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."
"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 he 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.
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."
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 "muscling 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!"