The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol by Robert Drake
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Robert Drake >> The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol
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"Yes, but now we've got to tackle the hardest part of it," said
Jack, knitting his brows. "I've got the letter written and here
it is." As he spoke he drew from his pocket a sheet of paper.
"The question is who to send for the money when the time comes."
"Oh, Hank is the man," said Ben, without an instant's hesitation.
"We must not appear in this at all."
"Oh, I am the man, am?" put in Hank, with no very gratified
inflexion in his voice; "and what if I am caught? I'm to go to
prison, I suppose, while you fellows get off scot-free."
"As for me," said Sam Redding, who was pale and looked scared,
and whose eyes, too, were red-rimmed and heavy as if from lack of
sleep, "you can count me out. I want nothing to do with it.
You've gone too far, Jack, in your schemes against the boys. I'm
through with the whole thing."
"Well, if you're that chicken-hearted, we don't want you in it at
all," sneered Jack, although he looked somewhat troubled at his
follower's defection. "All we want you to promise is not to
split on us."
"Oh, I won't peach," promised Sam readily.
"It will be better for you not to," warned Bill Bender; "and now
let's figure this thing out, and quickly, too. We haven't got
any too much time. They'll have discovered the kid has gone by
this time and the alarm will be spread broadcast."
"I thought, when he yelled like that last night, we were goners
sure," remarked Jack, scowling at the recollection. "It's a good
thing those kids sleep as hard as they do, or we'd have been in a
tight fix."
"Oh, well, no good going back to that now," dissented Bill. "How
was the young cub when you left him, Hank?" he asked abruptly.
"Oh, he'd got through crying, and was lying nice and quiet on his
bunk," remarked Hank, with an amiable chuckle, as though he had
just performed some praiseworthy act, instead of having left
little Joe Digby locked in a deserted bungalow on an island some
little distance from the one on which the conversation related
above was taking place.
"Well, that's good," said Bill; "although crying, or yelling,
either, won't do him much good on that island. He could yell for
a week and no one would hear him."
"No; the water's too shallow for any motor boats to get up
there," agreed Hank. "I had a hard job getting through the
channel in the rowboat, even at high water."
"Is the house good and tight?" was Jack's next question.
"Tight--tight as the Tombs," was Hank's answer, the simile being
an apt one for him to use. "The door has that big bolt on the
outside that I put on, besides the lock, of which I carried away
the key, and the shutters are all nailed up. No danger of his
getting away till we want him to!"
"Couldn't be better," grinned Jack approvingly. "Now, here's the
letter. Tell me what you think of it?"
Opening the sheet of paper, the bully read aloud as follows:
"MR. AND MRS. DIGBY:
"Your son is safe and in good hands. I alone know where the men
who stole him have taken him. But I am a poor man, and think
that the information should be worth something to you. Suppose
you place two hundred dollars under the signpost at the Montauk
crossroads to-night. I will call and get it if you will mark the
spot at which you place it with a rock. Look under the same rock
in the morning and you will find directions how to get your boy
back.
CAPTAIN NEMO."
"What do you think of that?" inquired Jack complacently, as he
concluded the reading of his epistle.
"A bee-yoo-tiful piece of composition," said Hank approvingly,
with one of his throaty chuckles; "the only thing is--who is
Captain Nemo?"
"Why, so far as delivering the letter and getting the, money is
concerned, you are," said Jack decisively. "Eh, Bill?"
"Oh, by all means," assented Bill.
Sam was not included in the conversation, and gazed sullenly
straight in front of him as he lay where he had thrown himself on
the fine white sand.
"Oh, by no means," echoed Hank derisively. "Say, what do you
fellows take me for, the late lamented Mr. Easy Mark? If you do
you have another think coming."
"Now look here, Hank," argued Jack, "what's the objection? All
you've got to do is to take this note ashore, give it to some boy
to deliver, and then go to the crossroads at whatever time
to-night you see fit and get the money."
"Of course," Bill hastened to put in, "you've got to bring it to
us for proper division."
"Oh, I have, have I?" chuckled Hank. "Well, what do you think
of that? I'm to do all the work and you fellows are to get the
bacon! That's a fine idea--not! Four into two hundred doesn't
go very many times, you know."
"Not four," corrected Jack, "three. Sam is out of this. He's
too much of a coward to have anything to do with it," he added,
mimicking Sam's tone.
The boat-builder's son reddened, but said nothing in reply to the
bully's taunt.
"Well, three, then," went on Hank; "that's not percentage enough
for me. If I'm to have anything to do with this here job, I want
half the money. You fellows can split the rest between you!"
Jack and Bill exchanged blank looks.
