"Kree-ee-ee!"
Merritt paused the next morning in front of Tubby's home, and gave the "call" of the Eagle Patrol with a not uncreditable resemblance to the scream of a real eagle.
The cry was instantly echoed—though in a rather thicker way—from inside the house, and in a minute Tubby, who knew that some one of the patrol must have uttered the call, appeared at his door, munching a large slice of bread and jam, although it was not more than an hour since breakfast.
"Say, you, did you ever hear an eagle scream with his mouth full of bread and jam?" demanded Merritt, as the stout youth appeared.
"Eagles don't eat bread and jam," rejoined Tubby, defending his position. "Have some?"
"Having had breakfast not more than an hour ago, I'm not hungry yet, thank you," politely rejoined the corporal; "besides, I'm afraid I'd get fat."
Dodging the stout youth's blow, the corporal went on:
"Heard the news?"
"No—what news?" eagerly demanded the other, finishing his light repast.
"Why, the Dolphin—you know, that fishing boat—picked up Sam's hydroplane at sea and towed it in. It's in pretty good shape, I hear, although the engine is out of commission and it was half full of water."
"He's a lucky fellow to get it back."
"I should say so," replied Merritt; "but it will cost him a whole lot to reclaim it. The captain of the Dolphin says he wants fifty dollars for it as salvage."
"Gee! Do you think Sam's father will give him that much?" said Tubby, with round eyes.
"I don't know. He can afford it all right. He's made a lot of money out of that boat-building shop, my father says; but he's so stingy that I doubt very much if he will give Sam such a sum."
"Why, here's Sam coming down the street now," exclaimed the good-natured Tubby. "I wonder if he's heard about it. Hullo, Sam! Get all the water out of your system?"
"I'm all right this morning, if that is what you mean," rejoined the other, with dignity.
"Heard the news about your boat?" asked Merritt suddenly.
"No; what about her? Is she safe? Who picked her up?"
"Wait a minute. One question at a time," laughed Merritt. "She's safe, all right. The Dolphin picked her up at sea. But it will cost you fifty dollars to get her."
"Fifty dollars!" gasped Sam, turning pale.
"That's what the skipper of the Dolphin says. He had a lot of trouble getting a line fast to her, he says, and he means to have the money or keep the boat."
"Oh, well, I'll get it from my father easily enough," said Sam confidently, preparing to swagger off down the street. "I've got to get my boat back and beat Rob's Flying Fish, and that hydroplane can do it."
"Can you match that?" exclaimed Merritt to the fat youth, as Sam strolled away. "Here he was saved from drowning by the Flying Fish only yesterday, and all he can think of this morning is to promise to beat her. What makes him so mean, I wonder?"
"Just born that way, I guess," rejoined the stout youth; "and as for the Flying Fish saving him, if it hadn't been for a certain Corporal Crawford, he—"
"Here, stow that," protested Merritt, coloring up. "I heard enough of that yesterday afternoon."
As the boys had surmised, Sam's father was not at all pleased when he learned that his son wanted fifty dollars. In fact, he refused point blank to let him have it at all.
"That boat of yours has cost enough already, and I'm not going to spend any more on it," he said angrily, as he turned to his work.
"But I can't get the hydroplane back if I don't pay it," urged Sam. "I've seen the captain of the Dolphin, and he refuses absolutely to let me have her unless I pay him for his trouble in towing her in."
"I can't help that," snapped the elder Redding. "What have I got to do with your boat? Look here!" he exclaimed, turning angrily and producing a small memorandum book from his pocket and rapidly turning the leaves. "Do you know how much I've given you in the last two months?"
"N-n-no," stammered Sam, looking very much embarrassed, and shuffling about from one foot to the other.
"Then I'll tell you, young man; it's exactly—let me see—ten, twenty, five, three, fifteen and eight. That's just sixty-one dollars. Do you think that money grows on gooseberry bushes? Then there'll be your college expenses to pay. No, I can't let you have a cent."
"That means that I will lose my boat and the chance of winning the race at the regatta!" urged Sam gloomily.
"Well, you should have had more sense than to take that fool hydroplane out into a rough sea. I told you she wouldn't stand it. There, go on about your own affairs. I'm far too busy to loaf about, arguing with you."
And with this the hard-featured old boat builder—who had made his money literally by the sweat of his brow—turned once more to his task of figuring out the blue prints of a racing sloop.
Sam saw that it was no use to argue further with his father, and left the shop with no very pleasant expression on his countenance.
