[Begun in No. 31 of Harper's Young People, June 1.]
THE MORAL PIRATES.
BY W. L. ALDEN.
Chapter XIV.
The boys had been on their island for more than a week when they resolved to make an excursion to Schroon, which was the nearest village, in order to get some sugar, coffee, and other necessaries. Schroon Lake, or rather the lower end of it, was not more than five miles from Brandt Lake; but there was a range of high hills between the two, and the village of Schroon was situated at the head of the lake, which was nearly ten miles in length. A long and tiresome journey was, therefore, before them, and they ought to have started early in the morning; but they did not start until nearly eleven o'clock. Harry, Tom, and Joe were to go to Schroon together, and Jim was to stay at the island until six o'clock, when he was to row over to the west shore and bring the others back to the camp.
BIDDING JIM GOOD-BY—Drawn by A. B. Frost.
When they bade good-by to Jim, the three other boys assured him that they would certainly be back as early as six o'clock, and warned him not to fail to meet them with the boat. They then started to cross the hills, following a foot-path that was so little used that it was hardly visible. Unfortunately the path led through a thicket of raspberry bushes, and the fruit was so tempting that the boys lost a good deal of time by stopping to gather it. After a tiresome tramp under the mid-day sun they reached the lower end of Schroon Lake, where they hired a crank little row-boat, and rowed up to Schroon. There was a fresh northerly breeze which delayed them; and the spray from the bow of the boat sprinkled them, so that they were uncomfortably wet when they reached the village. By this time they were very hungry as well as tired, and so they went to the hotel for dinner. It was half past six o'clock when they started to row down the lake, and several men who saw them warned them that they were running a great risk in attempting to return at so late an hour.
The trip down the lake was certainly a rather foolhardy one, for there was a good deal of wind and sea, and long before they reached the landing-place it was quite dark. But the boys were anxious to get back to their camp, and for the first time during the cruise they acted somewhat recklessly. However, they met with no accident; and when they had returned the boat to its owner, they set out to cross the hills.
The path was not easy to find in the daylight, and it was next to impossible to find it in the night. A dozen times the boys lost themselves, and were compelled to depend entirely upon the stars to direct their course. The woods had been all cleared away for a space of a mile or a mile and a half wide between the two lakes, except just along the shore of Brandt Lake; so that it was not absolutely necessary for them to keep in the path, as it would have been had they been passing through a thick forest. Still, it was not pleasant to lose the path, and stumble over stones and stumps, and of course it made the journey longer. They must have walked at least seven or eight miles on their way back before they finally reached their own lake at midnight, at the point where they expected to find Jim waiting for them.