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Four Afloat: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the Water
“I’ll get you yet, my boy!” he growled. “And when I do – ”
Turning, he stumbled aft and disappeared into the deck house.
“He’s after a pistol!” warned Bob. “Everyone get to cover!”
Spencer tumbled helter-skelter down the steps, followed by Tom and Bob. But Dan held his ground, although his face paled.
On the Scout everybody seemed for a moment paralyzed. Then the tugboat captain turned and ran clumsily toward the deck-house door, and the sailor who had been holding the two boats together with a boat hook fixed around the after cleat of the launch dropped the haft and disappeared quickly around the other side of the cabin. Probably he thought he was too near the scene of action. Captain Sander must have known where to look for a weapon, for before the tugboat captain had reached the door he was back again with a formidable revolver in his hand and his face convulsed with passion.
“Stop that!” cried the captain of the tug. “You can’t shoot folks on my boat! You haven’t hired me for a warship!” And hurrying to the other, he seized the arm that held the revolver.
“Let go o’ me!” bellowed Captain Sauder.
“You give me my pistol and I will,” panted the other. There was a struggle, in which one sought to wrest away the weapon and the other to keep possession of it and throw off his adversary. Bob, viewing the conflict from the cabin doorway, called to Dan.
“Come down here, Dan!” he commanded. “Don’t be a fool! He’ll shoot you, sure!”
But Dan held his ground, revolver in hand.
Then several things happened simultaneously. Tom pushed Bob aside, hurled himself across the cockpit, locked his arms around Dan’s legs and brought him crashing to the deck; Captain Sauder broke away from his opponent, raised his revolver and fired; and the Vagabond churned the water under her stern and darted away at full speed.
The captain’s aim had been hurried and the bullet sped singing through the air several feet above the launch, and before he could pull the trigger the second time the captain and mate of the tug had borne him back against the side of the deck house and wrested the revolver from his hand. The Vagabond, with no one at the wheel, charged across the tug’s bow and headed for the west. On the floor of the cockpit Dan was fighting and struggling to regain both his feet and the revolver which he had dropped under the suddenness of the attack, and which now lay beyond his reach.
“Let me up!” he panted.
“In a mu-mu-mu-minute!” gasped Tom, still holding on as though for dear life. Then Bob sprang to the wheel, brought the Vagabond’s head again into the course for Provincetown, and looked back at the tug, already a couple of hundred yards astern. The two captains were still arguing it out near the cabin door, but the mate was on his way to the wheelhouse. A deck hand was trying to recover the boat hook, which had fallen into the water when the Vagabond started up. In a moment he had succeeded, and the tug’s nose swung around and pointed toward Sanstable. A minute later she was on her way home, billowing smoke from her stack and evidently resolved to make up for lost time. Bob called to Tom.
“Let him up, Tommy,” he said.
Nelson, rubbing the oil and grease from his hands with a bunch of waste, appeared at the door.
“Wh-what the dickens!” he cried in amazement as he looked.
“Oh, Tommy and Dan have been having a little football!” answered Bob. Dan climbed to his feet and observed Tom disgustedly.
“You think you’re mighty smart, I suppose!” he growled. “For two cents I’d bump your silly fat head against – ”
“Cut it out!” said Bob sharply. “You’ve made a fool of yourself long enough, Dan. You came near getting yourself plugged full of holes, and Tommy did just right. You think yourself a bloody hero, I dare say, but you ought to be kicked. Nice mess you’d made of it if that old terror had put a bullet into you! Next time I go cruising, I’ll bet there’ll be no red-headed lunatics aboard! Hand me my revolver!”
Dan, abashed, picked up the pistol and gave it to its owner.
“You needn’t be so blamed grouchy,” he muttered.
“You’d make anyone grouchy,” answered Bob. “And I want you to understand that you’re to let my things alone after this.” He broke the revolver to extract the cartridges. Then he looked in surprise at Dan.
“Why,” he cried, “it isn’t loaded!”
“I suppose I know it, don’t I?” growled Dan. “I couldn’t find your silly old cartridges!”
