CHAPTER IIIINVISIBLE HANDS AT THE WIRELESS
In a rear bedroom, the furthest apartment from the wireless room of the bungalow, Allan Clodis, barely alive, was placed when they bore him up from the boat. Then the three surgeons, retaining only Hank Butts, drove the others from the room.
“Back to the wireless!” breathed Seaton, tensely. “Dawson, get Beaufort on the jump.”
“I have the Beaufort operator,” reported Joe, after a few moments.
“Then rush this message, and ask the operator to get it in the hands of the chief of police without an instant’s loss of time,” directed Mr. Seaton, speaking in jerky haste.40
The message described Anson Dalton, also the black schooner on which he had last been seen. The police chief was asked to arrest Dalton on sight, on the authority of Powell Seaton, and hold him for the United States authorities, for an attempt at homicide on an American ship on the high seas.
Within ten minutes back came the reply from Beaufort to this effect:
“I have men out watching for the schooner. Man Dalton will be arrested as you request. Will notify you.”
“Good!” cried Mr. Seaton, rubbing his hands vengefully. “Oh, Dalton, you scoundrel, you can’t escape us now, for long! You knew that, if you continued down the coast, there was danger that a United States revenue cutter would intercept the ship and take you off. At best, you knew you would be arrested at Rio Janeiro, if I suspected you, as I was bound to do. So you tried to steal ashore here, to be swallowed up in the mazes of this broad country at least an hour or two ahead of pursuit. And, but for the wireless spark that leaps through space, you could have done so. But we shall have you now.”
“Unless––” began Tom Halstead, hintingly, then paused.
“Unless—what?” insisted Mr. Seaton.41
“Suppose Dalton is shrewd enough to pay the captain of the schooner to land him at some other point, where there is neither a policeman nor a telegraph station?”
Seaton made a noise that sounded as though he were grinding his teeth. Then he picked up a pencil, writing furiously.
“Send this to the police chief at Beaufort,” he ordered. Joe Dawson’s fingers made the sending-key sing. The message was one warning the police chief that Dalton might attempt to land at some point outside of Beaufort, and asking him to cover all near points along the coast. Mr. Seaton offered to make good any expense that this would entail.
Once more, in a few minutes, the answer was at hand.
“Chief of police at Beaufort says,” Joe translated the dots and dashes, “that his authority does not extend beyond the city limits.”
Again Mr. Seaton began to show signs of fury. Then, as though to force self-control, he trod softly out of the room, going toward the door of the sick-room, where Hank Butts stood guard.
“No news, sir; no change,” Hank reported, in an undertone.
“I’m afraid Mr. Seaton is pretty angry with us,” said Tom Halstead, gravely, “for allowing42Hilton—Dalton, I mean—to get away from us.”
“Then he may as well get over it,” commented Joe Dawson, quietly. “We’re hired to furnish a boat, to sail it, and, incidentally, to run a wireless telegraph apparatus. We didn’t engage ourselves as policemen.”
“True,” nodded young Captain Halstead. “Still, I might have done some quicker thinking. My! What would Dalton have felt like if I had run straight for this dock, refusing to put him aboard any other craft?”
“If you had tried to do that,” retorted Joe, with another quiet smile, “do you know, Tom, what I think your friends would have been doing and saying of you?”
“No; of course not.”
“Your friends would have been sending flowers, and bringing tears. They would be looking at you, to-morrow, and saying, in undertones: ‘Goodness, how natural he looks!’”
Halstead was puzzled for a moment or two. Then, comprehending, he grinned, though he demanded:
“You think Dalton would have dared anything like that?”
“Well, you notice what kind of a rascal Mr. Seaton thinks Dalton is. And you know we don’t go armed aboard the ‘Restless.’ Now,43I’m pretty certain that Dalton could have displayed and used weapons if we had given him any cause to do so.”
Ten minutes later, when Powell Seaton entered the room, he beheld Captain Tom Halstead seated at the operator’s table, sealing an envelope that he had just directed.
“What are you doing, Captain?” asked the charter-man.
“You know that miserable twenty dollars that I took from Anson Dalton for passage money?” inquired Halstead, looking up.
“Yes.”
“I’ve just enclosed the money in this envelope, with a note.”
“Going to return the money to Dalton when you find his address?” smiled Mr. Seaton, wearily.
“No, sir,” retorted Tom, in a voice sharp with disgust. “Dalton seems to have more money, already, than is good for him. I’ve addressed this envelope to a county institution down in the state that I come from.”
“A public institution?”
“Yes, sir; the home for feeble-minded youth.”
“Don’t take it so hard as that, Halstead,” urged Mr. Seaton. “Had you had a suspicion you would have done whatever lay in your44power. I might have warned you against Dalton, but the truth is,Idid not imagine he would be right on the scene.”
Saying which, Powell Seaton walked away by himself. He was gravely, even sadly preoccupied. Though Captain Halstead could not even guess what the underlying mystery was, he knew that it seriously affected Mr. Seaton’s plans and fortune. Their charter-man was worried almost past endurance, though bravely trying to hide the fact.
