What Happened at Quasi: The Story of a Carolina Cruise. Eggleston George Cary
go, I encourage persistency in well doing on his part by drawing in line. Never mind your own line now. We’ve run through the school and Larry is heaving-to to let Tom and me land our fish. You observe that Tom has so far profited by his close study of my performance that – yes, he has landed the first fish, and here comes mine into the boat. You can set her going again, Larry; I won’t drag a line this time, but devote all my abilities to the instruction of Dick.”
On the next dash and the next no fish were hooked. Then, as the boat sailed through the school again, Dick landed two beauties, and Tom one.
“That ends it for to-day,” said Larry, laying the boat’s course toward the heavily wooded mainland at the point where Cal had suggested a stay of several days for shooting.
“But why not make one more try?” eagerly asked Tom, whose enthusiasm in the sport was thoroughly aroused; “haven’t we time enough?”
“Yes,” said Larry, “but we have fish enough also. The catch will last us as long as we can keep the fish fresh, which isn’t very long in this climate, and we never catch more fish or kill more game than we can dispose of. It is unsportsmanlike to do that, and it is wanton cruelty besides.”
“That’s sound, and sensible, and sportsmanlike,” said Dick, approvingly. “And besides, we really haven’t any time to spare if we’re going to stop on the island yonder for dinner, as we agreed, and – ”
“And as at least one appetite aboard the Hunkydory insists that we shall,” interrupted Cal. “It’s after three o’clock now.”
“So say we all of us,” sang Tom to the familiar after-dinner tune, and Larry shifted the course so as to head for an island nearly a mile away.
There a hasty dinner was cooked and eaten, but hasty as it was, it occupied more time in preparation than had been reckoned upon, so that it was fully five o’clock when the dory was again cast off.
In the meanwhile the wind had sunk to a mere zephyr, scarcely sufficient to give the heavy boat steerage way, and, late in the day, as it was, the sun shone with a sweltering fervor that caused the boys to look forward with dread to the prospect of having to resort to the oars.
That time came quickly, and the sails, now useless in the hot, still air, were reluctantly lowered.
A stretch of water, more than half a dozen miles in width, lay before them, and the tide was strong against them. But they pluckily plied the oars and the heavy boat slowly but surely overcame the distance.
They had found no fresh water on the island, and there was very little in the water kegs when they left it for their far-away destination. The hard work of rowing against the tide in a hot atmosphere, made them all thirsty, so that long before they reached their chosen landing place, the last drop of the water was gone, with at least two more hours of rowing in prospect.
“There’s a spring where I propose to land,” said Cal, by way of reassuring his companions. “As I remember it, the water’s a bit brackish, but it is drinkable at any rate.”
“Are you sure you can find the spot in the dark, Cal?” asked Larry, with some anxiety in his voice. “For it’ll be pitch dark before we get there.”
“Oh, yes, I can find it,” his brother answered.
“There’s a deep indentation in the coast there – an inlet, in fact, which runs several miles up through the woods. We’ll run in toward the shore presently and skirt along till we come to the mouth of the creek. I’ll find it easily enough.”
But in spite of his assurances, the boys, now severely suffering with thirst, had doubts, and to make sure, they approached the shore and insisted that Cal should place himself on the bow, where he could see the land as the boat skirted it.
This left three of them to handle four oars. One of them used a pair, in the stern rowlocks, where the width of the boat was not too great for sculls, while the other two plied each an oar amidships.
In their impatience, and tortured by thirst as they were, the three oarsmen put their backs into the rowing and maintained a stroke that sent the boat along at a greater speed than she had ever before made with the oars alone. Still it seemed to them that their progress was insufferably slow.
Presently Cal called to them: “Port – more to port – steady! there! we’re in the creek and have only to round one bend of it. Starboard! Steady! Way enough.”
A moment later the dory slid easily up a little sloping beach and rested there.
“Where’s your spring, Cal?” the whole company cried in chorus, leaping ashore.
“This way – here it is.”
The spring was a small pool, badly choked, but the boys threw themselves down and drank of it greedily. It was not until their thirst was considerably quenched that they began to observe how brackish the water was. When the matter was mentioned at last, Cal dismissed it with one of his profound discourses.
“I’ve drunk better water than that, I’ll admit; but I never drank any water that I enjoyed more.” Then he added:
“You fellows are ungrateful, illogical, unfair, altogether unreasonable. That water is so good that you never found out its badness till after it had done you a better service than any other water in the world ever did. Yet now you ungratefully revile its lately discovered badness, while omitting to remember its previously enjoyed and surpassing goodness. I am so ashamed of you that I’m going to start a fire and get supper going. I for one want some coffee, and it is going to be made of water from that spring, too. Those who object to brackish coffee will simply have to go without.”
VII
AN ENEMY IN CAMP
No sooner was the camp fire started than Cal went to the boat and brought away a piece of tarpaulin, used to protect things against rain. With this and a lighted lantern he started off through the thicket toward the mouth of the little estuary, leaving Dick to make coffee and fry fish, while Larry mixed a paste of corn meal, water and a little salt, which he meant presently to spread into thin sheets and bake in the hot embers, as soon as the fire should burn down sufficiently to make a bed of coals.
As Cal was setting out, Tom, who had no particular duty to do at the moment, asked:
“Where are you off to, Cal?”
“Come along with me and see,” Cal responded without answering the direct question. “I may need your help. Suppose you bring the big bait bucket with you. Empty the shrimps somewhere. They’re all too dead to eat, but we may need ’em for bait.”
Tom accepted the invitation and the two were quickly beyond the bend in the creek and well out of sight of the camp. As they neared the open water, Cal stopped, held the lantern high above his head, and looked about him as if in search of something. Presently he lowered the lantern, cried out, “Ah, there it is,” and strode on rapidly through the dense undergrowth.
Tom had no time to ask questions. He had enough to do to follow his long-legged companion.
After a brief struggle with vines and undergrowths of every kind, the pair came out upon a little sandy beach with a large oyster bank behind it, and Tom had no further need to ask questions, for Cal spread the tarpaulin out flat upon the sands, and both boys began gathering oysters, not from the solid bank where thousands of them had their shells tightly welded together, but from the water’s edge, and even from the water itself wherever it did not exceed a foot or so in depth. Cal explained that these submerged oysters, being nearly all the time under salt water, and growing singly, or nearly so, were far fatter and better than those in the bank or near its foot.
It did not take long to gather quite as many of the fat bivalves as the two could conveniently carry in the tarpaulin and the bait pail, and as Cal was tying up the corners of the cloth Tom began scrutinizing the sandy beach at a point which the ordinary tides did not reach. As he did so he observed a queer depression in the sand and asked Cal to come and see what it meant.
After a single glance at it, Cal exclaimed gleefully:
“Good