CHAPTER VIITHE "GOOD TURN"
It was a draggled and exceedingly dubious-looking trio that made their way up the main street of Nyack. They had no difficulty in finding the office of "Old Man Stanton," which bore a conspicuous sign:
Wilmouth StantonCounsellor at Law
"He'd—he'd have to get out a warrant for us first, wouldn't he?" Pee-wee asked, apprehensively.
"That'll be easy," said Roy. "If all goes well, I don't see why we shouldn't be in Sing Sing by three o'clock."
"We're big fools to do this," said Pee-wee. "A scout is supposed to be—cautious." But he followed the others up the stairs and stepped bravely in when Tom opened the door.
They found themselves in the lion's den withthe lion in close proximity glaring upon them. He sat at a desk opening mail and looked frowningly at them over his spectacles. He was thin and wiry, his gray hair was rumpled in a way which suggested perpetual perplexity or annoyance, and his general aspect could not be said to be either conciliatory or inviting.
"Well, sir," he said, crisply.
"Are you Mr. Stanton?" Tom asked. "We are Scouts," he added, as the gentleman nodded perfunctorily, "and we came from Bridgeboro. We're on our way to camp. Last night we got caught in the rain and we ran——"
"Took refuge," whispered Pee-wee.
"For that old boat on the marsh. This morning we heard it was yours, so we came to tell you that we camped in it last night. We made a fire in a can, but I don't think we did any harm, except we chopped up a couple of old stanchions. We thought they were no good, but, of course, we shouldn't have taken them without leave."
Mr. Stanton stared at him with an ominous frown. "Built a fire in a can?" said he. "Do you mean in the boat?"
"We used the exhaust for a draught," said Roy.
"Oh—and what brings you here?"
"To tell you," said Tom, doggedly. "A man came and told us you owned the boat. He said you might have us arrested, so we came to let you know about what we did."
"We didn't come because we wanted to be arrested," put in Pee-wee.
"I see," said Mr. Stanton, with the faintest suggestion of a smile. "Isn't it something new," he added, "running into the jaws of death? Boys generally run the other way and don't go hunting for trouble."
"Well, I'll tell you how it is," said Pee-wee, making the conversation his own, somewhat to Roy's amusement. "Of course, a scout has got to be cautious—but he's got to be fearless too. I was kind of scared when I heard you were a lawyer——"
Mr. Stanton's grim visage relaxed into an unwilling, but unmistakable, smile.
"And another thing I heard scared me, but——"
Tom, seeing where Pee-wee was drifting, tried to stop him, but Roy, knowing that Pee-wee always managed to land on top, and seeing the smile on Mr. Stanton's forbidding countenance,encouraged him to go on, and presently the mascot of the Silver Foxes was holding the floor.
"A scout has to deduce—that's one of the things we learn, and if you heard somebody called 'Old Man Something-or-other,' why, you'd deduce something from it, wouldn't you? And you'd be kind of scared-like. But even if you deduce that a man is going to be mad and gruff, kind of, even still you got to remember that you're a scout and if you damaged his property you got to go and tell him, anyway. You got to go and tell him even if you go to jail. Don't you see? Maybe you don't know much about the scouts——"
"No," said Mr. Stanton, "I'm afraid I don't. But I'm glad to know that I am honored by a nickname—even so dubious a one. Do you think you were correct in your deductions?" he added.
"Well, I don't know," began Pee-wee. "I can see—well, anyway there's another good thing about a scout—he's got to admit it if he's wrong."
Mr. Stanton laughed outright. It was a rusty sort of laugh, for he did not laugh often—but he laughed.
"The only things I know about Boy Scouts," said he, "I have learned in the last twenty-four hours. You tell me that they can convert an exhaustpipe into a stove flue, and I have learned they can bring a bird down out of a tree without so much as a bullet or a stone (I have to believe what my little daughter tells me), and that they take the road where they think trouble awaits them on account of a principle—that they walk up to the cannon's mouth, as it were—I am a very busy man and no doubt a very hard and disagreeable one, but I can afford to know a little more about these scouts, I believe."
"I'll tell you all about them," said Pee-wee, sociably. "Jiminys, I never dreamed you were that girl's father."
Mr. Stanton swung around in his chair and looked at him sharply. "Who are you boys?"
"We came from Bridgeboro in New Jersey," spoke up Roy, "and we're going up the river roads as far as Catskill Landing. Then we're going to hit inland for our summer camp."
Mr. Stanton was silent for a few moments, looking keenly at them while they stood in some suspense.
