The Mercer Boys' Cruise in the Lassie
Date: 2017-08-11T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Sailing -- Juvenile fiction; Mystery and detective stories; Outlaws -- Juvenile fiction

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Title: The Mercer Boys' Cruise in the Lassie

Author: Capwell Wyckoff

Release date: August 11, 2017 [eBook #55335]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MERCER BOYS' CRUISE IN THE LASSIE ***

FALCON BOOKS

The Mercer Boys’ Cruise in the Lassie
BY CAPWELL WYCKOFF

When Don and Jim Mercer and their buddy Terry Mackson set out in their sloop, Lassie, for a visit to Mystery Island, they were in search of adventure and fun. But they quickly found they were getting more than they bargained for—real danger, a skirmish with marine bandits, and a fight for their lives. This is a thrilling adventure story of three modern boys—with action and excitement on every page.

Other titles in The Mercer Boys’ Series

THE MERCER BOYS AT WOODCREST

THE MERCER BOYS ON A TREASURE HUNT

THE MERCER BOYS’ MYSTERY CASE

THE MERCER BOYS WITH THE COAST GUARD

Don joined Jim at the porthole.

THE
Mercer Boys’ Cruise
IN THE LASSIE

By CAPWELL WYCKOFF

THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY
CLEVELAND AND NEW YORK

Falcon Books
are published by THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY
2231 West 110th Street · Cleveland 2 · Ohio

W 4
COPYRIGHT 1948 BY THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Contents

1. The Finishing Touches 9

2. The Marine Bandits 18

3. The Start of the Cruise 25

4. Stormy Weather 34

5. Mystery Island 45

6. The Inner Room 50

7. Jim Starts Out 57

8. The Old Captain 66

9. Alone on the Sloop 75

10. Blown Out to Sea 81

11. The Storage Room 89

12. The Beach Party 98

13. The Red Lamp 106

14. Terry’s Adventure 114

15. The River Barge 126

16. An Important Clue 136

17. Aboard the Wreck 147

18. The Ghost of the “Alaskan” 159

19. The Escape 168

20. The Voyage Resumed 179

21. The “Black Mummy” 185

22. The Secret of the Freighter 192

23. The Chandler’s Shop 200

24. The End of the Cruise 208

THE MERCER BOYS’ CRUISE IN THE LASSIE

9

1. The Finishing Touches

“Hooray! That finishes it!”

Don Mercer straightened up from the marine motor over which he had been bending and gave a whoop to express his feelings. At the same time a browned face, topped off by a wind-blown mass of brown hair, looked down at him from the companionway of their sloop, the Lassie.

“What’s up?” Jim Mercer grinned. “Are you getting old and talking to yourself, Don?”

His older brother returned the grin from the bottom of the tiny cabin of the sloop. “Not so you could notice it. But I’ve got the engine hooked up, and now we can start our summer cruise, as soon as I see if she works.” He mopped his forehead. “Boy, that was some job. Lucky thing I learned something about marine engines down at Stillwell last year.”

10

Jim slipped one foot over the edge of the companionway and dropped into the hold, joining his brother beside the engine. “It surely was. Every connection hooked up?”

“Everything. I thought there was a little leak in that exhaust pipe, the one we had brazed over at Tarrytown, but it’s all right. I had a little trouble hooking up the switch wires, because I had never seen just this type of motor before, but I got it at last. How does it look to you, kid?”

Jim bent down to look at the motor. The two Mercer boys were much alike in every way, and were devoted to each other. Their father owned a large lumber business in the Maine woods, and the boys had never wanted anything in their young lives, but as they were fine, healthy boys, their comparative wealth had never spoiled them. Don was the older of the two, being seventeen, and Jim was one year his junior. Both of them were well built physically, with fine gray eyes, sandy hair, an abundance of freckles, and good-humored grins. They had graduated from the Bridgewater High School the year before.

Besides the two boys there was one sister, Margy, aged fifteen, and their mother. They had grown up in Bridgewater and were well known and liked in the town. Mr. Mercer believed in keeping his boys interested in wholesome things, and during their early years they had had one or two cat-boats. On the first week of the summer, however, the boys were surprised and delighted to find a fine 30-foot sloop riding gently at anchor in the creek which ran through their own back yard. Their father, who had done considerable cruising in his younger days, taught them how to handle the larger-sized boat, and had given them permission to go for a cruise down the Maine coast that summer.

11

For the last week Don, who was mechanically inclined, had been hooking up the motor. He had always been interested in motors and had studied them carefully while spending a week at the house of an uncle. He had learned more than he had thought. The motor had been in the boat at the time Mr. Mercer purchased it, but the connections had not been fitted. Late on this July afternoon Don had succeeded in finishing it.

Jim straightened up from his inspection of the motor. “Looks all right to me,” he declared. “Although I don’t know as much about them as you do. But before we crow, I guess we had better give it a spin and see if it works.”

“OK,” agreed Don. “Go up and push the starting lever over a couple of notches, while I spin the flywheel, will you?”

Jim skipped up the four steps that led to the deck, and bending down beside the tiller, grasped the lever. Don gave the flywheel a vigorous turn, and a slight chug answered him. He gave it a second spin, it coughed, chugged and began to turn over. Jim moved the lever a notch, slowly.

The engine broke into a regular, steady run, and a thin streak of smoke issued from the exhaust pipe above the water line. Don’s cheerful face appeared above the rim of the companionway.

12

“Jeepers, it works!” he exulted.

Jim nodded. “It sure does. Nice work, old man. Want to let it run?”

“Yes, let it go for awhile. It needs a little breaking in; I notice it’s stiff in spots.” He climbed up alongside his brother and wiped his moist brow. “Wow, that was quite a job while it lasted.”

“I’ll bet it was. Nothing to stop us from taking our cruise, now.”

“You are right there. But the question is: who are we going to take along with us? Dad wants us to take at least one other fellow. He thinks just the two of us won’t be enough. I’ve thought of most of the fellows round here, but either they have summer jobs or they are away. Who do you think we ought to take?”

“What time is it?” Jim asked, casually.

Don looked at his watch. “Half past three. What has that to do with who we’ll take on a cruise with us?”

“Maybe a whole lot!” Jim answered mysteriously. “Want to take a walk?”

“Where to?”

“Oh, nowhere in particular. Just up to where the highway touches the Lane.”

“Sure, I’ll go. I can’t see what you’re driving at, but I’ll go along.”

13

They stepped into the dock, walked the long stretch that made up their back yard, passed the house and walked out to the shady street on which their home stood, a street appropriately called the Lane. They walked slowly down it, making plans concerning provisioning the sloop for the cruise, which they expected to begin on the following day. About half a mile from the house the Lane ran into the State highway, and here Jim said he wanted to sit on a stone wall. So they sat down and continued to talk for a time.

Don finally became restless. “Let’s go to town and get some of the things we need,” he suggested. “No use sitting here all day.”

But Jim was not ready to go yet. He was looking down the road, to where a single car was coming toward them. It was a battered old rattletrap of a car, with sad-looking mudguards, no top, and doubtful looking tires on it. The wheels, which were the least bit crooked, made weird movements as it came toward them.

“Wait a minute,” Jim said. “I want to see who’s in this car.”

The driver of the car was a red-headed boy of seventeen, tanned by the sun and endowed with a multitude of freckles. Two laughing gray eyes peered from his long face. He looked Scotch. He was whistling as he drove the battered old car, and his sandy hair, decidedly red in the sun, stood up almost straight. There was no glass in the windshield of his car, and now and then he pretended to wipe the missing glass, greatly to the amusement of as many of the Bridgewater inhabitants as chanced to be on the road.

“Why do you want to see who the driver is?” Don began, impatiently. “You don’t——”

14

He broke off as Jim waved to the driver, and the driver waved back and brought his bounding car to a halt beside them. Don gasped.

“Why ‘Chucklehead’ Mackson!” he cried, while Jim grinned.

Terry Mackson, known as chucklehead, from his habit of bobbing his auburn head when laughing, ignored him completely. He carefully adjusted one soiled glove on his hand and asked Jim gravely: “Pardon me, old fellow, but could you by any chance direct me to the residence of the Mercers?”

“I think I could, if you give me time enough to think,” Jim grinned.

“Then please do so, without unnecessary loss of time,” Terry drawled. That was as far as he got. With a whoop the Mercer brothers piled into the car and thumped him on the back.

Terry Mackson had gone to grammar school with the boys, but had moved to a distant town, where he had worked hard on a farm for his old father. The boys had always admired him for his cheerful kindliness and respected him for his fine self-sacrificing nature. He had worked without complaint for a mean old father, who had even begrudged him his brief time in grammar school. Recently his father had died, and Terry had been living somewhat more happily with his mother and one sister.

When Terry was out of breath, and the old car had jounced dangerously, the boys stopped to catch their breath.

15

“How in the world did you get here?” Don asked.

“Jim wrote me to come down for a summer cruise,” Terry explained, as he started his car. “Didn’t you know it?”

“He didn’t know a thing about it,” Jim declared, sinking into the back seat. “We were looking for someone to take on our cruise with us, and I heard from Bill Bennet that you were living in Berrymore, so I didn’t say a thing to Don, but wrote to you. Thought I’d put one over on him.”

“And you certainly did that,” Don nodded. “But that’s OK. I’d rather it be Terry than anyone else.”

“Many thanks,” the newcomer murmured.

“How is everything at home?” Jim asked.

“Very well, thanks. We’re getting in nice shape. Mother said it was high time I had a vacation, when I read her your letter. Oh, I beg your pardon!”

“What’s the matter?” both boys asked.

“I’ve been guilty of a grave social error. I want you to meet my trusted chariot, my car. Boys, this is my intimate friend ‘Jumpiter.’”

To make it seem real, he drove the car over a bump, and the car bounced like a thing alive. Both boys acknowledged the introduction gravely.

“Happy to meet you, Jumpiter,” Don said.

“Me too,” Jim added. Terry made it rattle furiously, and vigorously wiped the imaginary windshield.

16

Mrs. Mercer made Terry feel right at home, and then the boys took him down to see the Lassie. To Terry it was quite a treat, for his life had been spent in working hard, far from any of the pleasures of life. He was delighted with the trim little ship, and the boys led him down the companionway.

Inside, there was plenty of room to move around without being cramped. There were four bunks built along the side of the hull, a tiny sink with running water, a refrigerator, a small stove and two compact closets for knives and forks and linen. Toward the bow it became narrow, and before the mast a small storage room took up the waste space. The engine was in the stern, under the steps that led down into the cabin. The center of the cabin was taken up with the centerboard, which the boys told Terry was an extra keel weighing two hundred and fifty pounds.

“That’s in addition to the regular keel,” Don explained. “There is about two tons of lead in the keel, but it isn’t enough when the canvas is spread. When we’re sailing under full sail, without reefs, we have to let the centerboard down. The 250 pounds makes just enough weight to balance the weight of the sails and keeps us from capsizing. When we come up the creek, or when we are using motor power, we don’t use the centerboard.”

The boys spent the rest of the afternoon running down to the village and getting supplies. Terry insisted on using his car for the work, so they bought food from the grocery stores and loaded several gallons of gasoline. With Terry’s car they were able to run right down to the sloop and carry the supplies aboard.

“There!” exclaimed Jim, finally. “We’re all set to go.”

17

The boys went up to supper, where Terry saw Mr. Mercer again. While they were eating they discussed plans and Mr. Mercer gave them a word of warning.

“There has been quite a little trouble lately with a gang of marine bandits,” the lumber man said. “They’ve been working up and down the coast, robbing boats and boathouses, and no one has been able to catch them. They steal all kinds of ship materials that they can lay their hands on. People think they store it all somewhere and then go down to Boston or other seaports where they sell it to dishonest ship chandlers. Nowadays a good many people are going in for sailing, and the ship chandlers have quite a business. I suppose people buy things where they can get them cheapest, and so there is quite a trade in it. I want you boys to keep your eyes wide open.”

“We certainly will,” Jim said. “You mean that they may try to take things off the Lassie?”

“Yes, you’ll have to be careful.”

“I’d like to run those fellows down,” Don declared.

After supper they went down to close up the sloop. The sails were tied down firmly and the portholes closed. After making an inspection Don pulled the top of the companionway closed, and snapped the lock.

“There,” he said, with satisfaction. “I don’t think anybody will get aboard the Lassie tonight. Nor any other night, if we can help it.”

18

2. The Marine Bandits

After they had locked up the sloop the boys took Terry around town, showing him the sights, and then they returned to the house, where they pored over a map of the Atlantic coast. Since they would naturally keep inshore in a boat as small as the sloop was, the boys paid particular attention to channel markings. Then, bidding the family good night, they left the house and went down the yard to the little shack that the boys always slept in.

19

A few years ago, during one of their summer vacations, the boys had built a small two-room house at the end of the yard, near the boathouse and the dock. There was plenty of room for all of them in the house, but they had thought that when they had company during the summer it would be a little more convenient for their mother if they had a small place of their own down in the yard; so their parents had allowed them to build the bungalow. Whenever company came they took them to the cottage and they slept there, going to the main house for their meals. The arrangement had been handy in many ways, and had taught the boys to be self-reliant, as they had to keep things clean and attend to their own beds and the daily airing of their blankets. Just outside their cottage they had built a workbench, with a tool shed at the end of it, and on clear days they worked out there, making small things for the house and their boats. Jim had made the stand for the ship’s clock and other small pieces.

It was to this cottage that they now took Terry, and he was delighted with the cozy little place. The boys had wired it for electric lights, and on a back porch, protected from intrusion by lattice work, they had installed a shower bath and a small sink. The front room of the cottage was taken up with a table, some chairs, lockers, and a few boxes, and the walls were covered with pictures of boats and the teams at school. It was a typical boy’s room. The back room was given over to sleeping, and three cots occupied most of the floor space. In the glow of a ship’s lantern, now made over into an electric lamp, the boys undressed and prepared for bed.

“I won’t be a bit sorry for these blankets,” Terry decided, as he crawled into his cot.

“No, it gets quite cold here at night, no matter how warm the days may be,” Don said, as he settled down on his cot.

20

They talked for a few minutes and then, saying good night, dropped off to sleep. That is, the two Mercer boys did. They were so used to the place that they wasted no time lying in bed thinking, and they were usually so active in the daytime that they dropped into a healthy sleep as soon as they went to bed. But everything was new to Terry, and he lay there thinking about it.

He had been used to a life of constant work, and the prospect of this vacation, spent with boys like the Mercer brothers, held a fascination to him. His mother had been right when she said that he needed a vacation, and as things at home were in much better circumstances than they ever had been before, Terry felt justified in going away. So he lay there, staring out of the window over his head, seeing the black outline of the boathouse, and beyond it the mast and rigging of the sloop, moving gently with the motion of the tide.

Finally, Terry dozed off, enjoying to the last the cool wind that brushed over his brown face, and the slight and refreshing tang of the salt air. How long he had been asleep he did not know, but suddenly he awoke. He sat up, leaning on one elbow and listened. The brothers were asleep, as he could tell from their deep and regular breathing, and the boy was at a loss to know what had awakened him. He listened keenly, thinking that some sound, usual to the place, but new to him, had awakened him, but as a few minutes went by and he heard nothing, he lay down again.

Then a sound reached his ears, a thin, screaming sound as though someone was pulling nails out of a board. Wondering what it could be, Terry looked in the direction from which the sound had come.

21

Terry’s eyes were good, and he could make out the boathouse perfectly even in the darkness. At first he could see nothing, but as he continued to watch, a shadow detached itself from the corner of the boathouse and went around the side. Terry tossed aside his blanket, stepped over to Don and shook him, at the same time placing his hand over the boy’s mouth. Don sat up quietly, pushing Terry’s hand away.

When Terry had whispered his message to Don they woke up Jim, and standing at the window, the three boys looked toward the boathouse. While looking they were hastily dressing, tossing on a few clothes and pulling on rubber boots.

“I don’t see anybody,” Don whispered.

“He went around the side,” Terry answered. “Is there a window there?”

“Yes, there is. Are you ready, Jim?”

“Sure thing. Let’s go.”

They cautiously opened the back door, crossed the yard, and arrived at the front of the boathouse, where they paused for a moment to listen. Inside, they could hear someone walking around.

“Somebody in there, all right,” nodded Jim. “Shall we rush ’em?”

“Yes. We’ll catch them in a trap. Come on, kids.”

22

With that Don stepped around the corner of the boathouse. There was a small stick lying on the ground, and the boy stepped on it, causing it to break with a loud, snapping sound. Realizing that caution was now useless Don called out:

“Who is there?”

From the shadows beside the boathouse a man stepped into view. He darted to the window of the boathouse and called out: “Beat it, Barney, the kids is coming!”

Don dashed forward, clutching at the man, who was tall and thin, but the man twisted savagely and got away. At the same time Terry and Jim ran to the window, but they were too late. A small man leaped nimbly over the sill and joined his companion in flight.

“After them!” shouted Don, as they heard the men thrashing their way through the tangled undergrowth. All three boys joined in the chase, following the men with ease by the sound of their headlong progress. The chase led them to the edge of their own creek, where the men jumped into a small boat and pushed away from the shore.

“The dinghy!” gasped Jim.

The Mercer boys turned and ran to where the sloop was anchored, and Terry followed them. Riding gently on the waters of the creek, attached to the Lassie by a rope, was a new dinghy. Into this rowboat the boys piled, Don and Jim seizing the oars.

“Cast off, Terry,” Don called.

23

Terry slipped the rope from the deck of the sloop and the brothers began to pull toward the other boat, which was drifting aimlessly along the creek. Both men seemed to be in the back of their boat, bending over something. Just as the boys got within hailing distance one of the men whirled his arm, there was a flash of a spark, and a small motor began to hum.

“I knew it!” Don groaned. “He’s got an outboard motor.”

One of the men seized the tiller and the other boat ran rapidly down the creek, leaving the rowboat with the boys in it far behind. Although they knew it was useless they followed, reaching the broad expanse of the ocean. But once in the open water they lost track entirely of the other boat and its occupants.

“It’s no use,” Jim declared. “We haven’t a chance to find them.”

“I’m sorry to say that you’re right,” Don agreed. “I don’t even hear the sound of their motor. More than likely they shut it off and rowed up some creek, to throw us off. Well, there is nothing to do but to go back, I guess.”

They turned the dinghy, which bobbed like a cork in the ocean waves, and headed back for the creek.

“Do you suppose they were the marine bandits your father mentioned at supper?” asked Terry.

“I wouldn’t wonder,” Don replied. “But we’ll see when we get back to the boathouse. I hope it all didn’t wake the family up.”

But it had. When they finally tied the dinghy up to the sloop they found Mr. Mercer standing at the dock, anxiously watching for them.

“Hello,” he hailed. “What’s going on down there?”

24

Don briefly related the events of the last few minutes and then led the way to the boathouse. Using a key, which he had in his pocket, Don led them into the boathouse.

It was a neat little building, with various grades of wood stacked along the walls, a work bench in one corner, and some extra canvas piled on racks. A small rowboat lay bottom up in the center of the floor. They examined the window, to find that several wooden bars had been pried out and the sash raised.

“Is there anything missing?” Mr. Mercer asked. “There doesn’t seem to be.”

But Jim shook his head sadly. “Sorry to say that there is, Dad. That swell ship’s clock that you bought me down in Boston is missing. It was over there on the bench, and I was making a new case for it. I guess those guys were the marine bandits, all right.”

25

3. The Start of the Cruise

As the clock which Jim had lost was a very valuable one, they wasted no time in reporting the circumstances to the police. Early in the morning the boys were up, and spent the time immediately after breakfast in loading last minute articles on the sloop. Don found that the lock on the companionway had been tampered with.

“Somebody tried to get in here,” he said, showing the others the lock, which was slightly twisted. “But I guess they found it too much of a job.”

After they had reported the entire matter to the chief of police, who promised to have the waterfront searched for the thieves, the boys ran down in Terry’s car to the local drugstore and bought a case of cokes. When they had loaded it on the boat, and final instructions had been half-jokingly given them by Mr. and Mrs. Mercer, the boys were prepared to go.

26

Don went below, bending over the engine, while Jim sat at the tiller, his fingers on the starting switch. Terry, feeling useless as a sailor, sat in the cockpit, watching the proceedings. Jim nodded to him.

“Cast off the painter, will you, Terry?”

Terry looked helplessly around. “When did a painter get aboard?” he asked.

Jim laughed. “The painter is that rope at the bow,” he explained. “Throw it to Dad.”

Terry took the painter and tossed it to Mr. Mercer, who caught it and placed it on the ground. Don turned the flywheel and the motor began to churn. Slowly, Jim advanced the spark, pushing the tiller from him. Like some graceful bird the Lassie turned in the creek, her nose pointing toward the ocean.

The boys waved goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Mercer and Margy and the sloop headed out to the mouth of the creek. As it cleared the banks at the mouth of the channel it struck the small ocean waves, bounding and dipping like a thing alive. The little ship seemed glad to get out on its own element. The boys were fairly launched on their cruise.

“Well, we’re off,” exclaimed Don, coming up the ladder and stepping into the little cockpit.

“Off on a nice start,” Jim nodded, watching a buoy about half a mile ahead of him.

“This is swell,” Terry struck in, his eyes dancing.

27

The wind was blowing a lively little breeze, and the Lassie rose and fell with the action of the waves. It was a bright, clear day, and they could see for miles over the tossing, tumbling Atlantic. On the port side they could see the long coast of Maine stretching along before them.

“Just think,” sighed Don. “Nothing to do but sail for a month or more.”

“It surely is great,” Terry agreed. “I hope in that month you’ll teach me something about sailing. I feel awfully ignorant.”

“You needn’t,” Jim told him. “We’re not any too good, ourselves. We’ve been used to sailing cat-boats around, but this is the first time we’ve had an opportunity to handle this boat in any kind of weather. I think we’ll all learn things together.”

After they had sailed down the coast for five miles Don said to Jim: “How about putting on sail?”

Jim considered the sky. “I guess we can. But we’ll have to take two reefs in it. With a small gale like this, we can’t risk putting on full canvas.”

“No, you’re right. Teach Terry how to hold the tiller, while I shut the motor off.”

“All you have to do,” Jim told Terry, while Don turned the motor off, “is simply to drive the bow straight toward that buoy. See the buoy? Now, hold the tiller loose in your hand. Just as soon as the bow moves away from pointing straight at the buoy, move the tiller the least little way in either direction. No, not so far over. That’s it, just a fraction. Now you have it.”

28

While Terry held the tiller somewhat gingerly, secretly as proud as a prince, the Mercer boys sprang to the sails, and began to untie the straps that held down the spread of canvas on the boom. When this was finished they jumped to the halyards and pulled the canvas up the mast, the wooden rings slipping with a clattering sound. While Don held the halyard ropes Jim tied the sail down at the second reef. Then, pulling up the jib sail, the boys walked back over the heaving cabin roof.

“All right, Terry my friend,” said Don. “You can let me have the tiller now. I have to guide the mainsail and jib from the tiller. Let down the centerboard, Jim.”

Terry surrendered the tiller. “Here you are,” he announced, with dignity. “Any time you want your boat tillered straight, call for Mr. Mackson!”

Under the spread of canvas the Lassie sped along before the wind, the sails cracking with a stinging, invigorating sound, the mast creaking and the pulleys straining and squealing occasionally. The sloop was heeled far over on her port side, and the water boiled furiously over the rail, much to the wonder of Terry, who was perched far up on the starboard side.

“Gosh, this boat leans far over,” he observed. “Doesn’t it ever go all the way over?”

Jim winked at Don. “Well, once in a while. I think the most times it ever capsized was three times.”

“Three times!” repeated Terry, aghast. “In how many cruises?”

“Oh, all in one cruise,” Jim replied.

29

Terry’s eyes narrowed. “Look here! If the boat went over a good-sized derrick would have to come out here and right it. And if I remember correctly, this is the first time you have ever been out for any length of time in this boat.”

Jim opened his eyes in surprise. “That’s so! It must have been some other boat!”

“I think you mean you fell out of bed three times on one cruise,” Terry retorted.

Jim was the cook, and on the little galley stove he prepared an excellent meal at noontime. Rather than bother with the sails while eating, the boys had taken the canvas in, and were at present simply drifting idly with the tide. A few miles down the coast they could see the Midland Amusement beach, and Don proposed that they go there for a swim in the afternoon.

After the meal was over they cruised under motor power to the beach and, locking the companionway door, went ashore in the dinghy. They hired a bathhouse and soon emerged onto the beach in their trunks. From a long dock they dived into the water, amusing themselves for fully an hour in the sparkling water. Then, as the afternoon sun showed signs of going down rapidly, they dressed and climbed into the dinghy, pushing out from the shore.

“Hey, look!” exclaimed Terry. “There is someone on our boat.”

The boys stopped rowing and looked toward the sloop. A small rowboat was tied to the stern, and two men were walking around in the cockpit, peering down into the cabin through the portholes in the companionway.

“Wonder what they have in mind?” Jim said.

30

“Let’s get out there and see,” advised Don. Accordingly, they rowed with all their strength, until they were alongside.

The men had seen them coming, and one of them, a stocky individual with an unpleasant face, stepped to the side and smiled at them. Although the boys did not like the looks of either of them, they were polite and open in their manner.

“How d’you do?” the stocky individual hailed. “This your boat?”

“Yes, it is,” said Don, stepping on deck. The others followed, and Jim tied the dinghy to the stern.

“Thought likely it was,” the leader of the two went on. “Nice boat.”

“It surely is,” Don agreed, waiting. He felt sure that the man wanted him to open the companionway slide, and he had no intention of doing so. The shorter of the two men was standing back of him, evidently waiting.

“You—you don’t want to sell it, do you?” the leader asked.

Don shook his head. “No, it isn’t for sale. I don’t think you would have any trouble in having one like it built, though.”

“I couldn’t wait for one to be built,” the heavy man murmured. He turned to his companion. “Come on, Frank, time we were getting along. Thanks for letting us look it over, boys.”

“You are welcome,” Don replied. The men entered their boat and pulled rapidly for the shore.

31

“I don’t know that we could help letting them look at it,” Jim remarked.

“We couldn’t,” Don agreed, sliding back the hatch. “I wonder who those guys were? They must have come aboard while we were getting dressed.”

“Maybe they belong to the marine gang, and were looking us over,” Terry suggested.

“You may be right,” Don replied. “We’ll have to keep our eyes open for them in the future.”

After supper the boys continued the cruise, sailing for a time and then, as darkness came down, using the motor. Jim put on the lights and Terry asked concerning them.

“The green one is the starboard light,” Jim said. “The port is the red one. The danger side of a ship is the port side; the watch has to be keenest there. The easiest way to remember which is which is to think that port wine is red, and then you can always remember that the port light is the red one.”

Two miles off shore, on a lonely section of the coast, the boys lowered the anchor and prepared to spend the night. Terry, who had looked forward eagerly to his first night on the water and his first sleep in a bunk, was disappointed to find that they intended to sleep on deck.

“You can sleep inside, if you want to,” Don told him. “Only, I think you’ll like it better sleeping out on deck, under the stars. If we have stormy weather—and I think we are going to, because the barometer is going down—you’ll sleep indoors quite enough. But suit yourself.”

32

Terry decided that he would sleep on deck, and they accordingly carried the blankets out on deck and spread them out. As it was too early to go to sleep yet, they talked for a time of general subjects.

“Suppose a storm, like a fog, comes up in the night?” Terry asked.

“Well, we can go close to shore, or anchor out, but if we anchor out, we’ll have to toll the bell all night. If anyone feels particularly like sitting up all night and pulling on the rope, they are perfectly welcome to do so.”

