Part 5

"It's worse than getting dinner for you! It will take all my bread and gingerbread."

"Put in plenty; we'll be hungry as sharks," said David, bringing along a good-sized basket.

"Put in some potatoes, Jonas, and we'll make a fire and cook some for dinner ourselves. I can fry fish on a stick," said Joe.

"Now, you youngsters, save all the fish you catch, and Freitag and I'll come over and fetch 'em back."

"All right, Jonas; we'll have a big load for you."

Mr. Bernard gave them numerous cautions; and, promising to remember them, the boys hurried away, laden with baskets of lunch, fishing-rods, and bait.

They were in high spirits, and Mr. Bernard could hear them, long after they were out of sight, singing, "Cheer, boys, cheer."

"This is something like--don't you say so, boys? It seems good to be our own masters. I'm sick of hearing 'Don't do this,' and 'You'd better not do that.' It spoils all the fun of camping out."

"Well, Walt, we are free for once. Let's enjoy our liberty, and not grumble," said Joe.

They made a second breakfast of blueberries on the way, and arrived at the fishing-place in the best of spirits.

They found the sport, as John had told them, the liveliest kind imaginable; and all were soon engaged with hook and line.

The tide was quite low, but coming in steadily, and they found it necessary to retreat before it continually. Sometimes the advancing waves would overtake them in their eagerness for one more bite, and as a result it was necessary now and then to remove their rubber boots and empty out the water.

"I guess there'll be more fish than Jonas and his man Friday will want to carry," said Dave, as he began to gather the fish from the rocks to put them in the basket. "Let's have a lunch."

"So say I," said Donald Parker. "There's plenty of drift-wood close at hand."

The fires were soon built, the potatoes were put to roast, and the fish were hung by the gills on sticks over the coals.

There was a great deal of laughing and shouting over the preparation for "Lunch No. 1," as they called this, intending to save enough food to have several more during the day.

Some began to eat their fish before they were half cooked, and others found theirs burned or smoked; but all were merry over the gipsy meal, when Joe, standing up and looking around, said, "Where are Walt and Ned?"

"Sure enough, where are they?" asked Dave, dropping his fish into the fire. "I haven't heard their voices for ever so long."

"Nor I," said several boys.

"Not since we first got here."

"Walt Martin! Ned Gould!"

"Ned! Walt!" shouted the crowd, making war-whoops with their hands over their mouths.

"Shout again, all together!"

Again they all shouted, loud enough to frighten the mermaids in the sea.

"Ho, Walt!"

Only a prolonged echo came back, and seemed to mock them.

"Now it's mean for those fellows to go off and frighten us!" cried Joe indignantly.

"I say as much. They've hid somewhere to make us hunt them up. I move we let them wait, and eat our lunch."

So they began eating again, talking meanwhile of their missing companions.

No one remembered anything about them after they reached the rocks.

Each boy had been busy selecting his place, baiting hooks, and pulling in fish, with the frequent shout, "Look out there! Big wave coming!"

Then would be a rushing back, and dragging of lines, as the tide pursued them further and further back.

"Perhaps they've gone up to the lighthouse," suggested Dave. "I'll go up and see."

"Hold on, Dave; I'll go too," said Joe, disposing hastily of a large piece of gingerbread. "One of you fellows tend my fish."

"All right! Eat it, too, if you want us."

Joe and David met John and Jerry coming rapidly down over the rocks.

"We heard an awful yelling, and thought we'd come and see what the matter was."

"We were calling Walt and Ned. We thought perhaps they had come up here. Have you seen anything of them?"

"No; they haven't been near us. Perhaps they've tumbled into the sea."

"Cheerful suggestion!" said Joe, shrugging his shoulders.

"They'd hardly be likely to do so without one yell at least; and both of them together would make a considerable noise. No; I suppose they are hiding somewhere to frighten us."

"What are you doing--fishing?"

"Yes; you see we are over here by ourselves--no teachers with us," said Joe.

"Wish there was now!" added Dave.

"So do I. If one of the teachers had come, those boys wouldn't be playing their pranks this way."

"What's the matter?" shouted Mr. Kramer, coming out on the ledge before his door. "What are you youngsters howling about?"

"We can't find two of the boys."