"Well," he said, soberly, "I see but one way out of the difficulty. The stanchions you destroyed were a part of the boat. The boat is of no use to me without them. I suggest, therefore, thatyou take the boat along with you. It belonged to my son and it has been where it now lies ever since the storm in which his life was lost. I have not seen the inside of it since—I do not want to see the inside of it," he added brusquely, moving a paperweight about on his desk. "It is only three years old," he went on after a moment's uncomfortable pause, "and like some people it is not as bad as it looks."
The boys winced a little at this thrust. Mr. Stanton was silent for a few moments and Pee-wee was tempted to ask him something about his son, but did not quite dare to venture.
"I think the boat can very easily be removed to the river with a little of the ingenuity which you scouts seem to have, and you may continue your journey in her, if you care to. You may consider it a—a present from my daughter, whom you made so happy yesterday."
For a moment the boys hardly realized the meaning of his words. Then Tom spoke.
"We have a rule, Mr. Stanton, that a scout cannot accept anything for a service. If he does, it spoils it all. It's great, your offering us the boat and it seems silly not to take it, but——"
"Very well," said Mr. Stanton, proceeding toopen his letters, "if you prefer to go to jail for destroying my stanchions, very well. Remember you are dealing with a lawyer." Roy fancied he was chuckling a little inwardly.
"That's right," said Pee-wee in Tom's ear. "There's no use trying to get the best of a lawyer—a scout ought to be—to be modest; we better take it, Tom."
"There's a difference between payment for a service and a token of gratitude," said Mr. Stanton, looking at Tom. "But we will waive all that. I cannot allow the Boy Scouts to be laying down the law for me. By your own confession you have destroyed my stanchions and as a citizen it is my duty to take action. But if I were to give you a paper dated yesterday, assigning the boat to you, then it would appear that you had simply trespassed and burglariously entered your own property and destroyed your own stanchions and I would not have a leg to stand upon. My advice to you as a lawyer is to accept such a transfer of title and avoid trouble."
He began ostentatiously to read one of his letters.
"He's right, Tom," whispered Pee-wee, "It's what you call a teckinality. Gee, we better takethe boat. There's no use trying to beat a lawyer. He's got the right on his side."
"I don't know," said Tom, doubtfully. He, too, fancied that Mr. Stanton was laughing inwardly, but he was not good at repartee and the lawyer was too much for him. It was Roy who took the situation in hand.
"It seems ungrateful, Mr. Stanton, even to talk about whether we'll take such a peach of a gift. Tom here is always thinking about the law—our law—and Pee-wee—we call this kid Pee-wee—he's our specialist on doing good turns. They're both cranks in different ways. I know there's a difference, as you say, between just a present and a reward. And it seems silly to say thank you for such a present, just as if it was a penknife or something like that. But we do thank you and we'll take the boat. I just happened to think of a good name for it while you were talking. It was the good turn Pee-wee did yesterday—about the bird, I mean—that made you offer it to us and your giving it to us is a good turn besides, so I guess we'll call it the 'Good Turn.'"
"You might call it the 'Teckinality,'" suggested Mr. Stanton with a glance at Pee-wee.
"All right," he added, "I'll send one of my mendown later in the day to see about getting her in the water. I've an idea a block and falls will do the trick. But you'd better caulk her up with lampwick and give her a coat of paint in the meantime."
He went to the door with them and as they turned at the foot of the stairs and called back another "Thank you," Roy noticed something in his face which had not been there before.
"I bet he's thinking of his son," said he.
"Wonder how he died," said Tom.
CHAPTER VIIIBON VOYAGE!
"Now, you see," said Pee-wee, "how a good turn can evolute."
"Can what?" said Tom.
"Evolute."
"It could neverlute with me," observed Roy. "Gee, but we've fallen in soft! You could have knocked me down with a toothpick. I wonder what our sleuth friend, the sheriff, will say."
The sheriff said very little; he was too astonished to say much. So were most of the people of the town. When they heard that "Old Man Stanton" had given Harry Stanton's boat to some strange boys from out of town, they said that the loss of his son must have affected his mind. The boys of the neighborhood, incredulous, went out on the marsh the next day when the rain held up, and stood about watching the three strangers at work and marvelling at "Old Man Stanton's" extraordinary generosity.
"Aw, he handed 'em a lemon!" commented the wiseacre. "That boat'll never run—it won't even float!"
