Chapter XIV: A River Duel

With the enlisting of Godey and his gang, who mainly represented whatever tendency there might be to youthful rowdyism in the demure little town, the whole vicinity of the tidal river was won over to the Boy Scout Movement.

The new recruits, those who gave in their names on Christmas Eve as would-be scouts, together with one or two later additions, were formed into a second patrol, of which Godey became patrol leader, called the Foxes in honor of the commonest animal of moderate size to be found in their woods; the red fox being prevalent, too, among the white sand-hills, the Sugarloaf Dunes, that formed part of the wild coast near the mouth of the Exmouth River.

Those milky dunes, formed of pale sand which was popularly supposed to have drifted down from New Hampshire to the sea and to have been swept in here by the winds and tides of ages, were a sort of El Dorado to the boys of the little town far up the tidal river.

Pirates' treasure was confidently believed to be buried there; each lad who made the trip by steam launch, motor-boat, or plodding rowboat downstream for several miles to the dunes, was certain that if he could only hit upon the right sand-hill and dig deep enough, he would find its whiteness richly inlaid with gold.

Other wild tales centred about the romantic dunes, of smugglers and their lawless doings in earlier and less law-enforcing times than the beginning of the twentieth century.

It was even hinted that within recent years there had been unlawful importations at rare intervals of certain dutiable commodities, such as intoxicating liquors and cigars, by means of a rowboat that would lie up during the day in the sandy pocket of some little creek that intersected the marshes near the white dunes, stealing forth at night into the bay to meet a mysterious vessel.

The latest report connected the name of Dave Baldwin, the _vaurien_, as Toiney contemptuously called him, with this species of petty smuggling.

Wiseacres, such as Captain Andy and the doctor, were of opinion that no such lawless work could be carried on to-day under the Argus eyes of revenue officers. But it was known that Dave spent most of his vagrant days hanging round the milky dunes and their neighborhood, sleeping on winter nights in some empty camp or deserted summer cottage, and occasionally varying the pale monotony of the dunes by sojourning in the woods at the opposite side of the river.

The possibility of running across him during a visit to the Sugarloaf Sand-Hills, or of seeing his "pocketed" boat reposing in some little creek where the mottled mother-seal secreted her solitary young one, had little interest for the boy scouts.

Toiney's contempt for the skulking vagrant who had caused his mother's heart to "break in pieces," had communicated itself to them. They were much more interested in the prospect of pursuing acquaintance with the spotted harbor seal, once the floundering despot of the tidal river, now scarcer and more shy.

As winter merged into spring a third patrol of boy scouts was formed, composed of boys from farms down the river, who had recourse to this harbor mammal for a name and called themselves the Seals.

Thus when April swelled the buds upon the trees, and the salt-marshes were all feathery with new green, there were three patrols of boy scouts who met in the little town hall of Exmouth, forming a complete scout troop, to plan for hikes and summer camps; and to go on their cheery way out of meeting, ofttimes creating spring in the heart of winter by doing the regulation good turn for somebody.

In especial, good turns toward the sorrow-bowed old woman, Ma'am Baldwin, were in vogue that season, because a first-rate recipe for sympathy is to perform a service for its object. The greater and more risky the service, the broader the stream of good will that flows from it!

So it was with the four members of the Owl Patrol who had received the boy scout medal for life-saving--the silver cross suspended from a blue ribbon, awarded to the scout who saves life with considerable risk to himself--for their gallant work in rescuing the old woman's grandson from the frozen waters of the tidal river. Their own moved feelings at that the finest moment of their young lives were thereafter as a shining mantle veiling the peculiarities of her who, solitary and defenseless, had once been regarded as fair game for their most merciless teasing.

She was not so solitary now. Much shaken by the accident to her grandchild, she was in no fit state to return to her baldfaced house on Christmas Eve or for many days after; so Public Opinion at length took the matter into its own hands and decreed that henceforth she must find a home with her daughter.

There, in a little dwelling on the outskirts of the town, she often watched the khaki-clad scouts march by. Invariably they saluted her. And Jack, the rescued nine-year-old, would strut and stretch and stamp in a vain attempt to hasten the advent of his twelfth birthday when he might enlist as a tenderfoot.

The Saturday spring hikes were varied by trips down the river when each patrol in turn was taken on an excursion in Captain Andy's motor-boat. It was on such an occasion that Nixon Warren, who had begun his scout service as a member of the Peewit Patrol of Philadelphia, obtained his coveted chance of seeing Spotty Seal at close quarters.

"You stay round Exmouth during the spring an' summer, Nix, and I'll take you where you'll see a seal close enough for you to shake his flipper," promised the sea-captain; and he kept his word, though the pledge was fulfilled after a fashion not in accordance with his intentions.

It was a glorious day, when the power-boat Aviator, owned by Captain Andy, left the town wharf with six of the Owls aboard in charge of the assistant scoutmaster, Toiney Leduc, and with the absurd little rowboat that danced attendance upon the Aviator, and which was jocosely named the Pill, bobbing behind them on the tidal ripples at the end of a six-foot towrope.