“Count me out,” Terry decided. “We might use Jim, however.”

“How is that?” Jim asked, suspiciously.

“When you give that little imitation of a snore that you do, your mouth half opens and shuts,” Terry explained. “I was just thinking that we might hitch the rope up to your front tooth and have it tolled all night without anyone having to sit up or keep awake!”

“I see. Well, look here. When you are lying under the bell, don’t you ever yawn!”

“And why not?”

“Because we’ll never find it again, and we’ll have to hang you to the mast and shake you back and forth every time we have a fog,” said Jim, soberly.

“Meaning that I’ll swallow the bell, I suppose?”

“Something like that.”

The boys turned in around ten o’clock, thoroughly tired out. Before Don put out the light he looked at the barometer.

33

“Going down,” he muttered. “Doesn’t look any too good for the morning.”

The last thing that Terry remembered was lying on the gently heaving deck, looking up at a multitude of soft glowing stars. Then a deep sleep fell upon him.

34

4. Stormy Weather

Terry Mackson was dreaming. He dreamed that he was sitting on a bench and that Jim was hurling buckets of water over him. The bench was heaving up and down and the water continued to pour over him. The part that made him angry was the fact that he couldn’t seem to get up. And now, to make matters much worse, someone, he couldn’t see who it was, was shaking him.

He woke up with a start, to find Jim bent over him shaking him roughly, and shouting something in his ear. Jim was saying, “Get up, it’s raining,” and Terry, struggling to his feet, found that Jim was putting things mildly. The rain was coming down in sheets, and Don was heaving the bedding down the companionway. Terry took a brief look before going below.

35

The millions of stars that he had looked at earlier in the evening had all disappeared, and only a dense, heavy gray sky hovered over the sloop now. The waves, which had been so gentle, now reared angry heads alongside the little craft, and the deck was soaked with the spray. The world had turned completely upside down in the farm boy’s eyes.

“Go on down,” Don shouted. Terry obeyed, but Don ran forward and examined the anchor cable. When he came back downstairs, he was wringing wet. He slipped the companionway shut and Jim closed and bolted the portholes.

“The anchor is holding all right,” Don reported. “I think we can weather it.” He slipped out of his pajamas and vigorously rubbed himself down with a rough towel. “Well, we’ll sleep indoors, like Terry wanted us to, sooner than we expected.”

“I never saw a storm come up so fast,” declared Terry.

“I’ll bet you didn’t see it at all,” Jim retorted, rubbing down. “Judging by the way I had to shake you, you didn’t see much of anything.”

In the light of the electric lamp the boys changed into dry night clothes, and sat on the edge of the bunks talking. The experience was slightly weird to Terry, but the Mercer boys did not seem to mind it. The sloop tossed madly, causing dishes to clatter inside the cupboard and other things to rattle and clink all over the boat. The fog bell clashed and clanged with each roll of the boat, and the electric lamp oscillated continually. Each time the sloop slid down a wave it pulled with a jerk on the anchor cable. To Terry, as he looked around, it seemed like being boxed in a trunk, at the mercy of the waves that slapped overhead.

36

“Well,” yawned Don, at last. “No use sitting up any longer, I suppose. We’ll see how things look in the morning. Do you feel all right, Terry?”

“Sure I do. Why?”

“I was just thinking that if you are going to get seasick at all, you’ll get that way tonight,” grinned Don, as he put out the lamp.

“Thanks for your cheerful thoughts,” grumbled Terry, as Jim snickered.

Terry was the first to awake in the morning, and he lay for a moment looking around the interior of the Lassie. The storm had evidently not subsided, for the floor continued to heave and sink, and the continual clinking and bumping went on. The portholes were still wet and a faint trickle of water ran out from the bottom of the engine. Outside, he could hear the whistle of the wind and the slap of the waves, and now and then a particularly big one ran across the deck. The brothers were still asleep.

At seven-thirty they woke up together and the three boys got dressed. Getting breakfast was no easy job, and Jim was hard put to it, especially in the matter of making coffee. Don, clad in oilskins, went on deck and examined the anchor cable, which he found to be bearing the strain very well. It was decided that they would cruise along with the storm during the morning and see what they thought best to do later in the day.

37

On the side of the centerboard casing, which came up from the floor of the cabin, dividing it somewhat, a board on hinges served as a table. This board, when raised, made a good substitute for a regular table, and on this Jim placed the eggs, bacon and coffee. The meal was a gay one because the food slipped back and forth with the rolling of the sloop. On one occasion, just as Terry was about to spear a piece of egg, his plate slipped downhill to the other side of the board, where Don was eating.

“Would you mind giving me back my plate?” Terry asked.

A particularly violent roll dumped the remaining egg from his plate and spread it dismally all over the board. Don pushed the plate back to him gravely.

“How about my breakfast, too?” Terry asked.

“Oh, do you want that too? You only asked for your plate, you know.”

All three boys pitched into the job of washing plates and then they pulled in the anchor and continued the cruise. Terry, outfitted in a coat of oilskins, enjoyed the rough sailing much more than the smooth. The little ship dipped joyously down into the troughs, plunging its nose beneath the waves and flinging them right and left in a smother of foam. Then, riding magnificently up the side of a gray green monster, it rushed with speed down the watery hill, to bury its nose in another small mountain. Quantities of water rushed across the deck, soaking them in spite of their oilskins, but as the weather was warm, the boys did not mind it. At times Terry was allowed to hold on to the tiller, a job that amounted to something, and he found it vastly different from the easy job it had been on the day before, when the water had been smooth.

38

They brought a portable radio on deck and listened to it throughout most of the morning, but the static was very bad and they finally gave up. After several unsuccessful attempts at playing a losing game of gin rummy against the wind, the boys decided it was easier just to watch the sea and the dark clouds as they scudded across the sky.

Another meal was eaten under conditions similar to those of the breakfast, and the sail continued. The day was dark and the sky threatening, and Don thought seriously of running inshore and tying up at a dock until the blow was over. Late in the afternoon they decided to swim.

“Want to go in for a real swim?” Jim asked Terry.

Terry looked toward the shore. “Where is a beach?” he asked.

“Jim doesn’t mean at a beach,” Don supplied. “He means to go swimming from the boat. Like to try it?”

“With the waves running like that?” Terry demanded.

“Sure thing. It will be the best swim you ever had.”

Terry was not sure, but as the Mercer boys got into their trunks he slowly followed, secretly appalled at the size of the waves that broke against the side of the sloop. Don was first to go over. Poised for an instant on the cabin roof, he suddenly launched out into a splendid curving dive. Right into the heart of a wave he went, to reappear some yards away, puffing.

“Oh, boy!” he called. “Get in, it’s great.”

39

Jim followed his brother, and Terry, whose swimming had been confined to quiet water all his life, hesitated for a few minutes before he made his plunge. Then, standing on the stern, he shot himself forward into a smother of gray-green water, instantly shooting below a small, churning mountain. An instant later he came to the surface, bobbing up and down on the waves.

Don swam to him. “How do you like it, kid?”

“It’s great stuff,” Terry gasped. “There certainly is plenty of room to swim in!”

Under these conditions the boys only swam for fifteen minutes, keeping close to the sloop. When they were once more clad in dry clothes they felt invigorated and healthy as they never had before. Supper, consisting of beans and potatoes and some peaches, tasted very good to them.

As evening came on the sea became rougher and rougher, and the brothers agreed to anchor somewhere in port for the night. They were now out of sight of the mainland, and Jim proposed that they run back to the coast. But Don, who was looking intently across the starboard bow, called his attention to a long low black mass just visible above the waves.

“Isn’t that Mystery Island?” Don asked.

Jim looked and then went down the companionway steps, to unfold the marine map and look at it closely. Presently his head appeared above the combing.

“That’s it, all right. Not thinking of anchoring near there, are you?”

40

Don nodded. “Yes, I am. It is a whole lot nearer the boat than the main shore is. I don’t see why we can’t run in and heave to.”

“The place hasn’t got a very good reputation, Don!”

“Nonsense, Jim. Most of the tales you hear about Mystery Island are false to begin with, and besides, I’m not afraid of a lot of old legends. I guess we can find a good cove there to anchor in until this storm blows over. Spin the motor, will you?”

Jim spun the flywheel and the Lassie, under Don’s guiding hand at the tiller, turned her nose to the low island in the distance. Terry turned to Don.

“What is all this business about Mystery Island, skipper?”

“Oh, just a collection of idle stories, mostly. It was supposed to have been the hiding place for pirates once, and for smugglers later on. I guess most of it is all foolishness, but people around this part of the country have a habit of saying, ‘Keep away from Mystery Island.’ Personally, I don’t believe there is a thing the matter with the place at all.”

It took them less than an hour to reach Mystery Island, and they found a fine cove to anchor in. It was now too dark to see the island clearly or to make out any details of it. After sitting around and talking over old school days for some time, the boys turned in and went to sleep.

A loose pan rattled around the top of the sink, annoying Jim as he tried to sleep. Finally, completely disgusted, he got up and captured the utensil, placing it firmly in a small closet.

41

“Should have done that in the first place,” he murmured, moving about in the darkness.

The rolling of the sea had abated somewhat, and Jim looked out of an open porthole. Close to them lay the black island, and Jim wondered idly what secrets it did contain. Then, uttering an exclamation, he looked intently out of the porthole.

Don stirred uneasily in his bunk. “Coming to bed, Jim?” he inquired.

“Sometime, yes. But come here, Don.”

Terry, awakened by the whispering, joined Don and Jim at the porthole and looked toward the island. On a sort of bluff, fronting the cove, a lantern was flickering in the breeze. Although they could not see clearly, they could nevertheless make out the outline of a man back of the lantern.

“Somebody standing there and looking us over,” Jim whispered.

“Wonder who he is?” Don asked.

“Mighty strange that he should come out on the shore on a night like this to look at the sloop,” muttered Terry.

For two or three minutes longer the man stood perfectly still, evidently looking toward the sloop, although the boys could not make out his face. Then, swinging the light as he walked, the mysterious watcher passed along the bluff and out of sight.

“There goes our reception committee,” chuckled Don.

42

“All I hope is that it is the right kind of a reception committee,” grumbled Jim. Don sought his blankets. “I guess it’s OK. Maybe they don’t have many boats stop here, and the sight is a novelty. Well, we won’t worry over it. I’m dead tired.”

43

5. Mystery Island

When the boys woke up in the morning they found that most of the storm had subsided, but the day was anything but fair. The sky was gray and overcast, and the sea rose and fell in short, choppy billows. The wind, however, had gone down altogether, and that made a big difference.

Before dressing the three boys stepped out on deck and dove overboard into the stinging water that tumbled alongside the sloop. After this invigorating swim they enjoyed a wholesome breakfast, eaten out on the deck under the leaden sky.

“Sure does seem good to eat without having your plate run up and down hill every second,” Terry affirmed.

“It seems good to get out of the heat of the cabin,” Don said.

44

Jim showed a perspiring face above the companionway. “That goes for everybody but the cook,” he observed. “I will admit, though, that getting breakfast today has been easier than it was before.”

They ate slowly, not being pressed in any way for time. “Looks like an idle day,” Don ventured.

“I agree with you there,” his brother answered. “Until it clears up we won’t want to sail on, and so it looks as though today might be a trifle dull. But we’ll get through it somehow.”

“There will be plenty to do.” Don looked off toward the island, to where the top of a long house showed through the trees. “I know what I’m going to do. See that house?”

“I see it,” Terry replied. “Thinking of renting it for the summer?”

“No,” Don retorted. “But I saw smoke coming from a chimney on it this morning, and I’m going up there. They may have some fresh eggs, and if so, we want them. I’ll row over in the dinghy and take a trip to the house.”

“How about that man we saw last night with the lantern?” asked Jim.

“What about him?”

“I just didn’t like the looks of things, that is all. I’m wondering why anyone should take the trouble to come out on a bluff at three o’clock or thereabouts in the morning and look at us so long. It doesn’t look right to me.”

“Maybe it was someone that couldn’t sleep, and decided to go out for a morning stroll,” grinned Terry.

“With a lantern in his hand?”

45

“Well, believe me, I’d hate to go wandering around that black island at night without a light of some kind with me!”

“Oh, there is no doubt about that. But I feel that he came down to look at us, and I don’t think there was any good in it all, either.”

“Nuts, Jim,” Don broke in. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you. Just as soon as I help you clean up, I’m going ashore.”

They all cleaned up ship after breakfast. A large amount of bilge water had crept in under the floor during the storm, and as the boys had no pump aboard, they were forced to dip it out by the bucket. Terry scooped the water up in a pail down below, passed the pail up the ladder to Don, who passed it to Jim in the stern. From there Jim emptied it overboard. This task took them the better part of an hour, and when it was over Don announced: “I’m going ashore now.”

Jim was airing out the blankets and Terry decided that he would write to his mother and sister, so Don stepped down into the dinghy alone. Grasping the oars he called up to them, “See you later,” and rowed toward Mystery Island.

He found that it was a hard pull. The waves were choppy and troublesome, and the dinghy climbed and slipped backward. It took all his strength to keep it going forward, and the distance to the shore seemed long because of the energy necessary to reach it. After a half-hour’s row Don beached the dinghy on the sand at Mystery Island.

46

He pulled the boat far up on the sand, to make sure that the tide, creeping in, would not carry it away while he was gone. He stood for a moment and looked around him. He was in a sheltered cove, ringed around with trees and thick undergrowth, with a shelving sandy beach running down to the water. If any of the stories about pirates and smugglers were true, he reflected, this island was just the place for such things. It was a black, silent sort of a place, well named Mystery Island. Although Don had laughed at Jim’s fears he admitted to himself that he did not feel altogether comfortable. There was a brooding sense of mystery over the place, an air of evil watchfulness that he did not like.

Quite sharply he pulled himself together, realizing that he was allowing the wrong impressions to play upon his mind. “You’ll never get anywhere that way, Donald my son,” he murmured. To fortify himself, he began to whistle as he found the path through the woods.

The path was well beaten and he wondered who used it so much. Obviously someone lived on the island most of the year, possibly all year around, though Don could not imagine anyone living on the bleak waste in the wintertime. He wondered why there was no boat to be seen, since the inhabitants must have a boat. It would be impossible otherwise to get across to the mainland for supplies, and no one could live for any length of time on the place without renewing supplies from time to time. Possibly the boat was on the other side of the island. He knew that it would have to be a good-sized boat, too, for no rowboat or small power boat would do. But as the map had showed the island to be a large-sized one, he wondered why the people who lived at the house kept a boat on the far side of the island, especially as there was such a perfectly good harbor on this side.

47

He followed the path through a dense growth of trees and small shrubbery, finding that it had been worn down by many feet. The ground had been worn down hard and there was no sign of cluttering grass. Admitting that a rather large family lived in the house just ahead, he wondered why they went so often to the beach as to keep in perfect order a path through the undergrowth.

The path dipped slightly and then wound up a small hill, and at length he saw before him the low house. Before going any further he stopped to study it. It was old, built of boards that looked rough and weatherbeaten, and if it had ever had a coat of paint on it, the fact was not evident now. One crooked chimney stood unsteadily at the back. The windows of the upper floor had all been broken and were boarded up, but those on the ground floor were, for the most part, whole. The glass was dirty and the frames warped and bent. Don walked nearer, looking closely for signs of life about the place.

The front door was boarded up, and he saw at once that he could not get in there. A rotting front porch sprawled across the width of the house, and one corner of the roof was falling down. Don took a path around the house, looking closely to see if anyone was around, but there was no sign of movement in the place. But he felt sure that someone lived in the place, for a thin line of smoke drifted upward from the crooked chimney.

48

The back yard of the house was an overgrown plot, with a few rotting outhouses standing near the dense woods that pressed close to the place. Don stepped on the low porch and knocked gently. While he waited, he turned once more and looked around him. It struck him that there was not a sign of a chicken about the property, and he felt that his journey for eggs would be useless.

“Nothing like trying, though,” he thought, and knocked again. There was no response, and he was inclined to think that there was no one at home. But just then the tempting odor of bacon assailed his nose.

“Surely there is someone at home,” he decided. “No one would leave the house and allow bacon to fry on the stove. I wonder why they——”

He heard a bolt rattle on the inside of the door and it slowly opened. At first the interior of the place seemed so dark that he could not make out the person of the one who had opened the door. Then he saw that it was an old woman, with a severe face and untidy white hair.

“What do you want?” she asked, somewhat harshly.

“Pardon me,” Don said politely, “but I’d like to know if you have any eggs for sale? I just came from a boat which we have anchored in the cove, and I thought that you might have some eggs you could sell us.”

The woman nodded slowly. “Oh, eggs, certainly! Step in, young man, and I’ll wrap you up some.”

49

She stepped back from the doorway and Don entered. He found himself in a kitchen, which was furnished with a rickety table, three chairs, a couch and a sink and stove. The bacon that he had smelled was still sending forth a fascinating odor from the back of the iron stove.

While the old woman stepped out of the room to get the eggs Don noticed that although it was broad daylight all of the shades had been pulled down, creating a semi-gloom which he thought quite unnecessary. Three doors opened from the kitchen into other rooms, he also noticed. It seemed to him that the old lady was gone an unnecessary length of time, when she returned, but without any package.

“They are in the next room, young man,” she said, going to the stove. “Pick out as many as you want of ’em.” With her thumb she pointed to one of the doors which opened from the kitchen.

Wondering a bit, Don pushed the door open and stepped into a large room, which had evidently at one time been the dining room of the house. It too was almost dark, and a big table took up the center. He looked around but saw no eggs. He turned to the door again.

“Where are—” he began, but got no further. The door back of him went shut with a bang, and he heard a bolt shot. He tried the knob, to find that he was locked in and a prisoner.

50

6. The Inner Room

It was with something of a start that Don realized that he was caught in a trap. He shook the door furiously, but it was firmly bolted, and his efforts were entirely in vain. Stepping off, he sent a heavy kick against it.

The old woman shuffled over to the door. “Here!” she shrilled. “You quit that! It’s no use of you tryin’ to git yourself out.”

“What am I in here for?” cried Don.

“Don’t ask me. Ask the Boss,” she replied.

“Who is the boss?”

A chuckle came from the other side of the door. “Soon you’ll find out. He’ll be in to see you before very long.”

51

Seeing that a display of temper would get him nowhere Don gave up his attempt to break the door and fell to examining the room with care. The windows had been boarded on the inside, and he gave up any thought of trying to pry loose any of the boards without the necessary tools. There was only one door in the room beside the one he had entered by, and he soon found that this door was as firmly locked as the other one. The walls, cold and wet to his touch, gave him no hope, for they were firm enough. Finally, he gave it all up in disgust.

“Nothing doing anyway,” he muttered. “I wonder what the heck the game is?”

He did not have long to wonder. Fifteen minutes after he had entered the room he heard a key rattle in the lock on the opposite door. Evidently the lock was quite rusted, for it took a few minutes for the other to unlock it, but at length the task was completed, and the door opened.

Two men entered the room, and at sight of them Don felt a shock of recognition. One of them was the stocky individual who had offered to buy their boat the day before, and the other was the smaller man who had been called Frank. Both of them were smoking cigars and seemed pleased with something.

“How do you do, young man?” nodded the older of the two.

“What is the idea of locking me in here?” Don demanded.

The man called Frank laughed and turned to the other. “He’s a very inquiring sort of a kid, isn’t he, Benito?”

“I certainly am,” retorted Don. “I’d like to know what you mean by locking me in here.”

“Well, to tell you the truth,” answered Benito, “we don’t know ourselves yet. We saw you anchor last night and we just waited for you to walk into our trap. We haven’t decided what we’re going to make out of it yet.”

52

“I see,” nodded the boy. “But you’re sure you are going to make something out of it, aren’t you?”

“To be sure. Frank, be kind enough to hand me the boy’s wallet.”

Don eyed Frank and clenched his fist. “He’s liable to see a whole collection of stars before he sees that wallet,” he said, determinedly. Frank hesitated and looked at the other man.

Benito’s manner changed instantly from the friendly to the business-like, and he frowned in an ugly manner. “Look here, kid, none of that. You hand over your wallet or we’ll just put you to sleep and take it. Don’t think we let you walk in here for nothing. Come on now, hurry up.”

Boiling with anger, Don handed over his wallet. He realized that resistance, under the circumstances, was absolutely useless. Benito took the wallet and glanced through its contents.

“Hum,” he commented. “Fifty dollars in cash and your name is Mercer. Is your father the lumber man?”

“Yes, he is, and he will make things hot for you, if you don’t let me out of here,” Don promised.

Frank raised his eyebrows and looked significantly at Benito. “That means big money, Boss.”

Don laughed outright. “I think you’ll have to go a long way to make any big money on it,” he said.

53

But Benito shook his head easily. “Oh, no, we won’t. Your father will be willing to pay a heavy price for your safe return, my boy. So we’ll just keep you here until he does come across with a neat little day’s pay. All you have to do is write a letter to your father, telling him where you are, or about where you are, and asking him for a sum I will name for you. That will be your end of the game.”

Don grinned. “That’s all I have to do, huh?”

“Yes, that’s all.”

“Well, that’s just twice as much as I intend to do. I won’t write a line for you, and you can do what you like about it.”

Benito jerked the cigar from his lips. “You’ll do just as we tell you!”

“I’ll not write one single line,” Don came back, steadily.

They glared at each other for a moment, Benito inwardly raging, Don angry but perfectly calm. Then Benito smiled evilly.

“So that’s the way you feel about it, is it? Well, I don’t think you’ll feel just that way after you haven’t eaten for a few days. You’ll change your tune by that time.”

Don’s thoughts flew to Jim and Terry aboard the sloop, but as though the man could read his thought he said: “You needn’t think your friends on the boat can help you any. We’re going out there as soon as it gets dark and take that little ship for our own. Then we’ll put those two boys in here with you, for company.”

“You wouldn’t dare touch that boat!” Don gasped.

“No? You just watch and see. Come along, Frank. This young man wants to be alone to think, I can see that. Pretty soon he’ll want something to eat, too, but he won’t get it. Maybe then he’ll be able to listen to reason.”

54

Don smiled coolly. “They say the emptier your stomach is, the clearer you can think. I think you are both a fine pair of scoundrels now, so I don’t know what I’ll think you are when I get hungry!”

“Be careful of that tongue of yours, young man!” snapped Benito.

“As long as I won’t be able to use it for eating, I’ve got to use it for something,” Don retorted.

“The healthiest thing for you to do would be to keep it quiet,” the man warned as they left the room, taking Don’s wallet with them.

“Well, here’s a pretty mess!” thought Don, as soon as he was left alone. “I’m not a bit afraid as far as my own safety goes, but I don’t want those fellows to get hold of the Lassie. I’ve got to get out of here.”

He now went to work in deadly earnest to seek a difficult job’s solution. A few minutes’ work on the two doors with his pocket knife showed him that all hope in that direction was at an end. Then he once more examined the boarded windows, to find that it would take him hours to remove one board. That would do only as a last resort. From the windows he walked around the darkened room, examining walls and floor.

55

Near one of the windows he found a straight, pointed iron rod which was screwed to the wall. He decided that it had formerly held a bird cage, and as it was loosely held in place he soon pulled it out. It would act as a lever or some kind of a tool, and he decided to keep it to use. If he found that he was to be kept a prisoner for a long time this weapon might come in handy as a lever for prying loose the window boards. Meanwhile, he continued to roam around.

The men and the old woman had an appetizing meal in the next room, for he could still smell the bacon, and he heard them sit down and talk. He decided that he was to be kept next to the kitchen purposely, so that each meal might undermine his resolution as some particular smell of cooking food assailed him.

“They’ll never get me to write a letter to Dad,” he told himself, doggedly.

He was beginning to feel hungry, for he had a healthy appetite, but he pulled his belt tighter and resolved to fight it out. He began to examine the floor more carefully, knowing that darkness would necessarily limit his range of effort. Inch by inch he went over the rough boards, and at the far end of the room he made a discovery.

A stove had stood in a corner at some time and under it a section of the floor had been cut away, probably to allow the ashes to drop into the cellar of the old house. The boards had been replaced later, but he could see just where they joined to the rest of the floor, and there was space enough to insert his improvised lever under the end of the first board. Carefully he pried the first board loose and took it out.

56

To his surprise he found that he could put his arm through the hole and feel only the cold, damp air of the cellar beneath. A second board was soon taken out, and the opening was much bigger, though not large enough to admit his whole body. He went to work rapidly on the third board.

This was not nearly so easy. While he was working he could hear the old woman moving around the kitchen, washing dishes and humming to herself in a high, cracked tone. The men had gone to another part of the house and all, with the exception of the woman in the kitchen, was silent. Once he heard her approach his door and listen, and he became very quiet, scarcely daring to breathe. But she went away again and he continued his work.

At last the third board came up and the hole was large enough to permit him to go through. He lay on his stomach, peering down into the dark void, sickened by the rank, foul odor which rose in force to his nose. But he was unable to make out a thing in the dark hole, as he had not brought any matches with him from the sloop.

“Nothing to do but take a chance at it,” he decided. “Anything is better than staying here.”

He lowered himself over the hole, dropping his legs down slowly, until his body hung over the black pit. Down and down he went, until he hung by his finger tips. He had hoped to feel something beneath his feet, but there was nothing, so, with a prayer for his safety, he let go, and shot down into the inky blackness of the mysterious cellar.

57

7. Jim Starts Out

After Don left the sloop Jim busied himself in straightening up the little ship, talking to Terry as the latter wrote his letter home. When the sloop was in first class order Jim sat idly in the cockpit, watching the ocean and the shore alternately. After a time, wearying of doing nothing, he got out a book on navigation, and began to study it.

In this manner an hour went by, and it was Terry who called his attention to the fact that Don had been gone a long time. Jim put the book down and looked toward the shore.

“That’s so, he has,” he replied. “He should be back by now. From the looks of things, that house isn’t ten minutes’ walk from the shore.”

58

They waited around for another hour, and at the end of that time they were really worried. Jim was for going ashore at once, but Terry proved to have better sense.

“I wouldn’t do it,” he urged. “It may be that someone has captured Don and is just waiting to have one of us walk right into their trap. But if Don doesn’t come back by nightfall we’ll have to do something, that’s sure.”

“If Don doesn’t show up by nightfall we’ll swim ashore and hunt him up ourselves,” Jim decided.

“Sure. It isn’t a pleasant outlook in any way, because, beside having to swim ashore, we’ll be forced to find our way around that island in the dark. What in the world do you suppose could have happened to him?”

“I haven’t any idea, but I keep thinking of that man with the lantern. There isn’t any doubt that something has happened to him, or he would at least let us know somehow that he was all right. I hate to sit here and wait.”

Waiting, Jim found, was the hardest part of all. They spent a miserable afternoon just sitting there, eagerly watching the dinghy on the shore. But no one came to move it and it lay there on its side. Both of the boys had the sensation of being watched.

“I just feel it,” Jim said, as they discussed it. “I’ll bet you someone is hiding there in that dense undergrowth, just watching us. After all, I think it would be useless to go ashore at this point. As soon as it gets dark we’ll pull up anchor, drop down the shore a way, and I’ll go ashore.”

“I’m going with you,” declared Terry, promptly.

59

But Jim shook his head firmly. “Nothing doing, Terry. Somebody has got to guard the Lassie. What would happen to us if the ship was taken? If the worst comes to the worst you’ll have to sail to the main shore and get help. I mean if I should fail to show up.”

“I don’t know how to sail it alone,” Terry objected.

Jim leaped to his feet. “Then I’ll show you right now. We’ve got to prepare for an emergency. There isn’t much to learn.”

