"Look out you don"t run over any snags," cautioned the Monkey. "There are some sharp stumps under the surface of the water and they"re ugly customers."
"You don"t need to tell me about them," replied Anthony pertly, "I guess I know how to paddle as well as you do. You don"t always need to be handing me directions how to do things." And he started off with a series of jerky dips, which set the canoe swaying from side to side so that Migwan had an effort to keep it straight in the line of the others.
"Steady there, you third bow paddler," shouted Uncle Teddy, and Anthony subsided.
In the last canoe Katherine and Gladys were l.u.s.tily shouting:
"Sing a song of paddling, A canoe full of Slim, Four and twenty haystacks Ain"t as wide as him.
When the boat goes over Won"t there be a splash?
All the fishes in the brook Will turn into hash!"
The other canoes took up the song and shouted it until Slim, throwing handfuls of water in every direction, sprinkled the singers into silence.
The country through which they were pa.s.sing was for the most part thick woods. Sometimes there was a narrow meadow on each side of the river with the trees in the distance, sometimes there was a swamp, but more often they were pa.s.sing between high bluffs crowned with forests. At times it was actually gloomy down there in the narrow pa.s.sage, for the sun was behind the trees high above them; then again as the banks became low the hot sun shone unmercifully on their heads and made their eyes ache as it sparkled on the ripples.
Just as they had settled down to nice steady paddling and were making good progress upstream, Uncle Teddy called out that he was aground. The river bed seemed suddenly to rise up and strike the bottom of the canoes. A few feet back the water was swift and deep; here a sand bar stretched across their path and brought them to a stop.
"We"ll have to get out and carry the canoes around," said Uncle Teddy, stepping over the side into the shallow water and pushing his canoe back where it would float.
Then they all had to step ash.o.r.e and "paddle the canoes with their feet," as the Bottomless Pitt called it. Slim began carefully lifting the "grub" supplies out of his canoe and piling them on the ground.
"What are you doing that for?" asked Hinpoha.
"So they won"t fall out when we carry it, of course," replied Slim.
"Just how were you planning to carry it?" asked Hinpoha curiously.
"Why, on our heads, to be sure," said Slim.
"Silly," said Hinpoha, "of course we won"t carry them on our heads these few steps. We"ll carry them right side up and leave all the supplies in."
"I thought you always had to carry a canoe on your head when you made a portage," said Slim sheepishly, amid the laughter of the rest. "They always do it that way in the pictures," he defended himself.
Katherine had double work, for in addition to her own canoe with its cargo, she had Eeny-Meeny to transport. But the Captain gallantly helped her and Eeny-Meeny made her overland journey with perfect ease.
"This is a case of "turn about is fair play,"" said Gladys. "First your canoe carries you and then you carry the canoe."
On the other side of the sand bar the fleet was launched again and the interrupted paddling resumed. They were just going nicely when Uncle Teddy shouted, "Halt! We have to lighten the boats!"
"What for?" shrieked Katherine in alarmed amazement.
"Dinner time!" replied Uncle Teddy, and they all shouted with laughter again. Everybody had been quite frightened at his command to lighten the boats.
They went ash.o.r.e and cooked dinner over a fire of driftwood and succeeded in lightening the boats considerably. After an hour"s rest in the shade of a large tree they pushed forward again. Only twice during the afternoon did they see any signs of people. In both instances it was a single tent set up among the trees by hardy folks who preferred the wilderness to the fashionable resorts along the lake front. Near one of the tents stood a man and a boy and they waved a friendly greeting to the voyageurs, who raised their paddles all together in salute.
"Quite some style to that salute," said Katherine, and in her enthusiasm she brought her paddle down flat on the water with a mighty whack, showering those around her.
"Oh, I say," cried Gladys in protest, "please bottle up your rapture.
I"m drenched already. I don"t know what would happen if you ever got really enthusiastic about anything."
"I"m sorry," said Katherine apologetically, then with a lapse into her negro dialect, "Ah reahly couldn"t help it. Ah got such protuberant spirits, Ah has! Ah "clar to goodness----"
"What"s the matter up there? Why don"t you go on?" The clear voice of the Captain cut sharply through Katherine"s nonsense.
"The third canoe has run on a snag," somebody called in answer.
"Just as I expected," said the Captain under his breath. "That lobster of an Anthony doesn"t know enough to watch out for snags."
It was characteristic of the Winnebagos and the Sandwiches that there was no noise or confusion over the mishap. Everybody sat quiet while Uncle Teddy paddled alongside the impaled canoe and gave directions for releasing her. In a minute she was floating clear again, but with an eight-inch rip in the bottom, through which the water began to press rapidly. The snag was the broken stump of a tree, which had pierced the wood like a lance.
"Paddle over to sh.o.r.e," commanded Uncle Teddy, and the disabled vessel was soon lying up on the sandy bank with her crew standing around inspecting the damage. The others landed also and stood waiting for orders what to do next.
"Will we have to carry the canoe all the way back by land?" asked Slim anxiously, already fearing that he would have to help do the carrying and ready to put up a telling argument why Anthony should carry it all the way back alone, since he had been so clever as to run it on a snag.
