The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island

"Well, if this is a life on the ocean wave or anything like it, I am satisfied to remain on shore."

"I knew that the Hudson river could cut up pretty lively at times, but the frolics of the Hudson are not a patch on this."

"They said we would not be seasick, but if I am not I don't know what you call it. I don't want it any worse, at any rate."

"They said it wouldn't hurt any if you were sick, but I wonder if they ever tried it themselves?"

"No, they are like the old bachelors who write about how to bring up children. They never had any, so they don't know anything about them."

"Well, if we get much more of this I shall get out and walk."

"And I'll go with you, my boy."

There were three boys on the deck of a large steam yacht, now about two days out from New York, bound to the West Indies on a voyage combining pleasure and education.

The boys belonged to the Hilltop Academy, situated in the Highlands of the Hudson, and their names were Billy Manners, Harry Dickson, and Arthur Warren, all being close chums, and ready to share any adventure except that of being seasick.

They were none of them sick, but they were all afraid they would be, hence their remarks upon the subject.

There were close upon a hundred of the Hilltop Boys, and they were now on a tour of the islands of the Spanish Main, having been invited by the father of one of them, a man largely interested in the shipping business, who had put at their service a commodious steam yacht large enough to hold them all.

Besides the boys there were Dr. Theophilus Wise, the principal, and a number of his instructors, the negro coachman at the Academy, who was now serving in the capacity of cook and general handy man to the doctor and the boys, and the captain and crew, a considerable party all told.

The sky was bright, there was none too much motion, and there was really no reason why a lot of healthy boys should be seasick, and perhaps they only feared they would be, and were just a little uncomfortable.

They were to spend the Easter vacation and a few weeks longer among the islands, continuing their studies as usual, and getting a knowledge of geography and of many other things, which they could not get by merely studying books, Dr. Wise having practical ideas on these points, and having now a chance to carry them out through the generosity of Mr. Smith, the shipping merchant, who had furnished the yacht.

His son, Jesse W., one of the youngest boys at the Academy, had been found and brought home when lost on the mountains by one of the Hilltop boys by the name of Jack Sheldon, a general favorite at the Academy, and it was in recognition of this act that he had decided to give the boys this glorious vacation.

As the three boys were complaining about the rough seas, and the chance of becoming seasick, they were joined by two others, one of whom said in a breezy voice and with a lively air:

"Well, boys, how are you enjoying yourselves? Glorious weather, isn't it? Fine breeze, just the thing to send us along, although we do not need it, going under steam."

"I'm glad you like it, Jack!" said Harry with a wry face, "but I can't say that I do. You may be used to the water, but I am not."

"I have never been at sea before," laughed Jack, "so I cannot be any more used to it than you are. Perhaps you have been eating too much, that might make you sick. You don't look it, at any rate."

"I don't know how I look," muttered Billy Manners, stopping suddenly in his walking, "but I know how I feel," and he made a dash for the cabin, and was gone for some time, the others continuing their walk on deck.

In a few minutes a smiling negro in a white jacket and cap came out of the cabin carrying a tray containing cups of beef tea, which he offered to the boys, saying with a grin:

"Dis ain't like de beef soup yo' get at de 'cademy, sah, but mebby yo' would like a bite or two dis mon'in' to sha'pen yo' appetite fo' dinnah?"

"No, thanks, Bucephalus," said one of the boys, Dick Percival by name, who was walking arm in arm with Jack. "I don't need anything to sharpen my appetite, which is always good on sea or land."

"The idea of offering a fellow anything to eat when he feels as I do," growled Harry. "Take it away, Buck, or I'll throw you overboard."

The high sounding name of the negro was often contracted to Buck by the Hilltop boys, as in the present instance, but he was used to both, and answered as readily to one as to the other, now saying with a broad grin:

"Dat am a mistake, Mistah Harry. De worser yo' feel, de mo' yo' should put in yo' stomach, dat is to say when yo' get good nourishmental food like dis yer. Of co'se dey is detrimental substances which--"

"That sort of talk will make me sick if nothing else will," said Harry, hurrying away, while Jack and Dick sat down, and gazed out upon the horizon, while sipping their bouillon and nibbling at their biscuits.

