The Sportsman's Club in the Saddle

by Harry Castlemon

“Can’t do it,” answered the master of the schooner, for such he was. “We’re going to sail immediately.”

“All right. When you are ready to start, I’ll get out of your way. Will you stand by to catch a line?”

The captain of the schooner, although he heartily wished the yacht a hundred miles away, could not well refuse to listen to so fair a proposition as this. He caught the line as it came whirling over his head, and made it fast on board his vessel; and in ten minutes more the Banner was lying alongside the schooner, and Walter and Wilson were walking up the street as fast as their legs could carry them—one to call on Mr. Craven, and the other to find his father and Mr. Chase. The rest of the Club remained on board to watch the yacht. Perk and Bab paced the deck, talking over the exciting events of the day, and wondering what else was in store for them, while Eugene clambered over the rail and went on board the schooner. He took his stand at the forehatch and looked down into the hold, where some of the crew were at work stowing away an assorted cargo, and the first thought that passed through his mind was, that for a vessel of her size she had very little capacity. What would he have thought if he had known that there was another hold under the one he was looking into; that it was filled with a variety of articles that had that very afternoon been brought from New Orleans in wagons, and which were to be smuggled into Cuba; and that in a dark corner among those articles Fred Craven lay, still bound as securely as he was when we last saw him? If Chase had been there he could have told some strange stories about that schooner; but as none of the crew of the yacht had ever seen her before (the reason was that she always left and entered port during the night), they took her for just what she appeared to be—a trader.

While Eugene stood looking down into the hold, the master of the schooner, a short, thick-set, ugly-looking man, with red whiskers and mustache, came swaggering up and tried to enter into conversation with him. He wanted to know whose yacht that was, what she had come there for, where she was going, why Walter and Wilson had been in such haste to get ashore, and asked a good many other questions that Eugene did not care to answer. He could see no reason why he should tell the man the Club’s business; and the latter, finding that he could get nothing out of him, turned on his heel and walked off.

In half an hour Walter and Wilson returned, accompanied by Mr. Chase and Mr. Craven. Wilson’s father was out of town, and consequently he had not seen him. They were overwhelmed with astonishment at the stories the boys had told them, and Eugene thought as he looked into Mr. Craven’s face and glanced at the butt of the navy revolver which protruded from the inside pocket of his coat, that he wouldn’t like to be in Pierre’s place if Fred’s father ever met him. They were impatient to get under way. They hurried across the deck of the schooner—passing directly over the head of one of the boys they were so anxious to find, and so close to him that he heard the sound of their footsteps—and springing over the yacht’s rail lent a hand in hoisting the sails, and obeyed Walter’s orders as readily as any of the crew. The master of the schooner saw them as they stepped upon the deck, and pulled his collar up closer around his face; and when the yacht veered around and filled away for the Gulf, he hurried below to talk to the man in broadcloth.

Under a jib and close-reefed main and foresail, the Banner made good weather of it when she reached the Gulf. She skimmed over the waves like a bird, and, guided by Bab’s careful hands, never shipped so much as a bucket of water. As the lights in the village began to fade away in the distance, other lights came into view in advance of them—a red and a green light. Then the boys knew that they were not alone on the Gulf, for those lights were suspended from the catheads of some approaching vessel. Like old sailors, they began to express their opinions concerning the stranger. She was a sailing-vessel, because if she were a steamer they would see the lights in her cabin windows. She was not bound to New Orleans, for she was not headed that way—she was coming toward them. She was going to the village, and was, most likely, some small trader like the one they had left at the wharf.

“Better keep away a little, Bab,” said Walter. “We don’t care to go too close to her in this wind.”

Bab altered the course of the yacht a point or two, and in a few minutes the position of the lights changed, showing that the vessel in front of them had altered her course also, and that she intended to pass close to the yacht whether her captain was willing or not. Believing from this that the stranger had something to say to him, Walter brought his trumpet out of the cabin and walked forward. The lights continued to approach, becoming more and more distinct every moment, and presently a trim little schooner hove in sight and came up into the wind within hailing distance. Walter also threw the yacht up into the wind, and waited for the stranger to make known his wants.