Peggy addressed half a dozen cards. Two, of course, went to Jess and Jimsy, another to Aunt Sallie Prescott; one to the captain of theRuritania, and one other, which bore the address, "Eugene Mortlake, Esq."
It was a mischievous freak that made Peggy write this last missive, which read:
TO MR. EUGENE MORTLAKE,
Per SteamerRuritania—in Mid-air:
Greetings from aeroplaneGolden Butterfly.
R. & M. PRESCOTT.
That was all, but Peggy knew that it would serve its prankish purpose.
All this time theSilver Cobwebhad been out at sea, but now, apparently detecting the maneuvers of theGolden Butterfly, she headed about, and came racing back. Peggy deftly attached weights—spare bolts from the tool locker—to each of the cards, and then, snatching up a megaphone, she hailed the uniformed figures on the bridge of the great vessel below them.
"Will you be good enough to mail some letters for us?"
"With pleasure!" came the reply in a big, bellowing British voice, from one of the stalwart figures beneath.
"All right; Roy, come down as low as you dare," cried Peggy, catching her bundle of "mail."
Roy threw over a couple of levers and turned a valve. Instantly theGolden Butterflybegan to drop in long, beautiful arc. She shot by above the liner's bridge at a height of not more than fifteen feet. At the correct moment Peggy dropped the weighted bundle overboard, and had the satisfaction of seeing one of the officers catch it. The gallant officers, now realizing for the first time that a girl—and a pretty one—was one of the passengers of the big aeroplane, waved their hats and bowed profoundly.
At the correct moment Peggy dropped the weighted bundle overboard.
At the correct moment Peggy dropped the weighted bundle overboard.
And Peggy—what would Aunt Sallie have said!--Peggy blew them a kiss. But then, as she told Jess later:
"I was in an aeroplane, my dear—a sort of an unattainable possibility, in fact."
In the meantime, Mortlake, in theSilver Cobweb, had been duly mystified as to what theGolden Butterflywas about when she swooped downward on the steamer. For one instant the thought flashed across him that they were disabled. An unholy glee filled him at the thought. If only theGolden Butterflywere to come to grief right under Lieut. Bradbury's eyes, it would be a great feather in the cap of the Mortlake-Harding machine.
But, to his chagrin, he saw them rise the next instant, as cleverly as ever. Lieut. Bradbury, who had been watching the maneuver of theGolden Butterfly, gave an admiring gasp, as he witnessed the daring feat.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, and the evident note of astonishment and appreciation in his tones did not tend to increase Mortlake's self-satisfaction.
"The pesky brats," he muttered to himself; "we've got to do something to put them out of the race. There isn't another American-built aeroplane that I fear except that bothersome kids' machine."
And there and then Mortlake began to hatch up a scheme that in the near future was to come very nearly proving disastrous to Peggy and Roy and their high hopes.
"Magnificently handled, don't you think so, Mortlake?" inquired the naval officer, the next instant.
"Yes, very clever," agreed Mortlake, far too smart to show his inward feelings, or to wear his heart upon his sleeve; "very neat. But I can do the same thing if you'd care to see it?"
The naval officer glanced at the puffy features of his companion and his thick, bull-like neck.
"No, thanks," he said. "I've got to be getting back. There's another type of machine I've got to look over out at Mineola. It is really necessary that I reach there as quickly as possible."
"Very well," said Mortlake, inwardly relieved, as he didn't much fancy duplicating Roy's feat, "we'll head straight on for the shore."
"If you please."
But what was theGolden Butterflydoing? As the steamer raced onward, that aerial wonder had swung in a spiral, and was now seemingly hovering about, awaiting the arrival of theSilver Cobweb.
As the two aeroplanes drew abreast, Mortlake muttered something, and bent over his engines. TheCobwebleaped forward like an unleashed greyhound. But theGolden Butterflywas close on her heels, and making almost as good time. Mortlake plunged his hands in among the machinery and readjusted the air valve of the carburetor. Another increase of speed resulted. The indicator crawled up to sixty-six, sixty-eight and then to seventy miles an hour.
"Pressing her a bit, aren't you?" asked the officer, as they seemed to hurtle through the air, so fast did they rush onward.
"Oh, no. She's built for speed," responded Mortlake, with a gratified grin; "she'll leave any such old lumber wagon as that Prescott machine miles behind her any day in the week."
This seemed to be true. TheGolden Butterfly, making about sixty miles, was being rapidly left behind.
"I should think you'd be afraid of overheating your cylinders," volunteered the lieutenant.
Now, this was just what Mortlake was afraid of. But, as has been said, he was the sort of man who, in sporting parlance, was willing always "to take a chance" to beat any one he considered his rival. He was taking a desperate chance now. Under the artificial means he had used to increase the speed of his engines, the motor was "turning up" several hundred more revolutions a minute than she had been built for.
