Billy Whiskers' Travels

by Frances Trego Montgomery

  *CHAPTER IX*

  *ALONE IN AN OCEAN STORM*

  Poor Billy! Once more he had lost his mother! He looked for the shipto turn round and send out a boat as it had done when Hans felloverboard, but it did nothing of the sort. Instead, it steamed straightahead. In the excitement nobody had noticed that Billy had been throwninto the water.

  The cook got a life preserver and threw it over after Billy, thinking ita good joke, then the cook went below and Hans stood at the sternrailing shaking his fist at the poor goat. Billy swam as long and ashard after the boat as he could, but it was no use; he could not beginto keep up with its great speed. Presently, however, he came to wherethe life preserver floated. It was a big circular one and Billy put hisfront paws upon it. His weight made it tip on edge and Billy wassurprised and delighted to find that it held him up in the water, makingthe work of swimming much easier. In trying to get his legs further intoit he slipped once or twice, but finally in his struggles his head andhorns went through it, and, after swimming and wriggling a little bit,he got his front shoulders through and there it clung round him, holdinghim up splendidly. It was too small to pass backwards over his body, andit could not get off over his head on account of Billy's horns.

  It was a lucky thing for Billy that this happened, for that night aterrific storm came up. The wind shrieked and howled, the lightningsglared, the thunders rolled, and great foam-capped waves, some of themnearly as high as a house, broke over Billy, one after another, nearlydrowning him and sometimes almost crushing him by their weight.

  In all his life Billy had never passed such a terrific night as this,but through it all the big life preserver held him up and carried himsafely through. Many times there seemed to come a lull in the storm andBilly began to breathe easier, thinking that he would get a little rest,but the storm would break out again with new fury each time, until, whenmorning came, the poor goat was battered and bruised and nearly dead.With the dawn, however, the storm calmed down. The skies began toclear, the waves grew smaller, and the wind, shifting by-and-by to theopposite direction from that in which it had been blowing all night,beat back the waves and smoothed them down until by ten o'clock theocean was quiet, only ruffled by gentle swells over which Billy and hislife preserver bobbed in comfort, although he was very tired andbeginning to get hungry.

  Ever since the sky had cleared he had seen smoke away off where sea andsky seemed to join. Billy knew what smoke meant. Wherever there wassmoke there were people, and wherever there were people there was food,so he started toward it, swimming a little bit and resting a long whilebetween times. The smoke grew blacker and presently he saw a littlespeck under the smoke. It grew larger and larger, and by-and-by he wasable to make out that it was a big ship coming in his direction. PoorBilly swam harder than ever then, and fortunately for him the ship wascoming almost straight toward him. Still more fortunately, the captain,sweeping the sea with his glass, made out the life preserver holding upsomething white, and immediately thought it must be a woman in a whitedress. He altered the direction of the ship slightly so that it camenearer to Billy, and had ordered a boat to be lowered before he made outthat it was only a goat, otherwise he might have passed on by. Theboat, however, was already lowered, so he let it go.

  The ship was coming almost straight toward him.]

  The ship was a big passenger steamer, and by this time scores ofpassengers were thronging to the rails to see what the excitement wasall about, and when the boat was drawn up, Billy, a comical lookingsight with his big life preserver around him, was placed on the deck. Aboy among the passengers at once ran forward with a shout.

  "Why, it's my Billy goat!" he cried. "Papa, come and look! See thesinge marks on his back?"

  Billy "baahed" joyfully. He rather liked Frank and was very glad thathe had found a friend. The captain himself, interested and amused, hadjoined the crowd by this time.

  "Your goat?" he asked Frank, in amazement. "Do you always keep yourgoats out at sea in life preservers?"

  "Not always," laughed Frank. "In fact, this is the only goat I have.We lost him in Havre. The last I saw of him he was tied to the back ofour carriage with a rope. When we got down to the wharf he was gone.Then we went down to Cherbourg, where papa had some business, caughtyour ship the next day and here we are. How Billy ever got here fromHavre, I don't know, but here he is and he's my goat."

