The Boy Aviators on Secret Service; Or, Working with Wireless

“Yes, an’ it’s de furnaces dem debbils has built dere fo’ make dere blow up stuff, drat ’em,” was Quatty’s response.

They were then at last within sighting distance of the mysterious forces that had succeeded in filching the formula of the United States’ most deadly explosive and kidnapping one of the bravest and most popular young officers in the Navy.

“Pole ahead, till I tell you to stop,” commanded Frank, resuming his seat.

“W-w-w-what,” stuttered Quatty, “yo’ goin’ on, Marse Frank?”

“Certainly,” was the quiet reply.

“B-b-b-but we may git shot or blowed up wid de debbil powder,” protested the frightened black.

“You will certainly get shot if you don’t obey commands,” was Frank’s stern rejoinder, “pole ahead!”

Something in the young leader’s voice, decided Quatty that it was best to obey and with chattering teeth he started the canoe moving nearer and nearer to the red glow. As they approached its source, the light it cast grew brighter and the boys were enabled to see each other’s faces.

“Stop,” commanded Frank suddenly.

Quatty breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps now they were going to go back. But no. After a few seconds’ reconnoitering, Frank gave the order to go ahead and the trembling Quatty, with his eyes on the boys gleaming revolver, obeyed. Frank stood up in the boat when he took his brief survey without much fear of being seen by the men on the island, as in the bright light shed by the furnaces with which they were manufacturing the explosive they would hardly be able to penetrate the surrounding blackness.

What he had seen was this: A large barn-like building erected against the side of a hill surrounded by smaller huts and out in the open, removed at some distance from the other buildings, a large, retort-shaped blast furnace, from the mouth of which was pouring a column of copper-colored flame and a great efflorescence of sparks. It was this furnace doubtless that had caused the column of smoke they had seen during the day.

In the bright light cast by the flaming mouth of the retort he could see dark figures scurrying around, some of them with wheelbarrows which they pushed up an inclined plane leading to the side of the retort. From their barrows they constantly dumped something into the furnace. What it could be of course Frank had no means of knowing, but he guessed that it was some substance used in the manufacture of Chapinite. The whole scene reminded Frank of one of the foundries in the iron district, seen from a car window at night.

With the aid of the night-glasses he could make out details more plainly. The workmen were being urged to even greater activity by a tall man who was evidently in authority. From time to time this man raised a whip he held in his hand and brought its lash down viciously on the back of some unfortunate worker with a crack that was audible even at the distance the boys were.

“Oh Lawd, dat look like Hades for sho’!” groaned Quatty as his eyes almost popped out of his head at the weird scene. “Dem not men, Massa Frank, dems all debbils.”

“Pole her along a bit!” ordered Frank, not paying any attention to this outburst. He was bent on getting near enough to ascertain, if possible, if the unfortunate Lieutenant Chapin was one of the crew of laborers.

With frequent orders to stop from Frank which were obeyed by Quatty with alacrity and commands to proceed once more, which did not meet with the same eager response, the boat drew nearer and nearer to the blazing retort and the frenzied workers. As they were still in between high banks of saw-grass the boys had no fear of being seen unless of course some canoe from the island happened to come down the stream they were threading. As it was a narrow twisting, little runnel, however, with barely a foot of water under their keel, this did not seem likely.

All at once, however, they emerged without warning into a broad smooth-flowing channel worthy of the name of a river. The boys saw at once that this was indeed a main-traveled water-course and most probably the one used by the men on the island in getting to and from the coast.

“Get back where we were as quick as you can,” sharply ordered Frank as they glided out onto its broad current.

With a dexterous twist Quatty – quite as much alarmed as the boys at the prospect of discovery by the workers on the island – shot the boat back into the narrow grass-walled creek they had been traversing. It was well they had done so, for hardly had they gained the welcome shelter of the tall saw-grass when they heard the rapid “dip-dip” of paddles coming toward them down the main channel.

“Keep perfectly quiet,” ordered Frank, and scarcely breathing the boys listened with straining ears to catch the conversation the men in the approaching craft were carrying on.

