CAL RELATES A FABLE

The Hunkydory was completely loaded when Cal and Dick returned, and there was nothing further to do except cook the fish and game, so that there might be no need to stop anywhere to get dinner.

There was a fairly stiff breeze blowing when the anchors were weighed, but sailing was impracticable until the boat should be well out of the narrow creek, so all hands went to the oars.

When the land was cleared, Larry ordered that the oars be stowed in their fastenings and the sails raised. Without discussion or arrangement of any kind, Cal went to the helm. It seemed the proper thing to do in view of his superior knowledge of the surroundings, but Cal was not thinking of that. He had a plan and purpose of his own to carry out, though he said nothing about the matter.

There was quite an hour of sailing necessary before the course could be laid in the direction of the waterway that led toward Beaufort, and when the time came for heading in that direction, Cal laid quite a different course, heading for a shore that lay several miles away.

Larry was dozing in the forepeak and did not at first observe on what course his brother was sailing. When at last he did notice it, he assumed that something in the direction of the wind made Cal’s course desirable, but after a glance at the sails he changed his mind.

“Why are you heading in that direction, Cal?” he asked, looking about him. “Your course will take us several miles out of our way. Head her toward the point of land over there where the palmettos are.”

Cal made no change and he waited a full minute before he answered. When he did so it was in his most languid drawl.

“Larry,” he said, quite as if he had not heard a word that his brother had uttered, “there was a schooner sailing down the Hudson River one day. The captain of that craft was a Dutchman of phlegmatic temperament and extreme obstinacy. The mate was a Yankee, noted for his alert readiness of resource. The schooner was loaded with brick. The captain was loaded with beer. The mate wasn’t loaded at all. It was the captain’s business to steer and manage things in the after half of the ship. It was the function of the mate to manage things forward. But when the mate saw that the schooner’s course was carrying her straight upon the rocks, he went aft and remonstrated with the captain. For reply the captain said:

“‘Mate, you go forward and run your end of the schooner and leave me to run my end.’

“The mate went forward and ordered the anchor heaved overboard. Then going aft again, he said:

“‘Captain, I have anchored my end of the schooner; you can do what you please with your end.’”

Cal ceased, as if he had finished speaking. The others laughed at the story, and Larry said:

“What’s the moral of that yarn, Cal?”

“Haec fabula docet,” replied Cal, “that I’m sailing the Hunkydory just now; that I know where we are going and why.”

“Would you mind telling us, then?” demanded Larry.

“Not in the least. We are heading for the shore, on our lee; as for why, there are several reasons: One is that the tide will turn pretty soon, and when it does it will run out of the creek you want me to enter as fast as it does out of the Bay of Fundy. Another is, that the wind is falling and we shall have to take to the oars presently. Another is, that I am persuaded it will be easier rowing across the small current out here than against a tide that rushes out of the creek like a mill tail. There are other and controlling reasons, but I have already given you as many as your intellectual digestion can assimilate. The rest will keep till we’re comfortably ashore. There, that’s the last puff of the wind.”

With that he hauled the boom inboard, let go the halyards and left the rudder-bar.

“It is now after three o’clock,” he said, while the others were unstepping the mast, “and the distance is about three miles or a trifle less. Rowing easily we shall have time after we get there to settle ourselves comfortably before nightfall.”

“I suppose you’re right, of course,” Larry answered, “but it means several more meals on meat and fish alone.”

“Better not cross that bridge till you come to it, Larry. You see we might find manna over there, or some bread-fruit trees newly imported from Tahiti—who knows?”

The others shared Larry’s regret as to the food prospect, but they all recognized Cal’s superior knowledge of conditions as a controlling consideration; so all rowed on in silence.

When at last they reached the neighborhood of the shore, Cal began scrutinizing it closely as if searching for the landing place he had selected in his mind. He was in fact looking for the very narrow and cane-hidden entrance to a land-locked bay that he remembered very well. Presently he turned into it and shot the boat through a channel that one might have passed a dozen times without seeing it. It wound about among the dense growths for a little way and then opened out into a considerable little bay.

Here Cal directed the landing, but instead of arranging to anchor the boat a little way from shore he put on all speed with the oars and ran her hard and fast upon a gently sloping beach.

“What’s that for, Cal?” asked Dick, whose nautical instincts were offended by the manoeuvre.

“To save trouble,” Cal answered. “You see this is a considerable little bay, and the entrance to it is so very narrow that before much of a flood tide can run into the broad basin the time comes for it to turn and run out again, so there is never a rise and fall of more than six or eight inches in here. The boat will lie comfortably where she is so long as we choose to stay here. We can reach her without much if any wading, and we can shove her off into deep water whenever we like.”

“Is there a spring about here?” asked Tom, whose concern about water supply had become specially active.

“No, but we can make one in fifteen minutes.”

Then selecting a sort of depression in the sandy beach about sixty yards from the water’s edge, Cal said:

“We have only to scoop out a basin in the sand here—about three feet deep as I reckon it, and we’ll have all the water we want.”

“But will it be good water?”

“Perfectly good. You see, Tom, this beach is composed of clean white sand. The water in the bay sipes through it at a uniform level, and we’ve only to dig down to that level in order to get at it.”

“But won’t it be salt water?”

“Slightly brackish, perhaps, or possibly not at all so. You see before reaching this point it is filtered through sixty or seventy yards of closely packed sand, which takes up all the salt and would take up all other impurities if there were any, as there are not. Suppose you dig for the water, Tom, while the other fellows make camp and pick up wood. It’s very easy digging and it won’t take long. I’m going off a little way to see what there is to see—and to look for the manna I spoke of a while ago.”

So saying, Cal took up his gun and set out inland. It was more than an hour before he returned and the dusk was falling. But to the astonishment of the others a string of young negroes followed close upon his heels, all carrying burdens of some sort, mostly poised upon their heads.