CHAPTER XIII
STEALING A SWIFT MARCH
“GR-R-R!” snarled the bull-dog, still holding lightly onto Halstead’s neck, ready to sink his fangs in at the first sign of resistance.
At Ellis’s startling information Mr. Bolton leaped from his car, crossing the road and bounding over among the bushes.
“So we’ve got you, have we—the young man who refused to aid us for a good price?” cried the dog’s owner, exultantly. “Ellis, this isn’t bad news. It’s about the best thing that could have happened. We’ll stuff this young man’s mouth up, tie him and take him to keep his employer company. It reduces the danger of any successful pursuit by the ‘Rocket.’”
Tom Halstead wasn’t a coward, as everyone familiar with his career well knows. But the dog had the upper hand at this moment, and any attempt to show fight would have been sheer folly.
“I guess you’ll agree to offer no nonsense, won’t you, Halstead?” chuckled Mr. Bolton, roughly. “If you do, I’ll call my dog off, though the beast will be at hand if needed.”
Captain Halstead’s blood was boiling over the hopelessness of this defeat in what he had hoped would be the very hour of his success. Before he could reply, however, the dog made the next move.
Behind the whole group was a quick, light step. The dog was the first to hear it. Springing back from the young skipper with a new growl of warning, the brute turned, making a fresh spring.
Hank Butts had just crossed the stone wall that bordered the road. In his two hands Hank held a rock slightly larger than his head. Nor did the freckle-faced youth seem greatly alarmed. As the bull dog sprang Hank calmly bent forward and dropped the heavy rock on the animal’s head just in the nick of time.
Without uttering a sound the savage brute dropped to the ground, dead. Ellis leaped forward at the newcomer, but Hank Butts, with a speed that seemed strange in him, snatched up the dog and hurled it full in the face of the sham reporter.
“Here, you young rascal!” roared Justin Bolton, as Ellis toppled over backward. He rushed at Hank, but Mr. Bolton was a stout, middle-aged man—no match in agility for a country boy.
“Get back before I have to do something impolite,” mocked Hank, sidestepping and throwing himself on guard. But Tom Halstead, leaping to his feet at the first sign of rescue, now tripped Justin Bolton neatly. That astounded person fell backward, striking the ground heavily.
“This way, Hank, on the hustle!” called Tom, making a plunge for the road. Halstead was in the automobile, at the steering wheel, like a flash. Hank, trembling slightly, but all a-grin, followed.
Ellis was the first to regain his feet, though Bolton was close behind him as he gained the road. They were just a second or so too late. With the machine cranked up, the engine running, Halstead had only to give the steering wheel a turn and push on the speed. The car rolled ahead, then began to travel fast just as the angry pair dashed up. In another instant Halstead had distanced them, speeding the car eastward down the country road.
Bang! There was a single shot. A bullet sped by their heads, but both boys were crouching low. There was a second shot, but this time no bullet was heard. The swift car had borne them out of revolver range.
“Hank,” exploded Tom, gleefully, “I want to say that I’ve known some real fellows, but you’re one of the best ever. But how did you manage it? I thought you were on your way back to East Hampton.”
“I ought to have been,” admitted Hank Butts, soberly. “But—well, I suppose I’ve a notion for minding other people’s business. I was just aching to see how you came out, so—well, I follered.”
“And the luckiest thing for me that you did,” asserted young Halstead, shutting off much of the speed, now, and running along more slowly. “But see here, Hank, can you run this car for a moment or two?”
“I can steer it,” Hank agreed.
Tom surrendered the wheel to this new friend, and climbed over backward into the tonneau. He promptly examined the cushions under the rear seat. As he had hoped, he found a large locker space under the seat, and some tools.
“See here, Hank, listen,” admonished Halstead, leaning over the back of the front seat. “I think our people will run after us a little way in the hope that we’ll leave the auto and take to our heels. I’m going to stay here and hide under the back seat. There’s a wrench or two there that I can fight with if I’m cornered. If Bolton will only overtake his machine and go where I think he’ll go, I’ll be on the track of the biggest kind of news. But this time I want you to really run back to East Hampton. Don’t even think of waiting to see what happens to me. Get aboard the ‘Rocket’ and tell Joe Dawson, from me, to get the engine all ready for an instant start. Then he wants to be near the cigar store, close to the pier, so I can call him over the telephone there if I want to send him any message. Tell him to have the tank full of gasoline, ready for a long chase. Here, I’ll give you a note that’ll make Joe Dawson pay a whole lot of attention to you. Shut off the engine.”
Hank Butts ran the car in at the side of the lonely road and stopped. Halstead hastily scribbled on an envelope:
Joe, trust Hank Butts to the limit. He’s all right. Tom.
“Take this,” ordered the young skipper. “Now, after I get in under the seat, pile the cushions over it again as they should go.”
Captain Tom quickly stowed himself away, finding the space rather cramped after all. Under the edge of the seat he slipped the end of his jackknife, to keep the lid raised barely enough for a supply of air. This done, Hank placed the cushions.
