The Boxcar Children Mysteries: Books One through Twelve (31 page)

The canoes passed the next look and the next. Then Joe called back to Henry, “Want to stop and fish?”

“You bet!” called Henry. “You’ll have to show us how.”

“Alice knows how,” called Joe. He stopped paddling. “She’ll show you and Violet.”

The two canoes floated together as Joe and Alice each put a pretty Grey Ghost fly on their lines. Then Joe whipped his line out over the water.

“That’s nice, Joe,” cried Benny. “Isn’t it easy? When you get a fish, let me try, will you?”

“Sure,” said Joe, smiling. “Sit very still now.”

“Oh, look,” cried Jessie. “You’ve got a fish, Alice! Pull it in!”

“Not so fast,” answered Alice. “You have to play these fellows.” She pulled her line in very slowly and carefully. Everyone watched her land the large fish and take it off the hook.

Then Joe caught one. Benny could hardly wait.

“Now it’s my turn,” he cried.

“Right,” said Joe. “You saw me whip the line over the water. Now you do it.”

Benny took the rod. He lifted it just as Joe had done. “Whip!” went the line. But it did not go out over the water. It went backwards over his head.

“Look
out!”
cried Joe to Alice. But he was too late. The hook caught fast in her hair and pulled it down over her face.

“Oh, Alice, your pretty smooth hair!” said Violet.

“I’m sorry, Alice!” called Benny. “I don’t see how I did that.”

“Never mind,” said Alice. “I ought to have been watching. Everyone misses the first time. Violet will soon get the hook out.”

Violet leaned over at once and worked the hook out. “Don’t do that again, Benny,” she said.

“It’s not as easy as it looks, Benny, to whip that line out,” said Jessie. “You’d better let Joe do the fishing.”

“No, not at all,” Joe answered. “Let him try again. He ought to learn.”

Benny fished and fished. But he found it worth while when he caught three trout. He looked at every spot on the fish as if he had made it himself.

At last Joe said, “We have enough fish now. The men at the lumber camp will want to feed us. But it’s nice to have our own food, too.”

“See the logs in the water over there,” said Alice. “The men at the camp roll the logs into the water and they float down by themselves.”

When the children started off again, they began to hear the sound of axes. Soon they could hear a great crash when a tree fell. At last they heard a lumber man calling to them, “Hi! Hi!”

They all waved to him. “Paddle in, Henry,” said Joe. “We’ll stay here tonight.”

The man seemed very glad to see them. Right away he asked them to stay to dinner.

“Yes, we’ll be glad to,” said Joe. “We have a lot of fish here, but we’d like to put up our tents in your camp for the night.”

“Fine!” said the man, who was the boss. “Hi, Cookie! We have company.”

The cook looked up with a laugh. “Come in! Stay as long as you want. You like beans?”

Benny went up to the cook. “We just love beans,” he said. “But we got a lot of fish. I’ll show you the ones I caught.”

“You can’t tell them apart,” said Henry.

“Oh, yes, I can,” said Benny. “I caught three, and I know every one. I caught this one, and this one, and this one!”

“They look just alike to me,” said Cookie, with a smile.

“Cook them for the little boy, Cookie,” said the boss. “Fix them all up.”

When dinner was ready, Cookie let Benny ring the bell. The lumber men came crashing through the bushes.

“They always hurry that way to their dinner,” said Cookie.

The men made room for the visitors. There were three tables full of people. Baked beans and quick bread made a fine dinner.

After dinner the boss said, “You show the visitors how we cut the trees, Bill.”

“Bill!” whispered Violet to Joe. They all looked to see which man was Bill. But they knew right off it was not the Bill they were hunting for. He was too young.

The afternoon went by too quickly. After a supper of their cooked fish, they went to bed in their own tents. The lumber men had little log houses.

“Don’t be surprised if you hear porcupines,” said the boss. “They like the grease around here, and they come most every night.”

“What do they sound like?” asked Henry.

“Like pigs,” said the boss. “They squeal and they chew. When they chew it sounds like someone sawing wood.”

When the camp was quiet Henry woke up suddenly. He thought it was morning and the men were sawing. Then he heard many loud squeals, and said to himself, “It’s porcupines!”

But the squeals had wakened all the rest, and both tent doors opened.

“What a noise,” whispered Jessie. “Where are they?”

“See that ball?” asked Alice. “Right by the table? That is a porcupine. He is chewing the table to get the grease.”

There were five porcupines in all, eating and squealing. When the children had watched them for a long time, Joe said, “We must get our sleep. They’d better go.” Then he flashed a light at them. They rolled into balls and kept very still.

But when Joe flashed the light again, they went hurrying away into the woods.

“Well,” said Jessie, lying down again, “we see our most interesting sights in the middle of the night.”

“I hope they won’t come back,” said Alice. “Because Joe says tomorrow will be a hard day.”

But even Joe had no idea how hard the next day was going to be.

A
fter the day in the lumber camp, the morning seemed to come in no time. Then men were awake and working before the sun. When everyone was dressed, Joe took the children to find the boss.

