Tim and Tip : or, The Adventures of a Boy and a Dog

By James Otis

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Title: Tim and Tip
or, The Adventures of a Boy and a Dog

Author: James Otis

Release date: September 18, 2024 [eBook #74436]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1883

Credits: Produced by Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIM AND TIP ***

TIM AND TIP

HARPER’S YOUNG PEOPLE’S SERIES

New Large-type Edition

TOBY TYLER James Otis
MR. STUBBS’S BROTHER James Otis
TIM AND TIP James Otis
RAISING THE “PEARL” James Otis
ADVENTURES OF BUFFALO BILL W. F. Cody
DIDDIE, DUMPS AND TOT Mrs. L. C. Pyrnelle
MUSIC AND MUSICIANS Lucy C. Lillie
THE CRUISE OF THE CANOE CLUB W. L. Alden
THE CRUISE OF THE “GHOST” W. L. Alden
MORAL PIRATES W. L. Alden
A NEW ROBINSON CRUSOE W. L. Alden
PRINCE LAZYBONES Mrs. W. J. Hays
THE FLAMINGO FEATHER Kirk Munroe
DERRICK STERLING Kirk Munroe
CHRYSTAL, JACK & CO. Kirk Munroe
WAKULLA Kirk Munroe
THE ICE QUEEN Ernest Ingersoll
THE RED MUSTANG W. O. Stoddard
THE TALKING LEAVES W. O. Stoddard
TWO ARROWS W. O. Stoddard

HARPER & BROTHERS
PUBLISHERS

[Illustration: TIM SHOWS THE MARKS OF CAPTAIN BABBIGE’S WHIP]

TIM AND TIP

The Adventures of a Boy
and a Dog

JAMES OTIS

Author of “MR. STUBBS’S BROTHER,”
“TOBY TYLER,” Etc.

ILLUSTRATED

[Illustration]

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON

TIM AND TIP

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. TIM’S FLIGHT 1
II. SAM, THE FAT BOY 10
III. TIP’S INTRODUCTION TO MRS. SIMPSON 25
IV. TIM’S START IN LIFE 41
V. LIFE ON BOARD THE “PRIDE OF THE WAVE” 58
VI. TIM MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE 74
VII. TIP’S HURRIED LANDING 95
VIII. MINCHIN’S ISLAND 110
IX. THE FAMOUS BEAR-HUNT 129
X. BILL THOMPSON’S TENT 153
XI. ONE COOK SPOILS THE BROTH 168
XII. TIP’S DANGER 185
XIII. IN CONCLUSION 202

ILLUSTRATIONS

Tim Shows the Marks of Captain Babbige’s Whip _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

“Peppermint or Lemon?” 20

The Small Passenger with the Large Valise 75

Making Ready to Embark 136

TIM AND TIP

TIM AND TIP
OR,
The Adventures of a Boy and a Dog

CHAPTER I.

TIM’S FLIGHT.

“Strayed.――A boy from the home of the subscriber; and any one
returning him will be suitably rewarded. Said boy is about
eleven years old, has short, light hair, a turned-up nose, and
face very much tanned. When last seen he had on a suit of blue
clothes considerably faded and worn, and had with him a yellow
dog, with a long body, short legs, and a short tail. The boy
answers to the name of Tim, and the dog to that of Tip. Any
information regarding the runaway will be liberally paid for.
Address Captain Rufus Babbige, in care of this office.”

“There, Tim,” said the man who had been reading the advertisement aloud
from the columns of a country newspaper to a very small boy, with
large, dark eyes, and an exceedingly dirty face, who was listening
intently, “you see that Rufe Babbige don’t intend to let you get away
as easy as you thought, for he’s willing to pay something for any news
of you, though I’ll be bound he won’t part with very much money.”

“But he always said he wished I’d have sense enough to die,” replied
the boy, trying to choke down the sob of terror which would rise in his
throat at the idea of being thus advertised for as though he were a
thief; “an’ it don’t seem to me that there’s been a day but what he or
Aunt Betsey have given me a whippin’ since my mother died. Look here!”

As he spoke the boy pushed the ragged coat sleeves up from his thin
arms, showing long discolorations which had evidently been made by a
whip-lash.

“It’s all over me just like that, an’ I don’t see what he wants Tip an’
me back for, ’cause he’s always said he wished he was rid of us.”

“It’s a shame to treat a boy that always behaved himself as well as you
did like that,” said the proprietor of the country store into which the
runaway had entered to purchase a couple of crackers, “an’ I don’t see
what the folks up in Selman were thinking of to let him abuse you so. I
don’t approve of boys running away, but in your case I think the only
fault is that you didn’t run sooner.”

“But now that he’s put it in the paper he’ll be sure to catch me, for
I’m only six miles from Selman;” and the big tears began to roll down
the boy’s cheeks, marking their course by the clean lines they left on
the dirty face.

“Anybody that knows him wouldn’t any more think of sending you back
to him than they would of cutting your hand off,” said the man, as he
shook his fist savagely in the direction Captain Babbige was supposed
to be.

“But what does he want us for, when he’s always wanted to get rid of
us?” persisted the boy, stooping down to caress a very queer-looking
dog, whose body seemed to have been stretched out, and whose legs
looked as if they had been worn down by much running.

“I reckon I can tell you why he wants you, Tim, and when you get older
it’ll do you some good to know it. He’s your uncle, an’ your legal
guardian, an’ I’ve been told by them that knows that he’s got quite a
sum of money belonging to you, which would all be his if you should
die. Some day when you are of age you come back here and claim it; but
don’t you let him get hold of you again now.”

“Indeed I won’t,” replied the boy, trembling at the thought of the
fate which would be his if he should be so unlucky as to fall into the
captain’s clutches again.

“Run away from here so far that he can’t find you, and when you get a
place where you can go to work be as good a boy as I’ve always known
you to be, and you’ll come out of this trouble by being a good, honest
man. Here’s a couple of dollars for you, and I only wish it was in my
power to take you home with me and keep you. But Rufe Babbige would
soon break that up, and the best thing you can do is to trudge off as
fast as possible.”

The boy tried to thank the kind-hearted shopkeeper, but the tears were
coming so fast, and the big sob in his throat had got so far up toward
his mouth, that he could not utter a word.

Just then a customer entered the store, and he hurried away at once,
closely followed by the odd-looking dog, who displayed, in his way,
quite as much affection for the boy as the boy did for him.

Down through the one street of the little village, out on to the
country road, the two walked as if they were already foot-sore and
weary; and when at last they came to where the road wound along through
the woods Tim sat down on a rock to rest, while Tip huddled up close
beside him.

“It’s kinder too bad to be called such names in the papers, ain’t it,
Tip?” said the boy, speaking for the first time since they had left the
store, “an’ I think he ought to be ’shamed of hisself to talk so about
you. It ain’t your fault if your legs is short an’ your tail gone;
you’re worth more’n all the dogs in this world, an’ you’re all that
I’ve got to love me, an’ we’ll never go back to let Captain Babbige
beat us any more, will we, Tip?”

Just then the dog, which had been chewing some blades of grass, got one
in his nose, a mishap which caused him to sneeze and shake his head
vigorously; while Tim, who firmly believed that Tip understood all that
was said to him, looked upon this as a token that the dog agreed to
what he had said, and he continued, earnestly:

“I know just as well as you do, Tip, that it wasn’t right for us to run
away, but how could we help it? They kept tellin’ us we was in the way
an’ they wished we’d die, and everybody that was kind to us told us
we’d better do just what we have done. Now we’re off in the big, wide
world all by ourselves, Tip, an’ whether the cap’en catches us or not,
you’ll love me just as much as you always have, won’t you, for you’re
all I’ve got that cares for me?”

The dog was still busy trying to settle the question about the grass
in his nose, and after that was decided in his favor he looked up at
his young master and barked several times, as if expressing his opinion
about something, which the boy interpreted as advice.

“Well, I s’pose you’re right, Tip――we had ought to go along, for if we
don’t we sha’n’t even find a barn to sleep in, as we did last night.”

As he spoke Tim arose wearily from his hard seat, his legs stiff from
long walking, and trudged along, while Tip followed as closely at his
heels as it was possible for him to get.

It was nearly sunset, and as he walked on it seemed as if he was
getting farther into the woods, instead of coming out at some place
where he could find shelter for the night.

“Looks kinder lonesome, don’t it, Tip?” and Tim choked back a sob as he
spoke. “I don’t want to sleep out here in the woods if I can help it;
but it wouldn’t be half so bad if one of us was alone, would it?”

In this fashion, keeping up a sort of a conversation――if it could be
called such where one did all the talking and the other wagged his
short stump of a tail――the two journeyed on until it was almost too
dark to distinguish objects a short distance ahead.

Only once since the store-keeper had given him the two dollars had Tim
thought of what he had said regarding Captain Babbige’s having money
of his, and then he put it out of his mind as an impossibility, for
surely, he thought, he would not have scolded so about what he and his
dog ate if Tim had had any property of his own.

“I guess we shall have to sleep in the woods, Tip,” said Tim,
disconsolately, as the trees appeared to be less thick together, but
yet no signs of a house; “but it won’t be much worse than what Aunt
Betsey calls a bed good enough for boys like me.”

Just at that instant Tim was frightened out of nearly all his senses,
and Tip started on a barking match that threatened to shake his poor
apology of a tail from his thin body, by hearing a shrill voice cry out:

“Look here, feller, where are you goin’ this time of night?”

CHAPTER II.

SAM, THE FAT BOY.

Tim stopped as quickly as if he had stepped into a pool of glue which
had suddenly hardened, holding him prisoner, and peered anxiously
ahead, trying to discover where the voice came from.

“Didn’t know there was anybody ’round here, did yer?” continued the
voice, while the body still remained hidden from view.

Again Tim tried to discover the speaker, and, failing in the attempt,
he asked, in a sort of frightened desperation, “Who are you, anyhow?”

“Call off yer dog, an’ I’ll show yer.”

These words made Tim feel very much braver, for they showed that the
speaker as well as himself was frightened, and he lost no time in
reducing Tip to a state of subjection by clasping him firmly around the
neck.

“Now come out; he wouldn’t hurt a fly, an’ it’s only his way to bark
when he’s kinder scared.”

Thus urged, the party afraid of the dog came out of his place of
hiding, which was none other than the branches of a tree, by simply
dropping to the ground――a proceeding which gave another shock to the
nerves of both Tim and Tip.

But there was nothing about him very alarming, and when Tim had a
full view of him, he was inclined to be angry with himself for having
allowed so short a boy to frighten him. He was no taller than Tim and,
as near as could be seen in the dim light, about as broad as he was
long――a perfect ball of jelly, with a face, two legs, and two arms
carved on it.

It was impossible to gain a good view of his face, but that did not
trouble Tim, who was only anxious to learn who this boy was, and
whether he might be sufficiently acquainted with Captain Babbige to
send him news of the runaway.

The new-comer did not appear to be in any hurry to begin the
conversation, but stood, with his hands in his pockets, eying Tim as
though he was some strange animal who might be expected to cut up queer
antics at any moment.

“Hullo!” said Tim, after he thought the fat boy had looked at him quite
as long as was necessary.

“Hullo!” was the reply.

“Where did you come from?”

“Outer that tree there,” replied the boy, bravely, as he pointed to the
place where he had been hiding.

“Yes, I saw you come out of there; but that ain’t where you live, is
it?”

“No.”

“Where do you live?” And Tim was beginning to think that it required
a great deal of labor to extract a small amount of knowledge from this
fat party.

“Oh, I live over the hill, about half a mile down the road. Got
anything good to eat?”

The question seemed so unnecessary and out of place, considering all
the circumstances, that Tim took no notice of it, but asked, “What’s
your name?”

“Sam.”

“Sam what?”

“I dunno, but I guess it’s Simpson.”

“Well, you’re funny if you ain’t sure what your name is,” said Tim,
thoughtfully, forgetting his own troubles in his curiosity about this
queer specimen. “What makes you think your name’s Simpson?”

“’Cause that’s my father’s name.”

By this time Tim had released his hold of Tip’s neck, and the dog
walked around Sam on a sort of smelling tour, very much to the boy’s
discomfort.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Tim, “he won’t bite you. He’s the best and
quietest dog in the world if you only let him alone.”

“I’ll let him alone,” replied Sam, still in doubt as to Tip’s good
intentions. “I’ll let him alone, an’ I wish he’d let me alone.”

“He’s only kinder gettin’ acquainted, that’s all. Say, do you s’pose
your father would let me sleep in his barn to-night?”

“I dunno. What do you want to for?”

“’Cause I ain’t got any other place.”

If Sam hadn’t been so fat he would probably have started in surprise;
but as it was he expressed his astonishment by a kind of grunt, and,
going nearer to Tim, he asked, “Where do you live?”

“Nowhere. Me an’ Tip are tryin’ to find some place where we can earn
our own livin’,” replied Tim, in doubt as to whether he ought to tell
this boy his whole story or not.

“Ain’t you got any father or mother?”

“No,” was the sad reply. “They’re both dead, an’ me an’ Tip have to
look out for ourselves. We did live with Captain Babbige, but we
couldn’t stand it any longer, an’ so we started out on our own hook.”

“Where do you get things to eat?”

“We’ve got some money to buy ’em with.”

“How much have you got?”

“I had two cents when I left Selman, an’ Mr. Sullivan, that keeps a
store down to the mills, gave me two dollars.”

“I’ll tell you what let’s do,” said Sam, eagerly, as his eyes sparkled
with delight. “Jest the other side of my house there’s a store, an’ we
can go down there an’ get two big sticks of candy, an’ have an awful
good time.”

Tim reflected a moment. He knew that he ought to keep his money; but
Sam’s idea seemed such a good one that the thought of the pleasure
which would come with the eating of the candy was too much for his
notions of economy; therefore he compromised by saying, “I will, if
you’ll let me sleep in your barn.”

Sam quickly agreed to that――in order to get the candy he would probably
have promised to give the entire farm away――and the three――Sam, Tim and
Tip――started off, the best of friends.

But before they had gone very far Sam stopped in the middle of the
road, saying, mournfully, “My! but I forgot all about the cow!”

“What cow?”

“Father sent me down here to find old Whiteface, an’ I forgot all about
her when I saw you.”

“Well, why don’t you find her now? Me an’ Tip will help you.”

“But it’ll take so long, an’ before we get back the store will be shut
up,” objected Sam, who stood undecided in the road, as if he had half
a mind to leave old Whiteface to her fate while he made sure of the
candy.

“Never mind if the store is shut up,” said Tim, earnestly. “We can get
the candy just as well in the morning, an’ perhaps we’ll find her so
quick that there’ll be plenty of time.”

“Will you buy the candy in the mornin’ if you don’t to-night?”

“Yes, I will, honest.”

“Cross your throat.”

Tim went through the ceremony of crossing his throat to make his
promise more solemn, and search was made for the cow.

Up to this time it was plain that Sam did not feel any great amount of
love for or confidence in Tip; but when, after a few moments’ search,
his loud bark told that he had discovered the missing cow, his future
was assured, so far as Sam Simpson was concerned.

“Now, that’s somethin’ like,” he said, after they had started homeward.
“When you’ve got such a dog as that, all a feller’s got to do is to
set down an’ send him after ’em. It’s the awfullest hateful thing in
the world to go off huntin’ cows when you don’t want to.”

Tim had many and serious doubts as to whether Tip could be depended on
to go for the cows alone; but he did not think it best to put those
doubts in words, lest he should deprive his pet of his new-found friend.

It was only a ten minutes’ walk to Sam’s home, and when the cow had
been led to her stall Tim proposed that Sam should ask permission for
him to sleep in the barn.

“There’s time enough for that when we come back,” was Sam’s reply, the
thought of the candy he was to have in case they reached the store
before it was closed for the night driving all else from his mind.
“Come on; we’ll catch Mr. Coburn if we hurry.”

Now, Tim would much rather have had the question settled as to his
sleeping quarters before starting out for pleasure; but Sam was so
eager for the promised feast that he felt obliged to do as he said,
more especially since it was through his influence that he hoped to
receive the favor.

Naturally Sam Simpson was not a quick-motioned boy; but no one could
have complained of the speed with which he went toward Mr. Coburn’s
store that night, and Tim found it hard work to keep pace with him.

The store was open, but the proprietor was just making preparations
for closing. The candy, placed in two rather dirty glass jars, was
in its accustomed place, and beamed down upon them in all its sticky
sweetness, delighting Sam simply by the view to such an extent that he
could hardly keep his two feet upon the floor.

With a gravity befitting the occasion and the amount of wealth he
was about to squander, Tim asked to be allowed to see the goods he
proposed to buy, in order to make sure they were of the proper length.

Old Mr. Coburn rubbed his glasses carefully, wiped his face as a sort
of preface to his task, and set about making this last sale of the day
with the air of a man who knows he is called upon to deal with very
exacting customers.

It was fully five minutes before Tim could settle the weighty question
of whether it was better to buy a stick of peppermint and one of lemon,
and thus by dividing them get two distinct treats, or to take both of
one kind, and thus prevent any dispute as to whether he had made a just
and equal division.

[Illustration: “PEPPERMINT OR LEMON?”]

While this struggle was going on in the purchaser’s mind Sam fidgeted
around, standing first on one foot and then on the other, watching
every movement Tim made, while Tip searched over every portion of the
store, very much to Mr. Coburn’s annoyance.

The decision was finally made, but not before Mr. Coburn hinted that
he could not afford to burn a quart of oil in order that his customers
might see how to spend two cents, and, with a peppermint stick in one
hand and a lemon stick in the other, Tim left the store, followed by
Sam and preceded by Tip.

To make a fair division of the sweet feast was quite as great a task as
the purchase had been, and it was begun in the gravest manner.

The two sticks were carefully measured, and by the aid of Sam’s
half-bladed jack-knife, broken at the proper place. A large rock by the
side of the road served as a seat, and there the two boys munched away
as slowly as possible, in order that the feast might be prolonged to
the utmost.

Tip sat close by, watching every mouthful in a hungry way, but refusing
the portion Tim offered him.

Now that the feast was fast fading away into only a remembrance, the
thought of where he was to spend the night began to trouble Tim again,
and he asked, anxiously, “Sure your father will let me sleep in the
barn?”

Before the candy had been purchased the fat boy had been perfectly sure
Tim could sleep in his father’s barn; but now that the dainty was in
his possession he began to have some doubts on the subject.

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” he said, his mouth so full of candy that
Tim could hardly understand him. “Father an’ mother will be in bed when
we get home, an’ it won’t be any use to bother ’em. You come right
up-stairs to bed with me, an’ we’ll fix it in the morning.”

“I’d rather ask them, an’ sleep in the barn,” said Tim, not half liking
this plan.

“But they’ll be asleep, an’ you can’t,” was the quiet reply.

“Then I’d rather go in the barn anyway.”

“Now see here,” said Sam, with an air of wisdom, as he sucked the
remaining particles of candy from his fingers, “I know father an’
mother better’n you do, don’t I?”

“Yes,” replied Tim, glad that Sam had made one statement with which he
could agree.

“Then you do jest as I tell you. We’ll creep up-stairs like a couple of
mice, an’ in the morning I’ll fix everything. Mother wouldn’t want you
to sleep in the barn when you could come with me as well as not; an’
you do as I tell you.”

It did not seem to Tim that he could do anything else, and he said, as
he slid down from the rock, “I’ll do it, Sam, but I rather you’d ask
them.”

Sam, content with having gained his point, walked silently along, with
Tim by his side, and followed by Tip, who acted as if he knew he was
going out to spend the night without a proper invitation.

When they reached the house not a light was to be seen, and the three
crept up-stairs, not quite as softly as mice, but so quietly that Mr.
and Mrs. Simpson did not hear them.

That night Sam, Tim, and Tip lay on one bed, and neither one of them
lost any sleep by thinking of their possible reception in the morning.

CHAPTER III.

TIP’S INTRODUCTION TO MRS. SIMPSON.

On the following morning Tim and Sam were awakened very suddenly by
a confused noise, which appeared to come from the kitchen below, and
which could not have been greater had a party of boys been engaged in a
game of leap-frog there.

A woman’s screams were heard amid the crashing of furniture as it was
overturned, the breaking of crockery, and the sounds of scurryings to
and fro, while high above all came, at irregular intervals, the yelp of
a dog.

This last sound caused Tim the greatest fear. A hasty glance around the
room had shown him that Tip, who had been peacefully curled up on the
outside of the bed when he last remembered anything, was no longer to
be seen, and, without knowing how it could have happened, he was sure
it was none other than his pet who was uttering those cries of distress.

In a few moments more he learned that he was not mistaken, for Tip
rushed into the room, his tongue hanging out, his stub of a tail
sticking straight up, and looking generally as though he had been
having a hard time of it.

Before Tim, who had at once leaped out of bed, could comfort his pet,
a voice, sounding as if its owner was sadly out of breath, was heard
crying, “Sam! Sam! Sammy!”

“What, marm?” replied Sam, who lay quaking with fear, and repenting the
fact that his desire for candy had led him into what looked very much
like a bad scrape.

“Did a dog just come into your room?”

“Yes, marm.”

“Throw something at him and drive him out.”

For an instant Sam clutched the pillow as if he would obey the command;
but Tim had his arms around Tip’s neck, ready to save him from any
injury, even if he was obliged to suffer himself.

“Why don’t you drive him out?” cried Mrs. Simpson, after she had vainly
waited to hear the sound of her son’s battle with the animal.

“Why――why――why――” stammered Sam, at a loss to know what to say, and
trembling with fear.

“Are you afraid of him?”

“No, marm,” was the faltering reply.

“Then why don’t you do as I tell you?”

“Why――why, Tim won’t let me,” cried Sam, now so frightened that he
hardly knew what he did say.

“Why, what’s the matter with the boy?” Tim heard the good woman say;
and then the sound of rapid footsteps on the stairs told that she was
coming to make a personal investigation.

Sam, in a tremor of fear, rolled over on his face and buried his head
in the pillow, as if by such a course he could shelter himself from the
storm he expected was about to break upon him.

Tim was crouching in the middle of the floor, his face close down to
Tip’s nose, and his arms clasped so tightly around the dog’s neck that
it seemed as if he would choke him.