After the consultation of the surgeons, two of them departed aboard the tug, the third remaining to care for the patient. Hank, despite all his bluntness of manner, was proving himself valuable in the sick-room, while Joe spent most of his time in the wireless room of the bungalow, waiting to receive or send any word. So, as evening came, Tom Halstead bestirred himself with the preparation of the evening meal.
By dark there was a considerable wind blowing. Halstead left his cooking long enough to run down and make sure that all was snug and tight aboard the “Restless.” The young skipper had fairly to fight his way against the wind on his return to the bungalow.
“There’s going to be a tough old gale to-night,” Tom muttered to himself, as he halted,45a moment, on the porch, to study the weather conditions.
As yet, it was blowing only fairly hard. As the little group at the bungalow seated themselves at supper, however, the storm broke, with a deluge of rain and a sharp roar of thunder.
“This will bother wireless conditions to-night, won’t it?” queried Mr. Seaton, as they ate.
“Some, perhaps, if the gale and the storm keep up,” replied Joe Dawson. “But I imagine the worst of the gale is passing now.”
And so it proved. An hour later the rain was falling steadily, though only in a drizzle. The wind had moderated a good deal.
As all hands, save Hank, sat in the sitting room of the bungalow, after the meal, the warning bell from the apparatus room suddenly tinkled.
“You see, sir,” said Joe, rising quickly, “the wireless is still able to work.”
He passed into the next room, seating himself by the instruments and slipping on the head-band that held the receivers.
“From Beaufort, sir,” Joe said, presently, looking up. “The police report that no such schooner has landed at that city.”
“Acknowledge the message of the police,” directed Mr. Seaton, “and ask them not to give up46the lookout through the night. Tell the chief of police that I’ll gladly meet any expense that may be incurred.”
Joe’s right hand reached out for the sending-key. Then a blank look flashed across his face.
“Something wrong with the sending-key connections,” he explained, in a low voice, leaping up. He examined the connections closely, yet, the more he looked, the more puzzled he became.
“The storage batteries can’t have given out,” he muttered, snatching up a lighted lantern. “But I’ll go and look at them.”
Out into the little dynamo shed he darted, followed by Powell Seaton and by Tom. The doctor was dozing in an arm-chair.
Joe gave two or three swift looks at the dynamo, the storage battery connections and other parts of the apparatus. Then his face went white with rage.
“Look here, Mr. Seaton,” he panted, hoarsely. “There’s been some infernal work here—someone else has been on the island, for none of our crowd would do such a trick! Not even in fun! Look, sir, at where the parts have been tampered with. Look where pliers have been used to cut the wire connections. See where these two bolts have been neatly removed with the help of wrenches. Look at––”47
Joe paused, then glanced wildly around.
“Great Scott!” he groaned. “Just the parts removed that can’t be replaced. The whole generating plant crippled! Mr. Seaton, until we get in touch with the mainland, and get some needed supplies there, we can’t use this wireless plant again. We can receive messages—yes, up to any limit, but not a word can we send away from here.”
“But who can have done this trick?” gasped Powell Seaton, looking as though amazement had numbed him, as, indeed, it almost had.
“Someone has landed here, since dark,” broke in Tom Halstead, all a-quiver with dismay. “While we were at supper some sneak or sneaks have landed on this island. They have pried their way in here, and they’ve crippled our connection with the outside world.”
“They could do it all easily enough, without making any noise,” confirmed Joe. “Yes—they’ve done a splendid job, from a scoundrel’s point of view!”
“Then you can’t make this apparatus work for the sending of even a single message?” demanded Mr. Seaton.
“Not until we’ve landed some necessary repair and replacement materials from the mainland,” replied Joe, with a disgusted shake of his head.48
“But you can still send messages from the ‘Restless,’” hinted Powell Seaton.
Tom Halstead bounded for the door of the dynamo shed with a sudden exclamation of dread.
“We can use the boat’s wireless,” nodded Joe, following, and speaking over his shoulder, “unless the same crowd of rascals have broken into the boat’s motor room or cabin and played us the same trick there.”
In the big sitting room, beside the large open fire-place, was a pile of long sticks of firewood. Tom Halstead stopped to snatch up one of these, and Joe quickly followed suit.
“I’ll go down to the boat with you, boys,” said Mr. Seaton, who had followed them. “If there’s anyone around to put up a fight you’ll want some help.”
But Captain Tom, acting, for the moment, as though he were aboard the yacht, suddenly took command.
“Mr. Seaton,” he said, “you’d better remain here to guard your unconscious friend. Doctor, wake up! Better go in and send Hank Butts out on the trot. We’ll take him with us.”
