CHAPTER XIV

ON CYPRESS LAKE

The launch floated out into the lake, only the ripples from its bow marring the flat monotony of the glassy surface. About them on every side were silence and solitude, uncanny in their completeness. The gray mist filled the distances and hung wraith-like about the borders. No fish broke water, no bird called from the enclosing forest. Behind them the outlet of the creek was already losing its identity, ahead the lake stretched away like a broad river, between straight lines of shore, nowhere more than a quarter of a mile in width, until its somber water became lost in the mist.

‘Golly, if this ain’ jus’ about the mos’ lonesomest place I ever seen!’

Harmon was the first to break the silence, causing Tim to start nervously.

‘Well,’ said Pud, attempting a business-like tone, ‘there’s one thing certain. We don’t want to camp around here! And, even if the fish are as big as they say they are, I’m not hankering for any of them!’

‘I guess,’ said Tim, looking distastefully at the water about, ‘the only things that would live in this lake would be eels and horn-pouts. Gosh, it’s a creepy old hole, ain’t it? Let’s get out.’

‘Yes, but how?’ asked Pud. ‘I mean where? There’s no sense bucking that current all the way back to Turtle Pond. I suppose there’s a way out if we can find it. It’s probably up at the farther end somewhere. Generally lakes are like that. It’s only about twenty to four, and so we’ve got plenty of time. Wouldn’t you think there’d be some one fishing here, some one we could ask, eh?’

‘No,’ replied Tim decidedly, ‘I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t fish here for fifty dollars.’

‘You wouldn’t probably catch fifty dollars if you did,’ said Pud, in a weak attempt at a joke. ‘Well, let’s start her up again and see if we can find the way out.’

Thirty minutes later they were about twenty feet from where they had been when Pud made the above proposal. In other words, the _Kismet_――_Jolly Rodger_――_Vengance_ simply refused to budge. They did all the usual things and a great many novel ones; and they turned the wheel over and over until every one’s back ached. For once even Harmon’s magic failed. To add to the unpleasantness of their predicament, the rain began to drizzle down again and they went back to rubber coats; and every one knows what awkward affairs rubber coats can prove in such circumstances. Every time Tim leaned down to give the fly-wheel another hopeless revolution he stepped on a corner of his coat and so only succeeded in turning the wheel halfway. With the rain came another degree or two of dimness, a sort of gray twilight that added to the depression of their spirits. They sat themselves down on the wet seats and stared at the engine which, now once more yellow with rust, seemed to stare malignantly back. Finally Tim spoke, bitterly and accusingly.

‘Your father never ought to have let us start out in a boat like this,’ he said.

Pud turned upon him angrily, started to make a retort, and closed his lips resolutely. Some things were too absurd to deserve an answer! Tim, still gloomily regarding the two rusty cylinders, went on.

‘If you’d only had sense enough to bring a pair of oars we could have rowed back,’ he announced.

Pud laughed harshly. ‘Oh, sure,’ he agreed with deep sarcasm. ‘That would be easy, wouldn’t it? With no oar-locks! And against that current! And the stream so narrow in places――Oh, shut up! You make me tired!’

Tim turned a slightly startled gaze to his chum. He hadn’t suspected that Pud was getting angry. After all, it was a mean thing to crab. It wasn’t Pud’s fault. Tim arose apologetically and turned the wheel over four times. Then he seated himself again across from Pud and said: ‘I guess you’re right. Oars wouldn’t be any good.’

‘Of course they wouldn’t,’ said Pud, slightly mollified. ‘I guess the only thing to do is take no notice of that blamed engine for a while and then try again. Motor-boat engines are queer things, and sometimes they come around all right if you pay no attention to ’em.’

‘If we had us a good ol’ pole,’ said Harmon, ‘we could get us out o’ here, I reckon.’

‘There’s the boat-hook,’ suggested Tim, ‘if we haven’t lost it.’

‘It’s here,’ announced Harmon, ‘but it ain’ long enough. Reckon this here’s mighty deep water.’

‘I’ve heard folks say there wasn’t any bottom at all some places,’ said Tim awedly.

‘Pshaw, that’s foolishness,’ replied Pud. ‘If there wasn’t any bottom how’d the water stay in here? But a pole wouldn’t get us very far. Even if we had three poles we wouldn’t reach the end of the pond before dark. No, sir, if we can’t get the engine going we’ll just have to spend the night right where we are.’

A depressed silence greeted the announcement. Then Tim remarked, ‘Well, I’d a heap rather stay here than go ashore!’

‘Oh, I guess nothing would hurt us,’ said Pud with assumed cheerfulness.

‘I ain’ goin’ ashore,’ declared Harmon emphatically. ‘No, sir, I ain’! There’s hants and ghos’es ’roun’ here, Mister Pud.’

‘Oh, shucks, Harmon! You shut up about your ghosts. I’ve told you there isn’t any such thing as a ghost, haven’t I?’