"Now, look here, Hank, be reasonable," began Jack in a tone meant
to be conciliatory.
"Now, look here, Jack, be sensible," echoed Hank mockingly. "You
seem to forget that you owe me something for the job we did on
those uniforms the other night, and that other little errand you
performed on the island. You've got a very convenient memory,
you have. Why, I daresay those kids would have given me a nice
little wad of tobacco money to have told just who took their
Sunday-go-to-meetin' suits, but did I peach? No, you know I
didn't; but," he added, with rising emphasis, "if I don't get
what's coming to me pretty soon, I will."
"Well, you idiot," began Jack truculently; "haven't you got your
chance now?"
"If I choose to take it--yes," was the rejoinder; "but I don't
know as I will. It seems to me I hold all the trumps and you are
at my mercy."
"Why, you insolent dog!" bellowed Jack, rising to his feet from
the position in which he had been squatting. "For two cents I'd
knock your bewhiskered head off!"
He advanced threateningly, but Bill, seeing the turn matters were
taking, and realizing that more was to be gained by peaceful
methods, intervened.
"Now, Jack, shut up. Stow that nonsense," he ordered sharply.
"Look here, Hank, we'll accept your terms. Half to you if you
carry it out successfully."
"And if I don't?"
"Then we'll all have to shift for ourselves. This part of the
country will be too hot to hold us. I mean to go out West. I've
got a cousin who has a ranch, and I think I could get along all
right there if the worst comes to the worst."
"See here, I don't agree with your way of dividing the money,"
began Jack, an angry light in his eyes. "Look--"
"Look here, Jack," cut in Bill sharply, "if you don't like it, it
doesn't do you any good. If you object to it, keep out. Hank
and I form a majority. You chump" he added, quickly, under his
breath, as Hank turned away and began to "skip" flat stones over
the water, "don't you see he takes all the responsibility? It's
a cinch for us to get away if anything goes wrong."
"Yes, it's a cinch we get cheated out of our share of the money,"
argued Jack, with an angry glare in the direction of the
unconscious Hank.
"Beggars can't be choosers," argued Bill. "You know, as well as
I do, that if we are implicated in this affair it means serious
trouble. Our parents wouldn't stand for it, and we should be
disgraced. By doing it this way we get some of the proceeds--I
admit not our fair share but what's to be done?"
"Well, I guess you are right, Bill," assented Jack, with a shrug.
"It's go ahead now; we've gone too far to draw back."
"That's the line of talk," grinned Bill, "and when we've each got
fifty dollars in our pockets, silenced Hank with a golden gag and
had our revenge on those kids, we'll be able to talk over future
plans. I'm sick of school. I hate the idea of going back there.
I've half a mind to strike out for the West anyway."
"Do you think I could get a job on your cousin's ranch?" asked
Jack.
"I don't doubt it a bit," rejoined Bill. "You're a good, husky
chap, and brawn and muscle is what they need in the West."
"Yes, I'm husky, all right," conceded Jack modestly. "Sometimes
I think that I don't get full opportunities to expand here in
this wretched country hole."
"No, the West is the place," agreed Bill, with an inward smile,
"as the newspapers say--one can expand with the country out
there."
Their conversation was broken in upon by Sam, who demanded in no
very gentle tones:
"Well, who's going ashore? I'm off."
"No hurry, Sam," said Jack in a more amiable tone than he had yet
used that morning. "Let's sit around here a while and enjoy the
sun--we might take a swim after a while."
"If you don't come now you'll have to swim ashore," grunted Sam,
arising and brushing the sand from himself. "I'm going back to
Hampton. I'm tired of camping out here."
He walked toward the beach and prepared to shove off the dinghy,
preparatory to sculling out to the hydroplane, which lay a few
rods off shore in the channel.
"Hold on, Sam," cried Bill; "we're coming. Don't go away sore."
"I'm not sore," rejoined Sam, in a tone which belied his words,
"but I don't think you fellows are doing the right thing when you
maroon a kid like Joe Digby on a lone island, in a deserted
bungalow in which you'd be scared to stop yourselves."
"Why, what's got into you, Sam?" protested Jack. "It's more a
lark than anything else."
"Fine lark," grunted Sam, "scaring a kid half to death and then
writing notes for money. It's dangerously near to kidnapping--
that's what I call it, and I'm glad I'm not in it."
Both the others looked rather uncomfortable at this presentation
of the matter, but Jack affected to laugh it off.
"Pshaw!" he exclaimed, "it's a little bit rough, I know, but such
things do a kid good. Teach him to be self-reliant and--and all
that."
"Sure," agreed Bill, "you don't look at these things in the right
light, Sam--does he, Hank?"
