CHAPTER XVIIThe Escape
Frankwas so close to the man that he recognized him readily. He knew now that Hanleigh was the man who had stolen their supplies and hidden them, evidently to get the boys to leave the island. He knew that Hanleigh was the man who had lost the mysterious Sparewell notebook. He wanted to know more. If he raised the alarm now, the man would simply refuse to talk.
Frank waited until the fellow had vanished among the trees. Then he turned and made his way toward the cabin by a short-cut. He wanted to reach the place first and warn Joe, so that they could better observe the man’s actions without raising an immediate alarm.
“If he thinks we don’t see him, he may give himself away,” Frank reasoned.
He reached the cabin unobserved. Hanleigh had not yet emerged from the trees.
Frank found Joe standing at the window, looking down toward the rocks.
“I saw him! He’s coming this way.”
“Who is he?” demanded Joe eagerly.
“Hanleigh.”
“I thought so all along. Is he coming here?”
“I think so. Look, Joe—here’s my plan. I think he intends to come here. He imagines we’re all out hunting for him. Let’s hide and find out what he wants.”
“How about Chet and Biff?”
“They’re away down at the far ends of the island. We can capture Hanleigh any time we want.”
“Where shall we hide?”
They looked around hastily. If Hanleigh came to the cabin, they knew the man would probably search the place high and low for the notebook which was his probable objective in returning to the island.
“We’ll have to stay outside. No use running any risks. We’d better hide in the bushes until we see him come in here. Then we can creep up and watch him through the back window,” Frank decided.
They left the cabin and ran across to a heavy clump of bushes only a few yards away. There they crouched, waiting.
For a while, nothing happened. Then they heard a snapping and crackling of branches far over to one side. In a few moments, Hanleigh came into view. He looked cautiously from side to side, then advanced swiftly toward the door of the cabin. There was a smile of satisfaction upon his swarthy face. It was quite evident that he believed the lads had departed to search for him. Swiftly, he stepped into the cabin.
Frank and Joe came out of their hiding place. They sped quickly over to the window and peeped inside.
Hanleigh had paused uncertainly in the middle of the room. He was looking at the fireplace. He stepped toward it, then apparently changed his mind, for he paused, shook his head, and turned toward the kitchen. They heard him rummaging about there for a few minutes, and in a little while he returned.
That he was searching for something, soon became evident. He went over to the beds and flung blankets, pillows and even mattresses on the floor. With an expression of disgust, he began going through the boys’ packsacks.
“If he’s looking for the notebook he might as well quit now,” whispered Frank.
“Where is it?”
“In my pocket.”
Hanleigh made a thorough search of the cabin. He rummaged through the bureau and the desk, and as his search went on, with no success, he apparently lost his temper for he flung things on the floor and stamped angrily about.
“Let’s rush him before he wrecks the cabin,” whispered Joe.
But Frank restrained his brother.
“Wait!”
Hanleigh came over toward the window.
The boys ducked out of sight. They could hear the man talking to himself. They listened, and they heard him mutter:
“Well, they won’t be able to read that cipher, anyway, so I guess it’s all right.”
Frank and Joe nudged one another. Hanleigh was certainly searching for the Sparewell notebook. The man went away from the window. They heard a crash as, in a fit of vicious temper, the man swept off a few of the little ornaments some one had placed above the fireplace.
“If he’s going to start smashing things, I guess we’d better take a hand,” remarked Frank.
The boys stole around the side of the cabin. Then they stepped suddenly across the threshold.
With an exclamation of surprise, Hanleigh swung around, facing them.
“Good-day, Mr. Hanleigh,” said Frank. “I see that you have decided to pay us a little call.”
The man said nothing. He merely glared at the boys. They could see that he was estimating his chances of escape, but they barred the doorway.
“Why don’t you wait until we’re all at home?” asked Joe.
“You boys have no right here, anyway,” growled the intruder.
“Did you ask Mr. Jefferson about it?” inquired Frank sweetly.
“I came back here to look for something I lost the other day.”
“What other day? The day you came and stole all our supplies?”
“I don’t know anything about your supplies. I mean the day I was here when you fellows first arrived.”
“Haven’t you been here since?”
“No.”
“I’m pretty sure you have, Mr. Hanleigh. What was the idea of hiding our food supplies?”
“I don’t know anything about your food supplies, I tell you!” shouted the man, in exasperation. “I haven’t been here since the last time you saw me.”
