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The Trinity and An Entangled World Relationality in Physical Science and Theology John Polkinghorne Download

The document provides a link to John Polkinghorne's book 'The Trinity And An Entangled World: Relationality in Physical Science and Theology' and offers additional recommended readings on the topic of the Trinity. It includes various other theological works and their respective download links. The latter part of the document transitions to an excerpt from 'The Rival Campers; Or, The Adventures of Henry Burns' by Ruel Perley Smith, detailing the arrival of a steamboat in a fishing village and the anticipation of the boys for their friends' arrival.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
8 views80 pages

The Trinity and An Entangled World Relationality in Physical Science and Theology John Polkinghorne Download

The document provides a link to John Polkinghorne's book 'The Trinity And An Entangled World: Relationality in Physical Science and Theology' and offers additional recommended readings on the topic of the Trinity. It includes various other theological works and their respective download links. The latter part of the document transitions to an excerpt from 'The Rival Campers; Or, The Adventures of Henry Burns' by Ruel Perley Smith, detailing the arrival of a steamboat in a fishing village and the anticipation of the boys for their friends' arrival.

Uploaded by

superagabson
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Rival
Campers; Or, The Adventures of Henry Burns
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: The Rival Campers; Or, The Adventures of Henry Burns

Author: Ruel Perley Smith

Illustrator: A. B. Shute

Release date: August 20, 2012 [eBook #40548]


Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave


Morgan
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIVAL


CAMPERS; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF HENRY BURNS ***
THE
RIVAL CAMPERS
Or,
THE ADVENTURES OF HENRY BURNS

By
Ruel P. Smith

ILLUSTRATED BY
A. B. SHUTE

BOSTON
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
1905

Copyright, 1905
By L. C. Page & Company
(INCORPORATED)

All rights reserved

Published July, 1905


Second Impression
Third Impression, July, 1906

COLONIAL PRESS
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston. U. S. A.

WITH LOVE TO
Ruel Stevenson Smith
CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Camp 1
II. To the Rescue 17
III. A Surprise 32
IV. A Night with Henry Burns 51
V. A Hidden Cave 72
VI. Jack Harvey Investigates 90
VII. Squire Brackett’s Dog 109
VIII. The Haunted House 125
IX. Setting a Trap 142
X. A Midnight Adventure 160
XI. An Unpleasant Discovery 181
XII. A Cruise Around the Island 199
XIII. Storm Driven 220
XIV. The Man in the Boat 238
XV. Good for Evil 259
XVI. A Treaty of Friendship 278
XVII. The Fire 290
XVIII. The Flight 306
XIX. The Pursuit 324
XX. Among the Islands 343
XXI. The Trial 364
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
“‘Look, Bob! Look!’ he cried. ‘What have we
done?’” (Frontispiece)
86
“‘What’s the matter with you?’ roared the
Colonel”
67
“‘You’re the worst one of all, Jack Harvey’” 114
“Craigie reeled under the blow and staggered
back against the wall”
173
“Boys and lobster-pot slumped into the sea” 211
“‘Will you shake hands with me?’ he asked” 279

[1]

THE RIVAL CAMPERS


CHAPTER I.
THE CAMP

On a certain afternoon in the latter part of the month of


June, the little fishing village of Southport, on Grand
Island in Samoset Bay, was awakened from its
customary nap by the familiar whistle of the steamboat
from up the river. Southport, opening a sleepy eye at
the sound, made deliberate preparation to receive its
daily visitor, knowing that the steamer was as yet some
distance up the island, and not even in sight, for behind
the bluff around which the steamer must eventually
come the town lay straggling irregularly along the shore
of a deeply indented cove.

A few loungers about the village grocery-store seemed


roused to a renewed interest in life, removed their
pipes, and, with evident satisfaction at this relief from
island monotony, sauntered lazily down to the wharf.
The storekeeper and the freight-agent, as became men
burdened with the present responsibility of seeing that
the steamer was offered all possible assistance in
making its landing, bustled about with importance.

Soon a wagon or two from down the island came [2]


rattling into the village, while from the hotel, a quarter
of a mile distant, a number of guests appeared on the
veranda, curious to scrutinize such new arrivals as might
appear. From the summer cottages here and there flags
were hastily run up, and from one a salute was fired; all
of which might be taken to indicate that the coming of
the steamer was the event of the day at Southport—as,
indeed, it was.

Now another whistle sounded shrilly from just behind


the bluff, and the next moment the little steamer
shoved its bow from out a jagged screen of rock, while
the chorused exclamation, “Thar she is!” from the
assembled villagers announced that they were fully
awake to the situation.

