When Chap Webster stood alone on the deck of The Rolling Stone in the bright, cool air of the early morning and gazed at the dirty little sail-boat, which lay near the shore a short distance above, his feelings were of a very confused nature.
At first he was simply astonished to see the Maggie lying so near them. He had supposed that the fellows who had stolen the boat would be afraid to come near the people they had injured. But, after all, it was no use to be surprised at the impudence of such men. For some reason or other they had stolen in here, either at night or very early in the morning.
The bow of the Maggie was toward Chap, and the little cabin prevented him from seeing anybody who might be in the stern; but very soon it was evident that there were persons on board of her, and that they were awake.
There was a slight noise of people moving about, and directly the heads of the two men were seen above the cabin. Chap instinctively dodged behind the cabin of his own boat, but he kept his eyes fixed on the two fellows, one of whom presently put a water-keg upon his shoulders, and then, with rolled-up trousers and bare feet, both of them waded ashore.
They had anchored their boat in about a foot of water, thinking that if they ran her on the sand, they might not be able to get off in a hurry if occasion required them to do so.
It was now plain enough why they had come in here. They were out of fresh water, and this was the only place for miles where any could be obtained.
As he looked upon the two men who had treated him so badly and who had been the cause of so much trouble and imminent danger to the whole party, Chap began to feel angry. He had believed and steadily asserted that the rascals had been let off entirely too easily, and now his whole soul became filled with a desire to punish them for their misdeeds. If he could meet them, one at a time, he would undertake to give them in turn a good thrashing; but the cowards always kept together, and he did not care to wake up his companions to assist in the desired acts of retributive justice.
For some reason or other Adam and the boys never seemed to enter into his plans in that whole-souled way which he would have liked. They dampened his enthusiasm, and, as he frequently thought, he never felt so much like a captain as when he was captain of himself.
When the two young men with the keg disappeared among the bushes in the path which led to the spring—for this was one of the regular camping-places on the river—one of those bright ideas to which Chap was subject popped into his mind.
Gently taking down a double-barrelled gun, loaded with buckshot, from the hooks in the cabin on which it hung, and moving very cautiously so as not to awaken his companions, he stepped out on the sand.