Half the people had sprung on board the revenue-cutter as she sheered off, which she did at the first burst of flame, and now the others filled the boats, which were quickly lowered and shoved off. As the boats were being lowered a second burst of flame came from the main-hatch, and already tongues of fire were lapping the sails and lofty spars.

Mark had worked with the rest in saving whatever he could lift, and did not think of leaving the ship until Captain May said,

"Come, Mark, it's time to go. Jump into this boat."

Mark did as he was told, and as Captain May sprang in after him, and shouted "Lower away!" not a living soul was left on board the unfortunate vessel.

As the men in the boats rested on their oars, and lay at a safe distance from the ship, watching the grand spectacle of her destruction, they saw that she was settling rapidly by the stern. Lower and lower she sank, and higher and higher mounted the fierce flames, until, all at once, her bows lifted high out of the water, her stern seemed to shoot under it, then the great hull plunged out of sight, and a mighty cloud of smoke and steam rose to the sky. Through this cloud the flames along the upper masts and yards shone with a lurid red. At this point the fire-boat arrived; a couple of well-directed streams of water from her powerful engines soon extinguished these flames, and the three blackened masts, pointing vaguely upward, were all that remained to show where, so short a time before, the great ship had floated.

The pilot-boat had already transferred Mrs. Coburn and Ruth and their baggage to the cutter, and she now steamed up the bay, carrying the pa.s.sengers, crew, and all that had been saved from the good ship Wildfire.

This disaster to his ship, which would have been so terrible had it happened out at sea instead of almost in port, as it did, obliged Captain May to remain in New York several days. Of this Mark and Ruth were very glad, for it gave them an opportunity to see some of the wonders of the great city of which they had read so much, and which they had longed so often to visit.

Mrs. Coburn, who had at one time lived in New York, and so knew just what was best worth seeing, took them to some new place every day. They saw the great East River Bridge that connects New York and Brooklyn, they took the elevated railroad, and went the whole length of Manhattan Island to High Bridge, on which the Croton Aqueduct crosses the Harlem River, and on the way back stopped and walked through Central Park to the Menagerie, where they were more interested in the alligators than anything else, because they reminded them so of old friends, or rather enemies.

They visited museums and noted buildings and stores, until Ruth declared that she wanted to get away where it was quiet, and she didn't see how people who lived in New York found time to do anything but go round and see the sights.

They were all glad when Captain May was ready to leave, and after the noise and bustle of the great city they thoroughly enjoyed the quiet night's sail up Long Island Sound on the steamer Pilgrim.

At Fall River they took cars for Boston, where they stayed one day.

From there they took the steamer Cambridge for Bangor, where they arrived in the morning, and where "Uncle Christmas," as jolly and hearty as ever, met them at the wharf.

"Sakes alive, children, how you have growed!" he said, holding them off at arm's-length in front of him, and looking at them admiringly. "Why, Mark, you're pretty nigh as tall as a Floridy pine."

He insisted on taking the whole party to dine with him at the hotel, and at dinner told Mark that that little business of theirs had got to wait a while, and meantime he wanted him to run over to Norton, and stay at Dr. Wing's until he came for him.

This was just what Mark had been wishing, above all things, that he could do, and he almost hugged "Uncle Christmas" for his thoughtful kindness.

After dinner the happy party bade the old gentleman good-bye, and took the train for Skowhegan, where they found the same old rattlety-bang stage waiting to carry them to Norton.

As with a flourish of the driver's horn and a cracking of his whip they rolled into the well-known Norton street, a crowd of boys and girls, who seemed to have been watching for them, gave three rousing cheers for Mark Elmer, and three more for Ruth Elmer, and then three times three for both of them.

The stage stopped, and in another instant Ruth was hugging and kissing, and being hugged and kissed, by her "very dearest, darlingest friend"

Edna May, and Mark was being slapped on the back and hauled this way and that, and was shaking hands with all the boys in Norton.

CHAPTER XIX.

UNCLE CHRISTOPHER'S "GREAT SCHEME."