That was the scene Mrs. Simpson looked in upon after she had been
nearly frightened out of her senses by a strange dog while she was
cooking breakfast. She had tried to turn the intruder out-of-doors; but
he, thinking she wanted to play with him, had acted in such a strange
and at the same time familiar manner, that she had become afraid, and
the confusion which had awakened the boys had been caused by both, when
neither knew exactly what to do.

Mrs. Simpson stood at the room door looking in fully half a minute
before she could speak, and then she asked, “What is the meaning of
this, Samuel?”

Sam made no reply, but buried his face deeper in the pillows, while the
ominous shaking of his fat body told that he was getting ready to cry
in advance of the whipping he expected to receive.

“Who is this boy?” asked the lady, finding that her first question was
likely to receive no reply.

Sam made no sign of life, and Tim, knowing that something must be said
at once, replied piteously, “Please, ma’am, it’s only me an’ Tip.”

Sam’s face was still buried in the pillows; but the trembling had
ceased, as if he was anxious to learn whether his companion could
extricate himself from the position into which he had been led.

“Who are you, and how did you come here?” asked Mrs. Simpson,
wonderingly.

Tim turned toward the bed, as if he expected Sam would answer that
question; but that young man made no sign that he had even heard it,
and Tim was obliged to tell the story.

“I’m only Tim Babbige, an’ this is Tip. We was tryin’ to find a place
to sleep last night, when we met Sam, an’ after we’d found the cow we
went down to the store an’ bought some candy, an’ when we come back Sam
was goin’ to ask you to let me sleep in the barn, but you was in bed;
so he said it was all right for me to come up here an’ sleep with him.
I’m awful sorry I did it, an’ sorry Tip acted so bad; but if you won’t
scold we’ll go right straight away.”

Mrs. Simpson was by no means a hard-hearted woman, and the boy’s
explanation, as well as his piteous way of making it, caused her to
feel kindly disposed toward him. She asked him about himself; and by
the time he had finished telling of the death of his parents, the cruel
treatment he had received from Captain and Mrs. Babbige, and of his
desperate attempt at bettering his condition, her womanly heart had a
great deal of sympathy in it for him.

Then Tim added, as if it was the last of his pitiful story, “Me an’
Tip ain’t got anybody who cares for us but each other, an’ if we don’t
get a chance to work, so’s we can get some place to live, I don’t know
what we will do.” Then he laid his head on the dog’s nose, and cried
as though his little heart were breaking, while Tip set up a series of
most doleful howls.

“You poor child,” said the good woman, kindly, “you’re not large enough
to work for your living, and I don’t know what Mr. Simpson will say
to your being here very long; but you shall stay till we see what can
be done for you, whatever he says. Now, don’t cry any more, but dress
yourself, and come down-stairs and help me clean up the litter the
dog and I made. Sam, you lazy boy,” she added, as she turned toward
her half-concealed son, “get up and dress yourself. You ought to be
ashamed for not telling me last night what you were about.”

Then, patting Tim on the head, the good woman went down-stairs to
attend to her household duties.

As soon as the sound of the closing door told that his mother had left
the room Sam rolled out of bed, much as a duck gets out of her nest,
and said triumphantly to Tim, who was busy dressing, “Well, we got out
of that scrape all right, didn’t we?”

Tim looked up at him reproachfully, remembering Sam’s silence when the
affair looked so dark; but he contented himself with simply saying,
“Yes, it’s all right till we see what your father will say about it.”

“Oh, he won’t say anything so long as mother don’t,” was the confident
reply; and the conversation was ended by Tim going down-stairs to help
Mrs. Simpson in repairing the damage done by Tip.

Before he had been helping her very long he showed himself so apt at
such work that she asked, “How does it happen that you are so handy at
such things?”

“I don’t know,” replied Tim, bashfully, “’cept that Aunt Betsey always
made me help her in the kitchen, an’ I s’pose it comes handy for a
feller to do what he must do.”

By the time Sam came down-stairs the kitchen presented its usual neat
appearance, and he was disposed to make light of his mother’s fright;
but she soon changed his joy to grief by telling him to go to the
spring for a pail of water.

Now, if there was one thing more than another which Sam disliked to
do, it was to bring water from the spring. The distance was long, and
he believed it was unhealthy for him to lift as much weight as that
contained in a ten-quart pail of water. As usual, he began to make
a variety of excuses, chief among which was the one that the water
brought the night before was as cool and fresh as any that could be
found in the spring.

Tim, anxious to make himself useful in any way, offered to go, and then
Sam was perfectly willing to point out the spring, and to generally
superintend the job.

“Tim may go to help you,” said Mrs. Simpson, “but you are not to let
him do all the work.”

Sam muttered something which his mother understood to mean that he
would obey her, and the boys left the house, going through the grove of
pine-trees that bordered a little pond, at one side of which, sunk deep
in the earth, was a hogshead, into which the water bubbled and flowed
from its bed under the ground.

But Sam was far more interested in pointing out objects of interest to
himself than in leading the way to the spring. He showed Tim the very
hole where he had captured a woodchuck alive, called his attention to a
tree in which he was morally certain a family of squirrels had their
home, and enlarged upon the merits of certain kinds of traps best
calculated to deceive the bushy-tailed beauties.

Tim did not fancy this idea of idling when there was work to be done;
and as soon as he saw the spring he hurried off, in the middle of a
story Sam was telling about a rabbit he caught the previous winter.

“What’s the use of bein’ in such a rush?” asked Sam, as, obliged to
end his story, he ran after Tim. “Mother don’t want the water till
breakfast’s ready, an’ that won’t be for a good while yet. Jest come
over on this side the pond, an’ I’ll show you the biggest frog you ever
saw in your life; that is, if he’s got out of bed yet.”

“Let’s get the water first, an’ then we can come back an’ see
everything,” said Tim, as he hurried on.

“But jest come down here a minute while I see if I can poke him out
of his hole,” urged Sam, as he picked up a stick and started for the
frog’s home.

Tim paid no attention to him; he had been sent for water, and he did
not intend to waste any time until that work had been done. He leaned
over the side of the hogshead to lower the pail in, when Sam shouted,
“Come here; I’ve found him!”

But Tim went on with his work; and just as he had filled the pail, and
was drawing it up, he heard a cry of fear, accompanied by a furious
splashing, which he knew could not come from a frog, however large he
might be.

Dropping his pail, at the risk of having it sink beyond his reach, he
looked up just in time to see a pair of very fat legs sticking above
the water at that point where the frog was supposed to reside, and to
hear a gurgling sound, as if the owner of the legs was strangling.

For a single moment Tim was at a loss to account for the disappearance
of Sam, and the sudden appearance of those legs; but by seeing Tip run
toward the spot, barking furiously, and by seeing the stick which was
to have disturbed the frog in his morning nap floating on the water, he
understood that Sam had fallen into the pond, without having had half
so much fun with the frog as he expected.

Tim, now thoroughly frightened, ran quickly toward his unfortunate
companion, calling loudly for help.

When he reached the bank from which Sam had slipped the legs were
still sticking straight up in the air, showing that their owner’s head
had stuck fast in the mud. By holding on to the bushes with one hand,
and stretching out the other, he succeeded in getting hold of Sam’s
trousers, at which he struggled and pulled with all his strength.
Although it could hardly be expected that so slight a boy as Tim could
do very much toward handling so heavy a body as Sam’s, he did succeed
in freeing him from the mud, and in pulling him to the surface of the
water.

After nearly five minutes of hard work, during which Tip did all he
could to help, Tim succeeded in pulling the fat boy into more shallow
water, where he managed to get on to his feet again.

A mournful-looking picture he made as he stood on the bank, with the
water running from every point of his clothing, while the black mud in
which he had been stuck formed a cap for his head, and portions of it
ran down over his face, striping him as decidedly as ever fancy painted
an Indian.

He was a perfect picture of fat, woe, and dirt, and if he had not been
in such peril a few moments before Tim would have laughed outright.

He was evidently trying to say something, for he kept gasping for
breath, and each time he opened his mouth it was filled with the mud
and water that ran from his hair.

“What is the matter?” asked Tim, anxiously. “Art you hurt much?”

“No――no,” gasped Sam; “but――but I saw the frog.”

This time Tim did not try to restrain his mirth; and when Mrs. Simpson,
who had been startled by Tim’s cries for help, arrived on the spot, she
found nothing very alarming. Master Sam received a severe shaking, and
was led away to be cleaned while Tim and Tip were left to attend to the
work of bringing the water.

At breakfast――where Sam ate so heartily that it was evident he had not
been injured by his bath――the question of what should be done about
allowing Tim to remain was discussed by Mr. and Mrs. Simpson.

The farmer said that a boy as small as he could not earn his salt, and
it would be better for him to try to find a family who had no boys of
their own, or go back to Captain Babbige, where he belonged. He argued,
while Tim listened in fear, that it was wrong to encourage boys to run
away from their lawful protectors, and was inclined to make light of
the suffering Tim had told about.

Fortunately for the runaway, Mrs. Simpson believed his story entirely,
and would not listen to any proposition to send him back to Selman. The
result of the matter was that Mr. Simpson agreed to allow him to remain
there a few days, but with the distinct understanding that his stay
must be short.

This was even more than the homeless boy had expected, and he appeared
so thankful and delighted at the unwilling consent that the farmer
began to think perhaps there was more in him than appeared on the
surface, although he still remained firm in his decision that he must
leave the farm as soon as possible.

CHAPTER IV.

TIM’S START IN LIFE.

During the first day of Tim’s stay at the Simpson farm he was careful
to help in every kind of work, and many were the praises he won from
Mrs. Simpson, who held him up as an example to Sam until that young man
almost felt sorry he had brought him there.

At night Tim went with Sam for the cow, and here it was that Tip made
a most miserable failure, so far as showing that he was a valuable dog
was concerned.

Sam, remembering how easily the dog had found the cow the night before,
wanted to wait by the bars and let Tip go in and bring her out, and Tim
was obliged to tell him that his pet had not been trained to do that.

Then Sam put on an injured air, as if his mistake had come from
something Tim had said, rather than being an idea from his own rather
thick head.

That night the boys and the dog went again to Mr. Coburn’s store; not
because Tim proposed to spend any of his two dollars, but because there
was a great fascination about the place for Sam. He delighted to lounge
around there, at a time when he ought to have been in bed, listening to
the conversation of older loafers, believing he was gaining wisdom and
an insight into the ways of the world at the same time.

On that particular night there were not so many of the noble army
of loafers present as usual, and the conversation was so dull that
Mr. Coburn found plenty of time to question Tim as to every little
particular about himself.

Tim saw no reason why he should gratify the store-keeper’s curiosity,
and perhaps let some one know his story who would think it his duty to
send information to Captain Babbige, so he contented himself by simply
saying that he had come there in the hope of getting some work to do.

“Want to work, do yer?” asked a stout man, with a very red face and
gruff voice, who had been listening to the conversation.

“Yes, sir,” replied Tim, a trifle awed by the gruffness of the voice.

“What can you do?” and the red-faced man now turned to have a better
view.

“’Most anything, sir.”

“Where are yer folks?”

“My father an’ mother are dead,” said Tim, sadly, as he stooped to pat
Tip’s head in a loving way.

“Well, now, see here,” and the man took Tim by the arm, as if he was
about to examine his muscle: “I’m the captain of a steamboat that runs
out of the city, and I want just such a boy as you are to work ’round
at anything. I’ll give you three dollars a month and find you. What do
you say to it? Will you come?”

Tim was not exactly certain what the gruff-voiced man meant when he
said he would pay him so much money and “find him,” and he hesitated
about answering until he could understand it.

Mr. Coburn thought it was the wages that prevented a speedy acceptance
of the brilliant offer, and he hastened to show his friendliness to the
captain by saying:

“Such offers as them don’t grow on every bush, sonny, an’ you had
better take it. I’ve known Captain Pratt a good many years, an’ I know
he will treat you just as if he was your father. Three dollars is a
good deal of money for a little shaver like you.”

Tim looked at Sam for a moment doubtfully, and then he thought of what
Mr. Simpson had said about his remaining at the farm.

“Can I take Tip with me?”

“Oh, that’s your dog, is it? He hain’t a very handsome one; but I
suppose you can find a chance for him somewhere on the boat――yes, you
can take him.”

“Then I’ll go with you.”

“All right. I shall start from this store to-morrow morning at ten
o’clock. Will you be here?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Tim, and then he beckoned Sam to go out. He had
made up his mind suddenly, and now that it was too late to draw back he
wanted to talk the matter over, and hear what Sam had to say about it.

There was no need for him to have feared that Sam did not look with
favor upon the plan, for before they were out of sight of the loungers
in the store that young man burst out in an envious tone:

“Well, you are the awfullest luckiest feller I ever heard of! Here
you’ve gone an’ got a chance to run a steamboat, where you won’t have
anything to do but jest sail ’round wherever you want to. I wish it
was me that was going.”

If Tim had been in doubt before as to the wisdom of the step he was
about to take, he was perfectly satisfied now that Sam was so delighted
with it, and he began to think that perhaps he had been fortunate.

Mr. Simpson did not seem to think the opening in life which had been
so suddenly discovered for Tim was so very brilliant, and Mrs. Simpson
actually looked as if she felt sorry. But, as neither of them made any
objection to it, or offered the boy a home with them, there was nothing
to prevent him from carrying out the agreement he had made.

At a very early hour on the following morning Tim was up and dressed.
Sam’s glowing pictures of the happy life he was about to lead had so
excited him that he was anxious to begin it at once, and his sleep had
been troubled by dreams of life on a steamboat under all kinds of
possible and impossible circumstances.

Mr. Simpson gave him twenty-five cents as a nest-egg to the fortune he
was about to make; and when Mrs. Simpson packed a generous lunch for
him he choked up so badly that it was only with the greatest difficulty
he could thank her for her kindness.

“Be a good boy, and never do anything to be ashamed of,” was the good
lady’s parting charge, and he answered:

“I’ll try hard, so’s you sha’n’t be sorry you was so good to me.”

Sam walked toward the store with him, while as lonely and envious a
feeling as he ever knew came over him as he thought of all the things
Tim would see, simply because he had neither home nor parents, while
he, who had both, was obliged to remain where he could see nothing.

“I wish it was me that was goin’,” he said, with a sigh of envy.

“If I had as good a home as you’ve got I wouldn’t want to go away,”
replied Tim, gravely; and yet Sam had talked so much about the charms
of the life he was so soon to lead that he had already begun to look
upon himself as a very fortunate boy, and was impatient to begin his
work at once.

The walk to Mr. Coburn’s store was not a long one; and although they
were there fully half an hour before the time agreed upon, they found
Captain Pratt ready and waiting for them. In fact, it seemed almost as
if he feared his new boy, however unimportant the position he was to
occupy, would not keep the agreement he had made.

“I’m glad to see you on hand early, for it’s a good sign,” and the
captain’s face was wreathed in what he intended should be a pleasing
smile, but which really was an ugly grimace.

Tim hardly knew what reply to make, for that smile caused him to feel
very uncomfortable; but he managed to say that he would always try to
be on time, and the captain, in the excess of his good nature, gave him
such a forcibly friendly slap on the shoulder that his teeth chattered.

In order to reach the city from the four corners where Mr. Pratt lived
it was necessary to ride four miles in a carriage, and then take the
steam cars.

An open wagon was the mode of conveyance; and as the driver was quite
large, while Captain Pratt was no small party, there was no other
way for Tim to ride save curled up in the end, where he could keep a
lookout for Tip, who was, of course, to follow on behind as fast as his
short legs would permit.

When everything was ready for the start, and Captain Pratt was making
some final business arrangements with Mr. Coburn, Sam bade Tim good-bye.

“You’re awful lucky,” he said, as he clambered up on the wagon, where
he could whisper in his friend’s ear; “an’ if you see any place for me
on the steamer, send word right up――you can tie a note on Tip’s collar
an’ send him up with it――an’ I’ll come right down.”

Sam would have said more, but the horse started; he nearly tumbled from
his perch, and Tim’s journey to the city had begun.

It seemed to Tim that Captain Pratt changed as soon as they started.
Instead of keeping up the idea of fatherly benevolence, which he had
seemed to be full to running over with, he spoke sharply, and did not
try to avoid hurting the boy’s feelings.

If, when the wagon jolted over the rough road, the boy’s head came in
contact with his arm, which was thrown across the back of the seat, he
would tell him to keep down where he belonged; and if he heard Tim’s
heels knocking against the axle, he would scold him for not holding
them up.

Between this sudden change in the kind captain’s ways and his fear that
Tip would not be able to keep up with the wagon, Tim was feeling rather
sad when the depot was reached.

During the ride on the cars Captain Pratt took very little notice of
Tim, and when they arrived at the depot he simply said:

“Here boy, go down to Pier 43, and tell the steward of the _Pride of
the Wave_ that I’ve hired you, and get to work.”

Tim had no more idea of where Pier 43 was than he had of the location
of the Cannibal Islands, but he started out with a great show of pluck,
yet with a heavy heart.

With Tip following close at his heels, Tim walked some distance without
seeing either wharves or water, and then he inquired the way.

The first gentleman to whom he spoke was a stranger in the city, and
knew no more about it than he did; the second directed him in such a
confusing way that he went almost opposite to where he should have
gone; but the third one gave him the directions so clearly that he had
no farther trouble in reaching the desired place.

The _Pride of the Wave_ was not a large boat, and to any one accustomed
to steamers would have seemed very shabby; but to Tim she appeared like
a veritable floating palace, and it was some time before he dared to
venture on board of her.

Finally he saw one of the deck hands, who, despite his dirty clothes,
did not appear to be awed by the magnificence of the boat, and Tim
asked him where he should find the steward.

The man told him to go below, and, with Tip still close at his heels,
he went down the brass-covered stairs to the cabin, which was lined
with berths on either side, wondering at all he saw, until he almost
forgot why he was there.

He was soon startled out of this state of wonderment, however, by
hearing a gruff voice shout:

“Now, then, youngster, what do _you_ want?”

“I want to see the steward,” replied Tim, in a voice which could hardly
be heard.

“I’m the steward. Now what else do you want?” replied the party who had
spoken first, and who was a little, old, rather pleasant-faced man,
with a voice about six sizes too large for his body.

Tim repeated the captain’s words as nearly as he could remember them,
and the steward looked him over carefully, with just the faintest show
of pity on his face.

“You don’t look as if you’d stand it very long to work for the captain
of this boat; but that’s none of my business. Whose dog is that?”

“That’s Tip: he’s mine.”

“You’d better take him ashore. The captain ain’t over and above fond of
dogs, and he won’t be likely to fall in love with one as ugly as that.”

“But he told me I could find a place for him somewhere on the boat,”
said Tim, quickly, alarmed even at the suggestion that he part with
Tip.

“Did he tell you so before or after he hired you?”

“Before I agreed to come he said I could keep Tip with me,” replied
Tim, wondering at the question.

“Then he’ll forget he ever said so; and if you think anything of the
dog, you’d better leave him on shore.”

“But I can’t,” cried Tim, piteously, his eyes filling with tears.
“Tip’s the only relation I’ve got, an’ there’s no place where he could
go.”

Tim’s distress touched the man’s heart, evidently, for he said, after a
moment’s thought:

“Then you must find some place on board where the captain won’t be
likely to see him, for he would throw him overboard in a minute if he
took the notion. Come with me.”

The steward led the way to the bows of the boat, where the freight was
stored, and after looking about some time, pointed out a little space
formed by some water barrels.

“You’d better tie him in there for a while, and then, if you are going
to stay very long on the boat, give him away.”

“But the captain said I might keep him with me,” cried Tim, fearing to
leave Tip in so desolate a place.

“Well”――and now the steward began to grow impatient――“you can try
keeping him with you if you want to run the risk, but I promise you the
captain will make quick work of him if he sees him.”

Tim hesitated a moment, and then, stooping down, he kissed Tip on the
nose, whispering to him:

“I wouldn’t leave you here if I could help it, Tip; but be a good dog,
an’ we’ll have it fixed somehow pretty soon.”

Tip licked his master’s face in reply, but did not appear to understand
the command to be a good dog; for when the rope was put around his
neck he began to howl dolefully, and his cries went straight to Tim’s
heart, inflicting as much pain as a blow on his flesh.

With the tears dropping very fast from his eyes, Tim tied Tip in the
narrow place which was to serve him as home, at least until Captain
Pratt’s intentions concerning him could be known, and then returned to
the cabin as the steward had told him.

But as he started to go Tip looked up at him so piteously, uttering a
whine that sounded in Tim’s ears so sad, that he ran back, knelt down
by his dumb friend, and kissed him over and over again, saying, as he
did so:

“Do be good, Tip. You don’t know how bad it makes me feel to have to
leave you here, an’ I’d do anything in the world to have you go with me
every step I take; but you’ve got to stay here, Tip, an’ I’ve got to
leave you.”

Then, as the dog whined again, he cried, passionately: “Oh, what
lonesome things we are, Tip! an’ we ain’t got anybody but each other in
all this wide world;” and, with both arms around Tip’s neck, he gave
way to a perfect flood of tears.

“Now, _do_ be good, Tip, an’ don’t make me feel so bad,” he said, as he
wiped his eyes on the dog’s head, and prepared once more to leave him.

It seemed almost as if the dog understood what his master had said,
for he stopped whining, and made no sound, but kept wagging his little
stump of a tail till Tim did not dare to look at him any longer.

He turned resolutely away, and, with eyes still blinded with tears,
walked down into the cabin, where he was soon busily engaged in the not
very pleasant occupation of cleaning knives.

CHAPTER V.

LIFE ON BOARD THE “PRIDE OF THE WAVE.”

When Tim first went on board the steamer which was to be his home, he
thought, from the beautiful things he saw around, that he should live
in a luxurious manner; but when he was shown the place in which he was
to sleep, he learned that the fine things were for the passengers only,
and that even comfort had been sacrificed in the quarters belonging to
the crew.

He was given a berth in the forecastle, which was anything rather than
a pleasant or even sweet-smelling place; and had it not been that he
had the satisfaction of having Tip with him when he went to bed, he
would have cried even harder and longer than he did.