But Harry Stanton's cruising launch was no lemon. It proved to be staunch and solid. There wasn't a rotten plank in her. Her sorry appearance was merely the superficial shabbiness which comes from disuse and this the boys had neither the time nor the money to remedy; but the hull and the engine were good.
To the latter Roy devoted himself, for he knew something of gas engines by reason of the two automobiles at his own house. They made a list of the things they needed, took another hike into Nyack and came back laden with material and provisions. Roy poured a half-gallon or so of kerosene into each of the two cylinders and left it over night. The next morning when he drained it off the wheel turned over easily enough. A set of eight dry cells, some new wiring, a couple of new plugs, a little session with a pitted coil, a little more gas, a little less air, a little more gas, and finally the welcome first explosion, so dear to the heart of the motor-boatist, rewarded Roy's efforts of half a day.
"Stop it! Stop it!" shrieked Pee-wee from outside."I hung the paint can on the propeller! I'm getting a green shower bath!"
He poked his head over the combing, his face, arms and clothing bespattered with copper paint.
"Never mind, kiddo," laughed Roy, "It's all in the game. She runs like a dream. Step a little closer, ladies and gentlemen, and view the leopard boy. Pee-wee, you're a sight! For goodness' sakes, get some sandpaper!"
The two days of working on theGood Turnwere two days of fun. It was not necessary to caulk her lower seams for the dampness of the marsh had kept them tight, and the seams above were easy. They did not bother about following the water-line and painting her free-board white; a coat of copper paint over the whole hull sufficed. They painted the sheathing of the cockpit a common-sense brown, "neat but not gaudy," as Roy said. The deck received a coat of an unknown color which their friend, the sheriff, brought them saying he had used it on his chicken-coop. The engine they did in aluminum paint, the fly-wheel in a gaudy red, and then they mixed what was left of all the paints.
"I bet we get a kind of blackish white," said Pee-wee.
"I bet it's green," said Tom.
But it turned out to be a weak silvery gray and with this they painted the cabin, or rather half the cabin, for their paint gave out.
They sat until long after midnight in the little cabin after their first day's work, but were up and at it again bright and early in the morning, for Mr. Stanton's men were coming with the block and falls at high tide in the evening to haul theGood Turnback into her watery home.
Pee-wee spent a good part of the day throwing out superfluous junk and tidying up the little cabin, while Tom and Roy repaired the rubbing-rail where it had broken loose and attended to other slight repairs on the outside.
The dying sunlight was beginning to flicker on the river and the three were finishing their supper in the cabin when Tom, looking through the porthole, called, "Oh, here comes the truck and an automobile just in front of it!"
Sure enough, there on the road was the truck with its great coil of hempen rope and its big pulleys, accompanied by two men in overalls. Pee-wee could not repress his exuberance as the trio clambered up on the cabin roof and waved to the little cavalcade.
"In an hour more she'll be in the water," he shouted, "and we'll——"
"We'll anchor till daylight," concluded Roy.
In another moment a young girl, laden with bundles, had left the automobile and was picking her way across the marsh. It proved to be the owner of the fugitive bird.
"I've brought you all the things that belong to the boat," she said, "and I'm going to stay and see it launched. My father was coming too but he had a meeting or something or other. Isn't it perfectly glorious how you chopped up the stanchions——"
"Great," said Roy. "It shows the good that comes out of breaking the law. If we hadn't chopped up the stanchions——"
"Oh, crinkums, look at this!" interrupted Pee-wee. He was handling the colored bow lamp.
"And here's the compass, and here's the whistle, and here's the fog-bell," said the girl, unloading her burden with a sigh of relief. "And here's the flag for the stern and here—look—I made this all by myself and sat up till eleven o'clock to do it—see!"
She unfolded a cheese-cloth pennant with the nameGood Turnsewed upon it. "You have tofly this at the bow in memory of your getting my bird for me," she said.
"We'll fly it at the bow in memory of what you and your father have done forus," said Tom.
"And here's some fruit, and here's some salmon, and here's some pickled something or other—I got them all out of the pantry and they weigh a ton!"
There was no time for talking if the boat was to be got to the river before dark, and the boys fell to with the men while the girl looked about the cabin with exclamations of surprise.
"Isn't it perfectly lovely," she called to Tom, who was outside encircling the hull with a double line of heavy rope, under the men's direction. "I never saw anything so cute and wasn't it a fine idea giving it to you!"
"Bully," said Tom.
"It was just going to ruin here," she said, "and it was a shame."