Dr. Cosgrove, awaking and realizing that something important was happening, swiftly moved off to the sick-room. Hank was speedily out with his comrades.49
“If there are rascals on this island, who have designs against you, Mr. Seaton, then mount guard over your friend,” Tom added. “Better be in the sick-room at any moment when Dr. Cosgrove leaves there. Hank, get a club from that pile. Now, come along, fellows, and we’ll see what infernal mischief may have been done to the ‘Restless.’”
With that, the young skipper bounded out onto the porch, thence running down the board walk toward the dock.
Tom Halstead had some vague but highly uneasy notions as to the safety of his beloved boat. Yet, alarmed as he was, he was hardly prepared for the shock that met him when he arrived at the edge of the little wharf.
“Say, can you beat that?” panted young Halstead, halting, thunderstruck, and gazing back at his stupefied comrades. “The rascals—whoever they are—have stolen the ‘Restless.’ Joe, our splendid boat is gone!”
50CHAPTER IVTAKING A GREAT CHANCE
Joe, with a voiceless gulp, sprang forward once more, pausing at the string-piece only, and peering hard out into the black, wet night.
Hank Butts brought his club down over a snubbing post with such force as to shatter the weapon.
For a few moments Tom Halstead stood looking about him in an uncertain way, as though trying to arouse himself from a hideous nightmare.
“They’ve stolen our boat!” he gasped.
Whoever had done this deed might almost as well have taken the young captain’s life. The “Restless” was a big part of that life.
“Oh, well,” muttered Hank, thickly, “whoever took the yacht must leave it somewhere. You can’t hide a craft of that size. We’ll hear from the ‘Restless’ all right, in a day or two—or in a week, anyway.”
“Whoever took the yacht away from here may know next to nothing about handling a boat,” choked Tom, hoarsely. “We may find the dear old craft again—yes—but perhaps51wedged on the rocks somewhere,—a hopeless wreck. O-o-oh! It makes me feel ugly and heartsick, all in one!”
“The ‘Restless’ can’t have broken loose during the storm, can it?” asked Hank Butts.
“No,” retorted Tom and Joe in the same breath, and with the utmost positiveness.
“Well, what are we going to do?” asked Hank.
The answer to the question was hard to find. Lonely Island lay five miles off the shore. Wireless communication was out of the question. They were out of the track of passing vessels, nor was any stray, friendly craft at all likely to show up on this dark, forbidding night.
“Come on back, fellows,” said Tom, chokingly. “There’s nothing we can do here, and Mr. Seaton must know the whole situation.”
The owner of the bungalow listened to them with a blank face when the Motor Boat Club boys again stood before him.
“I can’t even guess what to make out of this,” he confessed.
“It would help Dalton greatly if Mr. Clodis died to-night, wouldn’t it, sir?” inquired the young skipper.
“It would help Dalton much, and be of still greater value to the wretches behind Dalton,” replied Mr. Seaton, grinding his teeth.52
“Then, sir, as the tug went back to mainland with two of the doctors, isn’t it possible that some spy may have concluded thatallthe doctors had returned until summoned again?”
“That seems very likely,” nodded the owner of the bungalow.
“Then perhaps Dalton—and those behind him—hope that Mr. Clodis will become much worse, and die before you can again summon help from the mainland.”
“That looks more likely than any other explanation of these strange happenings,” agreed Mr. Seaton, studying the floor, while the frown on his face deepened.
“And the scoundrels,” quavered Tom, “may even come back during the night and try to makesurethat Mr. Clodis dies without ever becoming conscious.”
“I don’t quite see why they need care so much,” replied Mr. Seaton, slowly. “Dalton got all of Clodis’s papers—the ones that I wanted preserved from the wretches back of Dalton.”
“Are you sure they haveall?” propounded Captain Halstead.
“Why, Clodis carried the papers in a money-belt, and, in undressing him, we found that belt gone.”53
“Have you looked through the baggage that we brought ashore with Mr. Clodis?”
“I haven’t thought of it. Haven’t had time,” replied Mr. Seaton. “But I will now. Mr. Clodis’s steamer trunk is in the room with him. We’ll bring it out, and search.”
Tom and Hank brought the trunk out.
“The lock hasn’t been tampered with, you see, sir,” suggested Halstead.
“Here are Clodis’s keys,” replied Powell Seaton, producing a ring. One of the keys he fitted to the trunk lock, next throwing up the lid. After rummaging for a few moments, Mr. Seaton brought up a sealed envelope from the bottom of the trunk.
“Daltonwouldhave been glad to get this,” he cried, with a near approach to delight.
“Lock it up tight in your innermost pockets then, sir,” counseled Tom Halstead. “The contents of that envelope must be what Dalton has come back here for, or sent someone else for. And, until he gets it, he must plan to keep Lonely Island out of touch with the whole world. We’ll hear from him again to-night, I’m thinking.”
“Will we?” flared Mr. Seaton, stepping briskly across the room. Unlocking a cupboard door, he brought out a repeating shot-gun. From an ammunition box he helped himself to54several shells, fitting six of them into the magazine of the gun.
“Buckshot talks, sometimes,” said the owner of the bungalow, more quietly. “I shall be awake to-night, and have this gun always with me.”