Now they shot above the strip of white beach, and, below them the pleasant meadow-lands and patches of verdant woods began to show once more.
All at once, the sign for which Mortlake had been watching so anxiously manifested itself. A tiny curl of smoke ascended from one of the cylinder-heads. A smell of blistering, burning paint was wafted back to the nostrils of Lieut. Bradbury.
"I thought so," he said; "overheating already. Better slow down, Mortlake."
Mortlake glanced back. TheGolden Butterfly, much diminished in size now by the distance, still hung doggedly on his heels.
"I'll give her more air," he vouchsafed stubbornly, "that ought to cool her off a bit—that and advanced spark."
He manipulated the necessary levers, but before many minutes it became apparent that, if urged at that rate, theSilver Cobwebwould never reach Sandy Beach without a break-down.
"Hadn't you better shut down a bit? That paint's blistering, as if the cylinders were red-hot."
Much as he disliked to interfere with the operation of the aeroplane, the young officer felt that it was necessary that some means should be taken to compel Mortlake to reduce speed. If the engine became so overheated that it stopped in mid-air, they might be caught in a nasty position, where it might be impossible to volplane—or glide—downward, without the aid of the engine.
"It's all right, I tell you," said Mortlake stubbornly. "We'll beat those cubs into Sandy Beach, or——"
Or what, was destined never to be known, for at that instant, with a splutter and a sigh, the overheated engines, almost at a red-heat, stopped short. The propeller ceased to revolve, and the aeroplane began to plunge downward with fearful velocity.
But Mortlake, no matter what his other faults, possessed a cool head. The instant he lost control of the motor, he seized the warping levers, and began manipulating them. At the same time he set the rudder so as to bring theSilver Cobwebto earth in a series of long spirals. The maneuver was that of volplaning, and has been performed successfully by several aviators whose engines have suddenly ceased to work while in mid-air. The young officer watched approvingly. Whatever else Mortlake might be—and Lieut. Bradbury had not taken a violent fancy to him—he was a master of the aerial craft.
Despite the mishap to the engine—caused by his own carelessness—Mortlake managed to bring theSilver Cobwebto a gentle landing in a broad, flat meadow, inhabited by some spotted cows, which fled in undignified panic as the monster, silent now, swooped down like a bolt from the blue.
The instant theSilver Cobwebcame to rest Mortlake's restless eyes glanced upward. He was hoping against all common sense that the young Prescotts had not seen his mishap, or at least that they would pass on above him unnoticing. His first glance showed him theGolden Butterflystill steadily plugging along, and a moment later it became apparent that they had seen the sudden descent of theCobweb, for the aeroplane was seen to dip and glide lower, much as a mousing hawk can be seen to do.
"Hard luck," murmured the young naval officer, as Mortlake, who had clambered out of the machine, stamped and fumed by its side. Inwardly Lieut. Bradbury was thinking how stubborn men invariably meet with some mishap or accident.
"Yes, beastly hard luck," agreed Mortlake readily. "I see a farm-house over there, though, the other side of those trees. I guess I can get a bucket and some water over there. Once I've cooled those cylinders off, we'll be all right."
"How long will that take, do you think?" inquired the officer, pulling out his watch and a time-table.
"Not more than half an hour. It shouldn't take that."
"That means I miss my train. If we don't get into Sandy Beach by eleven o'clock, I can't possibly make it. And there's not another from there for two hours. That would make me late for my appointment at Mineola."
Mortlake's face fell. Here was a bit of hard luck with a vengeance. It might cost him a place in the contests.
"We can make up time, once we get under way," he said tentatively.
"That isn't it. I daren't risk it. I wonder if I can get an automobile or some sort of a conveyance about here."
"Not a chance. I know this neighborhood. It is very sparsely settled."
A sudden whir above them caused them both to look up. It was theGolden Butterfly, swooping and hovering above the disabledCobweb.
"Had an accident?" shouted down Roy.
"What do you think? You can see we're not flying, can't you?" bellowed Mortlake, his face crimson with anger and mortification.
"Can we do anything to help you?" came from Peggy, ignoring the fellow's insulting tones.
"No!"
"Yes!"
The first monosyllable came from Mortlake. The second from Lieut. Bradbury.
"If you don't mind accepting a passenger, I should be glad of a lift to Sandy Beach. I've got to make a train," explained the young officer.
In five minutes theGolden Butterflywas on the sward beside the crippledCobweb. Mortlake's face was black as night. He fulminated maledictions on the young aviators who had appeared at—for him—such an inopportune moment.
