“Well, I wish Mr. Whale, or whatever he is, would come up and let us have a look at him!” exclaimed Tubby suddenly. “This is getting pretty monotonous.”
As he spoke the boy paid nut a little more line. He had only just time to belay it round the cleat to avoid its being jerked out of his hand, so fast was the creature they had hooked now traveling.
“Say, Tubby,” spoke Merritt at length, “I’m beginning to think myself that it might not be a bad idea to put back. Those clouds over there on the horizon look as if they meant trouble.”
“Oh, let’s keep it on a little while longer pleaded Tubby; cutting through the water like this, without any expenditure of gasoline or power, is the real luxurious way of ocean traveling. It beats the Mauretania. just think if liners could hitch a whole team of things like whatever has got hold of us to their bows! Why, the Atlantic would be crossed in four days.”
For some time longer the boat shot along over the waves, towed by its invisible force. The boys, with the exception of Tubby, began to get anxious. The shores of the mainland were dim in the distance behind them, and Topsail Island itself only showed as a dark blue dot.
Suddenly the motion ceased.
“He’s free of the line!” shouted Hiram, inwardly much relieved to think they had got rid of what to him was an alarming situation.
“No, he’s not,” replied Tubby, bending over the line. “He’s still fast to us. The line’s as tight as a fiddle string.”
He was standing up as he spoke, and as the Flying Fish gave a sudden, crazy jerk forward, he was almost thrown overboard. In fact, he would have toppled into the sea if Merritt had not bounded forward and grabbed the fleshy lad just as he was losing his balance.
“We’re off again!” exclaimed Hiram, as the Flying Fish once more began to move through the water.
But now the creature that had seized Tubby’s big hook started to move in circles. Round and round the Flying Fish was towed in dizzy swings that made the heads of her young occupants swim.
“Start the engine on the reverse, and see if that will do any good,” said Tubby, bending anxiously over his line.
Merritt brought the reverse gear to “neutral,” and then started it up, gradually bringing back the lever governing the reversing wheel till the Flying Fish was going second speed astern, and finally at her full gait backward.
The tug thus exercised seemed to have no effect on the monster that had caught Tubby’s bait, however. With the exception that the speed was diminished a trifle, the Flying Fish was still powerless to shake off her opponent.
Suddenly, and without the slightest warning, a huge, shiny, wet body shot out of the water almost directly in front of the amazed and startled boys, and settled back with a mighty splash that sent the spray flying in a salt-water shower bath over their heads.
“Whatever was it?” gasped Hiram in awed tones.
“A shark,” replied Merritt, “and a whopper, too. What are we going to do, Tubby–keep on or cut loose?”
“Just a little longer,” pleaded the other. “He must be tiring by this time. If we can only wear him out, we can tow him ashore and make a little money out of him. You know shark skin is valuable.”
“I’d rather have a whole skin of my own,” quavered Hiram, who had been considerably alarmed by the momentary glimpse he had had of Tubby’s quarry.
“He’s off again!” shouted Merritt, as the sea tiger started straight ahead once more.
Suddenly the line slackened again.
“Look out!” Tubby had just time to shriek the warning before a mighty shock threw them all off their feet in a heap on the bottom of the boat.
“Zan-g-g-g!”
The line twanged and snapped under the sudden strain, and a great rush seaward showed the boys, as soon as they recovered their senses, that they had lost their shark.
“And a good line,” moaned Tubby.
“What are you kicking about?” demanded Merritt. “It’s a lucky thing the beast didn’t start some plank of the boat when it charged; but as far as I can see, the Flying Fish stood the shock all right.”
“It felt like an earthquake,” murmured Hiram, whose face was white and eyes frightened.
“Well, I suppose we’d better head for home,” said Tubby at length. “Those bluefish will go fine for supper.”
“Spoken like a Tubby,” laughed Merritt. “All right, I’ll start up. Hullo–” he looked up with a puzzled face from the reverse lever. “I can’t get her on the forward speed.”
“What’s the matter?” gasped Hiram.
“I don’t know. Something’s stuck. Shut off that engine, will you, Tubby, while I see?”
Tubby promptly shut down the motor, and Merritt struggled with the refractory lever. It was all in vain, however; he could not get it on the forward speed.
“I’ve got to investigate,” puffed the perspiring corporal; “something must be wrong with the reversible propeller.”
“Well, whatever you are going to do, hurry up about it,” spoke Tubby, with unwonted sharpness in his tones.
“Why, what’s the–” began Merritt.
Tubby checked him with a finger on his lips.
“Don’t scare the kid,” he whispered, leaning forward, “but we’re in for a storm.”
He pointed seaward.
Rolling toward them was a spreading wall of heavy clouds traveling at seemingly great speed, while below the wrack the water darkened ominously and became flecked with “white horses.”
CHAPTER XVI
LOST IN THE STORM
“The trouble’s in the reversible propeller. I always told Rob he was foolish not to have a regular reverse gear on the shaft itself and a solid wheel,” said Merritt.
“Well, never mind that now,” urged Tubby anxiously. “I’ll shift all the cushions and stuff up in the bow, and Hiram and I will get as far forward as we can. That will raise the stern and you can hang over and reach the wheel.”
When the stout lad had done as he suggested there was quite a perceptible tilt forward to the Flying Fish, and Merritt, hanging over the stern, could feel about the propeller better.
“Just as I thought,” he shouted presently. “That shark when he came astern fouled that heavy line on the propeller.”
He got out his knife, and in a few minutes succeeded in cutting the entangling line free.
It was not any too soon. From far off there came a low sound, something like the moaning of a large animal in pain. It grew louder and closer, and with it came an advancing wall of water crested with white foam. The sky, too, grew black, and air filled with a sort of sulphurous smell.
“It’s a thunder squall,” shouted Tubby, as Merritt shoved over the lever and started the engine.
As he spoke there came a low growl of thunder and the sky was illumined with a livid glare.
“Here she comes!” yelled Merritt; “better get out those slickers or we’ll be soaked.”
Tubby opened a locker and produced the yellow waterproof coats. The boys had hardly thrust their arms into them before the big sea struck them. Thanks to Tubby’s steering, however, the Flying Fish met it without shipping more than a few cupfuls of water.
The next minute the full fury of the storm enveloped the Boy Scouts and the Flying Fish was laboring in a heaving wilderness of lashed and tumbling water.
“Keep her head up!” roared Merritt, above the screaming of the wind and the now almost continuous roar and rattle of the thunder. It grew almost dark, so overcast was the sky, and under the somber, driving cloud wrack the white wave crests gleamed like savage teeth.
Hiram crouched on the bottom of the boat, too terrified to speak, while Tubby and Merritt strove desperately to keep the little craft from “broaching to,” in which case she would have shipped more water than would have been at all convenient, not to say safe.
As if it were some vindictive live thing, seized with a sudden spite against the boat and its occupants, the storm roared about the dazed boys.
The Flying Fish, however, rode the sweeping seas gallantly, breasting even the biggest combers bravely and buoyantly.
“It’s getting worse,” shouted Tubby, gazing back at Merritt, who was bending over the laboring motor.
“Yes, you bet it is!” roared back the engineer; “and I’m afraid of a short circuit if this rain keeps up.”
“Cover up the engine with that spare slicker,” suggested Tubby.
“That’s a good idea,” responded the other, rummaging in a stern locker and producing the garment in question. In another moment he had it over the engine, protecting the spark plugs and the high-tension wires from the rain and spray. But the wind was too high to permit of the covering remaining unfastened, and with a ball of marlin the young engineer lashed the improvised motor cover firmly in place.
Hiram, with a white face, now crawled up from the bottom of the boat. In addition to being scared, he was seasick from the eccentric motions of the storm-tossed craft.
“Do you think we’ll ever get ashore again?” he asked, crawling to Merritt’s side.
“Sure,” responded the corporal confidently. “‘Come on, buck up, Hiram! You know, a Boy Scout never says die. We’ll be back in camp in three hours’ time, when this squall blows itself out.”
“I–I don’t want you to think me a coward, Merritt,” quavered Hiram, “but–but you know this is enough to scare any fellow.”
Indeed, he seemed right. The Flying Fish appeared no more than a tiny chip on the immense rollers the storm had blown up. Time and again it looked as if she would never be able to climb the huge walls of green water that towered above her; but every time she did, and, as the storm raged on, the confidence of the boys began to grow.
“She’ll ride it out, Tubby!” yelled Merritt, dousing the engine with more oil.
“Sure she will!” yelled back Tubby, with a confidence that was, however, largely assumed. The stout youth had just been assailed by an alarming thought that flashed across his mind.
“Would the gasoline hold out?”