It was a busy scene that followed and the boys had a glimpse of the wonderful power of the block and falls. To an enormous tree on the roadside a gigantic three-wheel pulley was fastened by means of a metal band around the lower part ofthe trunk. Several other pulleys between this and the boat multiplied the hauling power to such a degree that one person pulling on the loose end which was left after the rope had been passed back and forth many times through the several pulleys, could actually move the boat. The hull was completely encircled, the rope running along the sides and around the stern with another rope below near the keel so that the least amount of strain would be put upon her.
They hitched the horses to the rope's end and as the beasts plunged through the yielding marsh the boat came reeling and lurching toward the road. Here they laid planks and rollers and jacked her across. This was not so much a matter of brute strength as of skill. The two men with the aid of the Stanton chauffeur were able, with props of the right length, to keep theGood Turnon an even keel, while the boys removed and replaced the rollers. It was interesting to see how the bulky hull could be moved several hundred feet, guided and urged across a road and retarded upon the down grade to the river by two or three men who knew just how to do it.
Cautiously the rollers were retarded with obstructing sticks, as the men, balancing the hullupright, let her slowly down the slope into the water. Pee-wee stood upon the road holding the rope's end and a thrill went through him when he felt the rocking and bobbing of the boat as it regained its wonted home, and at last floated freely in the water.
"Hang on to that, youngster," called one of the men. "She's where she can do as she likes now."
As theGood Turn, free at last from prosaic rollers and plank tracks, rolled easily in the swell, pulling gently upon the rope which the excited Pee-wee held, it seemed that she must be as pleased as her new owners were, at finding herself once more in her natural home. How graceful and beautiful she looked now, in the dying light! There is nothing so clumsy looking as a boat on shore. To one who has seen a craft "laid up," it is hardly recognizable when launched.
"Well, there ye are," said one of the men, "an' 'tain't dark yet neither. You can move 'er by pullin' one finger now, hey? She looks mighty nat'ral, don't she, Bill? Remember when we trucked her up from the freight station and dumped her in three year ago? She was theNymphthen. Gol, how happy that kid was—you remember, Bill? I'll tellyoukids now what I toldhim then—told him right in front of his father; I says, 'Harry, you remember she's human and treat her as such,' that's what I says ter him.Youremember, Bill."
Roy noticed that the girl had strolled away and was standing in the gathering darkness a few yards distant, gazing at the boat. The clumsy looking hull, in which the boys had taken refuge, seemed trim and graceful now, and Roy was reminded of the fairy story of the ugly duckling, who was really a swan, but whose wondrous beauty was unappreciated until it found itself among its own kindred.
"Yes, sir, that's wot I told him, 'cause I've lived on the river here all my life, ain't I, Bill, an' I know. Yer don't give an automobile no name, an' yer don't give an airyplane no name, an' yer don't give a motorcycle nor a bicycle no name, but yer give a boat a name 'cause she's human. She'll be cranky and stubborn an' then she'll be soft and amiable as pie—that's 'cause she's human. An' that's why a man'll let a old boat stan' an' rot ruther'n sell it. 'Cause it's human and it kinder gets him. You treat her as such, you boys."
"How did Harry Stanton die?" Tom asked.
The man, with a significant motion of his finger toward the lone figure of the girl, drew nearer and the boys gathered about him.
"The old gent didn' tell ye, hey?"
"Not a word."
"Hmmm—well, Harry was summat older'n you boys, he was gettin' to be a reg'lar young man. Trouble with him was he didn' know what he wanted. First off, he must have a horse, 'n' then he must have a boat, so th' old man, he got him this boat. He's crusty, but he's all to the good, th' old man is."
"You bet your life he is," said Pee-wee.
"Well, Harry an' Benty Willis—you remember Benty, Bill—him an' Benty Willis was out in theNymph—that's this here very boat. They had 'er anchored up a ways here, right off Cerry's Hill, an' they was out in the skiff floppin' 'round—some said fishin'."
"They was bobbin' fer eels, that's wot they was doin'," said the other man.
"Well, wotever they was doin' it was night 'n' thar was a storm. An' that's every bloomin' thing me or you or anybody else'll ever know about it. The next day Croby Risbeck up here was out fer his nets an' he come on the skiff swamped, overthere off'n that point. An' near it was Benty Willis."
"Drowned?" asked Roy.
"Drownded. He must o' tried to keep afloat by clingin' t' the skiff, but she was down to her gunnel an' wouldn' keep a cat afloat. He might o' kep' his head out o' water a spell clingin' to it. All I know is he was drownded when he was found. Wotever become o' that skiff, Bill?"
