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                                  THE
                             RIVAL CAMPERS
                                  Or,
                     THE ADVENTURES OF HENRY BURNS


                                   By
                             Ruel P. Smith

                             ILLUSTRATED BY
                              A. B. SHUTE

                                 BOSTON
                          L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
                                  1905


                          _Copyright_, _1905_
                        By L. C. Page & Company
                             (INCORPORATED)

                         _All rights reserved_


                          Published July, 1905


                          _Second Impression_
                     _Third Impression, July, 1906_


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


                              WITH LOVE TO
                         _Ruel Stevenson Smith_




                                CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
  I. The Camp                                                          1
  II. To the Rescue                                                   17
  III. A Surprise                                                     32
  IV. A Night with Henry Burns                                        51
  V. A Hidden Cave                                                    72
  VI. Jack Harvey Investigates                                        90
  VII. Squire Brackett's Dog                                         109
  VIII. The Haunted House                                            125
  IX. Setting a Trap                                                 142
  X. A Midnight Adventure                                            160
  XI. An Unpleasant Discovery                                        181
  XII. A Cruise Around the Island                                    199
  XIII. Storm Driven                                                 220
  XIV. The Man in the Boat                                           238
  XV. Good for Evil                                                  259
  XVI. A Treaty of Friendship                                        278
  XVII. The Fire                                                     290
  XVIII. The Flight                                                  306
  XIX. The Pursuit                                                   324
  XX. Among the Islands                                              343
  XXI. The Trial                                                     364




                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                                    PAGE
  "'Look, Bob! Look!' he cried. 'What have we done?'"
          (_Frontispiece_)                                            86
  "'What's the matter with you?' roared the Colonel"                  67
  "'You're the worst one of all, Jack Harvey'"                       114
  "Craigie reeled under the blow and staggered back against the
          wall"                                                      173
  "Boys and lobster-pot slumped into the sea"                        211
  "'Will you shake hands with me?' he asked"                         279




                           THE RIVAL CAMPERS




                               CHAPTER I.
                                THE CAMP


On a certain afternoon in the latter part of the month of June, the
little fishing village of Southport, on Grand Island in Samoset Bay, was
awakened from its customary nap by the familiar whistle of the steamboat
from up the river. Southport, opening a sleepy eye at the sound, made
deliberate preparation to receive its daily visitor, knowing that the
steamer was as yet some distance up the island, and not even in sight,
for behind the bluff around which the steamer must eventually come the
town lay straggling irregularly along the shore of a deeply indented
cove.

A few loungers about the village grocery-store seemed roused to a renewed
interest in life, removed their pipes, and, with evident satisfaction at
this relief from island monotony, sauntered lazily down to the wharf. The
storekeeper and the freight-agent, as became men burdened with the
present responsibility of seeing that the steamer was offered all
possible assistance in making its landing, bustled about with importance.

Soon a wagon or two from down the island came rattling into the village,
while from the hotel, a quarter of a mile distant, a number of guests
appeared on the veranda, curious to scrutinize such new arrivals as might
appear. From the summer cottages here and there flags were hastily run
up, and from one a salute was fired; all of which might be taken to
indicate that the coming of the steamer was the event of the day at
Southport--as, indeed, it was.

Now another whistle sounded shrilly from just behind the bluff, and the
next moment the little steamer shoved its bow from out a jagged screen of
rock, while the chorused exclamation, "Thar she is!" from the assembled
villagers announced that they were fully awake to the situation.

Among the crowd gathered on the wharf, three boys, between whom there
existed sufficient family resemblance to indicate that they were
brothers, scanned eagerly the faces of the passengers as the steamer came
slowly to the landing. The eldest of the three, a boy of about sixteen
years, turned at length to the other two, and remarked, in a tone of
disappointment:

"They are not aboard. I can't see a sign of them. Something must have
kept them."

"Unless," said one of the others, "they are hiding somewhere to surprise
us."

"It's impossible," said the first boy, "for any one to hide away when he
gets in sight of this island. No, if they were aboard we should have seen
them the minute the steamer turned the bluff, waving to us and yelling at
the top of their lungs. There's something in the air here that makes one
feel like tearing around and making a noise."

"Especially at night, when the cottagers are asleep," said the third boy.

"Besides," continued the eldest, "their canoe is not aboard, and you
would not catch Tom Harris and Bob White coming down here for the summer
without it, when they spend half their time in it on the river at home
and are as expert at handling it as Indians,--and yet, they wrote that
they would be here to-day."

It was evident the boys they were looking for were not aboard. The little
steamer, after a violent demonstration of puffing and snorting, during
which it made apparently several desperate attempts to rush headlong on
the rocks, but was checked with a hasty scrambling of paddle-wheels, and
was bawled at by captain and mates, was finally subdued and made fast to
the wharf by the deck-hands. The passengers disembarked, and the same
lusty, brown-armed crew, with a series of rushes, as though they feared
their captive might at any moment break its bonds and make a dash for
liberty, proceeded to unload the freight and baggage. Trucks laden with
leaning towers of baggage were trundled noisily ashore and overturned
upon the wharf.