For the next half hour Jim showed Terry how to start the engine, and how to control it from the tiller. When he had finished a slight dusk was beginning to steal over the water, and the boys impatiently awaited the time for action. Both of them went through the motions of eating, though neither was at all hungry. Slowly, almost painfully, the darkness crept over the sea.

When it had grown so dark that they could not see the shore Jim went into action. “We’ll have to hoist the sail and move down the shore,” he said, walking forward. “And we’ve got to be careful about it, too. The night is pretty still, and they’ll hear the creaking of the blocks on shore if we don’t take care. First, I’ll lash down the tiller.”

This having been accomplished, Jim instructed Terry in the method of hauling the mainsail up. On opposite sides of the mast they pulled the halyards, until the sail, still with the two reefs in it, was spread against the black sky. When the jib had been placed in position Jim took the tiller, and under a gentle breeze the Lassie began to sail quietly down the coast.

60

In fifteen minutes Jim was satisfied, and he and Terry quickly lowered the sails and trimmed them, lashing them fast to the boom. Then Jim went below and changed into an old shirt and a pair of trousers, reappearing on deck a few minutes later. Although they could not see the shore, they knew that it lay off their bow.

“If I don’t show up by noontime tomorrow,” Jim said, as he dangled his feet over the stern, “don’t wait around any longer. Sail across to the mainland and get help. You may find it a bit hard to sail the sloop alone, but it can be done. Simply give any other boat a wide berth and you won’t run into ’em. Keep your eyes open all night, either for my return or for some enemy. I hate to go away and leave you alone all night.”

Terry grasped his hand. “I hate to think of you wandering around all night alone on the island. Good luck, kid.”

“Thanks. See you later.”

Noiselessly, Jim slid over the side and into the water, disappearing from Terry’s view as he sank under the waves. In a second he reappeared and struck out vigorously for the shore. Both Terry and the boat were lost to his view as he forged his way through the water that was as black as the sky.

It was not long before Jim struck bottom, and he stood upon his feet. The island was just ahead of him, and he pushed his way steadily through the water, his upward progress steady, until he stood upon the shore of the dark island. Then, after pausing to listen for a time, he walked up the sand and entered the woods.

61

He was at a complete loss as to which way to turn, but judging that the house lay north, he walked in that direction. His clothing was dripping wet, but as the night was hot, he did not mind it. He found that he was at the bottom of a hill, and at first decided not to climb it, but realizing that he could see any light on the island from a hilltop, he resolved to go on. So he pushed his way forward through the undergrowth, feeling his way with infinite care, and at length stood on the top of the hill.

As soon as he had looked around with care, he was glad that he had come. For, although he could not make out the details of the island, he could see below him, distant by a half mile, the light from a house. It was indistinct, but he knew that it was flooding out of a window on a ground floor room.

“That’s the place,” Jim decided, and hastened down the other side of the hill, guiding himself by the light as it came to him through the trees. When he reached the ground level, however, he could not see it any more, and he was compelled to trust to a general sense of direction. But he had fixed it firmly in his mind, and in less than an hour’s painful toil through the black woods he arrived at last at the front of the house.

Somewhere inside Don must be, perhaps a prisoner, perhaps even hurt. The light still shone from the single window, which was a front one just off the main section of the house, in a wing, and there were no shutters or shades over it. The long, rambling porch ran under it.

62

Stealing silently over the rank grass that choked the front yard of the house Jim cautiously approached the beam of light. He had hoped to stand on the ground and look in, preferring to trust the firm earth rather than the boards of the porch, but he found that in order to see in at all he would be compelled to mount the rickety steps. So he went to the short flight, stepping quietly up them, and tiptoed across the rotting porch. Coming to the window, he carefully thrust his head forward and looked into the room.

Benito and Frank were seated in the room, before an open fireplace, in which a wood fire snapped and smoked. The house was wet and cold, and the men had made the fire earlier in the evening. Benito was smoking, and the smaller man was chewing on a piece of straw, staring into the fire. A corner of the window glass had been broken and Jim could hear perfectly everything that was said.

Frank was speaking when Jim, after having looked around the room for a trace of Don, turned his full attention to the men. Scarcely daring to breathe, Jim listened breathlessly.

“Marcy says the boys moved the boat about a half mile down the shore,” the little man was saying.

Benito nodded, blowing a ring of smoke toward the ceiling. “They must have suspected that we’d be out after them before long. They won’t dare to go away from the island while we have the brother, and they will be on the lookout. Soon as Marcy comes back we’ll go after the other two.”

63

Jim felt his blood chill as the facts of the case came to him. The men had Don and were coming to take Terry and himself prisoner. They even knew where the Lassie was anchored. For the moment he was at his wit’s end, unable to decide whether to go back and warn Terry to sail away, or stay and try to save Don. He was trying to figure out just what their object was when Frank unconsciously helped him.

“You figure it’ll be worth while to take in all three of them?” he asked.

Benito nodded. “I don’t know a thing about that third fellow,” he admitted. “But I do know that Mr. Mercer will pay plenty to get his boys back home. Meanwhile we’ll grab the sloop, give it a new coat of paint, and realize a pretty little penny from it. By the time the new owner finds out how we got it, we’ll be out of the country and safe.”

Jim’s eyes flashed fire, he clenched his teeth, and for a moment he had the impulse to smash his way through the window and hurl himself upon the two men. Realizing how rash and foolish such a move would be he controlled himself and waited, still uncertain as to what to do. He was tormented by the thought that he must decide wisely, for the wrong move might ruin everything. He wondered if Don was safe, and he was overjoyed to hear Frank’s next remark.

“We’ve got the older Mercer boy safe enough. Like enough he’ll soon get hungry and write that note to his father.”

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“Oh, of course. It’s merely a matter of time. I judge that the boy is used to eating regularly and plenty, and I don’t think he’ll hold out long.”

“How are we going to get the other two?” Frank asked.

Benito looked at his watch. “Just as soon as Marcy gets back we’ll take the power boat and go out after them. We’ll muffle the oars and sneak up on ’em. I suppose they’ll be awake but it won’t take us long to overcome them. We’ll tow their sloop up the creek and take good care of it.”

Jim was beginning to wonder uneasily where Marcy might be, but Frank’s next remark reassured him. “Marcy’s taking a look in on young Mercer, ain’t he?”

“Yep. Just seeing if he is fixed for the night. The boy’s been very quiet, and I was just wondering——”

At that moment rapid footsteps sounded in a hall outside of the room in which Benito and Frank sat, causing the two men to look in alarm at each other. Jim strained forward to see what was to happen next.

A door opened hurriedly, and a rough-looking man with a week’s growth of beard burst into the room. Benito sprang to his feet.

“What is it, Marcy?” he snapped.

“That kid is gone!” the man gasped. “Pulled up some boards out of the floor and dropped into the cellar. We got to get him, or he’ll find the——”

“Never mind,” shouted Benito. “You go down the hole after him. Frank and I will look around the grounds. That kid must not get away. What’s that?”

65

“That” was an accident of serious nature. Jim had forgotten the porch he had been standing on, and he had pressed too near the house. The boards at that point were rotten, and with a crash that sounded like the explosion of a cannon they went through.

66

8. The Old Captain

At the sound caused by Jim’s fall through the rotted boards the three men paused for an instant in stunned surprise. But it was only a brief second. Suspecting that some enemy had been spying on them the men made haste to pursue.

Marcy, upon the repeated demand of Benito, went back down the hall to capture Don, but the chief and Frank rushed to the window. Jim’s right leg had plunged into the hole as far as his knee, and he was at first frantic, believing that he could not get out in time, but realizing that losing his head would not help him, he calmed himself and pulled more easily. His leg came out of the hole just as Benito and Frank sighted him from the window.

“It’s one of those kids!” shouted Benito. “Get him!”

67

The door was several yards from the window and to that circumstance Jim owed the start that he got. He sprinted across the shaking porch and jumped to the ground just as the two men opened the door back of him. They gave chase, running swiftly, but Jim had just enough of a start to enable him to outdistance them. But as the country around the old house was new to him, and he believed that the men knew it perfectly, he thought that it would only be a matter of minutes before they took him captive.

It was useless to keep on running. Benito was too heavy to run well, but with Frank it was a different story. The little man was fast, and Jim could hear him gaining inch by inch, beating through the undergrowth like some evil bloodhound. The boy determined to find some spot and hide, trusting to luck to keep from being found, and as he ran, he kept his eyes open for some shelter.

It was almost useless in such darkness, but at last, after ducking back and forth and doubling on his tracks several times he saw before him a dense tangle which had been created by two trees falling together, forming an arch over which a screen of vines had grown. Close in under one of the trunks he ran, worming his body in under the mass of vines. Then, smothering his heavy breathing as best as he could, he waited to see what would happen.

68

Frank had been several yards back of him, crashing his way recklessly through the bushes, but now the noise stopped abruptly. Either the little man knew where he was hiding, or he was at a total loss. Jim’s groping hand encountered a fairly hard stick of wood and he grasped it firmly. If they found him, he could at least put up a fight, he decided. A sudden dash, while plying vigorously about him with the stick, might earn his liberty for him. Determined on this point, he waited tensely.

But a moment later it was evident that Frank was lost. Benito joined him and the little man growled profanely.

“He ain’t far off,” Frank said. “All of a sudden I heard him quit running. He’s hiding right around here in the bushes, I tell you.”

“Then we’ll root him out,” answered Benito. “I wish we’d brought a flashlight, but it’s too late now.”

They began to beat around in the thicket, and Jim was in an agony of suspense as they approached his hiding place. Once they saw it he was lost, for they would surely investigate so promising a place. But they had halted just far enough away to keep them from reaching his place of concealment, and after a half-hour’s search they gave it up.

“It’s no use,” decided the leader. “He got away somewhere, but he won’t get off of the island. Now, we’d better not waste any more time fooling. We’ve got to get under way and capture that other kid out on the boat.”

“Going out after him now, eh?”

“Oh, sure! They wouldn’t have left that boat unguarded, and I guess that one boy is on board. We’ve got to go out there and take the boat away from him. We had better get started before this other kid swims out there and warns him.”

69

With that they moved away, leaving Jim with a relieved mind, but with another problem confronting him. He knew that he must get back and warn Terry of the coming danger; in fact, if he could get back before the men got out to the boat he and the red-headed boy could sail out to sea. The question now was to find his way back to the house, from there to the hill, and then swim back to the boat. Carefully, he worked his way free of the vines and stood out in the woods, looking for his path.

This was not as easy as he had at first supposed, for he had turned and twisted so much in his flight that he was by no means sure of his direction. He walked in the direction that he supposed the two men had taken, but even that was guesswork, for they had made very little sound as they went away. Trusting to a sense of direction more than anything else Jim began to work his way back toward the house.

But after a half hour of such traveling he was sure that he was wrong. Admitting that he had been running quite fast when leaving the vicinity of the house, he was sure that he should have been back by this time. He stopped and looked around him, but was not able from this to tell anything, so he kept on walking, in hopes that he would come out somewhere near the house. But it seemed to him that the undergrowth became thicker and thicker and at length he realized that he was lost.

He stopped now in earnest and pondered his problem. He had lost so much valuable time that he felt he would be too late to help Terry. While he was reflecting he noticed a booming sound that he had disregarded completely up to that time. Hope awoke again as he recognized it.

70

“Why, that’s the sea pounding on the shore,” he murmured. “I must be near the water after all.”

Guided by the sound Jim forced his way through the brush and after another fifteen minutes’ walk he was close to the shore. Breaking at last through the grass and scrub he found himself on the top of a small hill, looking down on the tumbling water. But as he looked up and down the shore line a bitter conviction was forced upon him.

“I’m on the other side of the island,” he cried. “I’ve walked completely across the place.”

For a single instant he felt crushed under the realization and then he made up his mind. The island was not very big, and might in reality be only a mile or little more from where the Lassie was anchored. By hastening along the shore he might see her any minute and he could swim out. In any case it was better to be moving than to be standing still undecided. Accordingly, he hastened down the sand hill and began a rapid walk along the beach.

He had no idea in which direction to go first, and finally decided to go north along the shore, hoping that he had picked the correct direction. His running around the island had so confused him that he had no idea in which direction the sloop might lie, so he wasted no time in idle wondering. Finding the sand hard down near the water he walked rapidly along, occasionally breaking into a run. In this way he had covered a mile when he was halted by the sight of a small hut with a light streaming out of a window.

71

It was the hut of a fisherman, as Jim could tell from the nets which were stretched out on a huge windlass to dry. His first thought was to pass by without going near the house, for he had no idea who the lone fisherman was, or how friendly he might be to the men in the house. It might even be one of the gang, and in that case he had no desire to fall into his hands. But on the other hand it might be a man he could trust, a man who would help him to find the Lassie, and in that case the find would be one of intense value. Acting under an impulse Jim walked to the door of the hut and knocked.

A chair banged down on the wooden floor and a voice that was a trifle sharp cried out: “Who is it, eh?”

“I’m lost and I’d like to find my way around the island!” Jim called.

There was a moment’s hesitation and then the door was opened by a tall old man clad in boots, rough fishing clothes, and an old red sweater. He had white hair and his sharply defined face was tanned by the brisk sea air. Two deep brown eyes glowed from under shaggy locks. In his hand he had a newspaper.

He looked sharply at Jim for a minute and then waved his paper. “Come inside,” he bellowed, and Jim felt an instant friendliness in his voice.

72

Jim stepped inside, to find himself in a room which was a hodge-podge of jumbled furniture, from fishing rods and nets to shells and flower pots filled with strange plants. A single oil lamp burned on the table and the old man pointed to a box near the door, on which Jim sat down. Picking up a battered black pipe, the sea captain lit it and studied Jim.

“Lost, eh?” questioned the old man, unexpectedly.

“Lost, eh! Ha, ha, ha!”

The words, harsh and rasping, came from back of Jim, and the boy whirled around, to find a brilliantly colored parrot standing on a short perch back of him. The captain addressed the parrot shortly.

“Close your hatch, Bella,” he ordered.

“Close your hatch!” repeated the parrot.

“Yes, sir, I’m lost,” Jim said, as the fisherman looked once more at him. And feeling that the truth would serve him more than half a story, he told the man everything. The old man’s face took on a look of great interest as he listened, and his eyes danced.

“I want to know!” he roared, when Jim had finished. “I always mistrusted that gang up there. I can’t figure out what they’re doing on this island. The miserable dogs!” He jumped to his feet and took down a battered blue hat which he clapped on his head. “Come on, Jim Mercer, we’ll put a spoke in them fellows’ wheel, or my name ain’t Captain Blow.”

“Do you think you can locate the Lassie?” Jim asked.

“Sure thing. I got a power dory out front that’ll chase up anything on the water.” He leveled his finger at the parrot. “Keep your eye on the ship ’till I get back, Bella Donna.”

“Oh, my! Mind your eye!” croaked the parrot, blinking.

73

The captain and Jim went out, and the captain closed the door after him but did not lock it.

“Don’t you lock your door?” Jim asked, in surprise.

The captain chuckled. “No, I don’t. I got Bella trained so that if anybody that don’t belong comes cruisin’ around she starts to groan like someone was dead inside. That keeps ’em out.”

Down at the edge of the water lay a fine power dory, and the captain shoved it into the water. He and Jim leaped aboard, the motor was started, and the captain sent it out to sea in a wide swing.

“Your boat is clear around on the other side of the island,” the captain said, as he headed the dory around the island. “It’ll take us about fifteen minutes to get there. You walked straight across the land when you ran away from those fellows.”

The dory was swift and followed the coast under the skilled hand of Captain Blow. It was not long before they were opposite the cove where the Lassie had anchored that day. The captain gave the dory engine an additional spurt of power and began to head slightly out to sea. To Jim’s surprised look he replied: “I want to come up on the other side of your boat. If I come in from the port side your friend will think we’re after him. Providin’, of course, that he’s still there.”

“I certainly hope so,” Jim said, anxiously.

“In a minute we’ll find out.”

74

Scarcely had he spoken when Jim stood up excitedly. “There she is! Off to your right. There’s a light aboard, so I guess Terry is still there. I’ll give him a hail.”

“Don’t you do it!” ordered the captain, shutting off his power. “Because there’s a small boat over near the shore sneaking up on him! Grab that boathook and get ready to jump aboard your boat when I row up to it!”

As the captain bent to the oars Jim tried to see the small boat which he had spoken of, but he was unable to make it out. He picked up the boathook and waited, standing in the stern. Looking toward the sloop, he saw that a steady light was pouring out of the companionway.

At that moment Terry stepped out on deck, looking toward the shore. “Who are you?” they heard him call. There was no answer and the red-headed boy picked up the sloop boathook.

“Keep off this boat,” they heard him call, and the next moment they saw him strike at someone with all his strength.

“Just in time, by Godfrey!” muttered Captain Blow, as he sent the dory alongside the sloop.

75

9. Alone on the Sloop

After Jim had dropped over the stern of the sloop Terry strained his eyes to follow his progress toward the shore. For a brief distance he was able to see the boy, but very soon the dense blackness swallowed Jim up. He listened intently, following his progress through the water, and at last was pretty sure that Jim had landed safely on the shore. Then, realizing that he was left alone on the sloop for an indefinite period of time, Terry settled down to wait.

76

In any other circumstances he would have felt the thrill of being alone and being heir to such an important trust, but just now he felt very lonely. There was such uncertainty regarding the whereabouts of Don, and all their plans hinged on issues that might easily work out to their disadvantage. If Don escaped from wherever he was and went down to the cove he would be puzzled to find that the sloop was gone, and he would be at a loss, though Terry was inclined to think that he would get in the dinghy and row all around the island looking for them. With that thought in mind the boy decided to keep a careful lookout for a boat.

Waiting under such circumstances was not easy, and Terry found the time hanging heavily on his hands. He sat in the cockpit and on the top of the cabin, and walked around the deck several times, keeping a sharp glance directed toward the shore. He wished that he was with Jim, to share with him whatever danger or problem he might encounter, but he by no means underrated the importance of his own position. He knew that he must at all costs guard the sloop well, and that all would be lost if the boat fell into other hands. With this thought in mind he made a thorough inspection of the sloop, examining it in every respect. Down below he found a long boathook, which he brought up on deck, determined to use it as a weapon if necessary.

The electric light was burning steadily in the cabin and he wondered if he should extinguish it, but on second thought he decided not to. If Don or Jim returned they would miss the Lassie in the darkness, and he knew that would never do. The light must be kept going at all costs, and if it went out there was an oil lamp and plenty of fuel aboard.

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Jim had taught him how to run the sloop and he wondered if he remembered how to do it. He went through the motions, without turning the flywheel however, for it would never do to have the sound of the motor explosions heard on the shore. He found that he remembered perfectly, and was confident that he could put on power and run away if necessary. He hoped that he would not be compelled to.

In this way an hour passed, a long dragging hour and to Terry it seemed like an eternity. Time and again he strained his eyes in the direction of the island, but no sign of a light did he see. Realizing that he was visible in the light that shone from the companionway he closed the slide until only a crack of light streamed up against the black sky, enough of a guide to Jim or Don if they needed it.

Suddenly he sat up straight, listening. There had been a sound, and he was not sure if it had been the lapping of waves against the beach or some other sound. After a time it came again, and there was no mistaking it this time, it was the squeaking of oarlocks. It was off toward the shore, and drawing closer.

For a moment he hesitated, uncertain. If it was Don he must hail, but if it was some unfriendly person he would risk everything by calling out. It was a hazard either way, but he saw that he must take it. Grasping the boathook in one hand he called out over the water: “Ahoy, there! That you, Don?”

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His voice sounded alarmingly loud, and the noise of the oars stopped abruptly. Thinking that the other had not fully heard him, Terry repeated his call. There was no answer, and he knew that it was not Don or Jim. But there was certainly someone out there in a boat, and Terry felt his skin prickle as he knew that he was being watched by eyes that he could not see.

His thoughts raced. Was somebody softly stealing up to him in the darkness, prepared to rush aboard the sloop? The hand which held the boathook tightened and his eyes narrowed. If they were, they could count on a good stiff fight. If there were not too many of them he felt that he could hold his own against them, as the boathook was long, and he could use it vigorously. But as time went on and there was no movement, he began to be reassured. Perhaps his fears were groundless, perhaps he had only thought he heard someone out there.

A moment later and he knew that that was not so. The squeaking began again, but this time it was going away from him. Whoever had been in the boat had either been there with the avowed purpose of spying on him or had been somehow scared off by his call. The sound rapidly drew away until it was lost in the distance.

“Now, I wonder what the dickens that man wanted?” the boy muttered, uneasily. He looked out toward the sea, to be sure that it was not a trap. In his present state of mind he was not sure that someone would not appear suddenly out of the darkness on the starboard side and spring over the rail.

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He continued his watch. He wished he knew just when the boys were coming back, in which case he could have made coffee for them. It was then that he realized that he was hungry, for they had only made a pretense at eating. Knowing that there was some cold meat in the refrigerator he went below and got it, together with some bread, and fixed himself a sandwich. While doing this he paused frequently to thrust his head out of the companionway opening and look around and listen. But the only thing that he heard was the lapping of the water on the shore.

He sat on the deck and ate his sandwich, enjoying it more than he had thought possible under the circumstances. After that time dragged, and he found himself getting sleepy. The salt air had been having that effect on the country boy since he had been with the boys, and he found in spite of his excitement that he was nodding. Realizing sharply that the last thing he must do was to go to sleep he stirred restlessly and wondered what he should do to keep himself awake. Surely there was something he could do to make the time pass.

But when he came to look around he found that there was not. One of the first things Mr. Mercer had taught his boys when he had bought the sloop for them was that it must always be kept in the best order, and immediately after meals the boys cleared up all rubbish and aired out blankets, setting the sloop in shipshape order before undertaking any of the pleasures of the day. And Jim had left the ship in the best of order before he had gone. Every blanket was folded and in place, and Terry could not find a thing to do.

80

A tiny splash near the sloop caused him to come to attention like a flash. It was a bit unusual, and he knew that it was not like anything else that he heard before. It sounded as though someone had dropped an oar in the water with a little more force than was intended, and he was instantly on the alert. No sound followed it, but Terry bounded up on deck.

His fears were realized. About ten feet from the sloop was a rowboat, with two men in it. They were rowing toward the sloop rapidly, and the oars had been muffled in burlap. When they saw Terry they bent to the oars with increased vigor.

“Who are you?” Terry called, but he received no answer. He stooped over, picked up the boathook and raised it aloft.

“Keep off this boat,” he called, but one of the men, whom he now recognized as the short man, Frank, dropped his oars and made a clutch at the rail of the sloop. Terry struck downward with all his strength.

81

10. Blown Out to Sea

The boathook, flashing down with all Terry’s muscular strength, landed heavily on Frank’s shoulder, causing the little man to drop back into the boat with a sharp cry.

But with Benito he was not so fortunate. While Terry was busy with the smaller man the leader of the men had flung a rope loosely over the stern rail of the sloop and was even now springing aboard. Before Terry could raise the boathook again the powerful man had thrown his arms about the boy.

“No use to struggle, bub,” he grumbled. “We’ve got you.”

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Encouraged by the success Benito had met with, Frank scrambled on the deck, casting an ugly look at Terry. As for the boy himself, he suddenly felt sick and disgusted. He had been left with the sloop in his care, and now he had allowed the men to creep up alongside in the darkness. Deep down in his heart he knew that resistance was useless, but he still struggled.

“Look here, young fellow—” began Benito when the sloop heeled over slightly as a sudden weight was added to the starboard side. Terry, twisting in Benito’s grasp, found Jim standing behind him, a boathook in his hand. For a moment the two outlaws, thinking that Jim was alone, started toward him, Benito dragging Terry.

But as Terry began to kick and squirm Captain Blow leaped on deck. The old man looked the picture of fury as he bore down on the two men from the other side of the island. Jim, springing at Frank, just missed him with a swing of the boathook, and the little man, uttering a howl of terror, rolled off the deck and splashed into the water. Benito, seeing the grim look in the captain’s eyes, attempted to let go of the boy, but Terry, realizing that he was to be captured, in turn held on to him.

Captain Blow’s haste spoiled the whole scheme. Like a battering ram the captain’s knotted old fist caught the bandit on the side of the head, knocking him clean overboard. Without touching the low rail or any portion of the sloop Benito simply flew in a back dive into the water.

“Get him!” yelled Jim, “don’t let him get away!”

Frank had succeeded in climbing into the rowboat and was rowing swiftly to where Benito was bobbing around in the water. As they watched the leader climbed into the boat, and they started to row rapidly for the island.

“We’ll get ’em in the dory,” Captain Blow said shortly. “Hop in, you two.”

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Terry and Jim piled into the dory without loss of speed and the captain started the engine. The little boat ran around the Lassie and then started in toward the shore.

“Oh, shucks!” snorted the captain. “I wish we’d thought to bring a flashlight along. My boat’s got no light on it. We’ll sort of have to feel our way along after them fellows.”

It was not too much like feeling, for the captain had a remarkably sharp pair of eyes, but although they patrolled up and down the shore for a good half hour they saw no signs of the two men in the rowboat.

“Must have headed right in to the shore,” Jim suggested.

“Yes,” the captain agreed. “Probably hiding in some black creek right now, where we’d never find ’em in a year of Sundays. Well, I suppose we go back now.”

“Aren’t you going to the house to get Don?” Jim cried.

The captain shook his head and headed the dory out to sea. “Nope, sorry to say. It wouldn’t be the sensible thing to do just now. Somebody has got to stay aboard the ship to watch her, and those fellows might come out again. Besides, we’d have a mean job finding the house in the dark and we couldn’t get in and roam around. Anyhow, you said your brother had escaped, so he may be somewhere on the island, just waiting for daylight.”

“I hope so,” Jim muttered. “But we’ll go ashore in the morning, won’t we?”

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“Don’t you hang any doubts on that!” the captain declared, with emphasis. “We’ll just land all troops and clean up that place in fine style!”

They boarded the Lassie again, where Jim told Terry of his adventures of the last few hours. Terry was very much pleased with Jim’s new find, Captain Blow. On his part, the old sailor was much impressed with the boys.

“You’re real shipshape lads,” he declared, warmly. “None of these softy loafers. I must say you keep this little boat in first class order. I’ve sailed in some worse rattletraps than this, in my time. Galloping smelts! there goes my fool tongue again. I mean I’ve sailed in some ships in my time that was rattletraps, not that your boat is one. Good thing my boats don’t navigate like my tongue.”

Hope that Don had managed to get away from the island house safely in some measure eased the minds of the two boys, and they ate some food. The captain asked to look at their barometer and frowned at it, but said nothing. In another hour, as they sat on the deck, a moaning breeze began to blow through the halyards of the sloop, and it began to rock with increasing force.

“In for bad weather,” growled the captain.

His words were scarcely out of his mouth before a violent gale swept over them, and the fury of the storm was on. Shouting to them to get below the captain forced his way to the bow to examine the anchor cable. Presently he dropped through the hatchway, soaking wet from head to foot from the flying spray.

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“If it gets any worse we’ll have to weigh anchor and scoot,” he reported. “That baby hawser is getting quite a strain on it.”

For the next half hour the sloop rocked without stopping, and the three sat and talked in low tones. Each time a wave hit the little ship it jerked roughly at the anchor cable. Finally, shaking his shaggy head, the captain got up.

“Turn your power on,” he ordered Jim. “We’ve got to get that mud-hook up. If we don’t the cable’ll bust in two and then we’ll be bouncing all over the ocean.”

While Jim turned on the power the captain scrambled outside to pull up the anchor. Even under full power the Lassie made little headway, only enough to slack up the strain on the taut cable. Bending double in the raging storm the old sea captain slowly and painfully cranked up the hand windlass. Reluctantly, the anchor came up.

