Part 8

Kingdon laughed and shook the damp hair out of his eyes, for the spray had wet them all pretty thoroughly. Their oilskins had saved the Walcott Hall boys; but the canoeists were saturated above their waists.

"I'd feel better if I co-could get dry," chattered Pudge.

"So say we all of us, Fatty," Cloudman told him. "But no use trying to light the oilstove below. Might set the cabin afire."

"Don't take any favors from 'em, Pudge," ordered Ben in his nastiest way.

"Why don't you get out and walk," demanded Peewee hotly, "if you don't want to accept any favors? You're a fine chap--I don't think."

"Close up, infant," commanded Kingdon, hearing this. "Try to be hospitable."

"Hospitable!" muttered Hicks. "They've been so nice to us--stealing that permit and trying to get us put off the island----"

Horace Pence actually grinned at this. "You must have put it all over Enos Quibb," he said in his drawling way. "How did you do it? Gratitude for saving him from a watery grave, no doubt?"

"If he showed gratitude, it's more than somebody else," snapped Midkiff, boiling over.

"You're the fellow they call Grouch, aren't you?" Horace asked, still smiling. "Name seems to fit."

Kingdon interfered before the slow Midkiff could get back at his tormentor.

"Let them rave, Midkiff," the skipper said. "They got the best of us the other day. We have to admit it. But the affair isn't over yet."

"We got the permit just the same," laughed Horace openly.

"We'd ought to take it away from them," put in Red Phillips, inclined to feel as Midkiff did.

"Remember they are our guests," drawled Kingdon. "Hands off. We must put them ashore in safety. After that----"

If the truth were told at that moment, Rex would gladly have gone to a clinch with the sneering Pence. There was something about the crass ingratitude of the cheeky fellow that made it hard for Kingdon to restrain himself. Pence and his crew were unbeaten cubs.

But Rex gave his first, and very earnest attention to the sailing of the _Spoondrift_. She staggered along for an hour, making very heavy weather, and very short legs in her tacking, but finally, the eastern head of Storm Island began to break the wind.

"We're pulling out of it," Red shrieked in Kingdon's ear, for the roar of the nearby surf was now almost deafening.

"By the way," Rex asked of Kirby, "where's your Indian friend?"

"He didn't come out with us."

"Oh! I fancied he might have been drowned. That would have been a sad calamity. I think he has it in for me."

"Maybe he has," Ben said, overhearing this conversation. "But he doesn't dislike you any more than the rest of us do."

"Aw, Ben!" said Pudge MacComber, "I'm sure _I'm_ grateful to Mr. Kingdon and his friends. He may not believe it----"

"Oh, I do," Rex interrupted, sweetly. "But don't lay it on too thick. I begin to feel slight symptoms of _mal de mere_. A little of the kind of gratitude you fellows feel goes a long way with me."

*CHAPTER XIX.*

*MORE OF MR. QUIBB.*

"Lower away!" shouted Rex, as he put the nose of the _Spoondrift_ into the passage between the two charging files of breakers. In a moment, it seemed, the catboat drifted on the heaving but quiet bosom of the small cove.

Rex Kingdon dealt in melodrama; no doubt of that. He liked to do things to startle his comrades. But they were not always chance things done on the spur of the moment. More often he shrewdly molded circumstances to lead up to his most startling successes. He had had both his friends and "The Happy Family," as Red had named their guests, speculating during these last few minutes. It had looked as though the old _Spoondrift_ could not possibly be brought into this haven in safety.

"By George!" Horace Pence unwillingly said. "You're some pilot, you are!"

"Me!" Rex returned lightly. "If I'd sailed with Columbus, we'd landed at New York, not at a little picayune island down in the West Indies."

"Well, we'll be getting our canoes over and going ashore, I guess," Horace said in rather an embarrassed tone for him.

"So long," returned Kingdon carelessly. "Come up and give me another look at that fast ball of yours to-morrow."

"Perhaps," said the black-eyed fellow, non-committally.

The four went ashore. The Walcott Hall boys saw Joe Bootleg meet them at the edge of the water with a lantern. He had evidently been aware of their peril, and from the headland had watched the _Spoondrift_ making her anchorage.

"Good riddance to bad rubbish," muttered Red Phillips.

"All but the fat chap," Peewee observed. "He isn't such a bad sort."

"Most onery crowd of coyotes I ever saw," Cloudman acclaimed with force.