"Can I help you fix the machine?" asked Roy pleasantly. "There's nothing serious the matter, is there?"
"Not a thing," asserted Mortlake. "It's all the fault of the men who made the carburetor. They did a bungling bit of work, and the cylinders have overheated."
"Can we leave a message for you at your shops, or would you like a lift home with us?" asked Roy, who felt a kind of pity for the angry and stranded man.
"You can't do anything for me except leave me alone," snapped out Mortlake; "you cubs are altogether too inquisitive. You're too nosy."
"But not to the extent of making sketches and notes, Mr. Mortlake?" inquired Peggy sweetly—"cattily," she said it was, afterward.
Mortlake started and paled. Then, without vouchsafing a reply, he strode off in the direction of the farm house to get the water he needed.
"Now, Mr. Bradbury," said Roy, extending a hand.
The young officer leaped nimbly into the chassis, and presently a buzzing whir told that the faithfulGolden Butterflywas taking the air once more.
"Score two for us!" thought Peggy to herself.
From a far corner of the pasture, Mortlake watched his young rivals climbing the sky. He shook his fist at them and his heavy face darkened.
Some two days after the events narrated in our last chapter, Lieut. Bradbury, sitting in the library of the New York Aero Club, on West Fifty-fourth Street, received a telegram from Eugene Mortlake. He was considerably astonished, when on tearing it open, he read as follows:
"Must see you at once. Have positive proof that young Prescott is about to sell out his secrets to foreign government."
"Phew!" whistled the young officer. "This is a serious charge. If it is proved, it will bar Prescott from bidding for the United States government contract. But I can hardly believe it. There must be some mistake. However, it is my duty to investigate. Let's see—three o'clock. I can get a train to Sandy Beach at four. Too bad! Too bad!"
The young officer shook his head. He had come to have a sincere regard for Roy and his pretty sister, as well as admiration for their resourcefulness and pluck.
When it is explained that during the time elapsing between his lucky lift in the Prescott machine and the reception of the note, that Lieut. Bradbury had notified Roy that he would be expected to report at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, his feelings on learning that there was suspicion directed against his young protegé, may be imagined. Mortlake, too, had received a notice that his machines were eligible for a test, so that there would have seemed to be no object for his acting treacherously. Otherwise, the young officer might have been suspicious. What he had seen of Mortlake had not particularly elevated that gentleman in his opinion. But if he had desired to wrong the Prescotts, reasoned the officer, such a resourceful man as he had adjudged Mortlake to be, would have sought a deeper and more subtle way of going about it.
"And I'd have staked my word on that boy's loyalty; aye, and on his sister's too," muttered the officer, as he made ready for his hasty trip to Long Island.
By this it will be seen that Lieut. Bradbury was by no means proof against the rather common failing of inclining to believe the first evil report we hear. It is a phase of human nature that is not combatted as it should be.
In the meantime, Roy and Peggy had sustained a surprise, likewise. The day before that on which Lieut. Bradbury received the disturbing dispatch, an automobile had whizzed up to their gate and stopped. Roy, Peggy and Jess and Jimsy were at a game of tennis, when a rather imperious voice summoned them, from the tonneau of the machine.
They looked up, to see a remarkably pretty young girl, who could scarcely have been more than eighteen years old. Her eyes were black as sloes, and flashed like smoldering fires. A great mass of hair of the same color was piled on the top of her head in grown-up fashion, and her gown, of a magenta hue, which set off her dark beauty to perfection, was cut in the most recent—too recent, in fact—style.
"Can you direct me to Mr. Mortlake's aeroplane factory?" she demanded in an imperious tone. Evidently the flushed, healthy-looking young people, who had been playing tennis so hard, were very despicable in her eyes.
"There it is, down the road there," volunteered Roy. "It's that barn-like place."
The appellation was unfortunate. The girl's eyes flashed angrily.
"My name is Regina Mortlake," she said angrily. "I am Mr. Mortlake's daughter. He is not in the habit of putting up barns, I can assure you."
"I beg your pardon——" began Roy, quite taken aback by the extraordinary energy with which the reproof to his harmless remark had been given. But the dark-eyed beauty in the automobile had given a quick order to the chauffeur, and the car skimmed on down the road.
Later that day theSilver Cobwebascended for a flight. It had nothing more the matter with it on the day of the break-down than the heated cylinders, which, as Mortlake had prophesied, soon cooled. But Mortlake himself did not take up the silvery aeroplane on this occasion. A new figure was at the wheel, clad in dainty dark aviation togs and bonnet, with a fluttering, flowing veil of the same color, which streamed out like a flag of defiance.
The new driver was Miss Regina Mortlake.
