The Rival Campers; Or, The Adventures of Henry Burns

by Ruel Perley Smith

The yacht Spray, arriving home again in the harbour of Southport, two days following the discovery made by Henry Burns, had created somewhat of a sensation: first, because, on account of the storm, there had been felt considerable alarm for the little boat, and, second, because of the story that the boys had to tell.

The finding of the letter “E” confirmed their story, so that there could be no room for doubt that the yacht Eagle had been secreted there in the Thoroughfare and refitted. The question now was, had the man who had done this left the bay and gone on his voyage, or had he chosen, for some purpose or other, to linger in some part of the great bay till a later time.

Henry Burns now told the story of the man they had seen at the foot of Grand Island, how he had sailed in and out of the harbour so mysteriously, how he seemed to avoid them, and how there had apparently been none other than he aboard the black yacht.

Most of the people of the village were inclined to the belief that the man Chambers had gone out to sea as soon as he had altered his yacht so that it would escape detection in such harbours as he would be obliged to make. There was no possible reason why he should return, they said, and every reason in the world why he should get away from that part of the coast as soon as he could.

There were plenty of black yachts, they argued, that would answer the general description of the yacht seen by the boys at the foot of the island; and, as for sailing out and away in the night, that was a thing commonly done among fishermen, to take advantage of wind and tide when it was important that they should reach a certain port on time.

Still, there were one or two yachts that set out cruising about the bay, on the chance of running into the mysterious craft, and they cruised about for a week or more. Every strange sail that looked as though it might belong to a yacht of the size of the Eagle was pursued, until it had either outsailed the pursuers and disappeared, or until a nearer view had proven that it was not the hunted craft.

By the end of two weeks the village was well satisfied that Chambers and the yacht Eagle were far away, and had ceased to think of him, except as a group gathered of an evening about the village grocery-store and talked of that for lack of something better.

In the meantime, when the excitement was at its height, the Warren boys in their yacht, and Tom and Bob in their canoe, took a hand in the search. Even Henry Burns took an occasional spin on his bicycle down to the foot of the island of an evening, and wandered along the shore in the hope of catching a glimpse once more of the sail he had seen that night in the harbour. Just what he expected to do in case he should see it, he did not know, himself; still, it might be that he could spread the alarm and start some of the boats out after any suspicious craft that he saw.

For the time being it was in all the air. Nobody talked of anything else. It was really more because people dearly love a mystery than that they actually believed the Eagle was still in the bay; but the talk sufficed to keep the boys at fever-heat, and Henry Burns firmly believed that he had seen the Eagle that night.

Tom and Bob were indefatigable for ten days in searching on their own account. They would take their canoe in the afternoon, paddle down five or six miles along the shore of the island, land in some lonely spot, haul the canoe on shore, and then continue along on foot for a mile or two, coming up cautiously to some cove with which they had become familiar in their trips through the summer, only to find it empty of sails, or some fishing-boat lying snug for the night, and which could by no means be mistaken for the craft of which they were in search.