“Well, I suppose we’ll have to take your word for it,” said Frank, with a shrug. “Although I don’t believe you for a minute. What was it you lost? Perhaps we can help you.”
“My pocketbook,” growled Hanleigh, after a moment’s silence.
“Your pocketbook? Was there much money in it?”
“About fifty dollars. You don’t blame me for coming back to look for it, do you?” sneered Hanleigh.
“Not at all. Where did you lose it?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere on the island.”
“Not down among the rocks, by chance?”
“I wasn’t down there.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a notebook?” asked Frank quietly.
The shot told. Hanleigh’s fists clenched.
“No, it wasn’t a notebook,” he said thickly.
“Well, if it wasn’t a notebook, I guess we can’t help you. Quite sure, you didn’t lose a notebook?”
“I don’t know anything about a notebook.”
“That’s too bad. If it had been a notebook you lost, instead of a pocketbook, we’d be able to help you. We did find a notebook and we have been wondering whom it belonged to.”
“What kind of notebook?”
“Why should you ask?” said Frank. “If you didn’t lose one, you shouldn’t be concerned. I think you’d better sit down, Mr. Hanleigh. We have a few things to talk over with you before we turn you over to the police.”
Hanleigh went pale.
“The police?” he gasped.
“Why, of course. You don’t suppose we’re going to let you get away with this, do you? You have no right here, you are trespassing on the island, you break into our cabin and go through all our belongings, just like a common burglar. What did you expect?”
“You won’t turn me over to the police,” declared Hanleigh.
“No?”
Hanleigh advanced toward them.
“Get out of my way!” he ordered.
The boys stood their ground.
“Just a minute,” said Frank. “We have rifles here. If you try to make a getaway, we won’t be afraid to shoot.”
Hanleigh hesitated.
“That’s just a bluff,” he said weakly.
“Try it, and see.”
“I’ll try it!” roared Hanleigh.
He made a sudden lunge. Frank reached out to seize him and grabbed the man’s arm. But Hanleigh shook himself free, plunged forward and collided with Joe. The boys were taken by surprise. Joe struggled desperately, but Hanleigh was a grown man and much stronger. He sent Joe reeling back against the wall.
Frank flung himself upon the man and tried to trip him up.
Hanleigh struck out viciously with his fist. It caught Frank full in the face. He was obliged to relinquish his hold. Before he knew it, Hanleigh had dashed toward the door. The man leaped across the threshold and out into the snow.
Frank recovered himself quickly. He ran toward the wall and took down the little rifle. Joe, in the meantime, raced out of the cabin in pursuit of the fugitive.
“Stop, or I’ll shoot!” Frank shouted.
But the man evidently realized that Frank would not make use of the rifle. He turned and shook his fist in their direction. With a yell of defiance, he disappeared among the trees.
Frank raised the rifle and fired two shots into the air. His aim was partly to frighten Hanleigh and partly to warn Chet and Biff.
Joe turned.
Pursuit was futile. The heavy snow hampered his footsteps.
“No use chasing him!” shouted Frank. “Perhaps Chet and Biff will catch him. It doesn’t matter. We know that he is the fellow who had the notebook, and that’s the main thing.”
CHAPTER XVIIIThe Cipher Solved
Hanleighmade good his escape.
Chet Morton and Biff Hooper, who were widely separated at the time, heard the rifle shots and returned posthaste to the cabin, but they did not meet the fugitive. By the time they reached the cabin, further pursuit was out of the question. Looking out the window, Frank pointed to a dark figure hastening across the ice toward the mainland.
“By the time we got one of the ice-boats out, he would be on the shore, and we’d never find him there,” he said. “Let him go. We learned something, at any rate.”
“What happened?” clamored Chet. “All we know is that Hanleigh was here. What did he do?”
Frank then told them of seeing Hanleigh among the trees, and of returning to the cabin to warn Joe.
“We watched him searching the place high and low. He was looking for the notebook—there’s no doubt of that. As a matter of fact, we heard him say that it didn’t really matter, because we wouldn’t be able to solve the cipher, anyway. So then Joe and I came in and asked him what he was doing. He tried to fool us with some cock-and-bull story about hunting for his pocketbook. He denied that he stole our supplies, but he was lying, of course. I threatened to turn him over to the police if he didn’t tell us what he knew about the notebook, and I guess that frightened him for he made a dash for the door.”
“We weren’t ready for him,” said Joe mournfully.