“Now take to the woods and make a real travel back to East Hampton,” muttered Tom. “Be quick about it, before Bolton and Ellis get in sight.”
“Good-bye, Cap. Best of luck!” breathed Hank Butts, fervently. Then the confined young skipper heard his new friend leap down into the road and scamper away.
There followed some weary moments, full of suspense and anxiety. The young motor boat boy hoped that the rascally pair would pursue their car thus far, but he knew, too, that they might be suspicious enough to explore that locker space under the big rear seat. Though Tom gripped a wrench tightly, this pair might both be armed and ready to proceed to any lengths to prevent the defeat of their plot to wrest millions from an excited stock market.
At last Halstead heard running steps, followed by a shout:
“There’s the car! Just as I had hoped!”
The running steps slowed down to a walk. Then, as the new arrivals drew near, Justin Bolton’s voice proclaimed, triumphantly:
“I thought it might be so. Those boys didn’t dare take the risk of stealing a valuable car, so, as soon as they got away safely, they deserted the machine.”
“I hope they haven’t done anything to disable the car,” hinted Ellis, concernedly. “I don’t know who that hulking Simple Simon chap is, but young Halstead undoubtedly knows enough about gasoline motors to know how to leave one in mighty bad shape.”
“We’ll soon know,” declared Bolton, as he reached the car. “Why, the engine seems to be running all right. Jump in, and we’ll try the car a little way.”
After the pair had gotten in at the front the car rolled ahead. Whoever was at the wheel let the speed out a few notches, then slowed down and stopped the car.
“It’s all right, Ellis, and a tremendously fortunate thing for us. Now, you can get out and go back to East Hampton. Sorry I can’t take you back, but it wouldn’t do for me to take the slightest risk of being seen and recognized with you.”
“That’s all right,” nodded Ellis, leaping down to the ground.
“You know just what to do, young man, and you won’t fail me?”
“Not with the big reward that’s in sight,” laughed Ellis.
“Good-bye, for a little while. Be alert!”
The car started ahead again, though not at great speed. Plainly Bolton was in no immediate hurry about what he had to do. As he guided the car along he hummed, merrily, in a low voice.
“Just as though he were an honest man,” muttered Halstead, indignantly.
Often, indeed, was the young motor boat skipper tempted to try the lifting of the lid of the seat enough to look at the country through which they were now passing. But the risk that Justin Bolton might be taking a backward glance at the same moment seemed too great.
Twice, as sounds told, they passed other automobiles headed in the opposite direction. Peeping through the narrow crevice that he had made with his knife-end—an opening that was concealed by the overlapping cushions—Halstead saw that daylight was now rapidly waning.
Twenty minutes later it was fully dark. The car now turned off the soft road over which it had been running, to a more gravelly road. Then the car stopped altogether.
“All well, sir?” hailed a voice that made Halstead start. The tones were those of that red-haired young man, Rexford.
“Not quite all well,” replied the voice of Bolton, though the speaker seemed hardly worried. “We ran into that young captain of the ‘Rocket,’ Halstead, and into another young fellow, a human cyclone. They know something of our game, but they were glad enough to get away from us.”
Calvin Rexford gave vent to a low, prolonged whistle of amazement.
“However,” Bolton continued, “they don’t know enough of what we’re doing to spoil our enterprise. As I said, we got rid of them.”
He then gave a rather truthful account of the meeting in the woods, of the seizure of the auto and of its abandonment, as Bolton supposed.
“I don’t like the sound of that story,” said Rexford, uneasily.
“Nor do I, either,” agreed Justin Bolton. “Still, the boys don’t know the most important part of what they’d like to find out—where Frank Delavan is. And, now, Rexford, how has Delavan been behaving?”
“Naturally, he hasn’t been giving us any trouble,” laughed Rexford. “We haven’t given him any chance.”
“I think I’ll take a look at him; though, mind you, he mustn’t have the slightest glimpse of me.”
“I think that can be easily arranged,” replied the red-haired one. “But did the boys, this afternoon, hear your name?”
“I don’t believe they did,” replied Bolton, stepping out of the car. “It might disarrange our plans some if they did happen to know my name.”
The next words, spoken by Rexford, were not distinguishable to Tom Halstead, crouching under that rear seat. He raised the lid somewhat as soon as he was satisfied that the two speakers were moving away.
The car had been run in under a shed, open at one end. Bolton and Rexford being out of sight, Tom softly raised the lid, cushions and all, then replaced the leather cushions and leaped hastily to the ground.
The shed had been built onto a barn that was now rather dilapidated. Two hundred feet beyond the barn was an old, spacious house of two stories. Toward this the two men were walking.
“So that’s Mr. Delavan’s prison, is it?” thought the young skipper, throbbing with the excitement of his discovery. “Whereabouts is this place? Probably near Cookson’s Inlet. I wonder if the water can be seen from any point around here?”
