"Three cheers for Mr. Cuddeback!" cried Si Carew, and they were given with such heartiness as to be heard more than a mile away.

"I have examined Captain Crotty, her commander," added the speaker, "and find him to be a good seaman. He is therefore well fitted to take charge of a lot of reckless young landlubbers like you, and will keep an eye on you all the time you are away. He has orders to maintain strict discipline, and to give you such instruction in seamanship as the length of the cruise will allow. So now, lads, what do you say? Are you prepared to ship for the voyage, sign the articles of war, become Sea Rangers, and show these New York lads the difference between sailing under canvas and travelling in a tea-kettle, betwixt living aboard a ship that will rock you to sleep like a cradle every night and camping on a 'dull, unchanging sh.o.r.e'--as the poet chap rightly calls it--between handling a sea-boat and paddling about in a toy canoe? I'm waiting for an expression of your sentiments."

"Hi-ho, Ranger! Hi-ho, Ranger! Hi-ho, Ranger! Berks! Berks! Berks!"

answered the boys, springing to their feet in uncontrollable enthusiasm, waving their hats, and delivering the Ready Ranger cheer with such unanimity and vehemence as left not the slightest doubt of their willingness to become Sea Rangers then and there.

"I move that Admiral Richard Marlin be elected to honorable membership,"

said Hal Bacon.

"Second the motion!" shouted every member present.

"All in favor--" began Captain Will.

"Aye!" came the unanimous response, as though from a single voice, even before the question was wholly presented.

"Carried without dissent," announced Will, who was becoming very expert in the use of parliamentary terms.

In thus adding a retired Admiral to their ranks that already held an Annapolis cadet, the Rangers felt that their organization and the United States navy were about as good as one and the same thing.

CHAPTER IV.

LITTLE CAL AND HIS MERMAID.

Two days after that on which the gloom of the Rangers was so miraculously changed to extravagant joy, the keel sloop _Millgirl_ hoisted her well-patched sails, and began to drop down with the current of the river. From her tall top-masthead fluttered the red-axe flag of the Ready Rangers, while on her deck was gathered the most remarkable-looking crew ever seen off the stage of a theatre. Without a doubt as to its being the correct thing, every boy who had borne a part in _Blue Billows_ now appeared in the costume he had worn in that realistic sea-drama; while those who had not been thus fortunate had made such alterations in their every-day garments as seemed to them most nautical and appropriate. Thus Cracker Bob Jones's tall figure was arrayed in the white duck trousers, short blue flannel jacket, patent-leather pumps, and straw hat with long ribbon ends of Jack Jackstraw. The effect of little Cal Moody's midshipmite costume of blue jacket and trousers, ornamented with gilt b.u.t.tons, was somewhat marred by the big rubber boots that his mother had insisted on his wearing for this trip. Abe Cruger, still sustaining his character as Bill Bullseye, also wore rubber boots, a rubber coat, and an old sou'wester hat that was several sizes too large for him. Will Rogers wore his bicycle uniform, except that the knee-breeches were replaced by white duck trousers, similar to those worn by the others. The remaining members were coatless; but all were arrayed in gaudy flannel shirts with leather belts and sheath-knife attachments. The gorgeous uniform of Sir Birch Beer, which part had been taken by Reddy Cuddeback, did not figure on this occasion, as the newest active member was prevented by his duties at the mills from taking part in the present expedition.

"Waal, I'll be blowed!" exclaimed Captain Jabez Crotty, as the Sea Rangers tumbled out of Squire Bacon's big wagon that had brought them down to where the _Millgirl_ was moored, and boarded the sloop with a rush.

"Good-morning, n.o.ble skipper. I trust that you are all ready for skipping!" cried Will Rogers, at the same time making a profound bow, and sc.r.a.ping his foot in front of the master of the sloop.

"For he is the skipper, and we are the ship Our ship is the bold _Skipparee_.

And we ship with no skipper Who'll not skip with his shippers, Whenever the wind blows free,"

sang the Sea Rangers in chorus, at the same time joining hands and dancing in a circle about the bewildered sailor-man.

"Waal, I _will_ be blowed!" he gasped for the second time. "They're as crazy as flounders, every last one of 'em. An' I've got' em on my hands for two hull weeks."

"We're ready for duty, sir," announced Will at the conclusion of the song and dance, with another sc.r.a.pe and a pull at his forelock. "You'll find us brave and able seamen, and if you'll only issue your orders we'll gladly obey them."

"Oh, ye will, will ye? Waal, then you can break out the chain-cable and polish it till it shines, clean the barnacles off'n the ship's bottom, keep a lookout aloft for the _Flying Dutchman_, and another over the bows for mermaids, practise all hands at boxing the compa.s.s backwards, get eight bells from the sun, and keep out of my sight till we're away for fear I'll murder some of ye."

"Ay, ay, most gallant skipper," answered Will, with a grin; and then, hitching their trousers as they went, the whole boisterous crowd tumbled down below to examine the interior of the strange home they expected to occupy for the next two weeks.

As soon as they had disappeared, Captain Crotty and Jabez his son, commonly called "young Jabe," a lad of seventeen, who represented the sloop's crew, cast off the mooring-lines, and got their clumsy craft under way.