"Forget it!" advised Rex, with more tartness than he usually displayed. "Not worth talking about."

"Those chaps from the other camp have really gotten under his hide at last," Peewee whispered to Red.

They spent the night in some comfort. The summer wind-storm blew itself out before midnight, and in the morning they were able to sail around to the little cove below their camp. Nothing had been disturbed there. They found the tent-fly laced down as they had left it.

Kingdon insisted on taking his two pitchers to the top of the island for practice in the afternoon. Neither Horace Pence nor any of his chums appeared. The Walcott Hall boys caught only distant glimpses of the other campers-out during the day.

The morning following Kingdon was too busy with Midkiff, tinkering with the engine of the _Spoondrift_, to bother about the rival campers. The other Walcott Hall boys went fishing off the rocks in the still water, and caught a mess of cunners that made a nice change from the usual cod, or flounders.

"Never knew there were so many kinds of fish," Cloudman admitted. "Always thought, till I came East, that fish was just _fish_. All tasted the same. But even those squirmy eels taste better than Texas venison."

"What's Texas venison?" questioned Phillips.

"Jackrabbits," Applejack replied, grinning.

"Fellers in N'York, they tell me, pay a dollar a pair for them. They kill 'em in big drives in Texas, and use flivvers instead of ponies to run 'em. Then they cold storage the jacks and push 'em up to the Eastern market. All they are worth in Texas is a bad word; and a dollar a pair in the effete East. Some dish, jackrabbit stew--if a feller has good teeth."

Pudge MacComber came over to the Walcott Hall camp about dark, to borrow a hatchet. He seemed rather embarrassed about asking for it, his cousin's insistence evidently having been all that brought him.

"We've mislaid ours somewhere," he confessed. "We've got to cut some more firewood and a few tent pegs. The wind, the other day, pretty near blew our tents away."

"You're welcome to the hatchet," Kingdon said. "Thought you had a fellow with you who knew all about camping--and was cookee, too?"

"That Injun," Cloudman put in.

"He's a good deal of a frost," admitted Pudge. "He's lazy. Won't work any more than he can help. And his cooking!" The fat youth sighed, shaking his head mournfully. "I know I'm going to reduce all right if we stay on Storm Island. I do all the work and haven't had a square meal once since we landed."

"You're looking bad. I noticed that when you came along," Red Phillips said with commiseration. "You tottered. I bet you've lost half a pound."

"Oh, you can laugh----"

"No laughing matter," said the lean Cloudman, "to lose flesh. I lost some once, and it made me lopsided. Got thrown from my pony and scraped off some thigh meat against a rock, on one leg. Walked with a list to starboard, as you mariners would say, for a couple of weeks."

"I wouldn't care to lose flesh that way," Pudge said. "When I'm not fat I don't feel so well. I begin to get weak and all run down----"

"So that you don't cast a shadow, I s'pose?" suggested Peewee.

"Oh, I guess I always cast more of a shadow than you do, little feller," Pudge told him, to the amusement of the others.

"But if you get thin, I suppose you are afraid of losing your right proportions," Kingdon chimed in gravely. "You know, a fellow hates to lose his shape."

"According to what kind of a shape he's got," muttered Peewee.

"Why, the rules for perfect pulchritude are easily remembered," the curly-haired youth said with serious mien. "You know, 'Twice around the thumb, once around the wrist; twice around the wrist, once around the neck; twice around the neck, once around the waist'----"

"And in this fellow's case twice around the waist, once around the 'big top' at a circus, I s'pose?" put in Red. "Just about."

"Oh," said Pudge, mildly, "you fellows can poke fun if you like. I don't mind. I'm used to it anyway. I'd rather be fat than uncomfortable. Besides, after what you fellers did for us the other day----"

"Now don't get maudlin," begged Kingdon quickly. "The least said the soonest mended. We had to save you from a watery grave! We're not proud of it."

This rather closed Pudge up, and he mournfully went away. Midkiff said with scorn:

"They must be having a nice time over at that camp! They don't open their tent-flies before nine o'clock. Sleep away the best of the day. Then they lay around and squabble most of the time, I s'pose."

"Don't let their behavior worry you, Grouch," Red advised. "You haven't got to play father confessor to that bunch."

"I'd like to give 'em penance, all right," growled Midkiff. "What they need is a rattling good shaking up. Being half an ace from drowning the other afternoon wasn't enough."