“I’ll bet he thinks twice before he comes here again,” declared Chet.
“I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him,” Frank remarked. “There is something mighty important about that notebook, and I’m sure he is not the man to give up as easily as all that.”
Chet shook his head.
“He’ll just wait until we leave the island for good.”
“I don’t think so. He knows that we’re apt to stumble on the secret of that cipher at any time. I’m going to tackle that message again. It can’t be so very difficult.”
Frank immediately sat down at the desk, the cipher message before him, and began figuring on a pad of notepaper, while the other boys set about restoring the damage their visitor had created.
First of all, he set down all the letters of the alphabet in order, and studied them intently, with reference to the cipher.
“If I were writing a cipher,” he mused. “How would I go about it? Perhaps this thing is really a lot simpler than it looks.”
The easiest thing to do, he thought, would be merely to reverse the alphabet. Instead of the letter “a” he would use the letter “z.” Instead of the letter “b” he would use “y,” and so on.
With this in mind, he jotted down the alphabet backward, so that he had two rows of letters. Then he picked up the cipher again.
The first word was “XZYRM.”
By replacing these letters with the corresponding letters in the other column he discovered that he had the word “CABIN.”
Frank leaped to his feet with a shout of delight.
“I’ve got it!”
The others came running over to the desk.
“Have you solved it?” demanded Joe excitedly. “How did you do it? What does it say?”
“It’s as simple as a-b-c. It was so easy that it looked hard. The man just turned the alphabet backward. Look! The first word is ‘cabin.’ ”
“The rest of it! The rest of it!” exclaimed Biff.
“I haven’t tackled the other words yet. Wait a minute. I’ll have them in a jiffy.”
Frank turned to the cipher again. For a few minutes he worked industriously. Little by little, the complete message took shape on the sheet of paper.
At last he sat back with a sigh of satisfaction.
“All serene! The cipher is solved.”
“Read it.”
Frank picked up the paper and read aloud:
CABIN ISLAND CHIMNEY LEFT FRONTNINE FEET HIGH.
CABIN ISLAND CHIMNEY LEFT FRONT
NINE FEET HIGH.
Chet groaned with disappointment.
“And what good does that do?”
“What good does it do? Don’t you understand? This message refers to the chimney right in this very cabin. All we have to do now is examine a part of the chimney on the left hand side, in front, nine feet from the floor.”
The boys were immediately plunged into excitement. Everything else was forgotten. The chimney became the center of interest.
“Now we know why Hanleigh was measuring the chimney! Something is hidden there!” exclaimed Chet.
“Well, well!” said Joe approvingly. “And you actually figured it out all by yourself.”
“Nine feet high,” mused Frank. “We’ll have to get something to measure by.”
A stick was obtained and the boys roughly estimated its length as being about three feet. Then Joe went over to the chimney. Measuring from the floor, he marked off its length three times until he reached a spot which he judged would be nine feet high.
“It doesn’t look any different from any other part of the chimney,” said Chet.
Frank got up on a chair and carefully examined the chimney stone at the place to which Joe had measured. He felt the mortar, tapped the stone, ran his hands over the surface, but he found nothing to indicate anything amiss.
“Solid rocks and mortar,” he said, with disappointment. “All but those few cracks.”
“That’s queer,” said Joe. “Why should the cipher mention that part of the chimney so particularly?”
“We’re on the wrong track, for some reason or other.” Frank repeated the cipher message again: “ ‘Cabin Island chimney left front nine feet high.’ ”
“I can’t understand it,” remarked Biff. “The message must meansomething.”
Frank’s face suddenly lighted up.
“Perhaps it means inside the chimney. If there is anything hidden, that would be the logical place. It couldn’t be from the outside, for we’d have to tear the whole chimney down to get at it.”
“How are we going to get at it if it is hidden inside the chimney?” Chet inquired.
“One of us will just have to turn Santa Claus for a while.”
“You mean, climb up nine feet into the chimney?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Somebody else can do it.”
“Who volunteers?”
Biff and Joe regarded the chimney doubtfully.
“I’ll bet there’s a lot of soot in there,” muttered Biff.
“Besides, there’s a fire on.”
“We’ll put the fire out first, of course,” Frank said. “Well, if nobody else wants to go, I’ll do it.”
“You will certainly need a bath when you come out,” Chet told him.