They learned later that the girl had taken frequent flights in the South, where her father had, for a time, entered into the business of giving aeroplane flights for money at county fairs and the like. His daughter had taken naturally to the sport, and was an accomplished air woman. She knew no fear, and her imperious, ambitious spirit made her a formidable rival even to the foreign flying women who competed at various international aviation meets.
While his daughter spun through the air, Eugene Mortlake sat in his little glass-enclosed office in one corner of the noisy aeroplane plant. Four finished machines were now ready, and he would have felt capable of facing any tests with them had it not been for his uneasy fear of the Prescott aeroplane. But he had evolved a scheme by which he thought he would succeed in putting Peggy and Roy out of the race altogether. It was in the making that afternoon in the little office.
Opposite to Mortlake sat two men whom we have seen before. But in the cheap, but neat suits they now wore, and with their faces clean-shaven of the growth of stubby beard that had formerly covered them, it would have been somewhat difficult to recognize the two ill-favored tramps who had been routed by Peggy in such a plucky manner. But, nevertheless, they were the men.
"You thoroughly understand your instructions now?" questioned Mortlake, as he concluded speaking.
The fellow who had been addressed by his companion as Joey, at the time they encountered Mortlake and Harding on the road to the Galloway farm, nodded.
"We understand, guv'ner," he rasped out in a hoarse voice; "Slim, here, and me don't take long ter catch on, eh, Slim?"
"No dubious manner of doubt about that," responded Slim. "An' although I'm a tramp now, guv'ner, I wasn't allers one. I've held my head as high as the rest of the good folks of the world. I can play the gentleman to perfection. Don't you worry."
This Slim—or to give him his correct name—Frederick Palmer, was, as he declared with such emphasis, a man who had indeed "seen better days," as the phrase is. Now that he was invested in fair-looking clothes, and was graced with a clean collar and a smooth-shaven face, he actually might have passed for a person in fairly well-to-do circumstances. For the part Mortlake wished him to play, he could not have picked out a better man. Utterly unscrupulous, and with the best of his life behind him, "Slim"—as the tramp fraternity knew him—was prepared to do anything that there was money in. His companion possessed no such saving graces of appearance. Short, coarse, and utterly lacking in every element of refinement, Joey Eccles was a typical hobo. But Mortlake's shrewd mind had seen where he could make use of him, too, in the diabolical plan he was concocting, and the details of which he had just finished confiding to his unsavory lieutenants.
"But say, guv'ner," struck in Joey Eccles, his little pig-like eyes agleam with cupidity, "we've got to have a bit more of the brass, you know—a little more money—eh?"
He ended in an insinuating whine, the cringing plea of the professional beggar.
Mortlake made a gesture of impatience.
"I gave you fellows a twenty-dollar-bill a few days ago," he said, "in addition to that, you've been provided with clothes and lodging. What more do you want?"
"We've got to have some more coin, that's flat," announced Slim decidedly; "come on, fork over, guv'ner. You've gone too far into this now to pull out."
Mortlake's florid face went white. As if he heard it for the first time, the words struck home. He had indeed "gone too far," as the tramp sitting opposite to him had said. He was, in fact, completely in the power of these two unscrupulous mendicants. Making a resolve to get rid of them as speedily as possible, he dived into his breast pocket and drew from it a roll of bills that made Slim's and Joey's eyes stick out of their heads.
He peeled off a twenty-dollar-bill, and flung it with no good grace down upon the table.
"There," he said, "that's the last you'll get till the trick is done."
"Thankee, guv'ner; I knowed you'd see sense. A man of your intelligous intellect, and——"
"That will do," snapped Mortlake. "Do you think I've got nothing to do but talk to you fellows all day? You thoroughly understand, now, to-morrow night on the road to Galloway's farm?"
"Yus, and we've got a nice little deserted farm house all picked out, where we can keep the young rooster on ice," grinned Joey.
"Well, well," shot out Mortlake, "that will be your task. I've nothing to do with that. Do you understand," he rapped the table nervously, "I know nothing about it."
"All right, all right; we're wise," Slim assured him confidently. "Don't you worry. Come on, Joey. Got the money?"
"Have I? Oh, no; I'm goin' ter leave it right here," grinned Joey, enjoying his own irony hugely.
Still chuckling, he arose and shuffled out, followed by the unsavory Slim.
Outside, and on the road to the village, Slim began to be obsessed by doubts.
"Some way, I don't jes' trust that Mortlake," he said. "You're sure that bill is all right, Joey?"
"Sure? Well, you jes' bet I am. Here, look at it yourself. All right, ain't it?"
He drew out the bill and handed it to Slim for his inspection.