"I'll have to see if I can't borrow it somewhere," he mused. "If only I was on better terms with Rob Blake, I could get it from him, I guess. His father is a banker and he must have plenty. I wonder—I wonder if Mr. Blake himself wouldn't lend it to me. I could give him a note for it, and in three months' time I'd be sure to be able to take it up."
With this end in view, the lad started for the Hampton Bank. It required some courage for a youth of his disposition to make up his mind to beard the lion in his den—or, in other words, to approach Mr. Blake in his office. For Sam, while bold enough when his two hulking cronies were about, had no real backbone of his own.
After making two or three turns in front of the bank, he finally screwed his courage to the sticking point, and timidly asked an attendant if he could see the banker.
"I think so. I'll see," was the reply.
In a few seconds the man reappeared, and said that Mr. Blake could spare a few minutes. Hat in hand, Sam entered the ground-glass door which bore on it in imposing gilt letters the word "President."
The interview was brief, and to Sam most unsatisfactory. The banker pointed out to him that he was a minor, and as such that his note would be no good; and also that, without the permission of his father, he would not think of lending the youth such a sum. Much crestfallen, Sam shuffled his way out toward the main door of the bank, when suddenly a voice he recognized caused him to look up.
"A hundred and twenty-five dollars. That's right, all shipshape and above board!"
It was the old captain of Topsail Island, counting over in his gnarled paw one hundred and twenty-five dollars in crisp bills which he had just received from the paying teller.
"You must be going to be married, captain," Sam heard the teller remark jocularly.
"Not yet a while," the captain laughed back. "That ther motor uv mine that I left ter be fixed up is goin' ter cost me fifty dollars, and the other seventy-five I'm calculating ter keep on hand in my safe fer a while. I'm kind uv figgerin' on gettin' a new dinghy—my old one is just plum full uv holes. I rowed over frum the island this mornin', and I declar' ter goodness, once or twice I thought I'd swamp."
Sam slipped out of the bank without speaking to the captain, whom, indeed, since the episode of the melon patch, he had no great desire to encounter.
As he made his way toward his home in no very amiable mood, he was hailed from the opposite side of the street by Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender.
"Any news of the boat?" demanded Jack, as he and Bill crossed over and slapped their crony on the back with great assumed heartiness.
"Yes, and mighty bad news, too, in one way. She's safe enough. The Dolphin—that fishing boat—found her and towed her in. But—here's the tough part of it—it's going to cost fifty dollars for salvage to get her from the Dolphin's captain, the old shark!"
"Phew!" whistled Jack Curtiss. "Pretty steep. But I suppose your old man will fork over, eh?"
"That's just it," grumbled Sam; "he won't come across with a cent. I suppose, if I don't pay for the hydroplane's recovery pretty soon, she will be sold at auction."
"That's the usual process," observed Bill.
"Isn't there any way you can raise the wind?"
"No, I've tried every one I can think of. I don't suppose either of you fellows could—"
"Nothing doing here," hastily cried Jack, not giving the other time to finish.
"I'm cleaned out, too," Bill also hurriedly assured the unfortunate Sam.
"It looks like everybody but us has coin," complained that worthy bitterly. "While I was in the bank trying to get old man Blake to take up a note of mine for the sum I need, who should I see in there but that old fossil of a captain from Topsail Island."
"Who grows such fine, juicy melons and keeps such a nice, amiable pet dog," laughed Jack, roaring at the recollection of the piratical expedition of which the island dweller had told the boys.
"Ha, ha, ha!" shouted Bill in chorus. "We'll have to give him another visit soon."
"But what about the old land crab, Sam?" demanded Jack the next minute. "What was he doing in the bank?"
"Why, drawing one hundred and twenty-five dollars. Just think of it, and we always figured it out that he was poor."
"A hundred and twenty-five dollars! I wonder what he's going to do with it?" wondered Jack, with whom money and its spending was always an absorbing topic.
"Why, I overheard that, too, as I passed by," rejoined Sam. "He's going to spend some of it for the repairing of his motor, which broke down yesterday, and the rest he's going to keep by him."
"Keep it on the island, you mean?" demanded Jack, becoming suddenly much interested.
"That's what he said—keep it in his safe," replied Sam. "But what good does that do us?"
"A whole lot, maybe," was the enigmatic reply. "See here, Sam, you can win that race if you get your hydroplane?"
"I'm sure of it."
"You are going to bet on yourself, of course."
"Sure. I've got to raise some money somehow."
"Well, I've thought of a way you can borrow the money to get your boat back, and when you win the race you can return it. Come on, lees go to Bill's den, and we'll have a smoke and talk it over."