Spring was on the river to-day. Spring was in the clear call of the greater yellow-legs as it skimmed over the marshes, in the lightning dart of the kingfisher, in the wave of the tall black grass fringing each marshy bank, showered with diamonds by the advance and retreat of a very high tide tickled into laughter by the April breeze.

And spring was in the scouts' hearts, focusing all Nature's joy-thrills, as they glided down the river.

"_Houp-e-la!_ I'll t'ink heem prett' good day for go on reever, me," announced Assistant Scoutmaster Toiney, his black eyes dancing.

And he presently woke the echoes, while they wound in and out between the feathery marshes, with a gay "Tra-la!" or "Rond'! Rond'! Rond'!" that seemed the very voice of Spring herself bursting into song.

"Goodness! I can hardly wait for the end of August when our scoutmaster will get his vacation and we're to camp out on the Sugarloaf Dunes," said Leon Chase. "You can see the white dunes from here, Nix. It's a great old Sugarloaf, isn't it?" pointing across broad, pearly plains of water which at high tide spread out on either side of the central tidal channel, at the crystalline sand-pillar, guarding the mouth of the tidal river.

"The other sand-hills look like a row of tall, snowy breakers at this distance. Whew! aren't they splendid--with that bright blue sky-line behind them? I expect we'll just have the 'time of our lives' when we camp out there!" came in blissful accents from the patrol leader.

"Well! we're not going to land on the dunes to-day," said Captain Andy, who was standing up forward, steering the gasolene launch, his keen eyes scanning the plains of water from under his visored cap, in search of Spotty Seal's sleek dog-like head cleaving the ripples as he swam, with his strong hind-flippers propelling him along.

"Whoo'! Whoo'! she threw the water a bit that time; didn't she, lads?" alluding to his motor-boat, as the April breeze plucked a crisp sheet of spray from the breast of the high tide, like a white leaf from a book, and laughingly threw it at the occupants of the launch. "But that's nothing!" went on the old skipper. "Bless ye, boys, I've been down this river in a rowboat when the seas would come tumbling in on me from the bay, each looking big as a house as it shoved its white comb along! 'Twould rear itself like a glassy roof over the boat and I'd think it meant 'day, day!' to me, but I'd crawl out somehow. An' I've lived to tell the tale.

"But I'm gettin' too old for such scrapes now," went on the old sea-fighter. "I'm going to turn 'Hayseed!' You mayn't believe it, but I am!" glowering at the laughing, incredulous scouts. "I'm about buying a piece o' land that's only half cleared o' timber yet, up Exmouth way; going to start a farm. But, great sailor! how'll I ever get along with a cow. That's what stumps me."

"We'll come out an' milk her for you, Captain Andy," volunteered with one breath the boy scouts, their merry voices ringing out over the mother-of-pearl plains of water, bounded on one side by the headlands of a bold shore, on the other by green peninsulas of salt-marsh, insulated at high water by the winding creeks that burrowed among them, and farther on by the radiant dunes.

"I'll t'ink he no lak' for be tie to cow, me!" Toiney nodded mischievously at the sea-captain. Then, all of a sudden, his voice exploded gutturally like a bomb: "_Gard' donc!_ _Gard' donc_, de gros seal! _Sapre tonnere!_ _deux_ gros seal. Two beeg seal! _V'la V'la!_ shes jomp right out o' reever--engh!"

The excited Canadian's gesticulating hands drew every eye in the direction he indicated, which was a little to the left of the central tidal channel, between them and the straying creeks.

And the scouts' excitement fairly fizzed like a burning fuse as, mingled with Toiney's cry, sounded a hoarse bark, wafted across the plains of water, the harsh "Beow!" or "Weow!" according as the semi-distant ear might translate it, of an angry bull-seal.

Each boy's heart leaped into his distended throat at the sound, but not so high as leaped the bull-seal, to whom the other term significant of his male gender--that of dog-seal--hardly applied, for he outweighed half a dozen good-sized dogs.

Breathlessly gazing, the scouts saw him jump clear out of the water not quarter of a mile from them, his sleek, dark bulk sheathed in crystal armor, wrought of brine and sunbeams--his flippers dripping rainbows! Down he came again with a wrathful splash that sent the foam flying, and struck his companion, an apparently smaller animal whose head alone was visible, a furious blow on that sleek head with one of his clawed flippers.

"_Gard' donc!_ _Gard' donc_, les gros seal _qui se battent_! De beeg seal dat fights--dat strike heem oder, engh?" exploded Toiney again.

"So they are--fighting! Goodness! that big fellow is pitching into the one in the water. Going for him like fury, for some reason!" broke from the excited boys, as they stared, open-mouthed, while this belligerent performance was repeated, accompanied once or twice by the grunting bark of the larger seal.

"Great guns! he's a snorter, isn't he? You could hear that battle-cry of his nearly a mile off, at night, when the weather is decently calm as to-day," came from Captain Andy while he slowed down the panting motor-boat in order that the scouts might have a good view of the angry sea-calf--another name for the harbor seal--which Nixon yearned to see, and which was so absorbed in wreaking vengeance on a flippered rival that it paid no attention at all to the approaching launch.