‘Yes, you done tol’ me all right, Mister Pud, but you ain’ never seen――’

‘That’ll do for you!’ said Pud sternly. ‘Gee, as if we didn’t have enough trouble without you always raking up your old ghosts and haunts!’

Silence followed. The rain lessened, became a mist once more, almost ceased. The lake lightened perceptibly. Pud looked at his watch. It was now twenty-five after four. ‘Let’s eat some crackers,’ he suggested. ‘Then we’ll try her again.’

The crackers were all right, but they produced a thirst, and there was nothing drinkable aboard save condensed milk. Tim absolutely refused to drink the lake water at first, but, after Pud and Harmon had both pronounced it warm but sweet, he yielded and quenched his thirst, predicting, though, that it would probably give him typhoid fever and result in his untimely death. To which gloomy prophecy Pud replied that, as they had all drank it, they would probably die together.

Cheered and invigorated by the modest repast, they returned to another prolonged argument with the engine, an argument that proved entirely one-sided and left them about where they had started. At intervals it misted, and steadily the desolate scene about them grew dimmer and more mysterious as evening approached. Harmon, when not taking his turn at the fly-wheel or performing one of a half-hundred commands made by Pud and Tim, spent his time staring apprehensively at the nearer shore, where, as the darkness crept stealthily forth from the thick woods, the mist that hung along the margin made for his willing imagination weird shapes and shadows. At last they acknowledged defeat, and, rather than drift to the shore during the night, Pud tossed over the anchor. The splash of it awoke a dozen echoes from the shores. Out and out went the light line, the boys staring in astonishment. Then, with a jerk, it stopped because there was no more of it, and still it descended straight from the bow.

‘Gee,’ muttered Pud, ‘there’s thirty-six feet of it, and that anchor hasn’t touched!’

‘I told you there wasn’t any bottom!’ exclaimed Tim, drawing uneasily away from the edge of the launch.

‘Pshaw, thirty-six feet isn’t so deep for a lake,’ muttered Pud.

‘It isn’t? I’d like to know where there’s a lake up our way that’s more than twenty!’

‘Well, what of it? This isn’t up our way. I guess there are lakes out West and up in British Columbia and――and Alaska that are hundreds of feet deep! Well, anyway, there’s no use leaving it out, I guess. Might as well pull it up again, eh?’

‘No, leave it there,’ said Tim. ‘If we drift into shallower water it will catch and hold us. Gosh, Pud, we can’t be more than eighty feet from that shore there. Think of the water being as deep as it is! Must go down mighty sudden, eh?’

‘Yes, it must slope right off. Say, you’d get awfully fooled if you went in bathing over there and started to wade out, wouldn’t you?’ Tim agreed, with a shudder, that you would! ‘Gee, I wish it would stop raining――or something!’ continued Pud, staring disconsolately about him into the gathering twilight. ‘It’s going to get dark awfully early to-night, Tim. Maybe we’d better be thinking about something to eat pretty soon. We can have some canned beans――’

‘Cold?’ asked Tim without enthusiasm.

‘Well, we can’t make a fire on board, can we? I say, though, where’s that stove of dad’s?’

‘In the bag there, but you have to have alcohol for it, don’t you? And we haven’t got any, have we?’

‘That’s so. I meant to get some, but forgot it. Well, we’ll just have to eat cold food for once. Unless’――he winked at Tim then――‘we let Harmon go ashore and cook something.’

‘No, sir, Mister Pud, I ain’ goin’ to!’ wailed Harmon. ‘Mister Pud, please, sir, don’ you-all make me!’

‘He’s just fooling,’ said Tim hastily. ‘I guess cold beans will be good enough. I’m not much hungry, anyway.’

‘You will be before you go to bed,’ said Pud. ‘Harmon, you see what we’ve got to eat there. My goodness, I wish we could just have some hot tea! I’m wet right through.’

‘It’s getting cooler, too,’ murmured Tim. ‘I’ll bet it’ll be awfully cold on this lake before morning, Pud. I wish――’

‘I hears a boat!’ said Harmon in a hoarse whisper. ‘Yander, Mister Pud, up-lake! You lis’en an’――’

‘Well, shut up so I can listen then. That’s right! I can hear the oars!’

‘You reckon they’s bogey-mens?’ asked Harmon.

‘I hear voices,’ said Tim. ‘Shall we shout?’

‘I guess we’d better wait,’ said Pud doubtfully. ‘They’re coming this way.’

The sound of oars was plainly heard now, and once or twice a voice came to them, but after listening for several minutes it was apparent that the boat was not coming toward them, but was crossing the lake, probably diagonally, a half-mile or so away, heading, it seemed, for the cypress shore. Once Pud thought he caught a momentary glimpse of the boat in the gray void, but he could not be certain.