Hank, who had shuffled toward the dinghy at the conclusion of
these edifying remarks, agreed with a chuckle that Sam had no
sense of humor, after which they all got into the dinghy and we
sculled off to the unlucky hydroplane.
It didn't take long to get under way, and the little craft was
soon scudding through the water at a good pace, towing the dinghy
behind her.
"Better put us ashore before we get into Hampton," suggested
Bill. "We don't want to be seen about there more than can be
helped."
"That's where you are wrong," objected Jack. "We'll put Hank
ashore up the coast, but the more we are seen about the place the
better. It won't look as if we had anything to do with the Digby
kid--in case things do go wrong."
So it was agreed that Hank was to be landed in a small cove a few
miles farther down the coast, from which it was a short cut
across country to the neighborhood of the Digby farm.
Then he was to waylay the first likely-looking messenger and
entrust the note which Jack had read to him for delivery. After
that he was to spend the time as best he could in suitable
seclusion, and after dark conceal himself near the sign-post. He
was not to make any attempt to secure the money if any one
hovered about the place, but if the coast was clear he was to go
boldly in and take it.
Hank was landed at the spot agreed upon, a short time later, and
the other three then resumed their journey for the hydroplane's
home port. As they turned seaward Jack pointed mockingly to
Topsail Island, which lay a short distance on their port bow.
"I'll bet there's plenty going on there right now," he grinned.
"Right you are," assented Bill.
"Hullo," he added hastily the next moment; "what's that?"
He pointed toward the island, and the occupants of the homing
hydroplane saw, slowly rising from it in the still air, four
straight columns of blue smoke.
"Looks like a signal of some kind," suggested Jack after a
scrutiny.
"It's coming from about the place where we grabbed the kid,"
added Bill, a note of apprehension in his voice.
"I wonder what it signifies?" demanded Jack, whose face began to
bear a somewhat troubled look.
"I can tell you," said Sam shortly, turning round from the wheel.
"You can?"
"Yes."
"Well, hurry up, then--what does it mean?" Jack spoke sharply at
Sam's deliberation.
"It means," said Sam slowly, as if he wanted every word to sink
in, "that the Boy Scouts have picked up your trail."
CHAPTER XX
THE HUNT FOR TENDERFOOT JOE
Rob, Merritt, Tubby Hopkins and Captain Hudgins rested,
perspiring under the noon-day heat, on a group of flat rocks at
the highest point of the island. Their search had been
fruitless, and their downcast faces showed it.
"How ever are we going to break the news to his parents?"
Merritt it was who voiced the question that had been troubling
all of them.
Before any one had time to frame a reply the captain, whose keen
eyes had been gazing about him, gave a sudden shout:
"There's that smoke yonder yer boys were lookin' fer," he
exclaimed, pointing.
"Four columns of it," shouted Rob, "hurray, boys, that means
news! It's 'Come to counsel.' Come on, don't let's lose any
time in getting back."
Rapidly the boys stumbled and ran forward over the rocks and
pushed on among the dense growth that covered the hillside they
had climbed. They hardly noticed the obstacles, however, so
keenly were they bent on getting back to camp and learning the
news which they knew must be awaiting them. They covered the
distance in half the time it had taken them to ascend the
hillside and were met in the camp by the body of searchers--Andy
Bowles, Sim Jeffords and Ernest Thompson--who had swung off to
the left or mainland side of the island.
"Well, boys, what news?" breathlessly exclaimed Rob, "we saw the
counsel smoke and hurried down at top speed."
"Well, there's not very much, I'm afraid, Rob," began Andy, "but
we found something that may give us a clue. About half a mile
down the beach there's the distinct mark of a boat keel where it
was drawn up on the hard sand and the marks of three separate
pairs of feet."
"Good," exclaimed Rob, "that's something and half confirms my
suspicion. Go on, Andy, what else?"
"Well, we examined the marks carefully and found that two pairs
of feet wore good shoes and the third a very broken, disreputable
pair."
"Yes," exclaimed Rob, while the others listened breathlessly.
"Of course that indicated to us that three persons must have
carried Joe off--for I don't think there's much doubt now that he
was carried off, do you?"
"I don't," said Rob sadly, "but for what possible motive?"
"I have it," suddenly exclaimed Tubby Hopkins, snapping his
fingers, "you remember the day of the aeroplane model contest?"
"Yes, but what--" began Rob.
"Has that to do with it," finished Tubby for him. "Everything.
It was Joe who first told the committee that Jack's model was a
bought one and so lost him the fifty-dollar prize."
"By cracky, that's right!" assented Rob, "and you think that Jack
and his gang have carried him off in revenge for it?"