"And the best of it is," he chuckled, while Slim inspected the bill carefully, "the best of it is, that I wasn't conformin' to the exact truth when I told Mortlake that we'd spent all the other coin. I've got the best part of it left."
"Good," grunted Slim, turning the twenty-dollar-bill over and examining the reverse side, "that being the case—hullo!"
"What's up?" asked Joey.
For reply Slim handed the bill to Joey, pointing with a grimy first finger at something on the reverse side.
It was an "O," scrawled in dull red ink.
"That would be an easy bill to identify," commented Palmer, uneasily, "wonder if this can be a trap?"
"Well, keep your suspicions to yourself for a while," counseled Joey; "we don't need to break it till we make sure."
It was the next evening. Mortlake, sitting at his desk, looked up as a quick step sounded outside. The factory was in darkness as the men had gone home. Only a twilight dimness illuminated the little glass sanctum of the inventor and constructor of the Mortlake Aeroplane.
"Come in," said Mortlake, as the next instant a sharp, decisive knock sounded.
Lieut. Bradbury, in a mufti suit of gray, stepped into the office.
"Ah, good evening, lieutenant," said Mortlake, rising clumsily to his feet and offering a chair, "I was beginning to despair of you."
Bradbury, genuinely worried, lost no time in plunging into the object of the interview.
"That message you sent me—what does it mean?" he asked. "I can scarcely believe——"
"Nor could I, at first," said Mortlake, with assumed sorrow. "It cut me pretty deep, I tell you, to think that a boy who was in negotiations with his own government for a valuable implement of warfare, should deal with a foreign government at the same time. In brief, this young traitor is balancing the profits and will sell out to the highest bidder."
"That's strong language, Mortlake," said the young officer, drumming the table with his fingers impatiently. Honorable and upright in all his dealings, the young officer had no liking for the business in hand. Yet it was his duty to see the thing through now, unpleasant as it promised to be.
"Strong language?" echoed Mortlake. "Yes, it is strong language, but not a bit more emphatic than the case warrants. Did you know that for some days past a German spy has been in Sandy Beach?"
"No. Certainly not."
"Well, there has been. He visited this plant with proposals to turn over our aeronautic secrets to his government, but we refused to have anything to do with his scheming."
"Yes, very good. Go on, please." The young officer felt that Mortlake was approaching the climax of his story.
"One of our men," resumed Mortlake, in even tones, in which he cunningly managed to mingle a note of regret, "one of our men took upon himself—loyal fellow—to watch this spy. He reported to me some days ago that the man was in negotiation with young Prescott."
"Good heavens!"
"I know it sounds incredible, but we are dealing with facts. Well, more than this, my zealous workman ascertained that young Prescott is to meet this foreign agent at nine o'clock to-night on a lonely road, and is there to hand over to him the complete plans and specifications of the Prescott aeroplane."
"It's unbelievable, horrible. And in the face of this, do you mean to say that the boy would dare to keep up his apparent negotiations with the United States?"
"That's just the worst part of it, as I understand it," rejoined Mortlake. "The negotiations with this foreigner would, of course, be presumed by young Prescott to be secret. This being so, he would, if successful in the tests, sell his ideas to the United States also, without mentioning the fact that they had already been bought and paid for."
"Monstrous!"
"Just what I said when I heard of it. I could not believe it, in fact. The boy has always seemed to be all that was upright and honest. It just shows how we can be mistaken in a person."
"I cannot credit it yet, Mortlake."
"It was to give you proof positive that I summoned you here. We will take an automobile out to the spot where young Prescott is to meet the foreign agent. Of course, our arrival will be so calculated as to give us time to secrete ourselves before Prescott and the other meet. Are you willing to let your estimate of young Prescott stand or fall by this meeting?"
"I am, yes," replied Lieut. Bradbury, breathing heavily. "The young scoundrel, if he is caught red-handed, I will see if there is not some law that will operate to take care of his case."
Mortlake could hardly conceal a smile. His plan to ruin Roy was working to perfection. In his imagination he saw the Prescott aeroplane eliminated as a naval possibility, and the field clear for the selection of the Mortlake machine. Mentally he was already adding up the millions of profit that would accrue to him.
Lieut. Bradbury left that meeting heavy of heart. Mortlake's story had been so circumstantial, so full of detail, that it hardly left room for doubt. And then, too, he had offered to produce positive proof, to allow the officer to witness the actual transaction.
"Good heavens, isn't there any good in the world?" thought the officer, as the hack in which he had driven out to the Mortlake plant drove him back to the village. Mortlake had agreed to call for him at the little hotel at eight o'clock. The hours till then seemed to have leaden feet to the anxious young officer.