Immediately the captain flew to the tiller, for, once released of the controlling power of the anchor the sloop bucked and rolled like a thing alive. Jim shut off the power and the boys looked out of the companionway, which was opened on a crack, at the captain, where he sat holding the sloop firmly on its course.

“What shall we do now?” Jim shouted to the skipper.

“Toss me out a good oilskin and then go to bed,” he returned, looking through narrowed eyes at the huge waves that rolled around them.

Terry handed him a suit of oilskins. “We don’t want to go to bed, sir,” he said. “Too much excitement.”

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The captain slapped his knee. “Excitement, by golly! What kind of sailors do you two calculate to be? Don’t you know a real jack tar don’t let anything bother his sleep but the sinkin’ of the ship! And answer me this: either of you ever try to hold a small vessel in line in a blow?”

The boys shook their heads. The captain chuckled. “If you tried this tonight, you’d be flappin’ back and forth in the breeze like a shirt on a line. Get into bed and get some sleep!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” laughed Jim. He and Terry climbed into their bunks, but for a time found sleep impossible.

“My gosh!” gasped Terry. “I was never in a bed that threw you up in the air like this.”

Finally, however, almost worn out by the events of the day, the boys went to sleep, to wake up several hours later. They sprang up and opened the companionway slide, to find that they were far from the island. The wind had gone down and the stalwart old captain still sat at the tiller.

“Good morning, Captain Blow,” nodded Jim. “I feel guilty to have slept while you sat here on this wet deck all night with the tiller.”

“I do, too,” agreed Terry.

“Pull in your sail!” ordered the captain, good-naturedly. “It didn’t hurt me any. We’re a considerable spell further out than we were yesterday, ain’t we?”

“Yes,” Jim agreed, anxiously. “Can we get back?”

The captain tossed his oilskins aside. “We sure can. We’re about three miles off of that island now. The water’s running pretty heavy right now, but put on the power anyway. We’ve got to get back to that island.”

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The sloop was soon under full power, headed back toward the low island. The captain surrendered the tiller to Jim and went below to make coffee, which warmed them and buoyed up their spirits.

It took them more than an hour to run back to the island, but at the end of that time they dropped anchor in the cove, where the dinghy had been placed on the sands. But there was no dinghy there now, and Jim was worried.

“Let’s hope Don didn’t take to the dinghy and was lost in the storm,” he said.

But the captain shook his head. “Don’t believe it,” he declared, stoutly. “Well, here is where we raid that nest in the woods. Only this time I suggest that Jim stays on the ship, and you, Terry, come with me.”

“Can’t we all go?” Jim cried.

“Nope. I’d like you to stay here, while Terry and me see what we can stir up in that place.”

So Jim was left alone to pace restlessly around the deck of the Lassie while the other two, in the captain’s dory, went ashore. He watched them land and then settled himself to wait.

Terry and the captain took the path and soon reached the old house. It looked every bit as deserted as it ever had, but the captain wasted no time in wondering. He marched up the shaking front steps, raised his foot, and kicked the door off its hinges. With a roar the door flew into the damp hall.

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“Nobody can say I didn’t knock!” he grinned.

Both of them had armed themselves with heavy sticks, although Terry was sure that the captain had something cold and steel in an inside pocket, something which reassured him, but which he hoped the captain would not have to use. They were now in a large hall, off which ran a number of rooms. A winding staircase ran to the floor above, and on a turn in it they saw a large old redwood clock.

“A grandfather clock,” breathed Terry.

“Sure! See the whiskers on it!”

Terry laughed. “Those are cobwebs,” he said. The captain moved away in the direction of another room, but the red-headed boy remained where he was, looking up the stairs.

“Come on,” ordered the captain, impatiently, “What are you standing there for? Your feet sprouting lead?”

“No,” answered Terry slowly. “But I do think I just saw that grandfather clock move, Captain Blow!”

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11. The Storage Room

When Don let go of the edge of the flooring in the old house and dropped into space he had no idea of how far he would fall or how he would land. His teeth gripped together firmly, he felt himself shooting through a black void, to land suddenly on something wet and soft. The fall had not been long, and he was not even shaken up.

By feeling about him he soon came to the conclusion that he had landed on a heap of ashes, long ago soaked down by the dampness of the cellar. Don stood up and slowly moved his arms around in circles to gauge his distance, and then, finding that he was not near any wall or partition, began a careful advance. The place was pitch dark, and he had no idea what terrible holes or traps might exist in the loathsome place.

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After traveling slowly in one direction he found that his hands encountered a wall, and with that as a guide he began a systematic journey around the place, seeking some sort of an opening. He had traveled around three of the four walls when his groping hands felt an iron door. He ran his hand up and down it from top to bottom and found that it was only five feet high and about three feet wide. The iron, much to his surprise, did not feel badly rusted. He wondered how that could be, and concluded that it had not been there for any length of time.

Continuing his explorations with his fingers he found a sliding bolt on the door which he had no difficulty in working. The bolt slipped back without protest, and the door opened inward, toward him. But when Don had opened the door, he felt rather disappointed. He had hoped to feel a rush of cold air, but there was none. Only a drier odor and one heavily tinctured with canvas. It was evidently good dry canvas, too, and that fact surprised him.

He stepped over the sill into the blackness and nearly pitched headlong. Only a good hold on the door frame saved him from going down, and he realized that this room was a few steps below the main cellar. So he lowered his foot until he felt the top step, and then found the second, and so on, until he had walked down four of them. Then he had made the level of the floor.

He felt a table to one side of him, and found that the top was covered with miscellaneous articles. Fortunately, he found a candle among the odds and ends which lay there.

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“Now to find some matches,” he thought, and with increasing care he felt around the table until he came across a small box of safety matches. With an inward whoop of joy he scratched a match and lighted the candle. When the glow was steady he held the light above his head and looked around.

He was in a storage room that was quite large, and it was evident that some things were kept here with care. Several shelves ranged along the walls and these shelves seemed to be loaded with articles, all of which were covered with canvas. Don approached a bottom shelf and lifted a piece of canvas.

What he saw made his eyes bulge out. Quickly he lifted other coverings and examined the articles under them. In each case the same conviction was forced upon him.

“Jeepers!” he breathed. “These fellows are the marine bandits all right!”

Each piece of canvas covered some stolen object from a boat or a boathouse. Here there was a clock, there a sextant, there a binnacle, under another cover a compass and in a corner a telescope. There must have been almost a hundred pieces of ships’ goods there, and Jim’s clock was there, too.

“So,” decided Don, “this is where they store the stuff and then afterward they run it down the shore and sell it to cheap ship chandlers. No wonder they were never caught. It was easy for them to run out here and hide the stuff, and no one thought that they were so near home.”

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He was trying to make up his mind just what to do when a sound outside startled him. Someone was walking around, and had gone into the room where he had been confined. With a swift movement Don blew out the light and waited, his heart pounding furiously. He knew that if they caught him in that room his life might be in grave danger, for they would realize that he controlled their secret.

The man in the room uttered a startled cry and then ran from the room. Don heard him running about the house, and then he heard other voices raised in excited talking. He also heard Jim fall through the porch, without knowing what it was, however. But when he heard a patter of feet returning to the room above he knew that he must seek safety at once.

His first impulse was to leave the storage room, but on second thought he dismissed it. Out in the dark cellar he would be at a distinct loss, and he dared not go out there with a light. No, he remembered that there was some extra canvas piled on the floor at the end of the storage room, and it was under this that he hid himself, hoping against hope that he was fully concealed.

He heard the man drop through the opening that he had made earlier in the evening and he could follow his progress as the man cautiously made his way around the cellar. It was not long before he heard the iron door open and a light, evidently from a lantern, flashed into the storage room.

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From a split in the canvas Don could gain a fairly good view of what was going on. He saw the shaggy individual that Jim had seen come into the room and look about him carefully. Don could not understand why Benito and Frank were not with this man. Sizing him up, Don felt quite capable of handling him if it became necessary for him to try, but he hoped that it would not. Meanwhile, the man looked in each corner of the room, ducking his lantern down into the dark places.

At last, apparently satisfied that Don was not in there, the man turned and started for the steps. But as his foot touched the first one he paused and looked fully at the canvas under which Don lay. There was something burning in his glance, and Don felt his skin grow tight. Then, placing the lantern on the lowest step, the man headed straight for the heap of canvas.

Don gritted his teeth and clinched his fists, prepared to carry his adversary off of his feet in the first rush. But just as the man was about to lean down to pick up a strip of the covering Benito’s voice hailed him from above.

“Hey! Did you find that kid?”

“No!” the man shouted. “He’s got away.”

“Well, then come on up. What are you doing down there now?”

“Just gettin’ a strip of canvas to cover that hole with.”

Benito snorted. “Never mind that now. I want you to go down to the cove and row those kids’ dinghy around to the creek. Frank and me are going out and capture the sloop.”

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The man went out, taking the lantern with him, and the room was in absolute darkness. Don heard them all go out, and as soon as he knew that he had the place to himself he sprang from his place of concealment. Lighting the candle, whose light he did not fear, since there were no cellar windows in the house, he went to the door, hoping to find a way upstairs. But to his intense disappointment he found that the man had slipped the bolt into place as he went out.

Don was once more a prisoner.

The realization at first staggered him, and then made him angry. He realized that if he did not get out of here at once he would probably never have a chance to get out. He hoped fervently that Terry and Jim would not fall into the hands of the men, and groaned as he realized that he could not help them any. But the one fact remained: he must get out.

A thought occurred to him that made him pause. Suppose the men were ever trapped down in that room by someone entering the house above, how would they get out? Was it possible that they had made no provision for that? He could not believe it, and he felt certain that there was an opening somewhere in that very room. So, holding the dripping candle in front of him, he made his way back of the shelves, which were built out a bit from the walls, and began to search thoroughly.

He almost uttered a cry of triumph at what he found. Right back of the main section of the shelves he found a square piece of canvas hung up, and when he pushed it back a doorway, leading to a flight of iron stairs, was disclosed. These iron stairs ran upward at an abrupt angle and terminated at a small door. Don stepped through the canvas and walked up the steps, until he stood on the tiny platform before the door.

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Not knowing where the door might lead, he blew out the candle and opened it.

He was astonished to hear the sound of a loud ticking burst on his ears. Thrusting his hand forward, he encountered wood, and at last, sure that he was not yet in the old house, itself, he relighted the candle and looked at the object before him.

It was the back of a big, redwood grandfather clock, and Don was further amazed to see that a hook held one side of it to the doorway. Undoing this hook he found that the big clock swung outward on hinges, and then it came to him. The clock was a real one, but it was a clever disguise. If anyone raided the house the men would open the concealed doorway by pushing forward their clock, and if they happened to be in the storage room at the time they could make their escape into the house by way of the clock. The clock, for all its works and its ticking, was in reality a door, leading either into the storage room or into the house from the storage room.

Don now found himself on the landing of the stairway and alone in the house, unless the old woman was about. Fearful that she was, and not wishing to meet her, Don was at a complete loss as to what to do. He might find his way to the cove in the darkness, overpower the man who had been sent for the dinghy, and then make his way out to the sloop.

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He made his way down the stairs, which creaked loudly under his feet, and got as far as the front door. This he could not open, but a full length window on the other side was much easier. After raising the window, he threw one leg over the sill, which was about a foot high. Suddenly a thin old voice shrilled out from upstairs.

“Who is it? Who is it?”

Don knew that it was the old woman, and so he lost no time in getting away. He found that he was lost in the intense blackness of the night, and was almost as hopelessly mixed up as he had been in the dark cellar. But he had a general idea of the direction of the cove, and he made his way in that direction rapidly.

It took him longer to get there than it had taken him to get to the house earlier in the day, but when he did get there he found he was doomed to disappointment. The dinghy was gone, and there was no sign of the men. Thinking that they might have gone somewhere along the shore he followed it, puzzled by another circumstance. The Lassie was nowhere to be seen. But that in itself was not hopeless, for he thought that Jim might have moved it purposely.

Continuing on around the shore he was in time to witness the battle aboard the sloop. He saw it all, from the appearance of Terry to the victory for his side. He exulted gleefully, mourning the fact that he could not be in on it, but he dared not swim out, for the distance was great and it was possible that they might weigh anchor and sail, leaving him to swim back to shore.

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He missed the scene of the escape and the chase because of the darkness. He would not have seen the fight, except that vivid light poured up from the companionway of the Lassie. Realizing that he must stay there until morning, he sat down in the wet undergrowth to wait.

But when the storm came up he was forced to go back to the old house. He knew that he must find some kind of shelter, and so he followed the beach around to the cove and went back over the trail to the house. The place was absolutely black, without a light of any sort, but fearing a trap, he took refuge in a well-built henhouse until morning.

It was a long, dreary night, and he was glad to see the gray dawn. He watched the house for a full hour, and at last, convinced that there was no one around the place, he boldly entered the back door and roamed around. No one was in the place, and only one bed had been occupied, that of the old woman. They had fled somewhere during the storm and had taken her with them.

It was as he was coming down the front stairs that he heard two men tramp up on the front porch. Quickly he slipped in back of the clock and waited. In another moment the door was kicked off its hinges and the two entered. Don listened intently, and then, to his joy, he discovered that one of them was Terry.

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12. The Beach Party

To Terry’s statement that he had seen the clock move the captain was prepared to give a contemptuous snort, but as he looked he too saw it move and then open wide. A moment later and Don Mercer was bounding down the stairs and thumping Terry on the back.

“Chucklehead, you character,” Don cried. “I sure am glad to see you!”

“Don’t say a word,” replied his chum, fairly dancing around in his joy. “We’re more than glad to see you, even if you did come out of a clock!”

“A little story which might be entitled ‘Once upon a time!’ eh?” grinned Don.

Terry frowned. “You must have been treated horribly here, to spring such a bad pun as that one. Don, I want you to know Captain Blow, who saved the sloop from capture.”

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Don and the captain shook hands warmly. “Glad to meet you, young fellow,” the captain said. “We was prepared to rip up this island to find you.”

“You certainly took the gates of the mansion off in great style,” Don nodded. “I’m very happy to know you, captain. I appreciate what you have done.”

“It’s nothing,” declared the captain, waving his hand. “Anybody in this place?”

They went through the house from top to bottom and Don showed them the storage room. But now there remained but a few of the smaller articles, everything else had been carted off.

“After we chased them off last night they must have loaded their stuff into a boat and run off with it,” remarked the captain. “But what I want to know is what kind of a boat have those fellows got? Must have some kind of a power cruiser that runs up here close to the house by way of a creek.”

A little later on, they found that this was so. While looking over the cellar which Don had not seen at all, owing to the darkness, they found at one end a door which led directly out into a thicket. Through the midst of this thicket was a path, and soon they came across a narrow creek, in which lay their own dinghy.

“Sure,” nodded the captain. “They run their boat up here and kept out of sight. Last night they loaded that stuff and slipped away.”

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Don and Terry rowed out in the dinghy, while the captain went around to the cove for the dory. Soon the captain caught up to them under power and they arrived at the Lassie at the same time. Jim was overjoyed to see his brother safe and sound, and they all united in thanking the old captain.

“Avast there, stow that stuff!” he protested. “Nothing to thank me for. I never liked the looks of that crew, and I always felt that they had no business on my island. I’ve lived there for twenty years. Now, it’s time we got down to business. We’ve got to get over to Stillwell at once.”

“What for?” asked Don.

“We must make a report to the authorities about these fellows and have that house taken over. Start your engine running. It won’t take us long.”

They started the engine and headed the sloop across the gray water toward the town of Stillwell. Don was starved, of course, and Jim, as soon as his duties permitted, made him a hearty meal. The captain insisted upon taking the tiller and in a few hours they were gliding in beside the long dock at the town. Jim stood at the bow while Don slowly throttled the engine down, and when the bow was close to the dock he leaped ashore, snubbed the rope around a post, and then pushed the bow off with one foot, so as not to allow it to scrape. The Lassie came to a halt, riding quietly up and down.

Stillwell was a town of some importance, and they wasted no time in laying their case before the harbor authorities. The chief was much interested and listened eagerly to their story. When Don had finished the chief pushed a button on his desk.

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A man in uniform entered briskly and saluted. The chief directed him to proceed to Mystery Island at once and take possession of the old house there. After the man had gone the chief turned to the boys and the captain again.

“It is always possible that they might go back there for something, and if they do we’ll be able to lay hands on them. But frankly, I’m afraid that they have gone. There is a heavy reward out for them, and I’m rather sorry you weren’t able to hold onto them. But you have done well as it is. I promise you that we’ll bend every effort to catch those fellows and put them behind bars.”

After this interview the boys walked around Stillwell, where they were pretty well known, and made a few purchases. The captain had refused to join them, and when they went back to the sloop they found him sitting on the cabin of the Lassie calmly smoking his pipe, his broad back against the sail.

“What you been doing, captain?” hailed Terry.

“Thinking,” replied the captain. “How’d you fellows like to go in for a beach party tonight?”

“A what?” asked Jim.

“Beach party. Long’s there isn’t anybody on the island now except me, what do you say we go back, build a fire on the sand, eat out there, and if you are agreeable, I’ll spin a yarn or two. What say?”

“I say yes,” voted Don, quickly.

“I second that yes,” cried Jim, and Terry nodded.

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The captain got up. “That’s fine. Let’s get back; that parrot of mine’ll think I’m dead or something. There’s a fair breeze, so let’s see you sail back.”

While the captain held the tiller the boys ran up the sails, and soon the sloop was heeling over under a cracking load of sails. The canvas curved out under the force of the breeze until it looked to Terry as though they must burst, but the Mercers and Captain Blow did not seem to mind it in the least. It took them about two hours, and just as the feeble sun was going down they ran past the cove on the island and rounded the point that sheltered the captain’s little bit of land.

The sloop was anchored and they went ashore in the dory. After they had beached the dory the captain led the way to the door of the shack and, after winking at the boys, suddenly began to rap on the door.

Instantly a medley of groans and sobs sounded from the inside of the shack. Jim, remembering the captain’s words when they left the shack, grinned, but the others looked startled. The captain laughed heartily.

“Ahoy, Bella!” he yelled.

The groaning and sobbing ceased abruptly and there was a moment of silence. Then the parrot cried out, “Open the door, open the door!”

The captain opened the door and they went in. The parrot, who had been sitting on top of the cold stove, flew to the captain’s shoulder and perched there.

“Quit that, you lubber,” the captain growled, as the parrot bit him lovingly on the ear. “Well, what about it, old girl? Any visitors?”

“Bella was a good girl!” the polly answered.

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The captain hung his hat on a peg. “Well, now, I’m real glad to hear that. It don’t happen very often.” He turned to the boys. “Make yourselves at home, as much as you can in such a little place. I’ll get things together and we’ll tramp up the shore aways.”

The captain began to wrap up beans, fish, bread and butter in a large package. The boys looked over his fishing tackle and some models of sailing ships that he had carved out of wood.

“Where did you ever get this piece of wood, captain?” Jim asked, holding up a small dory carved out of red wood.

“Oh, I get most of my wood right here on the beach. The tide washes it up and I find it. I found that piece about three miles down the shore. Don’t even know what kind of wood it is, and it was tough to whittle.”

It was now beginning to get dark and the captain and the boys left the shack and started down the rough beach. The storm of the evening previous had littered it with driftwood, and they had to watch the sand before them as they walked. When they got to a point about a mile from the shack the captain stopped and placed his bundles on the sand. Terry and Don, who also carried bundles which the captain had given them, did likewise.

“Now,” said the captain, briskly. “We’re ready to go to work. Gather up a load of dry driftwood. Don’t bother with any of the stuff that came ashore last night, but get good stuff. Jim, you help me with the eats, while the boys get the wood.”

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Getting the wood was no task, as the beach was covered with it. While Terry and Don gathered it the captain put beans in a pot, added water from a jug, and as soon as the fire was going, set them to boiling. On a second fire he started to broil fish. Soon the air was filled with the smell of good cooking.

The night was pitch dark and the fire, leaping up into the still air, made a pleasing picture. Far to the south a light flashed out across the water, and Don asked the captain about it.

“That’s the Needle Point Lighthouse,” the captain answered. “Run by a friend of mine, Timothy Tompkins. Rather queer old boy, but a good fellow, once you get to know him. We used to have a scheme that if anything went wrong at the lighthouse he would burn a red light and I would come over to help him, but I haven’t seen him for a year or more, and we never did have any use for that light.”

The captain dug a hole in the wet sand, made a fire of embers and then put the pot of beans on them. “Beans cooked like this are called bean hole beans,” he told them. “It works a lot better when you are out in the woods, though. Well, how’s that fish? We might as well start in.”

That meal was one of the most enjoyable meals the boys ever had. They settled themselves in the sand, listening to the beat of the waves on the beach, and ate the beans and fish with wholesome and hearty appetites. The fire blazed merrily upward toward the sky, and the sand hills back of them seemed to crouch down and ring them around.

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When the meal was over the captain filled his pipe and began to tell them stories. He had had a wide career on the sea, and had visited many lands on many ships, so they enjoyed his stories immensely. Stories of storms and staunch old sailing ships, of mutiny on the high seas and the people of the southern seas, of the great old shipping days in Boston, and many others. The boys listened attentively and with respect to their friend as he told it all in his own, vivid way.

It was Don who first interrupted. He had been looking off across the sea and now he said, “I beg your pardon, Captain Blow, but wasn’t your friend to burn a red light if he needed you for anything?”

“Eh?” said the captain, coming abruptly out of a story. “Yes, he was. Why?”

“Because,” answered Don, pointing across the tumbling black waters, “there is some kind of a red light burning from a window in the lighthouse right now!”

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13. The Red Lamp

The captain jumped to his feet with a startled exclamation and looked in the direction of the lighthouse. Sure enough, a red light was burning high up in a window near the top.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” the captain exclaimed. “It’s the light, sure enough. Let’s get over there and find out what is wrong.”

Leaving everything just as it was on the sand the boys and the captain ran down the beach until they came to the shack and there they piled in the dory. The captain started the engine and headed out to sea toward the south shore and the lighthouse.

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“This Timothy is a pretty queer sort of a fellow,” Captain Blow explained, as the dory cut her way into the bobbing waves. “I think so much solitude in that lighthouse has been too much for him. Like as not we’ll find that it is nothing at all. I told him more than once that he ought to get over being so sort of nervous, but he just keeps on his merry way. ’Taint very merry, though. Timothy is just the opposite of merry, but he is a good lighthouse keeper.”

It took them more than a half hour to arrive at the black spur of rock which ran abruptly out into the water and which was named Needle Point. When they got there the captain ran his boat alongside the dock and tied it up securely. The beacon itself stood about a hundred yards away from the dock.

“Come on,” said the captain. “We’ll find out what’s wrong here.”

Led by their friend the boys approached the tall structure of stone and brick that rose high into the air above their heads. It was the first time that they had ever been close to a lighthouse. The base of the light was a regular house, they discovered, with several rooms in it, while the column tapered and became much smaller as it became higher. Just now Captain Blow was at the main front door, hammering with all his might.

“Open up, Timmy Tompkins!” he bellowed. “What in time’s the matter?”

There was no reply to his knock or his question, and after waiting for a moment the captain opened the door and looked in. After hesitating for a brief second he walked in and the boys followed him.

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They found themselves in a large room, the central room of the lighthouse. In the center of the room stood a table, faced with a few chairs and an old sofa. The walls of the room, plainly whitewashed, were covered with one or two old prints, some framed official documents, and a large map. The room was in perfect order and the place empty of life. Off this room the party could see the other rooms: a kitchen, a bedroom, and what appeared to be a storeroom. Led by the captain they visited each room and looked around, without finding anything.

“He isn’t down here,” said the captain. “More than likely he’s up in the tower. You boys ever see a real lighthouse? Well, then come on. You’re going to see one now.”

On the other side of the room an iron ladder led to a trap door in the ceiling, and that door had been pushed open. The captain mounted the ladder and disappeared through the trap, closely followed by the boys. When they stepped through the trap door they found themselves in the shaft of the lighthouse.

It extended straight upward for many feet, a spiral staircase leading up to the room which housed the light itself. The whole shaft was brilliantly illuminated by electric lights spaced along the wall, giving a steady light to the spiral stairs. At intervals along the shaft narrow slits served for windows, through which, in the daytime, sunlight poured into the column. Taking in all these details briefly the boys followed their friend up and around the shaft, step by step, until they came to another trap door, through which they made their way, and so entered a small room.

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It appeared to be the keeper’s chief room while on duty. Through it a heavy beam ran straight up to the lamp itself, which was in the room directly above. A metal shaft with a handle came into this room through the floor overhead, and the captain told them what it was.

“This is the room where Timmy stays when the light ain’t working any too well,” he said. “Sometimes the automatic machinery gets out of order and don’t turn the light, and then Timmy has got to sit up all night and work the thing by hand. Not the kind of a job to go looking for, unless you have to.”

“Here is where he placed the light, Captain Blow,” called out Don.

A narrow slit which served as a window had been cut in the east side of the tower and on that small window sill the keeper had placed the red lantern. They crowded around it and examined it with interest and curiosity. It was quite hot and there was no means of knowing how long it had been lighted.

“Got any idea of how long that lamp was there before you sang out?” the captain asked Don.

“Not a bit,” confessed the boy. “But I am sure it wasn’t long. I had glanced at the lighthouse several times during the beach party, in fact, I guess you all did, and it wasn’t there. It was while you were telling your South Sea Island story that I looked over this way and happened to see it burning here.”

“Mighty funny,” muttered the old seaman. “If Timmy isn’t up in the light, I can’t figure what could have happened to him.”

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The lamp itself was in the small room above the one in which they were standing and they climbed the short length of iron ladder and entered the room. A terrific burst of heat smote them in the face, and their eyes smarted from the blinding light which beat upon them as the lamp automatically swung toward them. The lamp was a huge affair, of shining brass, polished to the last degree, inside of which a powerful light burned. The light turned away from and then toward a thick plate glass window, and each time it turned toward the window a long arm of brilliant light stabbed out across the tumbling sea.

“He isn’t up here,” the captain said. “Let’s get down and look for him below.”

The boys were glad to leave the heat and the unbearable light and in silence they walked down the spiral steps to the room below. Once there they halted in the main room and looked blankly at each other.

“He seems to be gone completely,” remarked Jim.

“Yes, and that’s bad,” nodded the captain. “Something out of the ordinary must have popped up, or he would never have left the light. That’s against the law, and Timmy knows it. But the funny part is this: he must have known that he was going, because he left a warning light. I don’t know what to make of it.”

“I’ve got an idea,” said Terry, slowly. “Don’t know whether there is anything in it, though.”

“What is it?” asked the captain.

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“I was just wondering if the marine bandits had anything to do with it all. You see, they ran away during the storm, and we thought that they ran down the coast, but we don’t really know just where they did go. Maybe we’re just getting in the habit of blaming everything on those fellows, but I was just wondering.”

“Could be,” agreed the captain. “What is that?”

An urgent buzzing reached their ears, and they looked in perplexity around the room. The buzzes came in regular order, and after looking in a distant corner Jim gave a shout.

“It’s the lighthouse telephone,” he said. “The receiver is hanging off the hook.”

The captain went to the telephone which was a wall affair, and which was in a corner. Just as Jim had said, the receiver was hanging off the hook, dangling at the end of its cord. The captain picked it up and shouted into the mouthpiece.

“Hello! Who is this?”

An impatient voice reached him over the wire. “This is the night telephone operator, over in Maplebrook. What in the world is the matter with you people. Your receiver has been hanging off the hook for at least an hour, and I’ve been buzzing my head off. Don’t you know that makes a button on my board light up and a bell ring?”

