Dave Porter in the South Seas: or, The Strange Cruise of the Stormy Petrel

PREFACE

"Dave Porter in the South Seas" is a complete story in itself, but forms the second volume in a line issued under the general title of "Dave Porter Series."

In the first volume of this series, called "Dave Porter at Oak Hall," I introduced a typical American boy, and gave something of his haps and mishaps at an American boarding school of to-day. At this school Dave made a number of warm friends, and also a few enemies, and was the means of bringing one weak and misguided youth to a realization of his better self. Dave was poor and had to fight his way to the front, and this was not accomplished until he had shown those around him what a truly straightforward and manly fellow he was.

The one great cloud over Dave's life was the question of his parentage. He had been raised by those who knew practically nothing of his past, and when he thought that he saw a chance to learn something about himself, he embraced that opportunity eagerly, even though it necessitated a long trip to the South Seas and a search among strange islands and still stranger natives. Dave makes the trip in a vessel belonging to the father of one of his school chums, and is accompanied by several of his friends. Not a few perils are encountered, and what the boys do under such circumstances I leave for the pages that follow to tell.

In penning this tale, I have had a twofold object in view: first, to give my young readers a view of a long ocean trip and let them learn something of the numerous islands which dot the South Seas, and, in the second place, to aid in teaching that old truth – that what is worth having is worth working for.

Again I thank the many thousands of boys and girls, and older persons, too, who have shown their appreciation of my efforts to amuse and instruct them. I can only add, as I have done before, that I sincerely trust that this volume fulfills their every reasonable expectation.

Edward Stratemeyer.

April 10, 1906.

CHAPTER I
THE BOYS OF OAK HALL

"Hello, Dave; where are you bound?"

"For the river, Phil. I am going out for a row. Want to come along?"

"That suits me," answered Phil Lawrence, throwing down the astronomy he had been studying. "But I can't stay out late," he added, reaching for his cap. "Got two examples in algebra to do. Have you finished up?"

"Yes," answered Dave Porter. "They are not so hard."

"And your Latin?"

"That's done, too."

Phil Lawrence eyed the boy before him admiringly. "Dave, I don't see how you manage it. You're always on deck for fun, and yet you scarcely miss a lesson. Let me into the secret, won't you?"

"That's right, Dave; pull the cover off clean and clear," came from a youth who had just entered the school dormitory. "If I can get lessons without studying – "

"Oh, Roger, you know better than that," burst out Dave Porter, with a smile. "Of course I have to study – just the same as anybody. But when I study, I study, and when I play, I play. I've found out that it doesn't pay to mix the two up – it is best to buckle your mind down to the thing on hand and to nothing else."

"That's the talk," came from a boy resting on one of the beds. "It puts me in mind of a story I once heard about a fellow who fell from the roof of a house to the ground – "

"There goes Shadow again!" cried Roger Morr. "Shadow, will you ever get done telling chestnuts?"

"This isn't a chestnut, and I haven't told it over twice in my life. The man fell to the ground past an open window. As he was going down, he grabbed another man at the window by the hair. The hair – it was a wig – came off. 'Say,' yells the man at the window. 'Leave me alone. If you want to fall, 'tend to business, and fall!'" And a smile passed around among the assembled schoolboys.

"Perhaps Roger would like to come along," continued Dave. "I was going out for a row, and Phil said he would go, too," he explained.

"That suits me," answered Roger Morr. "It will give us an appetite for supper."

"What about you, Shadow?" and Dave turned to the youth on the bed.

Maurice Hamilton shook his head slightly. "Not to-day. I am going to take a nap, if I can get it. Remember, I was up half the night."

"So he was," affirmed Phil Lawrence. "But he hasn't said what it was about."

"Not much," growled the boy called Shadow. He was very tall and very thin, hence the nickname. Turning over, he pretended to go to sleep.

"There is something wrong about Shadow," said Dave as he and his two companions left the school building and hurried for the river at the back of the grounds. "He has not been himself at all to-day."