“Have you any other weapons, sir?” asked Tom.
“Yes; a revolver—here it is.”
Powell Seaton held out the weapon, but Halstead shook his head.
“Dr. Cosgrove is the one who’ll want that, since he must stay by Mr. Clodis to-night. And, see here, Mr. Seaton, impress upon the doctor that he mustn’t take a nap, even for a moment. As for you, you’ll want to be watching the house in general.”
“Why, where will you young men be?” inquired Mr. Seaton.
“We couldn’t stay indoors, with our boat gone, sir,” Tom answered. “The first thing we must do is to explore all around the island. Even if we don’t get a sign of the ‘Restless,’ we may find out something else. We may be able to catch someone trying to land on this island later to-night.”
“Yes; it will be best to have guards outside roaming about the island,” admitted Powell Seaton, readily. Then, lowering his voice as he55signed to the Motor Boat Club boys to draw closer to him, Mr. Seaton added:
“Something, of some nature,willbe attempted to-night. There is no other sound explanation of the crippling of the wireless and the stealing of the boat. So be vigilant, boys—as I shall also be while you’re gone.”
Hank helped himself to a fresh club—a stouter one than that which he had broken over the snubbing post at the dock. Then out into the black night fared the three Motor Boat Club boys.
“Shall we keep together, or spread?” asked Joe Dawson.
“Together,” nodded Tom Halstead. “If there are prowlers about, we can’t tell how soon three of us may be even too few. Remember, we have only firewood to fight with, and we don’t know what kind of men we may run up against.”
So Tom led his friends down to a point but little south of the dock. From here, following the shore, they started to prowl slowly around Lonely Island, all the while keeping a sharp watch to seaward.
“If the boat is in any waters near at hand we ought to get some sign of her whereabouts by keeping a sharp enough watch,” Tom advised his comrades. “They can’t sail or handle the56boat without the occasional use of a light in the motor room. The gleam of a lantern across the water may be enough to give us an idea where she is.”
Peering off into the blackness of the night, this seemed like rather a forlorn hope.
“If whoever has stolen the boat intends to land later to-night,” hinted Joe, “it’s much more likely that the thieves are, at this moment, a good, biggish distance away, so as not to give us any clew to their intentions.”
In the course of twenty minutes the Motor Boat Club boys had made their way around to the southern end of the island.
Somewhat more than a mile to the southward lay a small, unnamed island. It was uninhabited, and too sandy to be of value to planters. Yet it had one good cove of rather deep water.
Tom halted, staring long and hard in the direction where he knew this little spot on the ocean to stand. It was too black a night for any glimpse of the island to be had against the sky.
“That would be a good enough place for our pirates to have taken the ‘Restless,’” he muttered, to his comrades.
“If we only had a boat, we could know, bye-and-bye,” muttered Hank, discontentedly.57
“We have been known to swim further than that,” said Joe, quietly.
“But never in such a sea as is running to-night,” sighed Tom Halstead. “Even as the water is, I’d like to chance it, but I’m afraid it would be useless. And it would leave Mr. Seaton and the doctor alone against any surprise.”
“I’d swim that far, or drown, even in this sea,” muttered Dawson, vengefully, “if I had any idea that our boat lay over that way.”
For two or three minutes the boys stood there, talking. Not once did Tom Halstead turn his eyes away from the direction of the island to the southward.
“Look there!” the young skipper finally uttered, clutching at Joe’s elbow. “Did you see that?”
“Yes,” voiced Joe, in instant excitement.
“That” was a tiny glow of light, made small by the distance.
“It’s a lantern, being carried by someone,” continued Captain Tom, after a breathless pause. “There—it vanishes! Oh, I say—gracious!”
Joe, too, gave a gasp.
As for Hank Butts, that youth commenced to breathe so hard that there was almost a rattle to his respiration.58
Immediately following the disappearance of the distant light, four smaller, dimmer lights appeared, in a row.
“That’s the same light, showing through the four starboard ports of the motor room,” trembled Joe Dawson. “Starboard, because the lantern was carried forward, before it disappeared briefly in the hatchway of the motor room.”
“That’s our boat—there isn’t a single doubt of it,” cried Tom Halstead, enthusiastically. “And now—oh, fellows! We’ve simply got to swim over there, rough sea or smooth sea. We’ve got to get our own boat back unless the heavens fall on us on the way over!”
“Humph! What are we going to do,” demanded Hank Butts, “if we find a gang aboard that we can’t whip or bluff?”
“That,” spoke Captain Tom, softly, “will have to be decided after we get there. But swim over there we must, since there isn’t anything on this island that even looks like a boat. See here, Joe, you and Hank trot up to the bungalow and tell Mr. Seaton what we’ve seen. The ‘Restless’ is at anchor in the cove yonder. There are plenty of logs up at the bungalow. Come back with one big enough to buoy us up in the water, yet not so big but what we can steer it while swimming. And bring with it a few lengths of that quarter-inch cord from the59dynamo room. Don’t be too long, will you, fellows?”