Captain Pratt had not made his appearance on the steamer that day; but
the steward had told him that his duties as captain’s boy would begin
next morning at breakfast, when he would be expected to wait upon the
captain at the table. The last thing Tim thought of that night was how
he should acquit himself in what he felt would be a trying position,
and the first thing which came into his mind when he awoke on the
following morning was whether he would succeed in pleasing his new
employer or not.

After kissing Tip over and over again, and with many requests to
him to be a good dog and not make a noise, Tim tied his pet in his
narrow quarters, and then made his own toilet. He really made a good
appearance when he presented himself to Mr. Rankin, the steward, that
morning. His cheeks were rosy from a vigorous application of cold water
and a brisk rubbing; and if he could rely upon his personal appearance
for pleasing Captain Pratt, there seemed every chance that he would
succeed.

During the time he had been at work the day before Mr. Rankin took
every opportunity to instruct him in his new duties, and that morning
the steward gave him another lesson.

It was barely finished when Captain Pratt came into the cabin, and one
look at him made Tim so nervous that he forgot nearly everything he had
been told to remember.

The captain’s eyes were red, his hands trembled, and he had all the
appearance of a man who had been drinking hard the day before, and was
not yet perfectly sober.

Tim had never had any experience with drinking men; but he did not need
any explanation as to the causes of the captain’s appearance, and he
involuntarily ducked his head when his employer passed him.

“Now, then, what are you skulking there for, you young rascal?”
shouted Captain Pratt, as he fell, rather than seated himself, in his
chair.

“I ain’t skulkin’, sir,” replied Tim, meekly.

“Don’t you answer me back,” cried the captain, in a rage, and seizing
the milk pitcher as if he intended to throw it at the boy. “If you talk
back to me I’ll show you what a rope’s end means.”

Tim actually trembled with fear, and kept a bright lookout, so that he
might be ready to dodge in case the pitcher should be thrown, but did
not venture to say a word.

“Now bring me my breakfast; and let’s see if you amount to anything, or
if I only picked up a bit of waste timber when I got you.”

“What will you have, sir?” asked Tim, timidly, as he moved toward the
captain’s chair.

A blow on the side of his head that sent him reeling half-way across
the cabin served as a reply, and it was followed by a volley of oaths
that frightened him.

“What do you mean by asking me what I’ll have before you tell me what
is ready? Next time you try to wait upon a gentleman tell him what
there is. Bring me some soda-water first.”

This was an order that he had not been provided for in the lessons
given by Mr. Rankin, and Tim stood perfectly still, in frightened
ignorance.

“Come, step lively, or I’ll get up and show you how,” roared the
captain, his face flushing to a deeper red, as his rage rose to the
point of cruelty.

“Please, sir, I don’t know where it is;” and Tim’s voice sounded very
timid and piteous.

“Don’t know where it is, and been on board since yesterday! What do you
suppose I hired you for? Take that, and that.”

Suiting the action to the words, the cheerful-tempered man threw first
a knife and then a fork at the shrinking boy, and was about to follow
them with a plate, when Mr. Rankin put into Tim’s hand the desired
liquid.

Tim would rather have gone almost anywhere else than close to his
employer just then; but the glass was in his hand, the captain was
waiting for it, with a glare in his eye that boded no good if he
delayed, and he placed it on the table.

“Now what kind of a breakfast have you got?” shouted Captain Pratt as
he swallowed the liquid quickly.

It was a surprise to himself that he could remember anything just then,
but he did manage to repeat the names of the different dishes, and to
take the captain’s order.

Although he ran swiftly as possible from the table to the kitchen, and
was served there with all haste, he did not succeed in pleasing the
angry man.

“I want you to remember,” said that worthy, with a scowl, “that I ain’t
in the habit of waiting for my meals. Another time, when you are so
long, I shall give you a lesson you won’t forget.”

Tim was placing the dishes of food on the table when the captain spoke,
and he was so startled by the angry words, when he thought he deserved
pleasant ones, that he dropped a plate of potatoes.

He sprang instantly to pick them up, but Captain Pratt was out of his
chair before he could reach them, and, with all his strength, he kicked
Tim again and again. Then, without taking any heed of the prostrate
boy, who might have been seriously injured, he seated himself at the
table in perfect unconcern.

Mr. Rankin helped Tim on his feet, and, finding that no bones were
broken――which was remarkable, considering the force with which the
blows had been given――advised him to go on deck, promising that he
would serve the captain.

“But I propose that the boy shall stay here,” roared the captain. “Do
you think I’m going to let him sneak off every time I try to teach him
anything?”

Tim struggled manfully to keep back the tears that would come in his
eyes as he stood behind the captain’s chair; but they got the best of
him, as did also the little, quick sobs.

The captain appeared to grow more cheerful as he ate; and although he
called upon Tim for several articles, he managed to get along without
striking any more blows, contenting himself by abusing the poor boy
with his tongue.

It was a great relief to Tim when that meal was ended, and Mr. Rankin
told him he could eat his own breakfast before clearing away the dishes.

Tim had not the slightest desire for food then; but he did want some
for Tip. Hastily gathering up the bones from Captain Pratt’s plate, he
ran with them to the bow, where Tip was straining and tugging at his
rope as if he knew his master was having a hard time, and he wanted to
be where he could help him.

Tim placed the bones in front of Tip, and then kneeling down, he put
his arms around the dog’s neck as he poured out his woes in his ear,
while Tip tried in every way to get at the tempting feast before him.

“I’m the miserablest boy in the world, Tip, an’ I don’t know what’s
goin’ to become of us. You don’t know what a bad, ugly man Captain
Pratt is, an’ I don’t believe I can stay here another day. But you
think a good deal of me, don’t you, Tip? an’ you’d help me if you
could, wouldn’t you?”

The dog had more sympathy with the bones just then than he had with his
almost heart-broken master, and Tim, who dared not stay away too long
from the cabin, was obliged to let him partake of the feast at last.

When Tim returned from feeding the dog Mr. Rankin said all he could to
prevent him from becoming discouraged on the first day of service; but
he concluded with these words:

“I can’t advise you to stay here any longer than you can help, for you
ain’t stout enough to bear what you’ll have to take from the captain.
It’ll be hard work to get off, for he always looks sharp after new
boys, so they sha’n’t run away; but when we get back here again you’d
better make up your mind to show your heels.”

These words frightened Tim almost as much as what the captain had said
to him, for he had never thought but that he could leave whenever he
wanted to. Now he felt doubly wretched, for he realized that he was as
much a captive as he had ever been when he lived with Captain Babbige,
whose blows were not nearly as severe as this new master’s.

The _Pride of the Wave_ made but two trips a week, and each one
occupied about two days and a half. This second day after Tim had come
on board was the time of her sailing, and everything was in such a
state of confusion that no one had any time to notice the sad little
boy, who ran forward to pet his dog whenever his work would permit of
such loving act.

Among his duties was that of answering the captain’s bell, and once,
when he returned from a visit to Tip, Mr. Rankin told him, with evident
fear, that it had been nearly five minutes since he was summoned to the
wheel-house.

While the steward was speaking the bell rung again with an angry
peal that told that the party at the other end was in anything but
a pleasant mood. It did not take Tim many seconds to run to the
wheel-house, and when he arrived there, breathless and in fear, Captain
Pratt met him at the door.

“So the lesson I gave you this morning wasn’t enough, eh?” cried the
angry man, as he seized Tim by the collar and actually lifted him from
his feet. “I’ll teach you to attend to business, and not try to come
any odds over me.”

Captain Pratt had a stout piece of rope in one hand, and as he held Tim
by the other, nearly choking him, he showered heavy blows upon the poor
boy’s back and legs till his arm fairly ached.

“Now see if you will remember that!” he cried, as he released his
hold on Tim’s collar, and the poor child rolled upon the deck almost
helpless.

Tim had fallen because the hold on his neck had been so suddenly
released, rather than on account of the beating; and when he struggled
to his feet, smarting from the blows, the captain said to him:

“Now bring me a pitcher of ice-water, and see that you’re back in five
minutes, or you’ll get the same dose over again.”

Tim limped away, his back and legs feeling as if they had been bathed
in fire, and each inch of skin ached and smarted as it never had done
from the worst whipping Captain Babbige or Aunt Betsey had favored him
with. He entered the cabin with eyes swollen from unshed tears, and
sobs choking his breath, but with such a sense of injury in his heart
that he made no other sign of suffering.

Mr. Rankin was too familiar with Captain Pratt’s methods of dealing
with boys to be obliged to ask Tim any questions; but he said, as the
boy got the water:

“Try to keep a stiff upper lip, lad, and you’ll come out all right.”

Tim could not trust himself to speak, for he knew he should cry if he
did; and he carried the water to the wheel-house, going directly from
there to Tip.

The dog leaped up on him when his master came where he was, as if he
wanted a frolic; but Tim said, as he threw himself on the deck beside
him:

“Don’t, Tip, don’t play now; I feel more like dyin’. You think it’s
awful hard to stay here; but it’s twice as hard on me, ’cause the
captain whips me every chance he gets.”

Tip knew from his master’s actions that something was wrong, and he
licked the face that was drawn with deep lines of pain so lovingly that
Tim’s tears came despite his will.

He was lying by Tip’s side, moaning and crying, when old black Mose,
the cook, was attracted to the spot by his sounds of suffering.

“Wha-wha-wha’s de matter, honey? Wha’ yer takin’ on so powerful ’bout?”

Tim paid no attention to the question, repeated several times, nor did
he appear to feel the huge black hand laid so tenderly on his head.

“Wha’s de matter, honey? Has Cap’en Pratt been eddercaten’ of yer?”
Then, without waiting for a reply, he continued: “Now, don’ take on so,
honey. Come inter de kitchen wid ole Mose, an’ let him soothe ye up a
little. Come, honey, come wid me, an’ bring de dorg wid yer.”

While he spoke the old colored man was untying the rope which fastened
Tip, for he knew the boy would follow wherever the dog was led. And in
that he was right, for when Tip went toward the little box Mose called
a kitchen he followed almost unconsciously.

Once inside the place where the old negro was chief, Mose took his
jacket off, and bathed the ugly-looking black-and-blue marks which had
been left by the rope, talking to the boy in his peculiar dialect as
he did so, soothing the wounds on his heart as he treated those on his
body.

“Now, don’ feel bad, honey; it’s only a way Cap’en Pratt has got, an’
you must git used to it, shuah. Don’t let him fret yer, but keep right
on about yer work jest as ef yer didn’t notice him like.”

Mose bathed the wounds, and gave Tip such a feast as he had not had for
many a day; and when it was done Tim said to him:

“You’re awful good, you are; but I’m afraid the captain will make you
sorry for it. He don’t seem to like me, an’ he may get mad ’cause
you’ve helped me.”

“Bress yer, chile, what you s’pose ole Mose keers fur him ef he does
git mad? The cap’en kin rave an’ rave, but dis nigger don’ mind him
more’n ef he was de souf wind, what carn’t do nobody any harm.”

“But――” Tim began to say, earnestly.

“Never mind ’bout any buts, honey. Yer fixed all right now, an’ you go
down in de cabin an’ go ter work like a man; ole Mose’ll keep keer ob
de dorg.”

Tim knew he had already been away from his post of duty too long, and,
leaving Tip in the negro’s kindly care, he went into the cabin.

CHAPTER VI.

TIM MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE.

When Tim left old Mose’s kitchen it was nearly time for the steamer
to start on her regular trip, and the passengers were coming on board
quite fast.

The bustle and excitement which always attend the sailing of steamers,
even though the trip be a short one, were all so new and strange to
Tim that he forgot his own troubles in watching the scene around him.
He saw Mr. Rankin near the kitchen, and was told by him that he could
remain on deck until the captain should ring his bell, when he would
let him know of it.

Therefore Tim had plenty of time in which to take in all the details
of the interesting scene. The deck-hands were scurrying to and fro,
wheeling in freight or baggage on funny little trucks with very small
wheels and very long handles; passengers were running around excitedly,
as if they thought they ought to attend to matters which did not
concern them; newsboys were crying the latest editions of the papers;
old women were trying to sell fruit that did not look very fresh, and
everything appeared to be in the greatest confusion.

While Tim was leaning on the after-rail of the main-deck his attention
was attracted by a very small boy, who was trying to get himself and a
large valise on board at the same time. The valise was several sizes
too large for the boy, and some one of the four corners would persist
in hitting against his legs each time he stepped, and then swinging
around, would almost throw him off his feet.

[Illustration: THE SMALL PASSENGER WITH THE LARGE VALISE]

Twice the boy started to go on board, and each time the valise grew
unruly, frightening him from continuing the attempt lest he should be
thrown into the water. Then he stood still and gazed longingly at the
plank upon which he did not dare to venture.

It was a comical sight, and Tim laughed at it until he saw the boy was
really in distress, when he started to aid him.

“Let me help you carry your valise,” he said to the small passenger,
as he darted across the narrow plank and took hold of one side of the
offending baggage. “Two can lug it better’n one.”

The boy looked up as if surprised that a stranger should offer to help
him, and then gave up fully one-half the burden to this welcome lad.
This time the journey was made successfully; and as the valise was
deposited on the steamer’s deck the little passenger gave vent to a
deep sigh of relief.

“So much done,” he said, in a satisfied way, as he took off his hat and
wiped his forehead with a handkerchief that did not look much larger
than a postage-stamp. “Where are you goin’?” he then asked, turning to
Tim.

“Why, I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” replied the captain’s boy, not fully
understanding the other’s question.

“Oh!”――and the boy’s face grew troubled――“I thought maybe you was goin’
in the boat.”

“So I am,” answered Tim, now understanding the question. “I work here.”

“Now, that’s nice;” and the little fellow sat down on his valise
contentedly.

“You may think so; but if you knew Captain Pratt you’d talk different.”

“Why?”

“Perhaps you’ll find out sometime if you come on this boat much; but I
guess I’d better not tell you.”

The boy was silent for a moment, as if he was trying to understand what
Tim meant, and then he said, abruptly:

“Look here, I live down on Minchin’s Island, an’ I come up here to see
my aunt. I’m goin’ home on this boat, an’ I want you to show me where I
can get a ticket. If you will I’ll show you lots of things I’ve got in
this valise.”

“I don’t know where it is myself, ’cause I ain’t been on the boat only
two days; but if you’ll wait here I’ll go an’ ask the cook.”

The boy nodded his head, as if to say that he would wait any reasonable
length of time, and Tim started off to gain the desired information of
old Mose.

In a few moments he returned, and taking his new acquaintance by the
hand, would have led him to the clerk’s office at once, had not the
young party pulled back in evident alarm.

“We’ve got to take the valise with us, ’cause somebody might steal it,
an’ there’s two bundles of torpedoes, a whole bunch of fire-crackers,
an’ a heap of little sky-rockets in it.”

Tim understood at once, and, with a serious look on his face, as he
thought of the great risk he came near running, took hold of one of the
handles of the valise; the boy grasped the other, and the two marched
up to the clerk’s office. There, after some little discussion, the
ticket was purchased, and the two retired to a more secluded spot for
conversation.

“What’s your name?” the boy asked of Tim. “Mine’s Bobby Tucker.”

Tim gave the desired information, and then asked in turn:

“How long have you been up here?”

“’Most a whole week; an’ I’ve had the boss time. I had five dollars an’
twenty cents that I earned all myself, an’ I’ve got ’most half a dollar
left. Let’s go out on the wharf an’ buy something.”

There was no chance that Tim would object to any such brilliant idea,
and the valise was left with old Mose for safekeeping. Once on the
wharf, both they and the apple-women were very busy for five minutes,
during which time they――or rather, Bobby――bought fruit and candies
enough to make both of them as contented as a boy could hope to be.

Luckily for Tim he got on the steamer again just as one of the waiters
came to tell him that the captain had rung for him, and he lost no time
in making his way to the wheel-house. He had the good-fortune to get
there as quickly as Captain Pratt thought he ought to have done, and
then got his employer’s coat from his state-room as he was ordered.

After that he went back to his newly-made friend, who was awaiting
his return with considerable impatience, for he did not feel exactly
certain that his valise with its precious contents was perfectly safe.

Tim took him to the cook-room, and while there showed him “one of the
finest dogs in the country,” which he led back to his old quarters, so
that he would be out of the way at dinner-time.

At first Bobby was not inclined to look upon Tip either as a beautiful
or a valuable animal; but Tim sounded his pet’s praises so loudly that
Bobby could hardly prevent himself from being convinced, even though
appearances were so decidedly against his companion’s words.

Among other stories which Tim related, as showing that Tip was one of
the most intelligent of his species, was the incident of his finding
the cow so suddenly for Sam Simpson, which pleased Bobby greatly, and
he said, in a wise tone both of praise and blame:

“He looks like a good dog, an’ he acts like a good dog; but ’pears to
me his legs is kinder short if you wanted to make him run after a bear.”

“I never tried to make him do that, ’cause we don’t have bears up where
I come from. Are there any where you live?”

“Well, I never saw any, an’ father says there ain’t any; but I’ve heard
’em in the woods, an’ I know they was bears, ’cause they made such an
awful noise. You come down to see me some time, an’ bring the dog with
you, an’ we’ll kill some.”

Tim was perfectly sure that Tip was able to kill any number of bears,
and he told his companion so, adding that he hardly thought he could
get away from the steamer long enough to make any kind of a visit; but
Bobby felt sure it could be arranged somehow.

While they had been talking about Tip the boat had started, but, among
the freight as they were, they did not know it until the pitching of
the steamer as she left the harbor told that some change had been and
was being made in their position.

Running hastily out to the rail, where they expected to see the wharf,
with its bustling crowd of hucksters and passengers, they saw to their
astonishment the green, rolling billows of the ocean. To Bobby, who
lived on an island, the sea was no new sight, and his astonishment was
only occasioned by the fact that the steamer had left the dock; but
to Tim, who had never seen a body of water larger than the river in
Selman, the scene was one that filled him with the greatest wonder.

He remained by the rail, only able to look over the top of it by
standing on his toes, and gazed on the sea until Bobby asked,
impatiently:

“What’s the matter? Ain’t sick, are yer?”

Until that question was asked Tim had not thought of such a thing as
being sea-sick; but the moment Bobby spoke it seemed as if the entire
appearance of the water changed. Instead of looking grand and beautiful
it began to have a sidelong motion, and to rise up and down in an
uncomfortable way.

“No, I ain’t sick,” he said to Bobby, “but I feel kinder queer.”

“That’s it! that’s it!” cried Bobby, eagerly; “that’s the way folks
begin when they’re goin’ to be awful sick.”

Tim looked up in despair. Each succeeding motion of the boat made him
feel worse, and a very uncomfortable sensation in the region of his
stomach was rapidly adding to his terror.

“What shall I do?” he asked, in a piteous whisper.

“Go to bed, an’ you’ll be all right in the mornin’. Where’s your berth?”

Tim made a motion toward the forecastle, but did not trust himself to
speak. His stomach was already in too queer a condition to permit of
words.

“I’ll go down with you, an’ see that you’re all right,” said Bobby,
sagely. “I’m used to goin’ fishin’ with father, an’ I won’t be sick.”

Tim was about to follow his friend’s suggestion, when the horrible
thought occurred to him of what the result might be in case Captain
Pratt knew of his being in bed in the daytime, and he went to ask
advice of old Mose.

But one glance at his pale face and quivering lips was needed to show
the old negro that the captain’s boy was sea-sick, and before Tim could
attempt to speak he said:

“Am yer sick, honey? There’s only one way fur yer to do, an’ that’s to
turn right in an’ wrastle it out. Go right to yer bunk, an’ I’ll ’form
Mr. Rankin what ails you.”

This advice, although it was the same as that given by Bobby, was
followed at once, because it came from a semi-official source, and in a
few moments afterward Tim was groaning in his berth, while Bobby sat by
his side, and tried to persuade him to partake of some of the candy he
had bought just before leaving port.

Tim refused the offering, and for the first time in his life looked
upon candy as the stickiest kind of a fraud. He felt as though the
kindest thing any one could do would be to throw him overboard in the
midst of that treacherous sea which was causing him so much internal
commotion.

He had been in his berth about an hour, although it seemed to him fully
a week, when Mr. Rankin came into the forecastle, and told him that
Captain Pratt had given positive and angrily issued orders that he be
brought on deck.

A moment before, Tim would have thought it impossible for him to move,
and felt that he would not be frightened by a dozen Captain Pratts; but
the instant Mr. Rankin spoke, the thoughts of that whipping, the smart
of which could still be felt, was sufficient to give him strength to
make the attempt.

Staggering to his feet, encouraged by the kind-hearted steward,
who pitied him sincerely, he crawled up the narrow companion-way,
shuddering as he went, and catching his breath in sickness and fear at
each lurch of the steamer.

Bobby, who was awed into silence by the fear of the captain which he
saw plainly written on the faces of Mr. Rankin and Tim, would have
gone with his friend at least a portion of the way, if Tim had not
motioned him back. If he was to be whipped for being sick, he very much
preferred that his new friend should not witness the punishment.

It was with the greatest difficulty he managed to keep on his feet as
he staggered along the deck to the wheel-house, and just as he reached
there, and had opened the door, a sudden lurch of the steamer sent him
spinning into the room headlong.

It was unfortunate that Captain Pratt was sitting directly opposite the
door, smoking, for he was directly in the way of Tim when the steamer
shot him into the wheel-house like a stone from a sling, and the boy’s
head struck with no gentle force full on the chest of his irritable
employer.

The mildest-mannered man would have been provoked if a boy, even no
larger than Tim, had been thrown at him in this way, and Captain Pratt,
always ill-tempered, had all his ire aroused by the blow that very
nearly took away his breath.

As soon as he recovered from the effects of the blow he seized Tim, who
had continued on his flight until he landed, a forlorn little specimen,
in one corner of the room, and shook him as a cat shakes a mouse after
she has had a long chase to catch him.

“Is this the way you try to get even with me?” cried the angry man,
slapping Tim first on one side of the head and then on the other with a
force that made his teeth chatter. “What do you mean by such actions?
Answer me! What do you mean?”

“I don’t mean anything,” said the boy, piteously. “I was comin’ in all
right, when the boat tipped up, an’ I slid right along. I was sea-sick,
an’ I couldn’t help it.”