Among the crowd gathered on the wharf, three boys,


between whom there existed sufficient family
resemblance to indicate that they were brothers,
scanned eagerly the faces of the passengers as the
steamer came slowly to the landing. The eldest of the
three, a boy of about sixteen years, turned at length to
the other two, and remarked, in a tone of
disappointment:

“They are not aboard. I can’t see a sign of them.


Something must have kept them.”

“Unless,” said one of the others, “they are hiding


somewhere to surprise us.”

“It’s impossible,” said the first boy, “for any one to hide [3]
away when he gets in sight of this island. No, if they
were aboard we should have seen them the minute the
steamer turned the bluff, waving to us and yelling at the
top of their lungs. There’s something in the air here that
makes one feel like tearing around and making a noise.”
“Especially at night, when the cottagers are asleep,” said
the third boy.

“Besides,” continued the eldest, “their canoe is not


aboard, and you would not catch Tom Harris and Bob
White coming down here for the summer without it,
when they spend half their time in it on the river at
home and are as expert at handling it as Indians,—and
yet, they wrote that they would be here to-day.”

It was evident the boys they were looking for were not
aboard. The little steamer, after a violent demonstration
of puffing and snorting, during which it made apparently
several desperate attempts to rush headlong on the
rocks, but was checked with a hasty scrambling of
paddle-wheels, and was bawled at by captain and
mates, was finally subdued and made fast to the wharf
by the deck-hands. The passengers disembarked, and
the same lusty, brown-armed crew, with a series of
rushes, as though they feared their captive might at any
moment break its bonds and make a dash for liberty,
proceeded to unload the freight and baggage. Trucks
laden with leaning towers of baggage were trundled
noisily ashore and overturned upon the wharf.

In the midst of the bustle and commotion the group of


three boys was joined by another boy, who had just
come from the hotel.

“Hulloa, there!” said the new boy. “Where’s Tom and


Bob?”

“They are not aboard, Henry,” said the eldest boy of the [4]
group.

The new arrival gave a whistle of surprise.


“How do you feel this afternoon, Henry?” asked the
second of the brothers.

“Oh, very poorly—very miserable. In fact, I don’t seem


to get any better.”

This lugubrious reply, strange to say, did not evoke the


sympathy which a listener might have expected. The
boys burst into roars of laughter.

“Poor Henry Burns!” exclaimed the eldest boy, giving the


self-declared invalid a blow on the chest that would
have meant the annihilation of weak lungs. “He will
never be any better.”

“And he may be a great deal worse,” said the second


boy, slapping the other on the back so hard that the
dust flew under the blow.

“Won’t the boys like him, though?” asked the third and
youngest boy,—“that is, if they ever come.”

Henry Burns received these sallies with the utmost


unconcern. If he enjoyed the effect which his remarks
had produced, it was denoted only by a twinkle in his
eyes. He was rather a slender, pale-complexioned youth,
of fourteen years. A physiognomist might have found in
his features an unusual degree of coolness and self-
control, united with an abnormal fondness for mischief;
but Henry Burns would have passed with the ordinary
person as a frail boy, fonder of books than of sports.

Just then the captain of the steamer put his head out of [5]
the pilot-house and called to the eldest of the brothers:

“I’ve got a note for you, George Warren. A young chap


who said he was on his way here in a canoe came
aboard at Millville and asked me to give it to you; and
there was another young chap in a canoe alongside who
asked me to say they’d be here to-night.”

“Hooray!” cried George Warren, opening and reading


the note. “It’s the boys, sure enough. They started at
four o’clock this morning in the canoe, and will be here
to-night. Much obliged, Captain Chase.”

“Not a bit,” responded the captain. “But let me tell you


boys something. You needn’t look for these ’ere young
chaps to-night, because they won’t get here. What’s
more,” added the captain, as he surveyed the water and
sky with the air of one defying the elements to withhold
a secret from him, “if they try to cross the bay to-night
you needn’t look for them at all. The bay is nothing too
smooth now; but wait till the tide turns and the wind in
those clouds off to the east is let loose! There’s going to
be fun out there, and that before many hours, too.”

With this dismally prophetic remark the captain gave


orders to cast off the lines, and the steamer was soon
on its way down the bay.

The three brothers, George, Arthur, and Joe Warren,


and Henry Burns left the wharf and were walking in the
direction of the hotel, when a remark from the latter
stopped them short.

“Did it occur to any of you,” asked Henry Burns, [6]


speaking in a slightly drawling tone, “that we shall never
have a better opportunity to play a practical joke on
your friends than we have to-day—?”