"And what about Mr. Stanton's son?" Roy asked.
"Well, they got his hat an' his coat that he must a' thrown off an' that's all. Th' old man 'ud never look at the launch again. He had her brought over'n' tied up right about here, an' there she stood till the floods carried her up over this here road and sot her down in the marsh."
"Did the skiff belong with her?" Roy asked.
"Sure enough; always taggin' on behind."
"How did they think it happened?" asked Tom.
"Wall, fer one thing, it was a rough night an' they may uv jest got swamped. But agin, it's a fact that Harry knew how to swim; he was a reg'lar water-rat. Now, what I think is this. Th' only thing 't 'd prevent that lad gettin' ashore'd be his gettin' killed—not drowned, butkilled."
"You don't mean murdered?" Tom asked.
"Well, if they was swamped by the big night boat, an' he got mixed up with the paddle wheel, I don't know if ye'd call it murder, but it'd be killin', sure enough. Leastways, they never got him, an' it's my belief he was chopped up. Take a tip from me, you boys, an' look out fer the night boat, 'cause the night boat ain't a-goin' t' look out fer you."
The girl, strolling back, put an end to their talk, but it was clear that she, too, must have been thinking of that fatal night, for her eyes were red and she seemed less vivacious.
"You must be careful," said she, "there are a good many accidents on the river. My father told me to tell you you'd better not do much traveling at night. I want to see you on board, and then I must go home," she added.
She held out her hand and Roy, who was in this instance best suited to speak for the three, grasped it.
"There's no use trying to thank you and your father," he said. "If you'd given us some little thing we could thank you, but it seems silly to say just the same thing when we have a thing like this given to us, and yet it seems worse for us to goaway without saying anything. I guess you know what I mean."
"You must promise to be careful—can you all swim?"
"We are scouts," laughed Roy.
"And that means you can do anything, I suppose."
"No, not that," Roy answered, "but we do want to tell you how much we thank you—you and your father."
"Especially you," put in Pee-wee.
She smiled, a pretty wistful smile, and her eyes glistened. "You did more for me," she said, "you got my bird back. I care more for that bird than I could ever care for any boat. My brother brought it to me from Costa Rica."
She stepped back to the auto. The chauffeur was already in his place, and the two men were coiling up their ropes and piling the heavy planks and rollers on board the truck. The freshly painted boat was growing dim in the gathering darkness and the lordly hills across the river were paling into gray again. As the little group paused, a deep, melodious whistle re-echoed from the towering heights and the great night boat came into view, her lights aloft, plowing up midstream. TheGood Turnbobbed humbly like a good subject as the mighty white giant passed. The girl watched the big steamer wistfully and for a moment no one spoke.
"Was your brother—fond of traveling?" Roy ventured.
"Yes, he was crazy for it," she answered, "and you can't bringhimback as you brought my bird back—youcan'tdo everything after all."
It was Tom Slade who spoke now. "We couldn't do any more than try," said he. He spoke in that dull, heavy manner, and it annoyed Roy, for it seemed as if he were making fun of the girl's bereavement.
Perhaps it seemed the same to her, for she turned the subject at once. "I'm going to sit here until you are in the boat," she said.
They pulled theGood Turnas near the shore as they could bring her without grounding for the tide was running out, and Pee-wee held her with the rope while the others went aboard over a plank laid from the shore to the deck. Then Pee-wee followed, hurrying, for there was nothing to hold her now.
They clambered up on the cabin, Roy wavingthe naval flag, and Pee-wee the name pennant, while Tom cast the anchor, for already theGood Turnwas drifting.
"Good-bye!" they cried.
"Good-bye!" she called back, waving her handkerchief as the auto started, "and good luck to you!"
"We'll try to do a good turn some day to make up," shouted Pee-wee.
CHAPTER IXTHE MYSTERY
"What I don't understand," said Tom, in his dull way, "is how if that fellow was drowned or killed that night, he managed to get back to this boat again—that's what gets me."
"What?" said Roy.
"What are you talking about?" chimed in Pee-wee.
They were sitting in the little cabin of theGood Turneating rice cakes, about an hour after the launching. The boat rocked gently at its moorings, the stars glittered in the wide expanse of water, the tiny lights in the neighboring village kept them cheery company as they chatted there in the lonesome night with the hills frowning down upon them. It was very quiet and this, no less than the joyous sense of possession of this cosy home, kept them up, notwithstanding their strenuous two days of labor.