‘We’d better shout, I guess,’ he said, and did so. For a space there was no response, although he shouted ‘Hallo!’ several times. Finally, though, a hail came back to them.

‘What you want?’ called an impatient voice.

‘Help,’ replied Pud promptly. ‘Our engine’s broken down and we want to get out of here!’

Another silence, as though the occupants of the boat were of two minds as to rendering the requested assistance. Then at last the voice spoke again, and the words sounded heavy with suspicion. ‘Who are you? What you doin’ up here?’

‘We’re from Millville,’ answered Pud. ‘Three boys. We lost our way this morning and got in here by mistake.’

‘Boys, eh?’ The voice was lower and had lost its quality of doubt. ‘All right, we’re comin’. Keep a shoutin’ so’s we can locate you.’ The oars sounded once more, growing louder, and, as Pud called at intervals, a shadowy form emerged from the mist and took shape as it drew nearer, resolving at last into a small skiff and two men, one at the oars and the other huddled in the stern.

‘Motor-boat, hey?’ inquired the latter occupant. ‘Ain’t out of gas, are you?’

‘No, we’ve got half a tankful. I don’t know what the trouble is. One cylinder went back on us this morning and now she won’t start at all.’

As he spoke, Pud was reflecting that the two middle-aged men who were slowly becoming recognizable as such were not at all the sort of persons he would ordinarily ask assistance of. They were, he decided uncomfortably, about as villainous-looking a pair as he had ever seen! They were bearded and tanned and generally weathered as to face, roughly clothed as to body, and entirely unprepossessing as to general appearance. The man who rowed wore a dilapidated leather coat, from which the water trickled as he moved his long arms back and forth, a rusty felt hat and gray trousers that were rolled well above his bare ankles to keep them from the water that swished about in the bottom of the leaky boat. The man in the stern looked a degree more ragged, his shoulders covered with an old fertilizer bag still eloquent of its former use, and his cotton trousers stuffed into a pair of high-laced boots much the worse for wear. A sodden straw hat dripped rain from its down-pulled brim. The man in the stern was heavy-set, with a bulbous nose and small twinkling eyes, and his name, as later developed, was ‘Cocker.’ His companion was taller, with broad shoulders and long limbs. His nose was long and hooked and his staring eyes were crossed. He answered to the name of ‘Lank.’

‘Well,’ said Cocker as the boat drew alongside the launch, ‘Lank here’s the very feller you’re a-lookin’ for. He knows more about gasoline engines and machinery――’

‘Shut your yap,’ said Lank savagely. Then, to Harmon, who was peering interestedly over the side, ‘Here, take this painter, Nigger, and make it fast. I’ll have a look at your engine, Mister. What make’s it?’ He climbed aboard, followed by the man in the bow, and stretched as he looked curiously about him. ‘Nice boat you’ve got,’ he said approvingly. ‘Can she go?’

‘You mean fast?’ asked Pud. ‘No, not very.’

‘Six miles, I dare say.’

‘Nearer five,’ answered Pud. ‘She gets there, though――usually.’

‘Usually’s good,’ laughed the man grimly. ‘Well, let’s see what’s wrong with the old wheezer.’ He set to work very knowingly, throwing the fly-wheel over thrice experimentally, examining the carburetor, and then unscrewing the plugs. Meanwhile the heavy-set Cocker roamed about, his eyes studying everything most intently. Tim, watching, looked very uneasy. He liked the appearance of the visitors as little as did Pud.

‘Got it,’ announced Lank presently. ‘Broken wire here. No spark, or not much of a one.’ He drew forth a knife and made the repair deftly. ‘Got some tape?’ he inquired. Pud furnished a roll, and a moment later Lank directed: ‘All right, son. Try her now.’

Pud gave her a half-turn and she answered instantly. Lank laughed his satisfaction. ‘Didn’t think to look at your wiring, I’ll bet,’ he said derisively. ‘Well, maybe you wouldn’t have found the break if you had. It _looked_ all right. Which way you boys travelin’?’

‘South,’ said Pud promptly. ‘Where do we get out of this lake?’

‘Well, there’s two ways,’ replied the tall stranger, seating himself. ‘There’s Flat Water Creek up at the north end that’ll take you to Fox River. It’s about four miles to the river, I’d say. Then it’s about ten miles down to The Flat.’

‘Gee,’ muttered Pud, ‘fourteen miles!’

‘Sure, but there’s a shorter way than that, son. Over yonder’s Cypress Branch, and that’ll land you in Two-Mile Creek back of Swamp Hole. Only thing is, you’d never find the branch, I reckon. Think they would, Cockey?’

‘Not ’les’ we showed ’em. Not as dark as it is now, I’d say.’

‘No, you see it’s over there in them cypress, an’ if you don’t know where to look for it you’d never find it, son. But we’re goin’ down the branch and we’ll show you the way, if you ain’t objectin’ to comp’ny.’