  "Well, according to the law of the sea," said the captain with a twinklein his eye, "he is salvage now and belongs to the men there who pickedhim up. Of course I have a share in the salvage too, but I'll take acigar for mine."

  Mr. Brown, laughing, gave him the cigar and then gave the sailors somemoney, and Billy was taken below to a large, white, clean room wheresome fine blooded horses were hitched in roomy stalls. Here he wasgiven a big bowl of warm milk and a bed of clean straw, both of which hewas very glad to get. As soon as he had drunk the bowl of milk, he feltso good and warm that he lay down and went sound asleep.

  When Billy woke up he saw something that made him gasp with surprise,and at first he thought he must be dreaming. Right beside him, sleepingpeacefully, an empty bowl that had contained milk just in front of it,lay another goat. It was his mother! Billy was so overjoyed that hedid not know what to do. He licked her face gently and when she openedher eyes he capered around till the horses in the stalls near by thoughtthat he must have gone crazy. Billy's mother was no less happy and whenthey had calmed down Billy told her how Hans Zug had thrown himoverboard, how he had suffered through the storm and how the ship hadpicked him up.

  "You were lucky, I guess, that he threw you over," said his mother. "Wegot into that same terrible storm and our ship struck upon the rocks andbroke to pieces. I do not know what became of the other goats or ofHans Zug. Of course all the circus animals in the cages went down. Iwas swimming about in the water when some sailors in a boat grabbed meand took me with them. They said that they had not had time to getprovisions and that they might have to eat me. I would have jumpedoverboard when I heard this but they had already forced me under one ofthe seats in such a way that I could not scramble out. The storm wasstill upon us and the waves spun us around like a top, and two or threetimes we thought we were gone. By morning, however, the storm calmeddown and we were safe, although some of the men had been swept overboardby the big waves that broke over us. All day long we drifted about. Oneof the men had brought along a box of crackers and another one had gotsome dried beef. A keg of water was already in the boat so that therewas nearly enough for everybody for breakfast, and when the noonday mealcame, one of the men wanted to kill me, but the others would not lethim. They wanted to save me, they said, until the next day. It wasnearly dusk when this ship saw us and stopped to take us on board. Ifthis ship had missed us I suppose that to-night would have been mylast."

  Billy shuddered.

  "Well," said he, "at any rate we are together again, and this time Isuppose that we will stay together. If you are rested enough come onand let us look around the ship."

  First the two goats trotted side by side past the big clean stalls ofthe horses and all around the room they were in, then they made theirway to the stairway that led up to the deck. They were about to climbthis when Billy spied the open door of a little closet, scarcely largeenough to put his head in. Full of curiosity, he went up to it andstuck his nose inside.

  "Oh, come here, mother!" he suddenly cried. "Here is a rope with a verystrange taste. I had some of it in a big hotel in Bern and I did notcare for it very much, but it has such a queer taste that you must eatsome of it."

  The rope Billy meant was not exactly like the ones he had chewed inBern, for those were single big wires with a covering to keep them fromtouching. This rope in the little closet was not a solid one but was abig bundle of tiny wires, each one covered with a queer tasting sheath.The wires ran from the pilot's room and the captain's room to theengineer's room and to the other working r
ooms of the ship, and, by theuse of little push buttons were intended to direct the movements of themighty floating palace.

  "Why, this is quite a treat," said Billy's mother, taking a big bundleof the wires in her mouth. Another little closet just like this onestood alongside of it and Billy saw that the door of this was alsoslightly ajar. He pushed it open with his nose, and inside he foundanother bundle of wires. These ran from the passengers' cabins to thesteward's cabin, and the electrician had just been fixing them,carelessly leaving the doors unfastened.

  "Why, here's another bundle! I'll try some of them myself," remarkedBilly, so both the goats got to work at once.