"Gee whiz! isn't he a monster?"--"Must be five or six feet long!"--"Can't he make the foam fly, though?"--"You'd think he owned the river!" came at intervals from the gasping spectators.

"_Nom-de-tonnerre!_ she's _gros_ seal: shes mak de watere go lak' scramble de egg--engh?" gurgled Toiney, mixing up his pronouns in guttural excitement over this river duel, such as he had witnessed once before, when two male seals contested for the favor of some marbled sweetheart.

In this case the duelists were evidently unevenly matched, for presently a wild cry came from Scout Nixon:--

"See! See! he has him by the throat now. That big fellow has his fangs in the other seal's throat! Must have! For he's dragging him along to that little creek! He's going to kill him."

"_Mille tonnerres!_ I'll t'ink shes go for choke heem, me: dat's de tam he'll go deaded sure--engh?" Thus Toiney came gutturally in on the excited duet, as seven strained faces peered over the motor-boat's side at the one-sided battle.

"_Mille tonnerres_"--"a thousand thunders"--were being launched, indeed, upon the spotted head of the weaker animal, half stunned by the furious blows rained on him by the clawed hind-flippers of his adversary, and now finding himself dragged, willy-nilly, through the water into the secluded creek, like a prisoner to the block.

He tried diving, to loosen those cruel fangs, but was mercilessly forced to the surface again by his big rival.

"Well! I think this fight has gone on long enough; I'm going to separate them," cried Captain Andy. "I guess the tide is high enough for us to overhaul them in that little creek, without danger of being pocketed, or hung up aground, there!"

And with a warning _chug! chug!_ the power-boat Aviator made straight for the bubbling mouth of the creek, across the foamy wake left by the fighting seals, and dashed in after them.

Not until it was almost upon them did the triumphant male tear his four fangs from his rival's throat. Then, startled at last, he swam off a few strokes in a wild flurry, and dove, while Captain Andy drove his throbbing boat in between the combatants.

For a thrilling minute the scouts found themselves at the centre of a grand old mix-up that churned the waters of the creek; the weaker seal, now half dead, was right beneath the boat. Presently his head appeared upon the surface a few yards ahead of it. Swimming feebly a short distance, he crawled out of the water a little higher up the creek and lay upon the marshy bank entirely played out.

His merciless rival reappeared too, to the rear of the boat, strong as ever, swimming rapidly for the creek's mouth and the open water beyond it.

"That seal is 'all in';" Nixon pointed to the victim. "If we could go on to the head of the creek, we might step out on the bank and have a good look at him."

"I can't land you from the power-boat, but you can get into the little Pill if you like, an' row up 'longside him." Captain Andy pointed to the tubby rowboat bobbing astern. "No! only three of you may go, more might capsize her; she ain't much of a boat, though she's a slick bit o' wood for her size! Easy there now! Steady!"

The sturdy Pill was drawn alongside. Scouts Warren and Chase, with one brother Owl, stepped into her, and rowed to the head of the creek, whence they had a near view of the half-throttled creature as he lay, mouth open, stretched out upon the marshy bank, his strong hind-flippers extended behind him, their brown claws glistening with brine.

"Whew! he's spotted like a sandpiper's egg," said Nixon, looking at the head and back of the marbled seal. "Seems to me he's of a lighter color than the big fellow who nearly did for him; _he_ looked almost black out of water--but then he was all wet. And what a funny little tail this one has, not bigger than a pair of spectacles!"

"See his black nose an' short fore-flippers!" whispered Leon. "Don't his eyes stick out? They're a kind o' blue-black an' glazy. There! he's noticing us now. He's trying to flounder off--with that funny, teetering kind o' wabble they have! Say! hadn't we better row back to Captain Andy, and leave him to recover? He's all used up; that big one gave him an awful licking."

And this merciful consideration from Starrie Chase, who, prior to his scout days, would have had no thought save how to finish the cruel work of the big bully and put an end to the beaten rival!

"Well! you did see a harbor seal, Nix, 'most near enough to shake his flipper, eh?" challenged Captain Andy as the three scrambled back aboard the motor-boat, and made the little Pill fast astern by its short towrope, while the Aviator bore out of the blue creek, to head upstream toward the town again.

"Yes! I'd have tried to do it too, if he hadn't been so completely 'all in,'" laughed the scout. "I suppose we'll have plenty of opportunities to see seals and listen to their barking when we camp out on the white dunes during the last days of August and the beginning of September. They say the young ones make a kind of cooing noise, much like a turtle-dove, only stronger; I'm bent on capturing a pup-seal, to tame him!"

"Oh! you'd have no trouble about the taming, only you couldn't feed him! But you'll see seals a-plenty an' hear 'em, too, next summer. They just love to lie out on a reef o' rocks in the sun, when the tide's low, especially if the wind's a little from the no'thwest," said the ex-skipper. "A lonely reef, a warm sun, and light no'thwesterly breeze make up the harbor-seal's heaven, I guess!"