The Brown Fox Mystery (6 page)

“Say, tomorrow morning,” said Captain Ben, “I’m going to bring along Clarabelle, and I’ll pick you three up and take you on a trip around the lake while I make my deliveries. We can do a little singin’ on the trip!”

Both of the boys let out a whoop of joy and Clarabelle and Miss Annie looked very pleased at the prospect, too.

“That will be very nice,” said Miss Annie.

“Will you show us how to rig up our fishing rods, too?” asked Tommy.

“You betch’r bottom sinker I will,” Captain Ben said firmly. “An’ what’s more, I’ll show you the best holes in the lake for fishin’!”

A little bit later, after Captain Ben and the boys had taken Miss Annie’s groceries into their cottage, Captain Ben went chugging away toward the next dock. Tommy, Djuna and Clarabelle stood on the dock and waved at him and Clarabelle sang softly:

Djuna, Champ and Tommy had been waiting on their dock for three quarters of an hour the next morning when the
Little Buttercup
came chugging toward them. It was an ideal morning, with a warm sun climbing high into the soft blue sky above them, and with only a few white cumulus clouds hanging like huge balls of cotton on the horizon.

Tommy and Djuna had assembled all of their fishing equipment on the dock and had started to rig up their fishing rods, but they weren’t quite sure just how it should be done so they decided to wait until Captain Ben could show them. The minutes had seemed like hours as they watched to see Captain Ben’s boat leave the landing at Lakeville and make a half dozen stops at the cottages on the east side of the lake.

“Golly,” said Djuna, “it seemed to me he was
never
going to get here.”

“It seems like the longest time I ever waited for anything,” Tommy agreed, and added, “I don’t see Clarabelle.”

“Maybe she couldn’t come,” said Djuna. Then he leaned forward and strained his eyes to peer at the
Little Buttercup
. “Say! That’s funny. Captain Ben is moving those boxes of groceries around in the back of the boat and isn’t even bothering to steer it!”

“You mean in the
after
part of the boat,” said Tommy with a snicker. “Maybe he has lashed his tiller.”

“You mean tied the wheel so that it just goes straight ahead?” Djuna said. “I don’t know. But perhaps he doesn’t know he’s so close to our dock. He’ll bang right into it!”

Just then the bow of the
Little Buttercup
cut slightly to the left so that it would come in right alongside the dock, and the engine was thrown out of gear and into reverse for an instant so that the forward motion of the
Little Buttercup
was almost stopped, and it just floated in neatly with hardly a bump. And Captain Ben was still moving boxes around on deck. He hadn’t gone near the wheelhouse!

“For Pete’s sake!” said Tommy as he and Djuna stared into the wheelhouse. Djuna couldn’t say anything because he was too astonished when he saw that it was Clarabelle who had brought the
Little Buttercup
in to the dock. And she wore a sailor’s little white cap cocked jauntily on the side of her brown curls.

“Mornin’, mates! Good mornin’!” Captain Ben shouted at them as he straightened up, and when he saw them staring at Clarabelle, whose eyes came just above the wheel in the wheelhouse, he began to chuckle. “What d’you think of my first mate, eh, lads? Trim as a flying-jib and twice as useful, she is!”

Captain Ben picked up a pair of ice tongs and swung a fifty pound chunk of ice up on the dock with one deft motion and stepped up on the dock beside it. “Jest make them lines fast on them cleats, will you, boys, while I take this ice up to the cottage.”

He was still chuckling at the boys’ astonishment as they leaped to obey him. After they had dropped the loops over the cleats both Djuna and Tommy jumped into the motorboat and crowded into the little cabin with Clarabelle.

“Good morning!” Clarabelle said innocently, and then she couldn’t help blushing, because she knew why they were staring at her as though they had never seen her before. “It’s going to be a beautiful day to go around the lake with Captain Ben.”

“Chattering chimps!”
Tommy burst forth. “Where did
you
learn to run a motorboat?”

“Captain Ben taught me,” Clarabelle said prettily, and added with a toss of her head, “Boys think girls can’t ever do anything!”

“Can you really run that engine and steer the boat, too?” Djuna asked incredulously.

“You just saw me do it, didn’t you?” asked Clarabelle. Then she smiled at both of them. “It’s easy as anything after you’ve had some practice. It—it took me a pretty long time to learn.”

