



Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morgan
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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                                  The
                          Rival Campers Afloat
                       Or, THE PRIZE YACHT VIKING


                                   By
                           Ruel Perley Smith
                     Author of "The Rival Campers"

                             ILLUSTRATED BY
                            LOUIS D. GOWING

                                 BOSTON
                          L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
                                  1906


                          _Copyright_, _1906_
                        By L. C. Page & Company
                             (INCORPORATED)

                         _All rights reserved_


                     First Impression, August, 1906


                            _COLONIAL PRESS
            Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
                           Boston. U. S. A._




                                CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
  I. Down the River                                                    1
  II. The Collision                                                   15
  III. A Rescue Unrewarded                                            28
  IV. Squire Brackett Discomfited                                     39
  V. Harvey Gets Bad News                                             56
  VI. Out to the Fishing-grounds                                      73
  VII. Near the Reefs                                                 91
  VIII. Little Tim a Strategist                                      108
  IX. Harry Brackett Plays a Joke                                    126
  X. Mr. Carleton Arrives                                            143
  XI. Squire Brackett Is Puzzled                                     160
  XII. The Surprise Sets Sail Again                                  180
  XIII. Stormy Weather                                               192
  XIV. The Man in the Cabin                                          206
  XV. Mr. Carleton Goes Away                                         224
  XVI. Searching the Viking                                          239
  XVII. A Rainy Night                                                259
  XVIII. Two Secrets Discovered                                      278
  XIX. The Loss of the Viking                                        298
  XX. Fleeing in the Night                                           318
  XXI. A Timely Arrival                                              336




                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                                    PAGE
  The Crew of the Viking Meet Skipper Martel (_Frontispiece_)         98
  "The boom brought up with a smashing blow against the Viking's
          starboard quarter"                                          25
  "'Nonsense,' roared the infuriated Squire. 'He can sail a boat as
          good as you can'"                                           54
  "'Here, that's our boat,' cried Joe. 'You've got no right to
          touch it'"                                                 112
  "'Just tell them that you heard me say I was going back to
          Boston'"                                                   236
  "'Get out of here,' exclaimed Mr. Carleton, sharply"               335




                           THE RIVAL CAMPERS
                                 AFLOAT




                               CHAPTER I.
                             DOWN THE RIVER


It was a pleasant afternoon in the early part of the month of June. The
Samoset River, winding down prettily through hills and sloping farm lands
to the bay of the same name, gleamed in the sunlight, now with a polished
surface like ebony in some sheltered inlet, or again sparkling with
innumerable points of light where its surface was whipped up into tiny
waves by a brisk moving wind.

There had been rain for a few days before, and the weather was now
clearing, with a smart westerly breeze that had come up in the morning,
but was swinging in slightly to the southward. The great white
cloud-banks had mostly passed on, and these were succeeded at present by
swiftly moving clumps of smaller and lighter clouds, that drifted easily
across the sky, like the sails below them over the surface of the water.

There were not a few of these sails upon the river, some set to the
breeze and some furled; some of the craft going up with the tide toward
the distant city of Benton, the head of vessel navigation; some breasting
the tide and working their way down toward Samoset Bay; other and larger
craft, with sails snugly furled, tagging along sluggishly at the heels of
blustering little tugs,--each evidently much impressed with the
importance of its mission,--and so going on and out to the open sea,
where they would sail down the coast with their own great wings spread.

The river was, indeed, a picture of life and animation. It was a river
with work to do, but it did it cheerfully and with a good spirit. Far up
above the city of Benton, it had brought the great log rafts down through
miles of forest and farm land. Above and below the city, for miles, it
had run bravely through sluice and mill-race, and turned the great wheels
for the mills that sawed the forest stuff into lumber. And now, freed
from all bounds and the restraint of dams and sluiceways, and no longer
choked with its burden of logs, it was pleased to float the ships, loaded
deep with the sawed lumber, down and away to other cities.

There was many a craft going down the river that afternoon. Here and
there along the way was a big three or four masted schooner, loaded with
ice or lumber, and bound for Baltimore or Savannah. Or, it might be, one
would take notice of a trim Italian bark, carrying box-shooks, to be
converted later into boxes for lemons and oranges. Then, farther
southward, a schooner that had brought its catch to the Benton market,
and was now working out again to the fishing-grounds among the islands of
the bay.

Less frequently plied the river steamers that ran to and from the summer
resorts in Samoset Bay; or, once a day, coming or going, the larger
steamers that ran between Benton and Boston.

Amid all these, at a point some twenty miles down the river from Benton,
there sailed a craft that was, clearly, not of this busy, hard-working
fraternity of ships. It was a handsome little vessel, of nearly forty
feet length, very shapely of hull and shining of spars; with a glint of
brass-work here and there; its clean, white sides presenting a polished
surface to the sunbeams; its rigging new and well set up, and a handsome
new pennant