“What friends?” exclaimed George Warren, indignantly.


“I thought you said Tom Harris and Bob White were
coming down the river to-day in a canoe,” said Henry
Burns, in the most innocent manner.

“And so they are. And you think we would play a joke


on them the first day they arrive, do you? I believe you
would get up in the night, Henry Burns, to play a joke
on your own grandmother. No, sirree, count me out of
that,” said George Warren. “It will be time enough to
play jokes on them after they get here. I don’t believe in
treating friends in that way.”

“Rather a mean thing to do, I think,” said Arthur


Warren.

“I’m out of it,” said Joe.

“It doesn’t occur to any of you to ask what the joke is,
does it?” asked Henry Burns, dryly.

“Don’t want to know,” replied George.

“Nor I, either,” said Arthur.

“Keep it to play on Witham,” said Joe.

“Then I’ll enlighten you without your asking,” continued


Henry Burns, nothing abashed. “You did not notice,
perhaps, that though your friends, Tom and Bob, did not
come ashore to-day, their baggage did, and it is back
there on the wharf. Now I propose that we get John
Briggs to let us take his wheelbarrow, wheel their traps
over to the point, pitch their tent for them, and have
everything ready by the time they get here. It’s rather a
mean thing to do, I know, and not the kind of a trick I’d
play on old Witham; but there’s nothing particular on
hand in that line for to-day.”
Henry Burns paused, with a sly twinkle in his eyes, to [7]
note the effect of his words.

“Capital!” roared George Warren, slapping Henry Burns


again on the back, regardless of the delicate state of
that young gentleman’s health. “We might have known
better than to take Henry Burns seriously.”

“Same old Henry Burns,” said Arthur. “Take notice, boys,


that he never is beaten in anything he sets his heart on,
and that his delicate health will never, never be any
better;” and he was about to imitate his elder brother’s
example in the matter of a punch at Henry Burns, but
the latter, though of slighter build, grappled with him,
and after a moment’s friendly wrestling laid him on his
back on the greensward, thereby illustrating the force of
his remark as to Henry Burns’s invincibility.

The suggestion was at once followed. Within an hour


the boys had wheeled the baggage of the campers to a
point of land overlooking the bay.

“It’s all here,” said Henry Burns, finally, as two of the


boys deposited a big canvas bag, containing the tent,
upon the grass, “except that one box on the wharf,
which looks as though it contained food.”

“We can let that stay there till we get things shipshape
here, or get Briggs to put it in the storehouse by and
by,” suggested young Joe.

But if they could have foreseen then that the leaving of [8]
the box there upon the wharf, seemingly such an
inconsequential thing, was to be the means of creating
no end of trouble, it is quite possible that even young
Joe himself, though rather fond of his ease, would have
brought it away on his own shoulders; but it seemed of
no consequence whether it should be removed then or
later, and so the box remained where it was.

It required but a brief time to pitch the tent. It was a


large, square-shaped canvas, with high walls on two
sides, so that a person of medium height could stand
erect there, and running to a peak at the top in the
usual “A” shape. Putting the frame, of two poles and a
cross-piece, together, and drawing the canvas over it as
it lay on the ground, the two larger boys raised it into
position while the others drove the pegs and stretched
the guy-ropes.

“Now, then,” drawled Henry Burns, “if you care to, we


can carry the joke still further by cutting some poles and
putting up the bunks.”

This proposition also meeting with approval, Henry


Burns and the eldest of the Warrens started for the
woods, about a mile distant, to cut some spruce poles,
leaving the younger brothers to complete the pegging of
the tent, ditching it, and getting things in order.

The spot which had been selected for the camping-


ground was one of the most beautiful on the island. It
was a small point of land projecting into the bay, with a
sandy beach on either side. Its outermost extremity,
however, ended in a wall of ledge, which went down
abruptly, so that the water at high tide came up to
within a few feet of the greensward, and at low tide
dropped down, rather than receded, leaving no bare
rocks exposed.

A few spruce-trees grew on the point, sufficient to give [9]


shade, and in the midst of a clump of them was a clear
spring of water that was cool to iciness during the
hottest days. The point commanded a view of the entire
bay on the eastern side of the island, so that when the
breeze came up from the south, as it did almost daily
through the summer, blowing fresh and steadily, the
billows over all its broad surface seemed to be aiming
their blows directly at it, while every breath of wind was
laden with a salt odour that was health-giving and
inspiring.