“What do you do to make it go ahead and backwards?” Tommy asked.

“Well,” said Clarabelle. “Captain Ben always starts the engine. When you want to go forward you just push this gadget ahead and when you want to go backward you just pull it back. You have to practice to know how, just the way you do with steering. If you want to go to the right you turn the wheel to the right, and the same way the other way around. It’s easy.”

Djuna nodded. “The way you tell it, it sounds easy enough, but I bet it was a long time before Captain Ben would let you do it alone,” he said.

“That’s what I said,” said Clarabelle. “Captain Ben made me practice and practice before he’d let me do it alone. Only this isn’t like piano lessons. It’s fun!”

“Well, boys,” Captain Ben boomed from the dock. “I see you got your fishin’ tackle all together. Come on up here and let’s rig up your rods while we’re awaitin’ f’r Miss Annie.” Captain Ben chuckled. “She jest told me she’d rather be called Miss Annie than Miss Ellery, so from now on that’s her handle!”

“Will you show us how to run your motorboat and steer it?” asked Djuna a little breathlessly as the two boys climbed back on to the dock.

“You c’n betch’r bottom sinker, I will,” said Captain Ben. “But not today. There’s too many other things to show you today.” He rubbed his chin with his left hand while he poked an inquisitive finger into their tackle box.

“Now, lemme see,” he said. “You each got fifty yards of good silk line there, an’ some nice nylon leaders, an’ some sweet lures an’ spinners. Yessir! You got just about everything you need. Them’s nice reels, too. Just right for bait casting. Say! Have you got a landing net?”

“No, sir,” said Djuna. “Do we need one?”

“You certain’y do,” Captain Ben said with a solemn shake of his head. “You can’t risk losin’ a big fish by trying to lift him over the edge of your rowboat when he’s on’y hooked by the skin of his lip. What you do is play him up to y’r boat after you hook him an’ then slip the net under him an’
lift
him into the boat. I got one I’ll loan you while you’re here.”

“Oh thanks, Captain Ben,” they said together.

“I’ll rig up one of these rods for you,” said Captain Ben. “You fellahs watch me, an’ then you can rig up the other one. We’ll just make a quick job of it because Miss Annie will be along in a jiffy.” Captain Ben picked up one of the casting rods and said, “First, you just loosen this screw under the offset reel seat and slip the reel in, like this, and tighten up the screw again. Now, jest hand me that roll o’ line. That’s right. Now, we jest tie this end of the line on the reel and then wind the whole thing on the reel.”

Captain Ben wound the sleek silk fishing line from the spool on which it had come onto the reel so fast that his hand was just a blur as he turned the crank handle. When he had all of the one hundred and fifty feet of line on the reel he took the loose end and carefully threaded it up through the stainless steel guides and the tiptop of the casting rod.

Then he tied a loop in the end of the fishing line and slipped the loop of a nylon leader over and through it and pulled the two loops securely together so that they couldn’t pull out. The boys and Clarabelle watched him with fascinated interest while Champ snoozed on the dock.

“Now,” Captain Ben said, “it’s gettin’ along toward midday an’ the fish are feedin’ pretty deep, so we’ll put a sinkin’ lure on the end of your leader an’ you can do a little trollin’ while we’re a goin’ around the lake. You prob’ly won’t land nothin’ because we’ll be movin’ too fast, but you c’n get a little practice. It’s best to troll from a rowboat.”

“What do you do when you troll?” asked Djuna.

“Well,” said Captain Ben, “you put a spinner or some kind of artificial bait on the end of your line and cast out from the stern of your rowboat. Usually one fellah rows and the other fellah trolls. You let about a hundred feet of line out and then row along slowly, pullin’ your line in a foot or two and lettin’ it run out again every few seconds. Sometimes a fish will follow a spinner for quite a spell before it strikes it. When it does, you got to set your hook and then play him in until you can get him alongside y’r boat and get your landin’ net under him. Then,” Captain Ben finished with a chuckle, “you haul him in and take him home and pan-fry him!”

“What kind of a bait are you going to put on now?” Tommy asked eagerly.

“I think,” said Captain Ben as he inspected the lures in the tray of their tackle box, “we’ll try this wiggler here that has a spinner and rubber streamers on it. It’ll go down to medium depth and maybe get you a nice big bass.”