It was shortly before this that Roy, returning from an errand in town in the Prescott automobile, was halted at the roadside by a figure which stepped from the hedge-row, and, holding up a cautioning finger, uttered a sharp:
"Hist!"
Roy, turning, saw a man, seemingly a workingman, from his overalls, at the side of the machine.
"What is it? What do you want?" demanded Roy.
"I have a message for you," said the man, speaking in a slightly foreign accent; "you are in great danger. Your enemies plot it."
"My enemies!" exclaimed Roy.
"Yes, your enemies at the Mortlake factory."
"Let's see," said Roy thoughtfully, "you're one of the workmen at the Mortlake plant, aren't you?"
"Iwasonce," said the man, with a vindictive inflection, "but I am so no longer. Mortlake discharged me."
"Discharged you, eh? Well, what's that got to do with me?"
Roy looked curiously at the man.
"Just this much. I know the meanness that Mortlake plans to do to you. You have bad and wicked enemies at our place."
"Humph! I guess there may be some truth in that," said Roy with a rather grim inflection. "Well, what do you want me to do about it?"
"Just this: I am an honest man. I do not want to see harm come to you or to your sister." This was touching Roy in a tender spot.
"To my sister!" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that Mortlake is scoundrel enough to plot against her, too?"
"In this way," explained the man, "he means to destroy your aeroplane, leaving the field clear for his own type to be selected by the navy."
"The—the—the ruffian!" panted Roy, now thoroughly aroused. "Tell me more about this."
"I cannot," rejoined the workman, "but my partner—he was discharged too—he can tell you much, much more. Will you meet him? I can take you to him?"
Roy thought a moment. The man seemed to be wholly honest and in earnest.
"How far from here is the place where your partner is?" he asked.
"Oh, not so very far. We soon get there in your fine machine. Will you go?"
"Well, I—yes, I'll go. Come on, get in."
The man obeyed the invitation with alacrity. Under his directions, Roy swung the car off upon a by-road after they had gone some few hundred yards.
"Not long now," he said, as the vehicle bounced and jounced over the ruts and stones of the little-used thoroughfare.
"This is a funny direction for your partner to live in," said Roy at length. "There are not many dwellings out this way, nothing but a big swamp, as I recollect it."
"My partner, he poor man," was the rejoinder. "He live with cousins out here."
The answer lulled Roy's rousing suspicions.
"It must be all right," he thought. "There can't be any trick in all this. It's quite likely that Mortlake does want to play us a mean trick. I can't forget the look he flashed at me the day we took Lieut. Bradbury away from him in that meadow after we had made our first sea trip. Wow!"
Roy could not forbear smiling at the recollection.
They chugged along in silence for some little distance farther, and then the man beside him laid a detaining hand on Roy's arm.
"Almost there now," he said. "Better slow up."
Roy did so. The brakes ground down with a jarring rasp.
At the same moment a dark figure stepped from behind a tree trunk. The man beside Roy held up a hand.
"This is the young gentleman," he said.
Through the gloom the other figure now approached the automobile.
"Do you mind getting out?" it said. "We can talk better in the house."
"Where is the house? I don't see one," said Roy, his suspicions rousing a little.
"It's just behind that knoll. The path is just ahead," said the newcomer.
Roy got out. He was determined to see the adventure through now. If Mortlake was plotting against him, he wanted to know it.
As he reached the ground, the newcomer extended his hand, as if offering to shake Roy's palm.
Roy put out his hand, which was instantly grasped by the other.
"Your friend tells me that you have something interesting to tell me——" began Roy. "I—here, what are you trying to do? Stop it!"
The other had seized his hand in a clutch of steel, and, before the astonished boy could offer any resistance, had wrenched it over in such a manner that, without exactly knowing what had occurred, Roy found himself sprawling on his back.
The lad was helpless in this lonely place with two men who had now shown themselves in their true and sinister character.
The spot was fearfully lonely. Roy realized this to the full. Brave as the lad was, he felt suddenly chilled and creepy. Besides, the utter mystery that enveloped the affair was gruelling to the mind.
"Now be still," pleaded the late guide, as Roy, full of fight, jumped to his feet and flung off the detaining hold which had been laid on him.
"Yep. We don't want to hurt you," chimed in another voice, the voice of the powerful, stockily-built man who had thrown him, "be reasonable and quiet now, and you'll come to no harm. If not——" he drew a pistol and presented it at the boy's head.
The hint was rough but effectual. Roy saw that it would be mere folly to attempt resistance.
"What's the meaning of this rough behavior?" he asked in a steady voice, mentally resigning himself to the inevitable.
"You just come with us for a little while," said the gruff-voiced one. "Don't worry; we ain't goin' ter harm you. You'll git loose agin after a while. Don't worry about that."
