FOG BOUND

The boys were not tired that evening, and after their abundant supper they sat late talking and telling stories and “just being happy,” Dick said. The day had been a torrid one, but in the evening there was a chill in the air which made a crackling camp-fire welcome. When at last they grew sleepy they simply rolled themselves in their blankets and lay down upon the sand and under the stars. They had built no shelter, as it was not their purpose to remain where they were except for a single night.

It was not long after daylight when Tom, shivering, sprang up, saying:

“I’m cold—hello! What’s this? Fog?”

“Yes,” said Larry, “a visitor from the gulf stream. And it is almost thick enough to cut, too. What shall we do?”

“Do? Why, make the best of it and be happy, of course,” answered Cal, piling wood upon the embers to set the camp-fire going again. “The first step in that direction is to get your blood circulating. Stir around. Bring a bucket of water and set the kettle to boil—that is to say, if you can open a trail through this fog and find the water hole without falling into it. Whew! but this is a marrow-searching atmosphere.”

The fog was indeed so dense that nothing could be seen at more than twenty paces away, while the damp, penetrating chill set all teeth chattering and kept them at it until rapid exercise set pulses going again. Then came breakfast to “confirm the cure,” Dick suggested, and the little company was comfortable again. That is to say, all of them but Larry. He was obviously uneasy in his mind, so much so that he had little relish for his breakfast.

“What’s the matter, Larry,” asked Tom, presently; “aren’t you warm yet?”

“Oh, yes, I’m warm enough, but there isn’t a breath of air stirring, and this fog may last all day. What do you think, Cal?”

“I think that very likely. I’ve seen fogs like this that lasted two or three days.”

“How on earth are we to get to Beaufort while it lasts?”

The question revealed the nature of Larry’s trouble.

“Why, of course we can’t do anything of the kind,” Cal answered. “We should get lost in the fog and go butting into mud banks and unexpected shoals. No. Till this fog clears away we can’t think of leaving the altogether agreeable shore upon which a kindly fate has cast us. But we can be happy while we stay, unless we make ourselves unhappy by worrying. I know what is troubling you, Larry, and it’s nonsense to worry about it. I often think I wouldn’t carry your conscience about with me for thirty cents a month.”

“But, Cal, you see it is our duty to notify the revenue officers of our discovery before those smugglers get away.”

“It may relieve your mind,” Cal answered in his usual roundabout fashion, “to reflect that they can’t get away. If they were still there when this fog came in from the sea, they will stay there till it clears away again. So we are really losing no time. In addition to that consolation, you should take comfort to yourself in the thought that even if the revenue officers were in possession of the information we have, they could do nothing till the fog lifts. So far as I know, at least, they can see no farther through fog than other people can, and shoals and mud banks are unlikely to respect their authority by keeping out of the way of such craft as they may navigate.”

Suddenly Cal put aside his playful manner of speech, and became thoroughly earnest.

“Think a minute, Larry. We have absolutely no official duty to do in this matter. We are doing our best as good citizens to notify the authorities. At present we can’t do it. There’s an end of that. We have a pleasant bivouac here, with plenty of food and more where it came from. Why shouldn’t we make the best of things and be happy? Why should you go brooding around, making the rest of us miserable? I tell you it’s nonsense. Cheer up, and give the rest of us a chance to enjoy ourselves.”

“You are right, Cal,” Larry answered; “and I won’t spoil sport. I didn’t mean to, and my worrying was foolish. By the way, what shall we do to pass the time to-day?”

“Well, for one thing, we ought to put up a shelter. A fog like this is very apt to end in soaking rain, and if it does that to-night, we’ll sleep more comfortably under a roof of palmete leaves than out in the open. However, there’s no hurry about that, and you can let Dick wallop you at chess for an hour or so while Tom and I go foraging. You see I’ve thought of a good many things that I ought to have bought last night, but didn’t. Do you want to go along, Tom?”

Tom did, and as they started away, Cal called back:

“I say, Larry, suppose you put on a kettle of rice to boil for dinner when the time comes. I think I’ll bring back something to eat with it.”

Then walking on with Tom by his side, he fell into his customary drawling, half-frivolous mode of speech. Tom had expressed his pleasure in the prospect of rice for dinner—rice cooked in the Carolina way, a dish he had never tasted before his present visit began.