"Can't find 'em! Where were they when you see 'em last?"

"They came over from camp with us, and we all began to fish; that's the last any of us saw of them."

"Humph! that's a nice business," said the light-keeper thoughtfully, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and tucking it in the pocket of his monkey-jacket.

"We didn't miss them until we made our fires and were cooking our fish."

Jacob Kramer said nothing, but started across the ledge that paved his yard.

"How long have you been over there fishing?"

"Oh, we got there by nine o'clock."

"And now it is about eleven," said Kramer, looking at the sun.

"Yes, sir," replied Joe, referring to his little silver watch; "it is five minutes past."

"If they went around the cliff just beyond the fishing-place, and didn't watch, the tide would soon cut them off."

Joe and Dave looked frightened.

"Where would they be now? can they get over the cliff?"

"Over the cliff? Not much, unless they can walk up a wall like a fly. It isn't less than forty feet high in any place right there, and part o' the way it's sixty and seventy, straight up and down. I'll go and look over."

He led the way to the brow of the cliff, about twenty yards off; and, lying down flat, looked over the edge.

The boys held their breath until he spoke.

"Yes; there are the young scamps!"

Joe and Dave threw themselves upon the ground and crept to the edge also.

"Keep back there, you rascals! This is no place for you."

The boys crept back until it was safe to stand again, saying, "I saw them!"

"So did I! What a place!"

"Hullo, down there!" shouted Mr. Kramer.

Ned and Walter looked up in evident surprise and relief.

"O Mr. Kramer, can't you get us off?" they screamed.

"I don't think I can."

"The tide is coming higher and higher, and we have climbed as far as we can. Will we have to drown?"

The light-keeper looked down some time before answering--it seemed an hour to Joe--then he said in a tone the boys below could not hear, "The tides are so much higher now, and the sea so rough since the storm, there's no knowin' how high it will get."

The boys below, tired of waiting for an answer, screamed, "Mr. Kramer, do something to help us. Bring a boat around here and take us off."

"That's the worst place on the island to take a boat. The water drives in furiously, and then sucks back enough to drag the solid cliff after it, if it wasn't anchored very strong."

This the light-keeper said to the two boys near him; and Ned and Walter, in their perilous position under the cliff, waited breathlessly for an answer, nearly frantic at the delay.

"Mr. Kramer, O Mr. Kramer! How high does the tide come here?"

"I can't see. Can't you tell by the looks of the rocks?"

"No, we don't know how."

"You can tell how high it comes generally by the seaweed and barnacles. I think it won't come up to you," he said at last.

This was sorry comfort.

"But you are not sure! Oh, come round in the boat, please."

"I shan't risk my boat in there unless it's a case of life or death, for she'd be smashed in a moment, and no one could save himself in that whirlpool."

"But can't you go out in the boat and be near, so you could get to them if the water got too high where they are?" asked Joe eagerly.

Kramer hesitated.

"Oh, do, Mr. Kramer," urged Joe. "We boys will make up a purse and pay you."

"Nonsense, boy! If I do it at all it won't be for money. I tell you a boat would get smashed there very quick. It would go against the rocks in spite of me. I'll get some of those wrecked fellows waked up, and go out. I suppose the youngsters will feel better to see the boat."

"Oh yes," said Joe; "we shall all feel easier."

"It is almost half an hour yet before the tide is high," said the light-keeper meditatively as he looked below again.

"Here, you down there! I'll come around in the boat.--John, you run to the house and wake up a couple of those men. You needn't disturb the captain. I only want two. Fetch 'em along quick down to the boat-landing!"

John was off in a minute, and Joe and Dave ran down to the boat with Kramer, who, now he had made up his mind, seemed inclined to hurry.

The two men from the house soon followed, and the boat was quickly launched.

*CHAPTER X.*

*BOYS IN A TRAP.*

Meanwhile the other boys, having disposed of their lunch, and hearing nothing from Joe and David, became more anxious, and set off for the lighthouse.

There they learned from Mrs. Kramer that John had reported Walter and Ned surrounded by the tide, and that the boat was to be launched to go to the rescue.

In great excitement the crowd of boys rushed down over the rocks to the place where the men had just pushed off in their boat.

There were two pairs of oars and two strong boat-hooks in the skiff, and the three men were ready to do all they could for the castaways.