That afternoon, in reply to a notice sent round by a runner, the lads of the Eagle Patrol assembled at their armory, and on Leader Rob's orders "fell in" to hear the official announcement of the coming camping trip. As a matter of fact, they had discussed little else for several days, but the first "regimental" notification, as it were, was to be made now.
The first duty to be performed was the calling of the roll after "assembly" had been sounded—somewhat quaveringly—by little Andy Bowles, the company bugler.
Beside Rob Merritt, Tubby and Andy, there were Hiram Nelson, a tall, lanky youth, whose hands were stained with much fussing with chemicals, for he was a wireless experimenter; Ernest Thompson, a big-eyed, serious-looking lad, whose specialty in the little regiment was that of bicycle scout, as the spoked wheel on his arm denoted; Simon Jeffords, a second-class scout, but who, under Rob's tutelage, was becoming the expert "wig-wagger" of the organization; Paul Perkins, another second-class boy, but a hard worker and a devotee of aeronautics; Martin Green, one of the smallest of the Eagle Patrol, a tenderfoot; Walter Lonsdale, also a recruit, and Joe Digby, who, as the last to join the Patrol, was the tenderest of the tenderfeet.
Rob's announcement of the program for the eight days they were to spend on the island was greeted with cheers. The news that turns were to be taken by two scouts daily at washing dishes and cooking did not awaken quite so much enthusiasm. Everybody cheered up again, however, when Rob announced that the Flying Fish would be at the disposal of the boys of the patrol.
Corporal Merritt took Rob's place as orator then, and announced that each boy would be assessed one dollar for the expenses of the camp, the remainder of the money necessary for the providing of tents and the provisioning of the camp having been donated by Rob's father, Mr. Wingate, of the yacht club, and the other representative citizens of Hampton who composed the local scout council.
Further excitement was caused by the announcement that following the camp the local committee would pass upon the applications for promotions and honors for the lads of the Patrol, and that it was likely that another patrol would be formed in the village, as several boys had expressed themselves as anxious to form one. The gentlemen having charge of the local scout movement, however, had decided that it would be wiser to wait and see the result of one patrol's training before forming a second one.
"I'm going to try for an aviator's badge," announced Paul Perkins, as Rob declared the official business at an end.
"Say, Rob, what's the matter with our fixing up a wireless in the camp? I'm pretty sure I can make one that will catch anything in a hundred-mile radius."
"That's a good idea," assented Rob; "if you can do it we can get a lot of good out of it, I don't doubt."
"What's the good of wireless when we've got wig-wagging and the semaphore code," spoke up Simon Jeffords, who was inclined to doubt the use of any other form of telegraphy but that in which he had perfected himself.
As for Martin Green, Walter Lonsdale and Joe Digby, they contented themselves with hoping that they might receive their badges as second-class scouts when the camp was over.
"I can take the whole tests except cooking the meat and potatoes in the 'Billy,'" bemoaned young Green, a small chap of about thirteen. "Somehow, they always seem to burn, or else they don't cook at all."
"Well, cheer up, Martin," laughed Rob. "You'll learn to do it in camp. We'll make you cook for the whole time we're out there, if you like—that will give you plenty of practice."
"No, thank you," chimed in Andy Bowles. "I've seen some of Mart's cooking, and I think the farther you keep him from the cook fire, the better for the general health of the Eagle Patrol."
At this moment there came a rap on the door.
"Come in!" shouted Rob.
In reply to this invitation, the door opened and a lad of about fifteen entered. His face was flushed and he bore in his hand a long sheet of green paper.
"Hello, Frank Farnham," exclaimed Rob glancing at the boy's flushed, excited face. "What's troubling you?"
"Oh, hello, Rob. Excuse me for butting in on your ceremonies, but I was told Paul Perkins was here."
"Sure he is, Frank," exclaimed Paul, coming forward. "What's the matter? It's much too warm to be flying around the way you seem to have been. Come in under this fan."
He indicated an electrically driven ventilator that was whirring in a corner of the room.
"Quit your fooling, Paul," remonstrated Frank, "and read this circular. Here."
He thrust the green "dodger" he carried into the other's hand.
"What do you think of that, eh?" demanded Frank, as Paul skimmed it with delighted eyes.
