Motor Boat Boys Down the Danube; or, Four Chums Abroad

“It wouldn’t be the first time, either,” mentioned George.

“Aw, no danger of that happening,” retorted Buster good-naturedly. “Even over here in Austria-Hungary the fish have their eye-teeth cut, and wouldn’t be so green as to bite at a bare hook. If I had anything to bait it with I’d watch my steps, you may be sure. But don’t worry yourself about me, either of you. I can take care of myself.”

No more was said just then with reference to the subject, something else coming up to catch their attention.

The afternoon was nearing its close, and Jack knew that before a great while they must be on the lookout for a place to haul up for the night. Whether they had better select a retired nook for their camp, as had been their habit when cruising down home rivers, or land near some farm, he had not yet decided. Of course, it would be unwise to stop over at any town, since they might have more or less trouble getting away again if the authorities chose to be exacting.

“There goes a long train over there, heading south, too,” remarked Josh, pointing as he spoke.

“Seems like nearly everything is going the same way we are, for a fact,” added George.

“It strikes me it must be a troop train,” Jack was saying, “for, while I’m not dead sure, I think I can see men in uniform leaning from the windows of the carriages, as they call the cars over here.”

“Well, what else could we expect?” Buster wanted to know. “If Austria means to give little Serbia a licking she’ll need a lot of her soldiers down there, many more than she’s got along the lower Danube now. Yes, they’re soldiers, all right, Jack. I can see them plainly in the sunlight.”

“The plot is thickening,” remarked George solemnly; “and right now I wouldn’t be surprised if the Germans were having a hot time over in Belgium, if they’ve really started to cross the little kingdom. They say those Belgians are fighters to the backbone, and will never stand by to let the Kaiser cross their neutral country to strike at France.”

George was deeply interested in all that was going on. He took pride in his knowledge of things connected with the aspirations of these countries, big and little, of Europe, and especially of the turbulent Balkan States. While George undoubtedly has his failings, as what boy has not, as a rule he seemed well informed, and could argue on almost any point.

“A lot of those fine chaps will like as not never come back,” said Buster, as he gave the fish line another idle hitch around his wrist, preparatory to winding it in; “they start out full of enthusiasm and life, and are brought home again wrecks, fit for only the scrap heap.”

“Listen to Buster, will you?” chuckled Josh; “he’s getting to be a regular old philosopher these days.”

“Well, it always did hurt me more or less when it came to parting with any one I cared for a heap,” admitted the fat chum, trying to look serious, though that was always a difficult task with him, because nature had made his round features to bear the stamp of a jovial disposition; “you may remember that it took me two whole days to recover when we left home. I’m of a clinging nature, you see, and this thing of severing the bonds goes against my grain.”

He had just said this when something happened that astounded the others. Buster seemed to be dragged from the end of the moving powerboat as though an octopus had suddenly flung one of its long tendrils up and clasped him.

The others heard Buster give one loud howl of fright, and then the sound was swallowed up in a splash as he disappeared in the river.

As Jack hastily stopped the engine and prepared to back up, he had a glimpse of the stout chum struggling desperately in the water. If his frantic actions counted for anything, it would seem as though Buster must be engaged in a life-and-death struggle with some marine monster that had pulled him from the after deck of the powerboat and into the river.

CHAPTER VI

THE CAMP ON THE RIVER BANK

“Keep a-going, Buster; we’re coming back for you!” shrilled Josh, not a little alarmed on account of seeing such a tremendous splashing back where the stout chum was struggling in the river.

Being compelled to fight against the steady current, the boat could not make such very rapid progress, especially when backing up. Still it seemed as though Buster might be swimming toward them. He was using only one hand, and churning the water like the paddle-wheel of a Mississippi steamboat.

“Whew!” they heard him say, after ejecting a stream of water from his mouth, which he persisted in keeping open; “a sockdolager, I tell you! Going to beat all the records this time. It must be a river horse, or a boss sturgeon, boys. I want to save him, you bet!”

Evidently, like a true fisherman, Buster’s first, last and only thought concerned the successful landing of the game he had struck. And presently the boat had come so close to the submerged boy that Jack stopped the engine lest the propeller do Buster some material damage.

Two of them leaned over the stern and with great difficulty managed to drag the water-soaked chum aboard.

“Sit there in the stern until you drain, Buster,” ordered Jack. “If we took all that water aboard we’d be in danger of foundering.”

“What ails your left hand?” demanded Josh.