This assurance, though mysterious, was more or less comforting. But Roy resented the utter mystery of the affair.
"But what's it all for?" he protested. "Is Mortlake at the back of it; or—"
"Now, you come along, young feller," said a gruff voice, "don't axe no questions and you won't git told no lies, see?"
Roy saw.
"Well, go ahead, since I'm in your power," he said. "But I warn you it will go hard with you if ever I am able to set justice on your track."
"Hard words break no bones, guv'ner," came from the gruff-voiced man, who was none other than Joey Eccles, disguised with a big beard. The man who had escorted Roy into the trap was, in truth, a former workman at the Mortlake factory, who had been discharged for incompetency. He had applied at the plant to be taken on again, being well-nigh desperate with hunger, and Mortlake had assigned him to the present task, for which, if the truth be told, he had no great liking.
"Where do you want me to go?" was Roy's next question, as neither of his captors had yet made a move.
"We'll show you fast enough, young guv'ner," said Joey through his beard. "Come on, this way."
He caught hold of Roy's arm and began piloting him along a path, or rather cow track, that ran across the meadow. It was now almost dark, and Roy, after they had gone a few steps, was only able to make out the dark outlines of what seemed to be a small hut on the edge of a dense woods lying directly ahead of them.
"I suppose that's our destination," thought the boy. "Well, they have not attempted any violence, and I guess if they had meant me any physical harm they would have attacked me when they first trapped me. But what does all this mean? That's the question."
Nothing more was said as the three, the captors and the prisoner, tramped across the dewy grass. As they drew closer to the building Roy had descried, he saw that it was a dilapidated looking affair. Shutters hung crazily from a single hinge, broken window-panes looked disconsolately out. In the roof was a yawning gap, from which a great owl flapped as they drew closer. Evidently the place had not been occupied as a dwelling for many years.
The door, however, was open, and, with the pistol still menacing him, Roy was marched by his captors into the moldy, smelling place.
Handing his pistol to the other man, gruff-voice—otherwise Joey Eccles—struck a match. Carefully screening it from the draughts which swept through the rickety building, he led the way into a bare room in which was a tumble-down table and two boxes to serve as seats. A pack of greasy cards lay on the table-top, showing that Joey had been passing his time at solitaire.
This fact showed Roy that the plot had been carefully concocted, and that the trap was all ready to be sprung much earlier in the day. Only a brain like Mortlake's, he reasoned, could have thought out such an intricate plan. And yet, what could be Mortlake's object?
"Now, then," announced Joey, when he had lighted the tin kerosene lamp, "I'll show you to your quarters, Master Prescott."
A chill ran through Roy at the words. What could be coming now? With his pistol in his hand, Joey gently urged Roy into a rear room, his companion following with the lamp. Once in the room, Joey stepped forward, and, stooping down, raised a trap door in the centre of the floor. A rank, musty smell rushed up as he opened it.
"Thar's your abode for the next three or four hours," he said with a grin to Roy and pointing downward.
The boy shuddered.
"Not in there?" he said.
"Them's our orders," said Joey shortly. "There's a ladder there now. You can climb down on that. Don't be scared. It's only a cellar, and guaranteed snake-proof. When the time comes, we'll lower the ladder to you again, an' git you out."
Roy looked desperately about him. Unarmed, he knew that he did not stand a chance against his burly captives, but had it not been for the fact that one of them had a pistol, he would have, even then, attempted to make a break for liberty. But as it was—hopeless!
He nodded as Joey pointed downward into the dark, rank hole, and, with an inward prayer, he slowly descended the ladder. The instant his feet touched the ground, Joey, who had been holding the lamp above the trapdoor, ordered his companion to pull up the ladder.
The next moment it was gone, and the trapdoor was slammed to with an ominous crash.
Roy was enveloped in pitchy darkness. Suddenly, through the gloom, he heard a sound. It was the rasp of a padlock being inserted in the door above him. Then came a sharp click, and the boy knew that hope of escape from above had been cut off. If the men kept their promise, they would release him in their own good time, and that was all he had to buoy him up in that black pit.
But Roy, as those who have followed his and Peggy's adventures know, was not the boy to weakly give way to despair before he had exhausted every possible hope, and not even then.
But in the darkness he did bitterly reproach himself for falling into the rascals' trap so blindly.
"Well, of all the prize idiots in the world," he broke forth under his breath in the blackness, "commend me to you, Roy Prescott. If you'd thought it over before you started—looked before you leaped—this would never have happened. Anybody but a chump could have seen that, on the face of it, the whole thing was a scheme to entice you away. Oh, you bonehead! You ninny!"