“Listen.” Biff seemed a trifle ashamed because of his reluctance to enter the chimney, “It’s a sort of messy job, and Frank shouldn’t have to do it just because the rest of us don’t like the idea. Suppose we draw lots for it.”
“That’s fair enough,” Joe agreed. “The fellow who draws the short straw goes up the chimney.”
There were no straws available but the boys broke up some small sticks, leaving one considerably shorter than the others. Frank held the four sticks between the palms of his hands so that only the tops were visible. Biff drew first—one of the long sticks. Joe was next, and the drawing was abruptly terminated, for he held the short one.
“It’s up to me, I guess,” he said, with a grimace. “Oh, well. It won’t be so bad. Perhaps I’ll find a fortune in diamonds hidden inside that chimney.”
“We’ll all take turns at scrubbing you when you come out,” Chet consoled him.
“We’ll have to wait until the fire dies down, first of all.”
Frank took the poker and broke up the burning log in the fireplace.
“In the meantime, you’d better get into some old clothes, Joe,” he said.
While they waited for the fire to burn itself out, Joe changed into some garments found in a shed that were so old and disreputable that the soot would make no appreciable difference. Much as the boys wanted to learn the secret of the chimney, none of them envied Joe his task, and, to tell the truth, he regarded it with some misgivings himself.
At last the fire had burned so low that a dipperful of water quenched the embers, and when the smoke had cleared away, Joe stepped into the big fireplace. He glanced up.
“Dark as a cellar!” he observed.
Chet came forward with his flashlight.
“I didn’t think it would be useful so soon,” he said, as he handed it over. “Away you go!”
Joe seized the flashlight and began his ascent into the chimney.
The stones were large and rough, affording a good foothold. No sooner had Joe begun his climb than a shower of soot descended into the fireplace. The lads heard a smothered gurgle.
“I’ll bet that chimney hasn’t been cleaned out since the cabin was built,” said Biff.
“I’m sure of it!” gasped Joe, from inside. Then there was another gurgle and Joe said no more because he had received a mouthful of soot.
Those below could hear him scrambling about inside, and, by peering up into the fireplace, they could see the reflection of the flashlight. More soot continued to pour down the chimney. Joe was evidently having a bad time of it.
“Wonder what he’ll find,” speculated Biff.
“Soot,” said Chet.
They waited. Then they heard a muffled cry of dismay.
“What’s the matter?” they shouted.
“I’m stuck! I got up here, but now I can’t get back.” Joe evidently gave a violent lunge for freedom, because an unusually heavy shower of soot followed.
“Come on, fellows! Don’t stand down there doing nothing!” he clamored. “Get me out of this before I smother!”
CHAPTER XIXDisappointment
Frank Hardysprang forward.
He crouched down in the fireplace and looked up. He could see Joe’s wildly plunging feet a short distance above.
“Kick yourself free!” advised Chet helpfully.
“That’s all I can do—kick!” replied the prisoner. “My elbows are wedged in against these rocks and I can’t get loose.”
“Hold steady a second,” Frank said. “I’ll try to drag you out.”
He reached up and seized one of Joe’s feet. He tugged, but Joe was evidently firmly wedged in the chimney.
“Keep on climbing and come out at the top,” called Chet.
“Wait till I get you!” answered Joe. “This isn’t funny.”
“Come on, you chaps,” said Frank, to the others. “Lend a hand. We’ll just have to drag him out by main force.”
Gingerly, Biff and Chet entered the fire place. The three boys were crowded together. They reached up to grab Joe by the feet just as the prisoner made another struggle and sent more soot pouring down on his rescuers. Within a few seconds, the three were liberally covered with the black substance.
“All together, now,” said Frank, when they had grabbed Joe by the ankles. “Pull!”
They pulled.
With surprising quickness, Joe came loose. He came plunging down into the fireplace on top of the others, each of whom lost his balance and sat down heavily. There was more soot.
The four lads were piled in a heap in the fireplace, so blackened and dirty as to be unrecognizable. Joe, of course, had the worst of it. His face was as black as coal. He was a bedraggled, sooty object, but not much sorrier sight than his companions.
As they sat up and looked at one another, the humor of the situation suddenly struck them.
“Oh, boy! You chaps look funny!” yelled Chet, and burst into a howl of laughter.
“No funnier than you!” roared Biff. “You look like a chimney sweep.”
They scrambled out of the fireplace, laughing in spite of themselves.
“If somebody could have seen us all when Joe came down out of that chimney!” laughed Frank. “I’ll bet we looked funny. What a glorious tumble!”