“I wonder if you ever heard of a man named Bill McGregor,” he said to the boss.

“He’s lost,” said Benny.

“Lost? How old a man?”

“About seventy, now,” answered Joe. “He has been gone for many years. But we just found a letter saying he might have gone on Bear Trail.”

“This is part of Bear Trail,” said the boss.

“Yes, I know,” said Joe. “That’s why we came. This Bill was a very strong man, so I thought maybe he had worked years ago in lumber camps.”

“Well, I’ll ask my men,” said the boss. “I’ll find a way to let you know if I hear anything.”

“We are going to stop at Old Village,” said Joe. “If you do hear anything about this man, send someone down by canoe. I’ll pay for it.”

“I guess not!” laughed the boss. “Too bad if I couldn’t help you out. I’ll be glad to let you know anything I hear. You have two looks and a carry before you get to Old Village Lake.”

“Breakfast!” called Cookie, ringing the bell. Soon the men were eating great plates of quick bread. But Cookie had made beautiful brown pancakes for the visitors. They ate them with butter and brown sugar.

“I’ll help paddle today, Henry,” said Alice.

“Thanks,” said Henry. “We’ll get along faster that way.”

After breakfast everything was packed up again and put in the canoes. The children did not forget to thank Cookie and the kind lumber boss. Very soon they were on their way down the lake. The day was beautiful. They saw two interesting things. They paddled around the first look and saw a moose swimming to shore as fast as he could. Around the next look they saw a beautiful deer standing in the bushes.

“I like to go around these looks,” cried Benny. “I’m glad we came. Now what’s next, Joe?”

“Well,” answered Joe with a funny smile, “soon we’ll get out and carry the canoes.” He winked at Jessie.

“Can I carry one?” asked Benny.

“No, certainly not,” said Joe. “Henry and Alice will carry one with the things still in it. That will be right side up. Then I will carry the other upside down on my head. You and Violet will have to carry some bags. Not as much fun as you think.

“You see this lake stops just ahead. But there is a very big lake not far from here. That’s the last lake for us.”

Henry and Joe soon pulled both canoes up on the shore. Alice took one end of a canoe under her arm, and Henry took the other. Benny laughed and laughed as Joe put the other canoe upside down on his head and walked off down the path. Benny and Violet came after with the bags.

It was not very far, and Alice was glad, because the canoe was heavy. Everyone sat down by the next lake to rest.

“What a beautiful day this is!” cried Jessie. She could not help it. The lake was the biggest one they had seen. The water was very blue and the trees were very dark green.

“Let’s rest a long time,” said Joe. “We have a long canoe trip ahead of us. There are not many good places to land for dinner.”

But at last he got up and they were on their way again. This time they did not paddle out to the middle of the lake. It was too far.

“Stay near land, Henry,” said Joe. “Then we won’t have so far to paddle.” But when he said this, he did not know how lucky they were going to be.

The two canoes were going along smoothly. Nobody thought of rain. Suddenly Joe looked up at the sky.

“Look up, Henry!” he called.

Just at that minute the wind began to blow. All of a sudden the smooth lake was very black. Soon it was all covered with small waves, then big ones.

For one long minute Joe stopped paddling and looked sharply along the shore. “Get to shore, Henry!” he shouted. “Just as fast as you can! Land between those two large trees.” He had to shout, for the wind was making a terrible noise.

They turned both canoes. By now they could hardly sit up. Alice paddled without a word. Henry’s canoe went first. Then it began to rain. The rain fell so fast that in one minute they were all wet through. But they thought of nothing but getting to shore.

“You can make it, Henry!” yelled Joe. “There is room for us both to land. Get over to one side!”

Henry and Alice paddled under the branches of the two trees and drove their canoe up into a very small opening.

“Get out quickly!” cried Alice. “Pull our canoe out of Joe’s way, so he can land, too.” They did so. Even Violet helped. Then they waved to Joe.

“O.K!” he shouted as he began to paddle straight in. Just then a big wave hit his canoe sideways and washed the bags of food and dishes into the lake.

“Never
mind!”
he yelled. “Let them go, Benny, and sit still!”

Then with one strong push he drove his canoe up beside Henry’s. He looked at his young wife, who was very white.

“Thank goodness!” said Alice. “We are all safe!” She put her arm around Violet who was shaking with fright.

“We’ll have to do something right away,” said Henry, taking one look at his gentle little sister. “We’re really in a fix. All our food is gone.”

“Are we going to starve, Joe?” asked Benny.

“Starve? No. But I guess we are going to be very hungry.”

“Just
almost
starve,” said Benny.

“Let’s not stand here in the rain talking,” said Jessie. “We still have our tents and our blankets. And we still have our shelter-half. We must think of some way to get Violet dry and warm.”

“I’m all right,” said Violet. But she did not look all right. She was still shaking.

Henry and Joe looked around. They could see nothing but trees and bushes. There was no path. There was no other open place.