“He wants to get home to his mammy,” sneered Dale Harding, Hunt’s other companion.
“Yes, but he’s got to take his medicine first,” snarled Hunt, who had, unfortunately for himself, as it later appeared, mistaken Rob’s unwillingness to enter into a bruising match for timidity.
“So, you’re afraid to fight, eh?” he jeered. “Well, you’ve got to. Will you put up your fists, and take it like a man, or will I have to trounce you like a regular coward?”
“Yes, how will you take your licking?” sneered Dale Harding, as Hunt sprang at Rob, thinking to take him by surprise.
“This way!”
Like a pistol-shot, the words were snapped out.
The next instant Hunt was seen to halt in his spring forward, and go toppling backward. Rob, unwilling to hurt him, had “heeled” him. The recumbent lad was furious. He scrambled to his feet, using a torrent of strong language.
“No necessity for that,” remarked Rob. The only answer was another volley of profanity.
“Here, take this coat,” said Rob, turning to Tubby, and, slipping out of the garment, “I’ve got to give this fellow a lesson. Next to smoking cigarettes, the worst habit a boy can get into is using bad language.”
“Oh, it is, is it? You puling, Sunday-school scholar, take that!”
Hunt crouched, and, suddenly becoming erect, aimed a terrific blow at Rob’s head. But, to his surprise, his fist encountered thin air. The next instant, however, something struck him under the chin that felt like a battering-ram. Hunt shook his head and staggered a little.
“Had enough?” inquired Rob. “I’m ready to quit if you are.”
Hunt’s answer was a perfect bellow of anger. In the city he had been the bully of his neighborhood. He had expected to occupy the same desirable position at Hampton, but, alas for him, he had been speedily disillusioned.
He charged at Rob, and this time managed to get in a powerful blow on the ribs of the Eagle Patrol leader. It made Rob gasp for an instant, but before Hunt could launch another, Rob countered, ducked, and, rising suddenly under Hunt’s guard, like a steel-springed Jack-in-the-box, he gave the fellow a swift lesson in boxing. Hunt was staggering about, but still vicious and unconquered, when two figures suddenly crept through the hedge and landed in the road. They were both rough-looking youths, and as well as could be seen in the gloom, were about the same age, or possibly a little older, than any of the lads in the road.
But the sight of them brought a shout to Rob’s lips. His exclamation of astonishment was speedily echoed by Merritt and Tubby Hopkins.
In the gathering gloom he had recognized the newcomers as Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender. They, on their part, were equally quick in recalling the boys of the Eagle Patrol. Jack Curtiss had a thick stick, a sort of club, in his hand. He raised it threateningly, and made at Rob with it.
“I’ll fix you,” he exclaimed, pretending virtuous indignation, “you’re at your old tricks of bullying and plug-uglying again, are you?”
CHAPTER IV.
PAUL PERKINS, MOTOR SCOOTER.
“You’d better keep out of this, Jack Curtiss,” warned Rob, not at all perturbed. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“Oh, you don’t! I suppose you didn’t have me sent to pris—I mean to a friend’s for a visit, and you didn’t try to fix Bill Bender? I’ve got some scores against you, Rob Blake, and I’m going to pay them out, right now.”
This tirade proved as astonishing to Hunt and his companions as it did to our boys. Rob and his friends had supposed that Curtiss and Bender were still in prison in the West for the part they had played in the cattle rustling raids. They did not know that influence had been brought to bear in their favor, and on account of their youth the lads had been released. Both had arrived in the village the day before, getting off the train at a distant station and driving to their homes unnoticed. That afternoon they had been taking a stroll in the woods, killing small animals and stoning birds. They were on their way home, when the noise of the encounter in the road attracted their attention.
But somehow, although Jack Curtiss’s arm was raised, it did not fall. Instead, he suddenly thought better of the matter, and retreated, mumbling angrily. Perhaps it had occurred to him that he was not in good odor in the village anyway, and to become mixed up in a fight or attack on the boys might result in his once again being compelled to leave the place.