"I think he has had something to do with that bully, Gus Plum," said Phil. "I saw them together two days ago, and both were talking earnestly. I don't know exactly what it was about. But I know Shadow has been very much disturbed ever since."

"Well, the best he can do is to leave Plum alone," returned Dave, decidedly. "I can tell you, fellows, that chap is not to be trusted; you know that as well as I do."

"Of course we know it," said Roger Morr. "Didn't I warn you against Gus Plum before you ever came to Oak Hall? And now that Chip Macklin has turned over a new leaf and refused to be Plum's toady any longer, the bully is worse than ever. Only yesterday Buster Beggs caught him back of the gym., abusing one of the little fellows. Buster is generally too lazy to rouse up, but he said it made him mad, and he told Plum to stop, or it would be the worse for him, and Plum went off grumbling."

"It's a great pity Plum can't reform, like Macklin. I declare, Chip is getting to be quite a decent sort, now."

"It's not in Plum to reform," exclaimed Phil Lawrence. "If I were Doctor Clay, I'd get rid of him. Why, such a chap can keep a whole school in hot water."

"Somebody said that Plum's father had lost a good bit of his money," observed Roger Morr. "If that is so, it must be a bitter pill for Gus to swallow."

"Well, I wouldn't taunt him with it, if it's true," replied Dave, quickly.

"Oh, I shan't say a word – although he deserves to have it rubbed in, for the way he treated you, Dave."

"Yes, that was a jolly shame," commented Phil. "It makes me angry every time I think of it."

"I am willing to let bygones be bygones," said Dave, with a little smile. "As it was, it only showed me who my true friends were, and are. I can afford to get along without the others."

"And especially after we waxed Plum and his crowd at baseball, and then won our great victory over the Rockville boys," said Roger. "Oh, but wasn't that a dandy victory! And didn't we have a dandy celebration afterwards!"

"And do you remember the big cannon cracker we set off in the courtyard?" Dave's eyes began to twinkle. "I heard afterwards that Pop Swingly, the janitor, was scared almost to death. He thought somebody was trying to blow up the building."

"Yes, and Job Haskers said if he could catch the fellow who – " Phil broke off short. "Here comes Gus Plum, now," he whispered.

The others looked up, and saw coming toward them across the school grounds a tall, broad-shouldered individual, loudly dressed, and with a shock of uncombed hair and a cap set over on one ear.

"Hello, Plum," said Dave, pleasantly, while his two companions nodded to the newcomer.

"Hello, yourself," came shortly from Gus Plum. "Hold up a minute," he went on, planting himself in front of the three.

"What's wanted?" questioned Phil, in a little surprise.

"I want to know if Shadow Hamilton has been saying anything about me to you," growled the bully of Oak Hall.

"I haven't heard anything," answered Phil, while Dave and Roger shook their heads.

"Humph! He had better not!" muttered Plum, with a scowl. "If he does – " The bully did not finish.

"I hope there is no more trouble in the air," was Dave's comment.

"There will be trouble, if Hamilton opens his trap. I won't allow anybody in this school to talk about me, and all of you had better understand it," and the bully glared at the others defiantly.

"I am sure I don't know what you are talking about," said Dave. "I haven't said anything about you."

"And you haven't heard anything?" inquired Gus Plum, with a look of keen anxiety showing on his coarse face.

"I've heard some roundabout story about your father losing money," said Roger, before Dave could answer. "If it is true, I am sorry for you, Gus."

"Bah! I don't want your sympathy. Did Hamilton tell you that story?"

"No."

"I suppose you are spreading it right and left, eh? Making me out to be a pauper, like your friend Porter, eh?" continued Gus Plum, working himself up into a magnificent condition of ill-humor.

"I am not spreading it right and left," answered Roger, quietly.