“Hurry there, you miserable Indian, or I’ll fill you full of lead,” were the first words they heard in a harsh, rough voice. The command was evidently addressed to the Indian paddler for they heard the reply:

“All right. Me hurry all I can,” and a quicker dip of the paddle.

“You’re a rough fellow, my dear Scudder,” another voice commented, “are you never in a softer mood?”

“Not me, Foyashi;” came the reply, “and if you’d been working for Captain Mortimer Bellman as long as I have you wouldn’t be either. He learned his lesson in your government I suppose.”

“Captain Bellman is a remarkable man.” went on the other speaker, whose accent was distinctly foreign and mincing.

“Remarkable? You may lay your head on that,” replied the other; “nobody but a remarkable man would have got Chapin to visit him in his hotel and there drug him and get from him the keys of the safe where the formula was kept.”

“How did he induce him to visit him?” asked Foyashi.

“Why, they were classmates at Annapolis before Bellman was kicked out of the navy for conduct unbecoming an officer. Chapin’s a good-hearted chap and when Bellman turned up in Washington one day and sent him a message that he was ill and in trouble Chapin came to the hotel like a bird dog when you whistle it to heel. But you deserve a lot of credit for your part of the business, Foyashi,” he went on. “How did you get the lieutenant under your control. He swore he’d die before he told us the method of making Chapinite when we first got him aboard the Mist.”

“Ha, ha!” laughed the man, addressed as Foyashi, “to the Jiu Jitsu expert many nerves are common knowledge that you foolish Americans do not know anything about. A little pressure on the nerve I had selected while the lieutenant slept; and I had dulled his brain till he did as we directed.”

“Wonderful,” exclaimed Scudder admiringly, “I wish I knew the trick.”

“I hope I may never find it necessary to practice on you,” was the reply of the other, uttered in a tone of voice that made Harry feel, as he said afterward, as if he had touched the back of a moccasin.

“What are your plans?” continued Scudder, who was evidently an inferior in command to Foyashi and the man spoken of as Captain Bellman, “here you start me off in the dark in a canoe with enough Chapinite to blow half the Everglades sky high and you don’t even tell me where we are taking it.”

“You know as well as I do,” replied the other, “that we are bound for the coast and that we are going to put the last consignment aboard the submarine to-night at the mouth of the Jew-Fish river. What follows to-morrow will be simply the tapping of the furnace taken to-night and we will work that up into Chapinite in the government’s yards at home.”

“Then we are through here,” commented Scudder.

“Practically, yes. We shall meet the cruiser in the South Atlantic next week and then sail for home.”

“The cruiser!” exclaimed Scudder, “ain’t you afraid of the United States government being suspicious?”

“My dear friend,” replied the other, “the wisdom of the Oriental has been left out of your composition. The cruiser, as I call her, has been converted into the likeness of a peaceful passenger ship.”

“Where do you coal her?” demanded Scudder, a certain admiration in his tones.

The boys were unable to catch the reply. Indeed they could not have heard as much of the conversation as they did had not the small creek fortunately run parallel with the larger water-course for some distance. By dint of shoving along the banks with their hands the boys had managed to keep a short distance in the rear of the other canoe. Her speed, however, prohibited their keeping up with her and they were compelled to satisfy themselves with what they had already heard, which, however, was of sufficient importance to cause them to order Quatty to pole back at top speed to the mound-builders’ island.

It was evident from the conversation they had been lucky enough to overhear that the stealers of the formula, headed by Captain Mortimer Bellman, were to leave the ’glades the next day. That the plotters had a submarine and that it lay at the mouth of the Jew-Fish river. Furthermore a cruiser, belonging to the power whose agents the men were, was waiting to pick them up and carry them back to their own country and that Lieutenant Chapin had been subjected to a cruel operation in order to force him to submit to a betrayal of his country.

It was a time to act quickly. There was in fact not a moment to spare.

They arrived at the camp on the mound-builders’ island shortly before dawn. A hasty survey with a lantern indicated, to their great satisfaction, that nothing had been disturbed and that everything was as they had left it. From the height of the summit nothing was visible now of the red glow of the blast furnace, which indicated to the boys that the plotters had concluded their work and that the blast had been extinguished forever. Satisfactory as their night’s work had been in one respect, however, it had been a dire failure in another and so the boys could not help admitting to each other.