After Joe and Hank had departed, Tom Halstead watched the light shining behind the four distant ports until it disappeared. Then he looked at the waves long and wonderingly.
“It’s a big chance to take. I don’t know whether we can ever get out there in a sea like this,” he muttered. “Yet, what wouldn’t I do to get control of our own boat again? Our own boat—the good old ‘Restless’! Joe isn’t saying much of anything; he never does, but I know how he feels over the stealing of the boat and the chance that bunglers may leave her on the rocks somewhere along this coast!”
A few minutes passed. Then the young skipper heard hurrying footsteps. Joe and Hank hove into sight out of the deep gloom, bearing an eight-foot log on their shoulders.
“Good enough,” nodded Halstead, eyeing the log approvingly. “Now, wade into the water with it, and let’s see whether it will buoy us all up at need.”
All three waded out with the log, until they were in nearly up to their shoulders.
“Now, hang to it, and see if it will hold us up,” commanded Captain Tom Halstead.
The log bore them up, but the crest of a big wave, rolling in, hurled them back upon the60beach. Tom dragged the log up onto dry ground.
“Now, first of all, let’s lash our clubs to the log,” suggested the young skipper. This was soon accomplished. Then each of the Motor Boat Club boys made a medium length of the cord fast around his chest, under the arm-pits.
“The next trick,” proposed Halstead, “is to make the other end fast to the log, allowing just length enough so that you can swim well clear of the log itself, and yet be able to haul yourselves back to the log in case you find your strength giving out.”
This took some calculation, but at last the three motor boat boys decided that eight feet of line was the proper length. This decided, and accomplished, they carried the log down into the water, and pushed resolutely off into the blackness.
Even Tom Halstead, who allowed himself few doubts, little believed that they could accomplish this long, dangerous swimming cruise over a rough sea.
61CHAPTER VTOM MATCHES ONE TRICK WITH ANOTHER
At the outset Joe swam at the rear, frequently giving a light push to send the log riding ahead. Tom and Hank swam on either side, half-towing the timber that was to be their buoy when needed.
All three, reared at the edge of salt water, as they had been, were strong, splendid swimmers. This night, however, with the rough waves, the feat was especially dangerous.
“Swim the way a fellow does when he knows he’s reallygotto,” was the young skipper’s terse advice as they started.
It became a contest of endurance. Tom and Joe, the two Maine boys, were doggedly determined to reach their boat or perish in the attempt. Hank Butts, the Long Island boy, though perhaps possessing less fine courage than either of his comrades, had a rough way of treating danger as a joke. This may have been a pretense, yet in times of peril it passed well enough for grit.
Any one of the three could have swum a mile readily on a lightly rolling sea, but to-night the feat was a vastly sterner one. Hank was the62first to give out, after going a little more than an eighth of the distance. He swam to the log, throwing his right arm over it and holding on while the two Maine boys pushed and towed it. Finally, when young Butts had broken away to swim, Joe closed in, holding to the log for a while. At last it came even doughty Tom Halstead’s turn to seek this aid to buoyancy.
Nor had they covered half the distance, in all, when all three found themselves obliged to hold to the log, as it rolled and plunged, riding the waves. Worst of all, despite their exertions, all three now found their teeth chattering.
“Say, it begins to look like a crazy undertaking,” declared Hank, with blunt candor. “Can we possibly make it?”
“We’ve got to,” retorted Tom Halstead, his will power unshaken.
“I don’t see the light over there any more,” observed Hank, speaking the words in jerks of one syllable, so intense was the shaking of his jaws.
“Maybe the boat isn’t over yonder any longer,” admitted Captain Tom, “but we’ve got to chance it. And say, we’d better shove off and try to swim again, to warm ourselves up. We’re in danger of shaking ourselves plum to pieces.”
There was another great peril, on which none of them had calculated well enough before starting.63When they were clear of the log, swimming, it pitched so on the tops of the waves that it was likely, at any instant, to drive against the head of one of the swimmers and crack his skull.
“If we had known all this before we started––” began Hank, the next time the three swimmers were driven to cling, briefly, to their movable buoy.
“We’d have started just the same,” retorted Tom, as stiffly as his chattering teeth would let him speak.
“Humph!” muttered Hank, unbelievingly. “It’s a fool’s dream, this kind of a swim.”
“It’s less work to go ahead than to turn back, now,” broke in Joe, his teeth accompanying his words with the clatter of castanets.
“No; the wind and tide would be with us going back,” objected Butts. “We could almost drift back.”
“And die of chills on the way,” contended Tom, doggedly. “No, sir! We’ve got to go ahead. I’m swimming to the tune of thoughts of the galley fire aboard the ‘Restless’!”
“Br-r-r!” shook Hank, as the three cast loose from the log once more and struck out, panting, yet too cold to stay idle any longer.