"Just what I said," said Tom. "See that boardyou fixed the oil stove on? I believe that was part of that skiff. You can see the letters N-Y-M-P-H even under the paint. That strip was in the boat all the time. How did it get here? That's whatI'dlike to know."
Roy laid down his "flopper" and examined the board carefully, the excited Pee-wee joining him. It was evidently the upper strip of the side planking from a rowboat and at one end, under the diluted paint which they had here used, could be dimly traced the former name of the launch.
"What-do-you-know-about-that?" ejaculated Roy.
"It's a regular mystery," said Pee-wee; "that's one thing I like, a mystery."
"If that's a part of this boat's skiff," said Tom, "then it proves two things. It proves that the boat was damaged—no fellow could pull a plank from it like that; and it proves that that fellow came back to the launch. It proves that he was injured, too. That man said he could swim. Then why should he bring this board back with him unless it was to help him keep afloat?"
"He wouldn't need to drag it aboard," said Roy.
"Now you spoil it all," put in Pee-wee.
"I don't know anything about that," said Tom, "but that board didn't drift back and climb in by itself. It must have been here all the time. I suppose the other fellow—the one they found drowned—mighthave got it here, some way," he added.
"Not likely," said Roy. "If he'd managed to get back to the launch with the board, he wouldn't have jumped overboard again just to get drowned. He'd have managed to stay aboard."
There was silence for a few minutes while Roy drummed on the plank with his fingers and Pee-wee could hardly repress his excitement at the thought that they were on the track of a real adventure. Tom Slade had "gone and done it again." He was always surprising them by his stolid announcement of some discovery which opened up delectable possibilities. And smile as he would (especially in view of Pee-wee's exuberance), Roy could not but see that here was something of very grave significance.
"That's what I meant," drawled Tom, "when I told her that we couldtry—to find her brother."
This was a knockout blow.
"This trip of ours is going to be just like a book," prophesied Pee-wee, excitedly; "there's a—there'sa—long lost brother, and—and—a deep mystery!"
"Sure," said Roy. "We'll have to change our names; I'll be Roy Rescue, you be Pee-wee Pinkerton, the boy sleuth, and Tom'll be Tom Trustful. What d'you say, Tom?"
Tom made no answer and for all Roy's joking, he was deeply interested. Like most important clues, the discovery was but a little thing, yet it could not be accounted for except on the theory that Harry Stanton had somehow gotten back to the launch after the accident, whatever the accident was. It meant just that—nothing less and nothing more; though, indeed, it did mean more to Pee-wee and as he slept that night, in the gently rocking boat, he dreamed that he had vowed a solemn vow to Mr. Stanton's daughter to "find her brother or perish in the attempt." He carried a brace of pistols, and sailing forth with his trusty chums, he landed in the island of Madagascar, to which Harry Stanton had been carried, bound hand and foot, in an aeroplane. The three, undaunted, then built a Zeppelin and sailed up to the summit of a dizzy crag where they rescued the kidnapped youth and on reaching home, Mr. Stanton gave them a sea-going yacht and a million dollarseach for pocket money. When he awoke from this thrilling experience he found that theGood Turnwas chugging leisurely up the river in the broad daylight.
The boat behaved very well, indeed. She leaked a little from the strain of launching, but the engine pumped the water out faster than it came in. All day long they lolled in the cockpit or on the cabin roof, taking turns at the steering. Roy, who best understood gas engines, attended to the motor, but it needed very little attention except that it missed on high speed, so he humored it and they ambled along at "sumpty-sump miles an hour," as Roy said, "but what care we," he added, "as long as she goes." They anchored for several hours in the middle of the day and fished, and had a mess of fresh perch for luncheon.
Naturally, the topic of chief interest was the possibility that Harry Stanton was living, but the clue which appeared to indicate that much suggested nothing further, and the question of why he did not return home, if he were indeed alive was a puzzling one.
"His sister said he had been to Costa Rica, and was fond of traveling," suggested Tom. "Maybe his parents objected to his going away from homeso he went this way—as long as the chance came to him—and let them think he was drowned."
Roy, sitting on the cabin roof with his knees drawn up, shook his head. "Or maybe he left the boat again and tried to swim to shore to go home, and didn't make it," he added.
"That's possible," said Tom, "but then they'd probably have found his body."
"We aren't sure he's alive," Roy said thoughtfully, "but it means a whole lot not to be sure that he's dead."
"Maybe he was made away with by someone who wanted the boat," said Pee-wee. "Maybe a convict from the prison killed him—you never can tell. Jiminys, it's a mystery, sure."