It looked, the next forenoon, as though the "shaking up" was about to come to the first party of campers on Storm Island. Kingdon and his mates had got the engine of the catboat into running order, and were just about to try her out, when the sound of another motor approaching brought them all up standing. Motor crafts, thus far, had not been very plentiful in the sound.

"See who's coming to be in our midst again," invited Peewee. "It's the jolly constable."

"Now we're in for it!" predicted Midkiff, looking solemnly at Rex.

The latter seemed the least disturbed of any of them. Indeed, he smiled quietly and went about preparing for the trial of the catboat.

"Is he coming here?" queried Cloudman after a minute.

"Not first, I guess," said Red, who was likewise pretty solemn. "But he'll be here all right. He's going over to take another squint at that permit, I s'pose. If you had only let us get that paper away from those fellows, Rex----"

"Never mind the ifs and ands, Red," said Rex. "Let's go over there and see what happens."

"He's got something in reserve," declared Peewee.

"I believe he has," muttered Red.

Kingdon went about his business, without further word. In a minute or two their own engine was going, and soon the _Spoondrift_ moved easily out of the cove. By that time Enos Quibb's motorboat was almost at the landing where the two canoes lay.

The Walcott Hall boys could see that the fellows at the other camp had been rounded up by the excitable Pudge. They were all at the landing when Enos Quibb shut off his engine and stepped forward to make fast a line. Joe Bootleg remained in the background; but even he, it seemed, was more than usually interested.

The boys aboard the catboat could not hear what first was said by the constable, but they heard Horace Pence laugh his sneering, musical laugh, and reply:

"You're going to have some job proving that, aren't you, Mr. Quibb? We have the permit----"

"Then, by gum," the excited constable shouted, "you stole it! That's what you did. You ain't got no right to it."

"You'd better try to prove that, Enos," Horace said, still laughing.

"I'm a-goin' to," cried Quibb. "I'm a-goin' to take you fellers--all of ye--over to Squire Lowder's, an' let him decide this business. No school of tomcods like yeou, is goin' to fool Enos Quibb right along. No, sir!"

*CHAPTER XX.*

*KINGDON'S SURPRISING MOVE.*

The catboat's engine was suddenly shut off, and then there was no sound from the water to break the silence that had fallen on the group ashore. Before anybody aboard the _Spoondrift_ could speak, Kingdon gestured for silence.

"All right," muttered Red. "I'm willing to get it from here."

Down from the bank above the mooring place came the voice of Horace Pence, cool as ever. Kingdon, who had begun to consider the fellow's bad qualities as uppermost, again felt a thrill of admiration for him.

"Now, Quibb, you know very well you can't do that," Horace was saying soothingly, but with restrained laughter in his voice. "Why bother to try and frighten us?"

"I'll show you----"

"You'll show us nothing but warrants for our arrest," retorted Pence. "You know that's the best you can do--summons us to court. If you think we have been trespassing here, that's your limit. You can't scare us a little bit."

"Oh, I can't, hey?" blustered Enos.

"No. Remember we have shown you the permit from the Manatee Lumber Company."

"I know all about that," said Enos, his lean jaws seeming to bite off the tart words. "But 'tain't yours. You stole it--or somethin'. I know you ain't that Kingdon feller, now. That's flat."

"You know a lot," said Pence. But, before speaking, he had hesitated just an instant. His black eyes had glanced downward and marked the catboat under the bank, and the listening party in her. For that instant, indeed, his gaze fell on Rex Kingdon's face. The latter had smiled suddenly.

"You know a lot," repeated Horace Pence.

"I got you foul, young feller," said Enos, evidently happy to say so. His pale eyes gleamed; his freckled face was roseate; he showed all the venom of the shallow mind and vindictive nature. "You pack up--all five of ye--an' git off Storm Island. I'm giving you a chance, when I might have got warrants and pulled ye."

"Say not so!" begged Pence. "You wouldn't really arrest us, Mr. Quibb?"

"Wouldn't I?" returned the constable. "I wish I'd gone to Squire Lowder fust-off and got the warrants. No use doing sech fellers a decent turn. I dunno but I could get ye for false pretenses, takin' another feller's name the way you did."

"I didn't take the name!" cooed Pence. "You gave it to me."

"You showed me that permit, and acted like it was yourn."

"And isn't it?" chuckled the black-eyed fellow.