“Come on, Jack,” put in Bill Bender; “no use mixing up in this thing. I hope that Rob Blake gets the thrashing he deserves, though, and——”
“I guess he won’t get it this time,” laughed Tubby, pointing to Hunt, who, the first shock of astonishment at the interruption over, sat nursing his face on the bank.
“Here, don’t you interfere,” said Lem Lonsdale, stepping forward threateningly.
“Huh! You want to fight, too?” demanded the fat boy, rolling up his sleeves pugnaciously.
“No; I’ll settle with you some other time,” responded Lonsdale, with all the dignity he could command.
“Come on, fellows. Let’s be getting on home,” exclaimed Rob, who had no wish to prolong the affair.
“All right, I’m ready,” chimed in Merritt. “I don’t like the company around here very well.”
Hunt still sat on the bank, nursing his jaw, and Rob began to be afraid that he had hit harder than he had intended. He approached the other with his hand outstretched.
“I’m sorry, Hunt,” he said, “but you brought it on yourself, old scout. See here, let’s you and I get together and try to cement friendship between the Hawks and the Eagles. It isn’t the scout game to sulk and have ructions. Shake hands, won’t you, and we’ll call it off and run the two patrols in harmony.”
Hunt heard him to the end with sullen apathy. No change of expression crossed his face. As Rob concluded, however, he looked up and said:
“Are you through?”
“Yes, I guess that’s about all. Except that——”
“Except nothing!” almost screamed Hunt, springing to his feet, “I hate you, Rob Blake. Ever since you got back from that fool western trip of yours, you’ve tried to run the village. You won’t do it, see? Don’t talk friendship to me. I’ll fight you to the last ditch, you see if I won’t.”
“Well, if that’s the way you feel about it,” said Rob, with a slight sigh, “there’s nothing I can do. But it isn’t right that two patrols of Boy Scouts should be at loggerheads, just because of your envious temper—for that’s all it amounts to.”
Hunt, white-faced and trembling, was about to make another spring at Rob, when Dale caught him and held him back.
“Don’t be a chump, Freeman,” he said in a low voice, “Rob Blake is more than your match. Let him go. There are other ways to get at him.”
Rob and his chums did not hear this last remark, and bidding the others “Good-night,” a politeness which was not responded to, they continued on their way, leaving behind them three astonished and angry lads, and the two youths who already had shown in numerous ways that they wished all the harm possible to the Boy Scouts.
“Wonder how Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender got out of their trouble in Arizona?” mused Merritt, as they hastened along through the fast-gathering gloom.
“Don’t know,” responded Tubby, and neither could Rob furnish any explanation. It was not until they entered the village that they learned the true reason of the unscrupulous youths’ presence in Hampton. The little place was a-buzz with it, and various plans of protest were talked over. But, as is the case in most small towns in a matter of that kind, no one was willing to “bell the cat,” namely, notify Jack’s and Bill’s parents that the boys were not wanted. So they remained in town, and their presence soon became unremarked. In the meantime, however, an alliance had been formed between Freeman Hunt and his particular friends and Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender, which boded ill for our lads. To the warnings of their boy friends, however, Rob, Merritt and Tubby only rejoined with laughter. They felt that they had nothing to fear from such a company, in which, as the sequel will show, they were very much mistaken.
On Rob’s arrival at home that night, he hastened to his room to remove all traces of his encounter. Washed and dressed, he was about to descend to the library, when, to his astonishment, he heard a strange voice conversing with his father in that room. Yet there was something familiar in the tones, too. Where had he heard it before? At last Rob heard “Good-nights” exchanged between his father and the stranger, and soon after came the swift “chug-chug” of an auto, which, apparently, had been driven around the house, for the boy had not noticed it when he returned home.
“Who was your visitor, father?” inquired Rob, as he sat down to dinner that evening.
“Why, a Lieutenant Duvall, of the regular army,” was the rejoinder. “Do you know him?”
Mr. Blake broke off abruptly, for Rob had given a cry of astonishment as he heard the name.
