Title: The Mercer Boys' Cruise in the Lassie
Author: Wyckoff, Capwell
Language: English
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                _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

[Illustration: Don joined Jim at the porthole.]



                                  THE
                         _Mercer Boys’ Cruise_
                             IN THE LASSIE


                           By CAPWELL WYCKOFF

[Illustration: 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



                       _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.”

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.

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.

“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.”

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——”

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.

“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.

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.”

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.”



                        _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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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?”

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.”



                      _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.

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. At 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.

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.”

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.

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.

“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.

“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.”

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.

“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.



                          _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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.”

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?”

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.

“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.

“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.”



                          _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.

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?”

“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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.



                          _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.”

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.”

“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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.



                          _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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

“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?”

“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.



                          _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!”

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.

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.”

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.



                        _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.

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.

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?”

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.

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.

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.



                         _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.”

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.”

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?”

“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.

“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.”

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.”

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.

“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!”



                         _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.

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 be
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.

“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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.



                         _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.”

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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!”



                           _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.

“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.

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.

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.”

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.

“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?”

“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.

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!”



                        _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.

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.

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.

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.

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?”

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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—

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?”



                         _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.

“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.”

“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.

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.”

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.

“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.



                        _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.

“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.

“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.”

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.”

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.

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!”

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.

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.

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?”

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.

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.



                         _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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

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.

“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.”

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.”

“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.

“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?”

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.



                     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?”

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.

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.

“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.”

“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.

“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.

“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.”

“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.

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.



                            _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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

“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?”

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.

“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?”

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.”



                        _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.

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.

“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.”

“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?”

“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 sandbar and you jumped on Todd. The best of luck, Jed.”

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.



                        _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.

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.

“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.

“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.”

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.

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.

“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.



                   _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.

“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.”

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.”

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?”

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?”

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.

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.

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.



                       _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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.”

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.

“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.”

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.”



                      _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.

“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.

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.

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.

“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.

“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?”

“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.

[Illustration: 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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