"Looks that way to me," nodded the stout youth.
"Why, they wouldn't dare," began Andy Bowles.
"Oh, yes, they would," amended Rob bitterly, "they'd dare
anything to get even on us for their fancied wrongs. But whose
could have been the broken ragged shoes?" he asked, suddenly
taking up another train of thought.
"Hank Handcrafts, the beach-comber's," suggested Tubby.
"Gee Whillikens! I'll bet a cracker that's the solution," cried
Andy, "and now I come to think of it I heard, before we left,
that Jack and his gang had gone camping."
"Where?"
"Up around the Upper Inlet somewhere. You know that's full of
islands and as there's no drinking water there few people ever
think of frequenting the place. If they wanted to do anything
like carrying off Joe that is where they would have been likely
to go."
"You may be right, Andy. It's worth looking into, anyway,"
declared Rob. "I'll leave a note here for the others and we'll
take a run over there in the Flying Fish. If Joe is there we'll
get him out."
"And in jig time, too," chimed in Ernest Thompson.
"Come on, boys, get some gasoline, hop in the dinghy and let's
get aboard. We've got to move fast if we're to accomplish
anything. You get the boat, Andy, while I write a line to tell
the others what we've gone after."
The young leader hastily ran into his tent and sitting down at
the table dashed off these lines:
"Boys, we think we have a clue to Joe's whereabouts. Have gone
after him. Keep camp in regular way while we are gone. Hiram
Nelson is leader, and Paul Perkins corporal, in our absence.
"ROB BLAKE, Leader,
"Eagle Patrol, B. S. of A."
With a piece of chalk the boy marked a rough square and an arrow
on a tree--the arrow pointing to a spot in the sand in which he
buried the letter.
"Now, then, come on," he shouted, dashing toward the boat, "shove
off, boys, and if Joe's in the Upper Inlet we'll find him."
"Hurray," cheered the others, much heartened by the prospect of
any trace of the missing boy, however slight.
"Give way, boys," bellowed the captain, who had insisted on
coming along armed with a huge horse pistol of ancient pattern
which he had strapped on himself in the morning when the news of
Joe Digby's disappearance reached him. "This reminds me uv the
time when I was A. B. on the Bonnie Bess and we smoked out a fine
mess of pirates in the Caribees."
"Regular pirates?" inquired Andy as Rob and Merritt bent to the
oars.
"Reg'lar piratical pirates, my boy," responded the old salt, "we
decorated the trees with 'em and they looked a lot handsomer
there than they did a-sailin' the blue main."
Further reminiscences of the captain's were cut short by their
arrival at the Flying Fish's side. They had hastily thrown two
cases of gasoline into the dinghy before they shoved off so that
all that remained to be done was to fill the fast craft's tank
and she was ready to be off.
"Hold on," warned Rob, as Tubby Hopkins was about to secure the
dinghy to the mooring buoy, "we'll tow her along. We may need
her. There's lots of shoal water in that Upper Inlet."
"Right yer are, my boy; there's nothin' like bein' forehanded,"
remarked the captain as Merritt bent over the flywheel and Rob
threw in the spark and turned on the gasoline. After a few
revolutions an explosion resulted and the Flying Fish was off on
the mission which might mean so much or so little to the anxious
hearts on board her.
"Do you know the channel," asked Merritt as Rob with his eyes
glued on the coast sent the Flying Fish through the waves, or
rather wavelets, for the sea was almost like a sheet of glass.
"I've been up here once or twice after duck," rejoined Rob, "but
it's a tricky sort of a place to get through. However, I guess
we'll make it."
As they drew nearer the shores the boys made out an opening
which Rob said was the Upper Inlet channel.
"Say, Tubby, get out the lead line and let's see how much water
we have," directed Rob as the color of the ocean began to change
from dark blue to a sort of greenish tinge, lightening in spots,
where the shoals were near to the surface, to a sandy yellow.
The stout lad took a position in the bow and swinging the lead
about his head cast it suddenly ahead of the Flying Fish's bow.
"Slow down," ordered Rob, and Merritt cut down the motor to not
more than two hundred revolutions a minute.
The lead line, tagged with different colored bits of flannel at
each fathom length, sang through the stout lad's fingers.
"By-a-quarter-three," he called out the next instant.
This meant that three fathoms and a quarter or eighteen feet
three inches of water was under the keel of the little craft.
"Nough fer a man-uv-war," grinned old Captain Hodgins.
Slowly the Flying Fish forged ahead till right under her bow lay
a patch of the yellow water.
"By-a-half-two," came a sharp hail from the fat youth, who had
once more heaved the lead.