They had learned a pretty good outline of the plans of Captain Bellman and Foyashi, but they had not gained a single bit of information about Lieutenant Chapin that would aid them in any way in rescuing him from what was likely to prove imminent death.

CHAPTER XXI

A BOLD DASH

Frank’s first action was to bend over the wireless apparatus and send flashing and crackling across the air a message to Camp Walrus to be relayed in haste to the Tarantula. The members of the young adventurers’ party left at the camp were to remain there, ordered Frank, till the Golden Eagle II returned. Lathrop was instructed to inform the Tarantula of the whereabouts of the submarine so that Lieutenant Selby might head her off in case the boys were unsuccessful in the quest for the missing naval officer which Frank felt bound to prosecute, even at the risk of letting the formula of the explosive get out of the country.

“Will do as instructed. Gee! but you are all right,” was Lathrop’s admiring response, which made both boys smile in spite of themselves and their heavy hearts.

“What do you propose to do now?” asked Harry, as Frank cut out the circuit from the wireless and turned away from the instrument.

“Go back there as soon as we have had breakfast and make another try,” was the young leader’s instant response.

“Go back?” echoed Harry in amazement.

“We must,” said Frank earnestly, “a man’s life may depend on how quickly we act.”

“But do you think there is any likelihood of our succeeding in getting near enough to their camp to aid Lieutenant Chapin materially,” persisted the younger brother.

“I don’t know yet, but I have an idea that by landing on the other side of the island we might come up overland behind the settlement we saw last night and gain some idea of what has become of Lieutenant Chapin.”

“By George, Frank, you are a wonder,” said Harry, admiringly. “You are right,” he went on, “there is a chance and we’ll take it.”

“I knew you’d say so, old fellow,” responded Frank, warmly grasping his brother’s hand, “and now for breakfast. It may be the last we’ll get for some time.”

Both boys fell to with hearty appetites on wild guava, avocado pears, broiled doves and two cups a piece of Quatty’s coffee, which he made with the skill of a French chef.

“I feel ready to tackle a regiment,” declared Harry as the last morsels disappeared.

So far Quatty had had no idea of the plan on foot and when he did hear it he set up a series of loud lamentations that could be heard a mile. It was all in vain, however. Remorselessly Frank ordered him down to the boat with his pole. Had either of the boys been expert in the handling of a boat with this oar of the ’glades they would not have compelled the badly-scared black to accompany them, but it is an art which is only acquired by long practice and it was absolutely necessary that they have the benefit of his expertness. In the event, that even were the worst to happen, and they were to be themselves captured, it was not likely that any harm would come to Quatty; so neither of their consciences hurt them much as Quatty shoved off and they once more glided down the narrow water-course they had threaded the night before.

By daylight their progress was more rapid than it had been in the darkness of the previous night, and it was not long before they gained the point at which the narrow stream they were threading branched into the broad main water-course. Of course it was not a feasible idea to follow this and after some searching they managed to find a tiny, shallow runnel that proceeded through the saw-grass in the direction they wished to go but was small enough not to render it probable that it was a main traveled stream. To their great disappointment, however, this canoe path came to an end altogether after they had reached a point about opposite the trees that abutted on the plotters’ settlement at the easterly end of their collection of huts. It continued on through the saw-grass, however, in the form of a muddy Indian trail and the boys, after a short consultation, decided to leave the boat behind in Quatty’s charge and take to the trail.

Rifles in hand and revolvers on their hips, they struggled bravely along through the mud, that sometimes came up to their knees and sometimes only to their ankles. It was killing work, for as the sun worked higher the heat grew almost intolerable. Innumerable varieties of small stinging insects too, settled about them in swarms and added to their discomfort.

From time to time, in addition, a fat cotton-mouth would wiggle across the trail or occasionally open its mouth in a loud hiss, showing the white fangs that give it its name. Frank killed one of these reptiles with the butt of his rifle. The others they had to avoid as best they could. Of course they did not dare to discharge one of their weapons. To have done so would have brought the whole settlement about their ears.