It was a choice bit of land that Bob’s uncle had


purchased several years ago, when a few speculators
had thought the island might be “boomed” as a summer
resort. The little fishing village of Southport, which
numbered then some twenty odd houses, had, indeed,
been augmented by the “boom” by about the same
number of cottages; and adjoining the old tavern there
had been built a more imposing structure, the new and
the old composing the summer hotel.

But the village had not “boomed.” It remained the same


peaceful, quiet, quaint, and interesting village as of
yore. Those cottagers who remained after the boom
died out were rather glad than otherwise that the
picturesque place had not been transformed into a
fashionable resort. They liked it for its tranquillity and
quaintness, and soon came into sympathy and
friendliness with the villagers, who had parted with their
lands only with the greatest reluctance, and who viewed
the new order of things with a suspicion born of years
of conservativeness.

The gaiety of the place centred about the hotel, where, [10]
too, the greater number of the guests were those who
came year after year, and who would as soon have
thought of going to Jericho as to any other place than
the island.
The leading citizen of the village was Squire James
Brackett, and its moving spirit one Captain Curtis, or
“Cap’n Sam,” as he was familiarly known. The former
owned the best house in the village, a big, rambling,
two-story farmhouse, perched on the hill overlooking
the harbour. He was a vessel-owner and a man of
importance. He was the only man in the town who had
persistently refused to associate with the summer
residents, which some attributed to the fact that he
feared lest their coming might disturb his sway over
town affairs.

Captain Sam was a man of altogether different stamp. It


is safe to say he was on good terms with everybody on
the island. He was for ever busy; the first man to arise
in the town, and the last to retire at night. In fact, it is a
fair assumption that, had Captain Sam deserted the
island at an early date in its history, the town might
have eventually fallen so sound asleep that it would not
have awakened to this day.

Captain Sam united in his activities the duties of [11]


storekeeper, coal and ice merchant, musician, constable,
and schoolmaster, the latter vocation occupying his
winter months. The energy of the village was
concentrated in this one man, who seemed tireless. He
was on intimate terms with everybody, and knew
everybody’s business. That he was rather good-looking
was the cause of some pangs of jealousy on the part of
young Mrs. Curtis, when business called her husband
away among the housewives and maids of the village.
Finally, Captain Sam had a voice which defied walls and
distance. It was even told by some of the village
humourists that he had once stood at the head of the
island and hailed a vessel sailing around the extreme
southern end, thirteen miles distant.
Grand Island, lying in the middle of the bay, almost
divides the upper part of it into two big bodies of water,
so that there are two great thoroughfares for vessels,
leading out to sea, the western being the more
generally used, for it is a more direct passage. The
eastern bay is filled with islands at the entrance to the
sea.

In the course of an hour, the boys who had gone to the


woods returned to the camp, bringing with them four
spruce poles. These were quickly trimmed of their
branches, and cut to an even length of about seven
feet. Then, four stakes being driven into the ground on
each side of the tent under the walls, to form the legs
of the bunks, the poles were mounted on these and
made fast. Then pieces of board were nailed across
from pole to pole, and on these were placed mattresses
stuffed with dry hay from Captain Sam’s stable.

“There,” said young Joe, throwing himself on one of


them, “is a spring bed that can’t be beaten anywhere. I
know some think spruce boughs are better, but they dry,
and the needles fall off, and the bed gets hard. These
will last all summer.”

The pliant spruce poles were as good, indeed, as [12]


springs.

In the meantime the younger boys had dug a trench


completely around the tent, extending to the edge of
the bank on one side of the point, so that a heavy rain
could not flood the floor. In the rear of the tent they had
set a huge box belonging to the campers, made of a
packing-case and provided with a cover that lifted on
leather hinges, and a padlock. It was, presumably, filled
with the camp outfit. In one corner of the tent, on a
box, they placed a large oil-stove and oven. The
bedding was taken inside, and everything made
shipshape. The comfort of the prospective campers
seemed assured.

Over the top of the tent they had also stretched a big
piece of stout cloth, made for the purpose, which was
fastened to the ground at the ends with guy-ropes and
pegs, and which was to protect the tent against leaking
water in any long rainy period, and also serve as
additional shade in hot weather.

The boys had done a hard afternoon’s work. Pinning


back the flaps of the tent, they sat at the entrance and
looked out across the bay. The wind, which blew from
the southeast, had not grown idle during the afternoon,
but had increased steadily, and now came strong and
damp from off the bay, rushing in at the opening of the
tent and bulging it out so that it tugged violently at the
ropes.

“It won’t do to leave the tent-door unpinned,” said [13]


Henry Burns. “It’s going to blow great guns to-night.”
So, closing the entrance and making it fast, they went
to the edge of the bank and sat there.