“I vote we all take a bath,” said Chet mournfully.
“We certainly need it. And the fire is out and we have no hot water.”
They looked glumly at each other, black and wretched, and then they began to laugh again.
“What did you find, Joe?”
“Soot!” returned the victim.
“We know you did. But what else did you find? Or didn’t you have a chance to explore the chimney?”
“I explored it, all right. And I can tell you this—there’s nothing hidden up there.”
This announcement was a shock to them all.
“Didn’t you find anything?” demanded Frank.
Joe shook his head.
“I turned on the flashlight and examined the inside of the chimney very carefully. The rocks and mortar are just as solid inside as they are on the outside. I didn’t find a trace of anything unusual.”
“You looked on the left hand side, at the front?”
“Exactly as the cipher said. And I tried to figure it out at about nine feet from the floor. Just to be sure, I examined every inch of the chimney on that side. I was just going higher when I got stuck.”
Even the grime could not hide the disappointment expressed in the boys’ faces just then.
“I guess that message was just a fake,” said Biff finally.
But the Hardy boys would not agree with this.
“If it is a fake, why was Hanleigh so frightened lest we would be able to read it?” asked Frank.
“Well,” shrugged Biff, “if it isn’t a fake, why isn’t there something queer about that place in the chimney? We’ve examined it from the front, and Joe has examined it from the inside, and there is certainly nothing hidden there.”
“I can’t understand it,” Frank admitted. “Just the same, I believe that message means something. It is certainly disappointing to find ourselves up against a blank wall just when we thought we were going to solve the whole mystery.”
The boys lighted the fire again and after they had heated water they scrubbed themselves thoroughly and had a good cleaning-up. Within an hour they were presentable again, the soot had been swept up from the floor, and all evidences of their adventure in the chimney had been removed.
“I wonder,” suggested Joe, “if there is another Cabin Island.”
“Not in Barmet Bay,” said Frank.
“Perhaps somewhere else. Perhaps this message refers to an island in some other part of the country altogether. Perhaps Hanleigh merely guessed that this was the place.”
“There may be something in that. It’s just possible that Hanleigh is in the same boat as we are, and that we are all being fooled.”
“Well,” said Chet, “we’ve done the best we could, and there is something wrong somewhere, so why should we worry about it any longer? We came here for an outing—not to solve puzzles.”
“That’s right,” declared Biff. “If this chap Hanleigh comes back we’ll try to get the truth out of him, but we won’t do ourselves any good by racking our brains over this business. Forget it!”
So the subject of the cipher message was officially dropped.
To Frank, however, their failure to discover anything of importance in the big chimney had been very disappointing. He had been elated by his success in solving the mystery of the cipher message and he had looked upon the entire riddle as being near solution. The setback was a hard pill to swallow. In spite of the fact that Biff thought the message was a fake, Frank clung stubbornly to the belief that it was genuine and important.
“Hanleigh wouldn’t have made such a fuss about it,” he argued, “unless there was something important behind it all.”
He regretted Hanleigh’s escape now. Frank longed to meet the man again. He wanted another chance to force the fellow into an explanation of how he came to be in possession of Sparewell’s notebook. And, above all, he wanted to know what the cipher message referred to. What was hidden in the chimney?
“We’ll find out,” he insisted. “Perhaps, in the long run, it will all turn out to be just as simple as that cipher.”
He looked gloomily at the big chimney.
What mystery did it hide? Was there any mystery? Was the whole message just a hoax?
He could not believe this. In any case, Hanleigh knew something about the mysterious Sparewell—else how did he get possession of the notebook? And in this respect alone the mystery was worth following up.
That evening, the Hardy boys and their chums were gathered around the fire. Chet and Joe were playing checkers. Biff had rigged up the punching bag, had donned his boxing gloves, and was making the bag drum in a lively manner. Frank was still studying the cipher, wondering if there might not be some little clue he had missed. Once in a while he referred to the pages of the notebook again.
It was growing colder outside and the boys had to keep a roaring fire in order that the cabin should be warm enough. The wind was rising and there were fitful slashes of snow against the windows.
“More dirty weather!” growled Biff, dealing a particularly vicious blow at the punching bag.
“Seems it’s done nothing but snow since we came here,” said Chet.
“It’s your move,” Joe reminded him.
Chet moved his checker and Joe promptly captured it, with a king as well.