Then, gazing after the two men, Tom saw them disappear into the house. There seeming to be no one else about, the boy stole slowly toward the house. He had reached an old, tumble-down summer-house when the sound of voices made him hide there. Two other men, middle-aged and strangers, came from the direction of the house, going towards the barn. They had been talking in undertones, but ceased before they came near enough for the young motor boat captain to make out anything.
“Confound ’em,” grumbled Halstead, a few moments later. For the two men, having reached the barn, now lighted pipes and stood there, smoking and chatting in undertones.
Halstead could not move from where he crouched. If he did he ran the almost certain chance of being discovered. Thus some ten or twelve minutes passed. The young skipper of the “Rocket” studied the old house, trying to guess in what part of it Francis Delavan was confined against his will. Not a single light, however, showed from the outside.
Someone was coming away from the house. As he came nearer, Halstead made him out to be Rexford. That young man kept on past the barn to the shed. He soon returned slowly in the car, the two men with pipes swinging aboard as he passed them.
To Tom’s great alarm the car stopped close to the summer house. The two strangers now stepped out again, going toward the main house. Hardly had they vanished when Justin Bolton came out once more, going straight to the automobile, though he did not board it.
“You understand your orders fully now, Rexford?” inquired Bolton. “You know what to do to-night, and you are aware that, this house having served its brief purpose, we shall not use it again. The launch will remain where it is, in hiding, for a day or two, at least. Then, when all is ready, the launch will take you and your charge out to sea. You know the rest?”
“It’s all quite clear, thank you, Mr. Bolton,” Rexford replied.
“I shall rely upon you, then, Rexford. Don’t fail me.”
“No fear, Mr. Bolton. You are wagering millions on the game, but I have at least a fortune at stake. Trust me. I won’t fail you.”
“Good-night, then, Rexford. Caution and good luck!”
“Good-night, Mr. Bolton. We’ll both be richer when I see you again,” laughed the red-haired one, recklessly.
Justin Bolton walked rapidly away. Had Tom Halstead wished to follow, he could not have done so. Rexford, sitting in the nearby car, would have been sure to see the boy.
Ten minutes passed. Then another crunching was heard on the gravel. This time the young motor boat captain felt as though his heart must stop beating. The two strange men now appeared, carrying the helpless form of Francis Delavan between them.
“Stow him in carefully. Drop these blankets over him,” directed Rexford. Francis Delavan, bound and gagged for the journey, was placed in the bottom of the tonneau and covered over. One of the men got in beside him, the other sitting on the front seat with Calvin Rexford.
Honk! The toot from the automobile’s horn was unintentionally jeering, for Tom Halstead was left behind, helpless, at the very instant when he longed, as never before, to be of the utmost service.
CHAPTER XIV
THE MELTING OF MILLIONS
IT would have been worse than useless to have tried to jump into the breach just before the car started. At the least, Tom Halstead would have been made a prisoner by these desperate plotters.
Free, though he could not immediately aid Mr. Delavan, the young skipper could at least carry word of what he had seen. He could rouse Eben Moddridge to action, or, anyway, to the putting up of money that would put other and more capable men in action.
Yet the boy felt like grinding his teeth in chagrin and bitter disappointment as he saw that swift touring car glide swiftly off the grounds to the road.
He had started to run after the car, hoping to overtake it before it got fully under speed, and to catch on in some way behind. But almost at once he saw that there was nothing to catch hold of at the rear, and immediately afterwards the car shot ahead at a speed of forty miles an hour.
“Whee! I hope the officers stop them, somewhere, for speeding,” thought Halstead, with a half hopeful grin as he slowed down to a walk. It would hardly do, however, to expect the car to be stopped for going only forty miles an hour on Long Island.
As the young skipper stepped out, panting, through the gate, he remembered the necessity of proceeding cautiously, lest he run afoul of Justin Bolton, who could not be far away, and was on foot. That scheming financier carried a revolver, and had shown himself not slow to use it. After half an hour Halstead felt that the danger of meeting Bolton was slight, and hurried on faster.
It was late in the evening when Tom Halstead entered the hotel grounds at East Hampton. A short distance away he had halted long enough to remove all excessive amounts of dust from clothing and shoes. In order to appear neither excited nor in haste, he sauntered slowly enough through the grounds, approached the veranda, stood there two or three minutes, walked about a bit in the lobby—long enough to see that two of the New York reporters were still on the scene—and at last escaped, without attracting special notice, up the stairs. Now he hastened to the door of Mr. Moddridge’s rooms, and knocked briskly.
“It’s Halstead, Mr. Moddridge,” he replied, in answer to a shaking query from within. The door flew open like magic.
“Halstead? Where have you been all these hours?” came the peevish question, as Eben Moddridge, in negligee attire and looking like a more than ill man, faced the young skipper. “You——”
Tom went inside, closed the door, and led the nervous one to an inner room. Here the motor boat boy poured out the whole story of what he had been through.
“Why, your new boy, Butts, hasn’t been near me with a word of this,” gasped Moddridge, presently.
“That must have been because he didn’t know you, of course,” evaded Halstead, easily. “But now, Mr. Moddridge, it will be necessary to pull all your wits together if you’re to save your friend and yourself. What should be the first move?”
“Oh, dear,” cried the nervous one, pacing the floor, “I honestly don’t know. I don’t see my way. Why did Delavan ever allow himself to get into such a dreadful mess? If he had followed my advice——”
“If your advice is any good, sir,” put in Tom, crisply, “it ought to be useful, just now, in finding out the way to extricate Mr. Delavan from his present troubles. Now, what ought to be the first step?”
With most men Halstead would have thought himself presuming to go so far. But the case was tremendously pressing, and it took more than a little to get Eben Moddridge started.
By slow degrees Moddridge pulled himself together. He wouldn’t hear to calling in the reporters and making the whole story public as far as it was known.
“The public would regard it all as a cock-and-bull invention, gotten up to hide Delavan’s supposed flight,” the nervous one rather sensibly declared. “And, if we were to drag Bolton’s name in, Bolton would be very likely to give us the trouble of proving the whole story, mostly on your unsupported word, Halstead, with a little corroboration, of course, from your very eccentric new steward—Butts, did you call him? Besides, if Frank Delavan were here, I think he would prefer to scheme secretly to punish Justin Bolton, instead of going after him openly.”
“Who is this Bolton?” asked Tom Halstead.
“A man whom Delavan helped to make the start of his fortune. But Bolton is unscrupulous and dangerous; Frank had to drop him years ago.”
The idea of sending for detectives Eben Moddridge also declined to entertain.
“No matter how secretly we may think we hire detectives,” he objected, “it is pretty sure to leak out. The Wall Street public would take that as a sensational feature, and P. & Y. would drop lower than ever in the market. No, no, Halstead; we won’t think of hiring detectives until we have tried other means. Now, what remains to be done!”
Tom Halstead pondered before he answered:
“Bolton’s intention seems to be to take Mr. Delavan off Long Island on that racing launch. It will probably be at some point within twenty or thirty miles of here, either east or west. If we could put enough men on watch, we could find out when that launch attempts to put out to sea. But you object to using detectives. I wonder if there are any other men we could trust, instead of using detectives? Say,” proposed the young skipper, suddenly, “you both trust your broker, Coggswell, don’t you?”
“Very thoroughly,” admitted Moddridge, pausing in his nervous walk to stare hard at the young skipper.
“Then why not get hold of Coggswell, at his home to-night, over the telephone? Ask him to send out some of his clerks whom he knows to be reliable. He might even send out a few other young men that he could vouch for?”
“But what good would they be?” asked Eben Moddridge.
“I can take the map of this coast, sir, and lay out stations for these young men, so that there’ll be one or two of ’em every few miles east and west of here. I can give them perfect descriptions of the racing launch. They can be provided with marine glasses. Just the instant that any one of them spots the racing launch he can telephone me. Then, whether the launch has Mr. Delavan aboard, and is putting out to sea, or is going after him, I can do my best to follow in the ‘Rocket.’ Since you are opposed to hiring detectives, Mr. Moddridge, that’s the best thing I can see that is left to do.”
After some further talk the nervous financier agreed to this. He called up Broker Coggswell by ’phone, at the latter’s home in New York. Mr. Coggswell agreed to send down twenty capable and honest young men by the earliest train in the morning.
That being all that could be done for the present, Captain Tom Halstead returned to the “Rocket.” Joe Dawson and Hank Butts were both up, waiting for him. For the next hour, sitting on the deck house of the boat, in the dark, still watches of the night, talking in whispers, the boys discussed all the latest phases of the puzzling affair. Then Tom turned in below, Joe doing likewise, leaving Butts on deck for the first watch.
“He can be wholly depended upon, can’t he, Tom?” Dawson asked.
“Who? Hank Butts? Joe, even though Hank has struggled into one of Jed’s uniforms, he may still look like a Simple Simon, but don’t lose any sleep worrying about Hank!”
Early in the morning the young skipper was astir again. Hiring a bicycle he wheeled rapidly to the next railway station above East Hampton. There the young men sent by Broker Coggswell left the train. Their leader reported to Halstead with the whispered watchword provided by the New York broker. Tom led them off in private, unfolded the map he had brought with him, and assigned to each young man the station he was to watch day and night. For this purpose the young men were sent away in pairs. When the instructions had been given and fully understood, Halstead leisurely pedaled back to East Hampton.
“Those young fellows all look bright,” he thought. “If they serve faithfully, they may be able to give us the very warning that we shall need.”
Eben Moddridge, who rarely slept more than two or three hours at a time, was awake when the young skipper called on him. Moddridge had arranged for a direct wire from his room to Coggswell’s office in New York, and was feverishly awaiting the hour of nine, when the great Stock Exchange would open for the day’s dealings in money.
“I feel as though my death sentence must come through this instrument,” groaned the nervous financier, tapping the telephone.
At last the call came. Now Moddridge had abundant excuse for being nervous. The day in New York opened with P. & Y. at 87.
“Two points lower,” sighed the nervous one, “and the bankers will begin to call in the loans with which Frank and I have been buying Steel.”
Half an hour later P. & Y. touched 85.
“We’ve got to put up some money to the banks now,” stated Coggswell. “But Steel has been doing a little. If you authorize me, I can sell out some Steel and allied securities, and meet the first demand from the banks on your account.”
“What shall I do?” shivered Moddridge, turning appealingly to the “Rocket’s” skipper.
“Why, I don’t know a blessed thing about the game,” Tom admitted, promptly. “But I should take Coggswell’s advice. He seems to have a clear head.”
Eben Moddridge acted on the suggestion. But the New York newspapers were printing columns about the disappearance of Delavan, and more about the shakiness of P. & Y. stock. By noon the P. & Y. stock had dropped to 81. Coggswell had closed out more of the Delavan-Moddridge buyings in Steel, and thus had averted a crash for those interests.
“If Steel will only go up as P. & Y. goes down,” smiled Halstead cheerily, “you will be able to keep even.”
“That is, one debt will wipe out the other, and leave Frank and myself penniless,” replied Eben Moddridge, with a ghastly face.
The Stock Exchange closed for the day with P. & Y. at 76, that is, at a selling price of seventy-six dollars per share, instead of a hundred and two dollars per share as it had been forty-eight hours earlier. So far, by sales of Steel and its allied securities, Broker Coggswell had been able to keep the Delavan-Moddridge interests from going wholly to smash.
“But there’s to-morrow to face,” almost shrieked the nervous financier. “To-day millions of our money have literally melted away. If to-morrow brings no change in our luck, we shall both be ruined!”
The only change of the next day was to carry P. & Y. as low as 71, where it remained for the time being. Having between three and four millions of dollars left in private funds, Moddridge, shaking like a leaf, had ordered Coggswell to turn this last remnant of his fortune into the joint Delavan-Moddridge interests. Thus again the banks had been staved off for a little while.
“But the next drop in P. & Y. will eat up all our Steel investments, and Frank and I won’t have another penny to turn in,” sobbed the nervous one. “Then the banks will have to close us out to save themselves. Frank Delavan and I will be beggars!”
Tottering to the bed in the adjoining room, Eben Moddridge threw himself across it, sobbing hysterically.
Tom Halstead, however, gazed after the nervous financier with a new, deeper feeling of respect.
“I don’t understand very much about this Wall Street game, and my head is lined with a maze of figures,” the young skipper muttered to himself. “But there’s a heap of the man in you, Moddridge. When you might have saved a very decent fortune to yourself, you threw it into the whirlpool to try to protect your absent friend. Yon may be a nervous wreck, but hang me if you aren’t a whole lot of a man at bottom!”
CHAPTER XV
THE MASTHEAD GAME
WHILE the game that frenzied men were playing in Wall Street had been hurrying Mr. Delavan and Mr. Moddridge into a ruin that would drag scores of others into the crash, Engineer Joe Dawson had been going ahead very methodically under his young captain’s orders.
The “Rocket’s” gasoline tank had been filled. In addition, as many extra cases of the oil had been taken aboard and stored as the boat’s space below could provide for.
“But be mighty careful what you do, Hank, with the galley fire,” urged the young skipper, seriously. “Any blaze that starts aboard this boat when we’re out on the water is pretty sure to blow us a thousand miles past Kingdom Come.”
Just after dark, on the night of that day when Eben Moddridge threw his last dollars into the frantic game of speculation, Tom was summoned in haste from the boat to the cigar store near the pier. There was a telephone booth there, and the young skipper was wanted at the ’phone.
“This is Theodore Dyer,” announced the speaker at the other end.
“Oh, yes; you’re one of the watchers,” Halstead remembered, swiftly.
“That launch you set us to watching for has just gone into Henderson’s Cove, a mile north of here.”
“Oh, bully for you, Dyer!” throbbed the motor boat boy. “Has she had time to leave yet?”
“Not yet.”
“One thing more. Was the launch showing all her lights?”
“Every one of them.”
“You’re absolutely certain it’s the launch?”
“Top-sure. My side-partner, Drew, first sighted her coming down the coast just before dark fell. It’s the launch, all right, or her exact twin.”
Captain Tom had only time to thank the watcher up the coast, then bolted back to the boat.
“Get everything ready, Joe,” he called. “We ought to be under way in five minutes. I’m off to speak to Mr. Moddridge.”
“I’m going with you,” cried the nervous one, leaping up as soon as he heard the news in his room at the hotel.
“We may be out a long while, sir,” suggested the young skipper. “How about your broker?”
“I gave Coggswell final orders, two hours ago, to do the best he could and not to communicate with me until he has better news—or everything has gone to smash. Hurry, lad!”
By the time they reached the hotel entrance Moddridge was trembling so that Tom bundled him into a waiting cab. Two minutes later they were at the pier.
“Cast off, Hank,” Halstead called, at once. Then, as he reached the deck:
“Joe, be ready at the speed-ahead.”
In a jiffy the “Rocket” was moving out from the pier.
“Hank,” called the young skipper, at the wheel, “down with that masthead light.”
“Why, it’s against the law to sail at night without a masthead light,” gasped Butts. “And look at the weather out yonder.”
“We can sail with a bow light when we have no mast,” Tom retorted, doggedly. “And in twenty minutes we won’t have a mast. Down with the masthead light.”
Wondering, Hank Butts obeyed.
“Trim the side-lights down to just as little as the law will stand for,” was Tom’s next order. “Just at present they’re too bright—for our purpose.”
This, too, Hank obeyed, though he was plainly enough of a seaman to be disturbed.
“Shall I turn the searchlight on, to pick up the inlet?” Butts next inquired.
“Blazes, no!” the young skipper ejaculated. “I don’t want to show the glimmer of a glow that I don’t have to.”
“How are you going to pick up the inlet in this dark, nasty weather?” Hank inquired.
“Feel for it,” Captain Tom retorted, dryly. “Get up forward, Hank, and pass the word back.”
A native of this section, Hank was a competent pilot. Thus they got out through the inlet from Shinnecock Bay, heading southwest for Henderson’s Cove, ten miles away. As soon as they were safely in deep water Halstead summoned Joe and Hank, sending them forward to unstep the mast. Moddridge looked on in silent wonder at these unusual proceedings. They were going at slow speed after a little, as it was no part of the young skipper’s purpose to show his own boat to those whom he intended to watch and follow.
“You can take the wheel now, Hank,” called the young skipper, and stepped forward, carrying a pair of the most powerful marine glasses, which he had persuaded his employer’s friend to order from New York. Moddridge followed, keeping close to the young skipper.
“Stop the engine!” Tom Halstead soon called back, his eyes at the glasses. “Do you see that searchlight ray against the sky, Mr. Moddridge? That’s over by Henderson’s Cove. The racing launch is coming out. And, by Jove, she’s carrying her masthead light. Bully for her!”
For some little time the young skipper watched the searchlight and moving masthead light of the distant craft with keen interest. Then, out of the dark weather a squall struck the “Rocket,” rolling her over considerably. Sheets of rain began to drive down. Captain Tom made a dive below for his oilskins, bringing up another outfit for Hank Butts. Mr. Moddridge, too, disappeared briefly below, coming up clad for the weather.
“See that masthead light, sir?” called Halstead, jubilantly. “It ought to be easy to follow. That boat is headed due south—putting straight out for the high seas.”
“And do you imagine Frank Delavan is a prisoner on that craft?” demanded Moddridge.
“From what I heard Bolton say I’m sure of it. Bolton has been making his arrangements, and now he’s going to put it beyond Mr. Delavan to escape until P. & Y. has gone clean to the bottom.”
The wind was increasing so that the “Rocket” rolled and pitched in the troubled sea.
“Good heavens!” gasped Eben Moddridge. “This boat can’t live long in such a gale.”
“The ‘Rocket’ ought to be fit to cross the ocean, in any weather, if her fuel lasted,” Captain Tom replied, coolly.
“But this is going to be a regular gale.”
“It looks that way, sir.”
“Then, by all that’s certain, that launch can’t weather it,” cried Moddridge, his pallor increasing. “Poor Frank! To be sent to the bottom in that fashion!”
“Why, the launch isn’t a large craft, it’s true, sir,” Captain Tom responded. “But she’s built for a sea-going craft. With decent handling she’ll go through any weather like this.”
“You’re not getting any nearer. You’re not overtaking them,” was Moddridge’s next complaint. The “Rocket” was moving, now, at about eighteen miles an hour.
“I don’t want to overtake that boat,” Captain Halstead replied, with vigor. “I don’t want to get near enough to let them see our lights. We can’t see anything but their masthead light, since they’ve stopped using the searchlight.”
Even had it been daylight, the two boats were now so far apart that from the deck of either, one could not have seen the other’s hull. In the chase that must follow the young motor boat skipper intended to preserve that distance in order to avoid having his pursuit detected. In the thick weather it was not possible to see the launch’s masthead light from the “Rocket’s” deck with the naked eye. An ordinary marine glass might not have shown the light, either, but the one that Captain Tom held in his hand kept the light in sight.
“If Frank is really aboard that launch,” inquired Mr. Moddridge, “where on earth can they be taking him?”
“One guess is as good as another when you don’t know,” smiled Halstead. “It may be that they have picked out some lonely little island in the sea for their purpose. I hope they don’t increase their speed to-night. That other craft could get away from us if our pursuit were suspected.”
All through the night the gale continued. The “Rocket” rolled a good deal, and strained at her propeller, but she was a sea boat and held her own well. When morning dawned the motor craft was getting out toward the edge of the storm. Hours before the course of the quarry ahead had changed to the east, and both boats were now south of regular ocean routes and far east of coast-going vessels.
Daylight brought the racer’s masthead in sight.
“We’ll keep just about the upper two feet of that masthead in sight all day,” proposed the young skipper. Soon afterward he called Hank, who had had three or four hours’ sleep, to the wheel. Joe, when there was nothing to do, slept on a locker beside his engine. Eben Moddridge dozed in a deck chair.
At noon, when Halstead again took the wheel, the relative positions of the two boats were the same. Through the glass only about two feet of the racer’s mast could be made out above the horizon. There was no reason to suppose that those aboard the racer had caught the least glimpse of the “Rocket.”
By sun-down this sea-quarry’s masthead was still in sight, each boat going at about nineteen miles an hour.
“We can carry gasoline to go as far as they can,” laughed Tom Halstead, confidently.
At dark the launch’s masthead light again glowed out, so that the chase continued to be a simple matter of vigilance. The young navigators caught their sleep well enough, only the helm requiring constant attention.
Soon after the second morning out had dawned clear and bright, Captain Tom, who was at the wheel, caught sight of something so interesting that he yelled to Hank Butts, asleep on a mattress on deck:
“Wake up, steward! Hustle Mr. Moddridge on deck. Tell him there’s something ahead of huge interest!”
Joe, just rousing from a nap on an engine room locker, heard and was hastily on deck. He and Halstead were using the glass and their own eyes when Hank appeared with Eben Moddridge in tow.
“What is it?” demanded the nervous one.
“See the tops of a schooner’s masts ahead?” challenged Halstead. “You can make ’em out with your own eyes. And the glass will show you the tip of the launch’s masthead. The power-boat is making for the schooner.”
“For what purpose?” trembled the nervous financier.
“For what purpose?” chuckled Tom, gleefully. “Why, sir, undoubtedly so that those aboard the launch can transfer Mr. Delavan to the sailing craft. The two vessels must have met here for that very trick, and by previous arrangement of Justin Bolton!”
“How is that going to help us any?” queried Eben Moddridge, wonderingly.
“How is that going to help us?” repeated the young skipper of the “Rocket,” staring hard at his questioner. “Why, if the guess is correct, it’s going to be the greatest piece of good luck that could come to us!”
CHAPTER XVI
“PUTTING UP” A MARINE JOB
THE “Rocket” was now drifting, while those aboard watched developments in the ocean game ahead.
“I don’t quite understand what it profits us if Frank is sent aboard the schooner as a prisoner,” insisted Mr. Moddridge.
“Well, if the launch crowd do that, and then the launch heads back for the coast, passing out of sight of things hereabouts, it’s going to be rather easy for a fast boat like ours to keep up with a sailing schooner, isn’t it?” Captain Tom propounded.
“Yes, but how are we going to help Frank Delavan any?” demanded the nervous one. “There must be men aboard the schooner, and undoubtedly they’re armed, which we’re not.”
“We’ll have to see what happens, and use our ingenuity,” Tom replied.
“Humph!” said Mr. Moddridge, sadly. “I’d rather have one small cannon than all the ingenuity in the world, just now.”
Knowing that nothing could happen right away, Hank Butts coolly stretched himself on the mattress to finish his interrupted nap. Tom and Joe remained intently watching the mastheads of the two craft that were miles away.
“The launch is surely making straight for the schooner,” Joe Dawson ventured. “Your guess is all right, Tom.”
Within a few minutes more the mastheads were mingled to the view of the young observers aboard the “Rocket.” The two suspected craft remained together for nearly half an hour.
“Now, they’re breaking apart,” Halstead reported, at last, watching through the glass. “The launch is turning. She’s making back west. And now, old fellow, it’s us for a more southerly course. We must keep out of the launch’s sight, but never for an instant lose the schooner’s mastheads. For, if Francis Delavan isn’t aboard that schooner now I shall never feel at liberty to make a guess again. Take the wheel, Joe, and start her up. Keep to the southwest. I’ll keep my eye mainly on the launch’s masthead.”
This they did, for fifteen minutes. Then Tom laid the glass down in its rack by the wheel.
“The launch has just gone out of sight,” he announced. “Not even the button on her masthead is visible through the glass. Now, head about for that schooner’s tops, Joe.”
After a few minutes more they could make out the schooner’s cross-trees. Bit by bit more of her masts became visible. Then followed the first glimpse of the schooner’s upper hull.
Throwing on the speed to full eighteen miles an hour, Captain Tom now gave fast pursuit. The schooner had now observed the “Rocket’s” chase and was using all sail, but could not make more than seven knots.
“We’ve surely kicked up some excitement on that other craft,” laughed the young skipper, gleefully.
“How many men can you make out on her decks?” queried Joe.
“Five.”
In a stern chase of this kind the “Rocket” was not long in coming to close quarters with the sailing vessel. But now eleven men were visible on her decks.
“And all rough, hard-looking customers, too,” chuckled Halstead.
“Hm! I can’t quite understand what you’re so merry about,” said Mr. Moddridge, wonderingly.
“Force of habit,” replied Captain Tom, with a smile.
He ran the “Rocket” up parallel with the schooner, shutting down speed considerably. There was now a distance of barely five hundred feet between the two craft. The crew of the schooner lined up at her port rail, surveying the “Rocket” and those aboard, but no hail was passed between the two craft.
“They’re not allowing Mr. Delavan the freedom of the deck, anyway,” declared Tom. He now ran the “Rocket” a little further to the northward, every eye on the schooner’s deck following the manœuvre.
“Joe, shut off speed jerkily,” ordered the young skipper, by the time the two craft were almost a mile apart. “Shut off as though something were happening to our engine.”
“Why—er—what——” began Eben Moddridge, hesitatingly, as Joe vanished below after turning the wheel over to his chum.
“I’m going to try the value of putting up a marine job on those fellows yonder,” replied Halstead, very quietly.
Eben Moddridge asked no more questions, though there was a most wondering look in his eyes. The “Rocket’s” speed began to dwindle.
“Hank,” called Tom, “get up and rush about, into the engine room and out. Mr. Moddridge, show all the excitement you can yourself. That ought to be easy,” the young captain added, under his breath.
“Why—why—why——” came from the nervous one.
“Act as though our engine had broken down, and we were simply crazy over our luck.”
By this time the motor boat was lying all but motionless, moving only under the impulse of recent headway. Leaving the wheel at a bound, Halstead leaped down into the engine room.
“If the fellows on the schooner are holding a glass on us, they saw me do that,” laughed Tom, as he landed beside his chum. Hank rushed up on deck, vanishing aft. After a few moments he flew forward again, diving down into the engine room.
“I say,” called Eben Moddridge, from the hatchway, “this conduct of yours is about as hard to understand as——”
“That’s right, sir,” replied Tom, coolly. “Stand there, looking down at us as though you’re all broken up. That’ll help fool the fellow with the glass aboard the schooner.”
“It’s working bully, fine!” reported Joe, gleefully, looking out of one of the starboard port-holes. “The schooner’s skipper is easing off his sheets. He’s going to lie to and watch us. Hank, you’d better start another excited merry-go-round between here and aft.”
Young Butts was surely in his element doing things that looked crazy. The way he raced over the deck and bobbed in and out must have made the schooner’s people believe that there was extraordinary excitement aboard the motor boat. Halstead now joined his chum in looking out to starboard.
“Say,” he roared, suddenly, “that’s just what we wanted!”
Eben Moddridge turned to stare over the water.
“Why, they seem to be lowering a boat,” he observed.
“Just what,” retorted Captain Halstead, springing up on deck and bringing the marine glass to bear. “One, two, three—say, they’re putting eight men over the side to man that boat. They’re going to send that hard-looking crowd to board us.”
“What for?” demanded Moddridge, beginning to tremble.
“They think our engine has broken down temporarily. They’re going to board us and finish the job by putting our engine out of business for good,” laughed Tom Halstead, happily.
“I—I—er—I can’t quite see where we gain by that,” quaked the nervous financier.
“Keep your eyes open, then,” begged Halstead, as he continued to watch the strangers. The boat, with its eight men, was coming across the waters as fast as four lusty rowers could send it. Hank performed a few more frantic rushes in and out of the engine room during the minutes that the boat’s crew used in getting near the “Rocket.”
“Keep off!” hailed Tom, mockingly, when the small boat was within three hundred feet.
No reply came from the boat’s crew. They were sullenly silent. Halstead could see no signs of weapons among them. Suddenly the young skipper sprang to the speed-ahead deck control of the engine, giving it a whirl. Then, instantly, he laid hands on the wheel. The “Rocket” forged ahead once more, while angry oaths burst from the lips of the men in the small boat, almost alongside. But the motor boat shot on her way, leaving the small boat’s crew helplessly in the lurch.
Giving a wide sweep to the helm, Tom brought about, heading straight for the distant schooner. Those in the small boat followed at only a fraction of the speed.
“Why, what are you up to, now?” demanded Eben Moddridge, his eyes wide and almost bulging.
“Going to board the schooner before that boat’s crew has a chance to get back,” replied Captain Tom, his eyes gleaming brightly. “If Mr. Delavan is aboard we’ll get him. There are only three men left on the schooner, and the ‘Rocket’s’ crew numbers three.”
“There are four of us, you mean,” declared Moddridge, with a near-whoop. “If there’s to be any fighting, now, on Frank Delavan’s account, you’ll have to count me in!”
The shock of that sudden announcement almost had the effect of causing Tom Halstead to fall away from the wheel in sheer amazement.
CHAPTER XVII
HANK BUTTS DROPS SOMETHING
“FINE and swift!” chuckled the young skipper, though he had not much faith that the nervous one would remain up to pitch, “Don’t forget that new idea of yours, Mr. Moddridge.”
“I won’t,” promised the other, though his voice trembled a bit.
Under the young skipper’s orders Joe and Hank brought up the grappling hooks and chains and made them fast in place at the starboard rail.
These chains, only a few feet long, ended in hooks that were intended to catch in the rail of another vessel, holding the two craft locked fast together.
“Bring me a wrench, and get one for Mr. Moddridge, too, Hank,” was Halstead’s next order. “Also, get one for yourself. They’re handy, if strangers try to get rough with you.”