"We will be in summer seas, as the advertisements call them, before long," said Jack. "The air is pleasant enough as it is. Down here in the summer it is pretty hot I take it, but in April it will be all right."

"Think of us cruising around the Spanish main where the old buccaneers used to roam," laughed Dick. "Perhaps we will dig up a pot of gold buried on one of the islands by some of them."

"If Captain Kidd had buried all the gold that folks said he did," replied Jack, "he would have been kept busy till now. If people would work instead of trying to find gold that was never buried, they would accomplish something. The only treasure you dig out of the earth is the good crop you get by working at your corn and potatoes."

"That's true philosophy, Jack. I have never had to dig anything for myself, having rich folks who always looked after me. Perhaps it would have been better for me if I had had to do more for myself."

"Well, you are not a spoiled child, Dick," said Jack, "as some sons of rich parents are. You are not idle nor vicious, and you know the value of money. You will do for yourself when you leave school. You are going through a training now, that will do you good later."

"Yes, I suppose so, but your having to do for yourself has made you a stronger, more self-reliant fellow than I will ever be."

"Oh, I don't know," returned Jack, half laughing, half seriously. "I am not patting myself on the back, Dick."

"No, you never would."

The two boys were great friends, and were the leading spirits in the Academy, having a great many friends, and being looked up to by the greater part of the boys, and especially by the younger ones, who took them as models.

Dick was somewhat older than Jack, and was farther along in his classes, having had more advantages, but Jack was studious and ambitious, and bade fair to catch up with his older companion and schoolmate before many months had passed, having already in the few months he had been at the Academy greatly shortened the lead which Percival had in the beginning.

Two days later the yacht was in much pleasanter waters, and the air was quite warm and balmy, the boys going around in lighter clothing than before, wearing mostly white flannel or duck, canvas shoes and caps, and no waistcoats, some wearing only white trousers and shirts, and belts around their waists, so as to get the most comfort they could.

They were among the islands now, and expected to make a landing in a day or so, when they were farther down the Spanish main than they were at that time, the islands in the lower latitudes being more interesting in the doctor's opinion than the larger and better known ones.

It was a pleasant afternoon; none of the boys felt any touches of seasickness now, and many of them were walking up and down the deck, some taking their comfort under awnings spread aft near the cabin companion, and some being on the bridge watching the steersman or looking out to sea in search of sails or noting the flight of the gulls and other seabirds or studying the movements of the dolphins playing around the bow, there being many of these lively creatures about.

Dick and Jack were on the bridge whence they could obtain a full view of the deck and look all about them, ahead and astern, and on all sides, Jack greatly enjoying gazing out upon the wide expanse and searching the horizon for sails or a hazy view of some distant island.

Below, on the quarter deck, which was guarded by a low rail only, was young Jesse W. Smith, who took great pride in his full name and always insisted upon being called by it, for whom primarily this expedition had been gotten up, strutting up and down in sailor's trousers and shirt, seeming to feel as if he were the commander of the entire southern fleet.

"There's young Jesse, enjoying himself and seeming ready to say with the fellow in the poem that he is monarch of all he sees," laughed Dick.

"That was supposed to be Alexander Selkirk, the original Robinson Crusoe, Dick," said Jack. "The line is 'I am monarch of all I survey.' You must have recited it more than once in your younger days. That is not altogether a safe place for young Jesse W., though. That rail is not very high, and if we should happen to give a roll--"

"You don't think there is any danger, Jack! Hadn't you better warn him!"

"No, but I will go down and--" and Jack started to go to the main deck and speak quietly to the boy. But before he had hardly said the words there was a sudden startled cry and Jack, looking down quickly, saw that the very thing he had feared had taken place.

How it came about no one knew, but all of a sudden there was a loud cry of "man overboard!" and Jack saw the boy just going down in the water.

He was on the lower deck in a moment, and in another had thrown aside his coat and kicked off his shoes, running to the rail as he did so.

The cook had just been killing chickens on the forward deck, and was going aft with two or three fowls in one hand, a knife in the other.

As Jack reached the rail he saw something out on the water, just where the boy had gone down that made him turn icy cold in a moment.