The scene was peaceful. The boys would have been interested if they had known of what was happening in a little house in Bayport just then.
Hanleigh was preparing to return to Cabin Island.
CHAPTER XXWhen Rogues Fall Out
Hanleigh,who had taken up his quarters in a small bungalow at the eastern limits of Bayport, had made an appointment for that evening with Tad Carson and Ike Nash, the two youths who had taken him to Cabin Island in their ice-boat on the occasion of his first meeting with the Hardy boys.
An alarm clock ticking on the kitchen table showed the hour as eight o’clock. Hanleigh, listening to the rising wind, made a gesture of impatience.
“What’s the matter with them?” he growled. “Can’t they ever get here when I tell them?”
He was obliged to wait another ten minutes before the door of the bungalow opened, and Ike Nash slouched in, followed by his companion.
They tossed their caps on the table and nodded coolly to Hanleigh.
“I thought I told you to be here at half-past seven!”
Tad Carson shrugged.
“That’s the time you told us, all right. We just couldn’t make it.”
“Keep me cooling my heels while you shoot another game of pool, I suppose!” snapped the man.
“You haven’t anything else to do,” replied Nash. He sat down and put his feet on the table. “Well, what’s it all about?”
“I want to go over to the island to-morrow.”
“What island?” asked Tad Carson.
“What island do you think?Theisland, of course. Cabin Island. I want to go there early to-morrow morning.”
“What’s stopping you?” asked Nash insolently.
“Well, you know why I sent for you? I can’t walk there.”
The two youths glanced at one another.
“I suppose you want us to take you over in the ice-boat again, eh?”
“Of course. I want you to call here for me at seven o’clock in the morning. Have the ice-boat ready so we can make a quick start.”
“You’re giving orders to-night, ain’t you, Hanleigh?” said Ike. “What if it doesn’t suit us to go?”
“Why shouldn’t it suit you? Neither of you is working.”
“That’s all right. Tad and I were just talking it over as we came up here to-night. We’d like to know more about this business. Hanleigh. We have an idea there may be something crooked about it.”
Hanleigh stared at them incredulously. That these allies should be inclined to back out had never entered his calculations.
“Crooked!” he exclaimed. “Of course not. I’m thinking of buying the island and naturally I want to look the place over before I make an offer.”
“Yes? Why don’t you wait until summer? The winter is no time of year to inspect an island.”
Hanleigh became angry.
“Will you two mind your own business!” he blustered. “Is it any concern of yours why I want to go to the island. I pay you well for carrying me there, and all you have to do is keep your mouths shut.”
“We won’t keep ’em shut,” remarked Nash, “unless we get more money than you have been giving us.”
“I’ve been paying you very well, I think. Ten dollars each is very good money for a trip that most boys would be glad to take just for the fun of it.”
“We don’t run the ice-boat just for our health,” said Carson. “Every time we go there we have to hang around and freeze until you are ready to come back. You won’t even let us go up to the cabin with you. I’d like to know what there is about that place that interests you so much.”
Hanleigh gazed at them narrowly. So! They were beginning to suspect him!
“I’ve told you,” he said irritably. “I may buy the place, and naturally I want to look the cabin over.”
“Well, there wouldn’t be any harm in letting us look it over too. Listen, Mr. Hanleigh—you’re up to something, and we know it. If you don’t want us to go to Mr. Jefferson and tell him about your visits to the island, you had better kick in with some more money.” Tad Carson sat back and winked at his companion.
Hanleigh was almost speechless with wrath.
“Why—why—you young scoundrels!” he spluttered. “This is blackmail. Why, it’s a hold-up!”
“Call it what you like!” sneered Nash.
“You can’t tell Jefferson anything. I have his full permission to go to the island at any time I want.”
“Is that so? Now, look here, Mr. Hanleigh—you’ve been trying to tell us that you may buy the island. Now, we happen to know that you made Mr. Jefferson an offer for the island and he told you he wouldn’t sell at any price. How about that?”
“It’s—it’s false.”
“It’s the truth,” said Nash.
“Who told you?” demanded Hanleigh.
“Never mind who told us. We know more about you than you think. Now, if you are up to any funny business, we won’t put anything in your way, as long as you come through and treat us fair.”
“I have treated you fairly. I have always paid you well.”