The boat was soon out of sight beyond the spur of the cliff that helped to form the trap in which Walter and Ned were caught, and the crowd rushed back to their lunch-place, to see if they could get a glimpse of the boat there; but another spur, around which the boys had gone to hide, shut off the view.

When they reached their fishing-ground, they found, to their disgust, that the tide had risen over much of their lunch, and had carried off many of their nice, jointed rods, that were still floating provokingly near, but just out of reach.

The baskets had been tipped over by the waves, spilling all the fine fish they had caught in the morning.

"Did you ever see such luck?" cried Clifford Davis--"everything at sixes and sevens."

"This is the result of too much freedom, eh?" asked Don.

"That's so, Don," said Joe. "I wish we were all safe out of this scrape."

Some of the boys had taken the precaution to throw their rods well up on the rocks, and with these they tried to rescue the floating baskets and rods, but with a limited success; only a few could be recovered.

It was a great temptation to Joe and Dave, knowing of the look-out on the edge of the cliff and yet keeping away from it; but they understood too well the risk that would be run by a crowd of careless, venturesome boys, who would never believe that they could come to harm by just looking over the edge of the cliff, however steep it might be.

The time seemed very long as they waited for Mr. Kramer's return, or some tidings from the missing boys.

"Pretty near high tide," exclaimed Joe soberly, as he held his watch for Dave to see.

"The boat is around there by this time, and the question is now whether they are to be taken off that way or left to wait for the tide to get as low as it was when they dodged around that place."

"Why, isn't Mr. Kramer going to take them off anyway?" asked Lewis Germaine.

"Not if he finds they are safe without it. He won't risk his boat in there if they can be saved any other way. The water rushes in there like a mill-race, and sweeps out again the same way."

"Then we may have to wait two or three hours yet before we can see the boys!" exclaimed Don.

"Yes," said Joe, "all that time."

He presently whispered to David, "I can't stand it, boy. You stay here, so the others won't suspect. I am going to look, if I can steal off without their knowing it. Don't you say that I'm gone."

"All right," said Dave. "Get back as quick as you can."

Joe began skipping stones lazily, and, moving slowly away from the rest of the party, disappeared behind some rocks, beyond which he dropped suddenly, and crept on hands and knees up the bank where the bushes were thickest.

Once out of sight of his companions, he arose and hurried out to the point on the cliff overlooking the prison-house of his two friends. There he crept carefully to the edge and looked over.

"Good! they are safe, and there's the boat."

"How are you there? All right?" he heard the mate of the wrecked vessel shout.

"All right! No, sir--not by a good deal. The water is still coming up," shouted Walter.

As the boat was pulled within speaking distance the frightened boys became more and more alarmed, it plunged about so wildly on the rough water; and they thought, perilous as their position was, it was preferable to a change to the boat.

"We'll drown getting into that skiff, Walt," said Ned, paler than ever at the dilemma.

"Yes, if there is any chance here, I would rather stay till the tide goes down; wouldn't you?"

"Yes, I would."

"Say, Mr. Kramer, just lie off there, and wait; perhaps the water won't come up here."

"That's just what I'm doing. You don't catch me risk my boat in there unless you are ready to go under."

"When is it high tide?" shouted Walter.

"Five minutes before twelve."

Walter looked at his watch eagerly. "I believe it won't reach us, Ned. It is ten minutes off high now, and unless the last few waves are extra high we will have a standing-place in this cleft in the rock."

Ten minutes dragged slowly away, and the angry waves had not reached them. They waited a little longer, to be sure, and then cried joyfully, "It is twelve o'clock and after, and we are all right."

"Good! Then all you've got to do is to wait, and learn wisdom against another time. The tide will be down low enough to let you out of that trap in about two hours and a half, or three, at most."

The boys groaned, and then Ned said dolefully, "We'll starve to death. I didn't know I was hungry until the danger was over."

"You'll be hungrier before you get off," shouted the hard-hearted Kramer, laughing provokingly.--"A good lesson for the young scamps. It seems they made a fuss about having a teacher go along with 'em to look after them, so the head man, Mr. Bernard, let 'em off alone to-day. That little chap, Joe, he owned they'd got enough of it."