Snatching the knife from the cook's hand, he sprang to the rail and leaped overboard, taking neither rope nor life preserver with him.

"By George! that's just what Jack feared, and there he is going to the rescue before any one has shouted, almost!" exclaimed Percival, as he hurried below.

"H'm! pretty clever of Sheldon," sneered a stout, unprepossessing boy, who seemed to be always scowling. "Knocks the kid overboard, and then goes to his rescue to make himself solid with the father. Very clever stroke, that, and just like him!"

"If you say anything like that of Jack Sheldon, Pete Herring," stormed Dick, who had heard the ill-natured remark, "I'll knock you overboard!"

Herring, who was by no means a favorite in the Academy, quite the reverse, in fact, had not supposed that Percival had heard his uncalled for and utterly false assertion, and now hurried away with a snarl, evidently fearing that Dick would carry out his threat.

The captain, as soon as possible, gave orders to stop the engines, and to hold the yacht near to the place where the boys had gone down, being ready to turn and go to their assistance when they should appear again.

All was excitement on board, for, until now, nothing had happened out of the ordinary, and no one thought of being seasick or of complaining of the monotony of the voyage.

Jack came to the surface, looked around him, saw young Jesse W. just coming up and shouting for help while he swam, and then, not far behind, what had caused him to take the knife with him, the sharp dorsal fin of a good-sized shark moving rapidly through the water.

* * *

Straight toward the swimming boy swam Jack, rapidly estimating the distance between them and the distance to be covered by the shark, the presence of which was not yet known by the younger boy.

He could swim, but he was more or less encumbered by his clothes, wide bottomed trousers and full shirt, and could not make as good progress as Jack in any event.

Then, as he was only a little fellow, and probably not accustomed to swimming very far out of his depth, Jack looked for his strength giving out at any moment.

"Keep up, J.W., you are doing fine!" he shouted, swimming straight on with a long, even stroke, which carried him rapidly toward the struggling boy.

Then some one on the yacht, with more anxiety than good judgment, shouted out so that all could hear him:

"Look out for the shark, look out!"

The instant that the younger boy heard this, he turned his head and cast a frightened look behind him, seeing the sharp fin just beginning to turn over in the water.

"Don't look, Jesse W., don't look, swim straight ahead!" cried Jack, who had come up with the boy.

Then he dove deep down so as to come up under the shark before he could turn and rush at the boy so near him.

Down went Jack, and presently began to rise, seeing the white belly of the man eater just above him.

With a fierce upward thrust of his right arm, which held the knife he had taken from the cook, he plunged the blade into the creature's vitals, drawing it downward and toward him, and turning his hand as he drew, thus making a jagged cut, and fairly laying open the shark's belly.

Young Smith, encouraged by Jack's shout, had darted ahead with his little remaining strength, not again looking back, and knowing too well what was about to happen when Jack dove.

As the shark, mortally wounded, floated away, to be eaten by others of his kind, Jesse W. suddenly became faint and felt himself giving out.

Jack arose in a moment, however, and called out cheerily:

"Hold on a moment, young fellow, and I'll be there. You mustn't give out yet, because they haven't put about to take us aboard."

The younger boy held out till Jack reached him, but seemed about to go under again when Jack said quickly:

"Here, get on my back and you won't have to swim. I'll tow you all right, and you can get rested."

"Did you kill him, Jack?" gasped the younger boy, as he obeyed the older one's instructions.

"Yes, yes, but never mind about that. Don't look behind you, just look straight ahead. I don't know that there's anything there anyhow, but it is always a good plan to look the way you're going to avoid accidents."

"You're a funny fellow, Jack," said the other. "You don't want me to see the sharks and be frightened."

"That's all right, old man, but there are no sharks at present, and if any come they will be too busy taking bites out of the other to bother me for a time. H'm! they are putting about. That's all right."

"You can carry me and swim yourself all right, Jack?" asked Jesse W. "Maybe I can swim a bit myself now."

"Never you mind about that," said Jack. "You just stay on my back till I tell you to get off," and the boy swam with a good, steady stroke toward the approaching yacht, keeping a lookout for sharks, as he knew they would be sure to appear soon, seeming to scent blood for miles.