Captain Ben slid the other end of the nylon leader through the eyelet in the nose of the wiggler and then passed the whole wiggler through the nylon leader loop and pulled it secure.

“There,” he said. “Now, you’re ready to catch fish, an’ here comes Miss Annie.”

“Morning, Clarabelle,” Miss Annie said as she came out on the dock and Captain Ben helped her into the boat.

A few moments later Clarabelle called, “Cast off!” and Djuna and Tommy lifted the loops off the dock cleats while Captain Ben sat and talked with Miss Annie in the stern of the
Little Buttercup
. Tommy and Djuna did not look exactly happy over the idea of taking orders from Clarabelle but they could not keep the admiration out of their eyes as she threw the engine in reverse and backed the
Little Buttercup
away from the dock and then swung it around very neatly to lay the bow on the next pier to the north.

“Nothin’ for the Johnsons today,” Captain Ben called to her. “Next stop is the McKelvey place.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” said Clarabelle and she altered her course slightly.

“Can I steer for a minute?” asked Djuna.

“Not today, Captain Ben said,” said Clarabelle. “He said he had too many other things to show you.”

“Jeepers!” said Tommy. “Anyone would think
you
owned this boat.”

“You’re just mad because you don’t know how to run it,” said Clarabelle, and she cocked her hat at an even more rakish angle on her head. Then, instead of making a face at him, as Tommy fully expected, she gave him a very sweet smile, which confused him so completely that he didn’t know what to say or do. He covered up his confusion by grabbing up the casting rod Captain Ben had rigged for them.

“Captain Ben!” he called. “Can I cast off the stern of the boat?”

“Why, yes,” said Captain Ben as he rose, “but I better show you how to make a cast first, so that you won’t get your bait all tangled up in our hair.”

Captain Ben took the rod and faced the stern of the boat. He held the rod at about a 22-degree angle above horizontal to start his cast. There was about six inches of line hanging from the tip of the rod with the wiggler hanging on the end. “You bring it up slow, at first, then fast at the top of your cast,” said Captain Ben, “like this.” He brought the rod up so that the bait swung out and up. When the rod was over his shoulder at about a 22-degree angle beyond the perpendicular he began the start of his forward cast with the bait swinging over the top of the rod, and then it went singing out over the water. Captain Ben stopped his forward cast as the bait struck the water, and when he stopped the rod was right back at the same 22-degree angle above horizontal where he had started his cast.

“You see,” said Captain Ben as he began to reel in his line, “you have to—” Suddenly, Captain Ben stopped speaking as there was a swirl of water near the spot where the wiggler had struck the water and Captain Ben said, “Well, I’ll be—” as something hit his bait with a vicious strike. He let the fish take the bait for a moment and then he set his hook with a quick upward jerk of the rod.

The next instant the water broke and a three-pound smallmouth bass leaped high, with the sun glistening on its white belly as it twisted and tried to throw the hook. It struck the water with a splash and the line grew taut as Captain Ben began to reel in. But there was plenty of fight left in the bass and the reel sang, with the line going out again, as the fish darted in another direction, and broke the water again as it leaped high, and Captain Ben shouted to Clarabelle to throw the engine out of gear.

“What—what kind of a fish is it, Captain Ben?” asked Djuna breathlessly as they watched the gleaming green fish leap again.

“She’s a little-mouth bass, an’ she’s a beauty,” said Captain Ben. “Here take the rod and play her in!” he added as he thrust the rod into Djuna’s hands.

“Keep your line taut, but let her run if she wants to run,” Captain Ben instructed him. “Just keep playing her in, closer and closer to the boat, and don’t let your line get slack. Easy does it,” Captain Ben went on softly as sweat gathered on Djuna’s face as he kept reeling the fish in.

“Get that landin’ net out of the cabin, Tommy,” said Captain Ben when Djuna had the bass quite close to the boat, and its short sprints with the line were becoming weaker and weaker.

“Okay, Tommy,” Captain Ben said when Tommy came back with the net. “Just slip the net under the surface of the water, and Djuna, you lead the fish over the net. Don’t jab at her with the net, Tommy, or hit her tail or you’ll lose her. That’s it, bring the net up under her with a gentle sweep. And there she is!” Captain Ben said as Tommy lifted the exhausted bass into the boat.