The circular contained the announcement of a lecture on aeronautics by a well-known authority on the subject who had once been a resident of Hampton. To stimulate interest in the subject, the paper stated that a first prize of fifty dollars, a second prize of twenty-five, and a third prize of ten dollars would be given to the three lads of the town making and flying the most successful models of aeroplanes in a public competition. To win the first prize it would be necessary for the model to fly more than two hundred feet, and not lower, except at the start and end of the flight, than fifty feet above the ground. The second prize was for the next best flight, and the third for the model approaching the nearest to the winner of the second money.
"Now, Paul, you are an aeronautic fiend," went on Frank, "So am I, and Hiram has the fever in a mild way. What's the matter with you two fellows forming a team to represent the Boy Scouts, and I'll get up a team of village boys, to compete for the prizes."
"That's a good idea," assented Hiram Nelson. "I've got a model almost completed. It only needs the rubber bands and a little testing and it will be O.K., or at least I hope so. How about you, Paul?"
"Oh, I've got two models that I have got good results from," replied the boy addressed. "One is a biplane. She's not so speedy, but very steady; and then I have a model of a Bleriot. I'm willing to enter either of them or both."
"And I've got a model of an Antoinette, and one of a design of my own. I don't know just how well it will work," concluded Frank modestly, "but I have great hopes of carrying off that prize."
"Let's see who else there is," pondered Hiram.
"There's Tom Maloney. He'll go in, I know; and Ed Rivers and two or three others, and then, by the way, I almost forgot it, I met Sam Redding, Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender, reading a notice of the competition, just before I came up. Of course, as there is a chance of winning fifty dollars, Jack is going to enter one, and Bill Bender said he would put one in, too."
"What do they know about aeroplanes?" demanded Paul.
"Not a whole lot, I guess; but Jack said he was going to get a book that tells how to make one, and Bill said he'd do the same."
"How about Sam?" inquired Rob.
"Oh, I guess he's got troubles enough with his hydroplane," responded Rob, whose father had told him at dinner that day of Sam's vain visit to the bank.
"It would be just like those fellows to put up something crooked on us," remarked Paul, who had had much the same experiences with the bully and his chums as his schoolmates generally.
"Oh, there'll be no chance of that," Frank assured him. "A local committee of business men is to be appointed to see fair play, and I don't fancy that even Jack or Bill will be slick enough to get away with any crooked work."
"How long have we got to get ready?" asked Hiram suddenly.
"Just a week."
"Wow! that isn't much time."
"No; my father told me that Professor Charlton, whom he knows, would have given a longer time for preparation but that he has to attend a flying meet in Europe, and only decided to lecture at his native town at the last moment. Lucky thing that most of us have got our models almost ready."
"Yes, especially as this notice says," added Paul, who had been reading it, "that all models must be the sole work of the contestants."
"If it wasn't for that it would be easy," remarked Hiram. "You can buy dandy models in New York. I've seen them advertised in the papers."
"Well, come on over now and put your name down, as a contestant. The blanks are in the office of the Hampton News," urged Frank.
"I guess we're all through up here, Rob, aren't we?" asked Hiram.
"Yes," rejoined the young leader; "but you study up on your woodcraft, Hiram, and devote more time to your signaling. You are such a bug on wireless that you forget the rest of the stuff."
"All right, Rob," promised Hiram contritely. "By the time we go camping I'll know a cat track from a squirrel's, or never put a detector on my head again."
Piloted by Frank, the two young scouts made their way to the office of the local paper, which had already placed a large bulletin announcing the aeroplane model competition in its window. Quite a crowd was gathered, reading the details, as the three boys entered.
They applied for their application blanks and walked over to a desk to fill them out. As they were hard at work at this, Jack Curtiss and his two chums entered the office.
"You going into this, too?" asked the proprietor of the paper, Ephraim Parkhurst, as Jack loudly demanded two blanks.
"Sure," responded Jack confidently, "and we are going to win it, too. Hullo," he exclaimed, as his eyes fell on the younger lads, "those kids are after the prize, too. Why, what would they do with fifty dollars if they had it? However, there's not much chance of your winning anything," he added, coming up close to the boys, with a sneer on his face. "I think that I've got it cinched."
"I didn't know that you knew anything about aeroplanes," responded Paul quietly. "Have you got a model built yet?"
"I know about a whole lot of things I don't go blabbing round to everybody about," responded the elder lad, with a sneer, "and as for having a model built, I'm going to get right to work on one at once. It'll be a model of a Bleriot monoplane, and a large one, too. I notice that there is nothing said in the rules about the size of the machines."
Soon after this the three chums left the newspaper office together.
"Say," remarked Paul, in a rather worried tone, "I don't believe that there is anything said about the size of the models. Bill may build a great big one and beat us all out."