Without letting the younger boy know that he was on the lookout he kept a strict watch on all sides for more of the rapacious creatures, and at length discovered two making for him in different directions, one of them suddenly appearing between him and the yacht, which was rapidly approaching.

"That fellow will be frightened off or perhaps go under the vessel," he thought, "but the other one is coming on pretty fast. I hope he won't get to the yacht before me."

The people on the yacht saw the shark between them and Jack, and Dick Percival seized a gun from the captain, aimed at the creature and fired, doing no great damage, but causing the voracious monster to rush off to one side, and out of his direct course.

Sharks have other fish to guide them, and without these they are helpless, which was the case with this one, who, in his sudden change of course, got away from his pilots, and had to be hunted up by them before he could get his bearings on the boys in the water.

This created a diversion in Jack's favor, and he swam on sturdily, splashing and kicking, and making a great disturbance to frighten away the second shark, which was coming alarmingly close to him.

The yacht was coming on, however, and now they bore down toward him, slackening speed a bit, one of the sailors throwing the boy a line.

Jack caught it with one hand, as it settled over his head, and said to the boy on his back:

"Hang on, young fellow, and they'll haul us both up together. You are no sort of weight, but just hang on."

Jesse W. did as he was told, and both boys were hauled on board the yacht, Dick, Harry, Arthur, Billy Manners and half a dozen others pulling in heartily on the line.

They were drawn on board just in time, for the baffled shark made one terrific jump out of water as they reached the deck, the gangway having been opened, and banged his nose against the plankshire, falling back into the sea with a great splash.

Bucephalus was at the gangway, an axe in his hand, and as the shark gave his jump he aimed a swinging blow at the monster, but failed to hit him.

"Go back dere, yo' sassy feller," he sputtered. "Ah jus' like to get one good crack at yo' an' Ah rip yo' side open. Don' yo' perambulate dis yer way again if yo' know what am salubrious fo' yo', yo'heah?"

Bucephalus was fond of using big words, but did not always use them in the most appropriate manner, so that the boys were always kept guessing as to what he was next going to say when excited.

The boys nearest the rail seized Jack and young Smith as they came on deck, and bore them in triumph to the cabin.

"Bully for Jack Sheldon!" shouted Harry, and fifty boys gave him the heartiest kind of a cheer.

"That's some nerve he showed," declared Arthur Warren, "but then, he always did have nerve, Jack did. If he didn't he wouldn't have done the things he has."

"H'm! anybody could do that," said Herring with a snarl. "The yacht was close to him all the time. You fellows are all the time cracking up Jack Sheldon, but I don't see that he is any great shakes."

"No, you wouldn't," said Billy Manners, with an emphasis on the pronoun, "but decent fellows can see it. Would you have gone over after young Smith?"

"There wasn't any need to do it," growled Herring. "If I'd seen him first I'd have done it."

"You saw it as soon as any one except Jack himself, and you were nearer the deck," said Percival, who came up in time to hear what Herring had said. "I heard you say that Jack pushed the boy overboard so as to get the name of rescuing him. You know that this is a lie, because Jack was on the bridge at that time, and could not have done it. Jack and I both saw young Jesse W. go overboard. Jack feared he might, and had started to go to the deck when the thing happened."

Herring did not care to get into a quarrel with Percival, who was much stronger and better built than himself, and he, therefore, went away muttering something which the boys could not make out.

"He is always saying something nasty against Jack," declared Arthur. "He hates Jack because Jack is smarter, and a general favorite. I wish he had stayed on shore, but as Mr. Smith invited the whole Academy he could not very well be left behind."

"He ought to be marooned on some solitary, uninhabited island, and left there to hate himself," chuckled Billy Manners.

"They don't do those things nowadays, Billy," said Percival. "You have been reading the lives of the pirates, and are full of that sort of romantic stuff."

"Maybe I am," chuckled Billy good naturedly, "but here come Jack and young Jesse W., looking as fine as fiddles, and not a bit worse for their baths. Whoop it up for them, boys!"

Every boy in sight responded to the summons, and gave both boys the heartiest cheers, both Jack and his young companion being favorites.