“It’s rough out there now,” said George Warren, pointing


to the bay, which was one mass of foaming waves; “but
it will be worse from now till midnight. The wind is
going to blow harder and the tide is just beginning to
run out.”

The tide indeed set strongly down the island shore, so


that when it met the wind and waves blown up from
oceanward it made a rough and turbulent chop sea.
All at once as they sat there a sailboat rushed out from
behind the headland across the cove and thrashed its
way through the white-capped waves, heading down
the island and throwing the spray at every plunge into
the seas. Those aboard had evidently a reckless
disregard for their own safety, for, although such few
coasters as could be seen in the distance were scudding
for harbour, fearful of the approaching storm, this craft
carried not only full mainsail and forestaysail,—sail, too,
that was large for the boat at all times,—but a topsail
and a jib. The boat was hauled well into the wind and
heeled over, so that the water again and again came
over the board into the cockpit.

Perched upon the windward rail were three boys. A


fourth, a boy evidently near George Warren’s age, stood
at the wheel, seemingly the most unconcerned of all. He
was large of his age and powerfully built, and his
sleeves, rolled above the elbow, showed two brown and
brawny arms. A fifth boy, somewhat younger in
appearance, lying in the bottom of the boat, with feet
braced against the side, held the main-sheet.

The boat was a white sloop, about thirty feet in length [14]
over all, and clearly fast and able.

“I’ll say one thing for Jack Harvey and his crew,”
exclaimed George Warren, as the yacht rushed by the
point, “although I think they’re a mean lot. They can
handle a boat as well as any skipper on the island. And
as for fear, they don’t know what it means.”

“Look!” he cried. “Do you see what they are doing?” as


the yacht was suddenly brought, quivering, into the
wind and headed away from the island on the other
tack. “There’s nothing in the world Jack Harvey’s doing
that for except to frighten the hotel guests. He sees the
crowd on the piazza watching him, and is just making
game of their fright. He’ll sail out there as long as he
dares, or until his topmast goes, just to keep them
watching him.”

And so indeed it proved. An anxious crowd of summer


guests at the hotel had no sooner begun to rejoice at
the boat’s apparent safety, than they saw it go about
and head out into the bay once more. Then they
breathed easier as it headed about again, and came
rushing in. Then as it once more headed for the bay,
they realized that what they were witnessing was a
sheer bit of folly and recklessness. Angry as they were,
they could but stand there and watch the yacht
manœuvre, the women crying out whenever a flaw
threw the yacht over so that the mainsail was wet by
the waves; the men angry at the bravado of the
youthful yachtsmen, and vowing that the yacht might
sink and the crew go with it before they would lift a
hand to save one of them. All of which they knew they
did not mean,—a fact which only increased their
irritation.

“Ah!” said George Warren, as a big drop of rain [15]


suddenly splashed on his cheek. “Perhaps this will drive
them in, if the wind won’t.” It had, indeed, begun to
rain hard, and, although the crew of the yacht must
have been drenched through and through with the
flying spray, the water from the sky had, evidently, a
more dampening effect on their spirits, for the yacht
was headed inshore, and soon ran into a cove about
three-quarters of a mile down the island, behind a point
of land where, through the trees, the indistinct outlines
of a tent could be seen.
And so, as it was now the time when the sun would
have set upon the bay, if it had not been shut out from
sight by a heavy mass of clouds, and as the wind came
laden with rain, which dashed in the faces of those who
were out-of-doors to encounter it, the boys turned from
the spot where they had gathered and hurried for
shelter, the brothers to their cottage, and Henry Burns
to the hotel.

The tent, swayed by the fierce gusts of wind, tugged at


its ropes; the reckless crew of the white sloop had
found shelter, and those vessels that were out upon the
bay eagerly sought the same.

But in that part of the bay which rolled between the


northern end of the island and the mouth of the river,
fifteen miles away, a greater piece of recklessness was
being enacted than was ever dared by Harvey and his
careless crew. There was none on shore there to
witness it, for the island at that extreme end was bare
of settlement.

A mile from the nearest land, seemingly at the mercy of [16]


a wild sea which threatened every moment to engulf it,
a small canoe slowly and stubbornly fought its way
toward the island shore. At a distance one would have
thought it a mere log, tossed about at random by the
waves; and yet, one watching it would have seen it
slowly draw ahead, glide from under the spray that
broke constantly over its bow, and still make progress;
sometimes beaten back by billows that tumbled fast one
upon another, but gaining something through it all.

There were two occupants of the craft, and, though but


mere youths, none could have handled the paddles
more skilfully. Yet it was a question of the great sea’s
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