"I suppose that the big machines would be handicapped according to their power and speed," rejoined Frank. "However, don't you worry about that. I don't believe that Jack Curtiss knows enough about the subject to build an aeroplane in a week, and anyhow, I think it's all empty bluff on his part."
"I hope so," replied Paul, as they reached his front gate. "Will you be over to-night, Hiram, to talk things over? Bring your models with you, too, will you?"
"Sure," replied Hiram; "but I've got to do a few things at home after supper. I'll be over about eight o'clock or half-past."
"All right. I'll be ready for you," responded Paul, as the lads said good-by.
A few minutes later Jack Curtiss and his chums emerged from the newspaper office, the former and Bill Bender having made out their applications. Sam seemed more dejected than ever, but there was a grin of satisfaction on Jack Curtiss' face.
"Well, we sent the note, all right," he laughed under his breath, to his two chums. "He'll have got it by this time, and will be in town by dark. You know your part of the program, Sam. Don't fail to carry it out, or I'll see that you get into trouble."
"There's no need to worry about me, Jack," rejoined Sam, with an angry flush. "I'll get the boat as soon as he lands, and keep it out of sight till you've done the trick.
"Nothing like killing two birds with one stone," grinned Bill Bender. "My! what a time there'll be in the morning, when they find out that there's been a regular double cross."
"Hush! Here come those three kids now," warned Sam, as Rob, Merritt and Tubby came down the street. After what had passed they did not feel called upon to give the bully and his companions more than a cold nod.
"Well, be as stuck up as you like to this after-noon!" sneered Jack, after they had gone by, taking good care, however, that his voice would not carry. "I guess the laugh will be on you and your old friend of the island to-morrow."
"Hullo, Hiram; where are you bound for?"
It was Rob who spoke, as Hiram hastened by his house in the early darkness.
"Oh, hullo, Rob," responded the other. "I was wondering who that was hanging over the gate. Why, I'm going to Paul's house. I'm going to talk over that aeroplane model contest with him. I think that we stand a chance to win if Jack Curtiss doesn't make good his boast."
"What was that?" inquired Rob.
"Oh, he says that he is going to build an aeroplane that will beat us all."
"And have it ready in a week?" was Rob's astonished query.
"That's what he says," responded Hiram. "It all looks kind of suspicious to me. Fifty dollars is a large enough sum to tempt Jack to do almost anything. Well, so long. I've got to hurry along. I'm late now."
And the lad hastened away to keep his appointment.
Rob was about to go into the house and get a book, when his attention was arrested by a figure coming up the street at a smart pace whose outlines somehow seemed familiar to him. The next minute his guess was confirmed, when a hearty voice hailed him:
"Waal, here I am, lad—all shipshape and in first-class trim. Now, what is it? What do yer want? Yer didn't explain in the note, but old Captain job Hudgins'll always stand by a shipmate in distress."
"Why, whatever do you mean, captain?" exclaimed Rob, amazed, and thinking that the captain must have taken leave of his wits. "Who do you mean is in distress?"
"Mean?" echoed the captain, in his turn, it seemed, surprised. "Why, that note yer sent me. Here it is—all written on one uv them new-fangled machines."
Rob took the crumpled paper the old seaman drew out of his coat and scanned it hastily by the light of the street lamp. The following note met his puzzled gaze.
"DEAR CAPTAIN: Please come over and see me at once. Something serious has happened at the bank. I need your aid and advice.
"Yours,
"ROB BLAKE."
"Hum! The signature is typewritten, too," mused Rob. "What kind of a joke is this? I don't know, but I'll bet anything that Jack Curtiss is at the bottom of it."
"Well," demanded the captain, "what is it, a bit of gammon? I'll keel-haul the man as did it if I can find him."
"It looks like a hoax of some sort," admitted Rob, sorely puzzled; "but I can't for the life of me see the object of it. Come into the house a minute, captain, and we'll try to figure it out."
Seated beneath the lamp in the library of his home, Rob scrutinized the letter closely, but could find absolutely no indication about it to betray who could have typewritten it.
"How did you come to receive it?" he asked suddenly.
"Why, old Hank Handcraft come out in that crazy launch uv his and guv it ter me," rejoined the captain. "I ought ter hev told yer that in the first place, but I was all took aback and canvas a-shiver when yer tole me yer never wrote it."
"Hank Handcraft," repeated Rob. "He's that queer old fellow that lives in a hut away down the beach?"