How pleasant it was to be in dear old Norton again! and how glad everybody was to see them! Good old Mrs. Wing said it made her feel young again to have boys in the house. She certainly had enough of them now; for the Norton boys could not keep away from Mark. From early morning until evening boys walked back and forth in front of the house waiting for him to appear, or sat on the fence-posts and whistled for him. Some walked boldly up to the front door, rang the bell, and asked if he were in; while others, more shy, but braver than those who whistled so alluringly from the fence-posts, stole around through the garden at the side of the house, and tried to catch a glimpse of him through the windows.

All this was not because Mark kept himself shut up in the house. Oh no!

he was not that kind of a boy. He only stayed in long enough to sleep, to eat three meals a day, and to write letters to his father, mother, and Frank March, telling them of everything that was taking place. The rest of the time he devoted to the boys--and the girls; for he was over at Captain May's house almost as much as he was at the Wings'. He was enjoying himself immensely, though it didn't seem as though he was doing much except to talk.

If he went fishing with the boys, they would make him tell how he and Frank caught the alligator, or how the alligator caught Frank, and how he killed it; and when he finished it was time to go home, and none of them had even thought of fishing since Mark began to talk.

There was nothing the boys enjoyed more than going out into the woods, making believe that some of the great spreading oaks were palm-trees, and lying down under them and listening, while Mark, at their earnest request, told over and over again the stories of the wreck on the Florida reef, and the picnic his father and mother and Ruth and he had under the palm-trees, or of hunting deer at night through the solemn, moss-hung, Southern forests, or of the burning of the Wildfire.

"I say, Mark," exclaimed Tom Ellis, after listening with breathless interest to one of these stories, "you're a regular book, you are, and I'd rather hear you tell stories than to read Captain Marryat or Paul du Chaillu."

But there was one story Mark never would tell. It was that of his terrible experience in the buried river. Of this he tried to think as little as possible, and when the boys saw that it really distressed him to talk of it they forbore to urge him to do so.

Of course Ruth did not feel as Mark did about it, and she told the story many times, and everybody who heard it declared it was a most wonderful experience. They also seemed to think that in some way the mere fact that the hero of such an adventure was a Norton boy reflected great credit on the village.

Both Mark and Ruth saw a greater resemblance in the real Edna May to Frank March than had been shown by her photograph; but they remembered their promise to Captain Bill, and did not speak of it except to each other. It was very hard for Ruth to keep this promise, for Edna had become much interested in Frank through her letters, and now asked many questions about him. Ruth told her all she knew, except the one great secret that was on the end of her tongue a dozen times, but was never allowed to get any further.

Two weeks had been spent very happily by the children in Norton, when, one beautiful evening in June, the old stage rattled up to the Wings'

front gate, and from it alighted Uncle Christopher Bangs.

"Halloo, Mark!" sung out the old gentleman, catching sight of his grandnephew almost the first thing. "How are you, my boy? Sakes alive, but you're looking well! Seems as if Maine air was the correct thing for Floridy boys, eh?"

"Yes, indeed, 'Uncle Christmas,'" replied Mark, as he ran out to meet the dear old man, "Maine air is the very thing for this Florida boy, at any rate."

"So it is, so it is," chuckled Uncle Christopher. "Wal, I suppose you're all ready to go to work now, eh?"

"To be sure I am, uncle; ready to begin right off."

"That's right, that's right; but s'posing we just look in on Mrs. Wing first, and see what she's got for supper, and then, after sleeping a bit, and eating again, and sort o' shaking ourselves together, we'll begin to consider. There ain't nothing to be gained by hurrying and worrying through the only lifetime we've got in this world, eh?"

The Doctor and Mrs. Wing welcomed Uncle Christopher most warmly, for he was a very dear friend of theirs, and they never allowed him to stay anywhere in Norton but at their house, now that the Elmers had moved away. After supper Ruth and the Mays came over to see him, and he entertained them the whole evening with his funny stories and quaint sayings.

In the morning, after breakfast, they began to "consider," as Uncle Christopher called it. First he made Mark stand in front of him, looked him all over from head to foot with a quizzical expression, and finally said, "Yes, you look strong and hearty, and I guess you'll do.