It was tantalizing enough. The longer they swam, the more the boys began to believe that the island they sought was retreating from before64them. Hank was almost certain they were moving in a circle, but Halstead, with a keen sense of location, insisted that they were going straight, even if very slowly, to the nameless island.
“I see it,” breathed the young skipper, exultantly, at last.
“What—the island?” bellowed Hank Butts.
“No; but I’d swear I saw the ‘Restless’ the last time we rode a high wave,” Halstead shouted back.
Ten minutes afterwards all three of the Motor Boat Club boys caught occasional glimpses of something dark and vague that they believed to be the hull of their yacht. The belief gave them renewed courage. Even Hank no longer had any desire to turn back. His whole thought centered on the lively times that were likely to begin when they tried to regain control of their boat from whomever had stolen it.
Then, bit by bit the trio worked their log buoy into the cove. Once they were inside, the water was very much smoother. Resting a few moments for breath, they then made a last dash forward, to get alongside.
In this smoother, more shallow water, the “Restless” rode securely at anchor. As they swam closer, the boys found that they could discover no human presence on the decks. Had the65boat-stealers gone ashore on the nameless island? If so, it would be a comparatively easy matter to get aboard and cut out of the cove with their own craft.
Close up alongside they went. Tom Halstead was the first to be able to reach up at the hull and draw himself up over the side. Then, with his pocket-knife, as he lay at the rail of the “Restless,” the young skipper slashed the cord that still held him bound to the log. Reaching over, he passed the knife to Hank. In utter silence the Long Island boy cut the clubs free, and passed them up. Next Hank drew himself aboard, after passing the jackknife to Joe Dawson.
Just a little later all three of the Motor Boat Club boys found themselves standing on the deck, each grasping his own firewood weapon. They made no noise, for they knew not who, or how many others might be on board below. If they had a desperate gang of thieves to contend with, then their troubles had not yet even begun!
Joe and Hank stood where they were, shaking as though in the last ditch of ague, while Halstead went forward, with the soft tread of a cat, to peer down into the motor room, the hatchway of which stood open.
“Wonder if there’s anyone down there,66asleep, or playing possum?” thought the young skipper as he peered into the blackness and listened. No sound of any kind came up to him. At last, a short step at a time, Halstead descended into the motor room, groping cautiously about. Finally, he became confident enough to feel in the galley match-box, extract a match and light it. The tiny flame showed him that the motor room was empty of human presence other than his own.
“No one down forward,” he reported, in a shaking whisper, when he rejoined his chilled companions on deck.
“I believe there are plenty of folks in the cabin, though,” reported Joe. “They’ve drawn the port-hole and transom curtains, but they’ve got a hidden light down there, and I can hear voices.”
“Wait a moment, then,” said Captain Tom, apprehensively. “I’ve an idea.”
He crept back into the motor room, again striking a match. By the aid of this feeble light he found his way to the passageway that connected the motor room and the cabin under the bridge deck. After a brief inspection he hurried back to his comrades.
“The passage door is padlocked on the motor room side,” he whispered. “Our pirates had no key to unlock that with. Now, can you walk67the deck as though your shoes were soled with loose cotton?”
“Yes,” grumbled Hank, disjointedly, “but the snare-drum solo my teeth are doing may make noise enough to give me away.”
“Cram your handkerchief between your teeth,” retorted Captain Tom, practically. “Come along, fellows. But hold your clubs ready in case your feet betray you.”
Stealing along, each holding to the edge of the deck house with one hand, the motor boat boys approached the after hatchway. This, evidently for purposes of ventilation, had been left partly open.
Nudging his comrades to pause, Joe, bending so low as to be almost flat on the deck, prowled further aft.
There, in the darkness, he used his eyes to find out what might be down in the cabin. Then he came back.
“Eight tough-looking men in the cabin,” he whispered, in Tom Halstead’s ear.
“Is Anson Dalton one of them?”
“Yep.”
“Hurrah! Then we’ve bagged him, at last!”
“Have we, though?” muttered Joe Dawson, dubiously.
“Well, we’re going to,” declared Tom, radiantly. “My boy, we’re going to cut out of68this cove with, the whole crew held in down there.”
“Hope so,” assented Joe, not very enthusiastically.
“Why, we’ve got to,” argued Halstead. “If we don’t, then that crew would have the upper hand, instead, and make penny jumping-jacks of us until they saw fit to let us go. But wait a moment. I must get back and have a look at them.”
This time it was the young skipper who crawled aft. Joe and Hank followed part of the way, holding their sticks in readiness in case Dalton and his men discovered their presence.
“I reckon, Cap, you’ll find you’ve got the right crowd for to-night’s work,” a rough voice was declaring, as Halstead came within ear range.
