TOM’S FINAL “FIND”

“Tom,” said Cal, taking the Virginia boy by the hand and warmly greeting him, “you have crowned this expedition—”

“Oh, bother!” interrupted Tom. “You fellows are daffy. I’ve had the good luck to find the deeds, but it was by sheer accident, and anybody else might have—”

“But ‘anybody else’ didn’t, and that makes all the difference. Now listen. I have the floor. I have restrained my natural impulse to do all the talking lately until I’ve had to let out two holes in my belt. I was going to hurl my best speech at your head, but you interrupted, and now the graceful periods have slipped from memory’s grasp. I’ll leave the task of adequate expression to my father. He’ll do it quite as well as I can. But there’s one thing to which I must ask the attention of the company here assembled.”

“What is it, Cal?” Dick asked.

“Why, simply that Tom has added another to the purposes with which this expedition was undertaken. Our objects were sport and adventure. We have had both, and now Tom has added a third—achievement.”

“That’s all very well,” answered Tom, “but we haven’t made the achievement yet. That will be when we deliver the deeds to your father, and not till then. And we’ll never, never do that unless you stop your nonsense and let us get to work on the catamaran, or raft, or whatever else you call it. Our present job is to get away from Quasi with the golden fleece. I suppose we ought to sleep now, but—”

“But glue wouldn’t stick our eyelids together,” broke in Dick. “Work’s the thing for us now. Let’s get at it. Oh, I say, Cal, what of the tides? When will they set in strongly toward that little town up there?”

Cal reckoned the matter up and named the hours at which the young flood tides would begin to run. Then Dick thought a little and asked:

“Is it all land-locked water from here to the town, or are there openings to the sea?”

“All closely land-locked—all creeks,” Cal answered.

“Then if we work hard we can have the catamaran ready by to-morrow noon—she won’t need to be much of a craft for such waters—and we can make our start when the tide turns, about that time. Let’s see; the distance is only ten or twelve miles, and the tide will run up for six hours. That ought to take us there with no paddling or poling except enough to keep the craft headed in the right direction.”

“We’ll do it,” declared Cal. “Now to work, all of us. Tell us what to do, Dick.”

“Let one fellow make a lot of fresh torches,” the Boston boy answered. “The rest of us can keep busy till daylight dragging bamboos, big cane stalks and the cross braces down to the shore. As soon as it is light enough in the morning we’ll fashion the two larger timbers, and get them into the water. After that two or three hours’ work will finish the job.”

“An excellent programme, so far as it goes,” muttered Cal, as if only thinking aloud.

“Go ahead, Cal, what’s lacking?”

“Seems to me,” Cal responded, “that every member of this company is in the habit of carrying a digestive apparatus somewhere about his person. That’s all.”

“Right, Cal!” Larry broke in. “We must have breakfast and dinner, and I think I remember hearing that experienced navigator, Richard Wentworth, say, once upon a time, that one should never venture upon salt water without carrying a supply of provisions along.”

“I humbly submit to the rebuke,” answered Dick, with a laugh. “It was forgetfulness, but forgetfulness is never quite pardonable. Some one must go for game immediately after breakfast. We have enough on hand for that meal.”

“I delegate you to that task, Tom,” said Larry. “Your habit of finding things may hasten the job.”

It was a little past noon when the company pushed away from Quasi on the rude raft that served them for a ship, and were driven by the strong flood tide through the maze of broad and narrow passages among the marsh islands that lay between them and the town on the mainland.

There was some discussion before they left Quasi as to what they should do with the rifle and other things in Dunbar’s log lockup.

Larry settled the matter, saying:

“We’ll leave his belongings just where he placed them. We are not likely to find him now, and—”

“And if he finds himself,” Tom broke in, “he’ll come to Quasi after them. Wonder where the poor fellow is, anyhow, and what’s the matter with him.”

Nobody could offer a conjecture that had not been discussed before, and so the subject was dropped in favor of more immediate concerns.