“I’ll show you how to get over your sea-sickness, and you won’t forget
how it’s done, either;” and as the captain spoke he resumed his
cheerful occupation of slapping Tim’s face. “You think I am going to
have any lubbers around here sick, do you?”

“I can’t help it, sir,” moaned Tim, who had by this time lost all
feeling of nausea in the pain caused by the blows.

“Then I’ll help it for you,” roared the captain, and he flogged Tim
until he thought he had been punished enough to cure him.

“Now see if that will help you,” he said, savagely, as he stood Tim on
his feet with a force that caused him to bite his tongue. “Keep on deck
now, and let me see you every ten minutes. If you so much as think of
laying down I’ll give you such a taste of the rope’s end that you’ll
think all this was only fooling.”

It seemed to Tim as if either the flogging or the sickness would have
been sufficient alone, but to have both filled his heart with all the
sadness and grief it could well contain.

He went below, where Bobby was waiting for him, and the sight of his
tear-filled eyes, and face red with the marks of the whipping, told
the young gentleman from Minchin’s Island that there were very many
positions in the world more pleasant than that of captain’s boy on
board the _Pride of the Wave_.

“What is the matter, Tim?” he asked, in a half-whisper.

“Nothin’,” was the sobbing reply; and then the boy ran to the only
living thing he knew who would sympathize with him in his grief.

Bobby stood back in astonishment as he saw Tim lie down by the side of
that wonderful hunting dog, and, pouring out his grief in indistinct
words, sob and cry in deepest distress.

“What _is_ the matter, Tim? Don’t cry so, but tell me what ails you.”

It was some time before Tim would speak; but when once he did open his
heart to his newly-made friend he told the entire story from the time
he ran away from Captain Babbige’s house up to the last whipping he had
received. When he had concluded he said, in the most sorrowful tone:

“I jest wish I was dead, Bobby; for there don’t seem to be anybody in
all this great big world who wants to have me ’round, ’less it is to
lick me when they ain’t got nothin’ else to do.”

“I wouldn’t stand it, Tim, that’s what I wouldn’t do,” said Bobby,
indignantly. “I’d jest leave this old boat the very first time she
stops.”

But Tim had more wisdom now than he had the day he ran away from
Captain Babbige, and he said, mournfully:

“Where could I go if I did run away again? Nobody wants me an’ Tip, an’
we’ve got to have somethin’ to eat.”

This way of putting the matter rather confused Bobby; he had never
known what it was to be without a home, and Tim’s lonely position in
the world opened his eyes to a new phase of life.

“I’ll tell you what you can do: you can come to my house, an’ stay jest
as long as you want to.”

Tim shook his head; he remembered the invitation given by Sam Simpson,
and how it had been seconded by his parents, and he did not care for
more of the same experience.

“But you can’t stay here an’ let Captain Pratt knock you ’round.”

Tim assented to this; but still he did not see how he could prevent it,
unless he was willing to risk suffering in another form.

“I s’pose I’ll have to go up-stairs an’ show the captain that I ain’t
in bed,” he said, as a shudder of sea-sickness came over him again. “It
must be as much as ten minutes since I was there.”

“I wouldn’t go,” said Bobby, stoutly; “I wouldn’t let him think I was
afraid of him.”

“But I am afraid of him, an’ so would you be if he was to beat you
once the way he has me;” and then he started for the deck again.

This time he did not attempt to enter the wheel-house, but stood by the
rail outside, where the captain could see him, and leaned over the side
until it seemed to him that everything he had eaten for the past month
was thrown to the fishes.

It was impossible for him to have waited on the captain at the table
that day, even if he had been called upon so to do; but Mr. Rankin had
told him that he need not come into the cabin until he had recovered,
and he was truly thankful for that permission to remain away, as he
hoped next day to be himself again.

The steamer had sailed at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, and by two
o’clock Tim was so sick that the very worst punishment Captain Pratt
could have devised would not have troubled him in the least.

The vessel tossed and plunged as if she were bent on going to the
bottom of the sea at the first opportunity, and Tim, in his berth, with
the faithful Bobby at his side trying to cheer and comfort him, felt
that he would not raise his hand to help himself even though he knew
the _Pride of the Wave_ was foundering.

CHAPTER VII.

TIP’S HURRIED LANDING.

During the remainder of that day, and all the night, Tim lay in his
berth wondering why it was he did not die, since he was so sick,
and expecting each moment that the steamer would go to the bottom.
He almost forgot Tip, save once or twice when he asked Bobby to see
whether the dog was feeling as badly as he was; and when he was told
that Tip was apparently enjoying very good health, he felt a sense of
injury because his pet did not share his sickness with him.

Bobby remained with him nearly all the afternoon; but toward night
his newly-formed friendship was not strong enough to keep him in the
ill-smelling place, and he went on deck to enjoy what was to him simply
a glorious sail.

When Tim awakened on the following morning――for he did get some sleep
that night――the steamer was yet pitching around wildly as though she
were mad, but he had recovered from his sickness, and felt weak and
hungry.

He looked as pale as though he had been confined to his bed for a week,
and he imagined he was so thin that the sun would shine right through
him; but in this he was mistaken.

Of course his first visit was to Tip, and after he had petted him to
his heart’s content, and given him a hearty breakfast, thanks to old
Mose’s generosity, he went below to report to Mr. Rankin for duty.

There was plenty of work to be done; and now that he had “paid his
tribute to the sea,” the steward showed that while he could be kind
when there was reason for it, he also believed in making boys useful.

Tim carried dishes, cleaned knives, ran with cups of hot coffee or
tea at imminent danger of scalding himself, until all the passengers
had breakfasted, and then for at least an hour Captain Pratt kept
him going from the wheel-house to the cabin, and from the cabin to
the wheel-house, on one errand or another, until he thought he was
sufficiently exercised.

All this time he had not once caught a glimpse of his friend Bobby
Tucker, nor, indeed, had he had time to look for him. He had asked old
Mose where Minchin’s Island was, and when the steamer would arrive
there; but although Mose could give him very little geographical
information, he knew certainly that the _Pride of the Wave_ was due at
the island about noon.

Tim was impatient to get through with his work, so that he could talk
with Bobby a few moments, and when Mr. Rankin told him that he was at
liberty until dinner-time, he went at once to Tip’s narrow quarters,
believing he would find the boy from Minchin’s Island there.

Nor was he mistaken, for there was Bobby examining the dog very
carefully, measuring his legs and the stump of his tail, in order that
he might give accurate information regarding him to his friends at home.

Although the boys were very glad to see each other, the meeting was not
a particularly affectionate one.

“Hello, Bob!” cried Tim; and Bobby answered,

“Hello, Tim!”

“What are you doin’ to Tip?”

“I was only kinder lookin’ him over, to see if he was all right for the
bears when he an’ you come down to see me.”

“Ah, he can take care of the bears fast enough, but I’m afraid he won’t
get down to your house.”

“Oh yes, he will,” was the confident reply. “The very next time the
_Pride_ comes to the island I’m goin’ to get father to make the
captain let you come ashore, an’ father’s one of the selectmen, so I
guess Captain Pratt can’t help hisself.”

The idea that Bobby’s father was one of the town officials appeared to
put the matter in a different light, and Tim began to have great hopes
that the visit might really be made.

Then the chance of catching a bear, or of getting near enough for Tip
to catch one, was discussed. Tip was unfastened in order that all his
beautiful proportions might be seen more distinctly, and the boys grew
so excited over the subject that they forgot the flight of time, until
the steamer’s whistle aroused them from thoughts of bear-killing.

“Gracious!” exclaimed Bobby, “here we’ve got home, an’ I’d forgotten we
was so near.”

“Was it Minchin’s Island the boat was whistlin’ for?”

“Yes. That’s the first place she stops at after she leaves the city.
Come, quick, so’s we can get my valise out of the kitchen.”

Bobby’s valise with its precious contents was still in the care of
Mose, its owner not having looked after it more than once each hour,
and now he was very uneasy lest he should not be able to get it in time.

Tim was so excited by his companion’s fears that he fastened Tip as
quickly as possible, not noticing in his haste that the knot was only
half tied, and could easily be unloosened.

The valise, with apparently as much in it as when it was intrusted to
the old darkey’s care, was soon in Bobby’s possession, and the two boys
went on the upper deck, from which the landing was to be made.

Here, standing by the rail, Bobby pointed out the various objects
of interest on the island, not forgetting the woods in which he was
positive Tip would one day roam in search of the ferocious bear.

Captain Pratt was standing near them, but he was so much engaged in
giving orders for the proper landing of the boat that he did not notice
his cabin boy, who was breaking one of the rules of the steamer by
loitering on that deck.

The boat was still quite a distance from the shore, and Bobby was
pointing out his father’s house when they heard a furious barking, and
before they could turn Tip was jumping up around them. He had found no
difficulty in escaping from the half-tied rope, and after that was done
it was an easy matter for him to find his young master.

Captain Pratt had heard Tip’s joyful greeting also, and as he turned to
see the cause of it, the dog, who was in such high spirits at having
escaped from his imprisonment that he was ready to show his good-will
for every one, left the boys and fawned upon the captain as if he was
his best friend.

Captain Pratt showed very little consideration for the dog, even while
he thought he belonged to one of the passengers, and gave him such a
kick as sent him half the length of the deck, changing his note of joy
to deep yelps of pain.

The place in which Tip had been confined was anything but a clean one,
and, as a natural consequence, when he jumped upon the captain he left
the muddy imprints of his paws on the clean blue clothes in which the
commander of the _Pride of the Wave_ had that day arrayed himself.

“Whose dog is that?” roared the captain, as he surveyed the damage done.

“He’s mine,” answered Tim, who, at the first blow struck his pet, had
jumped toward the poor brute and taken him to his bosom to soothe him.

Then it was that the captain first saw his cabin-boy on the forbidden
ground of the upper deck, and it is positive that if he had had the
time just then he would have given him a painful intimation of the
mistake he had made. As it was, he walked up to Tim quickly, seized
poor Tip by the neck, and flung him as far as possible into the water.

“Now you go below,” he said, in a low, angry tone, to Tim, “and after
we make this landing I’ll settle with you.”

Tim paid no more attention to the captain’s words than if they had been
uttered by a boy smaller than himself, but rushed frantically to the
rail as if he was about to jump after his pet.

The steamer was already so near the wharf that Captain Pratt had no
time to see if his order was obeyed, but was obliged to give all his
attention to the management of the boat.

It was fortunate for Tip that the captain was very angry when he threw
him into the water, since he, using all his strength, had tossed him
so far from the steamer’s side that he was in no danger of being drawn
under the wheel, as would have been the case had less vigor been used
in the cruel deed.

Tip acted like a very sensible dog under the circumstances――he held his
head up and struck out boldly for the shore, urged on by a crowd of
boys on the wharf.

Tim was almost frantic with grief, believing his pet was perishing
before his eyes, and he powerless to save him. It is quite possible
that he would have obeyed his first impulse and leaped into the water
to try to save Tip, if a passenger had not taken a firm hold of him.

“It’s a wicked shame! I’d jest like to take that captain an’ do to him
jest as he has done to Tip; an’ he such a nice bear dog too!” said
Bobby, who stood by Tim’s side watching Tip’s battle for life.

“Do you s’pose he’ll drown?” asked Tim, the great tear-drops rolling
down his cheeks.

“I dunno,” was the cautious reply. “It seems to me his legs is rather
short for swimmin’ very far; an’ then, you see, he ain’t got any tail
to steer hisself by.”

Tim was just giving way to a fresh outburst of grief at these words,
which seemed to sound Tip’s death-knell, when a gentleman said:

“There isn’t the slightest danger of his drowning. It will take him
some time to reach the shore, for he’s not swimming directly toward it;
but he’ll come out all right, and it won’t do him the least harm.”

“An’ jest as soon as I get ashore I’ll run round an’ call him in, an’
bring him to you,” said Bobby, anxious to do something toward saving
the life of an animal as valuable as he believed Tip to be.

The dog was yet some distance from the shore when the boat was made
fast to the wharf, and Bobby rushed on shore, going toward the point
where Tip must land, wholly regardless of his parents, who were waiting
to greet him.

Tim started to follow him, bent on saving his pet and forgetting that
there was such a person in the world as Captain Pratt, when he felt a
heavy hand laid on his shoulder.

“I thought I told you to go below!” said an angry voice, and, looking
up, Tim saw it was the captain who was detaining him. “If you so much
as make a motion to go on shore I’ll whip you within an inch of your
life!”

Then, without giving him an opportunity to disobey, the same heavy hand
pushed him back on the deck, and Mr. Rankin led him forcibly below.

“I won’t stay here! I won’t go down-stairs an’ leave Tip there to
drown!” cried Tim, passionately. “It’s awful wicked, an’ I won’t do it!”

“Listen to me, Tim,” said Mr. Rankin, kindly but firmly. “There is no
possible chance that your dog will drown, and you must come below, for
it is the captain’s orders.”

“But I must go an’ get him,” wailed Tim.

“Suppose you could get him before we leave the dock, which you can’t,
and suppose you should get him aboard without the captain’s seeing
you, which is an impossibility, what would be the result? Captain Pratt
would throw him overboard after we got out to sea again, and then he
would be sure to drown.”

Tim knew the steward’s reasoning was correct, and yet he refused to be
comforted. He was led below despite his struggles, but when he reached
the main-deck he ran to the rail, from where he could see all that was
going on in the water.

“Do you s’pose he will get ashore all right?” Tim asked of Mr. Rankin,
as he watched Tip’s exertions to save himself.

“Of course he will; he’s almost there now, and in five minutes more
he’ll be just as safe as ever, and a good deal cleaner.”

By this time the freight for the island had been landed, and the
steamer was already leaving the wharf. Tim was in an agony of fear lest
he should be obliged to depart without assuring himself that Tip was a
saved dog.

But in order that the steamer should be put on her course again it was
necessary to back her for some distance, and that was a bit of good
luck for Tim, since they moved in the direction taken by Tip.

Tim could see Bobby, at the extreme point of land that jutted out into
the sea, urging the dog to increased exertion, and aided by all the
boys who were on the wharf at the time Tip was thrown overboard, as
well as by a number of others who had learned of the excitement by
seeing Bobby as he ran around the shore.

Just as the steamer’s paddle-wheels ceased to force her back, and
began to urge her in the opposite direction, Tip’s short legs touched
the bottom, and in another instant Bobby was holding him, all wet and
dripping, high up in the air, while he executed a sort of triumphant
war-dance before Tim’s delighted gaze.

Tim stood looking with his very heart in his eyes as the _Pride of the
Wave_ carried him farther and farther from the only friend he had in
the world, and when he saw Tip run along the beach and shake himself he
laughed from very joy.

But in another instant he understood that, if the dog was safe, he was
being separated from him very rapidly.

“I sha’n’t see him ever again in this life,” he wailed, “an’ he is the
only feller that cares anything about me.”

Then he ran to the little hole which had served Tip as a state-room,
and there gave vent to his sorrow in passionate weeping.

CHAPTER VIII.

MINCHIN’S ISLAND.

When Tim had so far recovered from his grief as to present himself for
work again, Minchin’s Island was far astern, and the voyage drawing
rapidly to an end.

Those who were friendly to the boy thought the wisest and kindest
course to pursue was to say nothing about poor Tip; and as those who
were not friendly did not speak of him, Tim got on without giving way
to his grief in public. Captain Pratt seemed to have forgotten his
threat of punishing Tim for venturing on the upper deck, or he may have
thought best to wait till the end of the trip, for he said nothing to
the boy, which was far more kind than he had any idea of being.

At the different landings Tim did not have curiosity enough to look at
the towns, but worked as hard as he could in order to prevent thinking
about poor Tip. Captain Pratt summoned him to the wheel-house several
times, and whenever he went there he felt certain he was to receive the
promised whipping; but he was mistaken, for, after ordering him to do
some trifling work, the captain paid no attention to him.

At about six o’clock on the afternoon of that day the steamer was made
fast to the wharf at Bedlow, and the trip was ended.

After the work of cleaning the cabin was done Mr. Rankin said:

“You can go ashore and see the town, if you want to; but be back by
nine o’clock.”

Tim shook his head; he had no desire to see anything new, since Tip was
not there to enjoy the sights with him, and he crept off to his dirty
berth in the forecastle, where he cried himself to sleep.

On the next morning he succeeded in supplying the captain’s wants at
the table as quickly as that gentleman thought proper, and yet no
mention was made of the events of the previous day.

The steamer was to leave Bedlow on her return trip at noon, and Tim
took no interest in the bustle and excitement on the wharf, save that
each succeeding moment was one less in the time that must elapse before
he saw Tip again.

As the steamer started his spirits rose, and he watched her course
carefully, fretting at the time spent at each landing, content only
when she was going at regular speed toward Minchin’s Island and Tip.

He had formed no plan as to what he should do when he got there. He
knew that Mr. Rankin’s advice that Tip be left there was good, and
should be followed, but he could not make up his mind to do so. Parting
with Tip seemed like parting with a portion of his very life, and
he could not bring himself to say that he would leave this his only
friend, no matter how short the time.

It was nearly nightfall when the steamer neared Minchin’s Island, and
Tim was as far in the bow as he could get on the main-deck, in order
that he might catch the first glimpse of Tip, for he felt sure Bobby
would bring him to the wharf.

At last he could distinctly see the different objects on the wharf,
and his heart sunk when he failed to see any one who at all resembled
Bobby. He looked eagerly among the crowd assembled, and could not even
see one boy, when on the day before there had been at least twenty
there. He was at a loss to account for this cruelty on Bobby’s part. He
knew the dog had been saved, for he had surely seen him held aloft in
Bob’s arms, and a cruel suspicion came into his mind that perhaps the
boy was keeping out of sight with the intention of claiming Tip as his
own.

The boat arrived at the wharf, and was made fast. Not a single boy or
dog could be seen.

Tim’s heart was full to bursting, and as he leaned against the rail he
thought it was not possible for greater trouble to come to him, since
he was denied even a sight of Tip.

Now he would willingly have promised that the dog should remain with
Bobby, if by making such promise he could see and hug him each time the
boat arrived at that place.

So absorbed was he with his grief, caused by what looked very like an
act of perfidy on Bobby’s part, that he failed to notice what several
of the employés on the steamer saw and wondered at. A man had called
Captain Pratt on shore, and was talking to him in such a manner as to
make him angry. So excited was he that he paid no attention to the fact
that the steamer was ready to continue the trip, and that every one
waited for him.

Tim saw nothing of all this; but when the captain called loudly to him
he started, as if he had been caught in wrongdoing.

“Come ashore here!” cried the captain, much as if he was angry with
himself for giving such an order.

Tim walked on to the wharf in a perfect maze of surprise, and when
he went near his employer his wonder was increased by hearing that
gentleman say to the one he had been talking with, “Here’s the boy, and
I wish you joy of him;” and then to see him go quickly on board the
steamer.

Before Tim had time to recover from his surprise the steamer had
started, and as she was leaving the wharf he was almost taken off his
feet by some soft substance that hit him on the legs.

It did not take him many seconds to discover that this substance which
had struck him so suddenly was his own little bob-tailed Tip, and then
he knelt right down on the wharf and hugged him desperately, giving no
heed to anything save the happy fact that he had his pet to himself
once more.

Some time before he had finished hugging and kissing Tip a noisy crowd
of boys emerged from behind one of the freight sheds, where they had
evidently been in hiding, and gave him such a welcome to Minchin’s
Island as he never expected to receive anywhere.

Bobby was among the number, of course, and it was so long before he
could calm himself down sufficiently to explain the meaning of all the
strange occurrences, that Tim was left some time in doubt as to whether
he had really gotten away from the savage Captain Pratt, or if it was
all a pleasant dream, from which he would awake to receive the promised
flogging.

When Bobby did sober down sufficiently to talk understandingly, Tim
learned that, owing to his friend’s pleading and tales of how he had
been abused, Mr. Tucker had promised that he would induce Captain Pratt
to let the boy come ashore at Minchin’s Island, where he should have a
home for a time at least.

Relying on that promise, Bobby had gathered all the boys of the town
together to give Tim a proper welcome, and all had been hidden behind
the shed when the steamer came in, so that the surprise should be as
great as possible. By what means Mr. Tucker had persuaded Captain Pratt
to part with the cabin-boy he was “breaking in” no one knew, and no one
seemed to care, since it had been so successfully accomplished.

When Bobby looked around for his father, to introduce to him the boy
for whom he had done so much, he was nowhere to be seen, and Bobby
said, in apology:

“I s’pose he thought we would want to talk a good deal, an’ so he went
off; but we’ll see him when we get home.”

“But am I really goin’ to live with you?” asked Tim, hardly able to
believe the good-fortune that had come to him so suddenly.

“You’re goin’ to live with me a good while, anyhow, an’ I guess for
all the time; but father didn’t say.” Then, as the boys started up the
wharf, he added, eagerly, “We’re goin’ over to Bill Thompson’s father’s
vessel now. We’ve got some chowder, an’ Bill’s father said we could go
over there an’ have supper; so we’re goin’ to show you one of the best
times you ever had.”

The countenance of all the boys told that some big time was near, and
more especially was that the case with Bill Thompson. By his very
manner he showed that he considered himself of the greatest importance
in that party, and walked on in advance, almost unable to contain
himself because of his excessive dignity. Instead of going up into the
little town, Bill led the way around the shore; and as the boys reached
the headland where Tip had first touched the land of Minchin’s Island,
Bobby pointed to a small fishing schooner that lay at anchor a short
distance from the shore.

Then the other boys began to tell about the supper and the good time
generally, until it was impossible to distinguish one word; but Bill
Thompson walked on in silence, looking neither to the right nor the
left. It was enough for him that he was the one on whom the pleasure
depended, since it was to take place on his father’s vessel, and he
could not lower his dignity by talking.

A dory hauled up on the beach served to convey the party to the
schooner, and once there, Bill Thompson led the way to the cabin, where
every preparation had been made for the feast of welcome.