“Now, don’t you men misunderstand me,” replied Anson Dalton in a smooth yet firm voice. “I’m not paying you for any piratical acts. I have to give a little heed to the laws of the land, even if you fellows don’t. What I want is this: At about two in the morning, when, most likely, everyone will be asleep except the one who is nursing the fellow Clodis, it is my plan to run in at Lonely Island’s dock. We’ll get quietly up to the house, suddenly force the door, and rush in. But, mind you all, there’s to be no69riot. Your numbers, and your rough appearance, will be enough to scare the folks of the bungalow. The two of you that I’ve already picked out will rush in with a stateroom door and one of the stateroom mattresses. With this for a stretcher, you two will get Clodis carefully and gently down to this boat. Then we’ll sail away, and I’ll tell you what to do next. But remember, no violent assault on anyone—no lawlessness, no hurting anyone badly. Trust to your numbers and suddenness. There’s some baggage, too, in the bungalow, that I mean to bring away with me. I’ll make off with it in the confusion.”
“Oh, will you?” wondered Captain Tom Halstead, his jaw settling squarely.
Then, tiptoeing softly over to where Hank waited, the young skipper whispered something in that youth’s ear. Hank fled quietly forward, but returned with a snap-padlock, the ring of which was open. With this in his hands Tom stole back aft, this time going close, indeed, to the hatchway.
“Hey! Someone on deck,” roared an excited voice below.
There was an instant babel of voices, a rushing of feet and a general rumpus below. Two men in the van raced for the hatchway.
Slam! snap! click! Tom Halstead swung70the hatchway door shut, forced the stout hasp over the staple and fastened the padlock in place!
CHAPTER VICARRYING DANGEROUS LIVE “FREIGHT”
“Cooped!” chuckled Joe Dawson, jubilantly.
Yet his voice could not much more than be heard above the racket that sounded below. Anson Dalton and his seven rough men were raising a hubbub, indeed.
“Smash the door down!” roared Dalton.
“Maybe we kin do it, boss, but the hatch is a stout one, and we ain’t jest ’zactly fixed for tools,” replied another voice.
After a few moments the fruitless hammering with mere fists subsided. In that time Hank Butts had raced forward, and now was back again with a prize that he had caught up from a locker near the motors. This was nothing more nor less than the hitching weight that Hank had once made very nearly famous, as described in the preceding volume, “The motor boat club off long island.”
“Let ’em get out if they can,” advised Hank, grimly. “This for the feet, or the head, of the first roustabout that shows himself!”71
Joe now raced forward to set the motors in motion. Though the young trio had temporary command of the deck, there was no telling how soon they would be overwhelmed. Every moment must be made to count.
Captain Tom, grasping his stick, stood by to help Hank in case the furious ones below succeeded in breaking out.
Hardly any time passed before the rhythmic chugging of the motors came to the young skipper’s delighted ears. Then Joe waved his arms as a signal from the raised deck forward. Halstead swiftly joined his chum. Together they got the anchor up, stowing it well enough for the present.
“Now, you’d better get back to Hank, hadn’t you?” quivered Joe. “I can handle speed and the wheel, too.”
“Bless you, old Joe!” murmured Captain Tom, fervently, and raced aft. Dawson leaped to the wheel, at the same time setting one of the bridge controls so that the “Restless” began to move forward under slow speed. This move came just in time, for, even in the cove, the water had motion enough to threaten the yacht with grounding.
But now alert Joe Dawson swung the boat’s head around, pointing her nose out of the cove.
“Get that hatch down in a hurry!” sounded72Anson Dalton’s hoarse voice, imperiously. “If you don’t, we’ll all be tight in a worse trap than this.”
Blows with fists and feet resounded once more. Then, after an instant’s pause, came the slower, harder thump-thump which told that one of the strongest of those caught below was using his shoulder, instead. Soon two cracks seamed the surface of the hatch door.
“Good! Go at it hard!” encouraged the voice of Dalton. “Batter it down. It will be worth money—and freedom—to you and to us all!”
“Yes, just clear a passage, and see what happens!” roared back Tom Halstead, as soon as he could make his own voice heard distinctly.
“Don’t mind the talk of those boys!” warned Dalton, angrily, as there came a pause in the shoulder assaults against the hatch.
With a grin Hank raised his iron hitching weight above his head, hurling it down to the deck with crashing force. Then, still grinning, he stooped to pick it up again.
That noisy thump on the deck timbers caused a brief ensuing silence down in the cabin. It was plain that Dalton and his fellows were wondering just how dangerous their reception would be in case they succeeded in breaking out.73
The cabin was lighted, in day time, by side ports and a barred transom overhead. The ports were too small to permit of a man forcing his way through. Even though they broke the glass overhead, the prisoners in the cabin would still have iron bars to overcome. Tom Halstead, with his club, could hinder any work at that point.
In the meantime, the “Restless,” once out of the cove, was bounding over the waves like a thing of life. Though the water had been hard to swim through, it did not present a rough sea for a fifty-five foot power boat.
In less than three minutes Engineer Joe Dawson was sounding his auto whistle like mad as he neared the dock at Lonely Island.