“Know him? I should say so. Why, he’s the fellow who led those troops into the Moqui Valley. Don’t you remember, when they were giving the snake dance, and——”
“Oh, Rob, I cannot bear to hear about such things!” exclaimed his mother. “You might have been killed by those Indians.”
“I guess they would have liked to do something like that,” responded Rob, with a laugh, “but it all ended happily, mother.
“Why, as I said, he was the officer who led the cavalry to our rescue. What can he be doing here?”
“Well, what about Lieutenant Duvall?” demanded his father.
“I do not know. He was very reticent about his business. He came to me with a letter of introduction. You know, he has rented the old De Regny place.”
“What, the old haunted villa north of here?”
“That’s the place,” rejoined Mr. Blake. “I can’t imagine why he wants it, but, beyond saying that he was here on official business, connected with aeronautical experiments, he would not give me any inkling of the object of his occupancy of the place. His errand to me was to open an account in the bank.”
“It is odd,” mused Rob. “The De Regny place hasn’t been occupied for many years, has it, father?”
“Not since Napoleon was sent to St. Helena by the British, my boy. General de Regny, who built the place, was one of the great French leader’s most devoted marshals. After Waterloo, he came over here, apparently at Napoleon’s own behest, and built this house on the seashore. They say that secret passages run into the grounds from the beach. If this is so, the entrances to them have never been found.”
“What did he want secret passages for?” asked Mrs. Blake, to whom the story was comparatively new. Rob had already heard it in various forms from a dozen sources about the village.
“Why, you see, it is always supposed that there was a plan on foot to rescue Napoleon from St. Helena,” explained Mr. Blake. “In that case, the supposition is, he would have made direct for the Long Island coast, and have been landed in the De Regny home by means of the secret passage from the beach. Of course, you recall the square, glass-sided watch-tower on the summit of the house. That, I imagine, was placed there so that the sea could be constantly scanned for a trace of the approaching vessel bearing the rescued emperor. But, of course, he never came, and in time De Regny died, and the property went to some heirs of his in Virginia. What the government or Lieutenant Duvall can want with it, is beyond my comprehension.”
After dinner Rob lost no time in slipping off to find Merritt and Tubby Hopkins. By telephoning, he found out that they had both gone to the home of Paul Perkins, who will be recalled as the winner of the model aeroplane contest described in the first volume of this series, and the aeronautical enthusiast of the Eagle Patrol.
Thither, accordingly, Rob hastened to find his friends and communicate the surprising news concerning the old De Regny place. Paul’s mother informed him that he would find the boys in the old wagon house.
“In the wagon house?” exclaimed Rob in some astonishment.
“Yes,” rejoined Mrs. Perkins. “Paul has some sort of contrivance out there. Whether it’s to fly, crawl or walk, I don’t know. I only hope he won’t break his neck or spile his pants with it, like he did the last time he flitted on wings, and tried to flop from ther wagon house roof.”
“Did he break his neck, ma’am?” inquired Rob, with a perfectly serious countenance.
“No, he did not,” innocently rejoined Mrs. Perkins, “but he tore his pants suthin’ awful.”
Sure enough, as Rob approached the wagon house, he could see light streaming from the wide chinks of the tumble-down place, and could catch the sound of boyish voices within.
“And what is that, Paul?” he heard Merritt’s voice inquiring.
“That’s the propeller,” rejoined Paul, with a quiver of pride in his voice.
“Say, where do you keep the grub?”
“That must be Tubby,” thought Rob, with a smile. Hastening forward, he rapped at the door.
“Come in!” exclaimed Paul, as Rob, at the same instant, uttered the patrol cry in a peculiar, low tone.
Rob pushed open the door, and saw before him, illuminated by the light of a stable lantern, the most peculiar looking piece of machinery he had ever set eyes on.
“What is it?” he gasped in astonishment.
“It’s a motor-scooter,” declared Paul, with the inventor’s pride vibrating in his voice. He held the lamp aloft so that its radiance streamed on a glittering, bewildering mass of bars, levers, connecting rods and brace wires.
CHAPTER V.
THE BOY WHO MADE THE WHEELS GO ROUND.
“A motor-scooter!” echoed Rob.
“That’s right, Rob, and she’s a Jim Dandy, too!” exclaimed Merritt enthusiastically.
“She’ll eat up space,” volunteered Tubby.
“Always on the eating tack,” laughed Paul.
“Better than being full of them,” remarked the fat boy, dreamily gazing up into the black shadows of the wagon shed roof.
“Say, Paul,” asked Rob interestedly, “would you mind telling me what is a motor-scooter. It looks fine,” he added encouragingly.
“A motor-scooter,” exclaimed Paul, “is a sled driven by an auto engine and propelled by an aeroplane propeller over the frozen surface.”
“That sounds fine,” chuckled Merritt; “bet you cribbed it out of a book.”
Paul Perkins, paying no attention, went on to explain to Rob the points of the strange craft. He had constructed it ingeniously from parts of an old, broken-down auto left behind by a summer resident. The engine part of the affair rested on a framework of two-by-four timbers, and to the flywheel of the motor had been fitted a pulley connected with a shaft mounted above it, on one end of which was affixed a six-foot aeroplane propeller.
Behind the engine came a seat for the driver, and another beside it for a passenger. Gasoline was carried in a ten-gallon tank placed forward of, and above the motor, while the cooling was effected by means of a fan geared to the forward part of the machinery. Below the framework came the runners on which the odd craft was expected to glide over the ice. These were formed of old wagon timbers, along which strips of iron, constructed from barrel binders, had been nailed.
Such was Paul Perkins’ wonderful motor-scooter. Rob, after an inspection of the clever way in which it was put together, could not help admiring the ingenuity of the young constructor. He knew that Paul was not a rich boy, and that it must have cost him a lot of time and labor to carry out his idea without funds to buy expensive tools or appliances.
“Merritt’s father let me use the forge at night,” explained Paul, “and in that way Merritt came to be the first to know about it. I told him during last summer.”
“And he kept your secret, too,” laughed Rob. “But why didn’t you tell any one else?”
“I was afraid that it mightn’t work.”
“Well, will it?”
“Watch.”
Paul clambered into the driver’s seat and threw in a small switch. Then he turned on the gasoline and adjusted the carburetor.
“Look out!” he shouted.
As he spoke, he turned a crank which he had geared to a toothed wheel on the shaft. The engine turned over once or twice, and only a sort of low sigh resulted. Suddenly there came a sharp sound, like twin explosions.
Chug-chug!
“Hooray, she’s off!” shouted Tubby.
Faster and faster the engine began to revolve, the smoke from its exhausts filling the place with smothering vapor. Through the blue haze, they could see the aeroplane propeller threshing round at terrific speed. The frame of the novel craft quivered, as if anxious to move off. But, of course, it could not. The motor-scooter was built for traveling only upon the ice.
“How did you ever come to think of it?” asked Rob, as Paul shut off the engine and climbed out of his seat.
“Why, it was last winter,” explained Paul, “you remember the inlet was frozen, and we had iceboat races on it? Well, I was watching them, and thinking why it wouldn’t be possible to make an ice motor-boat. First off, I couldn’t see how to do it. I figured around, however, and at last I thought out a way. But I didn’t have money enough to buy a motor, so I gave up the idea. Then Higgins’ auto blew up and took fire. He was disgusted, and when I offered him a small price for the engine he was delighted. He wouldn’t take anything for it, in fact. He figured that the fire had spoiled it. So it had, pretty well, but I fixed it up—and—well, there she is, and what do you think of her?”
“Think?” exclaimed Rob. “I think she is a Jim Dandy, just as Merritt said. But, Paul, will she run on the ice?”
“Don’t see why not. The propeller has tremendous driving power. I wish it would hurry up and freeze, I’m dying to try her out.”
“I’ll bet you are. It will be a long time yet to frost, though. In the meantime, what do you say to taking a little trip out to-morrow afternoon to the old De Regny place? It will make a good walk.”
“What on earth do you want to go out there for?” asked Tubby in a surprised tone.
“I have a reason,” rejoined Rob. “I’ll tell you about it to-morrow. Do you fellows want to go?”
“Of course, but you’re mighty mysterious about it,” grumbled Merritt.
“Hush! Maybe he’s found a corned beef mine!” exclaimed Tubby in a low, cautious voice.
“A corned beef mine? Why, I never heard of such a thing,” exclaimed Paul seriously.
“Didst not, little one?” chirped Tubby. “My uncle found one in northern Montana.”
“In northern Montana!”
“Yes, sir,” went on Tubby, winking at the others, “it’s an interesting thing to a fellow like you, Paul, who is fond of scientific research and—and all that sort of thing. Shall I tell you how it occurred?”
“Please do,” begged Paul, sitting down on the edge of his invention and composing himself comfortably.
“Well,” began Tubby, with the air of one who has deliberated long and seriously over a matter, “it was this way. One fall my uncle, who had been mining all summer, figured it was about time to get out of those northern Montana mountains. He decided, though, before he left, to put in the biggest blast ever heard of, so that when he came back in the spring he could have plenty of rock to work. In due course, he set the blast off, and discovered, to his astonishment, that the explosion had uncovered a regular cliff of reddish-brown substance, interveined with what looked like the finest jelly.”
“You don’t tell me.”
“But I do tell you. Well, uncle was considerably puzzled. He had never struck anything like that before. All at once, glancing down, he saw his dog was advancing to the cliff. Presently, the creature seized a fragment that had been blasted to some distance, and began devouring it. Imagine my uncle’s astonishment to find that the cliff seemingly was edible. He investigated, and found that his blast had miraculously uncovered a deposit of unknown extent of the very finest kind of corned beef.”
“Didn’t he find a ketchup well or a mustard spring close by?” asked Merritt seriously.
Tubby shook his head.
“No; uncle was a very truthful man. If he had found anything like that, he’d have mentioned it. But he didn’t.”
“But the explanation,” urged the scientific-minded Paul, “how did he ever account for it?”
“Why, an inquiry showed that years before there had been an earthquake there, and a band of cattle had been swallowed up, and it so happened that they were immersed in a salt mine. Thus, a very fine stratum of corned beef was formed, which only awaited my uncle’s coming to be given to a grateful public.”
“You say that this all happened to your uncle?” asked Paul somewhat suspiciously.
“Yes, sure, to my uncle in Montana.”
“Really happened to him?” insisted Paul, who had detected a suspicious quiver on Tubby’s lips.
“Yes, indeed. It happened to him just before he fell out of bed.”
A shout of laughter went up then, echoing and ringing among the rafters. Paul good-naturedly joined in it, though the merriment was at his own expense, but his laughter was suddenly checked. There was a small window in one side of the place, and, peering through this aperture, Paul had just detected a face. It was a countenance that was familiar to him, and seemed to be taking the utmost interest in the details of his invention.
“What’s the matter, Paul?” asked Rob, checking his mirth, as he saw the younger lad’s eyes fixed upon the window-pane.
“I—I saw a face there, an instant ago,” stuttered Paul. “It was looking in on us, but it instantly vanished.”
“A face! Gee, whiz! who could it have been?” exclaimed Tubby.
“I don’t know,” rejoined Paul, “but I kind of thought I recognized it for the minute that I saw it.”
“Who do you think it was?”
“Freeman Hunt, that fellow who used to——”
But the others had shot out of the barn at top speed.
“I’ll give that fellow a lesson if I catch him prowling around here,” growled Merritt.
But, although they searched about the place thoroughly, they could find no trace of the intruder. When they got back to the shed, they found Paul putting up an old sack over the window through which the face had peered.
“I’m not going to take any chances with this machine,” the lad said earnestly, “and I want you fellows to promise not to tell any one about it.”
“All right,” they readily agreed.
“Isn’t it patented yet?” inquired Rob.
“No,” rejoined Paul. “I’ve put the matter in the hands of a lawyer in Washington, a friend of my dead father. I guess he’ll put it through. I want to sell it and pay off the mortgage on the house; but, in the meantime, I don’t want any one to know its details whom I can’t trust.”
“Well, the secret’s safe with us, Paul,” Rob assured him, as they parted for the night, “but don’t tell too many people about it. That’s a valuable invention, to my mind, and you want to guard it closely.”
“I will,” Paul promised, but he did not tell Rob that earlier in the week he had confided his great secret to Freeman Hunt. That worthy had heard something of a mysterious machine the lad was constructing, and took occasion to find out what it was. By flattering the unsuspecting boy, and telling him what marvelous things he had heard of him, Freeman soon put himself in possession of the details of the machine’s construction, and of the things Paul expected to accomplish.
“Sounds good,” Hunt had commented to himself that evening; “maybe we can make some thing out of that kid’s information. I’ll tell my dad about it. He’s slick as paint, dad is.”
CHAPTER VI.
TWO MYSTERIOUS MEN.
The next afternoon the four lads left the village shortly after lunch, and struck out along the sandy road leading in the direction of the De Regny place. It was warm, and, walking on the heavy, sandy road proved oppressive. In fact, before they had traversed two miles of the distance, Tubby was begging for a drink of water.
“What do you want with water?” scoffed Merritt. “Doctors say that it makes fat.”
“I don’t care,” retorted Tubby. “I want a drink, and I’m going to have it, too.”
“Dig in the road for it, I suppose, or get it out of the sea yonder,” laughed Rob.
“Neither, Mister Smart Alec; I’m going to get it at that house back there.”
The stout lad indicated a rather tumble-down dwelling, situated in the midst of a ragged orchard, which was set back some distance from the road. It had once been the home of a fisherman, but had been long deserted. Tubby knew, however, there was a well on the place, which yielded clear, cold water. Without another word to his companions, he struck off across the uneven ground toward the hut.
“Guess I could stand a drink,” said Merritt suddenly.
“Same here,” agreed Rob, and the two struck off after their rotund comrade.
“I’m thirsty, too,” said Paul.
Close to the house, dense clumps of lilacs had grown up, straggling in every direction, and forming a deep, impenetrable screen. As the boys came up to the place, they were startled to hear, from within the hut, the sound of voices.
“I thought the place was deserted,” gasped Merritt, using a low tone, however.
“So did I,” chimed in Tubby. “Let’s get out of here. Maybe they’re tramps, or something.”
“Hardly likely,” whispered Rob, parting the bushes ever so little and peering through. The other two each made a similar observation place for himself. Through this leafy screen they could see the interior of the front room of the hut plainly. To their astonishment, a few rough pieces of furniture stood within, and, at a battered table, two men were seated, talking earnestly. One of them was a big, broad-shouldered fellow, with a ruddy face and shifty blue eyes. The other was a small, dapper man, dressed nattily, almost fastidiously. The back of this latter fellow had been partly turned when the lads came in, but as he faced restlessly about in his chair, the boys could not suppress a start of astonishment.
The man was a Japanese!
More surprising still, the fellow with him could now be seen to be garbed in the uniform of a United States regular.
Fascinated, with round eyes and attentive ears, the boys bent forward on tip-toe to hear the conversation that was going on.
“So Duvall suspects nothing,” the Japanese said in perfect English, evidently continuing a conversation, the first part of which they had missed.
The soldier laughed.
“Not he. I’ve managed to get several drawings besides the ones I have already brought you. In about a week’s time my work will be finished, and then I’ll skip. You are sure your government will have that appointment for me?”
“Absolutely certain, Honorable Dugan. Nippon is not ungrateful for any services that may have been done her, and you will reap your reward. But when is the trial flight to be made?”
“As soon as the equalizer is finished.”
“And that will be?”
“Some time this coming week.”
“You have not been able to get plans of the equalizer yet?”
“No; as I told you, I have failed so far. Lieutenant Duvall will not let them out of his hands. But I’ll get them, if I have to knock him down and take them from him.”
“That is right,” smiled the Jap. “I could wish you were acquainted with jiu-jitsu, to make your task more easy. Above all things, I must have the working plans of the equalizer. The rest does not matter so much, but to equip our aerial fleet we must have that device.”
“You see, it’s the invention of Duvall himself, and for that reason he guards it pretty close.”
“Naturally. However, we shall be too clever for him. You don’t think any one suspects my presence here?”
“Not a bit of it,” Dugan assured his yellow skinned companion. “Didn’t you come in by night and make straight for this place? You couldn’t have a better hiding-place. No one ever comes here, and——
Cra-c-k!
A board, upon which Tubby had unthinkingly stood, so as to obtain a better view, gave way under the heavy youth’s weight at this interesting point. With a gasp of dismay, Tubby clutched at the lilacs to save himself from falling, thereby creating even more noise.
“Who’s there?” roared Dugan, springing to his feet. The boys caught the glint of a revolver, as he shot erect. Like a small and venomous snake, the Jap, too, was up like a flash. But they were neither of them quick enough to catch a glimpse of the scouts, as they dashed off into a patch of woods lying to the left, into the shadows of which they had dived, wriggling along on their stomachs, before either Dugan or the Jap had recovered from their start.
From their cover, the boys could see the pair emerge from the house and search about it thoroughly, without, of course, finding a trace of anything unusual.
“Guess it must have been a rabbit or something,” they could hear Dugan say, after a prolonged search that showed no indication of human surveillance.
“Huh! Honorable rabbit gave me a big jump,” they heard the Jap rejoin.
The two went back into the house, no doubt to continue their deliberations, while the boys, making a detour through the woods, once more emerged on the main road, with Tubby’s thirst still unsatisfied.
“Now, what do you suppose was the meaning of that confab?” asked Merritt, as they trudged along.
“Looks to me like treachery of some sort,” rejoined Rob. “Those Japs have been busy in Mexico during the insurrection. You know, they wanted to get a coaling base there. They certainly are not friends of Uncle Sam’s, however much they pretend to be, and when you see one of our soldiers in such a consultation with one of them, it looks bad.”
“That’s right,” agreed Merritt. “But what could they have been talking about? Of course, you told us about Lieutenant Duvall having leased the De Regny place for some mysterious government work. Evidently that man Dugan is there with him, and perhaps several more soldiers. But what do you suppose they are doing?”
“That was one reason why I proposed this walk this afternoon,” said Rob. “Maybe we can find out something. But I think from what Dugan said it’s pretty plain what the government is doing at the De Regny place.”
“What do you think it is, Rob?” asked Tubby interestedly.
“Testing out some sort of an airship.”
“What!”
“That’s right. Didn’t you hear the Jap speak of a Japanese aerial fleet?”
“So he did!” exclaimed Merritt. “And now I come to think of it, I remember I read some time ago that Lieutenant Duvall had invented a stability device for aeroplanes. At the time, though, I didn’t connect it with our lieutenant.”
“What we’ve got to do is to find the lieutenant and tell him about what we overheard,” said Rob decidedly. “Those fellows may succeed in their schemes, otherwise.”
“Ugh!” exclaimed Tubby, with a shudder, “I’d hate to have had that fellow Dugan grab hold of me. He’s an ugly-looking customer.”
“He is,” agreed Rob, “but we can’t help that. Our duty is clear. Why, if the Japs ever got hold of a practicable invention like that, they could send an aerial fleet across the border and demoralize the country.”
“Always supposing it is a practicable invention,” put in the practical Paul Perkins quietly.
“Of course,” the impetuous Rob hastened to agree.
Talking thus, they neared the De Regny place, which deserves some description, as being, both by tradition and appearance, one of the most remarkable places along the Long Island shores.
CHAPTER VII.
HOW A SECRET PASSAGE WAS USED.
The house was a mouldering mansion of wood, three stories in height, and once a truly imposing specimen of the architecture of the period in which it was erected. Time and neglect, however, had done their work, and it was now dark, unpainted, and forbidding looking, set back, as it was, in a fenced park of several acres in extent. A clump of dark hemlocks surrounded the house, adding to the gloomy note of its unpainted walls, broken shutters and shattered windows, while in the neglected grounds weeds and trailing, unkempt vines ran riot everywhere.
