Chapter XIII: On the Old Cow's Back

Once more in the boat's stern with his steering paddle, Perce Bucklin gazed eagerly over the bobbing heads of the twins, who were rowing, and reported his observations, as they approached the castaway on the back of the "Old Cow."

"It's nobody I can make out," he said, when near enough to recognize, as he believed, any person he knew. "But that isn't a yachting-cap he has on; it's a handkerchief tied around his head. The sun on the water dazzles me or I ---- Boys," he suddenly exclaimed, "it isn't a man! It's a boy!"

And he shouted, "Hello, there!"

The castaway returned the hail, and as the boat came nearer, cried out:

"That you, Perce Bucklin?"

Then Perce uttered an ejaculation of the greatest astonishment:

"Boys, it's Olly Burdeen!"

"No!" "Jingo!" "You don't say!" exclaimed the twins, who wouldn't believe him until they turned their heads and saw for themselves.

"Hullo, Olly!" called Moke.

"How did you ever get there?" asked Poke.

"Pull, boys!" said Perce impatiently, as they held their oars while looking around. "He must have been aboard the yacht,"--for as yet Olly made no answer. He was in fact too much agitated with joy and gratitude, after his long hours of suffering in mind and body, to make any coherent explanations.

The dory came dancing over the waves.

"Where's the yacht?" Perce demanded.

"I don't know anything about any yacht," answered the miserable, happy Olly, stepping down to the water's edge to meet his deliverers.

"Hasn't the Susette been lost?" Perce inquired.

As he was still some little distance away, and the waves were dashing on the rocks, all Olly understood was something about the Susette being lost.

It gave him a shock, with which, however, came a gleam of consolation. Mr. Hatville, then, had not returned home.

I will do Olly the justice to say that he could not under any circumstances have rejoiced at such a disaster as the wreck of the yacht; yet it was some comfort to think that the loss of the watch had not yet been discovered.

"I haven't heard of it!" Olly said in a shaky voice.

"Then how in the world did you get where you are?" inquired Perce, and as Olly was too much overcome by his feelings to answer at once, he continued: "We concluded you must have been aboard of the Susette. Where's the best place to take you on?"

"Right here," said Olly. "But I've a boat, too, around on the other side. I'd like to save that."

"A boat!" Moke exclaimed. "Then why in the name of common sense----"

"Why didn't you go ashore?" cried Poke.

"It leaks, and I haven't any oars nor anything to bail with. It was all I could do to get over here in it, without sinking. I was on the "Calf's" back till the waves began to break over it this morning."

Here a sob caught poor Olly's voice, at the recollection of all he had gone through.

"On the 'Calf'!" said Perce. "How did it happen? But never mind about that till we get you out of your scrape."

The dory pulled around the "Old Cow," while Olly scrambled over the back, picking up on his way the second thwart, which he had used to paddle with, and afterward in making his signals of distress.

On the seaward side was a cleft in the rock, into which he had propelled his dory on the top of a wave, and where, leaping to the ledges, he had held it by the painter while the wave went out. There it was still, jammed high up in the chasm, where the buffets of the tide had left it.

Olly alone could never have got it out without waiting for the next tide to help him; it was all his companions could do to loosen and lift it from those rocky jaws. This they did, after effecting a landing on the little islet; while Olly, who acknowledged himself half starved, ate some of the provisions they had brought, and between mouthfuls told his surprising story.

One very important particular, however, he took care not to mention, so that no light was thrown upon the mystery of the watch which had found its resting-place in Perce Bucklin's pocket.

It would be hard to say whether this was a disappointment or a relief to the finder. He had so fully persuaded himself that there was some connection between the watch picked up on the beach and the human being cast on the rock, that he could not easily give it up, even after discovering who that human being was.

True, Olly was not a very probable owner of such a timepiece. Yet that was not an impossible thing; at any rate, he might know something about it. Perce was anxious to solve the riddle, even if it should be at his own cost; for he had no wish, as I have said before, to keep what belonged to another.

"I didn't know you in that suit of clothes, Olly," he said, as they were getting the boat out of the crevice, "and with that handkerchief on your head! I never saw such a change in anybody,--did you, boys?"

"He looks as pinched as if the lobsters had been nipping him," said Moke.

"And as blue about the gills as a turkey-gobbler," said Poke.

"I lost my hat overboard last night," said Olly, "I tied on my handkerchief this morning after I got tired of waving it. I thought you would be more apt to see the board. Wasn't I missed? Wasn't anybody looking for me?"

"No," Perce replied. "The young lady with the nose--the tall one--said you went with the yachters."

"She!" exclaimed Olly, who still had feelings left that could be hurt by such evidence of Amy Canfield's utter indifference to him. "She knew better than that."

"Mrs. Murcher knew better," said Perce. "She thought you had gone home to show your new suit to the folks. Did the boarder make you any other present?"

"Wasn't that enough?" returned Olly, munching a cold boiled egg.

"It will do for a beginning," said Perce. "But with such a suit as that, it seems as if you ought to have a handsome--watch-chain; needn't mind about any watch," he added with a laugh, intending thus to make a jest of his remark if Olly didn't take it in earnest.

Poor Olly tried to smile with his pinched, empurpled face; at the same time casting down his eyes in some alarm, to see what there was about his dress to put such a notion into Perce's head.

"Olly doesn't feel like joking," observed Moke.

"Neither would you, I guess!" exclaimed Olly, glad to change the subject. "All night on the rocks except when I was paddling or swimming for my life. No fire, not a mouthful to eat, not a wink of sleep! I got wet through a second time, getting over here from the 'Calf,' in a sinking boat. I can't tell you how it made me feel, boys, to see your fire on the beach last night, and again this morning! Why didn't you see me? I tried the handkerchief, and then the board, but I thought you never would look!"

"We were too far off," said Poke.

"We were too busy minding our own business," said Moke.

"That reminds me, the seaweed is waiting for us," said Poke. "Hurry up, boys!"

Perce was the last to leave the island; and he himself got wet up to his waist by a wave, in preventing the boat from being dashed upon the rocks after the others were aboard.

He did not care for a little salt water himself. But he thought of the watch in the pocket of his trousers. That, however, would probably not be much hurt by a few additional drops after what it had been through already. As far as he was concerned, the mystery had not been cleared up, at all, as he had expected it would be, by the rescue of the castaway.

If Olly had frankly told his entire story, how gladly would Perce have taken the treasure-trove from his pocket and held it out to him, exclaiming: "Here is your watch, boy!" gladdening his eyes with the sight. But as it was, both were silent on the subject which now filled both their minds.

Olly had already learned from his companions that their only reasons for thinking the yacht had been wrecked, was the fact of its not having returned the night before, and the appearance, that morning, of a human form on the outlying rock,--excepting always the very private reason in Perce Bucklin's trousers-pocket.

Mr. Hatville was then most likely still undrowned; and now that his own life was saved, Olly began to study how he should shirk the responsibility of his guilty borrowing,--in his troubled thoughts looking every way except the right way, and inventing plausible fictions, where nothing would avail like the simple truth. He sat in the stern of his companions' dory, leading his own in tow by the painter; dejected and silent, and more than once thinking he would watch for a chance, when nobody was observing him, to drop overboard the watch-seal and the fragment of chain which he still carried in his vest.