"Not by a long chalk!" cried Enos. "I know who Rex Kingdon is now." He turned and pointed to the catboat. "There he is--that curly-haired chap that thinks himself almost as funny as you be. I l'arned who he was t'other day when he was over to Blackport gettin' fixin's for that engine. I heard Val Spear--he's treasurer of the Manatee Company--call him Rex Kingdon right on the street. You ain't him, an' you ain't got no right to that permit."

For the instant Horace Pence seemed to have no reply ready, although he was quite at ease. His friends were flustered and terrified.

"There! What did I tell you?" the Walcott Hall boys heard Ben Comas say.

"Nice mess you've got us into," whined Pudge.

"The game's up," said Kirby, rather stolidly.

Kingdon made a sign to his friends, and they gathered close about him in the stern of the catboat, which was drifting in nearer to the shore.

"Fellows, I'm about to play the trump," he said, his eyes laughing but his lips grave. "Are you with me?"

"What do you mean, Rex?" demanded Midkiff suspiciously.

But Phillips said promptly: "We're always with you, Blue-Eyes. Go to it."

"It's some foolishness," began Midkiff again. But Peewee whispered:

"Put on the muffler, Grouch, and let him have his way. King's always good fun, no matter what he does."

"What's on your mind, Rex?" asked Cloudman, his curiosity also aroused.

"Yes, what are you going to do, pitch in and help Enos clean up the bunch?" asked Red, hopefulness in his tone. "That would have my approval."

"I'll give you another guess," laughed Rex. "I've a plan that beats thrashing that crowd, much as they deserve it."

"Unfold it to us," urged Midkiff, still in doubt, "if it's anything sensible."

"Bide a wee," restrained Rex. "You've got to back me up. No balking."

"Confound it!" exclaimed Cloudman, "you haven't told us your scheme."

"No time to discuss it," said Kingdon. "You've got to take my plan on trust."

"Now I know it's something foolish," declared John Midkiff.

The nose of the catboat rubbed against the beach, and Rex was the first one ashore. "Follow your resourceful leader," he called, laughing over his shoulder at the gloomy face of Midkiff. "Bring a line ashore, Jawn, and moor the old girl. We don't want to lose her, now that we've just got the engine to working like a chawm."

Cool as ever, he led the way up the bank. For the last few moments the Walcott Hall boys had given no attention to what was being said or done on the island, but now they saw that Enos had stepped back a pace, and had his little black billy in his hand. He was threatening:

"You fellers pull up them stakes and begin packin' your stuff, or I'll crack a few heads. I know what I'm doin'. Squire Lowder'll stand back of me."

Kingdon came up to the constable, with a good natured smile, and laid a soothing hand upon his shoulder.

"Why all the disturbance, Mr. Squibb?" he asked. "Don't get overheated on this sweet and pleasant day----"

"And this bunch of fellows is a sweet and pleasant crowd, I s'pose, Mr. Kingdon?" snapped Enos. "And my name's Quibb, not Squibb, if you please."

"Sure, Mr. Fibb. My mistake," said Rex. "What's doing?"

"You know well enough," said the angry Enos. "You helped fool me, too----"

"Never!" groaned Kingdon. "You know, Mr. Constable, you are a man who can't be fooled by a parcel of boys. You said so."

"Aw--well. I wasn't _sure_. This chap had that permit from the Manatee Company."

"Of course," said Kingdon easily. "It didn't matter who showed you the paper--as long as we had it and you saw it?"

Midkiff uttered a grunt that was almost an ejaculation of pain. "I knew it!" he growled.

Mr. Quibb was not the most startled by Kingdon's query, however; Horace Pence almost leaped forward to stare into the smiling visage of the leader of the Walcott Hall boys.

"What d'ye mean?" snarled the constable. "That these fellers----"

"Certainly, Quibb," Kingdon replied, quite seriously despite his good-humored look. "You know, it says nothing in the permit about the number of my party. Those other fellows are my friends; at least, I call them so. See the love-light in their eyes when they look at me?"

Unable to fathom the bantering lad, Quibb looked a good deal like a fish out of its element, his mouth open and eyes staring.

"Come hither, Mr. Constable," Rex said, drawing the man beyond earshot of the others. "Let me bare my heart to you."

"You can't bluff me!"

"Oh, I wouldn't think of trying it! This is no bluff. I'm going to spill the truth, and nothing but the truth, into your copious ear. Those fellows did not belong to my party--originally."

"There!" exclaimed the constable, swelling again. "That's what I knowed. They stole that permit."