"Yes, and a bad character, too," replied the captain. "He used ter be a smuggler, and done a term in jail fer it."
"Well, it's pretty certain that he didn't write this," said Rob. "He couldn't get hold of a typewriter, even if he could use one. What did he tell you about it? Did he say who gave it to, him?"
"No, he just handed it ter me, and says: 'A young party in Hampton says ter give yer this and hurry.' I was just gettin' my supper when I heard his hail of 'Island, ahoy!' I hurried out, and there he was in that old teakettle uv his, at the end uv my wharf."
"And he left before you read the note?"
"I should say. He hurried right off ag'in."
"Well, I don't see any way to get at the bottom of this mystery but to go and see old Hank himself," mused Rob, after a period of thought. "What do you think, captain?"
"That's the tack ter go about on, youngster," agreed the man of Topsail Island; "but if yer are goin' down ter his place at this hour uv night, we'd better take somebody else along. He's a bad character, and I'm only a feeble old man and yer are a lad."
"I'll go round by Merritt Crawford's house," proposed Rob; "then we'll pick up Tubby Hopkins. I guess we can handle any trouble that Hank wants to make, with that force on hand."
"I guess so," agreed the old man. "I must say I'd like ter get ter the bottom uv this here mystery. 'All fair and above board' is my motto. I don't like these secret craft."
The two young scouts were both at home, and after brief explanations the four started off at a lively pace for Hank Handcraft's hut, which was situated about two miles along the beach. As they hastened along, Rob explained to the others in more detail the nature of their mission, but though they were as much mystified by the sudden summons of Captain Hudgins as Rob and the captain himself, they could hit upon no plausible explanation for it.
It was a little over half an hour before they reached the dilapidated hut where old Handcraft, a beach-comber, made his dwelling place. A short distance off the shore they could see by the moon, which had now risen, that his crazy old motor boat lay at anchor. This was a sign that Hank was at home. Lest it be wondered that such a character could have owned a motor boat, it may be explained here that the engine of Hank's old oyster skiff had been given him by a summer resident who despaired of making it work. Hank, however, who was quite handy with tools, had fixed it up and managed to make it drive his patched old craft at quite a fair speed—sometimes. When it broke down, as it frequently did, Hank, who was a philosopher in his way, simply got out his oars and rowed his heavy craft.
As an additional indication that the hut was occupied, light shone through several of its numerous chinks and crannies, and a knock at the door brought forth a low growl of: "Who's there?"
"We want to see you," said Rob.
"This is no time of night to call on a gentleman; come to-morrow and leave your cards," rumbled the gruff voice from inside the hut.
"This is serious business," urged Rob. "Come on, open that door, Hank. This is Rob Blake, the banker's son."
"Oh, it is, is it?" grumbled the voice, as the clank of the door-chains being taken off was heard from within. "Well, I ain't had much business deals with your father lately, my private fortune being somewhat shrunk."
With a muffled chuckle from the speaker, the door slowly opened, and Hank, a ragged figure, with an immense matted beard, long tangled hair and dim blue eyes, that blinked like a rat's, stood revealed.
"Come in, come in, gentlemen," he bowed, with mock politeness. "I'm glad to see such a numerous and representative party. Now, what kin I do you for?"
He chuckled once more at his little jest, and the boys involuntarily shrank from him.
There was nothing to do, however, but enter the hut, and Hank accommodated his guests with a cracker box apiece as chairs. On a table, roughly built out of similar boxes, a battered old stable lamp smoked and flared. A more miserable human habitation could not be imagined.
"Hank," began the captain, "speak me fair and above board, mate—who give yer that letter ter bring ter me ter-night?"
"What letter?" blankly responded Hank, a look of vacancy in his shifty eyes.
"Oh, yer know well enough; that letter yer give me at supper time."
"Captain, I'll give you my davy I don't know what you're talking about," returned the beachcomber.
"What!" roared the captain: rising to his feet and advancing threateningly. "Yer mean ter tell me, yer rapscallion, that yer don't recall landin' at Topsail Island earlier ter-night and givin' me a note which says ter come urgent and immediate ter see young Rob Blake here?"
"Why, captain," calmly returned Hank, with an indulgent grin, "I really think you must be gettin' childish in your old age. You must be seeing things. I hope you ain't drinking."
"You—you scoundrel, you!" roared the old captain, almost beside himself with rage, and dancing with clenched fists toward Hank.
The beach-comber's filthy hand slipped into his rags in a minute, and the next instant he was squatting back on his haunches in the corner of the hut, like a wildcat about to spring. In his hand there glistened, in the yellow rays of the lamp, a blued-steel revolver.
