The Sportsman's Club in the Saddle

by Harry Castlemon

“What’s got into you all of a sudden?” asked Pierre, who could not understand why his prisoner, who had heretofore been so gloomy and disheartened, should suddenly appear to be much at his ease. “What trick are you up to?”

“I don’t know that I am particularly jolly—I feel much better than I did a few hours ago,” replied Chase. “I am dry and warm now; and another thing, I know that I shall not be obliged to stay here as long as I at first feared. I’ll be taken off before to-morrow night, and then you had better look out for me. I’ll show you—”

Chase was going on to say that he would show Pierre and his father, and Bayard Bell and every one else who had had a hand in his capture, that there was a law in the land, and that they could not waylay peaceable young fellows and shut them up in smuggling vessels and starve them and carry them off to desert islands with impunity; but Pierre glared at him so savagely that he thought it best to hold his peace.

Coulte and his son were not slow to follow the example set them by their captive. If one might judge by the numerous slices of bacon they cut off and laid upon the coals, the fright they had sustained during the voyage to the island had not injured their appetites in the least. They helped themselves most bountifully, and while their supper was cooking pulled off their coats, and spread the blankets and other articles that composed the cargo of the pirogue, in front of the fire to dry.

The meal was not as good as some Chase had eaten on that same island, but it served to satisfy the cravings of his hunger, and when the last piece of bacon had disappeared he spread one of his coats upon his bed of leaves, drew the blanket over him, thrust his feet out toward the fire and closed his eyes—but not to sleep. Tired, and almost exhausted, as he was, that was a thing that did not enter his head. He had better business on hand, and that was to watch Coulte and Pierre. They ate their bacon very deliberately, smoked two or three pipes of tobacco, and then arose and walked out on the beach. This movement was enough to arouse the suspicions of the prisoner, who, as soon as they were out of sight and hearing, sprang to his feet and looked around the point of the bluff to see what they were going to do.

“There’s one of my plans knocked into a cocked hat,” said Chase, as he watched the proceedings of the two men; “but I have another in reserve, and I know it will work. I am afraid I have done something to excite their suspicions.”

He certainly had. The smile that Pierre had seen on his face had made him alert and watchful, and he and his father thought it best to put it out of Chase’s power to leave the island without their knowledge. They went straight to the pirogue, and after turning it bottom upward, moved it close to a tree at the base of the bluff, and made it fast with a chain and padlock. Not satisfied with this, they carried the sail and oars into the bushes and concealed them there; and when they came out they shouldered their guns and returned to the camp. They looked at their prisoner as they walked past him, but he lay with a blanket over his head, apparently fast asleep.

Coulte and Pierre were ready to go to bed now, and the captive was quite willing that they should do so. They began snoring lustily almost as soon as they touched their blankets, but Chase, being cautious and crafty, and unwilling to endanger the success of his scheme by being too hasty, for a long time made no movement. Being convinced at last that they were really asleep, and not trying to deceive him, he threw the blanket off his head and slowly arose to his feet. His first move was to pull on his overcoat and boots; his next to secure possession of the meat and axe; and his third to light the lantern with a brand from the fire. He looked wishfully at the guns which Pierre and his father had taken care to put under their blankets before lying down, but he could not secure them without arousing one or the other of the men. However, it was some consolation to know that the weapons would be of very little use to their owners. They had not more than two or three charges of dry powder between them, for the large flask that Pierre carried had been thoroughly soaked during the voyage to the island.

Having lighted his lantern Chase rolled up his blankets and put them under his arm, picked up the meat, shouldered the axe, and, thus equipped, walked rapidly around the bluff toward the place where the pirogue lay. He spent some time in searching among the bushes for the sail, and having found it at last he pulled it out of its hiding-place, and bent his steps toward the interior of the island. After walking about a hundred yards he entered a little gulley, which seemed to run up the side of the bluff, and a short distance further on his progress was stopped by a perpendicular cliff, which arose to the height of forty or fifty feet. By the aid of his lantern he closely surveyed the face of this cliff, and having at last discovered some object of which he appeared to be in search, he rested the mast, which was rolled up in the canvas, against a projecting point of the cliff; and after making sure that the lower end was placed firmly on the ground so that it would not slip, he ran his arm through the ring in the lantern and began to climb up the sail. When he arrived at the top he pushed aside the bushes, disclosing to view a dark opening, which appeared to run back into the cliff. Thrusting his lantern into it he surveyed it suspiciously for a moment, as if half afraid to enter, and then clambered up and crept into the opening on his hands and knees. After working his way along a dark and narrow passage he found himself in a cave about twenty feet long and half as wide, which was known among the village boys as “The Kitchen”—so called from the fact that it was here that the cooking utensils had been found—and this Chase intended should be his hiding-place and his fortress as long as he remained on the island. It promised to answer his purpose admirably. It was so effectually concealed that a dozen men might have searched the island for a month without discovering it, and it could be easily defended in case of an attack. The bluff in which it was located was perpendicular on all sides, and the only way one could get into it was by making use of a ladder or pole, as Chase had done.