"I'll lower them something with a line when we get ashore," said the mate, glancing up at the perpendicular face of the cliff. "It isn't long ago that I was wrecked myself and wanted help."

Joe had seen enough to gladden his heart as he lay looking over the edge of his high perch. The boys were safe at high tide, and the boat was coming back without them, so he went back toward his companions, and when within hailing distance, cried, "Come on, boys; let's go over to the boat-landing, and wait till Mr. Kramer gets back."

The boys were ready for anything that would help to pass away the time, and they rushed away in time to see the boat rounding the rocky point that had hidden it from view.

"Whew! there they come, but no Walt or Ned," exclaimed Cliff Davis.

"What did you find out, Joe?" whispered David, locking arms with his friend.

"The boys are all right: the water won't come any higher. But won't it seem a long time before they get back?"

When the boat reached the landing the mate called cheerily, "Boys, your messmates are all right, but very hungry; have you got any dinner with you?"

"Yes; we saved some for them, but the tide carried off a lot."

"Well, bring it along, and I'll get a line and lower it to them."

"Hurrah for you, sir!" shouted the boys. "Oh how glad they'll be!"

Joe and Dave ran for the lunch, while John scampered to the house for a long line.

Going out on the cliff, the mate tied the basket to the line, and prepared to drop it over.

"Stand back," he shouted, as the boys crowded forward. "I shan't do it unless you all stand back."

"Are they down there? Can you see them?" asked the boys eagerly.

"Yes, I see them."

"My! just think, we might have been here watching them just as well as not," exclaimed Lewis.

Joe and Dave exchanged wise glances at this, and Mr. Kramer said, "Lucky you didn't know it, for a crowd of you boys jiggling and pushing and fooling, as boys do, would have gone over. Stand back there!"

"Hullo, below!" shouted the mate. "Here's some food for you."

Walter and Ned, looking up, saw the basket slowly descending, and the boys listening heard a faint cheer above the roar of the sea.

"Got it?"

"Yes, all right!" shouted Walter, taking the basket from the line.

"There! that's all I can do for them," said the mate, reeling in the line. "Now, boys, I'll give you some advice for nothing: Go back to a safer place, and wait for your friends. They will be prisoners for over two hours yet, and if you stay here some of the rest of you will be pretty likely to tumble over to keep them company; only I reckon your company wouldn't be good for much after you got down there."

"All right, sir," said Joe, glad to have some one speak authoritatively.--"Come on, boys! Let's go back and lie around on the rocks and tell stories."

"Agreed, if you will be the teller," cried several, knowing that he had Robinson Crusoe and the Arabian Nights at his tongue's end.

Away went the crowd back to the fishing-place; and Mr. Kramer and the other two men returned to the lighthouse.

*CHAPTER XI.*

*THE ESCAPE.*

The time passed much more quickly to the crowd listening to Joe, as they lay on the rocks in every attitude imaginable, than to Walter and Ned under the cliff, with the sea still surging around them.

As soon as their fright was over, they began to blame each other for the trouble they were in.

"It was your idea, hiding from the boys," said Ned, as they paced to and fro as far as their prison would allow.

"Yes; but you were just as willing as I, old fellow. We were both idiots. We might have known the tide would cut us off."

"Won't the teachers laugh at us! 'Serve them right,' they'll say, plague on them!" grumbled Ned.

"Well, it does serve us right; but I wish the boys would keep quiet about it though, and not give the teachers a chance to laugh at us."

"But they won't; they'll say it's too good to keep."

The lunch lowered by the mate restored their good-nature, and they waited, watch in hand, as the waters abated around their perch. Ned even recovered enough to joke about their misfortune, and Walter sang,--

"On a lone, barren isle, Where the wild, angry billows Assail the stern rock," etc.

At length the tide was so low they ventured out to the high rock that shut them away from the rest of the party; and too impatient to wait longer, they doffed boots and stockings, rolled their trousers above their knees, and, waiting till the waves rolled back, they dashed into the water, and were quickly around the other side of the cliff, and in sight of their companions.

"There they are!" shouted Don Parker, interrupting Joe's story in its most exciting part.

"Where?"--"Who?"

"Walt and Ned."

"Sure enough, so they are!"