The table, formed by letting down a shelf from the side of the cabin,
was large enough to accommodate half of the party, and was laid
with every variety of crockery and cutlery such as would be likely
to be found on board a fishing vessel. The only food on the table
was crackers; but a huge pot, which was bubbling and steaming in a
contented sort of way on the stove, told that there was enough to
satisfy the wants of the hungriest boy there.

“Set right down to the table, Tim,” said Bill, unbending from his
dignity a little, “an’ the rest of us will do the work; you’re the
company, you know.”

Tim took the place of honor――the only armchair in the cabin――and was
more than gratified to find that a seat had been placed close beside
him for Tip, who had already jumped on it, sitting there looking as
wise and hungry as a dog could look.

The entire boy portion of the population of Minchin’s Island had worked
hard and earnestly to prepare this feast of welcome, and the result of
their labors was the chowder, which was being served by the means of a
cocoa-nut shell dipper, with a large hole in the side, that somewhat
retarded the progress.

At last all were served, and those who could not find places at the
table were seated on the sides of the berths, on trunks, fishing-tackle,
or any available space, and the feast was begun.

Tip had his share in a saucer, and he ate it in as dignified a manner
as the best-behaved dog could have done.

For several moments all gave their undivided attention to the chowder,
which was not exactly as good as they were accustomed to at home,
but which, being the product of their own labor, tasted better than
anything they had ever eaten before.

Especially to Tim was it good, because of the spirit which prompted
its manufacture, and because it was an evidence of their good-will to
him. Tip rather turned his nose up at it, however. Since his arrival
at Minchin’s Island he had been petted and fed by every boy in town,
thanks to Bobby’s stories of his ability as a bear dog, until now it
required something more than ordinary food to tempt his appetite.

But the feast was not the only way by which the boy who had come
among them was to be honored, as Tim soon found out. A very elaborate
programme had been arranged, and not one single detail was to be
omitted.

Bill Thompson, with his mouth uncomfortably full, arose to his feet in
such a clumsy manner that he upset what remained of Bobby’s chowder,
very much to the disadvantage of the table-cloth and his trousers, and
said, with some hesitation:

“Mr. Babbige, we fellers heard all about you last night from our
esteemed feller-citizen, Mr. Bob Tucker, an’ we wanted to do something
to show you what we thought of you.”

Here Bill stopped to swallow a portion of the cracker that impeded his
speech, and Tim looked around him in blank amazement, not understanding
this portion of the proceedings. Bill continued, in the most serious
manner:

“We knowed what a hard time you was havin’ on the _Pride_, an’ we
wanted to have you come an’ live here, ’cause we thought we should like
you, an’ ’cause you had such a fine dog. This little chowder welcome
ain’t all we’ve got for yer. To-morrer we’re goin’ to take Tip an’ you
out in the woods, an’ we’ve decided that the first bear he kills shall
be skinned, an’ the skin nailed up on Bobby Tucker’s father’s barn,
where everybody can see what your Tip has done.”

At that point Bobby Tucker slyly pinched Tip’s stub tail, and he
uttered such a yelp that the remainder of the company applauded loudly,
thinking he must have understood what was said.

When the noise ceased Bill bowed gracefully to Tip, as an
acknowledgment of his appreciation, and, having swallowed that which
had been in his mouth, was able to speak more plainly.

“Mr. Babbige, we fellers want to ’gratulate you on gettin’ off the
_Pride_, an’ more ’specially on comin’ to this town, where the fellers
will treat you an’ Tip as you ought to be treated. We hope you’ll stay
forever with us, an’ never want to go away. Now, fellers, I say three
cheers for Tip an’ Tim Babbige.”

The cheers were given with a will, causing Tim’s face to turn as red as
a boiled beet, while his confusion was as great as his face was red.

As soon as the noise had died away Bobby was on his feet, ready to
express his opinion on the subject.

“Mr. Tim――I mean Tim――no, Mr. Timothy Babbige,” he began, very
earnestly; but his difficulty in getting the name right so confused him
that he forgot what he was to say next. He cleared his throat until his
voice was as hoarse as an aged frog’s, and yet no words came. Then he
seized a glass of water, drinking it so fast that he gasped and choked
until the tears came into his eyes and his face became as red as Tim’s.

“Mr. Babbige,” he began; but Tim’s big eyes were fixed on him so
pityingly that he was all at sea again so far as words were concerned.
At length, making a desperate effort, he said: “Well, we’re glad to see
you here, Tim, an’ we mean to make it jest as lively for you as we know
how.”

Then Bobby sat down, very much ashamed that he had made such a failure;
but when the boys cheered him as loudly as they had Bill he began to
think it was quite a speech after all.

Every one now looked expectantly at Tim, and he knew he was obliged
to make some reply. He gazed at Tip, and Tip gazed at him; but no
inspiration came from that source, and he stood up in a desperate way,
feeling that as a rule he had rather go hungry than pay such a price
for a supper.

“Fellers,” he said, loudly, believing, if the thing must be done, the
more noise the better, “I want to thank you all for what you did for
Tip when you pulled him out of the water, an’ for what you’ve done for
me. The chowder was splendid――”

Here he was interrupted by loud and continued applause for his delicate
compliment to their skill as cooks, and it was some moments before he
could continue:

“Tip an’ me have had a nice time eatin’ it, an’ we’re a good deal more
glad to be here than you are to have us.”

He could think of nothing more to say, and was about to sit down when
Bobby asked: “What about killin’ the bears?”

“I’d most forgotten about them,” he said, as he straightened himself up
and looked down at Tip with pride. “If you’ve got any bears round here
that wants to be killed, Tip will fix ’em for you; but if you want to
save the skins to nail up on the barn, you must rush in an’ catch Tip
before he chews ’em all up. Why, I saw Tip catch a woodchuck once, an’
before you could say ‘scat’ he’d chewed him awfully. So you’ll have to
be kinder careful of your bears when Tip once gets his eye on ’em.”

That was the end of Tim’s speech, for the applause was so great that
for the next five minutes it would have been useless for any one to try
to make himself heard.

It was very near nine o’clock by the time the formal welcome to Tim was
concluded, and after the cabin had been cleaned Bill Thompson said, as
he wiped the dish-water from his hands, smoothed down his hair, and
made himself presentable for an appearance at home:

“I guess we’d better go now, an’ to-morrer mornin’ we’ll go round back
of Bobby Tucker’s father’s woodshed an’ fix up about the bear-hunt.”

The idea that they were to start the ferocious bear from his lair so
soon caused a fresh burst of enthusiasm, and each one made another and
a personal examination of Tip, until the much-inspected dog came very
near being cross.

It was rather a sleepy party that clambered over the side of the
schooner that night; but it was a party that had the most absolute
faith in Tip Babbige’s ability to kill all the bears on the island.

CHAPTER IX.

THE FAMOUS BEAR-HUNT.

When Tim went home with Bobby he saw Mr. and Mrs. Tucker, and from them
received such a kindly greeting that he thought he must be remarkably
good in order to repay them for their kindness.

He was a happy boy when he went to bed that night, and made more so by
seeing Tip stretched out on a rug by the side of the bed whenever he
took the trouble to look that way.

On the first morning after Tim’s arrival Mr. Tucker, without saying
what his intentions were regarding the future of the homeless boy, told
him and Bobby they could enjoy themselves after their own fashion for
two weeks, at the end of which time school began. Therefore there was
nothing to prevent the bear-hunt from taking place, unless it should be
the failure of the bears to show themselves.

Tip was fed on the choicest morsels which could be procured; and so
anxious were the boys that he should be in the best possible fighting
trim, that it was proposed to rub him thoroughly with lard, to make his
joints more supple, that he might be able to run swiftly when chasing
the game.

This idea was discarded, however, very shortly after they attempted to
carry it into execution, owing to a decided difference of opinion on
Tip’s part, who made such serious objections to it that Bobby concluded
perhaps he could run just as well if his joints were not quite so
limber.

Bill Thompson was the first of the party to arrive at the rendezvous
back of the shed, and, almost before he spoke to the boys, he made
another and a more critical examination of Tip. Bill was not only
eager for the fray, but he was thoroughly well armed. He had a
murderous-looking carving-knife stuck in a belt that had been hastily
made of a strip of black cloth, and in his hands he carried a small
shot-gun, which he might have some difficulty in discharging, owing to
the fact that he was obliged to carry the lock in his pocket.

When Bill’s attention was called to this fact he explained that he did
not depend so much upon the gun to shoot with as he did for use as a
club, with which the bear’s brains could be easily dashed out. The
knife was the weapon in which he put more dependence, and he proved
that it was a good one by making shavings of fully half a shingle in
less than five minutes.

This display of weapons and air of ferocity on Bill’s face so pleased
Tim and Bobby that they blamed themselves severely for not having made
their own preparations for a fight. That oversight was quickly remedied
when Bobby produced an old army musket, the weight of which made him
stagger, and a small pistol that had been loaded nearly a year, the
charge having obstinately refused to come out.

“You’ll want the pistol, Tim,” he said, as he handed that weapon to his
friend, “’cause it’ll be a good deal handier to fire when you’re close
up to the bear, an’ you know you’ll have to go pretty snug to him, so’s
to keep Tip from eating the skin.”

Tim took the pistol carefully, looked down into the muzzle, as if
wondering at which end it would be safest to stand when the weapon was
finally discharged, and then secured it by sticking it between the
waist-band of his trousers and shirt.

Bobby, with all possible precaution against accidents, loaded the
army musket with the powder taken from six fire-crackers, and
rammed home five or six small stones in place of bullets. He had no
percussion-caps; but he felt certain he could discharge it as well by
holding a lighted match at the nipple as if he had all the caps ever
made. Owing to Bobby’s mother’s decided refusal to loan two of her
carving-knives, they were obliged to get along without anything of that
sort, and depend on the one carried by Bill to skin their game when it
was killed.

The other hunters arrived in parties of twos and threes, and each
new arrival thought it necessary to make another and more minute
examination of Tip, in order to be certain that he was in the best
possible condition for the hunt. Each of the new-comers was armed, but
none could boast of having more destructive weapons than those carried
by the three leaders.

Bill was anxious to start at once, in order, as he said, to get the
skin nailed up on the barn before night; and as they were about to set
out Bobby cried, in tones of horror:

“Here! how do you s’pose we can get any bears if we let Tip go on
ahead? Why, he’ll rush off jest as soon as he sees one, an’ we can’t
catch him before he eats ’em all up.”

It was almost a shudder that ran through the party as they realized how
near they had been to losing their game before it had been caught, and
the greatest excitement reigned.

“What shall we do?” asked Bill, completely at a loss to arrange
matters; and then, as a happy thought came to him, he cried: “I know
now: we can take turns carryin’ him.”

A look of scorn came upon Bobby’s face as this brilliant idea was given
words, and he said, almost with a sneer:

“Now, what a way that would be, wouldn’t it? How do yer s’pose he could
smell out the tracks if we didn’t let him run on the ground?”

That one question made Bill Thompson feel very cheap indeed, for it
showed plainly that he was not posted in bear-hunting, and he was
anxious to be looked upon as one who knew all about it.

“What shall we do, then?” he asked, mournfully.

“We must tie a rope round his neck, so’s we can hold him back.”

Bill actually looked ashamed when this very simple plan was proposed,
and he was angry with himself for not having been the first to think of
it. But he saw a way to save his reputation.

“That’s a good plan,” he said, gravely, as if he had thought of
it before, but had not suggested it, hoping a better one would be
proposed; “but you’ll want more’n one rope. Why, if Tip should see a
bear suddenly he’d break the biggest rope we could get, an’ go after
him before we’d know anything.”

Every boy there agreed with Bill, and again he stood high as an
experienced bear-hunter.

Bobby got two pieces of an old clothes-line, each about five yards
long, and these were fastened securely around Tip’s neck; while Tim
and Bobby each held an end, with the understanding that, if the dog
struggled very hard to get away, the others of the party were to rush
in and help hold him.

Poor Tip appeared very sorrowful at this lack of confidence, as shown
by the ropes, and his short tail, which had stuck straight up, owing to
the excitement around him, now hung down in a sad way.

“He don’t like it,” said Tim, as he tried to cheer Tip by patting him
on the head. “He wants to rush right in an’ chew ’em all up, that’s
what’s the matter with him.”

No one doubted that statement, and admiring glances were bestowed upon
the very small but very ferocious dog.

The party was ready for the start, and the precautions they took even
before they were clear of the shadow of the wood-shed told that they
did not intend to lose any game by carelessness. Tim and Bobby went in
advance, leading Tip, who did not make the slightest effort to get
away, and followed by Bill Thompson, carrying his gun in one hand and
his knife in the other. Then came the remainder of the party, near or
at a distance, as their fear of bears was much or little.

Although it could hardly be expected that any bear had been so
venturesome as to cross a field almost in the centre of the town, Tip
was encouraged to smell of the ground, and each of the boys was ready
for an immediate attack before they were beyond the sound of Mrs.
Tucker’s voice.

The march to the edge of the grove was necessarily a slow one, for Tip,
finding that he was encouraged to run from one side of the path to the
other, did so to his heart’s content, while the boys expected each
moment to see him start off like a race-horse, and were ready to spring
at once to the aid of Tim and Bobby.

If their caution was great before they left the field, it would be
almost impossible to find a word to express their movements when they
entered the woods. Every weapon was handled as though it was to be used
at once, and the greater portion of the time every eye was fixed on
Tip. But not once had the noble animal drawn taut the ropes that held
him, not once had he shown any desire to start away at any furious rate
of speed. But after half an hour he suddenly smelled of the ground, and
then started away at a run, which made the excitement most intense.

“He’s after the bear now, sure!” cried Bill Thompson, as he brandished
his knife savagely, and swung his gun around, so that it would be ready
for use as a club.

At this startling announcement one or two of the boys who had been
careful to keep well in the rear ran considerably slower, as if they
were perfectly willing their companions should have all the glory
and fight, while one of the party actually turned his back on the
prospective scene of carnage and went home.

On sped Tip, now really pulling on the ropes, and Bobby’s face grew
pale as he thought how rapidly he was being forced toward the dangerous
and anxiously expected fight.

Tip, not understanding that two boys were obliged to follow directly
behind him, and, still hot on the scent of some animal, suddenly darted
between a couple of trees standing very near each other.

It was impossible for both Tim and Bobby to pass through this narrow
space together; but in their excitement they did not stop to think of
that, and the consequence was that they both fell sprawling to the
ground, while Tip was brought to a very sudden stop.

The dog seemed rather discouraged by the sudden check to his speed,
and it was some time before he could be persuaded to start again. This
second race had just begun, and the boys were growing eager again,
when Bill Thompson shouted:

“There he is! there he is! Hold on to your dog now, an’ let’s get all
ready before we rush in.”

“Where is he? where is he?” asked each one, as he halted and tried to
distinguish the form of the animal in the direction pointed out by
Bill; but none of them feeling quite as brave as they did a moment
before.

“Look right there!” and Bill pointed to a certain spot in the woods
where the trees grew thickest. “Now watch, an’ you’ll see him move.”

It was possible to see some dark-colored body moving among the thick
foliage, and there was no longer any doubt but that one of the animals
they were in search of was very near to them.

A shade of fear came over the faces of quite a number of that hunting
party then, and the most frightened-looking one was Bobby Tucker. He,
who had been so proud a few moments before because he had been given
the post of honor, now appeared to be perfectly willing that some one
else should hold Tip when the expected rush was made, and he appeared
to have suddenly lost all desire for a bear-hunt.

Bill Thompson now assumed the command of the party, and no one
questioned his right to do so. The orders he gave were obeyed as
promptly as could have been expected under the circumstances, and he
began the delicate task of posting his men in those positions best
calculated to bring out their fighting qualities.

Tim and Bobby, being nearer the dangerous animal than the others, were
ordered to keep strict watch of the spot where the bear was last seen,
and on no account to let him get away without their knowledge.

“Keep your eyes right on him,” shouted Bill to the two who were
preventing Tip from eating the bear. “The first minute he starts to run
let Tip go, an’ yell as loud as you can.”

Then he ordered this boy behind a tree, and another into the branches,
making such a warlike hubbub as probably was never before heard in
those woods. Meanwhile Tip had concluded the best thing he could do was
to take a rest, and he lay at full length under the tree, as if such an
idea as chewing a bear had never entered his head.

Finally Bill made all his arrangements, and cautiously stepped a yard
or two in advance, with both knife and gun ready for instant use.

“What do you think, Tim, had we better rush right in, or shall we
throw a stone, an’ let Tip catch him when he runs out?” he asked, in a
whisper, as if he was afraid of scaring the beast after all the noise
that had been made.

“Heave a stone in; that’s the best way,” said Bobby, quickly, not
liking the idea of being one of the party who were to make the rush.

Nearly all the boys showed that they preferred the most peaceable way
of commencing the fight, and Bill prepared to start the savage beast
from his lair.

At first he was at a loss to know what to do with his weapons while he
cast the stone that might do so much mischief; but finally he arranged
it to his satisfaction by holding the knife under his left arm, so that
it could be drawn readily, and by keeping the gun in his left hand.

“Now look out!” he shouted, “an’ be ready to let Tip go when the bear
comes out. All yell as loud as you can when I fire, so’s to scare him.”

Then Bill raised his arm, took deliberate aim at the centre of the
clump of bushes, and threw the stone.

The instant he did so he grasped his knife, and the others set up such
a cry as ought to have startled a dozen bears.

It was some seconds before any sign was made that the animal in hiding
even knew the stone had been thrown, and then there was a movement in
the bushes as if it had simply changed its position――nothing more.

Bill stood silent with astonishment; he had expected to see that
bear come out of the bushes with a regular flying leap, and he was
thoroughly disappointed.

“Better let Tip go in an’ snake him right out,” suggested Bobby, who
was afraid Bill would again propose a charge by the party.

Bill looked at Tim to see what he thought of such a plan, and the dog’s
owner nodded his head in approval.

“Then all get ready, an’ take the rope off his neck,” shouted Bill, as
he set his teeth hard because of the struggle that it was evident would
come soon.

Having the most perfect faith in the ability of his dog to kill any
animal not larger than an elephant, Tim cautiously untied the ropes.
But Tip did not appear to be excited by the prospect; he did not even
get up from the ground, but lay there wagging his stub tail as if he
was playing at “thumbs up.”

“Set him on!” cried Bill, tired of the inactivity; and Tim, now afraid
his pet might be accused of cowardice, set him on with the most
encouraging cries of “S’t-aboy!” But Tip, instead of running toward the
bear, seemed to be bewildered by the noise, for all hands were shouting
at him; he jumped to his feet, and ran round and round his master, as
if asking what was wanted of him.

Tim grew nervous, more especially as he saw some of the boys who had
appeared the most frightened when the stone was first thrown now smile,
as if they were saying to themselves that Tip couldn’t be so very much
of a bear dog after all, if he was afraid to kill one that had been
found for him.

Tim walked as near the bushes as he dared to go, pointed with his
finger, and urged Tip to “go an’ bring him out,” but all to no
purpose. The dog seemed willing enough, but it was evident he did
not understand what was wanted of him. Then Tim picked up a piece of
wood, and, after showing Tip that he was to follow it, threw it in the
direction of the supposed bear.

This time Tip understood, and he bounded into the thicket, while each
one of the party held his breath in suspense, and grasped his weapons,
ready for immediate use.

The moment Tip was hidden by the bushes he began to bark furiously,
and there was no doubt but that the battle had commenced. Even Bill
Thompson appeared to be a little timid, and he no longer advised a
rush, even though there was a chance that the skin was being destroyed.
However, he did suggest that Tim and Bobby should go in and put a rope
around Tip’s neck, so that he could be pulled away as soon as the bear
was dead; but his advice was not taken, nor did there seem any chance
that it would be.

Once Bobby took deliberate aim in the direction of the noise made by
Tip, and was just lighting a match to discharge the weapon when Tim
stayed his murderous hand.

“You might kill Tip, an’ then we’d have to fight the bear all by
ourselves, ’cause Tip must have bit him some by this time an’ made him
mad.”

No suggestion could have been made which would have stopped Bobby
quicker, and he turned very pale at the thought of being deprived of
Tip’s protection, dropping his gun very quickly.

Just at this time, when all were growing nervous and excited, the
sounds in the bushes told that the beast was at last being driven
from its lair. Quite a number of the party lost all interest in the
matter when they found they were to have a full view, and immediately
retreated to a safe distance.

But Bill, Tim, and Bobby held a portion of their ground manfully,
knowing they would be in deepest disgrace if they, the leaders of the
party, should make any undignified flight. However, they thought their
dignity would not suffer to any great extent if they should hide behind
a tree, and they did so at once.

The crackling and crashing of the bushes told that some large animal
was being driven out by Tip; and as they watched in breathless――perhaps
frightened――anxiety one of the causes of the commotion stalked out into
view, while at the same time an exclamation of disgust and relief burst
from Bill Thompson’s lips:

“Gracious! it’s only Bobby Tucker’s cow!”

And so it was. The bear had turned into a peaceful, rather
sleepy-looking old cow, who had sought the shade of the bushes, only to
be driven from her cool retreat by Tip Babbige and a lot of noisy boys.

How brave they all were then, and how they laughed at each other’s
cowardice, declaring that they had only feared it might not be a bear
after all! But they patted Tip’s head, and spoke to him kindly, as
if he had relieved them from some terrible peril, instead of only
disturbing a cow.

After the first excitement attending the finding of the cow had
subsided, the question arose as to the proper course to pursue, and it
was decided that the bear-hunt must be continued, as it would not be
at all the right thing to delay another day in nailing a skin to Bobby
Tucker’s father’s barn.

This time the march was not made with so much caution, and Tip was
allowed to roam about loose, in the hope that he might find the bear’s
trail more quickly. Bobby even proposed to shoot a squirrel; but this
plan was quickly frowned down by Bill Thompson, who reminded him that
he had no more powder, and that the bear might come upon them at the
very moment when the gun was empty.

Tip ran on, joyous at having recovered his freedom, and in a short time
was out of sight. Then the boys ceased even to keep a lookout for
large animals, growing so careless as to watch the squirrels, hunt for
birds’ nests, and act in every way unbecoming bear hunters.

But suddenly they were roused into activity and excitement by furious,
angry barking some distance away.

