The Rival Campers Afloat; or, The Prize Yacht Viking — John Shaqi
The Rival Campers Afloat; or, The Prize Yacht VikingSmith, Ruel Perley
General
The Rival Campers Afloat; or, The Prize Yacht Viking
Smith, Ruel Perley
Boats and boating -- Juvenile fiction; Sea stories
“Hello!” he said. “There they go, off to bed. Guess they must be tired.
Too bad, for I simply cannot stand it, not to go over to the cottage
to-night—just to look at the cottage, if nothing more. And I am afraid if
I do, I may make a little noise, accidentally, and wake one of them up.”
Henry Burns said this most sympathizingly; but there was a twinkle in the
corners of his eyes.
“Come on, Henry,” cried Harvey, “you are missing the greatest chowder you
ever saw.”
“Looks as though I might miss a good deal of it, by the way you are
stowing it aboard,” replied Henry Burns, reëntering the tent and
observing the manner in which Harvey was attacking his dish, while Tom
and Bob looked on admiringly.
“Never mind, Henry,” said Bob. “There’s enough. And, besides, Harvey is a
delicate little chap. He needs nourishing food and plenty of it.”
Harvey squared his broad shoulders and smiled.
“I’m beginning to get good-natured once more,” he said.
The campers’ quarters were certainly comfortable enough to make most any
one feel good-natured. The tent was roomy; the stove warmed it gratefully
against the night air, which still had some chill in it; the warm supper
tasted good after the long, hard day’s sailing; and Tom and Bob were
genial hosts.
Outside, the waves, fallen from their boisterousness of the afternoon to
gentle murmurings, were rippling in with a pleasing sound against the
point of land whereon the camp stood. The breeze was soft, though lacking
the mildness of the later summer, and the night was clear and starlit.
It had passed the half-hour after ten o’clock when the boys had finished
eating. They arose and went out in front of the tent.
“It is all dark over yonder at the Warren cottage,” said Tom. “What do
you think—had we better go over? The fellows are surely asleep.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Henry Burns. “Why, they would never forgive me if I
didn’t go over the first night I arrived here. We can just go over and
leave our cards at the front door. Of course we don’t have to wake them
up if they are asleep.”
“Oh, of course not,” exclaimed Harvey. “But just wait a moment, and I’ll
go out aboard and bring in that fog-horn and that dinner-bell.”
“We’ll get them in the canoe, Jack,” said Bob. He and Harvey departed,
and returned shortly, bringing with them a fog-horn that was not by any
means a toy affair, but for serious use, to give warning in the fog to
oncoming steamers; likewise, a gigantic dinner-bell, used for the same
purpose aboard the _Viking_.
“We haven’t anything in camp fit to make much of a noise with,” said Tom,
almost apologetically. “We keep our tent anchored in a fog, you know.”
“Who said anything about making a noise?” inquired Henry Burns,
innocently; and then added, “Never mind, there’s stuff enough up at the
cottage.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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