There was no opportunity on the plunging, bucking craft to examine the tank, and all the boy could do was to make a rapid mental calculation, based on what he knew of the consumption of the engine. The tank, he knew, had been half full when they came out, and that, under ordinary conditions, would have sufficed to drive the Flying Fish for five or six hours.
But they were not ordinary conditions under which she was now laboring. Tubby knew that Merritt was piling in every ounce of gasoline the carburetor could take care of.
Suddenly, while the stout youth’s mind was busied with these thoughts, and without the slightest warning, there came a sort of wheezing gasp from the motor.
Merritt leaned over it in alarm. He seized the timing lever and shoved it over and opened the gasoline cock full tilt.
But there was no response from the motor.
It gasped out a cough a couple of times and turned over in a dying fashion for a few revolutions and then stopped dead.
The boys were adrift in the teeth of the storm in a crippled boat.
“What’s the matter?” roared back Tubby from the wheel. “She’s lost steerage way!”
“Motor’s gone dead,” howled back Merritt laconically.
“Great Scott, we are in for it now! What’s the matter?”
“No gasolene,” yelled Merritt.
“Sosh-osh-soh!”
A huge green wave climbed on to the Flying Fish’s bow, shaking her from stem to stern like a terrier shakes a rat.
“We’ve got to do something quick, or we’ll be swamped!” roared Merritt.
“The cockpit cover, quick!” shouted Tubby, steadying himself in the bucking craft by a tight grasp on the bulwarks.
“That’s it. Now the oars. Hurry up. Here, you Hiram, grab that can and bail for all you’re worth!”
The fat youth seemed transformed by the sudden emergency into the most active of beings.
“What are you going to do?” yelled Merritt, framing his mouth with his hands.
“Make a spray hood. Come forward here and give me a hand.”
With the oars the two boys made a sort of arched framework, secured with ropes, and over it spread the canvas cockpit cover, lashing it down to the forward and side cleats. This work was not unattended with danger and difficulty. Time and again as they worked the boys had to lie flat on their stomachs and hang on while the Flying Fish leaped a wave like a horse taking a barrier. At last, however, their task was completed, and the improvised spray hood served to some extent to break the waves that now threatened momentarily to engulf the laboring craft.
“Now to get out a sea anchor!” shouted the indefatigable Tubby.
He seized up an old bait tub, a boat hook and a “swabbing-out” broom, and lashed them all together in a sort of bridle. Then he attached the Flying Fish’s mooring cable to the contrivance and paid it out for a hundred feet or more, while the storm-battered craft drifted steadily backward. Instead, however, of lying beam on to the big sea, she now headed up into them, the “drag,” as it is sometimes called, serving to keep her bow swung up to the threatening combers.
“There, she’ll ride for a while, anyhow,” breathed Tubby, when this was done.
“What’s to be done now?” shouted Merritt in his car.
“Nothing,” was the response; “we’ve got to lie here till this thing blows over.”
“It’s breaking a little to the south now,” exclaimed Merritt, pointing to where a rift began to appear in the solid cloud curtain.
This was cheering news, and even the seasick but plucky Hiram, who had been bailing for all he was worth, despite his misery, began to cheer up.
“Hurrah! I guess the worst of our troubles are over,” cried Tubby. “It certainly looks as if the sea was beginning to go down, and the wind has dropped, I’m sure.”
That this was the case became apparent shortly. There was a noticeable decrease in the size and height of the waves and the wind abated in proportion. In half an hour after the rift had been first noticed by Merritt, the black squall had passed, and the late afternoon sun began to shine in a pallid way through the driving cloud masses.
The lads, however, were still in a serious fix. They had been driven so far out to sea that the land was blotted out altogether. All about them was only the still heaving Atlantic. The sun, too, was westering fast, and it would not be long before darkness fell.
Without gasoline and with no sail, they had no means of making land. Worse still, they were in the track of the in and out-bound steamers to and from New York–according to Tubby’s reckoning–and they had no lights.
“Well, we seem to have got out of the frying pan into the fire,” said Merritt in a troubled voice. “It’s the last time I’ll ever come out without lights and a mast and sail.”
“That’s what they all say,” observed Tubby grimly. “The thing to do now is to get back to shore somehow. Maybe we can rig up a sail with the cockpit cover and the oars. We’ve got to try it, anyhow.”
After hauling in the sea anchor, the lads set to work to rig up and lash the oars into an A shape. The canvas was lashed to each of the arms of the A, and the contrivance then set up and secured to the fore and aft cleats by the mooring line they had utilized for the sea anchor.
“Well,” remarked Tubby, as he surveyed his handiwork with some satisfaction and pride, “we can go before the wind now, anyhow–even if we do look like a lost, strayed or stolen Chinese junk.”
“Say, I’m so hungry I could eat one of those fish raw!” exclaimed Hiram, now quite recovered, as the Flying Fish, under her clumsy sail, began to stagger along in the direction in which Tubby believed the land lay, the wind fortunately being dead aft.
“Great Scott, the kid’s right!” exclaimed Merritt. “We forgot all about eating in the gloom but now I believe I could almost follow Hiram’s lead and eat some of those fellows as they are.”
“Well, that’s about all you’ll get to eat for a long time,” remarked Tubby, grimly casting an anxious eye aloft at the filling “sail.”
CHAPTER XVII
ALMOST RUN DOWN
It grew dark rapidly and the night fell on three lonely, wet, hungry boys, rolling along in a disabled boat under what was surely one of the queerest rigs ever devised. It answered its purpose, though, and under her “jury mast” the Flying Fish actually made some headway through the water.
None of the boys said much, and Tubby, under the cover of the darkness, tightened his capacious belt. It spoke volumes for his Boy Scout training that, though he probably felt the pangs of hunger as much or even more keenly than the others, he made no complaint. Hiram, the second-class scout, complained a bit at first, but soon quieted down under Merritt’s stern looks; as for the latter, as corporal of the Eagle Patrol, it was his duty to try to keep as cheerful as possible; which, under the circumstances, was about as hard a task as could well be imagined.
The eyes of all three were kept strained ahead for some sign of a light, for they had been so tossed about in the squall that all sense of direction had been lost, and they had no compass aboard, which in itself was a piece of carelessness.
Suddenly, after about an hour of “going it blind” in this fashion, young Hiram gave a shout.
“A light, a light!”
“Where?” demanded Tubby and Merritt sharply.
“Off there,” cried the lad, pointing to the left, over the port side of the boat.
Both the elder lads gazed sharply.
“That’s not the direction in which land would lie,” mused Tubby.
“The light’s pretty high up, too, isn’t it?” suggested Merritt. “It might be a lighthouse. We may have been blown farther than we thought.”
Tubby offered no opinion for a few seconds, but his ordinarily round and smiling face grew grave. A sudden apprehension had flashed into his mind.
“Tell me, Merritt,” he said, “can you see any other lights?”
“No,” replied Merritt, after peering with half closed eyes at the white light.
“I can,” suddenly shouted young Hiram.
“You can?”
“Yes; some distance below the white light I can see a green one to the right and a red one on the left.”
“Shades of Father Neptune!” groaned Tubby. “It’s just as I thought, Merritt–that light yonder is a steamer’s mast lantern, and the fact that Hiram can see both her port and starboard lamps beneath shows that she’s coming right for us.”
This was alarming enough. Without lanterns, without the means of making any noise sufficiently loud to attract the attention of those on the approaching vessel, the occupants of the Plying Fish were in about as serious a predicament as one could imagine. To make matters worse, the wind began to drop and come in puffs which only urged the Flying Fish ahead slowly. Tubby made a rapid mental calculation, and decided that hardly anything short of a miracle could save them from being run down, unless the steamer saw them and changed her course.
“Can’t we shout and make them hear us?” asked Hiram in an alarmed voice. He saw from the troubled faces of both the elder lads that something serious indeed was the matter.
“We might try it,” responded Tubby, with a bitter shrug. “But it’s about as much use as a mouth organ in a symphony orchestra would be. Better get on the life belts.”
With hands that trembled with the sense of impending disaster, the three boys strapped on the cork jackets.
“Now all shout together,” said Merritt, when this was done.
Standing erect, the three young castaways placed their hands funnel-wise to their mouths and roared out together:
“Ship ahoy! St-eam-er a-hoy!”
They were alarmed and not ashamed to admit it.
“No good,” said Tubby, after they had roared themselves hoarse. “When she strikes us, jump over the starboard bow and dive as deep as you can. If you don’t, the propellers are liable to catch us.”
It was a grim prospect, and no wonder the boys grew white and their faces strained as the impending peril bore down on them.
They could now see that she was a large vessel–a liner, to judge from the rows of lighted portholes on her steep black sides. Her bow lights gleamed like the eye of some monster intent on devouring the Flying Fish and her occupants. On and on she came. The air trembled with the vibration of her mighty engines, and a great white “‘bone” foamed up at her sharp prow.
Not one of the boys spoke as the vessel came nearer and nearer, although it speedily grew evident that unless a wind sprang up or the lookout saw them, it was inevitable that they would be cut in two amidships.
“Remember what I said,” warned Tubby, in a strange, strained voice. “Dive deep and stay tinder as long as you can.”
And now the great vessel seemed scarcely more than two or three boat lengths from the tiny cockleshell on which she was bearing down. As a matter of fact, though, her towering bulk made her appear much nearer than she actually was.
“Can’t we do anything, Merritt?” gasped Hiram, with chattering teeth. “We might try shouting once more,” suggested Tubby in a voice that quivered in spite of his efforts to keep it steady.
“All together now–come on!”
“Ship ahoy! You’ll run us down! St-eam-er a-hoy!”
Suddenly there were signs of confusion on the bow of the big vessel. Men could be seen running about and waving their arms.
“By hookey, they’ve seen us!” breathed Merritt, hardly daring to believe it, however.
The others were speechless with suspense.
Suddenly from the bow of the oncoming steamer a great fan-shaped ray of dazzling light shot out and enveloped the boys and their boat in its bewildering radiance.
“Hard over, hard over!” the boys could hear the lookout roaring, and the command rang hoarsely back along the decks to the wheelhouse.
Slowly, very slowly, as if reluctant to give up her prey, the bow of the mighty liner swung off, and the boys were safe.
“Look out for the wash,” warned Merritt, as the great black bulk, pierced with hundreds of glowing portholes, ploughed regally by them, her deck crowded with curious passengers. A voice shouted down from the bridge:
“What in blazing sea serpents are you doing out here in that marine oil stove?”
The boys made no attempt to reply. They had all they could do to hang on, as the Flying Fish danced about like a drifting cork in the wash of the great vessel. They could see, however, that several of her passengers were clustered at her stern rail, gazing wonderingly down at them in great perplexity, no doubt, as to what manner of craft it was that they had so narrowly escaped sending to the bottom. For had the vessel even grazed the Flying Fish, the small boat would have been annihilated without those on board the liner even feeling a tremor. It would have been just such a tragedy as happens frequently to the fishing dories on the foggy Newfoundland banks.
“Wh-ew!” gasped Merritt, sinking down on a locker. “That was a narrow escape if you like it!”
“I don’t like it,” remarked Tubby sententiously, mopping his forehead, on which beads of cold perspiration had stood out while their destruction had seemed inevitable. So thoroughly unnerved were the lads, in fact, by their experience that it was some time before they could do anything more than sit limply on the lockers while the Flying Fish rolled aimlessly with an uncontrolled helm.
“Come on,” said Tubby at length; “we’ve got to rouse ourselves. In the first place, I’ve got an idea,” he went on briskly. “I’ve been thinking over that gasoline stoppage, and the more I think of it the more I am inclined to believe that there’s something queer about it. It’s worth looking into, anyhow.”
“You mean you think there may be some fuel in the tank, after all?” asked Merritt, looking up.
“It’s possible. Have you tried the little valve forward of the carburetor?”
“Why, no,” rejoined Merritt; “but I hardly think–“
“It wouldn’t be the first time a carburetor had fouled, particularly after what we went through in that squall,” remarked Tubby. “It’s worth trying, anyhow.”
He bent over the valve he had referred to, which was in the gasoline feed pipe, just forward of the carburetor, and placed there primarily for draining the tank when it was necessary.
“Look here!” he yelled, with a sudden shout of excitement. “No,” he cried the next moment, “I don’t want to waste it–but when I opened the valve a stream of gasoline came out. There’s plenty of it. That stoppage is in the carburetor. Oh, what a bunch of idiots we’ve been!”
“Better sound the tank,” suggested Merritt; “what came out of the valve might just be an accumulation in the pipe.”
“Not much,” rejoined the other, “it came out with too much force for that, I tell you. It was flowing from the tank, all right.”
“We’ll soon find out,” proclaimed Merritt. “Give me the sounding stick out of that locker, Hiram.”
Armed with the stick, Merritt rapidly unscrewed the cap of the fuel tank and plunged the sounder into it.
“There’s quite a lot of gasoline in there yet,” he exclaimed, with sparkling eyes, as he withdrew and felt the wet end of the instrument.
The carburetor was rapidly adjusted. The rough tossing about the Flying Fish had received had jammed the needle valve, but that was all. Presently all was in readiness to get under way once more with the little boat’s proper motive power. The “jury rig” was speedily dismantled Merritt swung the flywheel over two or three times, and a welcome “chug, chug!” responded.
“Hurray! she’s working,” cried Hiram.
“As well as ever,” responded Merritt. “Now for the shore. By the way,” he broke off in a dismayed tone, “where is the shore?”
“I know now,” rejoined Tubby in a confident tone. “Off there to the right. You see, that steamer was hugging the coast preparatory to heading seaward–at least, I’m pretty sure she was, and that would put the shore on her port side, or on our starboard.”
They chugged off in the direction Tubby indicated, and before long a joyful cry from Hiram announced the sudden appearance of lights.
“What are they?” asked Merritt.
“Don’t know–they look like bonfires,” rejoined the other lad. “I wonder if we have been lucky enough to pick up Topsail Island?”
As they drew nearer the lads soon saw that it was the island that they were approaching, and that the lights they had seen were campfires ignited by order of the anxious young Patrol leader to guide them back.
In a short time they had anchored the Flying Fish opposite the camp, and jumped into the dinghy left at her moorings when they embarked.
“A fine scare you’ve given us,” cried Rob, as they landed and flung down their afternoon’s catch. “We were afraid for a time that you were lost in that black squall–it blew two of our, tents down, and we were mighty anxious about you, I can tell you.”
“You did not alarm our folks?” asked Hiram anxiously.
“No, I thought that it would be best to wait. Somehow, I thought you’d turn up safe. Where on earth have you been and what has happened? You look as pale as three ghosts.”
“Towed to sea by a shark–caught in a squall–almost run down by a liner–and so hungry we can’t talk now,” sputtered out Tubby comprehensively.
“All right; come on up to the fire and get dried out and pitch into the grub.”
After such a meal as it may be imagined the young scouts indulged in, they told their whole yarn of their adventures to the listening Patrol. A short time after they concluded–so long had it taken to relate everything and answer all questions–the mournful call of “Taps” sounded and it was time to turn in. Little Digby alone, who was to do sentry service, remained on duty.
Merritt’s dreams were a strange jumble. It seemed to him that he was being towed to sea on the back of a huge shark, by a big liner with a row of blazing portholes that winked at him like facetious eyes. Suddenly, just as it seem he was about to slip off the marine monster’s slippery back, he thought he heard a loud cry of “Help, scouts!”
So vivid was the dream and so real the cry that he awoke trembling, and listened intently while peering out through the tent flap.
There was no sound, however, but the ripple of the waves on the beach and the “hoot hoot” of an owl somewhere back in the woods on the island.
“Funny,” mused the boy, as he turned over and dozed off again, “that certainly sounded loud enough to have been a real, sure enough call for help.”
CHAPTER XVIII
JOE DIGBY MISSING
“Merritt! Merritt, wake up!”
The boy sleepily opened his eyes and saw bending over him the pale features of Rob, whose voice quivered with suppressed excitement as he shook the other’s shoulder.
“I didn’t hear reveille blow yet. What’s up? Have I overslept?” murmured the young corporal.
“No, it’s not six-thirty yet–barely after half past four, in fact. But young Digby–he had the night watch, you know–and was to have been relieved at three o’clock. Well, Ernest Thompson, his relief, roused out at that hour, but not a trace of Digby was to be found!”
“What!” The sleepy boy was drowsy no longer. “Digby gone?”
“Hush! We don’t know yet. Don’t wake any of the others. Thompson and I have skirmished around ever since it began to get light, and we have not been able to find a trace of him.”
Merritt was out of his cot while his leader was still speaking, and ten minutes later, during which time the boys exchanged excited questions and answers, he was in his uniform and outside the tent.
The sun was just poking his rim above the western horizon and the chilly damp of early dawn lay over the island. The sea, as calm almost as a lake, lay sullen and gray, scarcely heaving. Behind the sleeping camp a few shreds of mist–the ghosts of the vapors of the night were arising like smoke among the dim trees. At the further end of the assemblage of tents, and beyond the smoldering fire, stood a silent figure, that of Ernest Thompson.
“Have you explored the island thoroughly?” asked Merritt under his breath. Somehow the dim hour and the situation seemed to preclude the idea of loud talking.
“Of course not. Not yet,” breathed the other in the same tones. “We will break the news to the rest of the Patrol after breakfast. It’s no use alarming them yet.”
“It isn’t possible that he went off on an early fishing expedition?”
For answer, Rob waved his hand toward the water, where the Flying Fish lay rocking gently at her anchor. Ashore the dingy lay as Merritt and his companions had left it the night before.
“But what can have happened to him?” burst out Merritt, as they made their way over to Ernest Thompson’s side.
“I cannot think. It is absolutely mystifying. I am going to start for the captain’s place now. He may be able to throw some light on the affair.”
Merritt shook his head.
“Hardly likely. If there is no trace of Joe Digby on this side of the island, it is improbable that Captain Hudgins knows anything about him.”
“Well,” rejoined Rob in a troubled voice, “we’ve got to try everything. I am responsible for his safe keeping while he is in camp. I blame myself for allowing the kid to go on sentry duty at all.”
“No use doing that,” comforted Merritt; “there’s one thing sure, he can’t have melted away. He must be somewhere on the island. There are no wild beasts or anything like that here to carry him off, so if we keep up the search we must come upon him sooner or later.”
“That’s what makes the whole affair the more mystifying,” rejoined Rob. “What can have become of him?”
“Well, if he’s on the island, we’ll find him,” he continued; “and if he isn’t–“
“We’ll find him anyway,” declared Merritt in a determined voice.
“That’s the stuff!” warmly exclaimed the other. “And now I’m going to take a cruise round to the other side of the island, and see if I can find out anything there.”
A few seconds later he was in the dinghy and sculling out over the water to the speedy Flying Fish. In a short time he was off.
As the “chug chug” of the motor grew fainter, Merritt turned to young Thompson.
“Don’t breathe a word of this to the others till we know for certain that Digby has vanished,” he said.
The other boy nodded.
“I understand,” he said, and the look with which he accompanied the words rendered Merritt perfectly confident that he would be obeyed.
“And now let’s rouse out Andy Bowles and get him busy with that tin horn of his,” cheerfully went on Merritt, walking toward Andy’s tent.
That youth was much surprised to find that it was morning, but tumbled out of his cot in double-quick time, and soon the cheerful notes of reveille were ringing out over the camp, on which the sun’s rays were now streaming down in that luminary’s cheerful morning way.
The soldier who immortalized himself by sing the words: “We can’t get ’em up, We can’t get ’em up, We can’t get ’em up in the morning–, We can’t get ’em up, We can’t get ’em up, We can’t get’em up at a-a-l-l-l!” to the stirring notes of the army’s morning call had never been in a camp of Boy Scouts. If he had he wouldn’t have written them, for before the last notes had died away the camp was alive and astir, with hurrying lads filling tin washbasins and cleaning up.
The cook and “cookee” for the day–Jim Jeffords and Martin Green–soon had their cooking fire going, and presently the appetizing aroma of coffee and fried ham and eggs filled the camp.
“Give the breakfast call, Andy,” ordered Merritt, as the proud if flush-faced cooks announced their labors complete, and with a clatter and bang of tin dishes and cups the Boy Scouts sat down to breakfast.
“Where’s Rob and Digby?” demanded Andy Bowles, as be dug his spoon into an island of oatmeal completely surrounded by an ocean of condensed milk thinned down with warm water.
The moment that Merritt had dreaded had arrived.
“Why, he and Rob went off early to see the captain,” he said. “I guess they’ll be back soon.”
“Pretty early for paying social calls,” commented Andy, too busy with his breakfast, however, to give the matter more attention, for which Merritt was duly thankful.
After breakfast Merritt ordered a general airing of bedding, and the side walls of the tents were raised to let the fresh air blow through them. Still there was no sign of Rob. Merritt grew so anxious that he could hardly keep from pacing up and down to conceal his nervous state of mind. However, he stuck to his duties and oversaw the first routine of the morning without betraying his anxiety to any of the lads under his charge. At last there came the awaited chug chug of the returning boat, for which he had been so eagerly listening, and Rob appeared rounding the little point below the camp. In the craft was another figure, that of the captain himself.
Merritt’s first hope when he saw the two persons in the boat–namely, that one of them might be the missing boy–was promptly dashed, and he instinctively guessed by Rob’s silence as he dropped the anchor and he and the captain tumbled into the dinghy that there had been no news.
“No,” said Rob, shaking his head dejectedly as they reached the shore, “there isn’t anything to tell. The captain is as much in the dark as we.”
“Well, you’d better have some breakfast,” said Merritt, after he and the captain had exchanged greetings, “then we can go ahead and notify the others and institute a thorough search.”
“That’s the stuff, my boy,” agreed the veteran. “Overhaul ship from bilge ter royals, and if not found, then take a cruise in search uv.”
Rob ate his meal with small appetite, but the captain, urging on his young companion the necessity of “filling his hold,” devoured prodigious quantities of food, and then, arising, suggested that the time had come to “pipe all hands aft and read orders.”
The boys had been so busy about their morning tasks that fortunately none of them, except Tubby, whom Merritt had told of the disappearance, had found time to notice Rob’s return or ask questions; so that when he announced to them that Joe Digby was missing it came as a stunning shock.
“Now, boys,” said Rob, after he had communicated the full details, so far as he knew them, of the circumstances of the disappearance, “there is only one thing to do, and that is turn this island inside out. It won’t take long, but I want it done thoroughly. Don’t leave a stone unturned. If after a painstaking search we find nothing on the island, we’ll know we have to look elsewhere. You are all fairly good woodsmen by this time, and can trail by signs as effectively as first-class scouts. Use your eyes, and good luck.”
Merritt at once assigned searching parties, he and Rob and Tubby taking the center of the island and the others being detailed to search along the shores in two separate squads for any trace of their missing comrade.
“Call me a lubber if this ain’t the most mystifyin’ thing I’ve run my bow into since the Two Janes, uv Boston, brig, lost her bearings in a fog and fetched up off Iceland,” declared the captain, who had elected to accompany the three leaders of the Patrol. “But drown or swim, sail or sink, we’ll find that kid if he’s on deck.”
The searching parties construed this speech as a sort of valedictory to them as, indeed, the captain intended it–and greeted it with a cheer.
“The first scout that finds a trace of Joe is to light the four ‘smokes’, meaning come to council,” was Rob’s last order. “Light them on as prominent a place as you can find and we will all meet in camp to hear the news.”
The searching parties at once separated, one striking off to the right, the other to the left and the three young leaders and their grizzled friend making a dead set for the center of the island.
If Joe Digby was to be found, the look of determination on the face of each scout showed that it would not be the fault of his young comrades if he were not.
CHAPTER XIX
SAM REBELS
In the meantime on a small island in the Upper Inlet a strange conference was taking place. Three youths whom our readers will recognize as Jack Curtiss, Bill Bender and Sam Redding; were in earnest consultation with the unkempt and unsavory individual whom we know as Hank Handcraft, the beach-comber.
“Well, the job’s put through, all right,” Hank was saying, as the three sat outside a small tent in front of which was a smoldering fire, about which the remnants of a meal were scattered.
“Yes, but now we’ve got to tackle the hardest part of it,” said Jack, knitting his brows. “I’ve got the letter written and here it is.” As he spoke he drew from his pocket a sheet of paper. “The question is who to send for the money when the time comes.”
“Oh, Hank is the man,” said Ben, without an instant’s hesitation. “We must not appear in this at all.”
“Oh, I am the man, am?” put in Hank, with no very gratified inflexion in his voice; “and what if I am caught? I’m to go to prison, I suppose, while you fellows get off scot-free.”
“As for me,” said Sam Redding, who was pale and looked scared, and whose eyes, too, were red-rimmed and heavy as if from lack of sleep, “you can count me out. I want nothing to do with it. You’ve gone too far, Jack, in your schemes against the boys. I’m through with the whole thing.”
“Well, if you’re that chicken-hearted, we don’t want you in it at all,” sneered Jack, although he looked somewhat troubled at his follower’s defection. “All we want you to promise is not to split on us.”
“Oh, I won’t peach,” promised Sam readily.
“It will be better for you not to,” warned Bill Bender; “and now let’s figure this thing out, and quickly, too. We haven’t got any too much time. They’ll have discovered the kid has gone by this time and the alarm will be spread broadcast.”
“I thought, when he yelled like that last night, we were goners sure,” remarked Jack, scowling at the recollection. “It’s a good thing those kids sleep as hard as they do, or we’d have been in a tight fix.”
“Oh, well, no good going back to that now,” dissented Bill. “How was the young cub when you left him, Hank?” he asked abruptly.
“Oh, he’d got through crying, and was lying nice and quiet on his bunk,” remarked Hank, with an amiable chuckle, as though he had just performed some praiseworthy act, instead of having left little Joe Digby locked in a deserted bungalow on an island some little distance from the one on which the conversation related above was taking place.
“Well, that’s good,” said Bill; “although crying, or yelling, either, won’t do him much good on that island. He could yell for a week and no one would hear him.”
“No; the water’s too shallow for any motor boats to get up there,” agreed Hank. “I had a hard job getting through the channel in the rowboat, even at high water.”
“Is the house good and tight?” was Jack’s next question.
“Tight–tight as the Tombs,” was Hank’s answer, the simile being an apt one for him to use. “The door has that big bolt on the outside that I put on, besides the lock, of which I carried away the key, and the shutters are all nailed up. No danger of his getting away till we want him to!”
“Couldn’t be better,” grinned Jack approvingly. “Now, here’s the letter. Tell me what you think of it?”
Opening the sheet of paper, the bully read aloud as follows:
“MR. AND MRS. DIGBY:
“Your son is safe and in good hands. I alone know where the men who stole him have taken him. But I am a poor man, and think that the information should be worth something to you. Suppose you place two hundred dollars under the signpost at the Montauk crossroads to-night. I will call and get it if you will mark the spot at which you place it with a rock. Look under the same rock in the morning and you will find directions how to get your boy back.
CAPTAIN NEMO.”
“What do you think of that?” inquired Jack complacently, as he concluded the reading of his epistle.
“A bee-yoo-tiful piece of composition,” said Hank approvingly, with one of his throaty chuckles; “the only thing is–who is Captain Nemo?”
“Why, so far as delivering the letter and getting the, money is concerned, you are,” said Jack decisively. “Eh, Bill?”
“Oh, by all means,” assented Bill.
Sam was not included in the conversation, and gazed sullenly straight in front of him as he lay where he had thrown himself on the fine white sand.
“Oh, by no means,” echoed Hank derisively. “Say, what do you fellows take me for, the late lamented Mr. Easy Mark? If you do you have another think coming.”
“Now look here, Hank,” argued Jack, “what’s the objection? All you’ve got to do is to take this note ashore, give it to some boy to deliver, and then go to the crossroads at whatever time to-night you see fit and get the money.”
“Of course,” Bill hastened to put in, “you’ve got to bring it to us for proper division.”
“Oh, I have, have I?” chuckled Hank. “Well, what do you think of that? I’m to do all the work and you fellows are to get the bacon! That’s a fine idea–not! Four into two hundred doesn’t go very many times, you know.”
“Not four,” corrected Jack, “three. Sam is out of this. He’s too much of a coward to have anything to do with it,” he added, mimicking Sam’s tone.
The boat-builder’s son reddened, but said nothing in reply to the bully’s taunt.
“Well, three, then,” went on Hank; “that’s not percentage enough for me. If I’m to have anything to do with this here job, I want half the money. You fellows can split the rest between you!”
Jack and Bill exchanged blank looks.
“Now, look here, Hank, be reasonable,” began Jack in a tone meant to be conciliatory.
“Now, look here, Jack, be sensible,” echoed Hank mockingly. “You seem to forget that you owe me something for the job we did on those uniforms the other night, and that other little errand you performed on the island. You’ve got a very convenient memory, you have. Why, I daresay those kids would have given me a nice little wad of tobacco money to have told just who took their Sunday-go-to-meetin’ suits, but did I peach? No, you know I didn’t; but,” he added, with rising emphasis, “if I don’t get what’s coming to me pretty soon, I will.”
“Well, you idiot,” began Jack truculently; “haven’t you got your chance now?”
“If I choose to take it–yes,” was the rejoinder; “but I don’t know as I will. It seems to me I hold all the trumps and you are at my mercy.”
“Why, you insolent dog!” bellowed Jack, rising to his feet from the position in which he had been squatting. “For two cents I’d knock your bewhiskered head off!”
He advanced threateningly, but Bill, seeing the turn matters were taking, and realizing that more was to be gained by peaceful methods, intervened.
“Now, Jack, shut up. Stow that nonsense,” he ordered sharply. “Look here, Hank, we’ll accept your terms. Half to you if you carry it out successfully.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then we’ll all have to shift for ourselves. This part of the country will be too hot to hold us. I mean to go out West. I’ve got a cousin who has a ranch, and I think I could get along all right there if the worst comes to the worst.”
“See here, I don’t agree with your way of dividing the money,” began Jack, an angry light in his eyes. “Look–“
“Look here, Jack,” cut in Bill sharply, “if you don’t like it, it doesn’t do you any good. If you object to it, keep out. Hank and I form a majority. You chump” he added, quickly, under his breath, as Hank turned away and began to “skip” flat stones over the water, “don’t you see he takes all the responsibility? It’s a cinch for us to get away if anything goes wrong.”
“Yes, it’s a cinch we get cheated out of our share of the money,” argued Jack, with an angry glare in the direction of the unconscious Hank.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” argued Bill. “You know, as well as I do, that if we are implicated in this affair it means serious trouble. Our parents wouldn’t stand for it, and we should be disgraced. By doing it this way we get some of the proceeds–I admit not our fair share but what’s to be done?”
“Well, I guess you are right, Bill,” assented Jack, with a shrug. “It’s go ahead now; we’ve gone too far to draw back.”
“That’s the line of talk,” grinned Bill, “and when we’ve each got fifty dollars in our pockets, silenced Hank with a golden gag and had our revenge on those kids, we’ll be able to talk over future plans. I’m sick of school. I hate the idea of going back there. I’ve half a mind to strike out for the West anyway.”
“Do you think I could get a job on your cousin’s ranch?” asked Jack.
“I don’t doubt it a bit,” rejoined Bill. “You’re a good, husky chap, and brawn and muscle is what they need in the West.”
“Yes, I’m husky, all right,” conceded Jack modestly. “Sometimes I think that I don’t get full opportunities to expand here in this wretched country hole.”
“No, the West is the place,” agreed Bill, with an inward smile, “as the newspapers say–one can expand with the country out there.”
Their conversation was broken in upon by Sam, who demanded in no very gentle tones:
“Well, who’s going ashore? I’m off.”
“No hurry, Sam,” said Jack in a more amiable tone than he had yet used that morning. “Let’s sit around here a while and enjoy the sun–we might take a swim after a while.”
“If you don’t come now you’ll have to swim ashore,” grunted Sam, arising and brushing the sand from himself. “I’m going back to Hampton. I’m tired of camping out here.”
He walked toward the beach and prepared to shove off the dinghy, preparatory to sculling out to the hydroplane, which lay a few rods off shore in the channel.
“Hold on, Sam,” cried Bill; “we’re coming. Don’t go away sore.”
“I’m not sore,” rejoined Sam, in a tone which belied his words, “but I don’t think you fellows are doing the right thing when you maroon a kid like Joe Digby on a lone island, in a deserted bungalow in which you’d be scared to stop yourselves.”
“Why, what’s got into you, Sam?” protested Jack. “It’s more a lark than anything else.”
“Fine lark,” grunted Sam, “scaring a kid half to death and then writing notes for money. It’s dangerously near to kidnapping– that’s what I call it, and I’m glad I’m not in it.”
Both the others looked rather uncomfortable at this presentation of the matter, but Jack affected to laugh it off.
“Pshaw!” he exclaimed, “it’s a little bit rough, I know, but such things do a kid good. Teach him to be self-reliant and–and all that.”
“Sure,” agreed Bill, “you don’t look at these things in the right light, Sam–does he, Hank?”
Hank, who had shuffled toward the dinghy at the conclusion of these edifying remarks, agreed with a chuckle that Sam had no sense of humor, after which they all got into the dinghy and we sculled off to the unlucky hydroplane.
It didn’t take long to get under way, and the little craft was soon scudding through the water at a good pace, towing the dinghy behind her.
“Better put us ashore before we get into Hampton,” suggested Bill. “We don’t want to be seen about there more than can be helped.”
“That’s where you are wrong,” objected Jack. “We’ll put Hank ashore up the coast, but the more we are seen about the place the better. It won’t look as if we had anything to do with the Digby kid–in case things do go wrong.”
So it was agreed that Hank was to be landed in a small cove a few miles farther down the coast, from which it was a short cut across country to the neighborhood of the Digby farm.
Then he was to waylay the first likely-looking messenger and entrust the note which Jack had read to him for delivery. After that he was to spend the time as best he could in suitable seclusion, and after dark conceal himself near the sign-post. He was not to make any attempt to secure the money if any one hovered about the place, but if the coast was clear he was to go boldly in and take it.
Hank was landed at the spot agreed upon, a short time later, and the other three then resumed their journey for the hydroplane’s home port. As they turned seaward Jack pointed mockingly to Topsail Island, which lay a short distance on their port bow.
“I’ll bet there’s plenty going on there right now,” he grinned.
“Right you are,” assented Bill.
“Hullo,” he added hastily the next moment; “what’s that?”
He pointed toward the island, and the occupants of the homing hydroplane saw, slowly rising from it in the still air, four straight columns of blue smoke.
“Looks like a signal of some kind,” suggested Jack after a scrutiny.
“It’s coming from about the place where we grabbed the kid,” added Bill, a note of apprehension in his voice.
“I wonder what it signifies?” demanded Jack, whose face began to bear a somewhat troubled look.
“I can tell you,” said Sam shortly, turning round from the wheel.
“You can?”
“Yes.”
“Well, hurry up, then–what does it mean?” Jack spoke sharply at Sam’s deliberation.
“It means,” said Sam slowly, as if he wanted every word to sink in, “that the Boy Scouts have picked up your trail.”
CHAPTER XX
THE HUNT FOR TENDERFOOT JOE
Rob, Merritt, Tubby Hopkins and Captain Hudgins rested, perspiring under the noon-day heat, on a group of flat rocks at the highest point of the island. Their search had been fruitless, and their downcast faces showed it.
“How ever are we going to break the news to his parents?”
Merritt it was who voiced the question that had been troubling all of them.
Before any one had time to frame a reply the captain, whose keen eyes had been gazing about him, gave a sudden shout:
“There’s that smoke yonder yer boys were lookin’ fer,” he exclaimed, pointing.
“Four columns of it,” shouted Rob, “hurray, boys, that means news! It’s ‘Come to counsel.’ Come on, don’t let’s lose any time in getting back.”
Rapidly the boys stumbled and ran forward over the rocks and pushed on among the dense growth that covered the hillside they had climbed. They hardly noticed the obstacles, however, so keenly were they bent on getting back to camp and learning the news which they knew must be awaiting them. They covered the distance in half the time it had taken them to ascend the hillside and were met in the camp by the body of searchers–Andy Bowles, Sim Jeffords and Ernest Thompson–who had swung off to the left or mainland side of the island.
“Well, boys, what news?” breathlessly exclaimed Rob, “we saw the counsel smoke and hurried down at top speed.”
“Well, there’s not very much, I’m afraid, Rob,” began Andy, “but we found something that may give us a clue. About half a mile down the beach there’s the distinct mark of a boat keel where it was drawn up on the hard sand and the marks of three separate pairs of feet.”
“Good,” exclaimed Rob, “that’s something and half confirms my suspicion. Go on, Andy, what else?”
“Well, we examined the marks carefully and found that two pairs of feet wore good shoes and the third a very broken, disreputable pair.”
“Yes,” exclaimed Rob, while the others listened breathlessly.
“Of course that indicated to us that three persons must have carried Joe off–for I don’t think there’s much doubt now that he was carried off, do you?”
“I don’t,” said Rob sadly, “but for what possible motive?”
“I have it,” suddenly exclaimed Tubby Hopkins, snapping his fingers, “you remember the day of the aeroplane model contest?”
“Yes, but what–” began Rob.
“Has that to do with it,” finished Tubby for him. “Everything. It was Joe who first told the committee that Jack’s model was a bought one and so lost him the fifty-dollar prize.”
“By cracky, that’s right!” assented Rob, “and you think that Jack and his gang have carried him off in revenge for it?”
“Looks that way to me,” nodded the stout youth.
“Why, they wouldn’t dare,” began Andy Bowles.
“Oh, yes, they would,” amended Rob bitterly, “they’d dare anything to get even on us for their fancied wrongs. But whose could have been the broken ragged shoes?” he asked, suddenly taking up another train of thought.
“Hank Handcrafts, the beach-comber’s,” suggested Tubby.
“Gee Whillikens! I’ll bet a cracker that’s the solution,” cried Andy, “and now I come to think of it I heard, before we left, that Jack and his gang had gone camping.”
“Where?”
“Up around the Upper Inlet somewhere. You know that’s full of islands and as there’s no drinking water there few people ever think of frequenting the place. If they wanted to do anything like carrying off Joe that is where they would have been likely to go.”
“You may be right, Andy. It’s worth looking into, anyway,” declared Rob. “I’ll leave a note here for the others and we’ll take a run over there in the Flying Fish. If Joe is there we’ll get him out.”
“And in jig time, too,” chimed in Ernest Thompson.
“Come on, boys, get some gasoline, hop in the dinghy and let’s get aboard. We’ve got to move fast if we’re to accomplish anything. You get the boat, Andy, while I write a line to tell the others what we’ve gone after.”
The young leader hastily ran into his tent and sitting down at the table dashed off these lines:
“Boys, we think we have a clue to Joe’s whereabouts. Have gone after him. Keep camp in regular way while we are gone. Hiram Nelson is leader, and Paul Perkins corporal, in our absence.
“ROB BLAKE, Leader,
“Eagle Patrol, B. S. of A.”
With a piece of chalk the boy marked a rough square and an arrow on a tree–the arrow pointing to a spot in the sand in which he buried the letter.
“Now, then, come on,” he shouted, dashing toward the boat, “shove off, boys, and if Joe’s in the Upper Inlet we’ll find him.”
“Hurray,” cheered the others, much heartened by the prospect of any trace of the missing boy, however slight.
“Give way, boys,” bellowed the captain, who had insisted on coming along armed with a huge horse pistol of ancient pattern which he had strapped on himself in the morning when the news of Joe Digby’s disappearance reached him. “This reminds me uv the time when I was A. B. on the Bonnie Bess and we smoked out a fine mess of pirates in the Caribees.”
“Regular pirates?” inquired Andy as Rob and Merritt bent to the oars.
“Reg’lar piratical pirates, my boy,” responded the old salt, “we decorated the trees with ’em and they looked a lot handsomer there than they did a-sailin’ the blue main.”
Further reminiscences of the captain’s were cut short by their arrival at the Flying Fish’s side. They had hastily thrown two cases of gasoline into the dinghy before they shoved off so that all that remained to be done was to fill the fast craft’s tank and she was ready to be off.
“Hold on,” warned Rob, as Tubby Hopkins was about to secure the dinghy to the mooring buoy, “we’ll tow her along. We may need her. There’s lots of shoal water in that Upper Inlet.”
“Right yer are, my boy; there’s nothin’ like bein’ forehanded,” remarked the captain as Merritt bent over the flywheel and Rob threw in the spark and turned on the gasoline. After a few revolutions an explosion resulted and the Flying Fish was off on the mission which might mean so much or so little to the anxious hearts on board her.
“Do you know the channel,” asked Merritt as Rob with his eyes glued on the coast sent the Flying Fish through the waves, or rather wavelets, for the sea was almost like a sheet of glass.
“I’ve been up here once or twice after duck,” rejoined Rob, “but it’s a tricky sort of a place to get through. However, I guess we’ll make it.”
As they drew nearer the shores the boys made out an opening which Rob said was the Upper Inlet channel.
“Say, Tubby, get out the lead line and let’s see how much water we have,” directed Rob as the color of the ocean began to change from dark blue to a sort of greenish tinge, lightening in spots, where the shoals were near to the surface, to a sandy yellow.
The stout lad took a position in the bow and swinging the lead about his head cast it suddenly ahead of the Flying Fish’s bow.
“Slow down,” ordered Rob, and Merritt cut down the motor to not more than two hundred revolutions a minute.
The lead line, tagged with different colored bits of flannel at each fathom length, sang through the stout lad’s fingers.
“By-a-quarter-three,” he called out the next instant.
This meant that three fathoms and a quarter or eighteen feet three inches of water was under the keel of the little craft.
“Nough fer a man-uv-war,” grinned old Captain Hodgins.
Slowly the Flying Fish forged ahead till right under her bow lay a patch of the yellow water.
“By-a-half-two,” came a sharp hail from the fat youth, who had once more heaved the lead.
“Cut her down some more,” sharply ordered Rob, without turning his head, “we draw only three feet so I guess we’ll do nicely for a while.”
“Great hop-toads, there’s regular shark’s teeth ahead,” commented Captain Hudgins, pointing to the still shallower water indicated by the lightening tint of the channel.
“By-one-by-a-quarter-one!” came sharply from Tubby, as the Flying Fish seemed hardly to crawl along the water.
“By-a-half!” came an instant later, meaning that only three feet of water lay right ahead.
“Stop her,” roared out Rob.
But he was too late. Instantly, almost as Merritt’s hand had flown to the lever, the nose of the Flying Fish poked into the sandbank and her motor with a gentle sigh came to a stop.
“Hard a-ground!” roared the captain, “too bad and with a fallin’ tide, too.”
“Full speed astern,” came the next order.
The propeller churned up the water aft into a white turmoil. The Flying Fish trembled in her every timber, and began to slide slowly backward from the treacherous shoal.
“Safe, by the great horn spoon!” roared the captain, fetching Andy Bowles a slap on the back that almost toppled the small bugler into the water.
“For a time,” said Rob quietly, “come ahead a bit, Merritt.”
Slowly the little vessel slid ahead once more. Rob seemed fairly to feel his way through the narrow channel he had picked out and finally the Flying Fish, after as much coaxing as is usually bestowed on a balky horse, floated in the deep water beyond the sandy bar.
Eagerly the boys looked about them as they “opened up,” as sailors call it, the narrow stretch of water known as the Upper Inlet. It did not take them long to spy the island with the tent on it in which the conversation between Jack and his cronies, and the mutineer to his plans, had taken place.
“There’s their camp!” shouted Rob, eagerly sending the Flying Fish ahead at full speed, “now we’ll find out something.”
“And, maybe, use this.” The captain, as he spoke, grimly produced his formidable weapon and flourished it about.
“No, none of that,” sternly rejoined Rob, “the Boy Scouts can take care of those fellows–without using firearms.”
“You bet,” rejoined Merritt, grimly “musling up,” “we’ll show ’em if it comes to a fight.”
But bitter disappointment awaited the boys. As we know, the camp was deserted and no trace or clue of the whereabouts of its occupants was to be found. In the tent, however, lay a piece of blotting paper with ink-marks on it. It was the material with which Jack had dried his letter.
“Anybody got a mirror?” asked Rob. “This blotter may help some if we can read what’s on it.”
“I’ve got a pocket one,” said Andy Bowles, who was somewhat particular about his person and always carried a small toilet case.
“That will do; let’s have it.”
Rob seized the bit of looking glass and held the blotter to it.
“Just as I thought,” he exclaimed a minute later, with a cry of triumph. “It’s Jack Curtiss’ writing, though he has tried to disguise it, and they’ve got Joe hidden somewhere. Look here, they want $200 for his return.”
“Yes, but what good does it do us to know that,” objected Merritt, when the sensation this announcement caused had subsided. “They evidently had him here overnight and then deserted the camp for fear we’d pick up their trail. They’ve taken Joe with them.”
“By the great sea-serpent, that’s right,” grunted the captain, “it’s a blind trail, boys!”
CHAPTER XXI
SAVED BY “SMOKE MORSE”
Each member of the party regarded the other blankly.
The captain was right. The deserted camp was only a blind trail and they had all their work to do over again.
“The first people to communicate with are Joe’s parents,” mused Rob. “That note will be delivered very shortly, as the longer they delay the more dangerous it will be for them.”
“That’s right,” agreed Merritt, “Jack and his gang will not let the grass grow under their feet now that they know the chase must be on. What can they have done with Joe?”
Rob had been looking about him with the instinct of the Boy Scout. He was anxious to ascertain if there were not something tangible, some clue on which they could base a search for the missing member of the Patrol. Suddenly something remarkable struck him about the tracks that lay about the tent.
They were all four those, of persons of larger growth than Joe Digby and mingling with them unmistakably was the broken-shoed track of Hank, the beach-comber.
“Boys,” announced Rob suddenly, “Joe has not been here at all.”
“Not been here at all,” echoed Merritt, amazedly.
“I mean what I say. Look at these tracks. There is not a footmark here that could by any chance be his.”
The others scrutinized the maze of foot-prints with the same care as had Rob and were forced to come to the same conclusion. There was no question about it–they would have to seek elsewhere for a trace of the lad.
But where?
They gazed about them at the stretch of lone bay or inlet, the sparse scrub grass and vegetation fringing it on the shore side and wheeling sea-gulls swooping and soaring above the shoal waters.
Then Rob’s gaze rested carelessly on a closed and seemingly deserted bungalow, occupying the island above them. As his eyes fell on it they suddenly became riveted and then grew wide with surprise.
A stream of smoke was issuing from the fieldstone chimney roughly constructed at one end of the apparently deserted dwelling.
“There’s some one living in that bungalow,” he exclaimed, as he made the discovery, “maybe whoever it is can give us some clue to where Joe Digby is.”
They all gazed intently at the weather-beaten old house from which the paint was scaling, adding to the note of desertion sounded by its closed shutters and forlorn-looking yard.
As they looked, astonished at the idea that the barren structure should actually house a human being, a sudden thought struck Merritt.
“Suppose Jack Curtiss and his gang are there?” he said.
“Hardly likely,” rejoined Rob, “however, we’ll get over there and find out just who is making that smoke.”
Suddenly the old captain, who had been watching the smoke closely, gave an astonished snort.
“What’s the matter, captain?” asked Rob, who was about to walk to the water’s edge and get ready to shove off the dinghy.
“Why, there’s somethin’ queer about that thar smoke,” responded the old salt.
“Queer–how do you mean?”
“Well, watch it a minute–there–see! now stops–now it starts ag’in–then it stops–wha, do yer suppose is happenin’ to it?”
Rob knitted his brows and watched the phenomenon to which the captain had called attention with narrowed eyes.
There was no question about it the smoke was certainly behaving “queerly” as the captain put it.
The blue vapor emerged from the chimney now in a copious puff and then, for a space, would cease, only to roll forth once more in larger volume. The boys watched it in some astonishment.
“What can they be doing, do you suppose?” Merritt asked.
“I have no idea. It’s past me to say,” responded Rob, “it comes out in puffs like–like–by hookey! I’ve got it!” he broke off with a shout, “like the Morse code!”
“Somebody signaling?” stammered Merritt.
“That’s it–watch!”
The smoke, which had not been visible for some seconds, now emerged from the stone chimney once more and the boys, fascinated, watched it closely with burning eyes. There was no doubt whatever about it now. It was signaling.
Four short puffs.
“Four dots–that’s H,” exclaimed Rob, trembling with excitement.
The smoke ceased.
“Here comes some more,” shouted Merritt.
One short puff from the chimney.
“E, one dot, that’s E sure enough,” translated Rob.
The others stood like figures carved in stone as their leader read off the strange signals.
Puff! A longer period of smoking by the chimney–then two sharp puffs.
“That’s L,” interpreted the leader of the Eagles. Before they could say a word the chimney took up its message once more.
Puff–a long puff–another long one, and then a short one.
“Dot–dash–dash–dot,” exclaimed Rob.
“That’s the letter P,” put in Merritt.
“That’s right, old man,” shouted Rob, slapping him on the back, “and we’ve found Joe Digby. That smoke signal spelled Help in the Morse code.”
“You’re right,” shouted Merritt, “come on, Cap, come on, boys, we’ve got to get a move on and get it on quick!”
They dashed toward the dinghy and a few seconds later had once more embarked and were speeding toward the desolate and forsaken bungalow. Somehow they managed to get ashore in the dinghy without anyone being spilled over the side in their desperate hurry and a minute later were pounding at the door.
“Joe–Joe Digby,” shouted Rob in a strange, strained voice.
“Here,” came back the answer in a feeble tone, “oh, boys, I’m glad you’ve come.”
Furiously Rob shook the door.
“It’s locked,” came the voice from inside, “I tried to break it down. Too weak, I guess. Try the shutters.”
At each window in turn the Boy Scouts sought to effect an entrance, but in vain. The owner of the place had screwed up the window coverings too tightly for them to be opened without tools.
The rescue party came to a momentary halt.
“I’ve got it,” shouted the captain suddenly, “we’ll have him out uv there in two shakes uv a drake’s tail.”
He produced his formidable old pistol and waved it grimly.
“Come on, boys,” he yelled, darting round to the front of the house–the side on which the door was.
“What are you going to do?” demanded Rob, as much mystified as the rest at the old eccentric actions.
“Watch me,” grinned the captain as he gained the door.
“Stand clear!” he bawled at the top of his lungs, “stand clear uv the door inside there, Joe!”
“All right,” came back the reply, “I’m in a corner.”
“Now, stand by ter receive boarders!” roared the veteran as he placed the muzzle weapon at the lock and pulled the trigger.
“Bang!”
There was a roaring explosion from the wide mouthed weapon and a cloud of smoke filled the air. But simultaneously there came a sound of ripping, tearing and splintering and the lock of the door, shot clean out by the heavy charge, clattered down to the floor on the inside of the room.
An instant later Joe Digby, pale and trembling from privation, surprise and happiness all mingled in one, was in the midst of his friends and fellow scouts.
“I don’t know what made me think of it,” he explained in answer to eager questions about the smoke telegraph message. “It was what the books call an inspiration, I guess. There were plenty of loose boards–fragments of old packing cases lying about, and luckily they had not taken my matches. I built a blaze and then, while it was still smoldering, I covered it with an old strip of sacking that I wetted with some water out of the bottle they left me.”
“It made about as good a signal, as one could want,” responded Rob warmly, “but now tell us about your capture, Joe, how did it happen?”
“Why, you see,” exclaimed the lad, his voice growing stronger as he proceeded, “I was just thinking it was about time to wake my relief when I heard a rustling noise in the bushes back of the camp. I walked up there to investigate, for I thought it might be some animals–maybe the captain’s pigs.”
“Keel haul them lubberly swine,” from the captain.
“But, as you shall hear, I was mistaken. Hardly had I reached the edge of the dark shadows than I was seized and a hand put over my mouth. I had only time to let out one yell for help.”
“The one that woke me,” put in Merritt, in parenthesis.
“That was it; I guess,” went on the small lad, “well, I was picked up and carried some little distance to where they had a boat, and thrown into it. Then the three men who were in the boat rowed to an island with a tent on it and there two of them got out. The other, a fellow with a big beard and very dirty, then rowed over to this place with me and, after putting some bread and a bottle of water inside the door, closed and locked it.
“I carried on like a baby, I guess. I cried for a long time and shouted, but no one came. Then I grew quieter and tried to find some way of escape but the shutters were all fastened and the door was too strong for me. I tried to clamber up the chimney once but I had to give it up. Then suddenly the thought of making a smoke came to me and then I improved on that idea and used the Morse code that Rob has been drumming into me. I never thought that I might be able to use it to save my life maybe–or at least a lot of hunger and misery.”
“Could you recognize the men who took you if you saw them again?” asked Rob earnestly.
“I’m not sure,” responded the small lad, “one of them I would know–the one with the beard. The other two wore masks. But I think their voices sounded like Bill’s and Jack’s. I’m sure of the man with the beard though.”
“Hank Handcraft,” exclaimed Merritt.
“Oh, that’s who it was,” cried the small lad, “I thought somehow the voice and something about the man seemed familiar. He’s that old beach comber who lives outside Hampton.”
“That’s the son uv a sea-swab,” roared the captain, “oh, if I could only get my hands on him, I’d–“
The fate the captain had reserved for Hank was doomed not to be known, for as he was speaking Paul Perkins gave a sudden shout:
“Look–look there!” he cried, pointing.
Sneaking up to the tented island was the familiar outline of Sam Redding’s hydroplane.
CHAPTER XXII
THE ESCAPE OF THE BULLY
The group standing about the newly rescued lad on the veranda of the deserted bungalow galvanized into instant action.
“Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender are in her!” shouted Rob, “come on, scouts, we’ll get after them while we can.”
With a shout the Boy Scouts ran for the boat and speedily pulled out to the Flying Fish. Hastily as they executed this move, however, the two in the other boat had had time to head her about and start at top speed for the mouth of the inlet.
“Clap on more sail, my hearties,” roared the captain, almost beside himself with excitement, “I want ter get my hands on them two piratical craft.”
Rob, with a look of grim determination on his usually pleasant face, held the Flying Fish true on her course, but, heavily laden as she was, she could not make her usual speed and the hydroplane soon distanced her. Jack Curtiss stood in her stern and waved a mocking hand at the Boy Scouts as the light-draft craft shot over the shoals and shallows with case while the Flying Fish had to lose much time and way by threading in and out seeking the deeper water.
“Douse my toplights, I can’t stand that,” bellowed the irate Captain Hudgins. “I’ll put a shot in that jackanapes’ locker.”
With these words, and before any of the boys could stop him, he rose to his feet and sent a bullet from his ponderous revolver flying in the direction of the fleeing motor boat. It missed and hit the water near by, sending up a little fountain of spray.
Even at the distance they were the occupants of the Flying Fish could see the fear which this warlike move inspired in the bully and his companion. They threw themselves flat in their boat till only the hands of Bill, who was steering, were visible.
They need not have feared, however. The captain’s hasty move brought down on his head Rob’s wrath, though the young leader could not find it in his heart to be really angry with the old man who had been irritated past endurance by the bully’s mocking defiance.
“Shiver my garboard strake,” he exclaimed contritely, when Rob pointed out to him that he might have killed one of the occupants of the hydroplane, “shiver my garboard strake, lad, I saw red fer a minute just like I did that time the Chinese pirates boarded the Sarah Jane Butts in the Yellow River.”
Although there was not much hope of catching the two, Rob stuck to the chase even when he realized the scouts were outdistanced, and in fact kept his attention so closely riveted on the other craft that when there came a sudden jar and jolt and the Flying Fish stopped with a grunt and a wheeze, he realized with a start that he had not been watching the treacherous channel and was once more fast on a sand bar.
With a last shout and a yell of defiance the bully and his companion, who had by now got over their fright, shot out on to the ocean and rapidly vanished.
“There goes our hope of catching those two crooks,” cried Tubby angrily, while the engine of the Flying Fish was set at reverse. “It’s all off now. They know that we have rescued Joe and they’ll fly the coop for some other part of the country.”
“I suppose they came down here to get their tent, not realizing we’d be here so soon,” observed Andy, which indeed was the fact.
Fortunately the Flying Fish was not very hard aground and a little manipulation got her off into deep water once more.
“I guess those two chaps are almost in Hampton by this time and getting ready to leave town,” observed Rob as the motor boat forged ahead, once more.
“This will be the safest thing for them to do,” exclaimed Merritt, “they are in a serious position this time. Kidnapping is a dire offense.”
“I wonder what they came back for?” said Tubby suddenly.
“No doubt to get their tent and the few things they had left on the island,” vouchsafed Rob, skillfully dodging a shoal as he spoke, “maybe, too, they intended to see how Joe was making out.”
“I wasn’t making out at all,” said the small lad, with a shudder at the recollection of his imprisonment.
“Never mind, Joe, that’s all over now,” put in Merritt.
“I’m glad it is,” answered the small lad, “and just think, if I hadn’t been a Boy Scout and understood that code I might have been there yet.”
“That’s true enough,” said Rob, “for we had about made up our minds that the bungalow was deserted, and were not going to bother investigating it, till we saw the smoke.”
About an hour later the boys landed once more in camp, where their reception by the others may be well imagined by my young readers.
“And now comes the final chapter in the career of Messrs. Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender,” said Rob decisively, “I’m going to take a run up to Hampton. Joe, you’ll come along, and you, Merritt, and Tubby. If that letter was delivered, as I imagine it was, Joe’s parents must be in a terrible state of anxiety by now and we must hurry up and see them at once.”
“Right,” agreed Merritt, and a few moments later, having left the captain and the others ashore, the Boy Scouts and their young leader were speeding toward Hampton. With the craft lightened as she was, they made good time and arrived at the yacht club pier speedily.
News of the events which had transpired at the island had evidently reached the town, for Mr. Wingate himself, with Mr. Blake and Merritt’s father were at the landing as the Flying Fish glided up to it.
The three elders were almost as enthusiastic as the boys had been over the safe recovery of Joe, the details attendant on which Rob rapidly sketched to them. He had hardly concluded and had not had time to ask how they knew of the kidnapping when a wild-eyed man in faded old farm clothes, accompanied by an equally distracted woman, came rushing down to the wharf.
“Where’s them Boy Scouts? I allers knew no good would come of my son joining ’em,” the man shouted. “I’ll give a hundred dollars fer a boat that’ll take me ter Topsail Island in ten minutes.”
“‘No need of that, Mr. Digby,” said Rob quietly stepping forward with his hand on Joe’s shoulder, “here is Joe safe and sound.”
“Great hopping watermelons!” yelled the farmer, rushing at his son followed by his wife. Together the worthy souls almost squashed the small lad like a butterfly under a harrow. But at last the first greetings were over and the farmer turned to the somewhat amused group of boys and men who were looking on.
“My, what a fright we had,” exclaimed Mrs. Digby, a motherly-looking woman, dabbing at her eyes with capacious pocket handkerchief, “we gets a letter tellin’ us that our boy be kidnapped.”
“Yes we know all about that, Mrs. Digby,” put in Mr. Blake, “you recollect your husband telephoned to the chief of police here about it, and expecting news from the island, we came down here.”
“So he did, so he did,” cried Mrs. Digby, “oh, dear me, Mr. Blake, I’m in such a takin! I hardly know what I’m sayin’.”