"Don't get angry, captain. It's bad for the digestion," grinned the castaway. "Now," he went on, "I'm going to tell you flat that if you say I came to your island to-night, you're dreaming. It must have been some one else.
"Come on, boys," directed the captain, with an angry shrug. "There's no use wastin' time on the critter. I'm inclined ter think now that there's somethin' more than ordinary in the wind," he added, as they left the hut, with the half-idiotic chuckles of its occupant ringing in their ears.
It was not far from midnight when the boys, sorely perplexed, once more reached Hampton. The main street had been deserted long since, and every one in the village had returned to rest.
The boys left the captain by the water-front, while they headed up the Main Street for their respective homes. Rob remained up, pondering over the events of the evening for some time, without arriving at any solution of them. He was just about to extinguish his light when he was startled by a loud:
"His—s—st!"
The noise came from directly below his open window, which faced onto the garden.
He put out his head, and saw a dark figure standing in the yard.
"Who is it?" he demanded.
"It's me, the captain, Rob," rejoined the well-known voice. "I wouldn't have bothered yer but that I saw a light in yer window."
"What's the trouble, captain?" asked the boy, noting a troubled inflection in the old man's voice.
"My boat's gone!" was the startling reply.
"Gone! Are you sure?"
"No doubt about it. I left her tied ter the L wharf when I come up from the island, and now there ain't hide nor hair uv her there."
"I'll bet anything that that fellow Curtiss is at the bottom of all this," cried Rob. "I remember now I heard some time ago that he was thick with that Hank Handcraft."
"I don't know what ter do about it at this time uv ther night," went on the distressed captain, "an' I can't go round waking folks up ter get another boat."
"Of course not," agreed Rob. "There's only one thing for you to do, captain, and that is to put up here to-night, and in the morning we'll see what we can do."
"That's mighty fair, square, and above board uv yer, lad," said the captain gratefully. "Punk me anywhere. I'm an old sailor, and can aways find the softest plank in the deck."
"You won't have to do that," said Rob, who had slipped downstairs by this time and opened the door; "we've got a spare room you can bunk in to-night. I'll explain it all to father in the morning. Perhaps he can help us out."
"Gee whiz! almost twelve o'clock," exclaimed Hiram Nelson, looking up at the clock from the dining-room table in Paul Perkins' house. The chamber was strewn with text books on model aeroplane construction and littered with figures and plans of the boys' own devising. "How time flies when you're on a subject that interests you."
"Yes, it's a good thing it's vacation time," agreed Paul. "We wouldn't be in much shape to work at our books to-morrow, eh?"
"I should say not!" rejoined Hiram with conviction. "Well, so long, Paul. I guess we've got it all figured out now, and all that is left to do is to go ahead."
"That's the idea," responded Paul. "We'll get the prize for the glory of the Eagle Patrol, or—or—"
"Bust!" Hiram finished for him.
Hiram's way home lay past the bank, and as he walked down the moonlit street he thought for a minute that he perceived a light in the windows of the armory.
Almost as he fancied he glimpsed it, however, it vanished, and the lad was convinced that he must have been mistaken, or else seen a reflection of the moonlight on the windows.
"Queer, though," he mused. "I could almost have sworn it was a light."
Another curious thing presently attracted his attention. As he neared the bank a dark figure seemed to vanish into the black shadows round the corner. Something familiar about it struck Hiram, and the next moment he realized why.
"If that wasn't Bill Bender, I'm a Dutchman," he muttered, his heart beating a little faster. "But what can he be doing round here at this time of night?"
As he put the question to himself, Bill Bender, walking rapidly, as if he had come from some distance, and had not dodged round the corner a moment before, suddenly appeared from round the angle of the bank building.
"Good evening, Bill," said Hiram, wondering if his eyes were not playing him some queer tricks; "wasn't that you just went round the corner?"
"Who, me?" blustered Bill. "You need to visit an oculist, young man. I've just come from a visit to my aunt's. It was her birthday, and we had a bully time. Sat up a little too late, though. Good night."
And with a great assumption of easiness, the crony of Jack Curtiss walked rapidly off up the street.
"I guess he's right," mused Hiram, as he hurried on home. "But if that wasn't Bill Bender who walked round that corner it was his ghost, and all the ghosts I ever read about don't wear squeaky boots."
If Hiram had remained he would have had further cause to be suspicious and speculative.