“Yes,” answered Cal, “I was tenderly and affectionately thinking of you when I suggested the dish. And I had it in mind to make the occasion memorable in another way. I remember very vividly how greatly—I will not say greedily—you enjoyed the combination of rice and broiled spring chicken while we were in Charleston. I remember that at first you seemed disposed to scorn the rice under the mistaken impression that rice must always be the pasty, mush-like mess that they made of it at school. I remember how when I insisted upon filling your plate with it you contemplated it with surprise, and, contemplating, tasted the dainty result of proper cooking. After that all was plain sailing. I had only to place half a broiled chicken upon the rice foundation in your plate—half a chicken at a time I mean—and observe the gustatory delight with which you devoted yourself to our favorite Carolina dish.”

“Oh, well, your Carolina way of cooking it makes rice good even when you have no chicken to go with it. If the fog would thin itself down a bit—”

“Which it won’t do in time for you to kill the squirrels you were thinking of as a possible substitute for chicken. Perish the thought. It is utterly unworthy. You and I are out after spring chickens, Tom.”

“Good! Do you think we can find any?”

“With the aid of the currency of our country as an excitant of the negro imagination, we can.”

“You saw chickens at the negro quarters last night, then?”

“No, I did not. But I observed a large pan on a shelf in front of one of the cabins, and with more curiosity than politeness I stood up on my tiptoes and looked into it. Tom, that pan was more than half full of chicken feed, and it was fresh at that. Knowing the habits of persons of the colored persuasion, I am entirely certain that no one of them would have taken the trouble to prepare that chicken feed unless he was the happy possessor of chickens. I’m going to call upon the dusky proprietor of that pan this morning.”

“That’s another case of noticing, Cal, and another proof of its value. We are likely to have broiled spring chickens for dinner to-day just because you observed that pan of chicken feed. What else did you notice up there? I ask solely out of curiosity.”

“There wasn’t much else to observe. I saw some fig bushes but they’ve been stripped. Otherwise we should have had some figs for breakfast this morning. Just now I observe that the fog is manifesting a decided tendency to resolve itself into rain, and if it does, that we must satisfy Larry’s conscience by getting away from our present camp this afternoon—or as soon as the fog is sufficiently cleared away. So you and I must hurry on if we’re to have those broiled chickens.”

As results proved, Cal was mistaken in his reckoning of the time necessary to dissipate the fog. It was merely taking the form of what is known as a “Scotch mist,” which does not form itself into rain drops and fall, but collects in drops upon whatever it touches, saturating clothing even more speedily than actual rain does and making all but the sunniest dispositions uncomfortable.

But even a Scotch mist condition served to thin the fog a little, though by no means enough to make navigation possible. Larry watched conditions anxiously, as Cal expected him to do, and his first question when Cal and Tom returned with their chickens revealed his state of mind.

“What do you think of it, Cal?” he asked.

“Of what? If you refer to the moon, I am satisfied in my own mind—”

“Pshaw! You know what I mean. Do be serious for once and tell me what you think of the prospect?”

“Conscience bothering you again?”

“Yes. We must get away from here to-day if possible—and as soon as possible.”

“Can’t you give us time to have dinner and cook some extra food for consumption when we get hopelessly lost out there in the fog banks that are still rolling in from the sea?”

“Oh, of course we can’t leave here till the fog clears away. But do you think it ever will clear away?”

“It always has,” answered Cal, determined to laugh his brother out of his brooding if he could not reason him out of it. “In such experience as I have had with fogs I never yet encountered one that didn’t ultimately disappear, did you?”

“But what do you think of the prospect?” persisted Larry.

“I can see so little of it through the fog,” Cal provokingly replied, “that I am really unable to form an intelligent opinion of it. What I do see is that you haven’t begun to make our shelter yet. In my opinion it would be well to do so, if only to keep the chess board dry while a game is in progress. Moreover, I have an interesting book or two wrapped up in my oilskins, and if we are doomed to remain here over night—”

“You don’t think then that—”

“Frankly, Larry, I don’t know anything about it. Neither do you, and neither does anybody else. We’re in a very wet fog bank. We’ve got to stay where we are till the weather changes. Don’t you think our wisest course is to make ourselves as comfortable and keep ourselves as cheerful as we can while it lasts.”

“Yes, of course, but it’s pretty hard you know to—”

“Not half as hard as chopping wood and ‘toting’ it in from the woods over there, and that is what Tom and I are going to do after dinner as our contribution to the general comfort. You’ll find yourself feeling a great deal better if you busy yourself making a really comfortable shelter while we’re at the other job. It may come on to rain torrents this afternoon, and of course we won’t leave here in the boat if it does.”

“That will do, Cal. I’m convinced, and I’m a trifle ashamed of myself besides. I promise not to worry any more. I decree that we shall not leave port in a rain storm, and unless the weather conditions become favorable before four o’clock this afternoon we’ll not leave here any how until to-morrow.”