"Hurrah!"--"Welcome to the castaways!" cried the crowd, leaping to their feet.

"Glad to see you, old fellows!" said Joe; "but you gave us an awful fright."

"We gave ourselves a greater, I'll be bound," said Walter frankly. "That was a mighty uncomfortable place we stumbled into."

"Yes, and we thought we'd seen the last of you fellows," added Ned, throwing himself down upon the rock, and pillowing his head on his locked arms as he lay on his back. "That's just as near as I want to come to Robinson Crusoe's experience. We were worse off than he was--he had plenty of room; and one time when the tide was highest we had the spray flying over our heads. My coat is wet now."

"Is it this week, or next, or the year 1900?" said Walt. "It seems ages since we dodged around behind that rock to see if we could frighten you."

"You won't feel complimented, I am afraid," said Joe laughing, "when I tell you we didn't miss you till noon. We were so busy fishing, we thought only of that, until some one went to cook fish; then we all got hungry and decided to have a lunch. When we got ready to eat we missed you."

"That was when we heard them shouting, Ned."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Why didn't you answer?"

"We did; we just yelled. But it was no use, and we knew it, for we could hardly hear you, the sea roared so, as it made up into that pocket in the cliff; and we knew by the sound that you were all shouting together, though it reached us just as faintly. Oh! it was awful there. I thought I was a pretty good kind of a fellow till then, and I thought of all the bad things I ever did."

"So did I," said Ned, looking up at the clouds meditatively. "I wonder if folks always do when they get into danger?"

"I think they do. I've heard my uncle tell how he felt when he came within an inch of drowning. He said everything came back to him like a flash," said Cliff Davis.

"Well, it's awful anyway!" added Walter. "I shall never forget how it seemed to have that water come at us like wild beasts, roaring and snapping at us as if it would swallow us whole in a minute."

"Don't talk about it, Walt," said Ned shuddering "I saw you down below there, when Mr. Kramer first hailed you," said Joe to change the subject, which was getting painful.

"You did?" asked Ned, opening his half-closed eyes.

"You did?" echoed the crowd.

"Where were you?"

"Yes, that's what we would like to know."

"Up on the cliff, lying flat on my stomach; but as soon as I got one glimpse, Mr. Kramer ordered me back."

"Why didn't you tell us, so we could look?" grumbled the crowd.

"I didn't want you to break your necks. It was bad enough to have two fellows down in that trap, without letting the rest of the party tumble down on them. Kramer drove me back, but I went and peeped once afterwards. Dave knew I was going. I couldn't stand it a minute longer; I knew the men had gone in the boat, and was afraid you two would drown before it could get around there, or afraid the boat would swamp if you tried to get in. I prayed hard for a minute."

"Did you?" asked Walter, looking quickly at Joe. "So did I--harder than I ever did before in all my life."

Ned said nothing, but lay with his eyes closed; and the other boys were unusually quiet.

"Wasn't I glad to hear you say, 'It's twelve o'clock, and we are safe!'"

"Is my hair gray, Joe?" asked Walter, half laughing, and half in earnest, as he took off his round cap, and revealed a crop of short black curls.

"Not much that I can see."

"I have heard of hair turning gray from fright, and I thought perhaps I might be needing hair-dye."

"When shall we go back to camp, boys?" asked Dave.

"It depends on whether you are going to tell about our scrape, whether I go back at all," replied Walter, laughing, and yet half in earnest. "You fellows promise not to say anything about it, won't you?"

"I am willing. It's all over now, and no harm done to any one; but the teachers will hear of it from Kramer," replied Joe.

"Yes, I suppose so; but don't let's tell to-day."

"Just as you say. We got a joke on ourselves too. While we were rushing around looking at the boat, the tide came up over our baskets of fish and the lunch, and carried off the very best of the fishing-rods. So the laugh will be against us all."

"Here is Jonas with his 'man Friday,' after the fish!" exclaimed Maurice Perry, doubling up with a fit of laughter, as he glanced at the empty baskets that had been rescued after much effort.

"Well, boys, had good luck?" called Jonas as soon as he came within speaking distance.

"First-rate, Jonas," answered Joe.

"Where are the fish, then?" demanded Jonas, staring at the empty baskets.

"Echo answers, 'Where?'"