In the midst of the bustle and commotion the group of three boys was
joined by another boy, who had just come from the hotel.

"Hulloa, there!" said the new boy. "Where's Tom and Bob?"

"They are not aboard, Henry," said the eldest boy of the group.

The new arrival gave a whistle of surprise.

"How do you feel this afternoon, Henry?" asked the second of the
brothers.

"Oh, very poorly--very miserable. In fact, I don't seem to get any
better."

This lugubrious reply, strange to say, did not evoke the sympathy which a
listener might have expected. The boys burst into roars of laughter.

"Poor Henry Burns!" exclaimed the eldest boy, giving the self-declared
invalid a blow on the chest that would have meant the annihilation of
weak lungs. "He will never be any better."

"And he may be a great deal worse," said the second boy, slapping the
other on the back so hard that the dust flew under the blow.

"Won't the boys like him, though?" asked the third and youngest
boy,--"that is, if they ever come."

Henry Burns received these sallies with the utmost unconcern. If he
enjoyed the effect which his remarks had produced, it was denoted only by
a twinkle in his eyes. He was rather a slender, pale-complexioned youth,
of fourteen years. A physiognomist might have found in his features an
unusual degree of coolness and self-control, united with an abnormal
fondness for mischief; but Henry Burns would have passed with the
ordinary person as a frail boy, fonder of books than of sports.

Just then the captain of the steamer put his head out of the pilot-house
and called to the eldest of the brothers:

"I've got a note for you, George Warren. A young chap who said he was on
his way here in a canoe came aboard at Millville and asked me to give it
to you; and there was another young chap in a canoe alongside who asked
me to say they'd be here to-night."

"Hooray!" cried George Warren, opening and reading the note. "It's the
boys, sure enough. They started at four o'clock this morning in the
canoe, and will be here to-night. Much obliged, Captain Chase."

"Not a bit," responded the captain. "But let me tell you boys something.
You needn't look for these 'ere young chaps to-night, because they won't
get here. What's more," added the captain, as he surveyed the water and
sky with the air of one defying the elements to withhold a secret from
him, "if they try to cross the bay to-night you needn't look for them at
all. The bay is nothing too smooth now; but wait till the tide turns and
the wind in those clouds off to the east is let loose! There's going to
be fun out there, and that before many hours, too."

With this dismally prophetic remark the captain gave orders to cast off
the lines, and the steamer was soon on its way down the bay.

The three brothers, George, Arthur, and Joe Warren, and Henry Burns left
the wharf and were walking in the direction of the hotel, when a remark
from the latter stopped them short.

"Did it occur to any of you," asked Henry Burns, speaking in a slightly
drawling tone, "that we shall never have a better opportunity to play a
practical joke on your friends than we have to-day--?"

"What friends?" exclaimed George Warren, indignantly.

"I thought you said Tom Harris and Bob White were coming down the river
to-day in a canoe," said Henry Burns, in the most innocent manner.

"And so they are. And you think we would play a joke on them the first
day they arrive, do you? I believe you would get up in the night, Henry
Burns, to play a joke on your own grandmother. No, sirree, count me out
of that," said George Warren. "It will be time enough to play jokes on
them after they get here. I don't believe in treating friends in that
way."

"Rather a mean thing to do, I think," said Arthur Warren.

"I'm out of it," said Joe.

"It doesn't occur to any of you to ask what the joke is, does it?" asked
Henry Burns, dryly.

"Don't want to know," replied George.

"Nor I, either," said Arthur.

"Keep it to play on Witham," said Joe.

"Then I'll enlighten you without your asking," continued Henry Burns,
nothing abashed. "You did not notice, perhaps, that though your friends,
Tom and Bob, did not come ashore to-day, their baggage did, and it is
back there on the wharf. Now I propose that we get John Briggs to let us
take his wheelbarrow, wheel their traps over to the point, pitch their
tent for them, and have everything ready by the time they get here. It's
rather a mean thing to do, I know, and not the kind of a trick I'd play
on old Witham; but there's nothing particular on hand in that line for
to-day."

Henry Burns paused, with a sly twinkle in his eyes, to note the effect of
his words.

"Capital!" roared George Warren, slapping Henry Burns again on the back,
regardless of the delicate state of that young gentleman's health. "We
might have known better than to take Henry Burns seriously."

"Same old Henry Burns," said Arthur. "Take notice, boys, that he never is
beaten in anything he sets his heart on, and that his delicate health
will never, never be any better;" and he was about to imitate his elder
brother's example in the matter of a punch at Henry Burns, but the
latter, though of slighter build, grappled with him, and after a moment's
friendly wrestling laid him on his back on the greensward, thereby
illustrating the force of his remark as to Henry Burns's invincibility.

The suggestion was at once followed. Within an hour the boys had wheeled
the baggage of the campers to a point of land overlooking the bay.

"It's all here," said Henry Burns, finally, as two of the boys deposited
a big canvas bag, containing the tent, upon the grass, "except that one
box