"You bet it is," said Roy. "The plot grows thicker. If Sir Guy Weatherby were only here, or Detective Darewell—or some of those story-book ginks they——"
"They probably wouldn't have noticed the plank from the skiff," suggested Pee-wee.
Roy laughed and then fell to thinking. "Gee, it would be great if we could find him!" he said.
And there the puzzling matter ended, for the time being; but theGood Turntook on a new interest because of the mystery with which it wasassociated and Pee-wee was continually edifying his companions with startling and often grewsome theories as to the fate or present whereabouts of Harry Stanton, until—until that thing happened which turned all their thoughts from this puzzle and proved that bad turns as well as good ones have the boomerang quality of returning upon their author.
It was the third afternoon of their cruise, or their "flop" as Roy called it, for they had flopped along rather than cruised, and theGood Turn'scourse would have indicated, as he remarked, a fit of the blind staggers. They had paused to fish and to bathe; they had thrown together a makeshift aquaplane from the pieces of an old float which they had found, and had ridden gayly upon it; and their course had been so leisurely and rambling that they had not yet reached Poughkeepsie, when all of a sudden the engine stopped.
Roy went through the usual course of procedure to start it up, but without result. There was not a kick left in it. Silently he unscrewed the cap on the deck, pushed a stick into the tank and lifted it out—dry.
"Boys," said he, solemnly, "there is not a drop of gasoline in the tank. The engine must haveused it all up. Probably it has been using it all the time——"
"You make me sick," said Pee-wee.
"I have known engines to do that before."
"Didn't I tell you to get gasoline in Newburgh?" demanded Pee-wee.
"You did, Sir Walter, and would that we had taken your advice; but I trusted the engine and it has evidently been using the gasoline while our backs were turned.Weshould worry! You don't suppose it would run on witch hazel, do you?"
"Didn't I tell——" began Pee-wee.
"If we could only reduce friend Walter to a liquid," said Roy. "I think we could get started all right—he's so explosive."
"Bright boy," said Tom.
"Oh, I'm a regular feller, I am," said Roy. "I knew that engine would stop when there wasn't any more gasoline—I just felt it in my bones. But what care we!
'Oh, we are merry mountaineers,And have no carking cares or fears—Or gasoline.'
Get out the oars, scouts!"
So they got out the oars and with the aid of these and a paddle succeeded in making the shore where they tied up to the dilapidated remnants of what had once been a float.
"There must be a village in the neighborhood," said Tom, "or there wouldn't be a float here."
"Sherlock Holmes Slade is at it again," said Roy. It would have been a pretty serious accident that Roy wouldn't have taken gayly. "Pee-wee, you're appointed a committee to look after the boat while Tomasso and I go in search of adventure—and gasoline. There must be a road up there somewhere and if there's a road I dare say we can find a garage—maybe even a village. Get things ready for supper, Pee-wee, and when we get back I'll make a Silver Fox omelet for good luck."
The spot where they had made a landing was at the foot of precipitous hills between which and the shore ran the railroad tracks. Tom and Roy, carrying a couple of gasoline cans, started along a road which led around the lower reaches of one of these hills. As Pee-wee stood upon the cabin watching them, the swinging cans were brightened by the rays of the declining sun, and there was a chill in the air as the familiar grayness fell uponthe heights, bringing to the boy that sense of loneliness which he had felt before.
He was of the merriest temperament, was Pee-wee, and, as he had often said, not averse to "being jollied." But he was withal very sensitive and during the trip he had more than once fancied that Tom and Roy had fallen together to his own exclusion, and it awakened in him now and then a feeling that he was the odd number of the party. He had tried to ingratiate himself with them, though to be sure no particular effort was needed to do that, yet sometimes he saw, or fancied he saw, little things which made him feel that in important matters he was left out of account. Roy would slap him on the shoulder and tousle his hair, but he would ask Tom's advice—and take it. Perhaps Roy had allowed his propensity for banter and jollying to run too far in his treatment of Pee-wee. At all events, the younger boy had found himself a bit chagrined at times that their discussions had not been wholly three-handed. And now, as he watched the others hiking off through the twilight, and heard their laughter, he recalled that it was usuallyhewho was appointed a "committee to stay and watch the boat."
This is not a pleasant train of thought when you are standing alone in the bleakness and sadness and growing chill of the dying day, with tremendous nature piled all about you, and watching your two companions as they disappear along a lonely road. But the mood was upon him and it did not cheer him when Roy, turning and making a megaphone of his hands, called, "Look out and don't fall into the gas tank, Pee-wee!"