“He’s caught one this time!” shouted Bill, as he drew his knife from
his belt and started forward rapidly, followed closely or afar off by
the remainder of the party, according to their degree of courage.

When the scene of the conflict was reached, and it was positive that
a fight was in progress, because Tip’s barking had changed to short,
angry yelps, the greater portion of the party found that they were too
tired to run any farther, and fell into such a slow pace that they
could not arrive until the battle was over.

“I can see them!” shouted Bill, exultantly; “an’ it ain’t a very big
bear――only a small one. Come on quick!”

As the leaders of the party dashed into a small cleared space they
saw Tip actually fighting, and this time it was no cow, but a small,
dark-colored animal, which, if it really was a bear, must have been a
very young one.

Bill was not afraid of so small an animal, and he jumped forward with
his knife; but Tim cried:

“It’s only a young one. Let’s get him away from Tip, an’ take him home
alive.”

He spoke too late to save the animal’s life, for just then Tip gave the
small bundle of fur a toss in the air, and when it came down it was
dead.

Tim caught Tip by the neck, to prevent any further attack on his
part, and the boys gathered around the victim. It was no bear, but a
woodchuck, Tip had killed, as they all knew after a short examination,
and the disappointment they felt at not having slain a bear was
greatly lessened by the fact that they had really killed something.

How they praised and petted Tip then! Not a boy among them, from that
moment, but believed he could have killed a bear as easily as he had
killed the woodchuck, and Tim was happy.

That night there was a skin nailed on Bobby Tucker’s father’s barn,
but it was not a bearskin, and it was wofully cut and hacked, owing to
Tip’s teeth and Bill Thompson’s very unscientific skinning.

CHAPTER X.

BILL THOMPSON’S TENT.

Hardly had the boys ceased to talk of their grand hunt when they were
thrown into the greatest excitement by news which Bill Thompson had
called them together to impart. This is what he said, when at least a
dozen were present behind the same barn that had been ornamented with
the skin of Tip’s victim:

“Fellers, my father has jest brought home a great big tent――a reg’lar
canvas one――an’ he says we may take it, an’ all go off campin’ for a
week. What do you think of that?”

For some moments it was impossible to learn just what the boys did
think of it, for they all attempted to talk at once, and some, who
could not speak as loud as the others, began to cheer, until Tip――who,
of course, had been called into council with the others――barked loudly
at the confusion of sound. Although Bill knew that his companions were
almost beside themselves with joy at the news, it was fully ten minutes
before the noise had subsided sufficiently for him to learn that fact
from their words.

Bobby Tucker was positive he and Tim would be allowed to go with the
party, because his father had told them they might enjoy themselves in
their own way until the summer term of school began, and the majority
of those present were equally certain they could go. Those who had
any doubts on the matter started off at once to gain the desired
permission, and in a short time it was decided that just an even
dozen――eleven boys and Tip――would make up the party. Then the serious
work began.

It was necessary to decide where they should go, how they were to get
there, and how a supply of provisions could be obtained.

Bobby Tucker was sure he could get a bushel of potatoes as his share,
and a large piece of pork as Tim’s. Bill Thompson owned three of the
hens in his father’s flock, one of which he agreed to carry, in order
that at least one “big” dinner might be served, and he also agreed to
get three dozen of eggs. Jimmy Newcomb, whose father kept a store, was
certain he could get a large supply of crackers and a small supply of
candy. Another of the party promised butter, pepper, and salt; another
agreed, in the name of his mother, to have some gingerbread and pies;
and so the list of provisions was made up, thus settling the last
question first.

Where the camp should be pitched was a more difficult matter to decide.
Some were in favor of going in the same direction as that taken on
the bear-hunt; but this was voted down at once by Bill Thompson, who,
because he was the party furnishing the tent, had great weight in the
discussion.

“We want to go ’way off where we can’t get back for a good while,” he
said, decidedly. “An’, besides, we must go where nobody lives, so’s we
can find more bears for Tip.”

Then another of the party suggested getting a horse and cart, and going
as far into the interior of the island as possible; but this Bill
objected to, on the ground that they would then be obliged to follow
some road, which would still keep them within the range of civilization.

“Can’t we get a boat, an’ go way round to the other side of the island,
where nobody lives?” asked Tim.

“That’s the very thing,” said Bill, decisively――“that’s the very thing,
an’ Jimmy Newcomb can get the one his father keeps at Dunham’s wharf.”

All three of the questions having thus been settled, the boys went over
to Bill Thompson’s to view the tent which was to afford them their
highest idea of enjoyment. It was found to be quite large enough to
shelter the entire party, being fully twelve feet square, and complete
in everything save pegs and stakes, which could easily be made before
starting, or after they should arrive on the spot where it was to be
pitched.

It was some time before the boys had gazed sufficiently upon this
canvas house, so wonderfully come into their possession, and they would
probably have spent more time in admiration of it, had there not been
some little doubt as to whether Jimmy Newcomb’s father had the same
idea regarding the loan of his boat as his son.

It was thought best to have an interview with Mr. Newcomb at once, and
the entire party marched down the village to a point almost opposite
the store, and waited there while Jimmy went in to ask the important
question.

He remained inside so long that every boy’s face commenced to grow
sad, for each moment he was there seemed to tell that he was not
succeeding in the project.

“I guess his father won’t let him have it, an’ he’s stayin’ there to
coax,” said Bill, sadly; but he had hardly spoken when Jimmy appeared.
He could not wait until he crossed the street before he imparted the
joyful news, but waved his hat even while he stood on the threshold of
the door, and shouted, at the highest squeak of his voice:

“It’s all right, boys; we can have her as long as we want, if we’re
careful not to get her stove up.”

In the twinkling of an eye every one of those boys had started at full
speed toward Dunham’s wharf, that they might look at the craft which
was to carry them on their journey. They had all seen the boat at least
a hundred times before, but now that she was theirs for a while she
seemed like a new one.

Since the boat was ready, and the tent nearly complete for pitching,
Bill Thompson proposed that each one should spend that day getting
ready for the trip. The time set for the start was seven o’clock on the
following morning, and every one was expected to be on hand promptly
at that hour. Tim, Bobby, and Bill promised to make the tent pegs and
stakes, and it was decided that, if any important question should come
up meanwhile, they should meet behind Bobby Tucker’s barn that night to
discuss it.

With this agreement the conference broke up, and during the remainder
of that day, when any of the townspeople saw a boy running at full
speed, or staggering under a load of bed-clothing, they knew he was one
of the party who were going out camping for a week.

It would not be surprising if the mothers of those boys lost their
temper several times during the following ten hours, so numerous were
their wants, and such vague ideas did they have as to the amount of
provisions necessary for a week’s stay in the woods. But, greatly to
the delight of both the boys and their parents, the day came to a
close, as all days will, and a very happy party met in the rear of Mr.
Tucker’s barn.

Each one had secured the articles promised, while some had been able to
do even more. Bobby had found a flag, rather the worse for wear, to be
sure, but still showing enough of the Stars and Stripes to allow one to
see what it had been, and this was looked upon as the crowning triumph
of all.

Tim, Bobby, and Bill had worked hard at the tent pegs, but had made
only about half the required number. This, however, was not considered
important, since the remainder could be made after they arrived at the
camping-place.

When the party broke up that night it was with the understanding that
each one would be at the boat as early as possible, and it was hard
work for any of them to get to sleep that night. But nearly all of them
were up and dressed before the sun had any idea that it was time for
him to show his face in the east.

It was hardly half-past six when everything, from the tent to Bill
Thompson’s live hen, was in the boat, packed snugly. The flag was
raised at the stern of a thin slab of drift-wood, held in place by
Jimmy Newcomb, who was given the position of helmsman, owing to the
fact that his father owned the boat. The remainder of the party were to
take turns at rowing, and when the boat was pushed away from the shore,
four oars were worked as vigorously as the boys at the end of them knew
how.

[Illustration: MAKING READY TO EMBARK]

Bill Thompson started a song, in which all joined; Tip barked until
there was danger that he would become hopelessly hoarse; and the old
hen cackled and scolded, as if she knew just what her fate was to be.

There was only one settlement on Minchin’s Island, and it was the
plan of the party to row around the coast until they reached a point
as nearly opposite the village as possible. The distance was fully ten
miles; but no one thought the labor would be too great if, by dint of
hard rowing, they could reach a place that was uninhabited, and each
was ready to take his turn at the oar whenever another was tired.

Now, Bill Thompson was a great stickler for discipline; and although
he had said nothing about it when the details of the voyage were under
discussion, he had a plan which he began to carry into execution as
soon as the journey was fairly commenced.

“Now, we’ve got to do this thing right,” he said, as he braced himself
in the bow, where he could have a view of all hands. “We must choose
different ones to do different things, so’s we’ll know what we’re
about. We’ve got to have cooks, an’ I nom’nate Tim Babbige an’ Bobby
Tucker to take care of the victuals an’ do the cookin’.”

Bill paused, as if for some one to second the proposition, and Jimmy
Newcomb said――not very properly, to be sure, according to the rules
laid down for the election of gentlemen to office, but still quite
emphatically enough to show he meant it――

“That settles it;” and Tim and Bobby were considered elected to the
responsible offices of cooks and guardians of the food.

“Now, I go in for makin’ Jimmy Newcomb captain of the ship, an’ he must
boss the job when we’re out on a trip, an’ when we’re landin’.”

This time Tim, being already one of the most important officers of the
expedition, considering it necessary to assist in the election of some
of the others, said, quickly:

“That’s jest the thing.”

After Bill had appointed certain of the boys to cut wood and bring
water, he said, with just a shade of hesitation in his voice, as if he
was troubled with bashfulness:

“Now somebody’s got to be captain of the huntin’, an’ if you boys are
willin’ I’ll do that; an’ whatever kind of wild animals we scare up, I
promise to be the first one to rush in an’ cut their throats after Tip
has caught ’em.”

This was considered as a sort of oath of office, and each member of
the party made some sign of agreement in Bill’s self-election, feeling
perfectly satisfied that he should fill what was looked upon as a
dangerous position.

After they had rowed at least three hours, different members of the
crew insisted that they must have gone entirely around the island, and
were then proceeding toward home; but Jimmy quickly put a stop to any
grumbling. Both he and Bill knew when they were about opposite the
village, for they had been there several times with Captain Thompson,
and they were both equally positive that they had yet some miles to go
before gaining the extreme end of the island.

It was about eleven o’clock, and nearly every boy was tired out with
his work at the oar, when Jimmy ordered them to stop rowing, and
pointed inshore.

The view which presented itself was a lovely one. Two points of rock
projected some distance into the sea, forming a little harbor, at the
head of which was a smooth, shelving beach of sand. Just back of the
beach was a dense grove of pine-trees, and through them led a narrow
path, now so covered with vines and weeds as to show it had not been
used, by man at least, for some time.

Jim had no need to ask what his companions thought of camping there,
for each one appeared delighted with it, and the boat was headed for
the beach.

Bill Thompson was the first to leap ashore, and, though he was only the
chief huntsman, he assumed full charge of the expedition, so far as
landing and setting up the tent were concerned.

A cleared spot in the grove about fifty yards from the beach was
selected as the site of the tent, and they then wished that the pegs
had all been made before they started, for the canvas could not be put
up till that was done. Bill and two others set about this important
work, while Tim and Bobby bustled around to get something to eat, and
Jim made sure the boat was anchored securely.

The first thing done by the two cooks was to tie Bill’s hen by her leg
to a tree, and then it was found necessary to fasten Tip some distance
from her, since he showed a decided inclination to treat her as he had
the woodchuck.

Then the more skilful work of building the fireplace was begun, and
this Tim took charge of, while Bobby unpacked the kettle and spider,
got the potatoes ready for cooking and made himself generally useful.

Tim made rather a good job of the fireplace, and after he had finished
it to his satisfaction he cut three forked sticks, on which to hang
the kettle, but immediately afterward found that they had forgotten
to bring a chain, and would be obliged to suspend the pot by a rope,
thereby running some risk of its burning.

Meanwhile the wood and water carriers had done their part of the work,
and the cooks found plenty of material close at hand for beginning
their culinary operations. The potatoes were put on to boil, and,
thanks to the generous fire underneath them, gave promise of speedily
being ready to do their allotted duty in the dinner which the hungry
boys were anxiously expecting.

Bill had finished making his tent pegs, and by the time Tim had
succeeded in hanging the kettle the tent was up, needing only the
delicate operation of setting the stakes properly to make it a large
and habitable dwelling.

CHAPTER XI.

ONE COOK SPOILS THE BROTH.

The question of what was to make up the dinner bill of fare appeared
to be an important one to all, and many were the suggestions made to
the cooks. Some proposed that the work of raising the tent be intrusted
to other hands, so that Bill and Tip could go out and bring in a deer
or a bear; others thought the old hen should be killed at once, and
served up as a roast; while one portion of the party seemed to think it
Captain Jimmy’s duty to get his ship under way and go after some fish
for a chowder.

But Tim and Bobby did not allow any of these remarks to trouble them;
they were the legally elected cooks, and they proposed to do the work
in their own way.

“We’ll get the dinner,” said Tim, with some dignity; “an’ after
it’s done, if you fellers don’t like it, you can cook one to suit
yourselves.”

But the cooks did listen to what Bill had to say, since he was one of
the high officials, and he was strongly in favor of making the first
dinner in camp a “big” one, even going so far as to propose in all
earnestness that the hen be killed.

“We might jest as well eat her,” he said, as he looked murderously
toward the unhappy fowl, which was struggling to free herself from her
bonds at the risk of breaking her leg. “’Cause jest as likely as not
she’ll get away, an’ then we sha’n’t so much as have a smell of her.”

“It will take us too long to fix her up for dinner,” said Tim, who was
just the least bit afraid that he was not cook enough to serve the hen
properly, “We can get enough to eat to-day without havin’ so much fuss.”

“I don’t care how long it takes; what we want is a bang-up dinner, an’
I go in for havin’ it now,” said Bill, decidedly.

Bobby was on the point of throwing the weight of his opinion against
the proposed feast when a bark of triumph was heard from Tip, and the
question was settled without farther discussion. The dog, which had
been struggling to get free from the time he had been tied so near
the hen, to which he seemed to think he had a perfect right, finally
succeeded in releasing himself. There was a sudden rush on his part, a
loud, cackling protest from poor Biddy, who seemed to anticipate her
fate, and then she was tossed in the air a dead chicken.

Bill had presence of mind enough, fortunately for the dinner prospects,
to seize his hen before Tip made his lunch from her, and he said, as he
handed her to Tim:

“There, you see Tip knew we ought to kill her, an’ so he did it for us.
Now we can have a good dinner.”

Tim made no reply, and perhaps for the first time in his life he was
angry with Tip for having meddled in matters which did not concern him.
It was necessary now to cook the hen, and as he stood with her in his
hand the terrible thought came to him that he did not even know enough
to prepare her for cooking.

“Do you think we had better have her roasted or boiled?” he asked, in a
low tone, of Bobby.

Now, this other cook was quite as perplexed about the matter as Tim
was, and he was thoroughly well pleased that he had allowed his partner
to take the lead in other matters, so that the latter would now be
obliged to take all the responsibility of the hen’s appearance at the
dinner-table.

“I think we had better roast her,” he said, in a careless sort of way,
as if to him one style of cooking was as easy as another.

Again was Tim disappointed. He had hoped Bobby would propose boiling
her, in which case all he would be obliged to do would be to pop her
into the kettle, letting her stay there until she was done. But since
Bobby was so cruel as to propose the hardest way of cooking the hen,
roasted it must be, or gone was his reputation as cook.

“I’ll pick the feathers off,” said Bill, gleefully; and Tim handed him
the fowl.

“I don’t seem to see how we’re goin’ to get along,” said Tim to Bobby.
“We ain’t got any dishes to cook her in.”

“We don’t want any, do we?” asked his assistant, in some surprise. “I
always thought when folks that were campin’ out cooked anything they
stuck it on a stick in front of the fire, an’ let it sizzle.”

“We can do it so now!” he exclaimed; and, since this suggestion had
been made, roasting chickens did not appear to be any very hard matter
after all.

He piled the wood on until he had a fire large enough to roast a
pig, cut a long, sharp stick on which to spit the hen, and had hardly
completed these preparations when Bill Thompson reappeared with the now
featherless victim of Tip’s bloodthirsty nature.

Bill’s work might have been done more neatly; but what did a few
feathers amount to when a dozen hungry boys were waiting to be fed? Tim
was not quite sure whether he had better cut off the head and legs,
or not; but, as they did not seem to be in the way, he concluded they
might as well be cooked. Neither did he think any cleaning necessary,
but plunged the stick through her, and stuck one end in the ground in
front of the fire with all the grace of an experienced cook.

The remainder of the party watched this work with hungry eagerness; and
when Tim filled the kettle with potatoes they settled themselves down
contentedly to wait for the “bang-up” dinner for which they were in a
measure indebted to Tip.

The water in the pot bubbled and boiled merrily; the murdered hen began
to steam and sizzle, till every boy’s mouth watered with anticipation;
while Tim and Bobby bustled around in an important manner, feeling that
they were looked up to as the head men of the party, and enjoying the
distinction immensely.

They piled on the wood, stirred the potatoes, as if that was the
important part of cooking that vegetable, while every few moments Tim
would smell of the hen, nearly singeing the hair from his head each
time. They were certainly good cooks, if keeping up a big fire could
make them so.

The hen did not appear to be revengeful at having been so suddenly
deprived of life, for in a short time her rather lean body began to
turn brown, and a most delicious odor arose on the air, even if she was
thickly incrusted with ashes.

As Tim turned her carefully he thought with surprise that he was a
really good cook, and blamed himself for having been so distrustful of
his own ability.

Thus matters went on, successfully but slowly, until some of the boys
showed such plain signs of impatience that Tim thought it necessary to
display more evidences of the dinner, even though the hen was far from
being roasted.

He and Bobby selected from the cooked provisions enough in the way of
pies and cake to make twice as large a party feel very uncomfortable.
They spread this feast at one side of the fire, where it would be out
of the way of the smoke, and Tim was trying to calculate how it would
be possible to cut an apple pie in eleven pieces, and have them all
of equal size, when a sound as of water coming in contact with fire,
accompanied by a cry of dismay from Bill Thompson, caused him to start
violently.

The sight that met his startled gaze was a sad one, and it did not seem
any less so to him than it did to all the others of that hungry party.

The kettle of potatoes had been hung to the poles by a rope, which had
burnt slowly until it broke, letting the potatoes, water, and kettle
into the fire, deluging the half-roasted hen, and basting it with
cinders until it looked like a huge ball of mud.

The steam and smoke were so dense that it was impossible to attempt a
rescue. All that could be done was to wait a few moments, and Tim spent
that time dancing around the ruins like a crazy Indian.

It was a horror-stricken party that stood around the drowned fire,
watching the cooks as they fished up first the muddy hen, and then the
potatoes, all looking very sorry for their plunge into the ashes.

“Now all you’ve got to do,” said Bill Thompson, with the air of one who
knew, “is to put the potatoes right back an’ wash the hen. They’ll
cook jest as well as ever, only it’ll take a little longer, that’s all.”

Surely there was nothing so serious about the accident if it could be
repaired with so little trouble, and the spirits of the party rose as
rapidly as they had fallen. The hen was given a sea bath, which took
nearly all the ashes off, and those which remained, Bill Thompson
thought, would make her taste the better. The potatoes did not need any
cleansing, so Tim thought, and were put into the pot again, looking
quite dirty, but in very nearly a cooked condition.

Another fire was built, and rocks were placed in such a way around it
that the kettle could rest on them. The hen was put on another stick,
and again the chances for dinner looked promising.

The food which had been spread out on the ground looked very tempting
to the idle ones of the hungry party, and every now and then one
would try to get a piece of pie or cake, until Tim, who was determined
that no one should have anything to eat until all could be served, was
almost at his wits’ end to prevent them from making a perfect raid on
the larder.

Finally, worn out with running from the fire to the table every time
he saw one of the party moving innocently up that way, he told Bobby
to keep strict guard over the food, and that young gentleman wiped
the ashes and perspiration from his face with an air of relief, as
he seated himself near the largest pie, prepared to act the part of
watch-dog.

Tip, who had been running about in everybody’s way, and seriously
troubling his master, now came toward the fire, and sat down on
his little stubbed tail in such a suspicious manner that Tim felt
reasonably certain it was his purpose to steal the hen whenever a good
opportunity presented itself.

Such base action on Tip’s part caused Tim more delay, as he was
obliged to tie the dog securely to a tree out of reach of temptation,
and by the time the tired cook got back to his work again a great
commotion was raised by Captain Jimmy and Bobby.

When Bill Thompson had quelled the tumult it was learned that Captain
Jim doubted Bobby’s honesty from the first moment he had been appointed
guardian of the food, and had watched him from behind a tree. He stated
positively that he saw Bobby’s eyes fixed on the apple-pie in such a
way as no officer of the company should look at a pie, unless the time
had come to eat it, and, at a time when he thought no one was looking,
Jim was sure he saw him put his fingers under the crust, pull out two
slices of apple, and eat them.

Of course such a charge as this caused intense excitement, and the
majority of the party thought Bobby ought to be punished in some way,
as a warning to others, and more especially to show that the officers
of the party should be above reproach, or, failing in their duty, be
punished severely.

Bobby actually grew frightened as his companions discussed the question
of his punishment, and he looked imploringly at Tim, thinking his
brother-officer should try to shield him in his crime of stealing the
pie. But there was no pity to be seen in the head cook’s face; he felt
that the taking of those two pieces of apple by the man who had been
appointed to guard them was indeed a crime.

Some of the party proposed that the culprit be condemned to go without
his dinner; others, not quite so bloodthirsty, believed he should be
deprived of his office, while there were those who believed that to
forbid him eating any pie would be punishment enough.

It is hard to say just how Bobby would have been obliged to atone for
the sin, if the hand of Justice had not been stayed by the dinner
itself.

The chicken was becoming blackened and burnt on one side, from not
being turned often enough, the potatoes were boiling into a perfect
jelly, and it was all being done so quickly that Tim had not the time
to attend to the food properly; therefore it was he who saved his
assistant from his judges.