The lad's footsteps had hardly died out down the street before Bill Bender cautiously retraced his way, and, going round to the side street, upon which the steps leading to the armory opened, gave a cautious whistle. In reply a sack was lowered from a window to him by some person invisible above.
Although there was some little light on the Main Street by reason of the moon and the few scattering lamps along the thoroughfare, the spot in which Bill now stood was as black as the proverbial pocket.
"Is the coast all clear?" came down a voice from the window above.
"Yes; but if I hadn't spotted young Hiram Nelson coming down the street and warned you to put out that light, it wouldn't have been," responded Bill in the same cautious tone.
"Well, we're safe enough now," came back the voice above, which any of his acquaintances would have recognized as Jack Curtiss'. "I've got the rest of them in this other sack. Here, take this one when I drop it."
Bill made a bungling effort to catch the heavy receptacle that fell following Jack's warning, but in the darkness he failed, and it crashed down with quite a clatter.
"Look out!" warned Jack anxiously, "some one might hear that."
"Not in this peaceful community. You seem to forget that eleven o'clock is the very latest bedtime in Hampton."
After a brief interval Jack Curtiss himself slipped out of the side door of the armory and joined his friend on the dark sidewalk.
"Well, what's the next move on the program?" asked Bill.
"We'll sneak down Bailey's Lane—there are no lights there—to Hank's place. Sam will be waiting off there with the boat," rejoined Jack.
"Yes, if he hasn't lost his nerve," was Bill's rejoinder as they shouldered their sacks and slipped off into the deep blackness shrouding the side streets.
"Well, if he has lost it, he'll come near losing his head, too," grated out Jack, "but don't you fear, he wants that fifty too badly to go back on us."
Silently as two cats the cronies made their way down the tree-bordered thoroughfare known as Bailey's Lane and after a few minutes gained the beach.
"Say, that's an awful hike down to Hank's gilded palace," grumbled Bill, "why didn't you have Sam wait for us off here?"
"Yes, and have old man Hudgins discover him when he finds his boat is gone," sneered Jack, "you'd have made a fine botch of this if it hadn't been for me."
The two exchanged no further words on the weary tramp along the soft beach. They plodded along steadily with the silence only broken by a muttered remark emanating from Bill Bender from time to time.
"Thank heaven, there's the place at last," exclaimed Bill, with a sigh of relief, as they came in sight of the miserable hut, "I began to think that Hank must have moved."
Jack gave a peculiar whistle and the next instant the same light the boys had seen earlier in the evening shone through the chinks of the hovel.
"Well, he's awake, at any rate," remarked Jack with a grin, "now to find out where the boat is."
As the wretched figure of the beach-comber appeared Jack hailed him roughly.
"Where's that boat, Hank?"
"Been cruising off and on here since eleven o'clock," rejoined the other sullenly, "ah! there she is now off to the sou'west."
He pointed and the boys saw a red light flash twice seaward as if some one had passed their hands across it.
"All right, give him the answer," ordered Jack. "We've got to hurry if we're to be back before the captain and those brats of boys get after our trail."
Hank at Jack's order dived into the hut and now reappeared with the smoky lantern. He waved it four times from side to side like a brakeman and in a short time a steady "put-put!" told the watchers that a motor boat was approaching.
"Now for your dinghy, Hank," urged Jack, "hurry up. You move like a man a hundred and ninety years old, with the rheumatism."
"Well, come on, then," retorted Hank, "here's the boat," pointing to a cobbled dinghy lying hauled up above the water line, "give me a hand and we'll shove off."
The united strength of the three soon had the boat in the water and with Hank at the oars they moved steadily toward the chugging motor boat.
"Well, Sam, you're on the job, I see," remarked Jack as the two craft ranged alongside and Sam cut off the engine.
"Oh, I'm on the job all right," rejoined Sam, feeling much braver now that the other two had arrived, "have you got them all right?"
"Right here in this bag, and some more in this, my bucko," chuckled Jack as he handed the two sacks over to Sam.
"Ha! ha! ha!" chortled Bill under his breath as he climbed out of the cobble into the motor boat, "won't there be a fine row in the morning."
"Well, come on; start up, Sam. We've no time to lose," ordered Jack as he and Bill got aboard, "good night there, Hank."
"Good night," rejoined Hank quietly enough, as the motor boat moved swiftly off over the moonlit sea. He added to himself, "It won't be a very 'good night' for you, my lad, if you don't pay me as handsomely as you promised."
And chuckling to himself till his shoulders shook, Hank resumed his oars and rowed back to the miserable shanty he called home.