Hehadreminded them that they had better buy gasoline at Newburgh, while they had the chance. Roy had answered jokingly telling Pee-wee that he had better buy a soda in the city whilehehad the chance, and Tom had added, "I guess the kid thinks we want to drink it."
Well, there they were hiking it up over the hills now in quest of gasoline and still joking him.
If Pee-wee had remembered Roy's generous pleasure in the "parrot stunt," he would have been much happier, but instead he allowed his imagination to picture Tom and Roy in the neighboring village, having a couple of sodas—perhaps taking a flyer at a movie show.
He did as much as he could toward getting supper, and when it grew dark and still they did not return, he clambered up on the cabin roof againand sat there gazing off into the night. But still they did not come.
"Gee, I'm a Silver Fox, anyway," he said; "you'd think he'd want one of his own patrol with himsometimes—gee!"
He rose and went down into the cabin where the dollar watch which hung on a nail told him that it was eight o'clock. Then it occurred to him that it would serve them right if he got his own supper and was in his bunk and asleep when they returned. It would be a sort of revenge on them. He would show them, at least, that he could get along very well by himself, and by way of doing so he would make some rice cakes. Roy was not the only one who could make rice cakes. He, Pee-wee, could make them if nobody stood by guying him.
He had never wielded the flopper; that had been Roy's province; but he could, all right, he told himself. So he dug into Roy's duffel bag for the recipe book which was famous in the troop; which told the secrets of the hunter's stew; which revealed the mystery of plum-duff and raisin pop-overs in all their luscious details and which set you on the right path for the renowned rice cakes.
Between the leaves, right where the rice cakerecipe revealed itself to the hungry inquirer, was a folded paper which dropped out as Pee-wee opened the book. For all he knew it contained the recipe so he held it under the lantern and read:
"Dear Mary:
"Since you butted in, Tom and I have decided that it would be better for Pee-wee to go withhim, and I'll stay home. Anyway, that's what I've decided. So you'll get your wish all right and I should worry.
"Roy."
Pee-wee read it twice over, then he laid it on the locker and sat down and looked at it. Then he picked it up and read it over again. He did not even realize that its discovery among Roy's things would indicate that it had never been sent. Sent or not, it had been written.
So this was the explanation of Roy's invitation that he accompany them on the trip. Mary Temple had asked them to let him go. Yet, despite his present mood, he could not believe that his own patrol leader, Roy Blakeley, could have written this.
"I bet Tom Slade is—I bet he's the cause of it," he said.
He recalled now how he had talked about the trip to Mary Temple and how she had spoken rather mysteriously about the possibility of his going along. So it was she who was his good friend; it was to her he owed the invitation which had come to him with such a fine air of sincerity.
"I always—crinkums, anyway girls always seem to like me, that's one thing," he said. "And—and Roy did, too, before Tom Slade came into the troop."
It was odd how he turned against Tom, making him the scapegoat for Roy's apparent selfishness and hypocrisy.
"They just brought me along for charity, like," he said, "'cause she told them to. Cracky, anyway, I didn't try to make her do that—I didn't."
This revelation in black and white of Roy's real feeling overcame him and as he put the letter back in the book and the book back in the duffel bag, he could scarcely keep his hand from trembling.
"Anyway, I knew it all the time," he said. "I could see it."
He had no appetite for rice cakes now. He took some cakes of chocolate and a couple of hardbiscuits and stuffed them in his pocket. Then he went out into the cockpit and listened. There was no sound of voices or footfalls, nothing but the myriad voices of nature, or frogs croaking nearby, of a cheery cricket somewhere on shore, of the water lapping against the broken old wharf as the wind drove it in shoreward.
He returned to the cabin, tore a leaf from his scout notebook and wrote, but he had to blink his eyes to keep back the tears.
"Dear Roy:"I think you'll have more fun if you two go the rest of the way alone. I always said two's a company, three's a crowd. You've heard me say it and I ought to have had sense enough to remember it. But anyway, I'm not mad and I like you just as much. I'll see you at camp.
"WALTER HARRIS."
"P. S.—If I had to vote again for patrol leader I'd vote for you."
He was particular not to mention Tom by name and to address his note to Roy. He laid it in the frying pan on the stove (in which he had intendedto make the rice cakes) and then, with his duffel bag over his shoulder and his scout staff in hand, he stepped from theGood Turn, listening cautiously for approaching footsteps, and finding the way clear he stole away through the darkness.