“Why, don’t you see,” explained George, “the silly went and wound the line about his wrist. Then when the fish took hold it was a case of Buster going overboard or having his left arm pulled out of its socket. No wonder he lets it hang down like that now. I bet you it hurts like fun.”

“But say, the bally old fish has quit pulling like mad!” exclaimed Buster, as though that circumstance troubled him much more than any bodily pain he might be enduring.

Josh leaned forward and took hold of the line. He even started to pull it in after the manner of a skillful fisherman, while Buster eyed him eagerly.

“Tell me you feel him pulling yet, Josh, can’t you?” he pleaded. “Don’t break my heart by saying he’s gone! After all my fight I deserve to land that monster.”

Josh chuckled.

“I do feel something now, all right, Buster,” he remarked. “Watch me yank him alongside in a hurry. You never could handle such a monster with one of your arms next to useless.”

So Josh worked away, possibly putting on more or less, as though he were having the time of his life in trying to drag the captive alongside. Every little while he pretended to lose a foot or so of line, whereupon Buster would call out anxiously and beg him to keep a tight hold on the glorious prize.

“Talk to me about having fish for supper,” the dripping sportsman cried as he watched for the first glimpse of his catch; “why, we could feed a whole village on such a dandy as this. And caught on a bare hook, too! Ain’t I the lucky one for keeps? What d’ye know about that?”

“There he comes, Buster!” cried Josh, pantingly; “get ready now to help me pull him up over the stern, all of you. My stars! but how he does fight.”

In another moment Josh drew alongside a small but broad-nosed log, which in floating with the current of the river had suddenly been snagged by the bare hook. The impact, with the boat running as it was, had been severe enough to drag the fisherman into the water, for the stout line held, and he had foolishly wrapped one end of the same around his left wrist.

Jack and George shouted with mirth, and Josh excelled them both. Buster looked down at the now tamed “fish,” felt ruefully of his lame arm, and then grinned.

“You bit, all right, fellows!” he blandly told them; nor would he offer any further explanation, so that to the end of the chapter none of them really knew whether Buster had been playing a trick on them or not by pretending to fight the object at the end of his line and showing such tremendous solicitude while Josh was pulling in the same.

“What am I going to do about drying off?” asked Buster a little later, after he had succeeded in reeling in all his line without getting it very much tangled – the log he allowed to float off on the current, having no use for it, though Josh did ask him if he had never heard of “planked fish.”

“You’re draining right along,” George told him; “and as the weather is so nice and warm there’s no danger of your taking cold, I guess.”

“When we get ashore,” Jack explained, “we can start a fire, and that will give you a chance to get dry. But I’m sorry about that arm, Buster. It may give you some trouble, because the jerk must have been fierce.”

“Well, I should say it was,” admitted the other, with a sigh. “I thought my arm would come off sure. But then the excitement kept me up, you see. And I knew right well you’d stop the boat and come back after me. But Jack, later on I want you to rub my arm with that liniment you carry with you. Chances are it’ll be black and blue along the muscles. It hurts like fun even now.”

Jack considered that the sooner this was done the better, so he turned the wheel over to George, and bidding Buster bare his arm, proceeded to give it a good rubbing with the liniment he knew to be fine for this purpose.

Buster was glad to find that as yet there were no signs of discoloration, as he had feared.

“It may last a few days,” he cheerfully declared, “but that’s the extent of the damage. I consider that I came off better than I deserved. But then, who’d think a bare hook would catch anything?”

“Well, Buster,” warned George, “be sure you don’t fasten your fishline to your leg, or around your neck. You never can tell what’s going to happen; and after you’re drowned it’s no time to be sorry.”

“I think we’d better go ashore below, where the trees come down to the edge of the bank,” suggested Jack just then, showing that all this while he had been keeping a sharp lookout ahead.

“It makes me think of places where we’ve pulled up over along the old Mississippi,” said Josh; “I wonder now do they have tramps over here, who prowl around looking for a chance to steal what they can lay hands on.”

“I don’t believe they do,” George told him; “for they regulate such things a lot better than we do over the big water. Tramps are a luxury here, while with us they flourish like the green bay tree; the woods are full of them.”

Jack took the boat in closer to the shore. On seeing the proposed landing place at closer quarters all of them seemed to be of the same opinion. It looked like just the camping ground they were looking for. A fire might be built for cooking purposes, and the district seemed lonely enough to make it appear that they might not be disturbed during their short stay of a single night.

On the following morning they expected to be once more on the move down the long and sinuous stream that covered hundreds of miles before emptying its clear water into the Black Sea.