The Rival Campers; Or, The Adventures of Henry Burns

by Ruel Perley Smith

It had come on rainy, and the crew were for putting in at some harbour and lying snug, but Harvey would not hear of it. He had sailed until near midnight for about a week, and did not like to give it up.

However, as a concession to his crew, and as it bade fair to blow up a nasty sea before many hours, Harvey had consented to beat back and forth under the lee of a small unnamed island, keeping a lookout down the bay for the little distance they could see through the rain.

It seemed that some other craft was also willing to take the risk of sailing without lights, for, along about ten o’clock, a yacht, that might or might not be the one for which they sought, was beating up toward the island, with all dark on board. All at once the man that sat at the wheel left his boat for a moment to itself, so that it headed up into the wind with sails flapping, while he darted down into the cabin.

He was gone only for a moment, but in that brief moment that he was below a light flashed in the cabin,—only a fleeting gleam of light, and then all was dark again.

This gleam of light, transient as it was, had sufficed, however, for the sharp lookout aboard the Surprise.

Harvey seized Joe Hinman by the shoulder and whispered, as he steered the Surprise out from behind the end of the island: “Did you see that, Joe? Did you see it? There’s something coming up. Everybody keep quiet now!”

There was an excited group that crouched silently in the cockpit of the Surprise as she swung out from under the lee of the island and headed straight for the spot where they had seen the flash of light, running almost before the wind.

Whatever the craft was, it seemed as if they must surely catch it, leaping out as they had from the darkness. All at once they saw the dark outline of a yacht almost dead ahead, and saw for a moment the shadow of its sails, a faint blur through the rain.

Then the yacht veered about suddenly, and they saw the white crush of water as it heeled over, and, running with the wind on its quarter, was gone, like a boat that had vanished. So sudden and so silent was the manœuvre that they could hardly realize that the yacht had, indeed, turned like a flash and run away. They followed for a moment, but, seeing how useless it was, Harvey soon gave up the chase and went back to harbour, beaten but not discouraged.

“That was the man we want,” he said, as they came to in the nearest harbour that night. “No other craft would have gone off its course that way. And to think we were almost upon him.”