"And I am not a pauper, Plum!" exclaimed Dave, with flashing eyes. "I thought we had settled that difference of opinion long ago. If you are going to open it up again – "

"Oh, don't mind what he says, Dave," broke in Phil, catching his chum by the arm. "You know nobody in the school pays attention to him."

"I won't let any of you run me down!" roared Gus Plum. "Now, just you remember that! If any of you say a word about me or my father, I'll make it so hot for you that you'll wish you had never been born. My father has lost a little money, but it ain't a flea-bite to what he is worth, and I want everybody in this school to know it."

"And I want you to know that you cannot continue to insult me," blazed out Dave. "I am not as rich as most of the boys here, but – "

"He is just as good as any of us, Plum, remember that," finished Phil. "It is an outrage for you to refer to Dave as a pauper."

"Well, didn't he come from the poorhouse, and ain't he a nobody?" sneered the bully.

"He is a better fellow than you will ever be, Plum," said Roger, warmly. He and Phil were both holding Dave back. "Don't listen to him, Dave."

"Yes, but, fellows – " Dave's face was white, and he trembled all over.

"I know it cuts you," whispered Roger. "But Plum is a – a brute. Don't waste your breath on him."

"Ho! so I am a brute, am I?" blustered the big bully, clenching his fists.

"Yes, you are," answered Roger, boldly. "Any fellow with a spark of goodness and honor in him would not speak to Dave as you have done. It simply shows up your own low-mindedness, Plum."

"Don't you preach!" shouted the bully. "Say another word, and I'll – I'll – "

"We are not afraid of you," said Phil, firmly. "We've told you that before. We intend to leave you alone, and the best thing you can do is to leave us alone."

"Bah! I know you, and you can't fool me! You say one thing to my face and another behind my back. But don't you dare to say too much; and you can tell Shadow Hamilton not to say too much, either. If you do – well, there will be war, that's all – and all of you will get what you don't want!" And with this threat, Gus Plum hurried around a corner of the school building and out of sight.

"What a cad!" murmured Phil.

"He is worked up; no disputing that," was Roger's comment. "He acts as if he was afraid something was being told that he wished to keep a secret."

The hot blood had rushed to Dave's face, and he was still trembling.

"I wish I had knocked him down," he said in a low tone.

"What good would it have done?" returned Roger. "It would only get you into trouble with the doctor, and that is just what Plum would like. When it comes to a standing in the class, he knows he hasn't as much to lose as you have. He is almost at the bottom already, while you are close to the top."

"But, Roger, he said – oh, I can't bear to think about it! I suppose he blabs it to everybody, too, and they will think – "

"Don't give it another thought, Dave," said Phil, soothingly, and he turned his chum toward the river again. "Dismiss Plum and all his meanness from your mind."

"I wish I could," answered Dave, and his voice had a great deal of seriousness in it.

CHAPTER II
A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST

As the three boys hurried to the river, Dave Porter felt that all his anticipated sport for that afternoon had been spoiled. He had been brought face to face once more with the one dark spot in his history, and his heart was filled with a bitterness which his two loyal chums could scarcely comprehend.

Dave was indeed a poorhouse boy, and of unknown parentage. When but a few years of age, he had been found one evening in the summer wandering close to the railroad tracks just outside of the village of Crumville. How he was found by some farm hands and taken to a house and fed and cared for otherwise, has already been related in the first volume of this series, entitled "Dave Porter at Oak Hall."

At first, every effort to learn his identity was made, but, this failing, he was turned over to the poorhouse authorities. He said his name was Dave, or Davy, and sometimes added Porter, and then Dun-Dun, and from this he was called Dave Porter – a name which suited him very well.

Dave remained at the poorhouse until he was about nine years old, when he was taken out of that institution by a broken-down college professor named Caspar Potts, who had turned farmer. He remained with the old professor for several years, and a warm friendship sprang up between the pair. Caspar Potts gave Dave a fair education, and, in return, the boy did all he could for the old man, who was not in the best of health, and rather eccentric at times.