CHAPTER XI – RECORDS A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE
An hour later the Vagabond was swinging quietly from her anchor cable in the harbor of Provincetown. About her in the darkness the lights of other craft twinkled and the curving waterfront of the old town was dimly illumined. On the Vagabond’s deserted deck only the riding light gleamed, but in the cabin all lamps were doing their best, there was a fine odor of steaming coffee and things fried and the crew and their guest were sitting around the table in the stateroom doing full justice to a dinner all the more enjoyable since so long delayed. Good humor had returned and everybody was in the best of spirits; unless, possibly, we except Spencer Floyd. It was difficult at all times to tell whether he was happy or unhappy. He seldom spoke unless spoken to, and his habitual expression was one of intense gravity. But he certainly had not lost his appetite; once Dan forgot his own hunger for nearly half a minute in marveling at Spencer’s capacity. Of course they talked and, equally of course, the subject of discourse was the day’s happenings.
“I think we got out of the mess mighty luckily,” said Nelson. And the sentiment was indorsed by the others. It had taken fully ten minutes, Bob, Dan and Tom all talking together and at top speed, to acquaint Nelson with what had happened on deck, very little of which he had been able to glimpse from the engine room. “Only,” continued Nelson affectionately, “I think you were a great big galoot, Dan, to stand up there and bluff Captain Chowder with an empty revolver.”
“The bluff worked, though,” laughed Dan. “I couldn’t find Bob’s box of cartridges anywhere, you see, and there wasn’t any time to lose. Maybe if the captain had looked a bit closer he would have seen that the cylinder was empty, but I had to chance that.”
“Huh!” said Tom. “Bet you if I was in the captain’s place I wouldn’t waste any time examining the cylinder!”
“That was a great tackle you made, Tom,” said Dan with a grin. “I hit the deck like a load of bricks. Gosh! I didn’t know what had struck me! Only you forgot, Tommy, that the new rules forbid tackling below the knees.”
“I didn’t tackle you below the knees,” answered Tom promptly.
“Felt like it!”
“I don’t see but what Tommy’s the hero of the day, after all,” observed Bob. “I’m plumb sure I wasn’t! The way I got into the engine room when that old pirate came on deck with his gun must have been one of the sights of the trip!”
“I guess the real hero,” said Dan, “was Nelson. Anyhow, he did the most practical thing and worked hardest.”
“Hero be hanged!” replied Nelson, spreading his fifth slice of bread. “But you can bet I worked hard, all right! I thought I’d never get that old vaporizer together again. One of the parts got away and I couldn’t find it for weeks! And I didn’t know whether the thing would work any better after I got through with it. The first thing we do to-morrow is to empty that tank and fill up with some decent gasoline.”
“I suppose we need it,” said Bob, “but how about staying around here that long? Don’t you think Captain Chowder will telegraph here and get the local Scotland Yard after us?”
“I rather think,” answered Nelson, “that he’s decided by this time to let the thing drop. But, of course, there’s no telling for sure. There’s one thing, though; he doesn’t know for certain where we are. We started out toward Provincetown, but maybe he’ll argue that we were only trying to throw him off the track and that after a bit we turned and headed across to Plymouth or somewhere on the south shore.”
“That’s so,” Bob agreed after a moment’s consideration.
“Even if he did telegraph,” said Dan, “what could the police here do? If we told our story they wouldn’t dare to arrest us.”
“Well, they might take Spencer and hold him until the thing was cleared up,” said Nelson. “And it might end with Spencer going back with the captain. And I’ll be blowed if I’m going to have that!”
“Nor I,” said Bob.
“Same here,” agreed Dan.
Tom had his month too full for utterance, but he shook his head violently and scowled disapprovingly.
“Then what’s to be did?” asked Nelson.
There was a moment’s silence, during which everyone ate busily, broken at last by Spencer.
“Seems to me I’ve been trouble enough to you,” he said diffidently. “If you’ll put me ashore I guess I can make out all right now. And I’m much obliged for what you’ve done for me. And – ”
“Pshaw!” interrupted Dan. “You’d be caught and lugged back to that old schooner the very first thing. No, sir, the best place for you is right here aboard the Vagabond. And if Provincetown isn’t a safe place to stay, I vote we move on.”
“To-night?” asked Bob.
“I don’t care. In the morning, if you fellows think it’ll be safe to stay until then. Only we want to get out before Captain Chowder begins to use the wires.”
“I tell you!” exclaimed Nelson. “Just as soon as it’s light we’ll run outside a ways and put Spencer in the tender. Then he can row around and keep out of the way until we get our tank filled again. And then we can pick him up.”
“Dandy!” cried Tom. “And if they come and search us they won’t find him! And we can tell them that he fell overboard and – ”
“And was swallowed by a whale,” laughed Bob. “That’s a good scheme, though, Nel. Would you mind if we did that, Spencer?”
“No, sir. I’d be all right if you left me some oars.”