"At least, they _have_ it," agreed Kingdon. "But that is not the point. The permit is issued to 'Rex Kingdon and friends,' but it doesn't say how many friends. And so, Mr. Cribb----"

"Quibb!" ejaculated the constable.

"Oh, pardon me!" pleaded Rex. "I'm dreadfully forgetful of names, but I always remember faces--like yours. Now, I want you to be a good fellow. You'd be almost lovable, really, if you would let your natural kindness of heart have full play. Say or do nothing to sour the milk of human kindness that lies----"

"What do you want me to do?" broke in the constable, nettled yet impressed by Kingdon's airy manner.

"Remember that black-eyed chap jumped into the drink to snatch you from a watery grave the other day. Be grateful. Let us alone to fight our own jolly battles. I claim them as my friends now, and therefore you really have no right to drive them away. What do you say----"

"I say you're the sassiest set of boys I ever see. But it's a fact you got me out of a pickle," acknowledged the freckled-face constable, putting away his billy.

"All's well that ends well," quoth Kingdon briskly. "If anybody asks you, you can tell 'em we've got two camps over here for reasons of our own. It's nobody's business as long as you are satisfied."

"Sure not. I know I'm right now," said the constable, nodding his head. "I heard Val Spear speak to you as though he knowed you well."

"Thank you so much!" cried Rex, seizing Enos by the hand and almost wringing his arm off with enthusiasm. "I knew you were naturally a broad-minded and generous man. Must you hurry away so soon? I hate to see you go, but--good day, good day."

The two parties of boys stood waiting and silent until the man had got aboard his motorboat and started it chugging away from Storm Island.

*CHAPTER XXI.*

*REVENGE.*

"What's the game?" finally asked Horace Pence, when he was sure the constable was out of hearing.

"Game? No game at all, I assure you," Kingdon answered gravely. "Don't lend yourself to suspicion, as many do, old chap. By the way, hand over that permit now, Horrors. It's served its purpose in your hands, I am sure."

Pence produced the paper without a moment's indecision. But he said:

"I'd rather you didn't think I swiped it out of your jacket pocket, Kingdon. I fancy it must have slipped out when you threw off your jacket that day to play ball. Joe Bootleg found it in the grass, afterward, and brought it to me."

Kingdon looked straight into the black eyes of Horace as he accepted the permit in its envelope. "I believe you," he said simply, putting it into his pocket.

Suddenly the coarse voice of Ben Comas broke in:

"All very fine, but I take it we go, just the same, Horrors. 'Twould have been better if we had got off the island before all this foolishness happened."

Kingdon laughed at him cheerfully. "Not at all necessary. I don't see why you should leave, now that things are so comfortable and pleasant all around."

"What's that?" demanded Pence, plainly startled.

"The island's a cramped place, I know," Kingdon responded, with a careless wave of his hand. "But it's been more than a little fun rowing with you fellows. It puts quite a tang into the taste of it all. Hate to see you chaps move out when there's no necessity for it."

"Listen to that!" ejaculated Red Phillips from the rear.

"So you like a row?" Pence asked Kingdon, having recovered his self-possession.

"It's better than monotony, though there might be other ways of passing the time." Saying which, Rex turned his back on Pence and his party and started for the waterside. "Come on, fellows," he suggested to his comrades, "let's run across to that fishweir over yonder. I see they're going to haul the trap."

The five Walcott Hall boys silently boarded the catboat, while Pence and his comrades watched them, equally silent. When the _Spoondrift_ was well away from the mooring place of the two canoes, Harry Kirby said:

"What have you got to say about that, Horrors? I don't understand that Kingdon at all, do you?"

Pence did not reply at once. Ben's harsh voice broke in:

"You fellows make me tired! He's got some scheme to come back at us, of course. Why shouldn't he? We ought to get out of here."

"Where'll we go?" complained Pudge MacComber, apprehending work before him.

"Don't ask me." Harry Kirby groaned. "Wish we'd never come."

"We wouldn't if it hadn't been for this crazy Horrors."

"All you can do is growl," flared Kirby, who was Pence's strongest admirer.

"Give that Kingdon and his crew half a show, and they'll get us into hot water of some kind," Ben fumed.

"Listen," commanded the black-eyed chap, whose influence over his mates was by no means dissipated. "I want to know why we should get out of here at all?"

"But, Horrors," Ben said, "you know they'll do something mean to us."

"You're judging them by what you'd do yourself."