Unfortunately for Professor Potts, there was in the neighborhood a hard-hearted money-lender named Aaron Poole, who had a mortgage on the old educator's farm. The money-lender had a son named Nat, who was a flippant youth, and this boy had trouble with Dave. Then the money-lender would have sold out the old professor, had not aid come opportunely from a most unexpected quarter.

In this volume it is unnecessary to go into the details of how Dave became acquainted with Mr. Oliver Wadsworth, a rich manufacturer of the neighborhood, and how the boy saved Jessie Wadsworth from being burned to death when the gasoline tank of an automobile exploded and enveloped the young miss in flames. For this service the Wadsworths were all more than grateful, and when Dave told his story Oliver Wadsworth made the discovery that Caspar Potts was one of the professors under whom he had studied in his college days.

"I must meet him and talk this over," said the rich manufacturer, and the upshot of the matter was that the professor and Dave were invited to dine at the Wadsworth mansion.

This dinner proved a turning point in the life of the poorhouse youth. Mr. Wadsworth had lost a son by death, and Dave reminded him strongly of his boy. It was arranged that Caspar Potts should come to live at the Wadsworth mansion, and that Dave should be sent to some first-class boarding school, the manufacturer agreeing to pay all bills, because of the boy's bravery in behalf of Jessie.

Oak Hall was the school selected, a fine institution, located not far from the village of Oakdale. The school was surrounded by oaks, which partly shaded a beautiful campus, and the grounds, which were on a slight hill, sloped down in the rear to the Leming River.

Dave's heart beat high when he started off for Oak Hall, and he had a curious experience before he reached that institution. The house of a Senator Morr was robbed, and the boy met the robber on the train, and, after a good deal of trouble, managed to recover a valise containing a large share of the stolen goods. This threw Dave into the company of Roger Morr, the senator's son, and the two became warm friends. Roger was on his way to Oak Hall, and it was through him that Dave became acquainted with Phil Lawrence – reckoned by many the leader of the academy; Maurice Hamilton, generally called Shadow; Sam Day, Joseph Beggs, – who always went by the name of Buster, because he was so fat, – and a number of others. In Crumville Dave had had one boy friend, Ben Basswood, and Ben also came to Oak Hall, and so did Nat Poole, as flippant and loud-mouthed as ever.

But Dave soon found out that Nat Poole was not half so hard to get along with as was Gus Plum, the big bully of the Hall. There was a difference of opinion almost from the start, and Plum did all he could to annoy Dave and his friends. Plum wanted to be a leader in baseball and in athletics generally, and when he found himself outclassed, he was savagely bitter.

"I'll get square!" he told his toady, Chip Macklin, more than once; but his plans to injure Dave and his chums fell through, and, in the end, Macklin became disgusted with the bully and left him. Most of the boys wanted nothing to do with the boy who had been the bully's toady, but Dave put in a good word for him, and, in the end, Macklin was voted a pretty fair fellow, after all.

With the toady gone, Gus Plum and Nat Poole became very thick, and Poole lost no opportunity of telling how Dave had been raised at the poorhouse. Gus Plum took the matter up, and for a while poor Dave was made miserable by those who turned their backs on him. But Doctor Clay, who presided over the academy, sided with Dave, and so did all of the better class of students, and soon the affair blew over, at least for the time being. But now the bully was agitating it again, as we have just seen.

During the winter term at Oak Hall one thing of importance had occurred, of which some particulars must be given, for it has much to do with our present tale. Some of the boys, including Dave, had skated up the river to what was locally called the old castle – a deserted stone dwelling standing in a wilderness of trees. They had arrived at this structure just in time to view a quarrel between two men – one a sleek-looking fellow and the other an elderly man, dressed in the garb of a sailor. The sleek-looking individual was the man who had robbed Senator Morr's house, and just as he knocked the old sailor senseless to the ground, the boys rushed in and made him a prisoner.