“Ten dollars a trip,” laughed Tad Carson. “That’s all right if you were just going there to look the place over, as you told us. But you’ve got a bigger game on, and it will probably be worth a lot of money to you. We want to be in on it. If you’re up to something crooked, we’re running the risk of being arrested for helping you. We won’t take a chance like that for ten dollars each.”
“I’ve told you everything is perfectly fair and above-board,” Hanleigh insisted. “Why should you try to hold me up? If I hear any more of this nonsense, I’ll hire somebody else to take me to the island.”
“Try it, and see what happens,” said Nash darkly.
“What will happen?”
“We’ll tell Jefferson.”
“Tell him. I’m not afraid.”
“That’s a pretty good bluff, Mr. Hanleigh, but it won’t work with us,” said Carson. “You have some crooked game on, and you don’t want Jefferson to know about it. Why were you so anxious to buy the island? Why won’t he sell it to you? That’s what we’d like to know.”
Hanleigh became more amicable.
“Now listen here, boys,” he said smoothly; “it doesn’t do any of us any good to quarrel like this. If you think you’re not being paid enough, I guess I can let you have a little more. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll pay you each twenty dollars to take me to the island to-morrow morning. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?”
Nash laughed scornfully.
“Now weknowyou have some game on,” he said. “Twenty dollars won’t be enough. We want a hundred dollars apiece.”
“A hundred! It’s an outrage. I won’t pay it.”
Nash got up. “All right. Come on, Tad. We may as well go and see Mr. Jefferson now. He’ll probably be glad to pay us well for the information we can give him.”
The young men got up and were moving toward the door when Hanleigh sprang to his feet.
“Not so fast!” he begged. “Sit down and let us talk this over.”
“What’s the use of talking when you won’t listen to reason?”
Hanleigh regarded the pair for a moment. Then he said:
“You are both very much mistaken. There is nothing crooked about my visits to the island. Still, I wouldn’t want you to be running to Mr. Jefferson and bothering him with a silly story that would only cause a lot of trouble. Now, I’ve changed my mind about going to the island to-morrow. I’ll go the day after to-morrow, instead.”
“How about our hundred dollars?”
“It’s an outrageous price. Fifty dollars——”
“No! A hundred or nothing.”
Hanleigh sighed.
“I haven’t got that much money with me. You boys seem to think I’m made of money.”
“You were willing to spend a good fat sum to buy the island,” Nash reminded him. “There’s something fishy about the whole affair. Is there a gold mine on that island?”
Hanleigh laughed uneasily.
“You’re worrying yourselves about something that doesn’t concern you in the least. Give me a day to raise the money and you shall have it.”
Nash glanced significantly at his chum.
“Now, you’re talking sense,” he said approvingly. “You pay us a hundred each and we’ll take you there.”
“The day after to-morrow.”
“Just as you say. But we must have the money before we start.”
“And you won’t say anything to Jefferson?”
“Not a word. But if you don’t come across with the money——”
“I’ll pay it to you. Meet me here to-morrow night.”
“All right.” Nash and Carson went toward the door. “You’ve saved yourself a lot of trouble, Mr. Hanleigh.”
They went away. No sooner had the door closed behind them than Hanleigh laughed sardonically.
“A hundred dollars!” he exclaimed. “The young pups! Thought they could make a fool out of me. Well, they’ll have to get up in the middle of the night to get ahead of me. By the time they get wise to themselves I’ll be at the island and back, and I won’t pay for the privilege either.”
Next morning, Hanleigh was up early. It was snowing heavily and there was a bitter wind, but he meant to go to Cabin Island that day. He knew where Tad Carson and Ike Nash kept their ice-boat and he made his way down to the little building unobserved.
The door was protected by a stout padlock, but Hanleigh picked up a heavy iron bar that stood against the side of the building and attacked the lock. He smashed it with a single blow, opened the door, and went inside. He brought out the ice-boat and unfurled its sails.
There was snow on the ice, but the craft moved across the surface under the impetus of a strong wind. Hanleigh sat at the tiller. Within a few moments the boat was scudding down the bay. Hanleigh chuckled to himself as he thought of the way in which he had outwitted Ike Nash and Tad Carson.
The ice-boat sped on down the bay into the driving snow. The storm was increasing in fury. The wind hurtled the craft along at terrific speed. Hanleigh, although he had no experience in managing the boat, got along very well, and within a short time he saw the dark mass of Cabin Island looming out of the storm.
“A good day for it!” he chuckled. “I won’t let those boys on the island make a monkey out of me as they did the last time.”