Frank consulted his pocket compass from time to time, having taken the general bearing of the island from the boat before they started. The compass was the only means they had of knowing if they were following a correct course, as the saw-grass was so high on either side of the narrow trail that to see over it was an impossible feat.

“Phew!” whispered Harry, as they floundered along through the wet, steamy earth, “I’ve been in warm places but this is certainly the hottest of them all.”

“We cannot have much further to go,” replied Frank, encouragingly, “as far as I could judge when we left the boat the island was about two miles away.”

“I feel as if we’d traveled ten at least,” gasped poor Harry. “Hark!”

His exclamation was called forth by a rustling in the tall grass directly ahead of them.

“Get ready for trouble,” whispered Frank.

Both boys got out their revolvers, as being handier weapons at close quarters than the rifles. The trail took an abrupt turn just beyond the point at which they stood, so that it was impossible to see who or what it was that was approaching.

The rustling grew steadily nearer and both boys, while their hearts beat thickly, determined that if the persons coming down the path were foemen, to sell their lives dearly.

The next minute they had a great surprise.

Round the curve in the trail swung two of the beautiful small Everglade deer. It was a question which was the most astonished, the boys or the deer, at the encounter. For a fraction of a second the deer stood gazing with their big, liquid eyes, at the boys and the boys stared back at the deer. Then, as the boys broke into a smothered laugh at their needless anxiety, the two animals swung round and galloped back the way they had come.

“Well, we are getting as nervous as a pair of kittens,” laughed Frank.

“They made as much noise as a regiment,” replied Harry, echoing the other’s merriment, “I always understood that the deer was a quiet retiring animal. Now I know different.”

“At all events our encounter with them proves one valuable piece of information,” said Frank.

“What?” demanded his brother.

“That what we had supposed was an island must in reality be joined to this trail by solid land.”

“How do you make that out?”

“Well, those deer wouldn’t go into the saw-grass, the stuff cuts like a knife. Therefore they didn’t get to the trail that way.”

“Well?”

“And their coats were not wet. I notice, therefore, they had not swum any creek to get here. All of which goes to show to my mind that if we follow this trail we will get dry-shod to the island.”

“Dry-shod?” echoed Harry, pointing to his muddied legs.

“I mean that we shall not, as I began to fear, have to swim any creeks or wade runnels to gain it.”

It was as Frank had assumed. A few minutes more tramping through the sticky black ooze brought them to a point where the trail widened, and they could see beyond the tops of the cabbage palms that fringed the edge of the island.

“We are here at last,” whispered Frank, “now we shall have to go very carefully till we find out the lay of the land. There’s no use walking into a trap for the lack of a little caution.”

Slowly the boys crept on down the short section of trail now remaining. Frank carefully noted the comparatively dry ground – where the marks of the deers’ hoofs still showed – that there were no human tracks visible and this was in itself a good sign as it showed that the trail was a little used one.

They emerged at length into a thickly-grown cabbage palm patch, through which, to their great delight, flowed a tiny stream, from one of the clear springs that abound on the islands of the Everglades. Lying flat on their faces the boys fairly sucked up the cool, clear water and let it trickle gratefully down their parched throats.

Greatly refreshed by their draught, they looked about them. The little grove in which they stood was surrounded by dense undergrowth. At first there seemed to be no path through the tangle, but after a lengthy search the boys discovered a narrow trail, evidently a continuation of the one they had just left. It led, as Frank’s compass showed, in the general direction of the settlement.

“We’ve come so far we’ve got to go ahead now,” were Frank’s words, as the two young adventurers plunged into the dense brush down the narrow trail.

CHAPTER XXII

BEN STUBBS DISAPPEARS

Left behind at Camp Walrus, Billy Barnes, Lathrop, and Ben Stubbs watched the Golden Eagle II until she became a bird-like speck against the intense blue of the Florida sky.

“Good luck to them,” cried Billy, a wish that was echoed by all the “stay-at-homes,” as Lathrop had dubbed them.

“Come on, Lathrop,” said Billy, the second morning after the aeroplane faded from view, “let’s get the guns and go for a hunt. I’m sure I heard a wild turkey in the brush yonder a while ago, and Ben can mount guard over the wireless while we are gone.”

