I don’t see why they should like you so much better than Tommy. Our fellows don’t seem to like me much better, though I don’t see why they shouldn’t.”

“Perhaps we will talk that over another time,” I answered, not deeming it prudent to be entirely candid with him.

“I’m going to stick to you, Wolf, till the end of time, and I’m going to take your advice, too, if you will give it to me.”

“I don’t know that my advice will be worth much; but if I can be of any service to you, Waddie, I shall be very glad. I think we must get under way now.”

“What shall I do?”

“Nothing at all. Stay in the cabin and make yourself as comfortable as possible. I can handle the _Belle_ without any assistance.”

“But I want to talk with you some more.”

“Well, we shall have time enough when we get down to Centreport.”

“I feel as though you had been the best friend I ever had in the world, and, by the great horn spoon! I am going to be such a friend as you never had before.”

“I wouldn’t make any rash promises, Waddie,” I answered, smiling at his enthusiasm. “You had better sleep on it.”

“I don’t want to sleep on it. I have been your enemy, but now I am your friend. If it hadn’t been for me, you would have been running the _Ucayga_ to-day.”

“I don’t find any fault, though such a berth as that would have suited me first-rate,” I continued, laughing; but I confess I had but little confidence in my new-made friend’s zeal in my favor.

“It is not too late, Wolf, for my father and I are disgusted with the management of the boat, and it is high time something should be done.”

“We will talk it over by and by,” I added, leaving the cabin.

I put another reef into the mainsail, cast off the painter, which I had made fast to the pier, and pushed off. In a moment the _Belle_ was rolling and pitching in the heavy surges of the lake. With two reefs in her mainsail she would not lie very close to the wind; but I ran her across the lake, intending to work along under the lee of the west shore, partially sheltered by the high bank from the fury of the tempest.