"Mercy, no," said Uncle Teddy. "Here is where traveling in a canoe has the advantage over every other mode of travel. All you have to do is fill the rip with pine pitch, harden it, and she"s as good as ever.
Company disperse into the woods and seek pine pitch. Forward march!"
The pitch was procured and Uncle Teddy mixed it with grease. Then he laid a piece of canvas over the hole, smeared it with the pitch mixture and hardened it by searing with a torch. All that took time and the afternoon was gone before they had finished the mending.
"Company seek sleeping quarters!" commanded Uncle Teddy, after a consultation with Aunt Clara, who was of the opinion that this was as good a place as any to spend the night. The pines were close together and the ground was dry and soft with its thick carpet of needles. As the ground was alike on both sides of the river the boys and Uncle Teddy decided to cross and make their camp on the other side, a little farther up around a bend. The two camps were hidden from each other by the thick bushes that fringed both banks of the river, but were not too far away from each other to be handy in case of emergency.
Sleeping sites were soon picked out and the ponchos and blankets spread out on the ground. Of course, Antha made a fuss when she discovered the mode of sleeping and it took considerable coaxing to get her to consent.
She was afraid of snakes; she was afraid of bugs; she was afraid of being carried away bodily. It was only when Katherine promised to be her sleeping partner and keep tight hold of her hand all night that she ceased her fussing.
Great was the laughter as Katherine"s poncho was unrolled and her laundry bag, full of clothes waiting to be washed, tumbled out. In her haphazard and absent-minded packing she had taken it instead of her pillow. Katherine promptly tied the bag shut and declared it was as good as any pillow.
"You won"t think so by the time the night is over," warned Hinpoha.
"You"ve never slept on the ground before, but after this time you"ll never forget your pillow again. That fact will be firmly fixed even in your forgetful mind."
While supper was cooking, Hinpoha and the Captain, who had gone exploring on foot on the pretext of gathering firewood, reported a small waterfall a short distance up the river. A waterfall on the premises was too valuable a stage "prop" not to be used, and Hinpoha was soon seized with an inspiration.
"Let"s do our Legend of Niagara stunt here after supper," she proposed.
"It"ll be such fun to send Eeny-Meeny over the falls in the canoe. There isn"t a particle of danger of dashing the boat to pieces on the rocks because there aren"t any rocks below the falls, and even if Eeny-Meeny does fall out en route, we can fish her out again and drain her off. I think a waterproof heroine is the greatest thing that was ever invented!"
In the soft glow of the sunset the great tragedy took place. The spectators sat around on the river banks and cheered the canoe as it appeared above the falls, filled with pine branches on which reposed the lovely form of Eeny-Meeny, her brows crowned with wreaths and a flowering branch in her outstretched hand. With increasing swiftness the canoe approached the falls, poised on the brink a moment, then tilted forward and shot downward, turning over and over and spilling Eeny-Meeny and her piney bed into the river. As the spill occurred, Hinpoha and Gladys and Sahwah and Katherine, who were playing the parts of the bereaved companions of the sacrificed maiden, tore their hair and uttered blood-curdling shrieks of despair.
Just at that moment, with a suddenness which took their breath away, a man appeared on the river bank, coming apparently from the woods, and cried loudly, "Be calm! I will save her!" And, flinging his coat off, he sprang into the water before anyone could say Jack Robinson. He swam out to the form bobbing in the current, her arm thrown up as if for help; grasped that arm and then uttered a long, choking sputter, shoved Eeny-Meeny violently away from him and swam back to sh.o.r.e. They made valiant attempts not to laugh when he crawled out on the bank, dripping and disgusted.
From his appearance he was an Englishman. He was dressed in a sort of golfing suit, with short, baggy trousers and long, checked stockings. He had sandy whiskers which were dripping water in a stream. Such a ludicrous sight he was as he stood there, with his once natty suit all limp and clinging, that, one by one, the boys and girls dissolved into helpless giggles. Uncle Teddy managed to hold on to his composure long enough to explain how it happened that Eeny-Meeny went over the falls in such a spectacular manner. The Englishman stared at him open mouthed.
"Well, really!" he drawled at last in a voice which expressed doubts as to their sanity, and the few who had maintained straight faces so far lost control of themselves.
Uncle Teddy offered the would-be rescuer dry clothing, but he declined, saying he and a friend had pitched a tent only a quarter of a mile up the river and he would hasten back there. The two of them were on a walking trip, he explained, making frequent stops where there was fishing. While his friend had been cooking supper this evening he had strolled off by himself and had come through the woods just in time to see Eeny-Meeny go over the falls. In the failing light he had mistaken her for a real person.
"Oh, I say," he called back after he had started to take his departure, "if you should happen to run into my friend anywhere would you be so kind as not to mention this--er--mistake of mine? He is something of a joker and I am afraid he would repeat the story where it would cause me some embarra.s.sment." And he solemnly withdrew, leaving them to indulge their mirth to their hearts" content.
"Poor old Eeny-Meeny," said Katherine, "she seems born to be rescued.
She must bear a charmed life. It"s a case of "Sing Au Revoir but not Good-bye" when she goes to meet a tragic fate." She dried Eeny-Meeny off with bunches of gra.s.s and stood her up against a tree to guard their "boudoir" for the night.