The tide ran strong, and Dick’s “palatial passenger craft,” as Tom called the raft, proved to be cork-like in its ability to float almost as fast as the tide itself flowed. About five o’clock the last of the marsh islands was passed, and the little town, perched upon high bluffs, appeared. As the raft neared it, Tom suddenly called out:

“I’ve found something else! There’s the Hunkydory riding at anchor in that little bay over yonder! Now, maybe the next find will be Mr. Dunbar.”

While Larry was sending a telegram to his father, the others went to the boat and with permission of the man in charge, examined it. No accident had happened to it and nothing about it gave the least hint that Dunbar had merely abandoned it. The sail was neatly lashed to the boom; the mast and the rudder had been unshipped and bestowed in the bilge. Every rope was coiled and every pulley block ran free.

More significant still was the fact that the lockers were all filled with food stuffs.

“Obviously he intended to return to Quasi,” Cal argued, “and laid in supplies for us as he had promised. Whatever happened to him must have occurred after that and just before the time he had set for sailing. Let’s go up into the town and see what we can learn about him.” Then pausing, he turned to the man in charge of the boat and asked:

“Has she been lying at anchor and taking the chance of rain all this time?”

“No,” the man answered. “She’s been in that there boat house, but to-day the squire tole me to anchor her out in the sun for an hour or two, an’ that’s what I’m a doin’.”

On their way they met Larry, who had telegraphed his father both at the North and at Charleston, uncertain whether or not the earthquake had hurried his home-coming. In his dispatches Larry had said:

“Quasi deeds found by Tom Garnett, now in my possession and in perfect order. Dory sails for Charleston immediately.”

Two hours later there came two telegrams from Major Rutledge in Charleston, one of them addressed to Larry and the other to Tom Garnett. The one to Larry sent congratulations and asked him to hurry home as fast as he could. What was in Tom’s none of the boys ever knew. Tom’s eyes were full of tears as he read it, though his face was a gladly smiling one as he replaced the paper in its envelope and carefully bestowed it in his pocket.

While waiting for these dispatches the boys made diligent inquiries concerning Dunbar. He had arrived at the town about three o’clock on the day of his leaving Quasi. He had intelligently addressed and posted his manuscript and drawings. After that he had bought camping supplies of every kind that the town could furnish, and had loaded them very carefully into the dory. An hour later he had been found sitting under a big tree and seemingly in distress of some kind. He was unable to tell who he was, in answer to inquiries. His mind seemed an absolute blank. Papers found on his person gave a sufficient clue to his identity and the addresses of his nearest friends. Telegrams were sent to them, and as soon as possible they came and took the poor fellow away with them, a magistrate meanwhile setting a deputy constable to care for the boat and cargo till its owners should appear.

The young doctor whom Dunbar’s friends brought with them explained to the old doctor of the town that for many years past Dunbar had been the victim of a rather rare mental malady, causing occasional complete lapses of memory.

“This present attack,” he added, “is lasting longer than usual. He has hitherto been allowed to roam at will, to live in the woods and pursue his investigations. Now, however, I shall strongly advise his friends to keep him under some small restraint for the sake of his own safety.”

“That ends the Dunbar incident,” said Larry when the old doctor finished his relation of the facts. “Now we must be off for Charleston. What do you say, boys? There’s a moon to-night and we might as well get a little start before it sets.”

“My own judgment,” ventured Dick, “is that as we worked all of last night, we’d better stay here till morning and get some sleep. But ‘I’m in the hands of my friends’ as the politicians say.”

Dick’s suggestion was approved, and the sun was just rising the next morning when the Hunkydory set sail. When the boys stepped ashore at the Rutledge boathouse on the Ashley River, Major Rutledge was there to greet them.

“We feared you boys might be in serious difficulty down at Quasi,” he said, warmly shaking hands all round for the second time, “and I was about setting out to rescue you, when Larry’s telegram came.”

“We rescued ourselves, instead,” Cal replied; “and to us that is more satisfactory.”

“It is very much better,” answered the father, catching Cal’s meaning and heartily sympathizing with the proud sense of personal achievement that lay behind.

“Come on home now, and over a proper dinner tell your mother and me all about what happened at Quasi.”

THE END