Only to seaward was the place unencumbered by this wild, disordered tangle. In that direction there lay a broad, brick-floored terrace, of immense dimensions, upon which, tradition had it, Marshal De Regny used to strut with a telescope, ever and anon looking seaward for a sight of the expected vessel bearing the rescued captive from St. Helena.
This terrace, the boys were astonished to see, had been recently swept and repaired, offering a broad, smooth floor of considerable extent. At one end, too, stood a brand-new shed, painted green, and quite large. In front, and opening on the terrace, this shed had large double doors. What it housed could hardly be guessed from the exterior. The few fishermen who visited this isolated part of the beach concluded that the green shed must be a sort of boathouse.
The boys, however, basing their conclusions on the conversation they had overheard a short time before, decided that the airship, or aeroplane, or whatever kind of aerial craft it was, with which experiments were being conducted, must be housed within this shed.
Suddenly they saw a slender, erect figure, clad in the uniform of an officer of the United States Army, crossing the rough lawn lying between the house and the bricked terrace.
“It’s Lieutenant Duvall!” exclaimed Rob, hastening forward, followed by the others. The officer presently spied the intruders, and stopped short, with an angry expression on his countenance as he did so.
“You boys must keep off here!” he ordered, coming toward them. “This is now government property.”
“We’ll get off it in just five minutes,” answered Rob, somewhat abashed at this reception, “but in the meantime I’ve something to tell you of great importance. It hasn’t to do with the Moquis, either,” he added mischievously.
At these words, a great light seemed to break over the officer. In the nattily-uniformed boys before him, it was no wonder he had not sooner recognized the lads he had last seen in tattered, worn, cowboy rig-outs, stained with powder, and worn by a hard chase across the mountains to the Moqui valley.
“Why!” he exclaimed, his manner changing, and both hands extended in a cordial way, “it’s the young broncho busters! Hull-lo, boys! I’m glad to see you again. But what are you doing in this part of the country?”
“We happen to live here,” rejoined Rob demurely, after the first greetings had been exchanged.
“That’s so. You did tell me, I remember now, that you lived here. That must have been your father I saw last night. Very forgetful of me, but I’ve had so much on my mind lately that I’ve slipped up on a lot of things I should have carried a recollection of. We’re carrying out some big experiments here.”
“Which brings us to what we accidentally overheard on our way out here,” exclaimed Rob. “Is there a man named Dugan detailed to duty here?”
“Dugan? Yes—a most capable man—invaluable to me. Why?”
The officer was frankly astonished, and showed his bewilderment.
As may be imagined, his astonishment not only increased, but became mingled with anger, as Rob launched out into a full and detailed account of all they had overheard.
“The scoundrel,” muttered the officer, gritting his teeth, “and to think that I have regarded him as my most trusted assistant.”
“But he doesn’t know the secret of your equalizer,” ventured Merritt.
“No. Thank goodness, he does not, but,” the officer’s face grew troubled, “I wish I had the plans in a safe place. Somehow, since you have told me all this, I can only regard everybody about me as a traitor. If only I had left the plans with your father to be placed in the safe deposit vault in his bank, my mind would be easy.”
“Then you can work out your ideas without the plans?” asked Rob, in some astonishment.
“My boy, when an inventor has dreamed, and thought and pondered over an idea for many long days and sleepless nights, it is photographed on his brain, and he can never forget it.”
“Then I have an idea!” exclaimed Rob. “Let me take the plans back with me to town. I can hand them over to my father, and he can place them in a vault in the bank.”
“The very thing!” exclaimed the young officer. “I know I can trust you, Blake, and you won’t mind if I give them to you in a sealed envelope.”
“Not a bit,” rejoined Rob. He flushed a bit, though, as he spoke, although the words came readily enough.
“You see,” explained the officer, who had noticed the flush, “I almost dread to let even you have the plans. I cannot bear to let them out of my sight. This Jap—I have a suspicion who he is—is not the only one who is after them for his government. Aerial equipment has now become an important adjunct of every navy and army. In Washington, two attempts were made to get them from me, but in this lonely place I thought I was safe.”