“Of course we’ll leave you oars,” said Nelson. “That’s settled then. But we want to get out pretty early and be back here before the folks along the wharves are taking notice.”
“Well,” said Dan, “we’ll get Tommy to wake us.”
“Hope you choke,” responded Tom dispassionately.
“Haven’t anything to choke on,” answered Dan. “Pass me the bread.”
“I don’t believe the telegraph office will be open until about eight o’clock,” said Bob. “And it isn’t likely that the Scout would get back to Sanstable to-night in time for the captain to telegraph. So I guess we’re safe until, say, nine to-morrow morning. That being the case, and Dan having eaten the last thing on the table, I will adjourn to the deck.”
“There’s some more coffee in the pot,” said Tom.
“Couldn’t drink another drop, Tommy. I’ve had three cups already. Come on, Barry; you and I’ll go up and look at the moon.”
“Isn’t any,” grunted Tom.
“What!” exclaimed Bob. “No moon? How careless of the weather man! Then we’ll look at the nice little lantern at the bow, Barry.”
“Oh, we’ll all go up,” said Dan. “I want a breath of air. How about the dishes, though?”
“Let ’em go,” muttered Tom lazily.
“Couldn’t I do them?” asked Spencer.
“Why – do you mind?” asked Nelson.
“I’d like to,” was the answer.
“All right, then; go ahead. I guess Tommy will let you.”
If there was any objection from Tom it was so slight that no one noticed it.
Up in the cockpit the Four made themselves comfortable in the chairs and on the seat, while Barry curled up into a perfectly round bunch in Dan’s lap. The breeze still held from the southward and the night was quite warm, and, although Bob continued to complain at intervals over the absence of moonlight, the stars glittered in an almost cloudless sky and shed a wan radiance of their own. Somewhere in the darkness along the wharves a concertina was stumbling uncertainly through the latest success in rag-time melody.
“Say, Bob,” said Dan, “you can do worse than that. Get your mandolin.”
So Bob got it and the concertina was soon drowned out. Spencer crept up and silently snuggled himself in a corner of the cockpit. The lights in the town went out one by one and four bells struck in the cabin.
“Hello!” exclaimed Nelson. “This won’t do, fellows, if we’re going to make an early rise. Come on, Dan, and help me fix up the berth for Spencer.”
So the pipe berth in the engine room was pulled out and the other beds were levied on for a pillow and blankets, and half an hour later only Tom’s snores disturbed the silence.
At half-past six the next morning the Vagabond turned her bow toward the harbor entrance, passed the light at the end of Long Point and went westward for a half-mile along the shore. Then the tender was put over and Spencer, his own attire supplemented with an extra sweater of Bob’s, jumped into it.
“If I had some line and a hook,” said Spencer gravely, “I could catch you some fish.”
“That’s so!” said Nelson. “And I think there’s fishing tackle aboard somewhere. Wait a moment and I’ll see if I can’t find it.”
“Yes,” remarked Dan casually, “and you might dig a few worms while you’re down there.”
Nelson’s enthusiasm wilted and he joined in the laugh.
“I forgot about bait,” he said. “I guess you couldn’t catch much without bait, eh, Spencer?”
“You leave me the line,” answered the boy, “and I guess I can find some bait somewheres.”
So Nelson rummaged around and found what was wanted, and when the Vagabond went chugging slowly and softly back toward the lighthouse and the harbor entrance Spencer, oars in hands, was pulling toward the outer beach. Back in the harbor Bob steered the launch up to a landing in the lee of a shed bearing the sign “GASOLINE” and made her fast. Then they set about completing their toilets, while Tom prepared breakfast. By the time that repast was ready the waterfront was wide awake and the sun was shining warmly. After breakfast the tank was emptied and refilled with what was represented to be “the best gasoline on the Cape.” As the boat’s funds were depleted to the extent of almost twenty dollars when payment had been made, there was a unanimous hope among the crew that the claim would not prove too great.
“It’s mighty expensive stuff, isn’t it?” asked Tom. “Think what we could do with twenty dollars!”
“That’s so, Tommy,” said Nelson. “Gasoline doesn’t taste as nice as caramels, but it’s a lot better for fuel.”
“Gee!” muttered Tom wistfully. “Think of twenty dollars’ worth of caramels!”
Later, when they went shopping for provisions, Tom got into a candy store and wouldn’t come out until he had bought a little of everything in sight. They returned to the wharf laden with bundles just as the clock struck ten.
“Now to pick up the tender and run around to Chatham,” said Nelson as they went down the wharf.