“Do you think that will be all right?” questioned Lathrop dubiously, “you know I’m the only one in the camp that can operate the instrument and I think I ought to keep within reach of it.”

“You’re right,” rejoined Billy. “It will be better for Ben and I to go.”

Ben agreed with alacrity, the old prospector was never better pleased than when there was an opportunity to hunt, and he hastened to oil up his gun and fill his cartridge belt.

“Hold on a minute,” said Ben, as he and Billy Barnes started out, “I’m too old a woodsman to go into the woods without agreeing on a signal if anything happens. We’ll use the old hunter’s warning. If we need you, Lathrop, or you need us, we are to fire first one shot then a pause and then two shots in rapid succession and keep it up till we get an answer. We’ll be back to dinner.”

“All right,” replied Lathrop, “though I don’t see just what trouble you can get into here, and as for me, I am all right I guess – so long.”

Left alone Lathrop took his fountain-pen and – though he had no idea when he could post it – began the composition of a long letter home. He was so engrossed with this employment that he did not notice the hour, and it was not till Pork Chops summoned him to lunch that he recalled with a start that the two hunters were still away. However, he assured himself it was probable that they had found good hunting in some distant part of the island and that they had not, like himself, realized how late it was getting.

This done he walked uneasily up and down, waiting impatiently for the return of the hunters. He was really anxious and could no longer disguise from himself the fact that something of a serious nature must have happened to keep them out away so long. His mind ran the gamut of every accident, from snake-bite to accidental shooting, but he was as far from guessing the real truth as he was from being at ease in his mind.

“Bang!” A long pause – then again, “Bang – Bang.”

It was the alarm signal agreed upon by Ben Stubbs before the hunters left camp.

The reports came from some distance in the forest, and Lathrop, hastily getting his gun and half crazy with anxiety, answered it as soon as he could slip in the cartridges.

What could have happened?

Firing frequently and being answered at closer intervals all the time, Lathrop advanced into the jungle and had not proceeded very far when he encountered a strange figure.

It was Billy Barnes, but a white-faced Billy, his clothes torn by creepers and his face scratched and cut by his wanderings in the jungle. A very different figure from the usual trig one cut by the young reporter.

“Oh, Billy, what has happened?” gasped Lathrop, shocked at his companion’s woe-begone appearance.

The reporter’s reply was sufficiently alarming.

“Ben Stubbs has disappeared!”

“Disappeared?” echoed the amazed Lathrop.

“Yes, as utterly as if the earth had opened and swallowed him,” was the reply, in a strained, tired voice. “I’ve hunted for him all the afternoon and I have not been able to find a trace of him. I got almost cut to ribbons in the sharp-leaved briars or whatever you call them.”

He ruefully regarded his torn hands and ragged clothing.

“You are sure he is not merely hunting in another part of the island.”

“Certain,” was the dispiriting reply, “you see it happened like this – we had shot a couple of turkeys when Ben suggested our separating and getting a bigger bag in that way than we would by hunting together. We were to rejoin each other at the end of half an hour, the signal being two shots. At the end of half an hour I fired two shots but there was no answer. I tried again, and there was still no reply but the echo of my shots. I was scared then, I tell you, and fired the danger signal. Still there was no answer.

“Well, then, I was rattled. I plunged about in the woods till I got all ripped up as you see and shouted for Ben till I thought my throat would crack, but I didn’t get a trace or a sign of him. Then I recovered my wits a bit and got out my compass. I headed for camp, and when I judged I was near enough for you to hear me, I fired the danger signal – you answered it, and here I am.”

“Oh, Billy, what are we going to do?” exclaimed the younger boy.

“Make the best of it till we are certain Ben is lost, and then communicate with the Tarantula and Frank and Harry,” said the practical Billy. “Cheer up, we don’t know yet that any actual harm has befallen him, it’s the mystery of the thing that worries me.”

“I must send a wireless to Frank and Harry at once,” cried Lathrop.

“You will do no such thing, young fellow,” rejoined Billy. “In the first place they have got troubles enough of their own right now; and, in the second, a man is never lost till you’ve sent out a general alarm for him, and he is still missing.”