Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

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Fantasy Football Challenge presents
The Adventure Club Afloat

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and twenty-five miles before they sat down to supper. That they didn't do so was no fault of either the _Adventurer_ or the _Follow Me_. It was about half-past eight that Phil, sitting on the forward cabin roof with his back braced against the smokestack, called Steve's attention to an object far off to port. They had then put some thirty miles between them and Portland and were twenty miles off Cape Neddick. The morning was lowery, with occasional spatters of rain, and the storm, which had blown off to the northward the day before, had left a heavy sea running. For an hour the _Adventurer_ and the _Follow Me_ had been climbing up the slopes of grey-green swells and sliding down into swirling troughs, and for a minute Steve couldn't find the dark speck at which Phil was pointing. When he did at last sight it over the tumbled mounds of water he stared in puzzlement a moment before he took the binoculars from their place and fitted them to his eyes. He looked long and then silently handed the glasses through the window to Phil, punched two shrill blasts on the whistle and swung the wheel to port. "Looks like a wreck," said Phil, after an inspection of the distant object. "Going to see?" Steve nodded. "Might be someone aboard," he answered. "We can tell in another mile or so, I guess." Phil gave up the glasses to the others, who had clustered to the bridge, while the _Follow Me_ altered her course in obedience to the signal, her company probably wondering why Steve had suddenly chosen to stand out to sea. At the end of ten minutes it was plainly to be determined with the aid of the binoculars that the object which had attracted their attention and curiosity was without any doubt a wreck, and as the _Adventurer_ drew momentarily closer her plight was seen to be extreme. Whether anyone remained aboard was still a question when the cruiser was a mile distant, but everything pointed against it. The craft, which proved to be a small coasting schooner, had evidently seen a lot of trouble. Both masts were broken off, the foremast close to the deck and the mainmast some dozen feet above it. She lay low in the water, with her decks piled high with lumber. A tangle of spars and ropes hung astern, but save for her cargo the decks had been swept clean. She was a sad sight even at that distance, and more than one aboard the _Adventurer_ felt the pathos of her. "No sign of life," said Steve. "If anyone was aboard there'd be a signal flying. And the boats are all gone, too, although that wouldn't mean much in itself because they might have been swept away. I guess, though, it got a bit too strenuous and the crew remembered the 'Safety First' slogan. There's nothing we can do, anyway." He started to swing the cruiser about again, but Perry intervened. "She's a whatyoucallit!" he exclaimed excitedly. "She's--" "No, little one," Joe corrected gently, "she's a wreck." "She's a derelict," persisted Perry eagerly, "and no one belongs to her! If we got her she'd belong to us, Steve! Wouldn't she?" "I suppose she would," replied Steve dubiously, his hand hesitating on the wheel, "but finding her and getting her are two mighty different things, Perry. If we _could_ get her she'd be a nice prize, I guess, for lumber's worth real money these days, and although she isn't very big it's safe to say she's got quite a bunch of it on her, below deck and above. I guess that lumber is what kept her afloat, from the looks of the hull." "Let's see what we can do," said Han. "Someone will find her and--" "It might as well be us," added Perry enthusiastically. "Couldn't we tow her, Steve!" "Tow her! Gee, she'd follow about as easily as a brick house!" "But if we both pulled--" "Well"--Steve cast an appraising eye at the weather--"I'm game to try it if the rest of you say so. Full steam ahead, Mr. Chapman!" CHAPTER XXI ON BOARD THE _CATSPAW_ Steve communicated the project to those aboard the _Follow Me_ which had now drawn up as near as she dared, and there followed a moment of blank amazement aboard the smaller boat. But discussion there was brief, and almost at once Harry Corwin raised his megaphone again and bellowed across: "Go to it! What do you want us to do, Steve?" "Nothing yet," was the answer. "We're going to board her first and see how she looks. If we take on the job we'll want your heaviest cable." Harry signalled assent. By this time they were within a hundred yards of the derelict, and, with engines just moving, they tossed about on the long swells and had a better look at the schooner. She was about eighty feet long, with a beam of probably twenty-two, and displaced approximately a hundred tons. She was square-sterned and blunt-nosed, evidently built for capacity rather than speed. Her name, in gold letters on the bow, was quite distinct: _Catspaw_. Later, when they rounded her stern, they saw that her home port was Norfolk. Her cargo, or at least so much of it as was above deck, consisted of rough pine boards, and every available foot of space was occupied with it. The deck-house was all but hidden. The mainmast dragged by a tangle of ropes aft of the starboard beam and was acting as a sort of sea-anchor. For the rest, her lumber-piled deck was swept clean save for a splintered gaff that had become wedged in the boards. Her hull had been painted black, but not very recently, and a dingy white streak led along the side. The two cruisers worked cautiously around to the leeward side of the _Catspaw_, the _Adventurer's_ tender was dropped over and Steve, Joe and Han climbed in. Boarding in that sea was no child's work, for the big swells, which slammed into and sometimes over the schooner without much effect, tossed the dingey high in air. But by rowing hard at first and then taking advantage of the quieter water near the schooner they at last reached the old black hull in safety and, while Han managed the boat-hook, the other two scrambled aboard. As they had suspected, the hulk was utterly deserted, and the fact that the forecastle and the captain's quarters were bare of anything of value and that the davits were empty indicated that the vessel had been abandoned in order. There was a good deal of water in her, but, as Steve pointed out, she wouldn't sink in a dozen years with that load of lumber

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