When the old sailor came to his senses, he stared at Dave as if the boy were a ghost. He said his name was Billy Dill and that he had sailed the South Seas and many other portions of the briny deep. He insisted that he knew Dave well, and wanted to know why the youth had shaved off his mustache. The boys imagined that the tar was out of his head, and he was removed to a hospital. Later on, as Dave was so interested in the man, Mr. Wadsworth had him taken to a private sanitarium. Here he lingered for awhile between life and death, but at last grew better physically, although his mind was sadly unbalanced, and he could recall the past only in a hazy way.

Yet he insisted upon it, over and over again, that he had met Dave before, or, if not the youth, then somebody who looked exactly like him, although older. Pressed to tell his story, he said he had met this man on Cavasa Island, in the South Seas. He also mentioned a crazy nurse and a lost child, but could give no details, going off immediately into a wild flight about the roaring of the sea in his ears and the dancing of the lighthouse beacon in his eyes.

"He must know something of my past," Dave said, when he came away from visiting the old tar. "Oh, if only his mind were perfectly clear!"

"We must wait," answered Oliver Wadsworth, who was along. "I think his mind will clear after awhile. It is certainly clearer now than it was some months ago."

"The man he knows may be my father, or some close relative."

"That may be true, Dave. But don't raise any false hopes. I should not like to see you disappointed for the world."

Dave knew that Phil Lawrence's father was a shipping merchant of considerable standing, owning an interest in a great number of vessels. He went to Phil and learned that the boy was going to take a trip to the South Seas that very summer, and was going to stop at Cavasa Island.

"I am going on business for my father," explained Phil. "It is something special, of which he wishes the supercargo to know nothing." And then he told Dave all he knew of Cavasa Island and its two towns and their inhabitants. After that, Dave sent a letter to both of the towns, asking if there were any persons there by the name of Porter, or if any English-speaking person had lost a child years ago, but so far no answer had been received.

Of course, Phil wanted to know why Dave was so anxious to learn about his proposed trip, and, in the end, the poorhouse boy told his story, to which his chum listened with interest.

"Phil, what would you say if I wanted to go with you on that trip to Cavasa Island?" Dave had said, after his story was finished.

"Do you really mean it, Dave?" had been the return question, and Phil's face had shown his astonishment.

"I do – if matters turn out as I think they may."

"That is, if that old sailor gets around so that he can tell a pretty straight story?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'd like your company, first-rate. But – " Phil drew a deep breath – "I'd hate to see you go on a wild-goose chase. Think of traveling thousands of miles and then being disappointed at the end of the trip. That old sailor may simply be crazy."

"I don't think so. Why should he mention a lost child – a boy?"

"Well, that is the only thing that makes it look as if there was something in the story. But couldn't I do the looking for you?"

"No, I'd prefer to do that myself. Besides, you must remember, that sailor did not come directly from Cavasa Island to this country. So, whoever was on the island – I mean the person I may be interested in – may have gone elsewhere – in which case I should want to follow him."

"I see. Well, Dave, do what you think is best, and may good luck go with you!" Phil had said; and there the conversation on the subject had come to a close.

It was not until a week later that Dave had called on Billy Dill again – to find the old tar sitting on a porch of the sanitarium, smoking his pipe contentedly.

"On deck again, my hearty!" had been the greeting. "Give us your flipper," and a warm handshake had followed.

But the visit had been productive of little good. Billy Dill could remember nothing clearly, excepting that he knew a man who looked very much like Dave, and that that man had been his friend while he was stranded on Cavasa Island and looking for a chance to ship. He said he could recall a bark named the Mary Sacord and a crazy nurse called Polly, but that was all.

"I had a picter o' that man once – the feller that looks like you," he said. "But I dunno what's become o' it," and then he had scratched his head and gone off into a rambling mumble that meant nothing at all. And Dave had gone back to Oak Hall more mystified than ever.