The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island | Page 4

to paddle up there in five hours or so," remarked
Max.
"Sure, and I'm in fine trim for the job; how about you, Toby?" Owen
continued, for the stuttering boy was to be his mate in the double canoe,
which could hold the tents, and some of the more cumbrous luggage
devoted to camping comfort.
"Just aching for exercise," the other managed to say, promptly enough.
"Well, I reckon we'll all get what we want," Max remarked, as they
prepared to quit the boathouse; "for the current is pretty strong in places,
and the island lies a good many miles off. Everybody be on hand early
to-morrow, for we've got a heap of things to do before lunch time. Skip
out now; I'm going to douse the glim."
As the chattering boys walked away in the darkness they were followed
by a stealthy figure that seemed desirous of not being seen. And a little
later, when passing a house where a light gleamed from a window, this
figure came for just a second in the shaft of light; so that had any one of
the five chums happened to glance behind just then they might have
recognized the evil face of their most vindictive enemy, Ted Shafter,
the bully of Carson!
CHAPTER II.
BANDY-LEGS IN TROUBLE.
At noon on the following day there was more or less excitement around
the spot where the boathouse stood. The canoes, already loaded, lay
moored near by, awaiting the word to be given that would send the
little expedition on its way up-stream.
Of course the news had got abroad, though Max would much rather

have kept it a secret, if they could. But Herb and his friends, as well as
some other boys of the river town, were on hand to see the start.
And as was natural, a heap of good-natured chaffing was indulged in.
All sorts of dismal predictions were made by Herb, and those of his
comrades who had been in his company at the time of their wild
midnight flight from Catamount Island.
"We'll expect to see you to-morrow, all right, fellows!" cried one.
"Yes, and we're going to keep tabs on you, if you don't show up,"
remarked still another. "It won't be fair to sleep on the mainland, and
just go over in the day. You've got to stay right there a whole week,
night after night, to win out. See?"
"A week," answered Steve, laughing in a scoffing manner; "why, if it
wasn't a waste of good time, we'd have made it a month. But we've got
other fish to fry, and don't want to spend all our vacation on that measly
old island."
"Yes, say what you like," called Herb, as the canoes began to leave the
shore, and the paddles to flash in the noonday sun's bright rays; "you'll
have another story to tell when you show up to-morrow, or I miss my
guess."
"Wait till you see that old cabin, that's what!" called out another, in a
mysterious way that somehow caused Bandy-legs to look uneasy, Max
thought.
He knew that if there was going to be a weak link in the chain it would
lie in that quarter; for the short chum had a few silly notions concerning
certain things, and was not wholly free from a belief in supernatural
happenings. But with the backing of four sturdy chums, Bandy-legs
ought to brace up, and show himself a true boy of nerve.
"Look at that Shack Beggs making faces after us!" remarked Steve,
who, as usual, threatened to take the lead in the push up the Evergreen
current.

"I noticed him hangin' around all the time," added Bandy-legs; "and
every now and then he'd seem to grin, and shake hands with himself,
like he felt nearly too good to keep the thing quiet. Whatever ails him,
d'ye think, Max?"
"Well, as I never stood for a mind reader, I can't tell you," was the reply
of the one addressed; "but as we know he belongs to that Ted Shafter
crowd, it's easy to understand that he just believes something terrible is
going to happen to us up on Catamount Island."
"Oh! I hope he's barking up the wrong tree, then!" exclaimed
Bandy-legs.
"Just what he's doing, take my word for it," Owen put in, from the stern
of the big war canoe, which he and Toby were urging against the
flowing current with lusty strokes, and evident keen enjoyment.
"How does it go?" asked Max, who was in a sixteen-foot canvas canoe
like the one Steve handled so dexterously; while Bandy-legs, fearing to
trust to anything so frail, had insisted on getting one of the older type
lapstreak cedar boats, that were so marvelously beautiful in his eyes.
"Fine as silk!" announced Steve, from