Just as the boat glided in, under decreased headway, to the dock the bungalow door was seen to open. Powell Seaton, shot-gun in hand, appeared on the porch. He watched, not knowing whether friend or foe commanded the “Restless.” Mr. Seaton, himself, was made to stand out brightly in the middle of the searchlight ray that Joe turned upon him, yet he could not see who was behind that light.
Running the boat in, bow-on, Joe leaped ashore with the hawser. Making fast only at the bow, he next raced up the board walk, shouting the news to Mr. Seaton. The latter, with a74hail of delight, darted toward the dock, arriving barely behind Dawson.
Down in the cabin the din of the men trying to escape had redoubled. Powell Seaton tramped hurriedly aft, while Tom and Joe fell in behind him with heavy tread, to give the rascals below an idea that numerous reinforcements had arrived.
Bang! Pausing before the hatch Mr. Seaton raised the shot-gun to his shoulder, discharging a single shell. Hastily slipping one into the magazine of the weapon to replace the fired one, Seaton shouted sternly:
“Stop your nonsense down there! If you get out it will be only to run into the muzzles of fire-arms. You fellows are fairly caught!”
There was a startled silence, followed by indistinct mutterings. Not even Anson Dalton, it appeared, cared to brave what looked like too certain death.
Tom held a whispered consultation with his employer, then stepped over to young Butts.
“Hank, we’re going to leave you on shore. Mr. Seaton will come along with the gun. Keep your eyes open—until you see us again! Don’t be caught napping. Remember, you and Dr. Cosgrove have the whole protection of that helpless man, Clodis,inyour hands.”
Hank Butts made a wry face for a moment.75He would have much preferred to see the present adventure through. Yet, a second later, the Long Island boy bounded to the dock, then stood to cast off the bow-line.
After the line had come aboard, Joe Dawson again took his place at the wheel, turning on the speed gradually as the boat rounded out past the island, then turned in toward the mainland.
It was about five miles, in a direct westerly course, to the shore, but by an oblique, northwesterly course a fishing village some nine miles away could be reached.
“Steer for the fishing village,” nodded Powell Seaton. Captain Tom hurried forward to give the order, adding: “Make it at full speed, Joe. If you have to go to the engine, call me forward to take the wheel.”
Soon afterwards Tom slipped into the motor room, rubbed down and got on dry clothing. Joe, in turn, did likewise, afterward returning to the wheel.
Down in the cabin all had been quiet for some minutes after the discharge of the gun on deck. Yet Captain Tom, by peeping through the transom, discovered the heads of Dalton and some of his rough men close together in consultation.
“I’ll annoy them a bit,” chuckled the young skipper, moving swiftly forward. Dropping76down into the motor room he switched off all the cabin lights. An instant roar of anger came from below.
“Funny we didn’t think of that before,” grinned Dawson, as Halstead came up out of the motor room.
“It’ll bother the rascals a bit,” chuckled Captain Tom back over his shoulder.
With such a boat as the “Restless” ordinary distances are swiftly covered. It was barely twenty-five minutes after leaving the dock that Joe reached the entrance to the little harbor around which the houses of the fishing village clustered, nor had much speed been used.
Now the whistle sounded steadily, in short, sharp blasts. Moreover, Dawson managed to send the distress signal with the searchlight. By the time he slowed down speed, then reversed, to make the little wharf, a dozen men had hurried down to the shore.
“What’s wrong?” hailed one of them.
“Get the sheriff, or a sheriff’s officer!” shouted back Powell Seaton. “Be quick about it, one of you, please, and the rest of you stay here to help us.”
Joe sent the bow hawser flying ashore, Tom doing the same with the stern line. Willing hands caught both ropes, making them fast around snubbing posts. As two men started77away on the run, the rest of the bystanders came crowding aboard, filled with curiosity.
“What happens to be wrong on board?” demanded one bronzed fisherman.
“We’ve a cabin full of pirates, or rascals about as bad,” returned Mr. Seaton, grimly.
“Men of this coast?” asked another speaker.
“Yes, evidently,” nodded Mr. Seaton, whom the new-comers had recognized as the owner of Lonely Island.
“Then they must be the crew of the ‘Black Betty,’” commented the first speaker.
“Is that a black, fifty-foot schooner, low in the water, narrow and carrying tall masts with a heavy spread of canvas?” interposed Tom Halstead.
“Yes,” nodded the fisherman. “That’s the ‘Black Betty.’ She claims to be a fishing boat, but we’re ready to bet she’s a smuggler. She carries nine men, including Captain Dave Lemly.”
“I reckon we’ve got most of the ‘Black Betty’ outfit below, then,” declared Captain Halstead. “Or else—gracious!”
For, at that moment, the cracked hatch gave in with a smash. Powell Seaton had neglected to remain on guard closely. There was a surge of the prisoners below.
“Halstead, you’ll hear from me again—and78so will your crew!” shouted Anson Dalton out of the press of struggling men that formed on the after deck. “I won’t let you forget me, Halstead!”
There was a splash past the rail. Dalton had gone overboard, followed by two of his companions.