The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island | Page 6

their clothes
they went on deck to assure their schoolmates that they were all right,
and suffering no inconvenience from their trip overboard.
"Jack is a great sport," declared Jesse W., "but somebody called out
'shark!' a little too quick, for I nearly went to pieces. It may Have been
kind in him, but it was injudicious, to say the least."
The boys smiled at the young fellow's wisdom, and Billy Manners
replied:
"Well, it wasn't me, J.W., although I know I do a good many fool
things. You can't lay that at my door, however."
"Oh, you are a facetious fellow, and keep us amused, but you do think
of things," replied the younger boy. "The person who shouted 'shark,' is
one of the sort who yell 'fire' at the first sign of smoke, and raise a
panic in a crowded hall. They should be suppressed."
"Very true, J.W., you have the right of it," said Billy, smiling. "You get
the right idea under your bonnet now and then."
Young Smith had always been fond of Jack, but he was more so now
and stuck close to the older boy on all occasions, saying the next day to
Jack as they were walking on deck:
"Do you know, Jack, you have done a lot for me, and it is time I did
something for you. I am going to speak to my father about you. It is a
bit of a job for you to get your schooling and your living and

everything, isn't it?"
"Well, it is not so easy, Jesse W., and I do have a tussle now and then,"
returned Jack, smiling at the other boy's earnestness. "Still, one has to
work for what he gets in this world."
"Unless he steals it, and there is no satisfaction in that," said the smaller
boy wisely. "And later he has to work--in jail. What I wanted to say
was that now you have done this last thing for me, saving my life, that's
what it was, I think my father would like to do something for you, help
you through your schooling or something like that. Of course you
would not want him to give you money, for he does not put a
commercial value on my life, but he could help you to get ahead and so
help yourself, couldn't he now, Jack?"
"I suppose he could," Jack laughed, "and you are a thoughtful young
fellow, J.W., but never mind about that. One of the sailors, Bucephalus,
any one, in fact, could have done what I did. In fact, it is all in the day's
work at sea, and nothing is thought of it."
"No, but no one else did it, Jack. Any one might, but no one did. Only
you. Any one else could have done it, but they did not all the same.
That's nonsense about your pitching me overboard. I heard some of
them talking of it. Why, you were not there. I was on the quarter deck,
where I had no business to be, I suppose, with just a little bit of a low
rail, and when the vessel took a sudden roll I went overboard."
"Jack saw you up there," said Percival, who was walking with the
others, "and spoke about warning you that it was dangerous. In fact, he
was on the way to tell you when you got ahead of him and rolled
overboard."
"Jack is all the time thinking of some one," said young Smith. "That's
what makes him different from the other Hilltop boys."
"Oh, then you don't think I think of others, eh? That's one on me."
"Oh, you haven't had to, Dick, you have always had some one to think

for you," said Jesse W. wisely, and both Dick and Jack laughed.
"That young fellow will be doing something for you, Jack," said
Percival a few minutes later when the two happened to be alone. "He is
thinking of it now, and later you will hear from it."
"I suppose he will," said Jack thoughtfully, "and I don't know how I can
stop him. I could not help doing what I did, but you would have done
the same if you had seen the danger before I did."
"But I did not," returned Dick, "and that is just young Smith's line of
argument. It is nothing that you could have done something if you don't
do it. Well, you deserve all that can be done for you, and that is all
there is about it, old chap."
Two days later in the middle of the afternoon, the day having been
warm with very little air stirring so that the boys were glad to seek the
shelter of the awnings spread across the decks, the breeze suddenly fell