“You’ll have to let him go this time, for he must help me,” he said.
“We’ll make him work all the harder to pay for what he’s done.”

Once more over the smoky fire and amid the flying ashes Bobby labored
for the good of others, working out the punishment for his sin.

The kettle of potatoes was taken from the fire; and while Bobby picked
out the pieces――for they had boiled until they were discouraged, and
had burst their skins――arranging them on two shingles, Tim took the
well-blackened remains of poor Biddy from the spit, laying them on a
short bit of board in great triumph.

Then the hungry party gathered around the place which represented the
table, and waited impatiently to be served.

Bill Thompson, with his hunting-knife, proceeded to carve the fowl,
which was a work of some time, owing to its exceeding toughness.

In order to show proper respect for the office he held, Bill waited on
Captain Jimmy first, and that young gentleman did not waste much time
before he began to eat.

The roast was quite raw inside, even though it was burnt outside, but
that, in Captain Jimmy’s hungry condition, made very little difference.
He cut off the first mouthful and began to eat in a ravenous manner,
when suddenly he stopped, looking very queer.

“What is the matter?” asked Tim, anxiously, quick to notice the change
in the captain’s face.

“I dunno,” said Jim; “but it tastes kind o’ funny.”

“That’s ’cause you ain’t used to hen,” said Bill, almost savagely, not
pleased that any one should find fault with his fowl.

Just then another of the party, who had received his portion and begun
eating, laid down his knife and fork with an unmistakable air of
discomfort.

“Perhaps you don’t like hen,” cried Bill, now growing angry that food
of his providing should be refused.

By this time several of the party had shown unmistakable signs of
disliking the roast, and Bill proceeded to make an investigation.

He cut off a large mouthful, and began eating it with the air of one
who thinks he knows just what he is about to taste, and has made up his
mind beforehand to be pleased. But he stopped as suddenly as the others
had, and looking sternly at Tim, he asked:

“What did you put on this hen?”

“Nothin’; perhaps it tastes queer ’cause the ’taters tipped over on
it.”

“It don’t taste like ’taters,” said Bill; “it tastes a good deal worse.”

Then he examined the uncarved portion of the fowl, and the mystery was
explained.

“I know what the matter is, an’ I don’t think you’re much of a cook,
Tim Babbige. You’ve cooked the hen without cleanin’ her, an’ of course
she’s spoiled.”

Tim could make no reply, for as soon as Bill spoke he remembered how
chickens ought to look when ready to be roasted, and he knew he could
no longer hope to be considered a competent cook.

That day the party made their dinner of boiled potatoes and pastry,
while Tip actually revelled on the half-roasted fowl he had so
ruthlessly slain.

CHAPTER XII.

TIP’S DANGER.

The work of preparing the dinner had occupied so much time that it was
nearly the regular hour for supper before the last boy arose from the
lowly table, and not one of them had any desire to fish or hunt. They
sat around the fire, dodging the smoke as best they could, until the
setting sun warned them that they must get their bedroom work done at
once, or be obliged to do it in the dark.

This task was remarkably simple; it consisted in each boy finding his
blanket, wrapping himself in it, and lying on the ground, all in a row,
like herrings in a box.

Nor did they wait very long for slumber to visit their eyelids, for in
ten minutes after they were ready it came to all, even to Tip, who had
curled himself up snugly under Tim’s arm.

Had any of the party been experienced in the sport of “camping out,”
they would have studied the signs in the sky, for the purpose of
learning what might have been expected of the weather; but as it was,
they had all laid themselves down to sleep without a thought that the
dark clouds which had begun to gather in the sky were evidences of a
storm.

It was nearly midnight, and up to that time not one of them had
awakened from the heavy sleep into which he had first fallen, when Tim
became painfully aware that something was wrong. He had been dreaming
that he was again on the _Pride of the Wave_, that Captain Pratt had
thrown him overboard because he had been trying to steer, and just as
he struck the water he awoke, with a start.

The moment his eyes were open he understood the reason for his dream:
he was lying in a large pool of water, and the blanket in which he had
wrapped himself so comfortably was thoroughly saturated with it. At
first he was at a loss to account for this sudden change of condition,
and then the loud patter of rain on the canvas roof told the story
plainly. A storm had come up, and the tent, being on the slope of a
hill, was serving as a sort of reservoir for little streams of water
that were rapidly increasing in size.

Tip, roused by his master’s sudden movement, had started from his
comfortable position and walked directly into the water, very much to
his discomfort and fear; howling loudly, he jumped among the sleepers
with such force as at once to awaken and terrify them.

It required but a few words from Tim to make them understand all that
had happened, for some of them were nearly as wet as he was, and all
could hear the patter of the rain, which seemed to increase in violence
each moment.

A lonesome prospect it was to think of remaining in the tent the rest
of the night, unable to sleep because of the water that poured in under
the canvas, or trickled down through three or four small holes in the
roof.

For several moments none of them knew what to do, but they stood
huddled together in sleepy surprise and sorrow, until Tim proposed
that, since he could hardly be more wet than he was, he should go out
and dig a trench which would lead the water each side of the tent. But
that plan was abandoned when it was discovered that a hatchet and a
spoon were the only effective tools they had.

In order to get some idea of the condition of affairs, Tim lighted
first one match and then another; but the light shed was so feeble
that Captain Jimmy proposed building a small fire, which would both
illuminate and heat the interior.

Tim acted upon this suggestion at once. With some newspapers and small
bits of wood that were still dry he succeeded in kindling such a
blaze as shed quite a light, but did not endanger the canvas. But he
forgot all about the smoke, and this oversight he was reminded of very
forcibly after a few moments.

Careful examination showed that the water only came in from the upper
or higher side of the tent, but it was pouring in there in such
quantities that before long the interior would be spread with a carpet
of water.

“We’ve got to dig a ditch along this side, so’s the water will run
off,” said Tim, after he had surveyed the uncomfortable-looking little
brooks, and waited a moment, in the hope that Bill or Captain Jimmy
would suggest a better plan.

All saw the necessity of doing something at once, and the moment Tim
gave them the idea they went to work with knives, spoons, or any other
implements they could find. It did not take much time, even with the
poor tools they had, to dig a trench that would carry away any moderate
amount of water, and after that was done they gathered around the fire
for consultation.

But by that time they began to learn that smoke was even more
uncomfortable to bear than water. For some time it had been rising to
the top of the tent, escaping in small quantities through the flaps and
holes; but only a portion of it had found vent, and the tent was so
full that they were nearly suffocated.

They covered their eyes, and tried to “grin and bear it”; but such
heroic effort could only be made for a short while, and they were
obliged to run out into the pelting rain in order to get the pure air.

It was no fun to stand out-of-doors in a storm, and, acting on Captain
Jimmy’s suggestion, the party returned after a few moments to “kick the
fire out.”

But such a plan was of very little benefit, since the embers would
smoke despite all they could do, and out they ran again, seeking such
shelter as they could find under the trees, where it was not long
before they came to the conclusion that camping out in a rain-storm was
both a delusion and a snare.

In half an hour the tent was so nearly freed from smoke that they
sought its shelter again, and when they were housed once more they
presented a very forlorn appearance.

At first they decided that they would remain awake until daylight; but
as the hours rolled on this plan was abandoned, for one after another
wrapped himself in his blanket, concluding he could keep his eyes open
as well lying down, and proved it by going to sleep at once.

They did not sleep very soundly, nor lie in bed very late. When they
awakened it was not necessary to look out-of-doors in order to know if
it was raining, for the water was falling on the thin shelter as hard
and as persistently as if bent on beating it down.

There was but one happy-looking face among all the party, and that
belonged to Tim. He realized that it would be impossible to do much
cooking while it was storming, and after his experience with the hen he
had no desire to begin again his official duties.

As soon as the boys were fairly out of bed they began to ask how
breakfast could be cooked, and what they were to have in the way of
food, all of which questions Tim answered in a way that left no chance
for discussion. He cut eleven slices of bread, spread them thickly with
butter, placed over that a slice of cake, and informed the party that
they would begin the day with just that sort of a breakfast.

Of course there was some grumbling, but the dissatisfied ones soon
realized that Tim had done his best under the circumstances, and they
ate the bread and cake very contentedly.

That forenoon was not spent in a very jolly manner; no one could go out
save at the risk of a thorough wetting, and when dinner, consisting of
the same as was given for breakfast, was served, they began to consider
themselves an injured party.

That afternoon was a repetition of the forenoon, save that at
supper-time Tim gravely informed them that there was hardly enough
cooked provisions for breakfast.

Tip got along much better than the others. As soon as he learned that
he could not venture outside of the tent without getting wet, he curled
himself up on the pile of blankets and slept the day away, save at
those times when some one would rouse him up to play――a liberty which
he resented in such a manner as caused them to leave him alone very
soon.

Nearly every five minutes some one of the boys would open the flaps of
the tent, look out, and announce it as his opinion that the storm was
clearing away; but yet it continued to rain as hard as ever.

Unfortunately for them, the boys were not as sleepy when the second
night came, and the evening spent in the dark was not a cheerful one.
The rain was still coming down as steadily as ever, and they had ceased
to speculate as to when it would stop. It was after they had been
sitting in mournful silence for some time that Bill Thompson started
what was a painful topic of conversation.

“How long will the victuals last, Tim?”

“They’re ’most gone now, ’cept the pork an’ ’taters, an’ the eggs, that
I never thought of till a minute ago.”

“If it would only stop rainin’, Jim could go out fishin’, an’ I could
go out huntin’, and in a day we could get more’n the crowd of us could
eat in a week. I’ll tell you what I will do”――and Bill spoke very
earnestly――“I’ll take Tip an’ go out alone in the mornin’, whether it
rains or not.”

“Why not all go?” said Tim, pleased with the plan. “Supposin’ we do get
wet, what of that? We can get dry again when the sun does come out, an’
it’ll be better’n stayin’ here scrouchin’ around.”

There were a number of the boys who were of Tim’s way of thinking, and
the hunting party was decided upon for the following day, regardless of
the weather.

That night seemed a long one, and when the morning came each one looked
anxiously out at the sky, gaining but little comfort from the view.
The clouds were dull and gray; and though the rain was not falling
as furiously as it had been, it was still coming down in the same
determined way.

Tim made an addition to the rather small slices of bread and cake, in
the shape of two raw eggs to each boy; and though some of them rebelled
at the uncooked food, they were wise enough to suck them before they
grumbled very loudly.

After breakfast some of the boys who had been the most determined to
join the hunting party the night before, concluded to wait a while
longer before setting out, and the consequence was that no one save
Tim, Bill, and Bobby had the courage to brave the drenching which it
was certain they must get.

This time Bill had a more effective weapon than the one he used at the
bear hunt. He had borrowed a fowling-piece of quite a respectable size,
and had brought with him a supply of powder and shot.

When Tip was called to join the party he did not display the animation
usual with him when invited out for a day’s sport, and Tim blamed him
severely for it. But he went, however, and Tim’s scolding seemed to
have very little effect upon him.

Believing they should come back staggering under the weight of game
which Tip would find and Bill would kill, the boys left the tent, going
up the path, since they did not dare to strike through the thickest
part of the woods, for fear of getting lost.

Bill covered the lock of the gun with the corner of his jacket, to
prevent the cap from getting wet, and on they went, rapidly getting a
drenching both from the rain and the water which came from the branches
of the trees.

For some time Tip steadily refused to run among the bushes, but after
much urging he did consent to hunt in a listless sort of way, barking
once or twice at some squirrels that had come out of their holes to
grumble at the weather, but scaring up no larger game.

Just at a time when the hunters were getting discouraged by their
ill-luck, Tip commenced barking at a furious rate, and started off
through the bushes at full speed.

Bill was all excitement; he made up his mind that they were on the
track of a deer at last, and was ready to discharge his weapon at the
first moving object he should see.

After running five minutes, during which time they made very little
progress, owing to the density of the woods, Bobby halted suddenly and,
in an excited manner, pointed toward a dark object some distance ahead,
which could be but dimly seen because of the foliage.

Bill was on his knee in an instant, with gun raised, and just as he was
about to pull the trigger Tim saw the object that had attracted Bobby’s
attention.

He cried out sharply, and started toward Bill to prevent him from
firing, but was too late. Almost as he spoke the gun was discharged,
and mingled with Tim’s cries could be heard the howling of a dog.

“You’ve shot Tip! you’ve shot Tip!” cried Tim, in an agony of grief, as
he rushed forward, followed by Bill and Bobby, looking as terrified as
though they had shot one of their companions.

When Tim reached the spot from which the cries of pain came he found
that his fears were not groundless, for there on the wet leaves,
bathed in his own blood, that flowed from shot-wounds on his back and
hind-legs, was poor Tip. He was trying to bite the wounds that burnt,
and all the while uttering sharp yelps of distress.

Tim, with a whole heart full of sorrow such as he had never known
before, knelt by the poor dog’s side, kissing him tenderly, but
powerless to do anything for his suffering pet save to wipe the blood
away. His grief was too great to admit of his saying anything to the
unfortunate hunter who had done him so much mischief, and poor Bill
stood behind a tree crying as if his heart was breaking.

Each instant Tim expected to see Tip in his death struggle, and he
tried very hard to make the dog kiss him; but the poor animal was in
such pain that he had no look even for his master.

It was nearly fifteen minutes that the three were gathered around the
dog expecting to see him die, and then he appeared to be in less pain.

“Perhaps he won’t die after all,” said Bill, hardly even daring to hope
his words would prove true. “If we could only get home Dr. Abbott would
cure him.” Then, as a sudden thought came to him, he turned quickly to
Bobby, and said, eagerly: “Run back to the camp as quick as you can,
an’ tell the fellers what has happened. Have them get everything into
the boat, so’s we can get right away for home.”

Bobby started off at full speed, and Tim, now encouraged to think that
Tip might yet recover, began to look hopeful.

Bill set to work cutting down some small saplings, out of which he made
a very good litter. On this Tip was placed tenderly, and, with Bill
at one end and Tim at the other, they started down the path toward the
camp. To avoid jolting the dog, thus causing him more pain, they were
obliged to walk so slowly that when they reached the beach the boys
were putting into the boat the last of their camp equipage.

Each of the party wanted to examine poor Tip, but Bill would not permit
it, because of the delay it would cause. He arranged a comfortable
place in the bow where Tip could lie, and another where Tim could sit
beside him, working all the time as if each moment was of the greatest
importance in the saving of Tip’s life.

At last all was ready, the word was given to push off, and the campers
rowed swiftly toward home.

CHAPTER XIII.

IN CONCLUSION.

Every one knew that Tip’s life depended on their getting home quickly,
and all the strength they could command was expended on the oars to
such purpose that in a trifle more than two hours the boat was moored
alongside Dunham’s wharf again.

Without stopping for anything, the entire party followed Tim and Bill
to Dr. Abbott’s office, and there they could hardly prevent themselves
from cheering when the doctor told them that Tip’s injuries were by no
means serious, and that he would soon be well, although it was possible
that he might always be lame in one hind-leg.

The shots were soon extracted, and Tip taken to the most comfortable
spot in Mr. Tucker’s barn, where it is safe to say he did not suffer
from want of attention.

That night, after Bobby and Tim had told the story of their camping-out,
Mr. Tucker thoroughly frightened them by saying that on the next day he
was going to take Tim back to Selman, to see Captain Babbige.

Tim’s face grew very pale, and it was plain to be seen that he was in
the greatest terror, while Bobby was thrown into a perfect fever of
excitement.

“I am not going to leave you there, Tim, if I can help it, for I intend
to do by you as I would some one should do by my Bobby if I had been
called to meet the Great Father. As matters now stand, you have no
right to be here, nor I to keep you; for Captain Babbige is your lawful
guardian, whom I hope you did not leave without sufficient cause.
To-morrow night we will start for Selman, and there the law shall
decide whether you may not be permitted to choose another guardian.”

Bobby caught eagerly at the idea that Tim would soon return, with a
perfect right to stay on Minchin’s Island; but the homeless boy took
a more gloomy view of the case. He felt certain that Captain Babbige
would force him to remain with him, and the future now looked as dark
as a day or two before it had looked bright.

So positive did he feel that he should not be allowed to return that if
Tip’s wound had been any less severe he would have taken him with him;
but as it was he made Bobby promise faithfully to send him as soon as
he should be able to travel.

The next day, when the boy population of Minchin’s Island learned that
Tim was to be taken back to the man who had abused him so cruelly, they
held a sort of indignation meeting back of Mr. Tucker’s barn, where
the matter was discussed.

Some of the more excitable among them proposed that, since the steamer
on which Tim was to leave would not touch at the island until nearly
six o’clock, there was plenty of time for him to run away again, making
it impossible for Mr. Tucker to take him back. They argued that he
could build himself a hut in the woods, where, protected by Tip, he
could live the jolliest kind of a life, and they could all come to see
him, as summer boarders.

But Tim rejected all such counsel, giving good reason for doing so:

“Mr. Tucker says I ought not have run away in the first place, and I
s’pose he knows, though it does seem hard to have to stay where folks
are so awful ugly to you. Now he says I must go back, an’ I wouldn’t be
any kind of a feller if I run away from him after he’s been so good to
me. I’d like to go out in the woods to live, if it wouldn’t rain any,
and I’d do anything rather than go back to Selman; but Mr. Tucker says
I ought to go, an’ I’m goin’, whatever Captain Babbige does to me.”

Every boy present knew that Tim was right, and those who had first
advised him felt ashamed of having done so, while all united in
cheering him for his resolution, until Tip, awakened by the noise,
barked loudly, which to Tim’s mind at least was proof that he approved
of his master’s decision.

That night Tim was escorted to the steamer by a large number of boys,
and while he was on the wharf he felt reasonably brave, even though
he was obliged to pass directly in front of Captain Pratt. But when
the steamer left the dock, and the cheers of the boys died away in the
distance, he fully expected to be summoned to the wheel-house.

But Captain Pratt paid no attention to him, and on the following day
Selman was reached without any incident worthy of mention.

There Tim was never exactly certain how the matter was arranged. He
knew that he was taken into court almost as if he had been a criminal,
that many questions were asked him by the judge, and that a number of
gentlemen whom he knew told of the ill-treatment he had received from
Captain Babbige.

Then it seemed as if Mr. Tucker had been accused of something, for
he told about his business and himself, and showed a great number of
letters from people on Minchin’s Island, all speaking of him as a kind
and good man.

Captain Babbige was there, apparently in a very uncomfortable frame of
mind, and he spoke to Tim in the kindest manner possible, asking if he
hadn’t always treated him as a son.

Tim was not sure how fathers did treat sons, except in one or two
cases; but he told the captain of what he had said about wanting him
to die, and then coaxed the judge――oh, so hard!――to let him go back
with Mr. Tucker.

Then some other people had a good deal to say, and the judge talked
some more; after they were all through Mr. Tucker told Tim it had been
decided he could go back to Minchin’s Island.

Tim’s delight was so great that it seemed impossible for him to keep
his feet on the ground, and when he was back at the island again, in
the midst of the crowd of boys who had come to welcome him for the
second time, his joy found vent in words.

And when Tim got into Mr. Tucker’s house, where Bobby cheered until
he was hoarse, and Mrs. Tucker kissed him again and again, he found
it impossible even to speak, because of a great lump in his throat,
which was not caused by sorrow; but he said over and over again to
himself that no one should regret in the man what they had done for the
homeless orphan boy.

TOM’S TROUBLES

BY JAMES OTIS

“It’s no use, boys; I can’t stand it any longer”; and Tom Gibson leaned
against the fence in front of four of his most intimate friends,
assuming such an attitude as he believed should be taken by a very
badly abused boy.

“What is it now?” asked little Dwight Holden, in a very unsympathetic
tone, much as if he did not believe Tom’s troubles to be so very severe.

“It’s the same thing every day till I’m all worn out,” and Tom wiped
his dry eyes with his jacket-sleeve, more to show how heavy his heart
was than from any necessity. “I have to ’tend to that ugly baby every
time when there’s a good game of ball or I spy going on; an’ if it
does happen that I get out for a day’s fun, I have to lug wood an’
water after I get home till my arms are just ready to drop off. But I’m
through now an’ that’s all there is to it.”

“What’ll you do?” and Kirk Masters continued to eat a very small and
very green apple in a way that showed how much more intent he was upon
his limited feast than upon his friend’s wrongs.

“I know what I _can_ do,” said Tom, with a shake of his head that was
intended should convey the idea of great mystery, and in this attempt
he was remarkably successful. His friends had heard of his troubles
before and it was an old story, but the fact that he had formed some
plan which he intended should be kept a secret was sufficient to arouse
all their curiosity. Dwight was as eager as he had been apathetic,
Kirk’s apple seemed suddenly to have lost its flavor, and the entire
group of boys gathered around Tom very closely, as if fearful lest
they should lose some portion of the wonderful secret they were certain
he was about to tell them.

“I am not sure that I dare to tell you,” said Tom, in a mysterious
whisper, and the boys knew at once that he was ready to tell them all.
“You see, if my folks should know what I’m going to do, that would
spoil everything.”

“But what _are_ you going to do?” persisted Kirk, whose interest in his
apple was now wholly gone.

“Promise that you won’t ever tell.”

In an instant every boy had vowed that he would keep the secret, and,
after assuring himself that there was no other person near who might
hear him, Tom began:

“I’m going to run away.”

The little circle of listeners gazed at the bold boy in almost
breathless astonishment, and Tom, fully enjoying the sensation he had
caused, continued his story after first pausing sufficiently long to
note the effect which his announcement had upon his hearers.

“Yes, I’m going, and you just better believe that I’ll go so far away
that nobody’ll ever find me. I’ve stood this working around home just
as long as I can, and I’ll show my folks what it is to treat a boy the
way they’ve treated me.”

“But where are you going, Tom?”

“That part of it I’m not going to tell,” said Tom, with a decided shake
of the head, preferring to seem cruel rather than confess that he had
no idea as to where he should go to escape the tyranny of his parents.
“I’ll leave here some night, hide under the bridge at Rankin’s brook
till morning, and then go to some place where none of the folks around
here will ever find me.”

“But what makes you hide under Rankin’s bridge all night?” asked Dwight
Holden, curiously.