The Rangers were delighted with the accommodations prepared for them in the hold, which was fitted up with temporary bunks for their use. Each boy made a rush for the bunk that seemed to him most desirable, and scrambled into it to test its comfort as well as to make good his claim by possession.

"But I thought sailors always slept in hammocks," remarked Mif Bowers, in a disappointed tone.

"Oh, pshaw!" replied Abe Cruger. "They're no good, for I tried it at home and nearly broke my neck tumbling out the minute I got to sleep. I expect hammock is only a sailor's name for bed, for no one could really sleep in one; and then, you know, they always call things different at sea. But I say, Will, isn't old Crotty a daisy? And didn't he seem surprised to find us looking so much like regular sailors! What did he mean, though, by the things he told us to do?"

"I don't exactly understand myself," replied the Ranger Captain. "I suppose, though, we've got to try and do them, because it'll be mutiny if we don't."

"And in a mutiny everybody gets hung, don't they?" asked Cracker Bob Jones.

"He said he'd murder us, anyhow, if we didn't keep out of his sight until he got away, though I don't see how we're going to do it," chimed in little Cal Moody, upon whom this threat had made a deep impression.

"That's all right, Cal," laughed Hal Bacon "He won't murder you if he don't see you, so just lie low and you'll be safe. I say, though, I saw a compa.s.s in the cabin as we came through. And we might begin work right off by boxing it. I suppose he wants to send it off somewheres. I don't know what he meant by 'backwards,' but I guess upside down will do."

So the boys got the compa.s.s and began to make a box for it from some bits of board left over when the bunks were built and what few nails they could pick up. They got an axe out of the "kitchen," as Sam Ray called the galley, and made such a racket pounding with it that young Jabe hurried below to see what was up. The moment he appeared they pounced on him and demanded the bells.

"What ever do you fellers mean?" he queried, at the same time trying to shake himself loose.

"The eight bells that Skipper Crotty said we were to get from his son,"

they shouted; "and if you don't give 'em to us we'll report you, and you'll be cat-o-nine-tailed for neglect of duty."

"Cat-o-nothing," retorted young Jabe, in a disgusted tone. "You can report all you want to. Same time I'll do some reporting myself; and when the old man hears what you're a-doing to his best compa.s.s I rather guess there'll be somebody besides me in danger of the cat."

"He told us to box it."

"We're only obeying orders."

"Guess we know what we're doing."

So shouted the Rangers; and when young Jabe started to report to his father the state of affairs in the hold, they all sprang after him, determined to present their side of the question, and utterly forgetting that they had just decided to keep out of the skipper's sight for a time at least.

The sloop was running dead before a light breeze, with its big mainsail away out on the starboard side, and Captain Crotty was just then doing some very fine steering in trying to clear a sharp bend in the river without gybing. The sudden rush of young Jabe and the excited boys, all shouting at the top of their voices, and bearing down on him with frantic gestures, so startled the skipper that for a single moment his attention was drawn away from the big sail.

"They're stealing the compa.s.s!"

"He won't give us the bells!"

As the opposing factions uttered these cries there came a mighty sweep of something over their heads. The next moment young Jabe and Cracker Bob Jones were overboard and struggling in the river, the skipper, Will Rogers, and several more of the Rangers were flung to the deck, and the sloop, left to her own devices, was rounding into the wind with such a slatting of sails, sheets, and blocks, as caused those boys who were still below to imagine that she had been struck by a cyclone. The mainsail had gybed over, and though the boom was, fortunately, so lifted, that it cleared the heads of those who stood on deck, the sheet had tripped them, and flung two of the number overboard.

Mercifully no one was injured by the mishap; and as the vessel lost her headway, the two who were overboard managed to clamber into the small boat towing astern. They had hardly gained this place of safety when Cracker Bob again sprang into the water after his beribboned straw hat which was jauntily floating away. Glad as he was to recover this bit of property, he was heavy-hearted at the loss of his highly prized patent-leather pumps, which had been kicked off and lost in his first plunge.

By the time these two had clambered aboard, with river water running from them in streams, the others had regained their feet, and were examining their bruises, while the skipper, after a.s.suring himself that no serious damage was done, was jamming the helm hard down, and getting the sloop once more on her course. He did not utter a word until this was accomplished, when, with a mournful shake of his head, he exclaimed, "And this is only the beginning of the cruise!"

Then, as though remembering that authority must be maintained at all hazards, he sung out:

"You Jabe, go for'ard and wring yourself. As for you other young pirates, you stay on deck and don't get out of my sight for a single minute, or I'll murder ye all."

At this awful threat little Cal Moody sincerely wished himself once more safely at home, though the others minded it so little, that it in no wise lessened the interest with which they watched the sleeves of Cracker Bob's flannel jacket shrink as they slowly dried in the hot sun.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAL MOODY'S MERMAID.]

Finally, bethinking himself of a duty that he might perform, and perhaps thereby win his way into the skipper's good graces, Cal slipped away forward, and hung over the bluff bows of the sloop to watch for the mermaids, in whose existence he believed as firmly as in his own. As he gazed down at the parted waters swiftly streaming backward, the little chap became so oblivious of his surroundings, that when a great fish rushing up from the green depths leaped into the air directly beneath him, he uttered a startled cry, made a sudden move, and took a header into the very waters that were closing above the fish.