"Fact is, Mark, I've got to take a trip down into Aroostook, and as I'm getting pretty old and feeble--Oh, you needn't smile, youngster, I am old and I've made so many bad jokes lately that I must be getting feeble. As I was saying, having reached an advanced state of infirmity, it has occurred to me that I need a travelling companion, a young, able-bodied fellow like you, for instance, to protect me against the dangers of the journey. Who knows but what we may meet with an alligator, eh? and so I want you to go along with me."

Of course Mark agreed readily to this proposition, though he had expected one far different, and the next morning he and Uncle Christopher took leave of their Norton friends and started for Bangor.

From there another train carried them for miles along the upper Pen.o.bscot River, past the Indian settlement at Old Town, past the great saw-mills and millions of logs at Mattawaumkeag, and finally to McAdam Junction in "Europe," as Uncle Christopher called New Brunswick. Here they took another road, and were carried back into Maine to Houlton, the county seat of Aroostook County. After staying overnight here they took a stage, and for a whole day travelled over pleasant roads, through sweet-scented forests of spruce and balsam, broken here by clearings and thrifty farms, until at last the journey ended in the pretty little backwoods settlement of Presque Isle.

Here Uncle Christopher's lumber business detained him for a week, and here he introduced Mark to all his friends as "My grandnephew, Mr. Mark Elmer, Jun., President of the Elmer Mills down in Floridy," covering Mark with much confusion thereby, and enjoying the joke immensely himself. Now the real object of bringing the boy on this trip was disclosed. Mr. Bangs not only wanted Mark to meet with these practical men, and become familiar with their ways of conducting a business which was very similar to that which the Elmers had undertaken in Florida, but he knew that pine lumber was becoming scarce in that Northern country, and thought perhaps some of these men could be persuaded to emigrate to another land of pines if the idea was presented to them properly. So he encouraged Mark to talk of Florida, and to give them all the information he possessed regarding its forests of pine and its other resources. As a result, before they again turned their faces homeward, half a dozen of these clear-headed Maine men had promised them to visit Florida in the fall, take a look at the Wakulla country, and see for themselves what it offered in their line of business.

When Uncle Christopher and Mark returned to Bangor, the latter began to attend school regularly; not a grammar-school, nor a high-school, nor a school of any kind where books are studied, but a mill-school, where machinery took the place of books, where the teachers were rough workmen, and where each lecture was ill.u.s.trated by practical examples.

Nor did Mark merely go and listen to these lectures: he took an active part in ill.u.s.trating them himself; for Uncle Christopher had explained so clearly to him that in order to be a truly successful mill president he must thoroughly understand the uses of every bit of mill machinery, that the boy was now as eager to do this as he had been in Wakulla to learn how to fish for alligators, or fire-hunt for deer.

All that summer he worked hard--two months in a saw-mill, and two more in a grist-mill--and though he did not receive a cent of money for all this labor, he felt amply repaid for what he had been through, by a satisfied sense of having, at least, mastered the rudiments of what he knew was to be an important part of his work in life for some years to come.

About the end of September his Uncle Christopher called Mark into his study one evening, and telling him to sit down, said, "Well, Mark, my boy, I suppose you're beginning to think of going home again to Floridy, eh?"

"Yes, uncle; father writes that both Ruth and I ought to come home very soon now, and I, for one, am quite ready to go."

"So you ought, so you ought. When boys and girls can help their fathers and mothers, and be helping themselves at the same time, they ought to be doing it," a.s.sented Uncle Christopher, cheerfully. "Well, Mark, I've got a scheme, a great scheme in my head, and I want you to tell me what you think of it. In the first place, I want you and the other directors to increase the capital stock of the Elmer Mill and Ferry Company, and let me take the extra shares."

"Oh, Uncle Christopher!"

"Wait, my boy, I haven't begun yet. You see, as I've told you before, I'm getting old and fee--not a word, sir!--feeble, and my old bones begin to complain a good deal at the cold of these Maine winters.