“Sorry,” explained the captain. “This is Captain Blow, from Mystery Island, speaking. I came over here to answer a distress signal and I find the keeper has disappeared. The receiver’s been off the hook an hour, you say?”

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“Yes, about that. I’ve got a special line here from the lighthouse, and earlier in the evening the button lighted up and the bell began to ring. I answered it, but didn’t get anything or hear anything. I thought somebody must have just knocked it off and forgot about it, so I’ve been buzzing every once in a while. You say Timothy is missing, eh?”

“Yup. Guess you’ll have to get the police on the wire and hustle ’em out here. Is there a lighthouse keeper anywhere around that can be sent out here?”

The voice on the other end of the wire hesitated for a second and then replied: “Yes, the retired keeper lives here, and I can get ahold of him. Guess I better get him on the job until Timothy is located, eh?”

“Sure thing,” the captain concluded. “And get the police out here on the jump, will you, bub?”

The night operator agreed to do so at once, and the captain hung up the receiver. He explained the situation to the boys and then proposed that they look further.

“I don’t think he is anywhere around,” he said. “But we’ll look all over the place. No use in missing anything. All I hope is that he hasn’t met with any foul play. I’m going to look through these rooms again. Suppose you fellows look around the grounds, only don’t go too far away.”

The boys went out of the door as the captain once more looked through the rooms of the station. Jim and Don walked out to a shed in the back of the lighthouse grounds and Terry walked away alone, toward the end of the rock upon which the lighthouse stood. He was soon lost in the darkness and Don and Jim forgot him in their interest.

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A single shed, in which they found a rowboat and some canvas and rope, was at the back of the lighthouse and the boys made a thorough search of the place, but found no clue. They followed the spur of rock back toward the mainland until they came to low and marshy ground. Then, remembering the captain’s warning, they walked back toward the lighthouse, skirted it and walked out on the point of rock where it ended abruptly in the ocean.

Several minutes later the captain, standing in the middle of the floor of the bedroom, heard them enter. Don poked an anxious head in the doorway.

“Say, Captain Blow,” he said. “Isn’t Terry in here?”

“No,” answered the captain. “He’s outside somewhere.”

But Don shook his head. “He isn’t. We just went over the whole point, and he isn’t around. I’m afraid Terry has disappeared, too!”

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14. Terry’s Adventure

Upon leaving the two boys Terry wandered down a path that led to the other side of the narrow strip of dirt and rock which formed the needle-like point. He had no definite object in mind other than a hazy idea that each foot of the place must be gone over in the search for clues. So he headed for the side of the point directly opposite to that upon which they had arrived.

Although the underlying surface of Needle Point was of solid rock, the top, for a depth of a foot at least, was composed of soft soil, and Terry began to scan it for footprints. He had no difficulty in finding them, and when he did he was more than interested. Evidently two persons had passed from the north side of the point to the lighthouse and when they had gone back again their feet had made deeper prints in the earth. It occurred to him that they might have been carrying someone, and he had no doubt that it had been the keeper. Deeply intent on the tracks Terry followed them down to the shore and there paused.

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There was a single rock there that formed a natural landing place, though no dock had been constructed of wood. Here the prints of the men’s footsteps stopped and it was evident that they had taken to a boat. Where had the boat been? Terry looked out across the water as far as he could see but there was no craft of any kind in sight, except a very small rowboat that bobbed up and down a few feet away, tugging at the painter which held it captive to a stake which had been driven in the ground.

Terry glanced back at the lighthouse. He wondered if he should tell the others of his findings immediately or wait until he could find something else. After all, he had found out so little, and he wanted to push his search a little further before he told anything. Off to his right stretched the shore, a low-lying, swampy mass of mystery, bound up in a heavy fog which rose from the ground. He wondered if there might be some creek there which might shelter a small boat, and deciding to investigate, he pulled the small rowboat to him and got in.

“Won’t be gone but a minute,” he decided, remembering the captain’s warning. He found the boat a trifle wet, but making the best of it all, he bent to the task of rowing. The boat was light and he sent it toward the misty shore with swift, sure strokes.

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His idea was to press close to land and examine the mouth of any little inlet that he might find, so, quickly gaining the shore, he began to row more slowly, watching carefully. There were a few openings, he discovered, but none large enough to hide anything of importance, and so he kept moving onward, fascinated with the search he was conducting. In time the lighthouse got further and further away and he came at last to a point of land, shaped like Needle Point and jutting out into the water in the same manner. Realizing that he was getting quite some distance from his friends, Terry determined to round the point and give one sweeping look, and then, if he found nothing, to row back to the lighthouse.

Accordingly, he rounded the point rapidly, and almost ran into a long, low black cruiser which seemed to crouch beside the reedy shore. As soon as the boy saw it he knew from the way it was drawn up beside the bushes that it was there for no good. Hastily backing water with his oars, so as not to run into it, Terry sat motionless in the rowboat, looking at the cruiser which loomed not ten feet away from him.

He had feared at first that someone might see him, but no one was on the deck, although a light stabbed the darkness from a side cabin window. The cruiser itself had light, fast lines, with a sharp bow, narrow cabin with a foot of deck space on each side of it, and a small after deck, from which the pilot operated the wheel and the motor. Terry’s first thought was to row the boat silently to the side of the cruiser, stand up and look in the window of the cabin; but fearing to make a noise which might betray him, he decided not to do it. But he was more than anxious to see what was in there, and he considered the possibility of boarding the craft and looking in from the narrow deck.

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At first he rejected the thought. The better thing was to row back, get the captain and the boys, and come back in a body, trusting to luck that the cruiser would be there. But there was always the chance that there was nothing wrong with the cruiser and he would be wasting time. If the cruiser should sail away while he was gone he would never know for sure if it had belonged to the men they sought or not. No, he must find out at once and alone, so carefully pulling in his oars he quietly paddled the boat nearer to the cruiser, cautiously using only one oar.

Balancing himself and keeping the nose of the little boat from thumping the cruiser was a job that required skill, but Terry, concentrating every nerve, managed to do it. He knew that if any one suddenly opened the companionway door he would be lost, for a flood of light would instantly give him away. If that emergency came he was determined to push off and row for the shore with all his strength. When he got to the rail of the cruiser he slipped the rope around a support and breathlessly stepped onto the small afterdeck.

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It was one of the hardest jobs he had ever done in his life. The cruiser was light and weight, placed in the wrong place, would surely make it tip enough for those inside to realize that something or someone was aboard that had no business there. The chances were that the deck was tight enough to keep from creaking under his steps, but he had to look out for loose ropes or any other thing which might be underfoot. It was with a rapidly beating heart that Terry stood on the deck of the cruiser, listening intently for sounds, ready to take to flight at an instant’s notice. But after a few seconds, during which a low murmuring of voices from inside reached him, he came to the conclusion that nothing was likely to happen at the moment and he crept slowly and carefully to the starboard side of the cruiser, toward the strip of deck and the window which showed on that side.

Here again he had to be careful that his weight did not careen the boat, but fortunately for him the cruiser had been built broadly and it would have taken someone with greater weight than Terry Mackson to have tipped it. He gained the narrow deck and went down on his hands and knees, creeping along until he was underneath the window. Then, with infinite care, he thrust his head forward inch by inch and looked in the window.

Benito and Frank were playing cards at a small table. Both men, with cigars in mouth, were intent on the game. Beside them, on a bunk, lay the lighthouse keeper, or so Terry judged, for the man, who was tall and thin, was tied to the bunk and at the present moment lay looking sullenly up at the roof of the cabin.

Evidently Frank had won, for he pocketed some money with a grin, while Benito pushed the cards from him with a savage growl. The leader picked the cards up and placed them in a dirty box and Frank looked at his watch.

“Guess Marcy ain’t coming,” he said, looking inquiringly at the big man. “What are we going to do?”

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“We’ll go on down without him,” decided Benito. “Something must have come up that kept him. We might as well get back to the hide-out before somebody comes prowling around. No use in getting caught with him on our hands.” He jerked his thumb toward the man on the bunk, who turned and glared at him.

“The government’ll fix you for this, you’ll see,” the captive lighthouse keeper shrilled.

“Aw, dry up,” snorted the leader of the gang. “If you hadn’t put up such a holler because we tried to walk off with your brass telescope you wouldn’t be here. Lucky thing I dragged you away from that telephone, or you’d have the country down on us.”

“I will yet,” shouted the keeper. “Stealin’ government property and kidnappin’ a lighthouse keeper is a pretty serious crime. See what you get out of it.”

Frank looked at the big man. “What he says is true,” he muttered. “What are we going to do with the old fool?”

Benito shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “Don’t know yet. We’ll have to drop him somewhere far down the shore.” He got up quickly. “Let’s get underway.”

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So great had been Terry’s interest that he had not stopped to consider that he would not have time to get away, but he realized it now. It was but one step from the cabin to the afterdeck and before he could move Frank had made that step. Terry groaned inwardly, not so much because he felt that he would be seen at once as from the realization that the rowboat would be discovered. He waited for the shout that would herald the discovery, but it did not come, and in another moment the throb of the cruiser’s engine came to him as he lay there face downward on the narrow deck.

Later on he discovered that the thing which prevented his immediate discovery was the fact that he had but loosely roped the painter of the rowboat, and that it had slipped off and drifted away while he was listening to the conversation at the window. But at the time he was not even wondering, but was thinking seriously of escape. He could slip overboard and swim away, trusting to luck to remain hidden in the darkness long enough for them to get away on their run to their hiding place. The shore was not far off and he would have no difficulty in reaching it. But as he swiftly reflected upon his difficult position, he resolved to see it through and go with the bandits to their secret retreat.

The men evidently had some secret place to which they could retreat in case of a general hunt, and to find that place was worth the risk that he might run. Another thought was the fact that he did not wish to abandon the lighthouse keeper. He might be able to go for help later on and so be of great value to the man who was tied up inside. These thoughts shot rapidly through Terry’s head as he lay there in the darkness, and awaited the turn of events.

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With a speed that was breath-taking the cruiser began to forge ahead, and Frank, turning the little wheel at the top of the low cabin, sent it out to sea in a wide arc. The sharp bow of the cruiser hissed into the tiny waves like a hot iron, and the water, in long, graceful and curling billows, raced smoothly past the side. Benito went out on the deck and joined the smaller man and they talked together in low tones as the cruiser began its journey down the coast.

From where Terry lay he could still see in the window and he watched the captive on the bunk. As soon as Benito had left the room the man began to wrench at his bonds, but after ten minutes of futile effort he gave it up and settled back on the bunk with a groan of despair and rage.

Terry was fairly comfortable where he was but his chief fear was that either one of the men might look over the edge of the cabin and ruin his plans. But in all the time required to run ten miles down the coast neither of them looked in his direction, and Terry was carried securely onward.

They were now before a wild section of the country. There was not a light to be seen along the shore and the only sound, other than the steady and powerful throb of the marine engine, was the hollow boom of the huge waves on the shore. Terry judged by the sound that there was some shoal near the shore which accounted for the booming sound, for he had read of such things. And then his thoughts were diverted by the fact that Frank was throttling down the engine and swinging the cruiser around toward the shore.

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Little as Terry knew about sailing it nevertheless puzzled him as to why the engine should be shut down while so far from the shore, for he knew that they could not possibly drift in that distance. While he puzzled over this the answer was suddenly presented to him.

Something huge and black rose up alongside the cruiser and Terry very nearly cried out in astonishment. It was two or three full minutes before the explanation came to him. They were moored beside the wreck of a huge old ship, one which had been hard and fast aground for years, and because it was in this lonely stretch of beach it had never been burned or destroyed, except by the slow action of the waves. Frank was tying the bow of the cruiser to the splintered rail of the ship, and passing close to Terry while doing so. The task completed, Frank jumped to the deck and called to Benito.

“All tied up, boss,” he said. “Shall we lug that old boy aboard?”

Benito gave gruff orders and the keeper, protesting and a little frightened, was lifted from the bunk and carried out on deck. He was somewhat roughly shoved over the rotting rail of the wreck and the two bandits followed him. For another minute Terry could hear their voices and then all became still.

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He raised himself slowly, realizing for the first time that he was stiff and sore. Waiting for an instant to be sure that the men would not return for something, and finding at last that they apparently had no intention of doing so, Terry stood up and surveyed the old ship before him. He did not fully realize just what type it was, but it was a three-masted schooner of the old type, long and low, with splintered stumps of masts and broken wood littering the decks in every direction. Although it had been battered fearfully by the waves it had nevertheless been sturdy enough to resist total destruction, and as it was practically certain that no one ever visited it, it was indeed an ideal hide-away for the gang.

Terry was at first tempted to steal the boat of the gang and run back down the coast to summon aid, and could have done so had he known how to run the thing, but he knew that he could not and so gave the project up. The only thing left for him was to do some further spying and see just what the inside of the schooner looked like. To try landing on an uninhabited coast was pure folly, and as the future was uncertain he decided that his best move lay in inspecting the craft. Accordingly, he stepped from the cabin roof to the deck of the schooner, noting as he did so that it had been named the Alaskan in the days of its pride and glory.

There was a large cabin in the very center of the schooner and toward it Terry made his way, stepping carefully over wreckage which littered the deck in every direction. He doubted if the men were in that particular cabin, for there was no light, but as there was pretty certain to be a good-sized hold under the ship he concluded that the actual place of concealment was there. At the doorway of the cabin he halted and looked around, but no one was in sight and he made his way down three steps, coming at last to the floor. It was wet and slippery but perfectly firm, and treading carefully Terry made his way toward another door which he could see at the other end of the cabin. A faint light shone through this door and he knew he was close to the nest which the outlaw band had made.

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When he gained this door he found a new and safe ladder leading down into a large hold that took up much of the space of the ship. At the far end of this hold a small room had been partitioned off, and from this room a lantern sent its rays out into the big, barn-like hold. Terry crossed the hold, conscious of the lapping of water against the sides of the ship, and looked into the smaller room.

Benito and Frank were seated before a table, and the old lady who had been at the house on Mystery Island was setting some meat and potatoes before them. Terry had never seen the woman himself, but he was sure it was the same one from Don’s description of her. The keeper was sitting in a chair bound and apparently awaiting his turn to eat with sullen grace. From time to time Benito, who seemed in high spirits, turned to joke with his captive, but Timothy received all his advances with grunts and disagreeable faces, all of which amused the leader hugely.

Pressing back into the shadow Terry began to form plans for the rescue of the keeper. The schooner was large and he could hide away until the men were asleep and then, with the aid of the knife which he had in his pocket, he could liberate the keeper and they could make a dash for liberty. He would have to be careful in his prowling around the big ship, for it might be full of pit-holes which would seriously hinder his work. When he had rescued the keeper they could plan a way to escape, and possibly capture the gang. Of course there would be difficulties, but—

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A step sounded behind him and he whirled swiftly. But before he could do anything else a heavy hand fell on his shoulder and a man stepped out into the light. He was a heavy set man with a dirty, half-bearded face, and just now there was a leer of triumphant satisfaction on it. It was the man Marcy, the third member of the gang.

“So!” shouted Terry’s captor. “What are you doing here, young fellow?”

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15. The River Barge

Surprised as Terry was by the unexpected attack from the rear he nevertheless lost no time in getting into action. A second of numbed surprise took possession of him, and then, as he heard Frank and Benito jump to their feet, he pitched savagely at Marcy. A short-distance blow in the ribs almost doubled the man up and he grunted loudly, but his grip on the red-headed boy was not loosened. Twisting rapidly in the man’s grasp Terry tried to break away, but before he could wrench his coat free the others were upon him. They recognized him at once and lost no time in overpowering him. Flat on his back went the boy, with the three men sprawling over him.

“Let up!” gasped Terry, half smothered. “I know when I’m out of order!”

The men scrambled from him and Benito jerked him roughly to his feet. “What are you doing here?” snarled the leader, thrusting his face close to Terry’s.

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“Had no intention of staying,” panted Terry. “In fact, I was leaving when this fellow insisted upon my staying.”

“Don’t be funny, young fellow,” thundered Benito. “Come in here, where we can see you.”

Roughly propelled by a shove Terry shot into the smaller room and the men gathered around him. “Now, out with it,” commanded the leader. “How did you get here?”

“I was out rowing and I stepped aboard your boat, which brought me here,” said Terry. “All the way from the lighthouse.”

“Spying on us, eh? Well, young fellow, it will be a sorry night’s work for you.” Benito glared at him. “Where are the others?”

“Still at the lighthouse, I’m afraid,” confessed Terry.

Benito turned to Marcy. “Where did you come from?”

“Been on the boat all night, boss,” explained the other. “I didn’t go up the line at all. I was back in the old cook galley when I heard you come on board, and when I came in this way I saw this boy standing back in the shadows, so I jumped him.”

“Lucky thing you did,” put in Frank. “We’re having entirely too much trouble with these kids.”

“But we won’t have any more with this one,” promised Benito, grimly. “Put him in the cell.”

“I suppose it is no use trying to bluff you fellows into letting me go,” said Terry. “But I’m warning you that you’ll get in big trouble for this.”

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“That’s right, young fellow,” cried the lighthouse keeper, who was an interested onlooker. “We’ll make things warm for these boys once we get loose.”

“You’d better worry as to when you’ll be loose first,” sneered Benito. “Put him away, Frank.”

Frank opened a small door at the back of the room and Terry was pushed into a black cell. The door slammed shut and he heard a lock snapped. He was a prisoner on the old wreck.

Without loss of time he explored the small room in which he found himself and was at once convinced of the idea that escape was impossible. The cell was only a cubbyhole, with no opening anywhere, and the only article of furniture was a single chair. When he had become fully aware of his helplessness he went back to the door, and applying his ears to a crack, listened to the conversation of the men.

“Going to put him on the barge, eh?” he heard Marcy say.

“Yes,” answered Benito. “I’ll tell the captain to take him a good two hundred miles up the river and turn him loose. By the time he gets anywhere and joins his friends we’ll be out of the country and safe.”

Terry judged that they were talking about him and he listened for further details, but the conversation drifted off into other channels and none of it concerned him. After a time the men finished their meal, fed the keeper and then took him away somewhere. It was evident that there was a bunk room somewhere on the ship for the gang, for they put out the light in the next room and went away. A silence, broken only by the slapping of the waves against the wreck, settled down over the place.

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He made a few more efforts to escape, but all of them were in vain. The door was solid and resisted all his efforts, and there was no other outlet to the cell. Convinced finally that all effort would be useless, Terry at last surrendered to the inevitable and went to sleep on the floor.

He was tired and slept soundly in spite of the hardness of his bed and he was finally aroused by the rattling of the lock on the door. He had gotten very hungry and he hoped that food was being brought to him, but when Benito and Frank opened the door their hands were empty. He faced them defiantly, awaiting the next move.

“Good morning, son,” greeted Benito. “Nice day, don’t you think?”

“Is it?” inquired Terry. “I haven’t had my morning walk yet, so I really can’t agree with you.”

“You’ll get your morning walk right now,” chuckled the leader. “Come along with us.”

“Where are you taking me?” demanded Terry.

“You’ll find out in a minute. Hurry up, we haven’t any time to waste.”

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Knowing that resistance was useless Terry followed the men through the wreck and climbed the ladder to the deck. It was broad daylight and he judged it to be about seven o’clock. The day was not brilliant but the light was good, a smudgy sort of a sun peering out from behind the clouds. Terry looked anxiously over the water but there was no sign of any craft in sight except a dirty-looking barge which was moored to the side of the wreck. This barge was a large, sprawling affair, with weatherbeaten planks and a single raised cabin forward, from which a smoke stack protruded. Black smoke was pouring from the stack. A single companionway led down into the hold of the barge. Benito stepped to the side of the wreck and hailed an old man who was leaning against the doorway of the barge cabin.

“Hey, Ryder! Here’s your passenger!”

The captain of the barge, an evil-looking old man with white hair and long side whiskers, took a black pipe out of his mouth long enough to shout back: “Hurry up and put him aboard. I haven’t any time to lose.”

“Jump down there on deck,” directed Benito. “Lively, now.”

Terry obediently jumped down over the rail onto the deck of the barge and faced its captain. He looked briefly at the boy and then looked up at Benito.

“What do you want done with this boy?” he growled.

“Take him as far up the river as you are going and let him go,” replied the leader. “If he gets fresh, use your own judgment.”

The captain looked contemptuously at Terry. “If I hear one word out of him I’ll stretch him out with a marlinspike. That all you want me for?”

“Yes,” nodded Benito. “You do that and I’ll see that you get what is coming to you.”

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The captain of the barge looked over his shoulder and into the cabin. “Get up steam, Tod,” he called. “You, Maxwell, cast off.”

A lumbering big man appeared out of the barge cabin and cast off from the wreck. Someone inside started a thumping engine. After having cast off Maxwell went to the clumsy tiller and steered the barge away from the wreck.

“Look here,” challenged Terry, to the captain, “if you don’t want to get into trouble you had better let me go.”

The captain looked him over briefly. “Get down below deck and help the cook,” he commanded, and turning on his heel, went into the cabin.

All thought of leaping overboard and swimming ashore was out of the question for the mate Maxwell was keeping a sharp eye on him, so Terry went down the short ladder into the ill-smelling hold of the barge. He found that it had been used for carrying bricks but was now empty. In the cook’s galley he found the cook, a tall, thin fellow with the air of a country farmer. The cook nodded briefly.

“Hello, bub. You’re the new passenger, eh? Had anything to eat?”

“No,” answered Terry, and studied the man before him. The cook was only about twenty-five years old, and had a rather kindly, simple face, which habitually wore a serious look. The man did not look like one of the river men and Terry decided that he might find help here.

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The cook bustled around and got him some breakfast, talking all the while. Terry liked him more and more as the time went on, and afterwards he helped him clean up the galley.

“My name’s Jed Dale,” the cook told him. “Used to farm upstate a ways, but things got poor and I shipped on this here barge to go cook. I wish to goodness I was back on a farm again. We carry brick all winter and just now we’re goin’ to tie up at Summerdale for overhauling. How’d you get aboard?”

Terry told the man the truth, figuring to get the best results by doing so, and he was not disappointed. The cook shook his head when he heard the story.

“There’ll be big trouble when this is known,” he advanced. “I always cal’lated this outfit was more or less crooked. I’m signed with ’em for another year, but I sure would like to slip out and go back farming.”

“Then why don’t you?” urged Terry. “You have every right to break your contract because this bunch is not on the level. The very fact that they are kidnapping me is enough to get all hands in serious trouble. Help me to escape, and incidentally get yourself out of a bad mess.”

But the cook shook his head sadly. “You don’t know this Captain Ryder, or you wouldn’t talk so foolish,” he said. “A terrible man, this captain. Nobody dares to stand up to him. No, sonny, I couldn’t think of nothing so crazy as that.”

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All of Terry’s arguments failed to move the cook and at length the boy went on deck to look around. The barge was slowly steaming up a broad but deserted river, the banks of which were thickly lined with dense trees and bushes. Terry reflected that had there been the slightest chance of escape he would gladly plunge overboard and attempt it, but he was never allowed out of sight of the three men who ran the barge. The engineer, Todd, was a short, black-bearded man with a sullen expression, a fitting member of the crew of the barge.

After the evening meal something happened which won the cook to Terry’s side completely. The three men were on deck smoking, the captain sitting on a capstan, the engineer at the door of the cabin, and Maxwell at the tiller. Jed was below and Terry, who had wasted no words on the three men, was silently gazing shoreward, wondering what his friends must think of his absence. Realizing that he was each moment drifting further and further away he found his patience and temper hard to control, but knowing that any rash act on his part would make things harder, he waited with what resignation he could for some shift in his fortunes.

Jed came up on deck to empty a bucket of bilge water over the stern, and passing the morose captain, nervously spilled some of it near him. It splashed his trousers and one boot, causing the cook to tremble violently. A mean look crossed the face of the old captain, and he raised his boot, and launched an ugly kick at the cook.

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But Terry was too fast for him. He caught the foot before it connected with the dumb-stricken cook and diverted it enough to make the skipper miss his aim. And as the captain jumped to his feet, his gray eyes aflame, Terry clenched his fists and faced him firmly.

“I’ll break your neck, you meddling young soft baby!” roared the captain, raising his knotted fist.

Terry’s blood was up, for he hated cowardice with all his being. “You just try it!” he fairly hissed. “Go ahead, if you think it wise.” Suddenly he dropped his fists and stood face to face with the barge captain. “Do whatever you like, but I won’t hit you back. You’re an old man, and I wouldn’t hit an old man. But if you were twenty years younger and you tried to carry out your threat, I’d do my best to lick the ugliness out of you. I know I’d do it, too, because anybody can lick a bully and a coward. So go ahead and break my neck!”

The captain and his mates stared in amazement at the firm jaw and calm eyes of the red-headed boy. The captain swore loudly.

“You’d lick me if—if I wasn’t an old man!” he yelled with rage.

“You bet I would! But I’d be ashamed to hit an old man who is so wicked that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. I wish you were younger and I’d make you make good on that grandstand threat!”

The captain was not troubled with his heart, but it certainly looked as though he was. He seemed to be on the point of hitting the boy, but at last, muttering between his teeth, he walked into the cabin. The two mates gazed after him in speechless wonder. Terry walked quietly down into the galley and the cook followed him, dazed.

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“You stood up to him!” the cook exulted, over and over again. “By gosh!” Suddenly he smote Terry on the back. “Sonny, I’m with you! Let’s get off this old scow.”

They put their heads together and for the next half hour they made plans. At length, lighting his pipe and trembling with excitement, the cook went on deck and looked all around. The captain and Maxwell were nowhere in sight and Todd sat at the tiller, idly gazing at the shore. Jed Dale looked up and down the river and then returned to the galley.

“The sand bar I told you about is just two hundred yards ahead,” he whispered.

“Good!” nodded Terry. “Are you all ready?”

“Yes,” replied the cook, nervously wiping his hands on his coat.

“Then let’s get going,” said Terry, pulling his belt tighter.

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16. An Important Clue

To Don’s statement that Terry had disappeared the captain gave an astonished shout and hastened to join the brothers. Don and Jim explained once more how they had been all over the point without seeing anything of the missing boy. The captain was equally certain that Terry had not come back into the station, and with this new problem confronting them the three friends left the lighthouse and made a thorough search of the point.

But as Don and Jim had said there was no trace of the red-headed boy. They found the prints of the footsteps in the mud leading down to the other side of the rock, and Jim was sure that one of the prints at least was Terry’s, but that was the extent of their findings. They stood on the rock dock and looked out over the water.

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“This beats all,” the captain muttered, in perplexity. “We know that he went this far and then we don’t know nothing else. I’ve got too good an opinion of that boy’s common sense to think for a minute that he jumped overboard.”

“Yes,” nodded Jim, seriously. “He wouldn’t have done that, unless there was a good reason for it. But apparently the lighthouse keeper went the same way as Terry did. I wonder what it all means? Someone in a boat must have been waiting for Terry and carried him off.”

“I don’t see how that could be,” Don said. “No one even knew that we were coming.”

“Probably not. But it does look as though the keeper was carried off to sea, and Terry must have wandered down here, too. Somebody may have hailed him and taken him off in a boat, though I don’t see why he went without telling us about it.”

“Far as that goes,” observed the captain, “a good many things may have happened. If he doesn’t show up by morning we had better go back, get your sloop and beat up the coast looking for him. He may have lighted on the trail of that gang and is following it up alone.”