“So’s I’ll be ready to start just as soon’s it’s daylight, of course.”

“I don’t see what you want to do that for,” persisted Dwight. “You
could sleep at home all night and then start from there as early as you
wanted to. Nobody would think of stopping you, for they’d believe you
were just going to the pasture.”

Tom was puzzled, just for an instant, as to how he should answer the
question, and then realizing that it would never do for a boy who was
about to run away from home to confess that he did not fully understand
his own plans he answered, with a great show of dignity:

“Don’t you bother. I think I know what I’m about. I’ve got to sleep
under Rankin’s bridge the night I run away or else the thing wouldn’t
work.”

The vagueness of the plan gave it a greater charm in the eyes of Tom’s
friends. If it had been a simple scheme of running away, and they
had understood it in all its details, it would have seemed dull and
commonplace compared to what it was when it was so essential that Tom
should sleep under the bridge the night previous to his leaving home
forever.

Tom Gibson thoroughly enjoyed the sensation he was causing, and was by
no means disposed to leave his friends before whom he was posing as a
hero. He did his best to be mysterious both in speech and action, and
would have continued to throw out vague hints as to his plans all the
afternoon had not one of his oppressors――his mother――called him into
the house to perform some one of the many tasks which he believed was
wearing his young life away.

It is quite possible, if the whole truth could be known, that Tom had
not fully made up his mind to run away from his comfortable home when
he first broached the subject to his friends; but they had looked upon
him as such a hero from the first moment he mentioned it that he
decided it was necessary for him to go.

“I’ll keep on doing what she tells me to, so that folks will see how
hard I have to work,” he muttered to himself as he left the boys and
went toward the house, “and then when I’m off so far that nobody knows
where I am mother’ll be sorry she made me work so hard.”

As a matter of course, however, Tom’s friends met him, after he had
announced his determination of leaving home, they made inquiries as
to the carrying out of his plan, and this was so pleasant to the
dissatisfied and abused young man that he put off taking the final step
as long as possible. In fact, he delayed so long that Dwight Holden
plainly said one day that he did not believe Tom had ever intended to
run away, but that he had said so simply for the purpose of “making
himself look big.”

From that day he set about making his preparations for departure in
earnest, telling his friends that on the following Tuesday he would
disappear, never to be seen in Sedgwick again, unless he should decide,
many years later, to come back as a wealthy gentleman, to see how much
the town had suffered by his absence.

Since he would be obliged to walk a good portion of the distance to the
place where his fortune was to be made, he was forced to leave out of
the bundle he was making up many of his valuables because of their size
and weight. A toy engine, a glass pen and holder, two rubber balls, a
large collection of marbles (agates and alleys), a folding kite frame,
three odd skates, a lodestone, and two mouth harmonicas made up the
list of treasures that could be carried, and these were carefully
packed in an old army blanket. He had saved cookies, gingerbread, and
choice pieces of pie until he had as much as he believed would suffice
as food for a week, and this he intended to carry in a paper parcel in
his hand.

Every arrangement had been made. The day Tom had set for his departure
came so quickly that it seemed as if there must have been some mistake
in the almanac, and two or three days had been lost. Tom met his
friends, acted the part of a hero before them until it was so late that
each one had been obliged to go home, and then he, having bidden each
one in turn a solemn good-by, was compelled to carry out the plan he
had laid.

It is certain that at the moment his friends left him Tom was
thoroughly sorry he had ever said anything about running away. He had
suddenly come to understand what it was to be alone, and he by no
means fancied the sensation. At that moment his troubles which were
obliging him to leave home did not seem to be nearly so great as they
had been a few days before; his home had never appeared so cheerful
as now when he was leaving it, and he actually began to hope that some
insurmountable obstacle would occur to prevent his running away.

The tears filled his eyes as he crept softly up the back stairs,
wishing so much that he could kiss his mother and sister good-by,
wishing that he had never thought of going, but fully believing that
it would be unmanly not to do so, and that his schoolmates would laugh
at him if he should abandon the scheme before he had even attempted to
carry it into execution.

He hoped the stairs would creak so loudly that his mother would come
to see what the matter was and discover him leaving the house with his
bundles, but when he came down there was hardly a sound. He was out of
the house without, apparently, having been discovered, and his heart
was very heavy as he walked slowly around the yard to the gate, with a
long, lonely journey before him and with no idea as to where would be
the end.

He had opened the gate and was taking a farewell look at the house,
when, to his great delight, the front door was opened and he saw his
mother. He would surely be called back now, he thought, and his friends
could not accuse him of having been afraid to carry out his plans.

“So you are really going to run away, are you, Tommy?” said his mother,
who did not appear in the least surprised by his intended departure.

“Yes’m,” replied Tom, in a _very_ low tone, feeling foolish and at the
same time wondering whether his secret had been betrayed by his friends.

“Well,” continued Mrs. Gibson, speaking in a matter-of-fact way and as
if the subject was an indifferent one to her, “if you feel that you
must go, I see no reason why you should not have left the house in the
daytime; but of course you know best. I noticed that you did not pack
any of your clothes, so I put the most of them in this satchel, which
I think you will find more convenient than that bundle.”

Tom didn’t want to accept the satchel his mother held out to him; but
there seemed to be no other course to pursue, and he took it, feeling
as he did so that if his mother had loved him very dearly she would
have boxed his ears severely, ordering him at the same time to come
back into the house.

“Your father said he heard that Captain Harrison was ready to sail,
and knowing that you have decided to sleep under Rankin’s bridge we
concluded that you were going with him, since the vessel is in the
river just below there.”

Tommy’s heart was so full that he could not speak. Instead of being
told to come into the house and behave himself, as he would have been
only too glad to do, here was his mother actually helping him to run
away, and talking as if she thought it was the best course he could
pursue.

“I suppose you are in a hurry, Tommy,” said Mrs. Gibson, kindly, “so I
won’t detain you. We shall be glad to see you if you should conclude to
come back here. Good-by. I hope you will enjoy yourself better than you
ever could at home.”

The door was closed, and the almost broken-hearted runaway could do no
less than continue his flight, out of which all the romance had been
taken.

II.

As Tom walked from the house he was in a very uncomfortable frame of
mind. He felt that his mother had been unkind in allowing him to do as
he had at first wanted to do, and that if she had really loved him she
would have obliged him to come back. He felt as if he had been wronged
because he had not been punished severely, and he was fully convinced
that he had made a mistake when he had decided that the only thing he
could do was to run away.

There was no possible excuse for him to return. If his mother had not
seen him, he believed he would have sneaked back into the house and
have borne all the jeers of his schoolmates because he had “backed
out.” But he decided that he could not even do that now, and that it
was absolutely necessary for him to go on as he had begun.

“How I wish I hadn’t started!” he said to himself as he trudged along
toward Rankin’s brook, his bundles growing heavier each moment. “She
told me about Captain Harrison’s going away to-morrow, so that I could
go with him and that she’d know where I was. But I won’t do anything
like that. I’ll go ’way off where she won’t ever see me again, and then
she’ll be sorry she was so willing to let me run away.”

Tommy was being severely punished for wanting to leave his home and
he knew it, but he had not suffered enough to cause him to be willing
to admit his fault and to ask his mother to forgive him; therefore the
discouraged runaway very unwillingly continued his decidedly desolate
course.

By some singular chance he met no one on his way. If he could have done
so he felt that he might in some slight degree revenge himself, for he
would have sent word to his mother that he did not intend to go with
Captain Harrison and that she should never hear from him again.

But he did not meet any one from the time he left his home until he
arrived at the bridge, and then he realized that if the scheme had not
been entirely a success neither had the details been perfect. To sleep
under Rankin’s bridge, when he thought of it in the daytime, and with
his schoolmates around him, was nothing more than a pleasant little
adventure; but when it came to carrying the plan into execution it
was quite a different matter. The night was dark; the brook gurgled
and sang in a most ghostly fashion; the air under the stone arches
felt damp; and he could find no place where he could lie down with any
prospect of comfort.

“It’s no use. I can’t fix any kind of a bed here, so I’ve got to sit up
all night――that’s all there is to it.”

Tom was reckless by this time, and without any care as to a selection
of the spot where he was to spend the night he sat down in about as
uncomfortable a place as he could have found, confident that the time
would seem very short.

He tried to make up his mind as to where he would go when the morning
should come; then he felt about for a softer seat, very nearly falling
into the water in the attempt. He thought of his mother’s sorrow, which
was to be his revenge, and then again he changed his position. He
wondered if his schoolmates were snugly tucked up in bed asleep; and
then he began to doze, leaning his head against the granite sides of
the arch.

Suddenly he awoke with a start that gave him a very uncomfortable
twinge in his neck, while every portion of his body was stiff and lame.
He thought that he had slept a long time, and he looked out from under
the bridge, fully expecting to see the sun. It was as dark as when he
first sought this very uncomfortable sleeping-place.

“The sun hasn’t come up,” he said as he settled back on the rock in a
very awkward manner, as if it hurt him to move around much; “but I know
it must be morning, because I feel as if I’d been asleep ten or twelve
hours. I’ll start up the road a little.”

Just at that moment the village clock began to strike and Tom counted:

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, _eleven_!”

Only eleven o’clock, and he had thought it was time for the sun to rise!

Tom tried to lie down first in one place and then in another, but
the sharp-pointed rocks prevented him from assuming anything like a
reclining position. Then he thought of his own nice bed; but he knew he
could not enjoy it, at least not without too great a sacrifice of manly
dignity.

He thought of Captain Harrison’s schooner, which was to sail on the
following morning. He might go on board of her; but if he should do so,
how could he revenge himself on his mother?

“I can’t stay here all night if it’s going to last as long as this hour
has. I don’t want to walk up the road, because I can’t see where I’m
going. Mother won’t know for certain that I’ve gone on the _Swiftsure_,
and she’ll feel bad enough to-morrow morning when I don’t come home to
breakfast, so I’ll go on board where I can get some sleep.”

Tom knew exactly where the clumsy old schooner was moored, for many a
time had he and his friends been up to look at her when she was in port
and laughed at the name of _Swiftsure_, which it seemed must have been
painted on her stern in mockery.

With his bundles in his hands he stumbled down through the pasture,
following the course of the brook, until he arrived at a little stone
pier, at the head of which could be seen the old schooner which had
been made ready for a fishing cruise down the coast.

Tom scrambled on board as softly as was possible in the darkness;
but he might have saved himself the trouble of taking precautions to
prevent any one from hearing him, for the old schooner was deserted and
looked quite as lonesome as _he_ felt. The cabin-doors were locked, the
hatches were fastened down too securely for him to raise them unaided,
and it seemed very much as if even the _Swiftsure_ denied him the
shelter he so sadly needed.

On the deck lay an upturned dory. He might crawl under that, and
although it would be but poor shelter it was surely better than trying
to lie on the sharp rocks under the bridge. Tom was not nearly as
particular where he slept as he would have been at home, and he counted
himself very fortunate in finding under the boat a quantity of old nets
that made him quite a soft bed, so soft, in fact, that he was asleep in
less than five minutes after he had found shelter.

Everything had contributed to make Tom very tired on the day when he
ran away, and he slept on the fishing-nets quite as soundly as if
he had been at home. He did not even hear Captain Harrison and his
crew when they came on board at a very early hour in the morning. The
bustle and confusion attendant upon getting the _Swiftsure_ under way
failed to awaken him. When, however, the _Swiftsure_ was on the open
sea, tumbling about on the waves in her own clumsy fashion, he came
to understand where he was, and he gained this information in quite a
sensational manner.

Shortly after the old schooner had left the dock the wind freshened
until it was blowing quite half a gale, and Captain Harrison began to
fear that the crazy old sails would be blown away. In order to prevent
such a catastrophe, the schooner was hove to and all hands set to work
reefing sail.

As a matter of course the clumsy old _Swiftsure_ was wallowing in the
trough of the sea, tossing and tumbling about in a most provoking
manner. Captain Harrison was helping his crew of fishermen “shorten”
the foresail, when, just as all hands were standing amidships trying to
reef without pulling the very reef-points out of the decayed canvas,
a queer-looking bundle rolled from under the dory, capsizing one or
two of the sailors as it struck them and then rolling into the lee
scuppers, where it lay uttering cries of pain.

The crew were absolutely frightened, first at seeing this queer-looking
parcel and then at hearing it make a noise, while those who had been
knocked down actually fled forward in alarm. Captain Harrison started
aft, but on looking back he stopped short, gazed for an instant, first
at the dory and then at the bundle in the scuppers, and said as he gave
his hat a forcible blow, as if to prevent it from flying off his head
in surprise, “I’m blowed if it ain’t a boy!”

Tom looked up as if amazed that he should have been mistaken for other
than what he was, and then the rolling of the vessel threw him back
again toward the dory, tossing him from one side to the other much as
if he had been a rubber ball.

“Where did you come from?” roared Captain Harrison, angry now because
he had shown what looked to be fear.

“He come out of the dory,” replied one of the men, for Tom was too much
engaged in rolling about the deck to be able to make any reply.

It was impossible for all hands to stand staring at Tom when the
foresail needed immediate attention, and the sick runaway was allowed
to roll up and down the deck at his own sweet will, or, rather, at the
will of the wind, until the _Swiftsure_ was on her course again with
reduced canvas. Then Captain Harrison shouted, “Somebody catch that boy
before he breaks himself all to pieces and bring him aft here to me.”

In a few moments, but not without considerable difficulty, the
captain’s orders were obeyed, and Tom, looking pale and thoroughly
wretched, was held up in front of the _Swiftsure’s_ commander.

“Why, you’re Tom Gibson!” exclaimed that gentleman, in surprise.

Tom nodded his head; he could not trust himself to speak.

“How came you on board? Been running away, eh?”

Again Tom nodded his head, and Captain Harrison began to understand
that his passenger was in no mood for conversation.

“Take him below; I’ll dress him down after he gets a little better.”

Tom was led below into a cabin that smelled like fish, oil, stale
vegetables, and, in fact, everything that is disagreeable. And there,
amid this combination of terrible odors, poor, sick, runaway Tom could
hear the creaking and grinding of the timbers of the crazy old hulk,
while all he could do was to moan and groan in unison.

III.

If at any time during the twenty-four hours following Tom Gibson’s
appearance among the startled crew of the _Swiftsure_ that young
gentleman had been asked if the old schooner was in any danger, he
would have answered that she would surely sink within an hour and that
all on board would perish with her.

No one asked Tom such a question; but he fully believed that it was
impossible for the old craft to live much longer in the gale, and
although he knew he was in even a more dangerous position than any one
else, owing to the fact that he was below, he felt so sick that he paid
but little attention to the supposed danger.

At the end of twenty-four hours, however, matters presented a decidedly
different appearance. The wind having subsided, the clumsy old schooner
no longer tumbled and tossed about; the sun was shining brightly, and,
what was of more importance to Tom, he had so nearly recovered from
his illness as to have eaten a very hearty breakfast in spite of the
mixture of bad odors that had been so disagreeable to him.

Tom went on deck, almost enjoying the motion of the vessel which, a few
hours before, had been so uncomfortable, and was beginning to think
that there was some pleasure to be had by running away, when Captain
Harrison said, in anything but a pleasant tone of voice:

“Well, Tom, you’ve come on board my vessel and eaten my food without so
much as asking my permission, so now s’posin’ me an’ you have some kind
of a settlement.”

Poor Tom! All idea of enjoyment vanished at once, and again he
understood that the boy who runs away is obliged to pay a very high
price for what is a continual pain, rather than a pleasure.

“Why don’t you say something?” demanded Captain Harrison. “Do you think
I keep this schooner jest to accommodate boys who want to run away from
home?”

“No, sir,” faltered Tom; “but I don’t know what to say, because, you
see, I don’t know how we can have a settlement, unless you should take
the things I brought on board to pay you.”

“I’ve seen what you brought with you,” thundered Captain Harrison,
acting as if he was very angry, although if any one had been observing
him closely a twinkle of mirth could have been seen in his eyes. “All
the traps you’ve got wouldn’t pay for your breakfast. Now listen to me
and take care that you don’t forget what I say. You’ve seen fit to come
aboard this schooner, which is bound on a fishing cruise, consequently
you’ve got to pay my price for your fun. You’ll have to do your share
of the work without grumbling, and I tell you candidly that it’ll be
more than you ever dreamed of, coddled by your mother as you have been.”

It was pretty hard for a boy who had run away from home because he had
been obliged to work too hard to be told that he would have so much
to do that what he had been obliged to submit to at home was hardly
more than petting. But he _had_ run away, and he was obliged to pay the
price. He did not even dare to offer any objections, for he understood
only too well that he was in the captain’s power.

“Why don’t you go to work?” shouted Captain Harrison, after he had
given Tom plenty of time in which to think the matter over.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Go forward and you’ll soon find plenty to keep you out of mischief.”

Tom did as he was directed, and he learned that the captain had said no
more than was strictly true. Every one on board appeared to think that
he had a perfect right to set a task for the stowaway and there was no
hesitation about doing so. If the cook wanted wood split, the pots and
pans scoured, vegetables pared, or any other disagreeable work done Tom
was called upon, and he soon learned that it was dangerous to refuse.
If any of the crew wanted an assistant at any time or on any piece of
work, Tom was that assistant, and at the slightest hesitation a blow
was given to remind him that in no sense was he his own master. He was
the boy-of-all-work and with no opportunity to play.

Compared with his condition on the _Swiftsure_, Tom had lived a life
of luxurious ease at home, and there was hardly a moment, when he was
awake, during which he did not regret that he had ever been so foolish
as to run away.

Before the fishing-grounds were reached the _Swiftsure_ put into a
harbor for supplies, and there Tom decided upon a bold step. He asked
one of the men who had treated him with more consideration than the
others had done to lend him two cents with which to buy a postage
stamp, and on a dirty piece of paper he wrote the following letter to
his mother:

“DEAR MAMA,――I was wicked to want to run away, and I want to
come back terribly. If I had any money I would try to get back
from here; but I haven’t, so I shall have to stay till this
old vessel comes home. You’ll let me come, won’t you, mother?
I won’t say a word, no matter how hard you whip me for running
away, and I won’t ever grumble when you want me to do anything.
My hands are all covered with blisters; but they don’t begin to
be as sore as my heart is when I have to get into these dirty
berths at night, knowing that I can’t even speak to you. Don’t
be angry with me any more, but _please_ let me in when I come
home.

“Yours truly,

“THOMAS GIBSON.”

Captain Harrison, who had seen Tom writing, and who suspected at once
to whom the letter was to be sent, gave the boy an envelope and allowed
him to go on shore in order to mail it.

Tom felt better after this, even though his condition was in no wise
improved. His mother would know that he was sorry for what he had done,
and even though but a short time before he had looked upon her as a
hard-hearted parent, it seemed as if her forgiveness was the one thing
he wanted above all others.

If, during the voyage to the fishing-grounds, Tom thought he had worked
as hard as was possible, he learned that he had been mistaken when the
real labor of the cruise was commenced. All day he was obliged to fish
with twenty or thirty fathoms of line, to which was attached a heavy
sinker of lead that required nearly all his strength to pull up, and
when the catch had been large he was compelled to remain up half the
night helping the men dress the fish. His hands, which had been covered
with blisters, as he wrote his mother, were cut and bleeding, while
many times the pain was so great that he could not go to sleep even
when he had the opportunity.

In this work Tom could not say that he was obliged to do more than
any one else; all hands worked to the best of their ability, and it
but serves to show that Tom was getting to be quite a sensible boy
when it is said that he felt he was doing no more than was right under
the circumstances. But nevertheless his heart was quite as sore and
his homesickness as severe as when he wrote the letter to his mother.
The only time when he was in the slightest degree contented was when
he was fishing. He knew that the sooner the old schooner was loaded,
the sooner would she be headed toward home, and he counted each fish
he caught as another step toward his getting home to Sedgwick and to
mother.

The time finally came, six weeks after Tom had started to pass the
night under Rankin’s bridge, when Captain Harrison said:

“We won’t ‘dress down’ to-night, boys; but try to carry back fresh what
we catch to-day.”

“What does he mean by that?” Tom asked of one of the crew.

“It means that we shall start for home after the fish are done biting
to-day.”

Tom could hardly realize his good-fortune, and he worked in a dazed
sort of way, but kept repeating to himself each moment: “I’m going
home, I’m going home. And what’s better, I’ll stay when I get there.”

At an early hour that afternoon the bow of the old _Swiftsure_ was
turned toward Sedgwick, and as she rose and fell heavily on the waves,
sending clouds of spray fore and aft, Tom could hardly refrain from
giving vent to his joy by at least three hearty cheers.

The trip home was by no means as speedy as Tom could have desired. It
seemed to him as if the old vessel was sailing more slowly than she had
ever sailed before and as if the winds were really trying to delay him.

Then came the day when he could see the spire of the church in
Sedgwick, and just at the time when he knew that his father and mother
were sitting down to supper Tom leaped on shore. He waited for nothing,
but ran home at full speed, and it was not until he had kissed his
mother and father again and again and heard them assure him of their
forgiveness that he could breathe freely.

As may be expected, Tom had not been home more than an hour before the
friends to whom he had confided his purpose of running away called to
see him and to learn how much of his fortune he had made.

“I tell you what it is, fellows,” he said, in reply to their questions.
“I’m not as big a fool as I was before I ran away. I thought I was
having a mighty hard time of it here, but I soon found out my mistake.
All I can say is that I pity fellows that haven’t got any homes to go
to when they get as homesick as I was.”

“Then you don’t think of running away again very soon?” suggested
Dwight Holden, laughingly.

“Boys,”――and Tom spoke very solemnly now――“when I was on the
_Swiftsure_ I found out how lonesome a boy can be without his mother;
I never knew before. Just as long as I can I shall stay where I can see
my mother and speak to her; and if at any time any one of you thinks
that his mother isn’t the best and dearest friend a boy can have, just
do as I did and it won’t take you very long to find out that you are
mistaken.”

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes:

――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

――Except for the frontispiece, illustrations have been moved to
follow the text that they illustrate.

――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.

――A bonus short story (“Tom’s Troubles”), by the author, is included
in the source volume, and follows the main story at p. 209.

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