The boy felt better after this outbreak. He even smiled as he thought how neatly he had walked into the spider's web. Then he shifted his position and prepared to think. But, as he moved his foot struck something. A wallet, it felt like; he reached down, and, by dint of feeling about, managed to get his fingers on it.
The leather was still warm, and Roy realized that it must have been dropped into the cellar from the bearded man's pocket when he leaned over to see if Roy had reached the bottom of the ladder.
"Queer find," thought the boy. "I'll keep it. Maybe there's something in it that may result in bringing those rascals to justice."
He thrust it into his pocket and thought no more of it. His mind was busy on other things just then. If only he had a match! He felt in all his pockets without result, and was about giving up in despair, when, in the lining of his coat, he felt several lucifers. They had slipped through a hole in his pocket.
"Gee whiz! How lucky that Aunt Sally forgot to mend that pocket," thought the boy, eagerly thrusting his fingers through the aperture and drawing out a dozen or more matches.
"These may stand me in good stead, now. But I don't want to waste them. Guess I'll just light one to see what kind of a place I'm in, and then trust to the sense of touch if I see any means of escape."
There was a scratch and a splutter, and the match flared bravely. Its yellow rays illumined a cellar very much like any other cellar. It was walled with stonework, well cemented, and there were two or three small windows at the sides. But these, which at first filled Roy with a flush of hope, proved, on examination, to have been bricked up, and solidly, too.
"Nothing doing there," he muttered, and turned his attention to the rear of the underground place where there was a flight of steps leading up to a horizontal door, which, evidently, opened on the outerworld. But this door was secured on the under side by a rusty padlock of formidable dimensions. Roy tried it. It was solid as the Rock of Gibraltar, as the advertisements say.
"Stuck!" he muttered disappointedly; and yet: "Hold on! What about that pocket tool kit I had when I started out on the auto? Hooray! Those chaps forgot to search me. Thought it was too much trouble, I guess. Now for a sharp file! Good! here's one! Now, then, if the luck holds, I'll be free in not much more than a long jiffy!"
These thoughts shot through Roy's brain, as he selected a file from his fortunate find, and began working away at the hasp of the padlock. Above him he could hear the low grumbling growl of the voices of his guardians. But they came very faintly.
"Lucky thing they are in the front room," thought Roy, as he worked on, "otherwise, they might hear this."
At last the file had cut far enough into the hasp for Roy's strong fingers to be able to bend the metal apart. With a beating heart, he replaced the little tool in its case and pulled the ring of the padlock out of the hasp. Then he gave an upward shove, but very gently. For all he knew, the door he was pushing upward might open in another room. But when it gaped, an inch only, Roy saw the faint radiance of a clouded moon. A gust of fresh, clean air blew in his face, as if welcoming him from his noisome depths. An instant later, with throbbing pulses and flushed cheeks, Roy stood out in the open. Above him light clouds raced across the moon, alternately obscuring and revealing the luminary of the night.
But Roy didn't linger. He crept across the field, keeping close to a tall, dark hedge-row till he reached the automobile. As he had guessed, neither of his captors knew how to run it, and it stood just where he had left it.
"Glory be!" thought the boy, climbing in, "I'm all right, now. I don't know where this road goes to, and it's too narrow to turn round, but I'll keep straight on and I'm bound to land somewhere."
He turned on the gasoline and set the spark. But the engine didn't move.
"Queer," thought Roy.
He got out and walked round to the front and then the rear of the car. There was a strong smell of gasoline there. Stooping down, he found the ground was saturated with the fuel. What had happened was plain enough. The cunning rascals who had captured him had drained the tank of gasoline. The auto was as helpless as if it had not had an engine in it at all.
"Well, this is a fine fix," thought Roy. "However, there's nothing for it now, but to keep on. Those ruffians are cleverer than I gave them credit for."
Stealing softly toward the woods, the boy sped into their dark shadows. Aided by the flickering light of the moon, he made good progress through the gloomy depths. He did not dare to slacken his pace till he had traveled at least half a mile. Then he let his footsteps lag.
"Not much chance of their discovering me now, even if they have awakened to the fact that I have escaped," he said to himself, as he strode on.
Suddenly he emerged on a strip of road that somehow had a familiar look. He was still looking about when a strange thing happened.
There came the sound of rapid footsteps approaching him, and the quick breathing of an almost spent runner. Then came a sound as if somebody was scuffling not far from him and suddenly a voice he knew well rang out:
"Prescott, you young scoundrel, I'll get you yet!"
The voice was that of Lieut. Bradbury.
"Well, how under the sun does Lieut. Bradbury know that I'm here?" marvelled the amazed boy, stopping short.
At the same instant, from the direction in which the naval officer's shout had come, a slender dark figure came racing toward him.