They went back to the lighthouse then and waited anxiously for further developments. From time to time the boys went out and looked around the lighthouse in the hope of seeing something that would give them encouragement, but nothing happened. The telephone operator called back to say that the police and the ex-keeper were on their way out, and three-quarters of an hour later they heard them arrive in an automobile. The police captain and four men arrived with the relief keeper and the captain told the story.

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“Mighty funny,” commented the police chief, while the new keeper went up to inspect the light. “If anyone took him away by force they’ll find themselves in for a lot of trouble. My men will make another hunt and I’ll look over every inch of ground.”

The police, with the aid of flashlights, examined the point, but found nothing new. As it was now growing very late the chief left one man at the station as a guard and the rest of them went back to town. The new keeper, a good-natured old man with quiet, refined manners, asked the captain and the boys to put up overnight at the lighthouse. Fearing that Terry might come back and miss them if they were gone they agreed readily enough, and the keeper was glad enough to have them stay. So they took blankets which the keeper furnished them and went to sleep on the floor, the captain, under protest, accepting the bed. The keeper expressed his desire to stay awake all night and watch the light.

“Not that there is any use of doing it,” he explained, with his slow smile. “But I’ve surely missed this old light in the last ten years. Seems good to be back on the job, though I don’t care for the thing that brought me back. But more’n likely Timothy will turn up again, and then I’ll have to go back to home life, so I want to set up and play lighthouse keeper once more.”

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The boys slept but poorly and were up with the sun, to go outside and look eagerly across the water for some trace of their missing companion. But there was nothing to be seen and they went back to the lighthouse, to find the captain busy preparing breakfast for all hands. The meal, which was an excellent one, was eaten in silence for the most part, and when it was over, and they had cleared things up, they left the lighthouse.

The relief keeper accompanied them to the boat and wished them luck. “If anything comes up here I’ll let you know if I can,” he promised. “If the boy turns up here I’ll hold him here until you return. Don’t you worry a mite, everything’ll work out fine.”

The run back to Mystery Island was accomplished in a very short time and the boys stopped only long enough to load fresh water on the sloop. A fine spring back of the captain’s shack supplied them with the water, and they filled the tanks while the captain arranged for a prolonged absence. The preparations on his part consisted of the act of leaving a big supply of seeds for the parrot and some final and solemn instructions, and then they boarded the Lassie for their search.

Under motor power they headed out for the south shore and passed the lighthouse at fair speed. They all agreed that the shore beyond the lighthouse would be the logical region to investigate.

“As long as Terry went down to that natural dock,” argued the captain, who sat at the tiller, “it looks like he may have been carted off—providin’ he was carted off—down the shore that way. Of course, it is possible that he was run up the coast, but we’ll have to chance that. The whole problem is a mighty ticklish one, and we’ll have to take chances.”

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They kept in toward the shore as closely as they dared, watching the shore for signs of large creeks or rivers, and twice during the morning they actually rowed up inlets for some distance to see if any strange craft might be hidden. But in each instance their search was in vain and they returned to the sloop, to resume their sail. From time to time they passed towns, small villages, most of them, but for the most part the coast in that section of the country was wild and empty of life. They ate lunch while still sailing, and the early part of the afternoon went by in the same manner as the morning had.

It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when they approached a small town which their map assured them was Scarboro, and Don decided to go ashore and buy some food. The chief of police had assured them on the previous night that he would have a general description of both Terry and the keeper sent all along the coast. The party knew that if anyone in any of the coast towns saw the missing men they would be held and rescued. They decided, therefore, after talking the matter over, to anchor for the night in the little bay at Scarboro and press on the next day. The job of simply sailing onward in hopes of learning something was disappointing in the main, but they had no other way of accomplishing anything. Rather than sit around at the lighthouse and wait for something to happen they decided to keep on hunting.

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They tied up at the dock and Don went ashore and to the town, a small community of shingled houses which clustered around a few stores and a postoffice. His first act was to seek the local switchboard and get the operator to put through a call to the lighthouse at Needle Point. That took him a good twenty minutes, and the result was disappointing. Nothing had been learned of the whereabouts of either the missing keeper or Terry. Greatly discouraged, Don went to the local grocery store and began to order supplies.

He was moving from counter to counter, picking out fresh and canned goods with a critical eye to their fitness, when a woman came into the store. At the time the place was unoccupied except by Don and the storekeeper, and she imitated Don in picking out her own goods. Don had glanced idly at her when she came in, and then looked away, his mind busy with his shopping. But as he waited for the storekeeper to wrap up butter he looked once more at the woman.

“Now, where in the world have I seen that woman?” the boy wondered. He looked searchingly at her sharp face, the plain black hat and the long musty looking coat. “It can’t be—jeepers, it is!”

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He turned his face away swiftly, his heart beating more rapidly as the recognition came to him. It was indeed the woman who had been in the house at Mystery Island, the one from whom he had tried to buy the eggs. Don could not help regarding the circumstance as a wonderful piece of luck. If the woman was in the neighborhood it was more than likely that the marine gang was there too. Of course it was always possible that they might have split up and she might be living here in the town, but Don believed that through her some clue might be found which would prove worth while.

He was careful to keep his face away from her during the remainder of the time that he was in the store and when his purchases were all made he left hurriedly. He feared that if the woman looked at him closely she would recognize him and be on her guard, but apparently she did not, for when he left the store she was busy selecting articles and paid no attention to him. Securely hidden behind a large tree on the other side of the street Don watched until the woman came out of the store and then began to follow her.

He at once marked her manner as she came out. In the store she had been free and easy, paying no particular attention to anyone who went by or to Don himself. The boy felt sure that she was not known to the storekeeper, for as he had gone out he had heard the man say, “What else do you want, lady?” Don felt sure that had the storekeeper known the woman he would have called her by some name, in the manner of most country storekeepers, but he had not done so, and Don felt that she was a stranger in the town. It was possible that the bandits’ boat was near and that she had landed to buy provisions for the men.

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Her first move, after looking all around the crooked street, was to go to the tobacco store and remain there for two minutes. When she came out she had a good-sized bundle, and Don was sure that she had bought a good supply of the cigars and cigarettes for the men. She had now apparently made all the purchases that she intended to, for, after another sharp glance about, she took the road leading away from the town and toward the beach.

Don was now sorry that he had such a large bundle with him, and after thinking it over for a moment he ran across the street and back into the store, where he asked the man in charge if he might leave the bulky package there. Permission was readily granted and when he had deposited the bundle behind a counter Don hastily left the store and took the road to the beach. He hurried on, fearing that he would lose the warm trail which he had been fortunate enough to stumble across, but when he topped a small rise he saw her below him, still hurrying along, looking from side to side and making for a particularly deserted spot on the beach.

Don was on a rise of ground which made it unnecessary for him to go any further. There were few houses below him and no part of the beach or sand dunes which could hide the woman, and he realized that it would be foolish to go any further. He crouched down behind some bayberry bushes and watched the woman, and a minute later he was glad that he had done so. The woman was glancing back of her now and she would surely have seen him had he been standing up.

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Arriving at the beach the woman waved her hand, and from the arm of the land which formed one side of the little bay a rowboat shot out. Don was now on the other side of the bay and could not see his own boat nor indeed any of the few craft which were tied up at the Scarboro dock. He was now overlooking a stretch of the beach and ocean which they had not yet seen from the Lassie, that stretch which they intended to examine in the morning. The only object in view on the water, beside the little rowboat, was an old wreck of a three-masted schooner, which lay on a sand bar a mile to the south of him.

The boat came up to the shore, and the man who was rowing took the packages from the woman and placed them in the boat. Next he handed her in and then resumed his place at the oars. With long, sweeping strokes he sent the rowboat along the shore.

“That looks like Frank,” reflected Don. “But I wonder where he’s heading for?”

It was some time before he found out. Until almost abreast of the wreck the rowboat was kept parallel with the shore. But as they drew nearer the wreck the man headed the boat out to it, and to Don’s amazement they went on board. Then, for the first time, he noticed the top of a small black cruiser beside the wrecked schooner.

With this information, Don turned and went back to the store, retrieved his package and fairly ran down to the sloop. Jim and the captain were sitting on the deck, anxiously watching for him.

“Hello,” hailed the captain. “We thought you had disappeared, too. Was just goin’ to send out a rescue party to look you up, wasn’t we, Jimmie?”

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Jim nodded. “We sure were. What’s the matter, Don? You look as though you had discovered something. Have they heard anything at the lighthouse?”

Don put down his bundle. “No, not a thing, but listen to this.” And he proceeded to tell them what he had seen. When he had finished the captain jumped to his feet.

“That sounds like somethin’ promising at last,” he declared. “The dusk is coming on and we’ve got just enough time to climb that hill and take a look at that wreck. Just lock up and we’ll go.”

Don locked the sloop and they went ashore, making for the hill which formed an arm of the bay. From the top of it they looked down the coast and Don pointed out the wreck. The captain studied it with interest.

“Big enough to make quite a hangout,” he said. “And just the place for them to keep under cover. Well, mates, what do you say we go aboard the three-master as soon as it gets good and dark?”

They agreed at once, and after going back to the sloop they ate a hearty meal. The prospect of action after so many hours of uncertainty was like a refreshing drink of cold water after intense heat. Impatiently they waited for total darkness, and even when it came the captain seemed to be wasting valuable time. The town and the bay had been wrapped in complete blackness for half an hour before the captain again told Don to close his hatch and get ready.

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They piled into the dinghy, the captain stowing a good flashlight in his side pocket. He insisted upon rowing out to the wreck, and although the boys protested, they finally stopped, knowing that he was better at it than they were. With long, steady strokes the old seaman sent the dinghy through the water, around the point, and toward the wrecked schooner.

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17. Aboard the Wreck

The row out to the wreck was a long one, but the captain, who was used to rowing, energetically bent to the task. The water was fairly quiet and the dinghy cut its way without undue bobbing through the gently rising sea. Before long the boys saw the great advantage of allowing the captain to row. The night was dark and the task of rowing toward the distant schooner had to be performed with accurate guesswork. They were sure that they would have had great difficulty in finding their way, but the captain, with his one view of the wreck and the direction of it, knew just how to keep the bow of the dinghy headed.

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Very little was said and the row took more than an hour. No plan of action was agreed upon, as they knew that events must mold their actions once they got aboard the hulk. Although they realized that there was a chance that Terry was not aboard and never had been aboard they refused to pay any heed to the possibility. This was the first opportunity they had had for action, a chance to release the energy stored up by their anxiety, and even if the object of their search was not there they hoped to capture the bandit gang.

They were almost upon the wreck before they saw it, and a half dozen strokes served to bring them under its stern. There was no other boat there at the time, and Don thought that the better plan would have been to tie up to the power boat which was probably on the side, but the captain was taking the lead in the silent attack and Don said nothing. They waited a moment before going aboard and listened, the captain holding the oars motionless. But no sound came to them, so the oars were carefully placed along the sides and the painter was uncoiled by Jim. Without making a sound he stood up, cast the loop over a broken upright of the stern rail, and made fast. They were now firmly tied up to the Alaskan and ready to go aboard.

Jim went first, pulling himself up by his arms, finding it quite a struggle but making it without noise. Don followed and then came the captain, and they were safely aboard. Their first thought was to look all around and get their bearings. The deck was deserted and only a faint light shone up from the companionway, but the captain hesitated to use the flashlight. Someone might be lurking on the deck and he did not want to take unnecessary chances.

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They could dimly make out the outlines of the wreck, and the little that they could see was clear to them from the glimpse they had had of her that afternoon. Right before them rose an after deckhouse and they paused behind this while they looked around. Satisfied with his observations the captain turned to his companions.

“All right, let’s go,” he whispered, and started around the low deckhouse.

But at that moment Don seized his arm and pulled him back. Down on his knees went the boy and the captain followed, as did Jim. They had not seen anything and the captain looked at Don.

“What is it, boy?” he asked.

Don’s whisper was the least bit agitated. “I don’t believe in ghosts, but look at that!”

They looked and the captain’s breath came in a sudden gasp. Jim clicked his teeth together. In front of them, between the first and the second mast, a white figure was slowly rising up into the air. Silently it rose, a shape clothed in white, and when it cleared the deck it hung suspended in the air a foot from the planks. The form was very much like that of a man, with a white head, arms and a body in a long flowing robe, though there were no feet to the thing. It swayed back and forth, dancing a bit, and then began a silent and weird advance toward them.

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The three crouching in the lee of the deckhouse did not know what to make of the thing. Being healthy human beings they scorned a belief in anything unearthly, but the apparition which danced in front of them was unlike anything that they had ever seen. The very way it advanced without a sound took their breath away, and the mocking way that it danced was more than disconcerting. The time of night, the mystery surrounding the old battered wreck, and the very blackness of the sea, was enough to make them feel their blood chill and to think all kinds of wondering thoughts.

The ghostly shape advanced to the mainmast and there stopped, gently swaying and dancing. Then it commenced to retreat at first slowly and then with increasing speed. When it had reached a point midway between the first and second masts it stopped altogether and remained suspended in the air, now almost motionless.

The captain reached out and touched the boys on the shoulder, and they drew close to him. When they had placed their heads close to him he whispered: “Looks like some kind of a game. They must have seen us coming and they are trying to scare us off. I guess the best thing we can do is to rush ’em, in spite of their flour-bag ghost. What say?”

The boys whispered assent, falling in at once with the captain’s theory of the dancing ghost. They had risen on their knees when something happened that checked them. A man came up the companionway and stepped out onto the deck, looking off over the stern.

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That checked them completely and bewildered them. If, as the captain thought, the unearthly shape had been placed there to scare them, the presence of the man, whom Don knew to be Marcy, was enough to disrupt the plan. It did not seem logical and so they halted, uncertain. Marcy looked over the side and then turned slowly toward the bow. And as he did so, his eye fell on the shape.

They saw his form become rigid and a low cry burst from him. At the cry the dangling ghost began its terrifying advance, jerking up and down as it came. At the same time a low, hollow whistle accompanied it, rising high and sinking to a sort of mournful sigh. Marcy gave a shriek of fear and mental agony and rushed in a panic down the companionway ladder, stumbling part way down. They could hear him shouting for Benito as he went.

No sooner had he disappeared than the shape retreated rapidly, and gaining the original position of midway between the forward and center mast, dropped out of sight like a flash. They saw it go down and apparently melt right through the boards of the deck. It did not crumple up on the deck, but went on through, a faint squeaking sound accompanying its disappearance.

“Well, by jumping thunder!” gasped the captain, “What in tunket do you suppose that was?”

Before the amazed boys could venture a guess, Benito, Frank and Marcy rushed on deck. That is to say that Benito and Frank rushed, but Marcy very cautiously stuck his head out of the companionway. The two men on the deck looked all around and then turned to Marcy.

“Where’s a ghost?” roared Benito. “Come out of that hatch and speak up.”

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Marcy ventured to creep forth from the shelter of the companionway and looked fearfully around. There was nothing to be seen and he was clearly at a loss. But he pointed in the direction in which the ghost had hung.

“It was right there,” he stammered, running his fingers uncertainly over his chin. “I saw it as plain as day, I tell you. It was about seven feet high and it burned all over, just like fire. It had a couple of horns and it looked at me with a horrible look on its face.”

The captain chuckled silently. “That lad saw more than we did,” he whispered.

Benito went around the mainmast and made a hasty inspection. When he returned he was thoroughly out of patience, and the waiting party strongly suspected that a secret fear was mostly responsible for it.

“Look here,” he growled. “You cut this stuff out and turn in. I’d like to know what your game is, scaring us like this? Do you think it’s funny?”

“It’s no game,” the bandit protested. “Anyway, it’s mostly your fault. If you and Frank hadn’t been talking so much about the ghosts that you say hang around all wrecked ships, I wouldn’t have felt the way I did. I tell you I saw something, and I’m leaving this beastly old hole in the morning.”

“You’ll feel different in the morning,” put in Frank. “What you need is a good sleep. Come on down and turn in.”

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The men were just turning to go down when the old lady appeared at the companionway opening. She was not looking at the men but beyond them, pointing toward the deckhouse behind which the boys and the captain were hiding.

“Well, old lady,” challenged the leader, gruffly. “What are you looking at?”

“I just saw a head over the top of that deckhouse,” the woman said, sharply.

The captain groaned aloud. He had been so interested in the proceedings that he had raised himself up higher than he had intended, and the top of his captain’s hat had protruded over the edge of the deckhouse. The old lady had seen it against the faint light of the sky.

“What!” shouted Benito, whirling around.

Don and Jim held their breath, but the captain saw that the time for action had come. Slapping them sharply with either hand on the arms he leaped around the deckhouse.

“Up and at ’em, mates,” he roared. “Give ’em all you’ve got!”

Alone, he charged across the deck at the three men, and the boys lost a precious second in gathering their wits. But when they did awaken to the situation in hand they ran around the shelter and raced after the captain. The three outlaws, seeing one man, had intended to stand their ground, but when they saw the two boys loom up out of the darkness they sprang into action in their turn.

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“Down the hatch!” roared the leader. The old lady, with surprising agility for one so old, had gotten out of the way and disappeared from sight. Marcy hurtled through the opening and jumped into the hold. Frank followed and Benito was halfway through when the aroused captain caught him by the coat tail.

“Not so fast, my friend!” panted the captain. “I have a little business with you!”

For a brief second Benito was in a bad fix, but his companions below seized his legs and pulled hard. The tail of his coat ripped off, the captain staggered back, and Benito thudded to the floor of the hold. Before Jim, who was foremost, could reach the companionway, the door was slid shut and a bolt slipped into place.

“Well, I sure spoiled things that time, didn’t I?” grumbled the captain, as he scrambled to his feet.

Jim was pushing fruitlessly at the slide but the captain pushed him aside. “No use in doing that,” commented the captain. “Hunt up a good-sized piece of timber and we’ll smash the hatch in.”

They located a spar that had at one time, probably during the wreck, fallen to the deck, and with this they savagely assaulted the sliding door. There was room for all three of them to get in place on this battering ram and they started at several paces from the door and ran at it, picking up speed as they approached it. The ram, guided by their arms, smote the door a thundering crack, and it shook and creaked.

“That won’t last long,” gasped the captain. “At it again.”

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They rammed it again and the door cracked from end to end. On the third attack it gave way with the sound of splintering wood, and the spar went through with a rush. With his aroused strength the old captain pulled the wood away from the frame.

“Now to clean these pirates out!” cried the captain, thrusting one foot over the broken frame.

But Don pulled him back. “What is that, captain?”

Beside the schooner the sound of an engine reached them. With one accord they raced to the starboard rail and looked over. Just as they did so the black cruiser drew away from the side of the wreck and made for the open sea. Frank standing at the stern, waved them a derisive farewell.

“So long, boys,” the little man hailed. “Say goodbye to the rats for us. We didn’t have time!”

“All the rats there was is on that boat!” rumbled the captain. “Slipped through our fingers again, by golly! Now, how in thunder did they get on that cruiser?”

“Search me,” shrugged Don. “There must be an outlet somewhere.”

Jim leaned over the side of the wreck. “Why, sure, there it is. The whole side of this boat is one big hole. While we were battering the door down they just walked out the hole and got aboard their boat.”

“That’s about it,” agreed the captain, looking over the side. “They had that opening in case they were ever bottled up in the place. Well, no use crying over things as they stand, but I am sorry I’m such a blundering windjammer.”

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“Oh, never mind that,” said Don, hastily. “All I hope is that they didn’t take Terry with them, provided they ever had him. Let’s take a look through this place.”

They descended into the wreck and readily found their way into the room lately occupied by the men. It was evident that they had left in a hurry, for a pack of cards was scattered over the table and an oil lamp burned in a bracket. A fire burned in an iron stove in the galley near the bunk room, and a few articles of clothing were hanging on a line near the stove. In a smaller room three bunks were ready for occupancy, with the covers turned back, and in a somewhat better room, nearby, evidently occupied by the old lady, a comb and brush stood on a rough box. There was no sign of any stolen articles anywhere, and they concluded that any such things were stored on the cruiser.

“Now, we’ll see how those boys got out,” announced the captain. Guided by his flashlight they went back to the main hold and walked in between the timbers. Before they had gone very far they found water on the floor of the bunk room and then they arrived at the opening itself. It was a great, gaping hole which the storm had beaten in the side of the ship, and because the hull was already resting on the bottom of the ocean it had not done any great damage. The hole was big enough to permit the men to pass out in safety to their cruiser, and a heavy plank had been placed from the floor to the boat. Don stepped forward but the captain drew him back.

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“No use in going any further,” he cautioned. “We don’t know where this floor ends and you might suddenly fall right in.” He flashed the light all around on the timbers, and the ray of light showed them to be covered with moss and green scum. “This craft has been under water during every good storm,” the captain commented. “They wouldn’t dare to use it during the stormy season, because they might be caught like rats in a trap if the sea came up. Maybe they just stumbled across it, or maybe they have been using it right along. I’d say that they had been doing that, judging by the way the blankets are on the bunks.”

“What are we going to do now?” inquired Jim. “If Terry was aboard they have taken him with them. I guess there is no use in looking further.”

But Captain Blow shook his head. “We’ve got some more investigating to do,” he announced. “Don’t forget that ghost. You know, we thought at first that those fellows had rigged that thing for our benefit, but it must have been rigged for their benefit. It looked mighty spooky the way it sank down in that deck, but there is some every day explanation to it, and we’ve got to find out what it was.”

“But we’ve been over the whole ship,” protested Don.

The captain shook his head. “No, we haven’t. There is quite some room up in the bow, and it doesn’t connect with this section of the ship. That ghost, or whatever it was, is up in the bow, and we want to find it right away. If we don’t it may run off with our dinghy and then we’ll be marooned for fair. Jim, step in the galley and get that axe by the stove, will you?”

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Jim procured the axe and joined the other two in the hold. Captain Blow led the way up the companionway ladder, and after making sure that the dinghy was still tied to the after rail, led the way forward.

“Now we’ll find out whether the ghost belongs to this ship, or the ship belongs to this ghost,” he said.

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18. The Ghost of the “Alaskan”

The stretch from the forward to the center mast was one waste of wreckage and the captain and the boys picked their way with care. At the time of the wreck and since then the waves had beaten that portion of the old schooner into a mass of tangled wood and rope, with hideous clusters of seaweed flapping over the rail. The captain played his flashlight over the planks and they arrived safely.

“Now,” said Captain Blow. “It was right about here that that spook was performin’. Let’s look this place over.”

He flashed the light all around and up the mast. What he found there seemed to interest him, for he stepped forward and looked more closely. Then he grunted.

“Look,” he said. “Here is a wire, running from this mast. Where’s it go to, I wonder?”

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The wire was just above the level of his head and he followed its course, to find that it ran from the forward mast to the center. It had evidently been hastily hung there, for it was simply twisted around the shattered poles. It passed directly over the forward hatch, which was flush with the deck, and that seemed to give the captain an idea.

“We’ll heave up that hatch,” he announced.

Don tugged at the hatch, his fingers curled under the overhang, but it refused to come up.

“Locked tight, captain,” Don said.

Captain Blow tried but was no more successful than Don had been. “We’ll have to smash it open, then,” he said. “Pass over that axe, Jim.”

Jim handed the captain the axe, and the latter, heaving it high above his head, sent it crashing down into the boards of the hatch. The crash sounded startlingly loud out there in the silence of the sea, but the captain paid no attention. Once more he raised the axe and sent it flashing down, and this time it broke through the wood. The captain began to chop around the hole and soon scattered the wood right and left.

“That’s finished,” he said, laying the axe aside. “Now we’ll look this ship over in earnest.”

He turned the beam of the light down and they saw a short flight of black wooden steps running down to the forward hold. The captain hung his feet over the edge and began to descend. Jim followed and Don came last.

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They made the hold in safety and paused to listen. The ship was silent except for the gentle lapping of the waves, and the captain turned the light on all sides of the hold. It had evidently once been a storage room for the schooner, for closets and chests were built into the hull and shelves ran to the roof that the deck formed. There was one bunk well forward and the light stopped there. They looked closely and at length Don spoke.

“Doesn’t that look like some one to you, captain?”

Before the old sailor could reply a blanket was tossed aside on the bunk and a man sprang up. He was tall and thin, with unnaturally bright eyes, and the captain roared recognition.

“Why, Timmy Tompkins! What the devil are you doing here?”

The missing lighthouse keeper came eagerly forward. “I thought it was you, Jerry Blow, but I wasn’t takin’ chance. I was lying down on the bunk in case it was one of them other swabs, though I couldn’t understand what all the noise was about. How’d you get here?”

“It’s a long story,” answered the captain. “No use in talking about it here. Suppose we go into the room that gang was using and talk it all over?”

They climbed out of the hold and made their way back to the after compartment of the schooner. There in the room where the gang had been they settled down to talk, after the boys had been introduced to the keeper. As soon as he learned that Terry was a friend of theirs the keeper had news for them.

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“They shipped your friend up the river in a barge,” he told them. “They ain’t going to hurt him, just going to dump him ashore when they get way out in the woods and let him walk home, that’s all. I heard them talking about it and this morning I heard the young fellow go aboard. He put up a dandy fight when he first came aboard but there was too many against him.”

The boys were relieved to find that they were on the right track and were anxious to start in pursuit at once, but both the captain and the keeper were against it.

“No use,” decided the captain. “We don’t know the river, and we might run aground. In the morning we’ll start early and run down on them. It won’t take your sloop long to run down a slow barge, and we’ll sure get ’em. They don’t know we’re coming and we’ll pounce on ’em sudden like. Eh, Timmy?”

“Sure thing,” agreed the keeper. “I’ll show you the mouth of the river when we go back.”

“Sure,” nodded the captain, lighting his pipe. “Timothy, do you know anything about a certain ghost that was playing around tonight?”

The lighthouse keeper’s eyes twinkled. “Well,” he drawled. “I shouldn’t wonder if I didn’t. I was the ghost, myself. But maybe I’d better tell you everything, from the beginning.”

“Maybe you had,” nodded the captain. “Spread your canvas, son.”

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“You know that you and me had agreed on that red lamp signal,” began Timothy, “and on the night of the storm I thought likely I might have to use it. I was up all night, watchin’ the light, as I mostly always do when there is a storm, anyway, and after awhile, along in the morning, I see a long black cruiser run up to the stone dock and ride the storm out there. Thinking that it just meant to stay there until the storm went down I paid no attention to it, but the next day, after the storm was over, it was still there, though nary a sign of life did I see on it. The door was closed and there was no movement on it, although I watched it pretty close all day. Late in the afternoon, when my curiosity got to fever heat, I went down and hailed ’em, but not a peep out of them. I thought there was something funny about it, but there wasn’t nothing I could do about it.

“Along about nightfall I got uneasy, wonderin’ if somebody wasn’t watchin’ the lighthouse and me, much of me as they could see, and so I thought I’d light the lamp and hang it up, so you could run over and keep me company. But I felt kind o’ foolish about it, especially as you always josh me about being scared, anyway, so I let it go for awhile. I kept looking out at the cruiser, and there wasn’t a light to be seen on it; either they didn’t have any or the shades was pulled down tight. After a time I got over my bashfulness as far as you were concerned, Jerry Blow, and I lighted the lamp and went up the steps to put it on the sill. I had just placed it there when I thought I heard someone open the downstairs door and come into the lighthouse.

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“It come to me then that if those fellows wanted to get into the lighthouse they must have seen me going up the stairs. You know what I mean, every time I came to a window in the shaft the red lantern shined out and I guess they must have seen it. So I hustled down the stairs, thinking that even if somebody hadn’t come in, it was high time I locked the door. I very seldom do that, you know, and I thought it was high time.