But when the float lay below them Bob nudged his arm. On the edge of the float, seated on an empty nail keg and talking to the gasoline man, was a tall individual in a faded blue coat on the left breast of which glittered a badge.
“Cop!” whispered Bob.
As they went down, the tall man, who looked more like a sailor than a police officer, arose and awaited them. Then,
“You gentlemen own this launch?” he asked with a slow drawl.
“Well, we’re sailing her,” answered Nelson. “She belongs to my father.”
“Pretty nice boat,” said the other, his eyes traveling swiftly from one to another of the quartet. “Which of you is Spencer Floyd, now?”
“None of us,” answered Nelson.
“Well, I got a message for him,” said the officer. “You tell him I want to see him, will you?”
“He isn’t here,” said Nelson.
“I want to know!” drawled the officer. “Ain’t drowned him, have you?”
“No, he isn’t drowned. He just isn’t here.”
“Well, well! Don’t mind my lookin’ about a little, I guess?”
“No, you’re perfectly welcome to, sir. Come aboard, please.”
The officer followed and looked admiringly over the launch while Nelson unlocked the cabin door. Then they all trooped down into the cabin and the officer satisfied himself that the runaway was indeed not there.
“Much obliged, gentlemen,” he said at last. “I see he ain’t here. I guess you don’t care to tell me where he is, do you?”
“No,” Nelson replied smilingly, “I don’t believe we do. And anyhow, we don’t know just where he is – by this time.”
Which was a good deal nearer the truth than Nelson suspected.
“Well,” said the officer, with a twinkle in his eye, “if you chance to see him again you tell him that his friend Captain Sauder, over to Sanstable, is particularly anxious to see him, will you?”
Nelson promised gravely to do so and the officer stepped ashore.
“Good mornin’,” he said. “I hope you’ll have a fair voyage.”
“Good morning,” Nelson replied. “Thank you.”
Halfway across the float the officer paused, turned and retraced his steps, and Nelson went to meet him.
“Now, I don’t know much about this,” said the officer confidentially, “but you fellers don’t look like a very desperate set to me. So you tell this feller Floyd – if you should happen to meet him, you understand – you tell him that the Cape’s a bit unhealthy just at present; kind of malarial, you know; and maybe he’d be better off across the bay. See what I mean?”
“Yes, I do,” answered Nelson. “And I’m much obliged. And if I should happen to see him I’ll tell him that.”
“You needn’t mention me, of course,” said the other. “It ain’t any of my business. So long.”
“That means,” said Bob, when Nelson had told the others, “that means that they’re on the lookout for Spencer all down the Cape. So what the dickens are we to do? We’ve got to put in somewhere; we can’t make Newport to-day.”
“That’s so,” said Nelson. “Let’s see the chart.”
After they had all studied it awhile Dan asked:
“What’s the matter with trying to make Nantucket? It isn’t likely that he’s warned them down there.”
“No, but it’s a jolly long ways,” said Bob. “Let’s see how far. Why, it’s nearly eighty miles! Could we do that before dark, Nel?”
“We could do it by seven o’clock,” was the answer. “But wouldn’t it be better to take Spencer over to Plymouth and send him home by train?”
They discussed the question at length and in the end decided that the latter plan was the more feasible. Then they cast off and ran across the harbor to the Point and so westward in search of the tender. But after they had rounded the lighthouse there was nothing in sight resembling their boat in the least.
“That’s mighty funny!” said Bob. And all the others agreed heartily. They went southward for two miles in chase of a craft that might, so Nelson thought, turn out to be the tender. But when they got within fair sight of it they found it to be a pea-green dory containing two fishermen.
“Let’s go back to where we left him,” suggested Dan. “Perhaps he went ashore and pulled the boat up on the beach.”
So they turned back and ran along the shore, but without success. Then Bob headed the launch westward. All four kept a sharp lookout, but it was Tom who asked presently:
“What’s that over there?”
All turned to look.
“Seems like a water-logged boat,” said Nelson. “Run her over there, Bob.”
Bob obeyed and two minutes later the Vagabond floated alongside the puzzling object, puzzling no longer. It was the tender, filled with water almost to the gunwales and empty of everything except the oars and a few dead fish. The four stared at each other in consternation.
CHAPTER XII – WHEREIN NELSON SOLVES THE MYSTERY
The Vagabond rolled and dipped while the boys silently struggled with the problem confronting them.
Where was Spencer Floyd?