"Cut her down some more," sharply ordered Rob, without turning
his head, "we draw only three feet so I guess we'll do nicely for
a while."
"Great hop-toads, there's regular shark's teeth ahead," commented
Captain Hudgins, pointing to the still shallower water indicated
by the lightening tint of the channel.
"By-one-by-a-quarter-one!" came sharply from Tubby, as the Flying
Fish seemed hardly to crawl along the water.
"By-a-half!" came an instant later, meaning that only three feet
of water lay right ahead.
"Stop her," roared out Rob.
But he was too late. Instantly, almost as Merritt's hand had
flown to the lever, the nose of the Flying Fish poked into the
sandbank and her motor with a gentle sigh came to a stop.
"Hard a-ground!" roared the captain, "too bad and with a fallin'
tide, too."
"Full speed astern," came the next order.
The propeller churned up the water aft into a white turmoil. The
Flying Fish trembled in her every timber, and began to slide
slowly backward from the treacherous shoal.
"Safe, by the great horn spoon!" roared the captain, fetching
Andy Bowles a slap on the back that almost toppled the small
bugler into the water.
"For a time," said Rob quietly, "come ahead a bit, Merritt."
Slowly the little vessel slid ahead once more. Rob seemed fairly
to feel his way through the narrow channel he had picked out and
finally the Flying Fish, after as much coaxing as is usually
bestowed on a balky horse, floated in the deep water beyond the
sandy bar.
Eagerly the boys looked about them as they "opened up," as
sailors call it, the narrow stretch of water known as the Upper
Inlet. It did not take them long to spy the island with the tent
on it in which the conversation between Jack and his cronies, and
the mutineer to his plans, had taken place.
"There's their camp!" shouted Rob, eagerly sending the Flying
Fish ahead at full speed, "now we'll find out something."
"And, maybe, use this." The captain, as he spoke, grimly produced
his formidable weapon and flourished it about.
"No, none of that," sternly rejoined Rob, "the Boy Scouts can
take care of those fellows--without using firearms."
"You bet," rejoined Merritt, grimly "musling up," "we'll show 'em
if it comes to a fight."
But bitter disappointment awaited the boys. As we know, the camp
was deserted and no trace or clue of the whereabouts of its
occupants was to be found. In the tent, however, lay a piece of
blotting paper with ink-marks on it. It was the material with
which Jack had dried his letter.
"Anybody got a mirror?" asked Rob. "This blotter may help some
if we can read what's on it."
"I've got a pocket one," said Andy Bowles, who was somewhat
particular about his person and always carried a small toilet
case.
"That will do; let's have it."
Rob seized the bit of looking glass and held the blotter to it.
"Just as I thought," he exclaimed a minute later, with a cry of
triumph. "It's Jack Curtiss' writing, though he has tried to
disguise it, and they've got Joe hidden somewhere. Look here,
they want $200 for his return."
"Yes, but what good does it do us to know that," objected
Merritt, when the sensation this announcement caused had
subsided. "They evidently had him here overnight and then
deserted the camp for fear we'd pick up their trail. They've
taken Joe with them."
"By the great sea-serpent, that's right," grunted the captain,
"it's a blind trail, boys!"
CHAPTER XXI
SAVED BY "SMOKE MORSE"
Each member of the party regarded the other blankly.
The captain was right. The deserted camp was only a blind trail
and they had all their work to do over again.
"The first people to communicate with are Joe's parents," mused
Rob. "That note will be delivered very shortly, as the longer
they delay the more dangerous it will be for them."
"That's right," agreed Merritt, "Jack and his gang will not let
the grass grow under their feet now that they know the chase must
be on. What can they have done with Joe?"
Rob had been looking about him with the instinct of the Boy
Scout. He was anxious to ascertain if there were not something
tangible, some clue on which they could base a search for the
missing member of the Patrol. Suddenly something remarkable
struck him about the tracks that lay about the tent.
They were all four those, of persons of larger growth than Joe
Digby and mingling with them unmistakably was the broken-shoed
track of Hank, the beach-comber.
"Boys," announced Rob suddenly, "Joe has not been here at all."
"Not been here at all," echoed Merritt, amazedly.
"I mean what I say. Look at these tracks. There is not a
footmark here that could by any chance be his."
The others scrutinized the maze of foot-prints with the same care
as had Rob and were forced to come to the same conclusion. There
was no question about it--they would have to seek elsewhere for a
trace of the lad.
But where?
They gazed about them at the stretch of lone bay or inlet, the
sparse scrub grass and vegetation fringing it on the shore side
and wheeling sea-gulls swooping and soaring above the shoal
waters.
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