Captain Chap; or, The Rolling Stones

by Frank R. Stockton

Both men now threw themselves on Chap, and, in a very short time, that unfortunate fellow was floundering in the shallow water.

Rising to his feet, he made a rush toward the boat, and would have boarded her had not the muzzle of a shot-gun been pointed at his head.

“Just you stay where you are,” said the young man with the gun, as the other seized the pole and pushed The Rolling Stone out into deep water. “If you hadn’t hollered for your fellers we’d ’a’ put some of your things ashore, but we haven’t time for that now. Good-by.”

And putting down his gun, the speaker took the tiller, while his companion hauled up the main-sail, and in about a minute The Rolling Stone was scudding down the river before a strong north wind.

At first Chap stood bewildered. His mind could scarcely comprehend the fact that there were two men in the world who would do the thing that these young men had just done. To throw him out of his own boat, and make off with it before his eyes! Could it all be real?

But he did not long stand still. His active nature made it necessary for him to do something. If he had had a gun he would have fired after the rascals, but as it was he could do absolutely nothing by himself, and the first thing to be thought of now was to let the others know what had happened.

Giving a last look at the retreating boat, he saw that one of the young men was pouring what appeared to be milk in a tin basin. The villains knew that the bears were hungry, and as they had milk with them, they evidently intended to feed them and bring them up as their own.

Was there ever such unparalleled impudence? The sight made his blood boil, and he involuntarily shook his fist at the retreating boat.

There was a rough path or narrow roadway which ran through the woods in the direction in which Adam had gone, and along this path Chap now ran at the top of his speed. The boys had also gone this way, and he thought he must soon overtake some of his party.

It happened, however, as it has happened so often before to many a traveller, that Chap soon came to a point where there were two diverging paths, and he did not know which was the one that Adam had taken.