Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: The Border Boys Along the St. Lawrence by Goldfrap John Henry Wrenn Charles L Charles Lewis Illustrator
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 1316 lines and 49733 words, and 27 pages
The Border Boys Along the St. Lawrence.
"Steady, Ralph, old fellow, the Galoups are right ahead."
"Slow down a bit, Persimmons," he yelled, "we're just about to hit up the Gallops."
"Whoop! Hurray for the Glues!" floated back up the tube, as Persimmons abbreviated the name of the famous rapids into the form by which they were locally known. "Hold tight, everybody. Zing! Zang! Zabella!"
The rapids the boys were approaching had been well named by the early French settlers along the St. Lawrence the Galoups, or, in plain English, the Gallops, or, again, to give them their local name, the Glues.
For two miles or more near the American side of the river the white-capped, racing waters tore along at thirty miles or so an hour. The great rocks that lay concealed under the tumbling foam-covered waters caused the river to boil and swirl like a hundred witches' caldrons.
One of the two paid hands, who berthed forward, came up to Ralph just as the latter reached out for the simple mechanism which controlled the powerful search-light mounted near the steering wheel.
The boy had decided to use the rays of the great lamp in picking out his course. In one or two places big rocks bristled menacingly out of the boiling rapids, and if the craft should happen to strike one of them, even with a glancing blow, a terrible accident would be almost certain to result. But with his search-light to act as a night-raking eye, Ralph felt small fear of anything of the sort occurring.
The man who came up to Ralph, just as a sharp click sounded and the bright scimitar of electric light, its power increased by reflectors, slashed the night, was a rather remarkable looking man to be an ordinary paid hand on a wealthy man's pleasure boat.
Fully six feet in height, powerfully built and erect, he had at first glance a look of refinement and intelligence that did not, somehow, appear to blend well with the somewhat inferior position he occupied. It is true that it was honest, clean employment, of which no decent man need have been ashamed, but Ralph felt every time he looked at him that Roger Malvin--such was the name the man gave--might have secured some more suitable occupation.
Yet the first favorable impression that Malvin gave did not, for some reason, survive closer acquaintanceship. Underlying his air of frank intelligence was something else that Ralph had not so far been able to understand. There was something almost sneaking and furtive about Malvin at times. But Ralph, loath at any time to distrust any of those with whom he was thrown in contact, decided that probably this was a mere peculiarity of manner with no foundation behind it.
"Want a hand to get through the Gallops, sir?" he asked respectfully as he came to Ralph's side.
"No, thank you, Malvin," was the rejoinder. "I guess by this time I'm enough of a skipper to take her through without any trouble."
He laid a hand on the spokes as he said this.
"Be good enough not to do that again," said Ralph, rather sternly, as he spun the wheel, thus shaking off the man's grip. "You made me swerve from my course quite a bit, and that isn't safe right here, as you know."
"You can tend the search-light, Malvin," he ordered sharply. "Try to pick up Big Nigger rock. Our course lies to starboard of that. Then we'll pass the Needles on the port. After that it's a clear run. The current will carry us through without much help from the engines."
"Very well, sir," said Malvin respectfully, taking up his position by Ralph's side, one hand on the mechanism of the search-light.
Suddenly Ralph's attention was attracted to Malvin. For the second time that evening an ugly suspicion flashed into his mind.
He was thinking these things over, giving all the while an alert mind to the handling of the boat, when his attention was drawn to Malvin in the manner described. The man was apparently making no effort to use the search-light to find out the jagged outlines of the rock known as Big Nigger. Instead, he appeared to be making aimless sweeps on the water with the light, and not trying in the slightest to locate the chief menace of the Gallops.
"Malvin!" called Ralph sharply.
"Sir!" the man's voice was steady and respectful.
"I told you to locate Big Nigger."
"I'm trying to, sir."
"Nonsense. You know as well as I do that the rock should lie off on the other side. We pass it to starboard. Why don't you cast the light in that direction?"
"I will, sir. I quite forgot that for a minute, sir," was the response, in the same respectful tones.
"Wow!"
The cry came from Hardware.
"Holy mackerel! Ralph!"
"Great Scott!"
Big Nigger Rock!
Revealed by the rays of the search-light as suddenly as if it had been thrust upward by an unseen hand from the bottom of the rapids, the black boulder that bore the name dreaded by rivermen had appeared.
"We're goners!" The cry came from Malvin.
He threw off his coat, and Ralph noted with astonishment, even as excited as he was, that the man had on under that garment a life preserver!
"Shut down on your port engine; come full speed ahead on your starboard!"
Ralph had seized the flexible speaking-tube and roared the command down it.
"Jump now!" he added, as Persimmons' "Aye! aye!" came back to him.
Young Ware, white-faced and tense, stood by Ralph's side. Like Ralph, he sensed the full measure of the danger confronting them. Yet it spoke volumes for his pluck that he did not utter a sound after that first startled exclamation had escaped him, when the Big Nigger swung into the search-light's vivid circle of white light. As for Persimmons in the engine room, he knew that some emergency must be confronting them. Yet he did not dream of deserting his post. Then the young skipper's voice came down the tube once more.
"Get on a life preserver and come on deck. Quick! It may be life or death!"
"She's swinging out!"
It was true. Out of the grasp of the rapids a boy's skill had snatched victory against what had appeared to be overwhelming odds.
The Gallops roared and screamed and threatened in a thousand voices. They danced and leaped like white teeth defrauded of their expected prey. For that time at least they were to be cheated of a harvest of disaster to which, in the years gone by, they had become accustomed as a regular toll on the part of those who braved their fangs.
So closely did they shave disaster that, from the bridge, it would have been possible with extended fingers to touch the rough surface of the Big Nigger as they were swept by. The next moment the peril that had chilled the blood in their veins was behind them.
"And now for an explanation from Malvin," spoke Ralph grimly. "I rather think that there is one coming."
Perhaps Malvin, who had stood poised as if ready for a jump as they passed the Big Nigger, heard the boy. At any rate, as Ralph spoke, he turned.
"A terribly narrow escape that, sir," he said.
Ralph told Persimmons to go below and attend to his engines before he replied. Then he turned on the man.
"Yes, a terribly narrow escape which might have ended in disaster for us all," he said, with an emphasis that allowed no doubt as to his meaning. In case that Malvin had not fully understood him, he added:
"Malvin, your carelessness almost cost us all our lives."
"My carelessness, sir!"
The man's voice held an aggrieved tone. He tried to slip into his coat and cover the life jacket he wore.
"I said 'your carelessness.' I don't care to use a harsher word. How did it happen, Malvin, that you wore a life jacket to-night?"
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page