There was the boat, there were the oars, there were the fish which he had promised, and, entangled with one of the oars, was the line he had used. But – where was he? Also, why was the tender full of water?
“It’s the funniest thing I ever ran up against!” breathed Dan, finally breaking the silence. After that questions came fast and furious and no one tried to supply the answers until Tom cried:
“I know! Su-su-su-su-somebody ru-ru-ran him du-du-du – !”
“Pshaw!” said Nelson. “Collisions don’t happen in broad daylight in a place like this where there’s water enough to float a fleet of warships!”
“Bu-bu-bu-but look at the tu-tu-tender!”
“I know,” Nelson muttered, “but I don’t believe – ”
“If it was an accident Spencer’s a goner,” said Dan.
“Not necessarily,” said Bob. “If he was run down by a steamer or a schooner they might have stopped and picked him up.”
“If they had wouldn’t they have landed him when the harbor was just around the corner?”
“They might not have,” Bob answered. “They might have been in a hurry and just taken him along.”
“That doesn’t seem likely,” objected Dan.
“No,” added Nelson. “The least they could have done would have been to land him.”
“Then he’s a gu-gu-gu-gu-goner!” said Tom sadly.
“I don’t believe he was run into,” protested Nelson.
“I know you don’t; you said so before,” Dan replied. “But if it wasn’t that, what was it? Where’s he got to and why is the boat full of water?”
“I don’t know, but there are lots of things that might have happened.”
“Such as what, Mr. Solomon?”
“Well, he might have gone ashore for more bait and left the tender on the beach. Then the tide floated it out while he was gone. When he came back and saw that he couldn’t get it he decided to walk to town in hopes of finding us before we left.”
“Well, that might be it,” acknowledged Bob after a moment’s consideration of the theory, “but somehow I can’t make myself think so. If you’re right then he’s waiting for us in the village.”
“And maybe the officer fellow has him,” added Dan.
“Hold on!” protested Tom. “That’s all ru-ru-right, but how did the boat get full of water?”
Nelson looked nonplused.
“It might have gone floating around and hit against something,” he finally ventured, “maybe a rock or a submerged log.”
“Submerged poppycock!” said Dan. “I’ll tell you what really happened.”
“Of course you will,” said Tom. “You know all about it, du-du-du-don’t you?”
“A boat of some kind came along and Spencer saw a chance of getting away in it, maybe to New York. Probably he offered to work his passage and they took him aboard. And somehow the tender got a hole stove in her.”
“How?” demanded Tom.
“Oh, I don’t know; there’s plenty of ways. Maybe Spencer thought if he sank the boat and disappeared altogether Captain Chowder would stop hunting him.”
“The first part of your yarn is all right, Dan,” said Bob, “but the last part is mighty weak. But whatever happened there’s no use in our spending the day out here. The question now is: What’s to be done next? If Spencer’s drowned we can’t do any good here. If he’s run away on another boat, why, we might as well attend to our own affairs. What about it?”
“Best thing to do,” said Nelson, “is to tow the tender back to the wharf and get the water out of it. Then we can see what’s happened to it. Anyhow, it will probably have to be repaired and that means staying here until to-morrow. Pull her in, Dan, and I’ll get hold of the painter.”
“All right,” answered Dan, who was holding the tender with the boat hook. “But won’t she go under completely and sink if we try to tow her?”
“I don’t think so. How about it, Bob?”
“Not in this sea, if we go slow,” answered Bob.
“Anyhow, it isn’t likely that we’d ever get the water out of her here. There’s a little beach at the end of that slip by the wharf where we were, and we can beach her there.”
So, running very slowly, the Vagabond returned to town, the submerged tender rolling and splashing along behind at the end of a short painter and threatening to disappear completely every minute. But she didn’t carry out her threat, and when the launch was once more tied up at the float the tender was pulled along to the end of the slip until she grounded. There they left her until the tide, which was still running out, should leave her high and dry. Bob and Dan went in search of a carpenter to patch her up, following the explicit directions of the gasoline man, who was very much interested in the sudden and unexplained appearance on the scene of the tender. Nelson and Tom made discreet inquiries for Spencer, describing his personal appearance without mentioning his name. But neither the man at the wharf nor the loungers at the street end of it had seen anyone answering to their description. Bob and Dan returned presently with the information that the carpenter was busy but would be on hand in about half an hour. So they went back to the launch, made themselves comfortable in the cockpit and speculated anew on the disappearance of Spencer. Many new and ingenious theories were aired, but in the end it was all nicely summed up in Tom’s verdict: