CHAPTER VII.WORKING ON NED’S THEORY.
At daybreak Frank Shaw stood in the screened porch facing west, watching and waiting for the return of Nestor and Jimmie. It had been a long night for him, but he had kept his vigil alone, knowing that his chums needed all the rest they could get.
Many times between midnight and morning the noises of the tropical forest had taken on the semblance of human voices, and then he had crept out from the screens to listen intently for some indication of the approach of his friends. But they had not come, and now he was anxious to set out in search of them.
While he stood there with his brain filled with forebodings of evil, he heard a step in the cottage, and then Jack Bosworth stood by his side, bright and exuberant of spirit after his long sleep. He stood silent for a moment, looking out into the wonderful jungle and then turned to Frank.
“Great country,” he exclaimed, sweeping a hand toward the gorgeous thickets.
“A dangerous country,” Frank said.
“And a country for an appetite,” cried Jack. “I’ll get the boys up and we’ll have breakfast. Why,” he added, turning back to the porch after glancing over the row of bunks, “where’s Ned?”
“He went away at midnight,” was the reply, “and hasn’t returned. I’m afraid something serious has happened to him.”
“And you have been watching for him all night?” asked Jack. “Why didn’t you waken me? I reckon I’m entitled to a fair share of what’s going on here, be it good or bad.”
Frank told the story of the night briefly and Jack listened with a frown on his brow. His fingers clenched at mention of the bomb which had been placed under the floor of the cottage.
“We’re spotted, of course,” he said, when Frank concluded the story. “If we had only tipped His Nobbs off the ship on the way over.”
“I suggested that to Ned,” Frank answered, “but he only laughed at me. He declared the fellow to be the missing link between himself and the principals in the Gatun dam plot.”
“What’s the answer?” demanded Jack, with a puzzled air.
“Why, it is his theory that half of the criminals of the world would escape punishment if they could only learn to lie quiet until they were looked up.”
“I see. His notion was that the plotters, guided by His Nobbs, would visit us with hostile intentions, and that they might leave a trail back to their own camp.”
“That is about it.”
“Well, they seem to have looked us up all right.”
The other boys now came tumbling out of the cottage, shouting their greetings to Frank and Jack and the golden morning, and clamoring for breakfast. Five minutes later, when the events of the night had been explained, their healthy appetites had vanished. Even when the cook began preparations for the morning meal, filling the air with tantalizing odors of cooking food, they sat in serious consultation with no thought of breakfast in their minds.
“What ought we to do?” asked Jack.
“Go and look him up,” suggested George Tolford.
“He may have become lost in the jungle,” Peter Fenton remarked. “Suppose we go out into the jungle and fire our guns?”
“I’m afraid it is worse than that,” Glen Howard remarked. “We ought to let Lieutenant Gordon know about it.”
“I am afraid Ned wouldn’t like that,” Frank said.
While the boys discussed ways and means a dusky youth of perhaps twenty was seen approaching the cottage on a run. His dress was half American and half native, but his face was wholly Spanish. He paused when he discovered the boys on the porch and held out his hands, as if to show that his mission was a peaceful one. Frank motioned to him to approach and opened the screened porch door for him to enter.
“Good-morning, gentlemen,” he said, in excellent English. “I am from Lieutenant Gordon.”
“Then I think you’re the fellow we are looking for,” Jack said.
“He wants you to join him up at the Culebra cut,” the youngster continued. “The two who left the cottage last night are there waiting for you.”
“Glory be!” shouted Jack. “We were just wondering what had become of them.”
“They wandered out to Gatun and came upon the lieutenant,” said the messenger.
“In the night?” asked Peter, suspiciously.
“A little while before daybreak,” was the ready reply.
“We’ll go and get ready for the journey,” Frank said, but at the door he beckoned to Jack and they walked away together.
“What do you think of him?” asked Frank.
“Why, he seems to be all right,” was the reply. “At any rate he knows about the boys going away in the night and not coming back.”
“The man they followed away would know that, too,” Frank said.
Jack looked his friend in the face for a moment and scratched his head.
“Say,” he asked, “do you think this is a stall?”
“I don’t like the looks of the fellow,” was the reply. “Besides, what would the boys be doing up at the Culebra cut?”
“If you think it is crooked we won’t go,” Jack observed.
“Another thing,” Frank went on, “we were to have nothing to do with Lieutenant Gordonwhile on the Isthmus. We were to roam about at our own sweet will and pick up what information we could. So it doesn’t seem likely that he would send for us all to meet him at the Culebra cut. Does it, now?”
“No, it doesn’t look reasonable,” Jack admitted.
“You know what we were saying about Ned’s theory?” Frank asked, in a moment.
“You mean our talk about criminals pointing the way to their own destruction by unwise activity in defensive methods? Of course I remember it. If what we suspect is true, though, Ned rather overplayed it in this case, and got caught.”
“We don’t know yet whether he got caught or not. We only know that he is unaccountably missing. Well, what if we accept Ned’s theory here and go with this messenger? If he is on the square he’ll take us to Ned. If he is crooked he’ll take us to people who know why Ned did not return to the cottage.”
“It may be easier to get taken to the people you speak of than to get away from them,” Jack said, dubiously.
“I’m game to try it, anyway,” Frank continued, “but I think we ought to leave one behindat the cottage, for Ned may return, possibly, though I doubt it. Anyway, it will do no harm to leave some one here.”
“Suppose,” suggested Jack, “we don’t leave any one at the cottage, but instruct one of the boys to remain here when we go with this fellow and then follow on immediately, sort of keep track of where we are taken?”
“That’s a fine idea,” Frank replied. “I’ll go with the messenger and take the boys with me. You remain here and see where we go—that is, you remain here when we leave and then trail on after us, like a Sherlock Holmes.”
“I would rather go with you,” Jack replied, “but I’ll do the sleuth act if you prefer to have me. You’ll need a rescuer, all right,” he added, “for Lieutenant Gordon never sent that chap after us. Never in the world.”
The cook soon called the boys to breakfast, but there was not much eaten, greatly to the disgust of the cook. When they left the table the messenger asked if they were ready to go.
“All ready,” cried Frank, but Jack threw himself into a chair and took up a magazine, watching the face of the messenger over the pages as he did so.
“You are to give up the cottage,” the messenger said, with a frown of disapproval. “No one is to be left here.”
“It will be all right for me to remain here until the others come,” Jack said, with a smile. “I don’t feel like a walk this morning.”
“There is a motor car just over the hill.”
“No inducement,” laughed Jack. “I’m going to remain here.”
The messenger said no more, though it was plain that the arrangement did not please him. In a few moments the boys were off, the messenger leading the way and keeping up a running fire of conversation.
“What do you think of that?” asked Jack of the cook, as the party disappeared in the thicket.
“I don’t like it,” was the reply. “I overheard what Frank told you about the disappearance of Ned and Jimmie, and was anticipating something of the kind.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“It was not for me to interfere,” was the reply.
The cook, known as Tommy, was looked over critically by Jack.
“I believe you’re all to the good,” he said. “You wouldn’t be here if you wasn’t. Now,what do you say to exchanging clothes with me?”
“I have no objections, only I don’t exactly see—”
“We’re just about the same size,” Jack went on. “Same black hair and black eyes, same ugly smooth face—glad you have no whiskers. You’re tanned up a little, but I can put some stain on my face. There you are. The cook goes to Gatun and Culebra and Jack Bosworth remains at the cottage. They won’t think of molesting the cook.”
“I would rather go with you.”
“But some one ought to remain here,” urged Jack.
Tommy thought over the proposition for a moment and smiled.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll remain here, as long as necessary,” he added.
The exchange of clothing was quickly made and Jack managed to darken his face with a stain made of crushed leaves which Tommy gathered for him.
“Now, you’ll stay right here, won’t you?” Jack asked, as he passed out of the doorway. “Ned and Jimmie may return, you know.”
“Yes, I’ll stay right here,” the cook said with a grin.
But as Jack entered the thicket he added:
“Until you get out of sight. Then it is me for the Tivoli and Lieutenant Gordon. It looks to me as if these babes in the woods had bitten off more than they can chew.”
Whether his supposition was right or wrong, the cottage was closed in five minutes, and Tommy, wearing Jack’s clothing, was racing through the path Ned had taken the night before, on his way to Lieutenant Gordon.
His journey on foot, however, was destined to be a short one, for at the turn of the path he came upon a man loitering in the open space just ahead.
“Wait a second,” the man exclaimed.
Tommy was not inclined to check his pace, but a revolver in the hands of the fellow induced him to do so.
“You are Jack Bosworth?”
Tommy hesitated. For an instant he thought of declaring his identity and so getting away to the Tivoli and Lieutenant Gordon. The man in his path settled the problem for him.
“No use to deny it,” he said. “You are to come with me.”
“Where?” asked Tommy.
“If you have any weapons give them to me,” the other said, gruffly, paying no attention to the question.
“All right,” Tommy said, handing out a revolver. “It is a heavy thing to carry, anyway. Where are you going to take me?”
“Straight ahead,” cried the captor, with a frown. “Straight ahead. I’ll tell you when to turn and when to stop.”
“You seem to have an accommodating disposition,” laughed Tommy. “Why didn’t you stop the cook, who went out a little while ago? Perhaps he would have been glad of your company.”
“We are not interested in the cook,” came the answer, and Tommy smiled as he thought that at least one point of the ruse had met with success.
“That cook will be fired for leaving the cottage,” grinned Tommy, making the deception as complete as possible.
In the meantime the motor car containing the five boys and the messenger was speeding on its way toward Gatun and the Culebra cut. When Jack came out on the road the machine was disappearing from sight, but he managed tokeep track of it from the hilltops for a considerable distance.
The messenger was full of talk, his evident intention being to keep the boys interested. In spite of the attention paid them, however, Frank and Harry Stevens managed to hold a conversation on the back seat.
“This is carrying out Ned’s theory with a vengeance,” Harry remarked. “If we get dumped into the big cut we’ll charge it up to him.”
“The play opens with plenty of action in the first scene,” grinned Frank.
“The adventure would look better to me if I knew what had become of Ned and Jimmie,” Harry said, despondently.
“If we keep up the appearance of being pleased with the ride,” Frank said, “we may be able to learn something of their whereabouts. It is mystery to me how the plotters got hold of Ned, if they did get hold of him.”
“You recall the talk in New York as to whether the men who entered Mr. Shaw’s study were in quest of the plot papers or the emerald necklace?” asked Harry.
“Yes; and I’ve been studying over that problem ever since.”
“Well, I’ve been wondering, ever since we started out on this rather risky trip with the messenger, whether the people Ned encountered last night, and the people we are likely to meet to-day, are the people of the plot papers or the people of the emerald necklace. What do you think about it?”
“I fail to see why the necklace thieves should bother. They’ve got the trinket they wanted, haven’t they? It is the canal blowers we are facing now.”
“You know Ned’s theory,” whispered Harry. “Well, if the necklace thieves have brought the bauble back to the Isthmus, they think we’re hot after them, and so may strike at us before we can get our guard up. See?”
“No, I don’t see,” replied Frank. “I’d like to believe they brought the necklace over here, though. Then I might stand a chance to get it back. You’ll find that it is the men who are plotting against the big dam that we are mixing with.”
The motor car ran through Gatun without stopping, and finally drew up at a rambling old structure which seemed to have been deserted ever since the days of Balboa. The messenger explained that they were to wait there for thelieutenant, and all entered the ancient ruin, the boys looking carefully about as they stepped through the doorway.
The room which first received them was long and narrow, with walls showing both age and neglect. They were met at the door by a tall gentleman of military bearing and a dwarf whose mischievous black eyes stared fixedly into their faces.
“The lieutenant is late,” the military man explained. “If one of you is Frank Shaw, however, a portion of the business of the day may be taken up before his arrival.”
Frank admitted his identity, and was invited into a smaller room opening from the apartment in which the others waited.
CHAPTER VIII.EXPLOSIVES FOR THE GATUN DAM.
Ned and Jimmie listened for some moments to the steady click-click of metal which came, or appeared to come, from the ground directly underneath their feet, and then Ned arose and crept forward.
“Where you goin’?” whispered Jimmie.
“Down there.”
Ned pointed to the dark corner.
“You’d better come away,” warned the boy.
“We are here to investigate,” Ned replied, almost impatiently.
“Then investigate with a bomb, or with a cannon,” advised Jimmie.
“No time for that,” came the reply. “The conditions which exist now may not exist in an hour’s time. It is now or never.”
Moving forward, Ned saw a faint finger of light cutting the shadows in the corner Jimmie had pointed out. Jimmie saw it at the same instant.
“I’ll bet they’ve got a blacksmith shop down there,” he said.
There was no opening in the great stone slabs of the floor through which a man might make his way—only the crevice through which the ray of light came. Ned turned his attention to the wall to the south.
Behind a luxuriant growth of vines he saw another glimmer of light, and in a moment stood looking down a narrow stairway, at the distant end of which were numerous lines of red flame. Jimmie, looking over Ned’s shoulder, uttered a muffled exclamation.
“Looks like a door made out of red-hot bars,” he said.
“It is a board door,” Ned whispered back, “with wide cracks between the planks. There is an intense red fire in the room beyond.”
Ned placed a foot on the top step of the stairway and slowly and cautiously rested the weight of his body upon it, to make certain that no trap for the protection of the place had been set there. The stone step was solid and bore his weight firmly.
At the bottom of the stairway the boys stopped and looked about. Straight ahead was the cracked door, to the south was a solid wall, to the north, under the stone pavement they had crossed to gain the corner, was a dark room, thedoor to which stood open. The room was close and hot.
“How are your matches, Jimmie?” whispered Ned.
“Got a pocketful,” was the reply. “Want a light?”
“Not yet. We would better feel our way into the room. Keep close to me and keep your gun handy.”
The room was small, something like a vestibule to a larger one which ran along parallel with the one from which the light came. It was very dark there, and more than once the boys stumbled over obstructions on the floor, which seemed to be of brick or stone. Once Ned heard Jimmie laughing softly as he rolled on the floor.
“I’m thinkin’ what the movin’ picture men are missin’,” the boy said, as he moved forward on his hands and knees.
“This would look rather amusing—on a white canvas on the Bowery,” Ned said.
After reaching a wall, the stones of which felt damp and oozy to the touch, Ned ventured to light a match. The underground room was long and narrow, with rock walls in which there wasno opening except the one by way of which the boys had entered.
Ned, by the flaring light of the match, brushed away the mould which flourished in that unwholesome place and seated himself on the stone floor, his back against the wall. Jimmie, seeking physical companionship, nestled close to him.
“Gee,” the little fellow remarked, with a snicker, “you thinkin’ of takin’ up a homestead here?”
“I’m going to remain in this room until the workers in the other chamber go away,” was the reply. “I’ve taken a notion to look into that apartment.”
“And if they don’t go away?”
“I’ll wait until they do. It is probable that they do all their work at night.”
“Then you won’t have to wait long,” the boy replied. “It was growing light in the east when we came down here.”
Jimmie dropped off into a restless sleep after a time, and Ned sat there waiting and listening, just as Frank, a short time later, waited and listened on the porch of the cottage in the jungle. When the boy awoke it was with a start of anxiety.
“The boys will think we’re dead,” he exclaimed.
“I hope they won’t try to follow us,” Ned whispered.
“If they do,” the other said, “they’ll find signs in twigs and stones all the way along. The stone heaps point the way to this place, and give the warning at the place where the stairs begin.”
Reference was here made to Boy Scout methods used in the forest. For instance, a stone with a smaller one on top says:
“This is the trail.”
Place a stone to the right of this and the meaning is:
“Turn to the right.”
One to the left means:
“Turn to the left.”
A smaller stone on top of the other two, with none at the side, means: “Be careful.”
“I hope they will keep away,” Ned went on. “It is a miracle, almost, that we got in here without being discovered.”
“What you think you’ll find in there?” asked Jimmie.
“Something concerning the plot,” was the reply.
It seemed a long time before the work in the chamber ceased, and Ned had plenty of time in which to review the strange case he was interested in. The transition from gay New York to that weird apartment seemed almost like a whiff of fancy. Then he recalled the painstaking surveillance of the fellow called “His Nobbs” on the way down, and smiled at the thought that the plans he had made at first sight of the spy had worked out remarkably well.
He had submitted gracefully to the surveillance, knowing that in time the man who was following him would track him to his camp on the Isthmus. That was the very point. He would not know where to look for the plotters, but they would know where to look for him. He depended on them to send a man to work him mischief, and reckoned on being able to follow that man back to his principals.
This they had done. The men who had employed the spy on the ship had acted quickly and had sent a bomb-thrower. Ned shuddered as he thought of the risk he had taken that night in going to bed without leaving a guard. He had overlooked a point in the game there, for he had not apprehended such prompt action on the part of the men he had pitted himself against.
However, the plan had miscarried because of his waking at the critical moment, and here he was, at the door of the men who had sent the man about their murderous work. But were these the principals? When he thought of the two who had hastened off toward Gatun in a motor car he did not believe that they were.
“I shall have to look in other places besides subterranean chambers for the men in charge,” he thought. “These fellows are merely tools.”
Presently the sharp click-click of metal came no more through the heavy air of the room, and Ned, awaking Jimmie, who had fallen asleep again, moved into the small room from which the doorway gave a view of the stairs. He could see from this room that the sun was shining brightly outside.
Ned had scarcely stationed himself in the heavy shadows back of the doorway when four men came down the passage and passed him. He had no doubt that they were the workmen going out for the day. Such work as they did must needs be done in the night.
Two of the men were tall and slim, with Spanish-looking faces, and two were short and stout, with a heavy droop to their shoulders andbroad faces almost entirely covered with whiskers.
“The original anarchists,” whispered Jimmie, as the two short men passed.
After the disappearance of the workmen all was still in the underground rooms. The door to the work-chamber had been left open, and Ned knew that one of two things was the solution to this.
Either there were other men in the room, or there were watchers on the outside. He ventured out in the passage at the foot of the stairs and looked up. A roughly-dressed man stood half in view, his back to the watcher. When Ned turned back he saw Jimmie disappearing into the work-room. He called softly to him, but the boy passed on through the doorway and was lost to sight.
Annoyed at the unnecessary risk taken by the boy, Ned stepped back into the room he had just left and waited half expecting to hear a call for assistance. He knew that he could be of more assistance there than in the open doorway to the room which the boy had entered. There he would at least have the first shot if Jimmie was pursued and made for the stairs.
While he waited almost holding his breath, he grasped the bomb he had brought with him from the cottage. If Jimmie should be killed in there, the bomb should avenge his death. The ruins of the temple and the work-shop of the plotters should all ascend heavenward in one grand explosion. After a time, however, his fears were set at rest by the appearance of the boy, who came up to the doorway with a grin on his face.
“Nothin’ stirrin’ in there now,” he said. “Come on.”
It seemed plain now that those interested in the work which was going on underground were depending on outside watchers to protect them. The fire in a rude forge which stood at the distant end of the chamber was dying out when the boys reached it, and the place was only dimly lighted.
On one side of the room was a pile of gas-pipe, cut in six-inch lengths. In a corner, far away from the fire, and half buried in the earth—a great paving stone having been removed to make way for the excavation—were tin vessels tightly covered. After his experiences of the night, Ned did not have to inspect the contentsof these tins. He knew very well that they contained high explosives.
“There’s stuff enough here to blow up the continent of South America,” Jimmie said, pointing at the gas-pipe lengths and the tin vessels.
“And they are getting the material in shape to do the work,” Ned added.
“Yep,” Jimmie answered. “We’ve caught ’em with their workin’ clothes on. We’ve got to the bottom of the plot.”
“You go too fast, son,” Ned replied. “We haven’t got a single clue to the men higher up. It is probable that we have discovered the plant of the men who are planning to destroy Uncle Sam’s big job, but the work we have undertaken has only begun.”
“Why, catch these men,” said Jimmie, “an’ you’ve got ’em.”
“Got these men, yes, but the chances are that even they do not know the men who are at the head of the conspiracy.”
“Some one is puttin’ money into it, anyway,” the boy suggested.
“Yes, and we don’t even know the interests which are doing it,” said Ned.
Ned now busied himself about the chamber, having closed the door so that the light of his matches would not show. There was, of course, danger that the watcher might descend the stairs and discover the closed door, but there was also the chance that he might attribute the changed situation to accident.
Presently Ned came upon a battered old writing desk standing on the head of a large barrel. The slanting top was locked down, but the boy soon had it open. Its contents consisted of two rolls of drawing paper.
Ned took them out, stirred the fire to a sudden glow, and bent over the figures and lines on the sheets. His face grew thoughtful as he looked.
“What is it?” Jimmie asked.
Ned held out the rolls.
“This one,” he said, “is a drawing of the Gatun dam, and this other is a crude sketch of the basement of theDaily Planetbuilding in New York.”
“Gee!” cried the boy. “Are they goin’ to blow that up, too?”
“They appear to be thinking of it,” was the reply. “And there on the margin of the sheets,of each of the sheets, is a date line—Saturday, April 15th. This is the 13th.”
“Is that the date set for the explosion?” asked the boy, with wide-open eyes.
“I don’t know,” was the reply, “but it seems to me that we ought to get out of here and communicate with Lieutenant Gordon, and also with Mr. Shaw, in New York. The date marked here may be the one set for action.”
They started at once for the door, Ned taking the sheets with him and hoping to pass the guard without being seen. As they moved forward, however, they heard voices, and then a square of light told them that the door which they had left closed had been opened, and that three men were entering.
“If they turn on the light now,” Jimmie whispered in Ned’s ear, “there’ll be somethin’ doin’ here.”
The newcomers did not light the flaring torches with which the room was usually illuminated, but, closing the door, sat down near the forge.
“I think,” Ned whispered, drawing Jimmie toward the door, “that the fate of the Gatun dam and theDaily Planetbuilding depends on our getting out of here. Move carefully.”
CHAPTER IX.A FASTING STUNT IS SUGGESTED.
While Ned and Jimmie were wondering how they were to escape from the subterranean chamber, Frank Shaw sat in the private room in the old house on the road to the Culebra cut, facing the gentleman of military carriage and wondering what would be the next move in the complicated game.
“How long have you known Lieutenant Gordon?” the man asked. “I beg your pardon,” he said, without giving the boy opportunity to answer the question, “but I have not yet told you who I am, and you can hardly be expected to answer questions asked by an unknown person, especially when so much is at stake. I am Colonel Sharrow, of the United States army, detailed on Canal Zone duty.”
The man’s manners were frank and engaging, his personal appearance that of an officer in the service, yet Frank did not trust him. He did not believe that Lieutenant Gordon had sent for the boys. He did not make answer to the question asked concerning the lieutenant, and it was asked again, in this way:
“Have you known Lieutenant Gordon long?”
“A very short time,” was the reply.
“You were with him in Mexico?”
“I met him in Mexico. I did not go there with him, nor did I travel in his company, except on the way out.”
“Do you think he is entirely loyal to the government?” was the next question.
“I think he is,” was the short reply.
“I am glad to hear you say that,” Colonel Sharrow continued. “I should be sorry to change the good opinion I have formed of Lieutenant Gordon.”
“It seems to me,” Frank said, indignantly, “that you are inviting an adverse opinion concerning him.”
“Not at all,” was the pleasant reply. “It was my purpose, in making the remark I did, to test your loyalty to my very good friend.”
There was a short silence in the room, during which Frank could hear his friends moving about excitedly in the adjoining apartment. If they were conversing, they were doing so in whispers, as no words could be heard.
“Lieutenant Gordon,” the Colonel said, “is very much devoted to the service, and is especially interested in the investigation upon which he isnow engaged. By the way, he seems to have a very able assistant in the person of Ned Nestor.”
“Ned can help some,” Frank replied, delighted at this appreciation of his chum.
Colonel Sharrow did not seem to be a bad fellow, after all.
“I suppose Ned will be here with the lieutenant?” Frank asked, then.
The Colonel hesitated, smiling more pleasantly than ever.
“To tell you the truth,” he said, “the messenger did not tell you the exact truth. Ned is not with the lieutenant.”
“Then this is a trap,” exclaimed Frank, rising to his feet.
The Colonel laughed heartily.
“You are an impetuous young fellow,” he said.
“You will be telling me next,” the boy said, “that we are not to meet the lieutenant here.”
“You are not to meet him here,” was the calm reply.
Frank moved toward the door.
“Then I’ll be going,” he said.
“In a moment,” said the Colonel, stepping forward. “Wait until you hear what I say, and then you may pursue whatever course seemsgood to you. You were in deadly danger, out there in the cottage, and we thought best to get you away. We knew, too, that you were too loyal to leave the place in defiance of orders, and so we used this ruse to bring you here, to the protection of your friends. If Nestor had been at the cottage we might have explained the situation to him. What time did he leave?”
“Don’t you know what time he left, and why he went?” demanded Frank, all his former suspicions returning.
“We only know that he was not there at daybreak,” was the reply, “and so we brought you away. Why did he leave so suddenly?”
Frank looked the Colonel in the eyes unflinchingly, determined to have the truth out of him, and asked:
“And so you don’t know where he is now?”
The Colonel did not reply, and Frank knew that there was no necessity for continuing the conversation. He was satisfied that the Colonel was one of the plotters, perhaps the leader, that Ned’s departure from the cottage had not been detected by the man he had followed into the jungle, and that his friend, at least up to daybreak, had not fallen into the hands of the enemy.
He saw in an instant how the case stood. The plotters, spying about the cottage at daybreak, had noted the absence of Ned. Fearful that he had departed on some errand which might seriously affect their own interests, they had resolved to bring the others away and learn from them, if possible, where Ned had gone.
As the reader has doubtless suspected, this was the exact truth. The plotters, at the time the boys were taken from the cottage, did not know where Ned was. He had not been seen following the would-be murderer, nor had any information from the bomb-boom disclosed his presence there.
Colonel Sharrow had regarded the “pumping” of the boy as certain of success, and was not a little surprised when he failed to go into the details of the incident which had taken Ned and Jimmie away from the cottage. It had seemed certain to him that the boy would hasten into an excited account of the peril of the situation. He did not know how the bomb had been discovered, or how it had been taken from under the floor of the cottage, but he knew that it had been done.
He had depended upon Frank to tell him all about it, and to explain where Ned had gone andwhy he had left the cottage in the night. He was greatly worried over the disappearance of the boy, for he did not know what had been discovered regarding the attempted destruction of the cottage and the consequent murder of the boys. He did not know what steps Ned might be taking to discover the author of the attempted outrage of the previous night. Besides, he was curious to know just how the destruction of the cottage had been averted.
“We do not know where Ned is,” the Colonel said, in reply to Frank’s question. “We thought you might assist us in finding him.”
“How?” was the sharp demand.
“By telling us what took place at the cottage last night, and where Ned went when he left—also what time he left the cottage.”
“I thought so,” Frank said, when the case had thus plainly been stated. “I had an idea you wanted to know what steps are being taken to bring you and your bomb-thrower to justice. Well, I refuse to tell you anything about it.”
The Colonel was not yet ready to appear under his true colors. He had one more issue to discuss with the boy, and hoped to meet with better success than he had in the other matter.
“You don’t seem to understand the situation, or to trust me,” he said. “You do not appreciate the peril your friend may be in. If you did, you would tell us all you know about the incident. Now, there is another thing I wish to discuss with you. You are the son of the owner of theDaily Planet?”
Frank nodded.
“Have you communicated with your father recently?”
“Not since our arrival on the Isthmus.”
“Then you have not heard from him since your arrival here?”
“I have not.”
“And consequently do not know of the peril he is in?”
Frank started and turned pale. He knew that this information, like that concerning Ned and the lieutenant, might be false, but he was anxious just the same.
“What peril is he in?” he asked, and the other smiled to think he had struck fire at last.
“Well, it seems that he is accumulating proof against the men who are said to be planning to destroy the big canal, over yonder, and is getting on the wrong track. The men he is about to accuse of complicity in the plot are justly indignant,and are preparing to dynamite his building in case any copy concerning them is sent to the composing room.”
“You seem to be conversant with the affairs of these men,” Frank suggested, with a frown. “Are you one of the men who sneaked into our home and chloroformed father and stole my necklace?”
“I heard something about that,” the Colonel said, “and wondered at it. However, we are not discussing past incidents. What I desire you to do is to communicate with your father, in the cipher you sometimes use in your correspondence, and inform him of what I have just told you. Say to him that he is mistaken in the men, and that his building will be destroyed if he attempts to publish the alleged facts he has on hand.”
“I think,” Frank said, “that I can trust his good judgment. He can take care of himself.”
“Then you refuse to send the message?”
“I certainly do.”
“You seem to be a fat, healthy sort of a boy,” laughed the other, changing the subject, apparently, with a suddenness which astonished the boy.
“I have no cause to complain,” Frank said.
“How long do you think you can live without food?” was the next question.
Frank saw the meaning of the fellow in his angry eyes and dropped back into his chair. The boys in the next room were now talking excitedly, and some of the exclamations could be heard.
“If you don’t open the door we’ll break it down.”
That was Harry Stevens. The reply was too faint to be heard.
“What are you doing to Frank, anyway?”
That was Harry Stevens’ voice again. The question was immediately followed by a bang on the door.
“Keep back,” a voice said. “This gun is loaded.”
The situation was a serious one, and Frank blamed himself for getting into such a trap. If he had remained at the cottage, he thought, there would have been no immediate danger to his friends.
“Perhaps, after a week’s fast, you might have strength enough left to write such a communication to your father as I suggest?”
The manner was unbearable, the tone insulting, and Frank could hardly restrain himself from attacking the fellow.
“In a week,” he said, his eyes flashing, “you and your associates will be in some federal prison.”
“You talk bravely,” said the other, “and I observe that you are glancing about in search of some way out of this, to you, disagreeable situation. Spare your pains! Even if you could vanquish me and my associate in the next room, you could not leave the house. It is guarded by a dozen picked men.”
“Is that as true as the other things you have said?” asked the boy.
The Colonel laughed until his face turned red and his sides shook.
“You are a bright boy,” he said. “It is quite a pleasure to do business with you. A very capable boy.”
He went to the door of the room and looked out.
“Where are the men?” he asked.
The dwarf, who had been sitting on a rude table near the door, swinging his short legs in the air, looked up with a slight frown.
“I haven’t got ’em,” he said.
“Well, see if you can find them.”
The dwarf, called Jumbo by those who knew him, got off the table and pointed to a window.
“Use your eyes,” he said.
Three men stood there looking in. In the road in front stood the automobile in which the party had reached the house. On a hilltop perhaps sixty rods away a little spurt of dust indicated the approach of another motor car.
The Colonel beckoned to the men to enter. As they stepped inside three more men entered from a rear door. They were all dusky, hungry-looking fellows, with snaky black hair and shrinking black eyes. They were dressed in tattered clothes, and carried revolvers in plain view.
“Quite an army,” Frank said.
“This old house,” the Colonel began, a sneer on his thin lips, “is larger than you may think. At the top of a wing which stretches back toward the jungle there is a room where Spanish prisoners were once confined. With your permission I’ll escort you boys there, advising you, in the meantime, to think the situation over carefully.”
The puff of dust on the distant hilltop grew more pronounced, and the chug-chug of a swiftly moving motor reached the ears of those in the ancient structure.