* * *

Neither Jack nor young Smith felt any the worse for his tumble into the warm waters of the Caribbean, and after they had changed their clothes they went on deck to assure their schoolmates that they were all right, and suffering no inconvenience from their trip overboard.

"Jack is a great sport," declared Jesse W., "but somebody called out 'shark!' a little too quick, for I nearly went to pieces. It may Have been kind in him, but it was injudicious, to say the least."

The boys smiled at the young fellow's wisdom, and Billy Manners replied:

"Well, it wasn't me, J.W., although I know I do a good many fool things. You can't lay that at my door, however."

"Oh, you are a facetious fellow, and keep us amused, but you do think of things," replied the younger boy. "The person who shouted 'shark,' is one of the sort who yell 'fire' at the first sign of smoke, and raise a panic in a crowded hall. They should be suppressed."

"Very true, J.W., you have the right of it," said Billy, smiling. "You get the right idea under your bonnet now and then."

Young Smith had always been fond of Jack, but he was more so now and stuck close to the older boy on all occasions, saying the next day to Jack as they were walking on deck:

"Do you know, Jack, you have done a lot for me, and it is time I did something for you. I am going to speak to my father about you. It is a bit of a job for you to get your schooling and your living and everything, isn't it?"

"Well, it is not so easy, Jesse W., and I do have a tussle now and then," returned Jack, smiling at the other boy's earnestness. "Still, one has to work for what he gets in this world."

"Unless he steals it, and there is no satisfaction in that," said the smaller boy wisely. "And later he has to work-in jail. What I wanted to say was that now you have done this last thing for me, saving my life, that's what it was, I think my father would like to do something for you, help you through your schooling or something like that. Of course you would not want him to give you money, for he does not put a commercial value on my life, but he could help you to get ahead and so help yourself, couldn't he now, Jack?"

"I suppose he could," Jack laughed, "and you are a thoughtful young fellow, J.W., but never mind about that. One of the sailors, Bucephalus, any one, in fact, could have done what I did. In fact, it is all in the day's work at sea, and nothing is thought of it."

"No, but no one else did it, Jack. Any one might, but no one did. Only you. Any one else could have done it, but they did not all the same. That's nonsense about your pitching me overboard. I heard some of them talking of it. Why, you were not there. I was on the quarter deck, where I had no business to be, I suppose, with just a little bit of a low rail, and when the vessel took a sudden roll I went overboard."

"Jack saw you up there," said Percival, who was walking with the others, "and spoke about warning you that it was dangerous. In fact, he was on the way to tell you when you got ahead of him and rolled overboard."

"Jack is all the time thinking of some one," said young Smith. "That's what makes him different from the other Hilltop boys."

"Oh, then you don't think I think of others, eh? That's one on me."

"Oh, you haven't had to, Dick, you have always had some one to think for you," said Jesse W. wisely, and both Dick and Jack laughed.

"That young fellow will be doing something for you, Jack," said Percival a few minutes later when the two happened to be alone. "He is thinking of it now, and later you will hear from it."

"I suppose he will," said Jack thoughtfully, "and I don't know how I can stop him. I could not help doing what I did, but you would have done the same if you had seen the danger before I did."

"But I did not," returned Dick, "and that is just young Smith's line of argument. It is nothing that you could have done something if you don't do it. Well, you deserve all that can be done for you, and that is all there is about it, old chap."

Two days later in the middle of the afternoon, the day having been warm with very little air stirring so that the boys were glad to seek the shelter of the awnings spread across the decks, the breeze suddenly fell away and the air became fairly stifling.

The captain looked anxious, and ordered the awnings taken down, and told the boys that they had better go below.

Dr. Wise and the professors got the boys below, and none too soon, for all of a sudden a funnel-shaped cloud appeared on the horizon, spread with startling rapidity until it covered the entire heavens, and then from it shot out a fierce flash of lightning, while the wind which had died out now blew from an unexpected quarter with the greatest fury.

Being under their own steam they, of course, had no use for sails, which would have been blown away.

For all that the waves dashed them ahead with great rapidity and the propellers were now high out of water and now buried deep in the sea, the yacht being almost unmanageable.

