CHAPTER II
THE HANKERS' MOVE
"Bart's overboard!"
"My! but wasn't that a clever blow!"
"Dave is too many for him, even if Bart is larger."
So the cries ran on as all rushed to the edge of the dock.
Bart Hankers had disappeared, but he soon came up, spluttering and floundering around in a fashion to make many of those present laugh.
The water at the dock was not extra deep, and his head had become covered with black mud from the bottom.
"You—you—rascal!" he cried, when he could speak. "I'll—I'll have you locked up for that!"
"Locked up!" cried several. "What for? It was a fair fight."
"Dave had no right to knock him into the water," put in Hank Shores.
Bart Hankers' rowboat was close at hand and into this the rich boy climbed slowly and painfully, for he was still partly dazed by the crack under the chin.
His wet and muddy appearance made many in the crowd laugh.
"I say, Bart, you look as if you were dressed for the ball!" cried one boy.
"Now's the time to call on your best girl, Bart. You're in good shape for hugging her," added another.
"You fellows shut up!" growled the rich youth, shaking his fist at them. "If you don't I'll make it hot for the lot of you."
"About as hot as you made it for Dave Fearless, eh?" was the reply, and a shout of derision went up.
Then one of the boys began to throw some fish bait at Bart, and in a minute half a dozen youths were at it and Bart was struck in several places.
"Oh, I must get away from here," he muttered and then cried to Hank Shores: "Row me over to Purry's dock, will you, Shores?"
"I will," replied Shores, and leaping into the rowboat, took up the oars. Soon the craft was out of reach of those left behind. But before Bart got out of hearing he heard the village lads give a hurrah for Dave Fearless.
"All right, Dave Fearless," he muttered, under his breath. "You're on top this time, but I reckon my father and I will win in the long run."
"He played you foul, Bart," said Shores, soothingly. He was little better than a sneak himself.
"He wouldn't have been able to do it only I—er—I sprained my arm at rowing yesterday. That's why I got you to row for me," answered Bart. But what he said about his arm was a falsehood.
Half an hour later Bart Hankers entered his elegant home at the end of the main street of the village and sneaked up to the bathroom, where he washed up and changed his wet clothing for a dry suit. Then he went downstairs and to the library, where his father sat, reading the stock reports in a New York paper.
"Father, the mystery is solved," he said, as he closed the door carefully, that nobody might hear what he had to say but his parent.
Lemuel Hankers, a thin, yellow-skinned man of fifty, looked at his son curiously.
"What mystery, Bart?" he asked.
"The mystery of the missing Washington fortune."
"You don't mean it!" And the man leaped from his chair in astonishment.
"I do mean it."
"What have you learned?"
"I know where the Happy Hour went down."
"Where did you get your information?"
"From the Fearlesses."
"Do they know?"
"They do. Quite by accident I overheard Dave and his father talking."
"Indeed! Tell me the particulars," went on Lemuel Hankers.
Without a blush Bart related all he had overheard while eavesdropping at the window of the Fearless cottage. Hankers senior listened with close attention.
"It is a shame that we should have missed this information when it came in," he muttered. "We might already be on the way to recover the fortune."
"We ought to try and get that chart," said Bart.
"We won't want the chart. I can get the same news from the government that Amos Fearless has got."
"Let us go in search of the sunken treasure, dad. It certainly belongs to us."
"Of course it does, Bart. Yes, if this news is true, I will go after the missing million."
"But you will have to take expert divers along, and all that sort of thing."
"I can do that easily. I own stock in the San Francisco Wrecking Company, and it will not be difficult for me to charter one of their vessels, along with all the latest appliances for raising valuables from the ocean's depths."
"Then wouldn't it be advisable for us to start at once?"
"I must find out the particulars of this matter first."
"How will you do that?"
"The easiest way will be to make a trip to Washington."
"Then you had better go to-night."
"I will," answered Lemuel Hankers.
He was as good as his word, and the next day found him at Washington.
He quickly introduced himself to the proper parties and from them learned as much as Amos Fearless knew concerning the location of the wrecked Happy Hour. That the ship had been exactly located there could be no doubt. But it was also true that the ocean currents were gradually shifting the wreck from one position to another.
"If anything is to be done it must be done soon," he said, upon returning home. "That section of the ocean's bed is subject to earthquakes, and an earthquake might sink the Happy Hour so that no diver could find her again."
"Then why don't you start for San Francisco at once?"
"I will make up my mind inside of the next twenty-four hours," answered Lemuel Hankers.
"Of course, if you go you'll take me along," went on Bart.
"I wasn't thinking of doing so."
"I don't want to stay behind. Dave Fearless is going with his dad."
"But they are both expert divers and will do their own work, while I will have to have our work hired out."
"I don't care. I want to be on hand to see the Fearlesses outwitted."
"Very well then, you shall go," answered Lemuel Hankers.
The next day saw the rich man and his son on their way to San Francisco, to fit out an expedition to hunt for the sunken treasure.