  Billy's mother had only chewed at her rope of wires a little while whenthe coverings began to come off and the wires to touch. Instantly thingsbegan to happen. The first wires that touched gave the engineer asignal to stop and instantly the mighty ship began to slow up. Within ashort time it had come almost to a standstill and the first mate, up inthe pilot room, immediately took down his telephone and called up theengineer.

  "What's the matter?" he asked.

  "Nothing, sir," said the engineer. "You gave the signal to stop and westopped."

  "I did no such thing," said the mate. "At any rate, start up again andwe'll investigate."

  Just then came another signal, and with a great jangling of bells thebig engines began to turn and the ship wheeled square around. There wasanother jangling of bells, and, shaking with the force of the mightyengines, the ship began to pick up speed, headed straight back forFrance. Again the first mate called up the engineer.

  "What are you doing?" he asked. "Are you crazy? Why have you tackedabout?"

  "Had orders, sir," said the engineer.

  "You lay her northwest by north at once. Put the second engineer incharge and report to me immediately."

  "Aye, aye, sir," said the engineer and started up to present himself tothe first mate.

  The ship was swung back on her proper course and had gone straight alittle way, when all at once the whistles began to blow and bells toring, and with this the captain came running up to the pilot room. Thefirst mate already had his telephone off the hook and was screaming downto the engineer.

  "What are you doing, sir?" he demanded. "I thought I told you to reportto me at once!"

  "This is the second engineer, sir," repeated the voice. "The chiefengineer has just gone up to report to you, sir."

  "Well, why did you blow a landing whistle out here in mid-ocean? Can'tyou obey orders? Are you crazy, too? Are you all crazy?"

  "I had the signal and obeyed orders, sir," said the second engineer.

  By that time the captain came bursting into the pilot room, while BillyMischief and his mother were chewing wires.

  "Are you a plum idiot?" demanded the captain. "Can't you be left incharge of this ship? Have you been drinking? First you stopped theship, then you put back for France, then you turn again, and now youblow a landing whistle."

  At that moment the fog horn began to sound, although the sea was almostas bright as day with a round moon shining overhead and the starsstudded thick in the sky.

  The captain himself grabbed the telephone.

  "I want to know who's doing all this!" he demanded. "Who's in chargethere?"

  "I am, sir; the second engineer," answered the voice.

  "Put your assistant in charge and report to me in the pilot room atonce."

  Just then the chief engineer came in.

  "What does all this mean?" roared the captain.

  "I don't know, sir," said the engineer. "I got signals to stop, then toput about, then to come back on the course, all of which I did."

  "I don't want you to attempt to put this on to me," said the mate. "Ihaven't touched a button for an hour. There has been no necessity. Wehave been going straight on our course."

  "SHAKE HANDS," SAID BOBBY.]

  All this while the steward had been going nearly crazy. The bells wereringing from every cabin on the ship, and the waiters were running aboutthe place like mad. First one bell, then another would ring, and alwayswhen the waiters went to those cabins they were told that nothing waswanted and were abused for waking people up. That part of it was BillyMischief's work and he did as much to put the ship in an uproar as hadhis mother. The sound of the fog horn and the stopping and starting ofthe ship, the whistling and the clanging of the bells, kept everybodyawake that had been awakened by the waiters, and hastily throwing onclothing, the passengers began to hurry out on to the decks to find outwhat was the matter.

  The steward came hunting the captain, right after the second engineer.

  "This ship is bewitched," he cried, wringing his hands, and he told thecaptain of all the trouble he was having with false alarms.

  Everybody looked at everybody else as if they thought that the othershad all better be in the asylum, and it was just at that moment thatBilly Mischief, down in the hold, turned to his mother and said:

  "Oh, come on! I don't like this stuff very well, anyhow," and leavingthe little closets to themselves, they trotted innocently upstairs notknowing all the trouble they had made.