The wind was behind them, and there was no chance of going about in such a blow and with such great waves dashing against them, so in pitch darkness they sped on, no one knew where.

The electric lights in the cabin and the saloons were turned on so that the boys were not in darkness, and some of the officers moved about among them telling them that this was simply a squall, and would soon blow itself out, and that there was nothing to be feared.

The howling of the gale, the creaking and straining of the shrouds, the thumping and pounding and groaning of the machinery, and the tramping of men overhead made a combination of sounds that might well terrify anyone, and the older boys tried to reassure the younger ones that it would be over in a short time, and that they would soon be sailing on smooth seas again, and be laughing at their former terrors, but it took a great deal of faith to make all this believed, and some of those who urged it had very little confidence in its truth.

Herring, Merritt, and others of the same class were really terrified, and took on dreadfully, predicting all sorts of dreadful things, and declared that they were fools to have taken this voyage, and that they would never undertake another.

Jack Sheldon, Dick Percival, Harry Dickson, and even mercurial Billy Manners were quite different, however, and young Jesse W. Smith acted like a man, and although he was frightened, as any one might be, and no shame to him, did not give way to his fright, but said very wisely that he guessed the storm had been gotten up for their especial benefit so that they might know what sort of things they could do in these latitudes.

How long they were rushing before wind and sea they did not know, for it seemed ages, where they were going they could not guess either as they had come from an unexpected quarter, and so suddenly that they had not noticed its direction, and were not where they could look at the compass.

All was bright and cheerful in the cabins, but through the portholes they could see that all was dark outside with an occasional vivid flash of lightning, these coming less and less frequent at length till they ceased, and then the skies began to brighten.

Suddenly, however, before it was yet bright enough outside to make out any objects, there was a sudden rush forward as if they had been struck by a great wave, then a sudden upheaving as if they were mounting to the sky, then another long rush forward, and then a shock as if they had struck something, and for a few moments the lights went out.

When they flared up again the vessel seemed to be at anchor, and the boys said to each other:

"What is the matter, have we struck on a rock, are we sinking, what is the matter anyhow?"

There was no confusion on deck, as there would have been if what the boys feared had really happened, and presently one of the officers came below and said reassuringly:

"Well, we are all right as far as I can see, but where we are is another story. In some landlocked bay, apparently, but where it is or how we reached it I can't tell."

"We were struck by a cyclone, weren't we, Officer?" asked young Smith, with a wise air.

"That's just what it was, and when those things strike you they strike hard. Lucky for us that we happened to be going ahead of it, for if we had been head on to it we might not have survived."

"But there is no danger, we have not struck a rock or anything, we have no holes in our hull?"

"None that we can see. We are beached somewhere, and we may slide into deeper water, but as far as we can tell now we are safe enough. Where we are, however, will have to be determined when the sun comes out."

The boys were reassured by this news, and after a time some of them went out on deck, the yacht being now almost motionless, the waves just lapping their sides, and running lazily up a beach, which they could now just make out at a little distance.

It grew lighter and lighter quite rapidly, and at length the sun appeared, and they found themselves in a landlocked bay with a white beach in front of them, beyond that a thick grove of palms of various kinds, green hills on all sides and in the distance, straight ahead, a hill of considerable size crowned with a thick growth of trees.

As the sun grew brighter the scene increased in attractiveness, and the greater part of the boys were charmed by it, making many exclamations of delight, as they turned from one object to another.

"It's a fine place wherever it is," said Jack. "I suppose they will locate it to-morrow, and perhaps some one will come out to the yacht, and tell us where we are."

"I don't see any sign of dwellings," murmured Percival. "Perhaps there are no people on it. Not all of these little islands are inhabited, and I suppose it is an island?"

"Probably, for I do not think we are near the South American coast. Some one will know after a bit, doubtless. At any rate, we are safe and that is a good deal."

One of the officers came along where the two boys were standing, and Jack asked him if he knew where they were.

"No, I don't," was the answer. "We have not been able to get an observation yet, and we started off at such a gait that it was impossible to tell where we were going or at what rate. We will probably locate ourselves in the morning, but there is no danger so you can make your minds easy on that point, young gentlemen."

"There is a good deal in that, sir," said both boys.

* * *