“But when I got down there I found the door open, though there wasn’t anyone in the center room. I knew I hadn’t left the door open myself, and I was suspicious, so I went and closed it, looking all around while I did so. Thinks I, maybe I had better look in the supply room and I opened the door. By mighty whales! what a start I got! There was two of ’em, that man Benito and the little fellow, examining one of the government service telescopes, a small one. I’d heard about them marine bandits and I knew these fellows was them.

“I guess they hadn’t expected to see me so soon and they looked mighty startled, too; though not for long. I tried to shut the door and hold ’em in, but they rushed it open and come for me. Remembering the telephone, I ran to that and got the receiver down, but it was too late to say anything. They caught ahold of me, tied me up, and lugged me down to their boat.

“I judged that they hadn’t intended to do anything like that at first, just thought they could steal a few things while I was up there in the tower and get away. But as long as I had busted up their party they decided that they had to take me with them, so they loaded me on that cruiser and started off. But we didn’t go far just then. They was expecting some sort of a visit from a fellow named Marcy, so they just run around a point and waited there. Kept me trussed up and stole the telescope.

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“Near as I can judge you and these boys arrived soon after and that boy Terry somehow got out to their boat, the cruiser, and was on it when they started up and ran down the coast to this wreck. He was caught out there in the hold by Marcy, and dragged in here. They put him in a cell and then turned him over to the barge captain first thing in the morning, with orders to drop him off a hundred miles or so from here. I wasn’t bothered much, in fact, those fellows didn’t know what to do with me, so today they put me in the forward hold and locked me in.

“I worked around in there and finally managed to open that forward hatch and I got out. I didn’t know how to run their cruiser and I couldn’t swim to shore, so I decided to play ghost. All the time I was in the hold I could hear those fellows talking, and they finally got talking about ghosts, in such a way that I knew they were pretty superstitious. Thinks I to myself, maybe I can scare ’em off of the wreck and in the morning make a raft and get to shore, so I went back into the hold and found a piece of wire, a string, and some white cloth in an old locker. I stretched the wire across the two masts, hung a loop over the top of the cloth, which looked to be somebody’s nightgown, and rigged up the string. From down there in the hold I sent it up and tried it out, making it go backward and forward. Just then this Marcy comes up on deck and gosh didn’t he holler! Soon’s he dived down the companionway I just let the sheet drop down through the hatch, closed and bolted it and waited developments. Next thing I knew there was a terrible poundin’ and running, and playing safe, I lay down on the bunk until I was sure it was friends that was coming down the forward hatch. When I heard Don’s voice, ’course I didn’t know it, but I was sure it wasn’t one of the gang, and I came forward to see you.”

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“Well,” said Jim, when the keeper stopped. “Your ghost gave us a scare, too. We couldn’t make it out at all, especially when it seemed to drop right through the deck.”

“Yes, you’re quite a spook, Timmy,” said the captain. He went on to relate the story in full to the keeper and then got up. “Well, let’s be getting back. We’ll have to pull up anchor and run Tim right back to the lighthouse, get a little sleep, and light out first thing in the morning after Terry.”

They left the schooner, after making sure that there was nothing of importance on her, and piled into the dinghy. This time Jim and Don insisted upon taking turns at rowing back and the captain allowed them, guiding them so as to keep in near the shore. Timothy pointed out the mouth of the river which he felt sure was the one up which the barge had gone. In a short time they were back on the Lassie and the sloop was speedily gotten under way and headed back toward the lighthouse.

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It was a long voyage, and pushed at top speed, and it was four o’clock in the morning when they got back to the lighthouse. Timothy and the captain ordered the boys to their bunks soon after starting, the keeper explaining that he could sleep during the day, the captain insisting that they would have a hard day before them. He promised to call them if anything unusual came up, but nothing did, so the boys slept soundly until the captain called them as they approached the dock at the point. Don shut down the engine and Jim tied up. In a body they went up to the lighthouse, to find the relief keeper and a police guard on duty.

Explanations were made and the guard and the relief keeper prepared to go back to town at daybreak. Seeing that everything was now in good order the captain and the boys went back to the sloop and slept for two hours. A mild sun was shining when Captain Blow awoke them.

“Let’s eat and get going,” he said. “That barge has taken a long lead and we’ve got to cut it down.”

Half an hour later the Lassie headed out to sea and the chase was on.

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19. The Escape

Jed Dale stepped on the deck of the river barge, smoking his pipe. Anyone, looking at him, would have noticed that he puffed at it with unnecessary force, and that he was highly nervous.

But no one was looking. The captain of the barge and Maxwell were in the cabin, and Todd, at the tiller, was gazing off toward the shore. They were coasting gently along a narrow part of the inland waterway, between two avenues of tall, thick trees. Tangled underbrush showed along the banks through the trees, but there was no sign of a single farmhouse. Only the puff of the barge’s steam engine broke the silence. The sun was going down, as faint and uninspiring as it had been all day. The barge swished unhurriedly through the black water.

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The only one who was watching Jed was Terry. The cook, still smoking, was slowly edging nearer to the man at the tiller. Todd, always contemptuous of the quiet cook, paid no attention to him. Terry, his jaw set and his mind alert, stepped casually on deck and moved nearer the cook.

Todd looked at him for a moment curiously and then resumed his shore gazing. Jed had sat down on the top of a small deck locker which was close to the man at the tiller. Terry glanced over his shoulder and watched the water ahead. On all sides but one it moved rapidly, but in the one stretch, that near the right hand bank, it was still and black. There, Terry knew, was the sand bank, the instrument which he intended to use for his escape.

Jed Dale looked at the quiet stretch of water, which was now drawing rapidly nearer, and then nodded to the red-headed boy. Terry nodded back and gave a final look at the cabin. The door was closed and all seemed well. Jed knocked the ashes out of his pipe and drew his long legs up under him.

The next few seconds were filled with action. Without warning the cook threw himself on Todd. The man at the tiller was taken by surprise and crumpled up under the sudden and astonishing attack. At the same time Terry seized the tiller and pulled it toward him with all his might. The barge changed its course with a jerk. The blunt prow swung for the shore and the barge ground with a ripping, jarring sound on the sand bank, hard aground.

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Sounds of crashing woodwork came from the forward cabin, the funnel of the engine collapsed and a cloud of steam poured from the engine room. A chorus of astonished shouts came from the cabin as the barge trembled on the sand, helpless. Without wasting time to look around Terry went to Jed’s rescue.

Todd had gone down like a log but now he had one hand firmly fixed in the collar of the cook. Terry realized, as he threw himself into the fray, that the loss of a minute would mean the end of their game. He could have easily leaped overboard and saved himself, but he had no intention of leaving the cook alone in the hands of the barge crew. What they would do to the unfortunate man was past thinking, and Terry put any thought of leaving Jed behind out of his mind. Todd’s hold was not any too good, and Terry seized his arm.

He bent the arm backward, savagely twisting at the stubborn fingers and the bargeman’s hand came loose. Jed was on his knees, out of breath and for the moment bewildered at the turn of events. He was not the type who leaps rapidly into a strange situation, and he hesitated now. But not so Terry. The door of the cabin was opening as Terry grasped the arm of the cook.

“Overboard, and make for the shore,” Terry gasped, just as Maxwell and the Captain stormed out on deck. Fairly dragging the cook Terry leaped over the rail and into the water. He had no idea how deep the water was, but he hoped it was not very deep. Both he and Jed were breathing heavily, as much from excitement as anything else, and he hoped they would not have to swim far.

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As a matter of fact, they did not have to swim at all. The water was just up to their armpits, and when they bobbed up out of it they found that they could wade to shore. The three men had now rushed to the rail and were shouting to them, and Todd was making their flight perilous by hurling at them large pieces of coal, which he got from a deck bunker close at hand. Besides wading forward as rapidly as possible they had to watch the flying coal, as one hit, especially on the head, would surely prove their undoing. Their flight through the water was maddeningly slow, as wading always is, and to increase their anxiety Maxwell leaped into the water and started after them.

“We’ve got to go faster,” Terry gasped in Jed’s ear. The cook nodded and plowed on, glancing back of him. Had not Terry urged him forward he would have fallen into the hands of the crew in short order, for his daring had quite melted away under the violence of past events. Luckily for them the barge had no small boat, and their immediate peril was the mate, who was forcing his way through the water toward them with savage determination.

The ground was becoming firmer under their feet and they were slowly but surely gaining the bank. A final desperate flounder and they reached the edge of the stream, to stagger onto the land. They would have gladly stopped there, but Maxwell was close to them and Todd was in the water following. Out of breath as they were, they had to start running as rapidly as possible through the woods.

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Terry’s first thought had been to stop and fight, but he soon realized the futility of that. Maxwell was a huge man and a brutal one, and even if Terry could have depended on Jed’s help, it would have been a severe and doubtful battle. But the cook was no help in the present emergency and Todd was coming fast. Abandoning the thought of anything so rash as a stand Terry did the only sensible thing and took to flight, the silent cook with him.

The fact that the light had disappeared rapidly was greatly in their favor. It had been just at sunset that they had attacked Todd, and now the sun had gone down altogether. Out in the open it would not have made any difference, but here under the thick trees a welcome darkness was wrapping the woods like a cloak. It was not yet dark enough to hide them completely, but just enough to aid them materially. If they could keep away from the bargemen long enough to allow total darkness to settle over the countryside they would surely escape.

Maxwell had reached the shore and was plunging recklessly into the bushes after them. They could hear him coming and a few seconds later Todd followed his mate. Terry decided not to try to hide for a time yet, but to trust to luck to outrun the men. They were active men and likely to give the escaped pair a lively race of it, but Terry was sure that he at least could outrun them. His anxiety was the cook, but so far the man had made no complaint and was running well.

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It did not last long, however. The cook seemed to lose his strength all at once. Even Terry, with all his athletic life to his credit, found the race cruel. His breath was coming fast, hurting his lungs severely, his legs felt as though lead weighed them down, and his eyes hurt. The cook began to falter and stumble, and Terry found his own progress slowed down as a result of having to give his arm to the man.

“I—I can’t make it, no—how,” gasped the cook. “You run on, bub. I’ll be all right.”

“Nothing doing,” breathed Terry. “We’ll look for cover and take a breathing spell.”

A dry brook supplied them with the very place of concealment that they wanted and they crawled into it. But instead of lying there Terry began to crawl along its bed on his hands and knees, finding relief in the fact that the leaves were wet and therefore helped by deadening all sounds. They followed this brook for two hundred yards and then lay still, listening.

The pursuing men made a lot of noise, but by its very nature the two in the brook knew what was going on. The men were uncertain, for they slowed down and began to talk together. Terry now had no fear of discovery, for the real darkness was coming over the woods and no human being could see them. Unless someone actually fell over them the chances of being captured were small. So they lay there, gradually getting their breath and recovering from the strain of the long chase. From time to time they heard a movement from the men and now and then a brief word.

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They had lain there for perhaps half an hour when they heard the whistle of the barge blown three times, little sharp blasts. “The skipper’s callin’ them back,” whispered Jed, close to his ear. Terry nodded but did not move. They heard the men making their way back through the woods.

Just to be sure they lay there for another half hour and then crawled out. After a conference they decided that they would be wiser to go away from the river and seek some nearby town, where the matter could be reported to the local authorities. Accordingly, they struck off in a direction north of the river and walked for two hours. At the end of the time they gave it up and came to a halt.

“Nothing to do but call a halt until daylight,” decided Terry. “We don’t know whether we’re walking around in circles or not. Perhaps we can get a little sleep, if we can find a dry place.”

“What do you think of building a small fire?” inquired Jed.

“Where will we get the matches? The few I had in my pocket are soaked.”

Jed brought out a metal case. “I’ve got some in a waterproof case. Do you think it is all right to make a fire?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Terry, thoughtfully. “We must be far enough away now to be able to do it with safety. It isn’t what you’d call cold out tonight, but a small fire will dry us out and help a lot. Anyway, the captain blew the whistle for those fellows, so I guess we needn’t worry.”

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“No, I think not,” answered Jed, beginning to gather what dry wood he could find. “They know that we have escaped and they’ll want to clear out as soon as possible. But I’m thinkin’ they’ll have one sweet job getting that barge off’n that sand bank.”

Jed made a good fire and they were grateful for its warmth. Under the spell of it the cook regained his spirits. He was glad to be rid of his association with the river crew and his admiration of Terry was tremendous.

“My goodness!” he exclaimed, talking about it. “I always sort of worshipped that captain, that is, I was scared to death of him. But you stood right up to him and told him if he wasn’t such an old man you’d lick him.”

Terry grinned. “I guess I said a few things that sound foolish now. That captain, old as he is, could probably break me in two if he wanted to. I guess the only reason he didn’t do it was because he realized that if he was ever caught he would suffer heavily for it. As to standing up to him, that wasn’t so hard, because I was thundering mad. I hate anything cowardly, and when I see it I always feel sure that I can lick the bully. Maybe you heard what Roosevelt said once, about Spain’s attitude toward little Cuba. He said: ‘When I see a bully beating a child, I want to beat the bully!’ Not classing you as a child, of course, but it made me boil to see him aim a kick at you.”

“I’m pretty much of a child in some ways,” answered Jed, seriously. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have been caught by that gang, and what they wouldn’t have done to me! You’re all right, bub!”

“Nonsense,” said Terry, hastily. “Do you want to get some sleep, Jed?”

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It was finally arranged between them that they would each take two hours of sleep at a time while the other stood watch, and Jed was the first to turn in. Finding a fairly dry spot under a tree the cook slept well until awakened by Terry, who then took his turn. In this manner they spent the night and when the morning came they felt much better, though very hungry.

“Now to find a town,” said Jed, as they started out. After walking for a half hour they came to a road and followed it into a fairly large-sized town. A sign on the railroad station told them that it was Brockport. They were lucky enough to find a restaurant open and they bought breakfast, which Terry paid for, as the cook had left all his money on the barge. Once out on the street again they paused to consider.

“There is the sheriff’s office,” said Terry, pointing to a weather-beaten place down the street. “I guess we had better report to him. Shall we go down?”

Jed, assenting, they walked into the sheriff’s office, to find the man sitting at his desk reading a morning paper. He was a keen looking man, with iron gray hair and a face that spelled outdoor life in every line.

“’Morning, boys,” he hailed, looking at them searchingly. “What can I do for you?”

Terry told his story in detail and the interest of the sheriff grew as it was unfolded. When Terry had finished he reached for a battered hat and took a shotgun from a corner.

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“I’ve had a few bits of trouble with this Captain Ryder before,” he said, grimly. “And I’m goin’ to get him now, if that barge is still stuck on that flat. Do you think that you can find your way back? If you can’t, we can go up the river bank.”

Realizing that they had turned and twisted in their flight on the previous evening the two told the sheriff that they were not sure that they could, so he decided to lead them up the river bank.

“I think that is the best way, after all,” explained Sheriff Atkins. “They may have gotten the barge afloat and we may see them coming down. I hope we get them. If we do I’ll lock them all up on your charge and others that I have.”

They gained the river bank and followed it up in the direction from which the boys had come. It was a good five miles to the point where the sand bar jutted out, and as they rounded a bend they could see the barge still stuck in the mud.

“Good huntin’,” nodded the sheriff, satisfaction in his tone. “Now, let’s hope the men are aboard. Say, what is that other boat near it?”

Terry looked and then shouted, “That’s my boat—my friends’ boat, the Lassie. I guess they were looking for me and somehow they got down the river. I wonder what they are going to do?”

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They could see the sloop making for the barge, with Captain Blow standing on the bow. Don and Jim stood in the cockpit, Don holding onto the tiller. The sloop was drifting. They heard the captain call out.

“Ahoy there, barge! Hand over that boy of ours!”

The three members of the barge’s crew appeared from the cabin at his hail. Ryder walked to the rear rail and shook his fist at Captain Blow. Todd and Maxwell picked up handles from the hand winch and waited.

“You keep off o’ here!” they heard Ryder snarl. “We ain’t got your darned old boy. Do you hear? Keep off!”

Captain Blow turned to the boys back of him. “Get ready to board ship!” he roared.

Terry grasped the sheriff by the arm. “They’re no match for that crew! Let’s hurry up!”

“Don’t worry, son,” said the sheriff. “I’ll see that no one gets hurt.”

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20. The Voyage Resumed

Securely screened behind a convenient clump of bushes the sheriff, Jed and Terry watched the scene before them, the sheriff smiling grimly, Jed intensely interested, and Terry frankly anxious. Totally unaware of their nearness the two crews faced each other, prepared for battle.

It was apparent that Captain Blow was thoroughly angry or he would never have even thought of risking the boys in a fight with the tough barge crew. He himself was well able to take care of Captain Ryder, but Todd and Maxwell would make short work of Jim and Don. And even with this knowledge in mind the cowardly members of the barge crew faced the crew of the sloop with clubs in hand.

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Don and Jim might have wondered at the outcome, but if they were at all worried, the fact did not show in their looks. The sloop was drifting straight for the barge and Don was trying to steer it so as to move up broadside to the barge, on the side turned toward the open water, for Don realized that the barge was aground and he did not want to ground the sloop. Jim was standing beside his brother, quiet and a bit pale, but determined nevertheless. All three of them felt sure that Terry was aboard the barge and they were determined to rescue him, in spite of the menacing attitude of the men aboard.

The sloop scraped alongside the barge and the captain, disregarding the nearness of Ryder, tied it fast. The work had to be done swiftly, for the barge captain, who had not believed the three on the sloop would go through with it, rushed to the point where the captain looped the rope. Blow sprang over the rail and faced the captain of the barge, and Don and Jim, with clenched fists followed over the stern of the Lassie. As Captain Blow closed with the old barge man, Todd and Maxwell rushed furiously at the two boys, their ugly clubs upraised.

To Terry’s intense relief the sheriff stepped out in plain sight on the bank and roared across the water. His voice acted like a shock on the combatants.

“Hey, there!” the sheriff bellowed. “Hold up that there play!”

All action came to an abrupt end and the party on the deck of the river barge swung around. The sheriff with Terry and Jed beside him, stood on the bank, his shotgun leveled at the crew. With his eyes sighted along the barrel he waved the gun slowly back and forth between the three men.

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“It’s Terry!” shouted Jim, and Terry waved to his friends. Captain Blow, who had a firm grip on the arm of Ryder, slowly released his hold.

“Get over here in your dinghy,” shouted the sheriff, keeping an alert eye on the barge crew. “Never mind those fellows. I’ll take care of them.”

Don, who was nearest, sprang over the rail of the sloop, untied the dinghy, and quickly rowed to the shore, where he was soon enthusiastically pounding Terry on the back.

“Chucklehead, you old rascal!” he exulted. “I’m mighty glad to see you.”

“Not nearly so glad as I am to see you,” drawled Terry, with a grin. “Let’s get the sheriff out to the barge.”

When Sheriff Atkins reached the barge and faced the sullen crew he nodded curtly to Captain Ryder. “’Morning, Ryder. Thought it was time I got hold of you. Didn’t think these two fellows would get to me, did you?”

“What do I care where they got?” snarled the captain. “You can’t hold me, Atkins.”

“Can’t, eh?” remarked the sheriff. “I can hold you on a couple of charges, but this one is the most serious. Kidnapping and attempted assault is a pretty mess, Ryder. If we hadn’t popped up in a short time you would have done some damage to these boys and this captain.”

“Right, sheriff,” put in Captain Blow. “We wouldn’t have thought of taking on these men except we thought Terry was tied up somewhere and we didn’t know where to get help. Much obliged for coming along when you did.”

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“Never mind the much obliged,” said the sheriff, briskly. “Pile these fellows onto your sloop and we’ll run them down to Brockport and the county jail. This is your last job, Ryder.”

With ugly looks but in utter silence the crew passed over to the sloop and the boys followed. A hasty search of the cabin of the barge was made by Blow and Jed, under the direction of the sheriff, who never lowered his gun, but as nothing valuable was found they left it and the sloop took to the middle of the river on the way to Brockport. The barge crew sat on the top of the cabin, while the others clustered in the cockpit, the sheriff’s gun pointed unwaveringly at the men.

“How’d you fellows come to arrive when you did?” the sheriff asked the captain.

“We got the direction from the kidnapped lighthouse keeper,” Captain Blow explained, “and we’ve been coming down the river all night. It wasn’t long after daylight when we drew near the spot where these fellows was, and we saw their barge stuck in the mud. So, thinkin’ our boy was on board, we got ready for a fight, but your artillery saved us from a terrible drubbing, I’m thankful to say.”

“Yes, I guess it did. Your boy Terry and this Jed, who was cook of the barge, run the craft on the mud bank last night and escaped. Oh, you fellows needn’t glare at Jed like that! Pretty soon you’ll be behind bars and Jed’ll be out free, where he can enjoy life like an honest man. So instead of clearing country you stayed to get the barge off of the mud bank, eh? Pretty poor judgment, wasn’t it, boys?”

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“We didn’t think that these two would get to anybody, and it looked like we could get the barge off’n the mud,” began Maxwell, but his captain interrupted savagely.

“Shut up, Max! Don’t tell ’em nothing!”

The sheriff laughed at the captain’s outburst of temper. Just then they sighted the dock at Brockport and sailed up to it.

The inhabitants were greatly excited when the sheriff marched the three men to the local jail, but Atkins calmly locked his men up and then rejoined the boys and the captain and Jed. They went to his office and signed a formal warrant, after which they went back to the sloop. It was there that they said goodbye to Jed.

They had tried to persuade him to come with them but Jed had other plans. “I’m going to work here in Brockport for a time and then move on, probably to get back to farming somewhere. The sheriff says he can get me a job in a store.” He shook hands heartily with Terry. “I won’t never forget you, bub. My gosh! how you stood up to that captain, and now he’s behind the bars. Some little fun we had together, eh?”

“We certainly did, Jed,” laughed Terry, his red hair bobbing up and down in the manner which had given him his nickname. “But don’t forget that if it hadn’t been for you I would never have made it. It was you who told me of the sand bar and you jumped on Todd. The best of luck, Jed.”

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Jed shook hands with the rest of the boys and then waved to them as they sailed back up the river. As soon as things were settled they all sat down and explanations came from each side. When Terry finished his story the captain was hugely tickled.

“So you just up and shoved that barge on the sand bank, eh? Jumping thunder, if that don’t beat all. You fellows do the darnedest things I ever heard of.”

The run back to Mystery Island took them two days, and they were glad to get there. They spent one delightful day with the captain and then got ready to resume their cruise. The captain went out to the sloop with them just before they were ready to cast off and shook hands.

“Come to see me again,” he invited. “I’m real happy to have known you. You will come again, won’t you?”

“We surely will,” promised Don. “And please accept our thanks for your very fine friendship and service, captain. We won’t forget it in a hurry, you may believe.”

“Oh, say, you’ve had that bandit gang almost in your hands a couple of times. If you run afoul of ’em again, try to hold on to them, will you?”

“We surely will,” said Jim, grimly. “I think we’re going to get those fellows, yet. If we don’t, it won’t be because we haven’t tried.”

“I bet it won’t! Well, so long, boys. And good luck.”

As the Lassie headed out to sea the boys turned more than once to wave to their old friend, until they could not see him any longer. Then they settled down once more to enjoy their cruise.

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21. The “Black Mummy”

“Say Jim, there’s a good-sized freighter.”

Don sitting at the tiller of the Lassie called his brother’s attention to a large black freighter that could be seen some distance off their starboard bow. It was several days later, and the three boys had cruised leisurely down the coast, stopping now and then at cities to buy provisions and see the sights. They were now near the coast of Massachusetts, not far from Boston, which was their ultimate destination. They had been sailing along under motor power all afternoon, and now, toward evening, Don sighted the black freighter.

The weather had been stormy, as Captain Blow had assured them it would be. He had made the prediction just before they had sailed, and the boys took his word for it. Wind and rain had taken up most of the cruise, but as sailing under such conditions was more interesting than calm sailing the boys had not complained or greatly minded.

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Terry and Jim looked toward the strange freighter with interest. It was a shabby-looking boat, with the paint peeling off the sides. It wallowed in the choppy waves about a mile to windward. During the cruise the boys had not seen many freighters and they looked eagerly at this one.

“Wonder where she’s from?” said Jim.

“Haven’t any idea,” Don returned. “Maybe it’s just some old coaler or lumber carrier. Quite a number of the old ships have been turned into carriers. Funny thing, look at those smokestacks.”

“What’s wrong with ’em?” asked Terry.

“There isn’t any smoke coming out of them,” Don said. “I can’t hear its engine running and from here it looks as if there’s nobody on deck. Get out the glasses, will you, Jim?”

Jim went below, to return a few minutes later with a pair of marine glasses. He looked toward the freighter.

“You’re right about the smokestacks,” he said. “And I wonder where the crew is? What kind of a skipper must they have on that ship?”

“He must be a poor one,” Don commented. “Hold the tiller while I take a look.”

Jim took over the tiller and Don looked steadily in the direction of the big ship. After a time he lowered the glass.

“I can’t make out anyone on the bridge,” he said. “Could you?”

Jim shook his head. “No. Take a look and see if the flag is upside down.”

“Why should it be upside down?” Terry asked.

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“If it is upside down it is a signal of distress.”

“The flag is all right,” Don reported a moment later. “That freighter looks strange to me. Shall we run close and look it over?”

“Yes, let’s do that.” And suiting his words with instant action Jim moved the tiller until the Lassie was heading toward the freighter.

“Gosh, we surely look awfully small alongside that baby,” Terry remarked.

“Yes, that’s a big ship. I notice that it is pretty low in the water, too. It must be loaded with something heavy,” said Don.

The sloop moved through the water at a lively clip and rapidly cut down the distance that separated the two boats. As they drew nearer Don trained his glass on the bow of the freighter.

“Well, jeepers, that’s a name for you!” he said suddenly.

“What’s its name?” asked Terry.

“Nice cheerful one,” grinned Don. “It is called the Black Mummy!”

“Oh, boy!” breathed Jim. “Some undertaker or grave digger must own it!”

They drew so near to the freighter that the aid of the glass was no longer necessary. Both Don and Jim discovered an important fact at the same time.

“There is no one at the wheel!” they said, in a chorus.

“What does that mean?” Terry asked.

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“I don’t know,” Don confessed. “The wheel isn’t lashed down, either. It must mean that either the captain and crew are all sick or there is no one on that freighter!”

“An abandoned freighter?” cried Terry.

“Possibly. If everything was normal there would surely be someone around. But something is wrong when there isn’t a man anywhere on deck.” He turned to Jim. “Suppose we ought to hail them?”

“Yes,” nodded the younger boy, promptly. “It might be that someone is ill there, and if that is the case we wouldn’t want to pass by without finding it out. Sure, go ahead.”

They were now close beside the freighter, and Don stepped to the rail. As the boys had noted before, boxes and fragments of rope lay tumbled about the deck, and the freighter was in anything but shipshape condition. The door to the companionway was open.

“Ahoy!” yelled Don, cupping his hands. “Anybody aboard the Black Mummy?”

They waited for a moment, Jim turning off the motor, but no reply came back. The deck of the freighter remained deserted, and the wheel continued to turn back and forth. Don repeated his hail but there was no answer.

“Well,” remarked Terry. “I guess we’ll have to go aboard.”

“Yes,” agreed Don. “We’ll have to tie up to the freighter, too. Our anchor cable won’t be long enough to do any good out here, so we’ll have to moor on to the rail of the freighter. Give her a little power, Jim, and I’ll tie fast.”

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Jim gave the Lassie a little power and drove the bow toward the stern of the Black Mummy. The rail of the freighter was three or four feet higher than that of the sloop, but Don waited until the bow of the sloop was almost to the ship.

“Give it the reverse,” he directed, and Jim sent the motor into reverse. With its speed visibly slackened the sloop approached the rail and Don threw the painter over the rail and made fast. Jim shut off the motor and the sloop rode gently beside the bigger ship.

“Well, let’s get aboard,” said Jim. “We’d better watch our step, however. No knowing what we may find on that ship.”

With hearts beating the least bit rapidly the three boys swung over the rail of the freighter and dropped onto the deck. They made their way across the deck, past the wheel and came to the companionway. Don called down.

“Anybody aboard?”

Only a mocking echo came back to him and they began their climb down the ladder. They found themselves in a passageway, with the galley back of them and cabins on each side. One look into the galley showed them that the crew had evidently left in a hurry, for pots and pans were scattered right and left over the sink, the table and the floor. Some scraps of food had been partially devoured by rats and the refuse lay on the floor.

“Well, there’s something funny here,” said Don, as he walked down the passageway.

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They looked into the rooms, to find each one of them empty. The largest of all had evidently been a bunkroom for the crew.

“Must have had a crew of twelve or more,” decided Jim, after counting the bunks.

There now remained only the hold to explore and they prepared to descend. The hold was reached by a trap door at the end of the passageway, although there was a large door on the deck opening to it. The boys raised the trap and looked down.

“Awfully dark down there,” Terry remarked. “Too bad we didn’t bring a light with us.”

“Yes, it is,” Don agreed, beginning to descend. “But we’ll just give a glance around. We won’t be down there long enough to need a light.”

The short ladder ended abruptly and the boys found themselves at the bottom of the hold. In the darkness they could see lumber piled around them. It had been originally stacked high, but the movement of the waves had caused it to fall together in the middle, forming a complicated and tangled barrier.

“Just as I figured,” said Jim. “It’s a lumber barge. But whoever stacked that lumber made a lousy job of it. It should have been braced, and instead of that it was allowed to stand by itself. Now look at it!”

They decided that lumber was the only thing to be found in the hold, and turned to leave. At that moment there came a terrific pounding somewhere near them. Startled, the boys looked at each other.

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“Hey, what’s that?” gasped Jim.

“Must be something knocking on the bottom of the boat,” guessed Terry.

The knocking came again, and the boys listened keenly. Don turned startled eyes toward the others.

“What do you make of it?” Jim whispered.

“Someone, or something, is down under those boards!” was Don’s reply.

For a moment Jim stared at him. “What are we going to do?”

“We’ll have to go back to the Lassie, bring lanterns and go to work on that tangle of lumber,” Don answered.

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22. The Secret of the Freighter

The boys left the hold of the freighter and made their way over the deck to the sloop. What little light there had been was now dying down and a wall of darkness was sweeping over the ocean. Unnoticed even by themselves, a silence had fallen over the boys.

They got lanterns in the hold of the Lassie and paused long enough to light them. When this had been done they once more climbed aboard the freighter, their lights twinkling out against the darkness. The freighter was gently pitching and tossing, and the loose gear was sliding all over the deck.

“I guess I’ll lash that wheel down,” Don decided, as they crossed the deck. He handed his lantern to Terry and locked the thrashing wheel in place. Instantly, the lumber boat rode more smoothly and evenly.

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“That will keep the lumber from bouncing around when we go to work down there,” said Jim. “But say, suppose it was only a rat that we heard!”

“It could hardly be that,” Terry answered. “A rat could never make a pounding like that. We’ll just have to go to it and shift that lumber.”

Once more they descended into the hold and looked for pegs to hang up the lanterns. Finding convenient nails hanging from crossbeams they hung the lamps and looked over the tangle of lumber.

“Let see how this works,” suggested Don. Cupping his hands he called: “Hello! Anybody in this place?”

Almost immediately the thumping came to them from beneath the lumber. The boys looked at each other.

“Somebody is under there, sure as I’m standing here,” said Jim.

“Yes, that’s sure,” nodded Don, stooping over the first piece of lumber. “Let’s get going.”

He dragged one board toward him and Jim quickly took hold of the other end. Between them they swung it to one side and began the base of an orderly pile. Terry had started another and they swung that up.

“It is going to take us some time,” said Don. “But we can do it if we’re careful of the way we pile it.”

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The lumber had been originally piled in orderly stacks, but a lack of proper bracing had allowed it to fall, probably under the pitching and rolling of the freighter. It had evidently been tossed around like match sticks, for it was badly tangled, and the boys found some difficulty in getting hold of some of the pieces. Fortunately for them there was enough room to one side to pile the pieces up neatly, and they worked rapidly and silently, realizing that it was necessary to save breath.

From time to time the thumping continued, and the boys shouted encouragement to the author of the noise. As nearly as they could judge the sound came from the very center of the pile, and they were puzzled as to how anyone could be held captive under such a load and still make a noise.

“Unless,” decided Terry. “The lumber has formed some kind of a house or shelter over his head and he is safe in there.”

Before very long the perspiration was running in small streams down the foreheads of the toiling boys, and their breath was coming with increasing difficulty. The air in the hold was not good, as not very much circulated down from above, and they found themselves longing for a breath of the invigorating salt air. But they did not slow up in their job; they piled lumber to one side with a will, the new pile riding above their heads.

“We’re getting near to the bottom,” panted Jim, after they had worked for an hour and a half.

He spoke the truth, for they were now within a foot of the bottom of the pile. Gathering their strength together the boys increased their speed and gathered up the remaining boards. As they got to the bottom Don said:

“This explodes Terry’s theory. There isn’t room enough under these boards for anyone to even lie down.”

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They had now reached the last board and they cleared it aside. As soon as it was disposed of they saw an iron ring and a trap door in the floor of the hold.

“Oh,” exclaimed Jim, as he bent over the ring. “The banging must have been coming from underneath this door.”

They took hold of the ring and pulled, and the trap door swung upward, to drop over backward with a crash. There was a movement in the darkness below and then a shaggy head was poked out of the trap. It was a wild-looking face, thickly bearded, with two burning eyes fixed in sunken skin. The man reached toward them, clutched with one hand, and then fell forward, his eyes closed.

“Quick,” ordered Don, bending over him. “He’s fainted. No knowing how long he has been down there. We’ve got to get him on deck.”

It was not easy to raise the man out of the hole and carry him on deck, for he was a heavy-set man, but the boys did it somehow. The hardest part was getting him up the ladder, but that, too, was accomplished and they placed him on the deck. Then, while Terry went to get the lanterns Don and Jim poured water over the man’s face and rubbed his wrists. After Terry had set the lanterns in a circle on the deck the man opened his eyes and looked around him.

“By golly,” he said in a deep voice. “Vot der dunder happened to dis ship? Vere is der crew?”

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Don shook his head. “You’ve got me. We were cruising by in a sloop and we saw the freighter apparently deserted. We were down in the hold when we heard your knocking and we moved the lumber to find you. How long have you been down there?”

The captain sat up and rubbed his shaggy head. “I dink a million years, but more like idt iss a day. You zee, my crew one terrible superstitious bunch of foreigners, and I vind t’at some of dem get ahold of some licker. I dink to myself dat maybe somebody hide it in dat hole down dere, so I go down to look. Well, at dere time de ship she roll and roll and dat lumber not too steady, I see, and I say to myself, ‘Captain Jan Vulfer, you beeg fool,’ but I go all der same. I not dell my crew dat I go. Vell, ven I am in dat hole der boat give vun beeg rock and down come de lumber, making of me a prisoner. I yell and pound but nobody come near me. Vun leetle candle dat I had vent oudt, and I been dere until I hear you boys and den I pound some more.”

“Yes,” said Jim. “We thought somebody was caught under the lumber and we dug you out. Good thing we came along when we did, or you would have died in there.”

The skipper nodded solemnly. “You bet you! You nefer know how much I appreciate vot you done.” He looked around the ship. “Dot cowardly crew must haf thought I was took avay py spooks and dey run avay from der ship. By golly, I get dem back!”

“I guess that’s the answer,” said Don. “Suppose we get you something to eat, captain?”

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The captain jumped to his feet with alacrity. “Done!” he shouted. “Vot you got to eat? If you run short, ve got plenty on der Plack Mummy.”

“We have plenty,” laughed Jim. “Want to come aboard the sloop, captain?”

The captain assented and they helped him over the rail to the sloop, where Jim quickly prepared a substantial meal for him. While he ate he told them that he was a skipper for a local firm from Maine, who shipped lumber, and that he had been given an especially unruly crew on this last voyage. He was determined to get them back to the ship. Meanwhile, he assured the boys of his gratitude to them.

“Look at your hands,” he said, “all filled up mit blisters. By golly, you fine fellows to work like der dickens for me.”

“Nonsense,” laughed Terry. “You wouldn’t expect us to go away and leave you there in that hold, would you?”

Captain Vulfer shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Maype lots of fellows vouldn’t go down in dot hold ven dey hear dot hammering. I bet you my life idt sounded mighty like spooks, eh?”

“Yes, it was a bit scary,” the boys admitted.

The boys and the skipper slept on the deck of the freighter that night and early in the morning the captain was up and moving about. He was in good spirits and the boys found that they liked him very much. He combined a fund of good humor and keen business sense, and he could be authoritative and energetic when he wanted to be. He thought his crew would be found close by at some shore resort and asked the boys if they would run him ashore.

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This they readily agreed to do, and after a hearty breakfast on the sloop they got under way. It took them three hours to run to shore, and they visited two small towns without finding any trace of the runaway crew. But the Dutch captain was not cast down.

“Ve’ll surely vind dem,” he told them. “You zee, dey run away from der ship in fear, but dey von’t know vot to do mit demselfs. Dey can’t get anodder job until dey bring dat ship in, and I bet you ve find dem drinkin’ dere head off in some blace.”

In a cheap hotel in the third town they found the missing crew. All of them were sitting in the bar when Captain Vulfer walked into the place, his arms folded and his brows knitted together. Surprise and disbelief greeted the skipper as his motley crew saw him towering before them.

“So!” thundered the skipper, as the boys looked on from the doorway. “Dis iss vere I vind you, hey? Joost because I go down der hold and take maype a little nap behind der lumber. You cowardly children! Unless you make one hurry up back to der boat I get you all put behind der bars in Portsmouth ven I get dere. Scatter, you dunder and blitzen mice!”

The crew scattered. With eyes popping out of their heads they made a rush for the long boat in which they had come ashore. And right behind them, cruising slowly in the Lassie, came their watchful skipper. He made them row back to the freighter, and once aboard he drove them with a will of iron to clean up the ship.

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Just before leaving the boys the skipper shook each one cordially by the hand and pressed a beautiful hand-carved model of a full-rigged ship upon them.

“Joost something dot I make myself,” he said. “You maybe keep it vor your clubhouse, eh? Bye, bye. I never forget you, py golly.”

They waved to the captain as he leaned over the rail, until the low-lying Black Mummy passed out of sight under full power.

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23. The Chandler’s Shop

A few days after the events aboard the black freighter the boys landed from the Lassie in Boston. They had been to the city once before when they were younger, but neither of them remembered the place. Terry had never been there, although he had always wanted to go. So it was with eager interest that the three boys looked around the famous city.

Before leaving on the cruise their father had given them a letter to a former business partner by the name of Ferris, and soon after landing in the city the boys looked him up. They found him in his office, busily engaged in his work as an importer. He scanned the letter Don handed to him from his father and his clear-cut face lighted up in recognition.

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“Well, well,” exclaimed Mr. Ferris, as he smilingly shook hands with the boys. “So these are the Mercer boys and their friend, eh? I’m very happy to know you, I’m sure. How is dad?”

Mr. Ferris turned out to be an excellent host. He insisted on finishing up his business with unusual rapidity and then taking them around Boston. Some of the sections of particular interest were covered on foot and some in Mr. Ferris’ own car. The boys visited all of the historic houses in the city and the monument at Bunker Hill. And at the end of the day their host took them to his own house, a magnificent place on one of the fine, secluded old drives of the city. There the boys were made perfectly at home, and that night, after a delightful evening spent with the Ferris family, which consisted of two young daughters and Mrs. Ferris, beside Mr. Ferris, they slept in real beds once more.

“By golly, it surely feels good,” commented Jim, as he snuggled down in the large bed which had been made ready for him.

“No doubt that it does,” retorted Terry, who was to occupy the same bed. “But I’d thank you to move over, instead of sprawling all over the bed as if it was yours.”

“If you want any of it, you’ll have to fight for it, Chucklehead,” taunted Jim.

But when Don saw the light of mischief that leaped into Terry’s eyes he promptly vetoed the proposition.

“Nothing doing, you two,” he warned. “That would be all right if we were out on the boat, but we’re not. You can’t roughhouse in here. You’ll have to move over, Jim.”

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Jim sighed. “Suppose I’ll have to. But anywhere else Terry would have to win his half of this bed! I got here first!”

On the following day, after the boys had enjoyed a splendid night’s rest, Mr. Ferris took the day off to entertain them. Although the boys did not know very much about the gentleman they did know that he had been very intimate with their father several years ago, and so they appreciated his efforts in their behalf. They spent most of the day simply enjoying themselves around the house, and in the afternoon Don proposed that they visit some chandler shops near the waterfront.

“We might be able to pick up something useful for the sloop,” he suggested. “We broke the frame of one porthole, and I’d like to hunt up a new one.”

Mr. Ferris knew the location of several ship shops and the boys visited one or two of them, but were unable to find a porthole frame to fit the one which had been broken on the Lassie. After they had visited the larger shops Don was ready to give it up.

“I guess we’ll have to order one, to be made special,” he said.

But Mr. Ferris knew of one more shop that they had not visited. It was down in a small alley that ran off the docks, he said, and while it was not much of a place, he felt that they might have the good luck to find what they were in search of. So they drove down to the docks in his car and parked near the mouth of the alley. Midway down this dark street they found the place, a dark little hole in the wall, and they entered.

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The proprietor, a little humpbacked man, appeared with wonderful rapidity from a green curtain at the back of the darkened store and waited on them. Don looked over his badly arranged stock of ship fittings in the corner and Terry and Jim wandered around the store, examining various articles. The store was not in any way neat, ropes, clocks, wheels, anchors, glasses and other articles being piled carelessly all over the place. Mr. Ferris stood with Don, looking over the porthole fittings.

Don had found what he was looking for, and he examined it with unusual care, to make sure that there was no flaw in it. The portholes on the sloop were of an odd size and he had had to use unusual care in selecting one to fit it. After looking this particular one over he decided that it would do.

“This one is all right,” he told the proprietor. “I’ll take it.”

The owner went to wrap it up and Don turned his attention to other objects. He noticed that Jim was standing apart examining a ship’s clock, but thought nothing further about it at the time. But he would have been more curious had he known what was attracting his brother’s attention.

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Jim had been picking up various articles during the time in which Don was looking over the porthole frame, and his attention had been especially drawn to the few ships’ clocks that the chandler had on display. One of them attracted him more than the others and he picked it up and looked closely at it. He turned it over in his hand, a puzzled look on his face.

“Jeepers, that looks like my clock, the one that was stolen,” he muttered.

Out of the corner of his eye he noted that the dealer was wrapping up Don’s purchase and he acted upon a thought which came to him. It was more of a memory than a thought, for he had just remembered that he had scratched his initials on one of the flanges on the back of his clock. Quickly he turned the clock over, tilted it up, and on the ornamental overhang of the clock he saw faintly the markings “J. M. M.” Without a doubt it was his own clock.

Without saying anything he put the clock back and they all went out of the shop. It was not until they had left the neighborhood that he asked Mr. Ferris to draw up to the curb while he told his story. It created quite a sensation.

“Then that’s the headquarters of the marine bandits,” declared Don, with conviction.

“Well, you can’t be sure of that,” said Mr. Ferris. “It is possible that the man might have simply bought stolen goods. But we’ll report this to the police at once. It is well worth knowing, and we may be on the right track, or have a very valuable clue.”

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Without loss of time they went to the nearest police station and reported the matter to the local chief. He was much interested.

“This may prove to be a big thing,” he said, pushing a row of buttons on his desk. “We’ve been after these fellows all along the waterfront for a long time, but up until now they have managed to slip through our hands with ease. This may be the finishing touch. I’ll put my men on the trail at once.”

Several detectives reported to the chief, who informed them of the details of a raid which he planned. He decided to go down personally and the boys begged to be allowed to go. He assented and they rode down in Mr. Ferris’ car.

“We’ll go around to the alley at the back,” the chief decided. “I have men who are to raid the place in the front and I think it best that we look in at the rear. There may be some means of exit there that will bear watching.”

They ran down the alley that passed back of the ship chandler’s place and sat in the car, waiting. After what seemed like a long time a whistle suddenly shrilled out from the other street. Instantly the captain was out of the car, the boys and Mr. Ferris following.

“I guess we can get in this way,” the chief said, leading the way between two narrow houses. They arrived at the back of the shop in time to see two detectives come out with two men, one of whom was Frank and the other the man called Marcy.

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“Got these two sleeping in the back, chief,” one of the detectives said. “The boss of the place is out front, safely collared. I guess this is a dumping ground, all right. The cellar is full of stuff.”

“Do you boys know either of these men?” asked the chief.

“Indeed we do,” answered Don. “This man Frank helped to imprison me, and later on he tried to capture the sloop when Terry was on board. The other man is the one who followed me through the cellar at Mystery Island.”

“I wonder what became of Benito the leader?” mused Jim.

One of the detectives shook the two captives. “Where is your leader?” asked the detective.

“Don’t know,” said Frank, sullenly.

“Look here,” said the detective. “We——”

At that moment a small door in a house a short distance from the chandler’s shop opened suddenly and a man bolted out. The boys recognized him at once.

“Benito!” shouted Don and Jim, in a breath.

The man hesitated for a second and then began to run. But that second was his undoing. Just as the chief started after him Terry launched into action. He was nearest and he moved swiftly. A few running steps he took and then dived in a fine football tackle, catching the running bandit just at the knees. Benito went down like a log, and before he could get up the chief and the boys were upon him.

“Got you this time,” panted Terry. “First down and goal to go, though you won’t be worrying about that now.”

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They lifted the leader of the gang to his feet and handcuffed them all. The chief was pleased with the day’s work.

“Fine work, my boys,” he cried, enthusiastically. “I think this spells the end of that marine bandit gang.”

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24. The End of the Cruise

The boys learned that there was a large reward due them for the capture of the marine bandits, for several wealthy boat owners who had suffered from the outlaws had long ago banded together and offered a reward for any information leading to the arrest of the men. There would be some little official delay, they learned, but it would come to them in the near future.

On the following day they left their kind host and his family and began the return cruise. The summer was now drawing to a close and they were beginning to think seriously of the fall activities. They found that they had just time to sail home without rushing and it was with light hearts that they sailed out of Boston harbor on their return trip.

209

“Presuming that we won’t meet up with any more bandits or old houses on mysterious islands, we ought to get home in about one-third less time than it took us to sail down,” Don remarked, as he sat by the tiller.

“We’ll try hard to keep out of trouble,” grinned Jim. “Maybe if we steer far enough away from the shore we can manage to do it!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Terry put in. “I rather enjoyed it all.”

“No doubt,” Don agreed. “It is great sport when it is over. Only, at the time you don’t know what is going to turn up and you get to worrying pretty much. When I was a prisoner in the old house I couldn’t see any way out to save my neck.”

“That’s the big part of it,” said Jim. “We might have been unlucky enough to have lost the Lassie. That would have been a real tragedy.”

“As long as we owe so much to Captain Blow, why not stop off long enough to see him?” suggested Terry.

“A good idea, Chucklehead,” said Don. “We’ll do that.”

The sail back to Mystery Island was uneventful, and they arrived at the captain’s cove five days after leaving Boston. They had sailed steadily and had covered the distance in much shorter time than they had required to run down the coast. The captain had not seen them come in, and they had their canvas down before he did come to the door and hail them.

210

He knew the sloop at once and put off in the dory, running out to them. In high good humor he shook hands all around and invited the boys up to his shack. They went ashore with him and spent a jolly evening at his home. There they told him of their discovery and the final capture of the marine bandits.

“That’s fine,” the captain boomed, nodding his shaggy head. “I cal’late you boys’ll have a little money when you get that reward, won’t you? What you got in mind for the fall?”

“We’re hoping to go to school somewhere,” answered Don. “We haven’t decided as yet where it will be. About the first thing we’ll have to do when we get home is to look up some schools and find out about them.”

“Sure ’nough, sure ’nough.” The captain turned to Terry. “You thinkin’ of going to school on your reward money?”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Terry, slowly. “I’d like to very much. I’d like to go where Don and Jim go, but that money will help so much around home that I feel I couldn’t do it with a clear conscience.”

Although the Mercer boys said nothing, the fact that they were soon to lose Terry was not a pleasant one. They had grown very fond of the red-headed fellow with his extreme good nature, and they knew that in the days to come they would miss him.

211

They spent the night with Captain Blow, sleeping on the floor of the shack on their own blankets. They were awakened in the morning by Bella, who was perched on the back of a chair. With her head on one side and her feathers outspread she was croaking: “Get up! Turn out! Get up! Turn out!” over and over. Finding that it was broad daylight, and that no further sleep could be considered while the critical parrot was there, the boys left their blankets and helped the captain get a hearty breakfast.

It was one of the few clear days that they had had, and they ate their final meal with the captain in the shack, the door wide open to the streaming sunlight. After they had helped the captain clean up, over his protests, the boys said goodbye once more and shook hands heartily with their friend.

“Drop me a line now and then,” the captain urged, as he took them out in his dory. “I’ll be anxious to hear from you at any time. And if you ever get down this way, say on another summer cruise, drop in and see me. I reckon I’ll have new neighbors by that time. I hear they’re going to turn this island into a summer place, and if that’s so I won’t be bothered with bandits for neighbors. Don’t forget old Cap’n Blow.”

They assured him earnestly that they had no intention of forgetting him and then the captain said a final goodbye and went back to shore. The boys waved until they were out of sight.

“A swell guy,” said Jim, as they sailed along. “We’ll be glad to write to him, and if we ever get the chance we’ll surely drop in again and see him.”

All of the following days were dull and gray, and they were held up for a full day in heavy fog. During the fog they tied up at a dock, and when they felt that the fog had cleared sufficiently they resumed their sail. At ten o’clock one morning they sailed up the creek to the Mercer house, bringing the cruise to an end.

212

“It was what you’d call a stormy cruise, but an exciting one,” Don said, as they furled all sail.

“It certainly was,” agreed Terry. “I enjoyed every minute of it.”

Mr. and Mrs. Mercer were glad to see them safely back and they made a happy party out of it. Afterward the boys went upstairs to clean up for dinner, and when they came down Mrs. Mercer met them in the library. She had a long letter in her hand.

“This is for you, Terry,” she said. “It is something special that your mother had forwarded here. It has been here about two weeks now.”

Terry took the letter, glanced at the envelope and then, excusing himself, began to read it. They saw a look of surprise, wonder and pleasure shoot over his long lean face. It became violently red, and he looked up in confusion.

“Jeepers!” he exclaimed.

“What’s the matter, Terry?” asked Don, anxiously. “No bad news, I hope?”

Terry shook his head. “It—it isn’t so bad,” he stammered. “It says that I’ve won a scholarship to Woodcrest Military School, up in New York State!”

“No kidding!” cried Jim.

213

“Oh, it’s true, that is—I—I guess it’s true. Early in the spring I took a special examination that the school puts out, never thinking that I’d win in it. There was a chance for three winners, and, well, I’m one of them!”

They congratulated him heartily. “How many were entered in the competition?” asked Jim.

“A hundred or more, I’m told. I don’t know just how many,” replied the dazed Terry.

“Where did you come in?” Don asked.

“I don’t remember,” Terry said. Don looked at him sternly.

“Come on now, Chucklehead. Was it first?”

“Yes,” confessed Terry. “It was.”

“I’m very glad to hear that,” nodded Mr. Mercer. “That means you can go without worrying over it in the least. You won’t be a drag on your family or in any way inconvenience them.” He turned to his boys. “Where are you fellows going to school?”

“We don’t know,” said Don. He turned to Terry. “What is this Woodcrest School like?”

“Well, it’s a high class military school, located at Portville, New York, on Lake Blair,” said Terry. “They have a four-year course, and I hear that there are about three hundred students there. All phases of active military life are offered to teach the importance of honor, obeying orders, and mature thinking. Outside of that I don’t know anything about it, but it sounds pretty good to me.”

“It sounds pretty good to me, too,” promptly seconded Don. “What do you think of sending us there, Dad?”

214

“It is just my idea of the right place to send you,” said Mr. Mercer, heartily. “I know the three of you will be happy together, and I think a military academy life will do you a world of good. If you think you would enjoy it at Woodcrest, go there by all means.”

The boys spent the rest of the day talking about the coming year at school. On the following day Terry climbed into Jumpiter and prepared to leave them.

“Thanks a lot for a swell time,” the red-headed boy said. “I’ve had a marvelous time, I assure you. But the best of it all is that we’ll be together in the fall.”

“That’s right,” the Mercer boys agreed. “We’ll see you at the academy in a few weeks. So long, Terry.”

“So long,” nodded the pilot of Jumpiter. With the cheerful grin which characterized him he whirled out of the drive in his battered car.

“Well,” said Jim, as they turned back to the house, “I suppose we’ll have some more adventures when we get to school. Wonder what they’ll be?”

Jim was right in more ways than one. What adventures did befall the brothers and their red-headed friend will be set forth in the second volume entitled, The Mercer Boys at Woodcrest.

215

FALCON BOOKS

For Girls

Champion’s Choice BY JOHN R. TUNIS

Patty and Jo, Detectives BY ELSIE WRIGHT

BY KAY LYTTLETON

Jean Craig Grows Up

Jean Craig in New York

Jean Craig Finds Romance

Jean Craig, Nurse

Jean Craig, Graduate Nurse

BY JEAN MCKECHNIE

Penny Allen and the Mystery of the Haunted House

Penny Allen and the Mystery of the Hidden Treasure

For Boys

The Spirit of the Border BY ZANE GREY

The Last Trail BY ZANE GREY

Call to Adventure BY ROBERT SPIERS BENJAMIN

Champs on Ice BY JACK WRIGHT

The Strike-Out King BY JULIAN DE VRIES

The Winning Basket BY DUANE YARNELL

Over the Hurdles BY EMMETT MAUM

Boys’ Book of Sea Battles BY CHELSEA CURTIS FRASER

Through Forest and Stream BY DUANE YARNELL

BY CAPWELL WYCKOFF

The Mercer Boys’ Cruise on the Lassie

The Mercer Boys at Woodcrest

The Mercer Boys on a Treasure Hunt

The Mercer Boys’ Mystery Case

The Mercer Boys with the Coast Guard

Transcriber’s Notes

- Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.

- Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.

- Generated a Table of Contents from the chapter headings.

- In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)

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Table of Contents

- THE Mercer Boys’ Cruise IN THE LASSIE
- Contents
- 1. The Finishing Touches
- 2. The Marine Bandits
- 3. The Start of the Cruise
- 4. Stormy Weather
- 5. Mystery Island
- 6. The Inner Room
- 7. Jim Starts Out
- 8. The Old Captain
- 9. Alone on the Sloop
- 10. Blown Out to Sea
- 11. The Storage Room
- 12. The Beach Party
- 13. The Red Lamp
- 14. Terry’s Adventure
- 15. The River Barge
- 16. An Important Clue
- 17. Aboard the Wreck
- 18. The Ghost of the “Alaskan”
- 19. The Escape
- 20. The Voyage Resumed
- 21. The “Black Mummy”
- 22. The Secret of the Freighter
- 23. The Chandler’s Shop

- 24. The End of the Cruise

- For Girls

- For Boys

- Transcriber’s Notes

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE