CHAPTER XV THE CHESTS ARE FOUND
The storm passed over with the rising sun; the clouds scurried away, thewind went down, and the sun set the ocean, the shore and the tree-topsall aglitter with a million diamonds. It seemed fortunate that there wasto be no prolonged uncertainty about the future, yet the boys dreaded toface the conflict which manifestly lay before them.
The beach was strewn with drift from the lately wrecked vessel. Hardly avestige of the ship was left to mark the spot where it had gone aground.The wreck of the Chinese ship, however, was still standing, the pointhaving sheltered it from the force of the waves.
Seamen were at once busy salvaging eatables from the wreckage. Variousbarrels, boxes and casks, containing beef, pilot-bread, tea, coffee,cheese and like commodities, which would prove invaluable if there was tobe a prolonged stay on the island, were piled on the shore.
"Here, you. Lend a hand," the captain shouted to a knot of men.
The bay was quiet now. His purser, the former air pilot, had had thelanding-wheels removed from the "Dust Eater." They were prepared tolaunch her.
"That captain is a rotter," said Pant. "He and his purser would go offand leave us all here to starve if they could."
Very confident of his ability, the usurping pilot took his place beforethe wheel as the seamen prepared to shove the plane into the water.
Johnny Thompson had been looking on with interest when, all at once, hiseye was caught by a stranger who had silently joined the group that stoodabout. He wore an oriental costume, yet he was a white man.
Johnny started. At first he thought it was the Professor who had garbedhimself in the clothing left in the cabin while his own clothing dried.But instantly he knew he was wrong; this man's face was too brown and toomuch seamed to be that of the Professor.
Like a flash, the truth dawned upon him: This was the Professor'sbrother. He had not been drowned at the time of the wreck of the Chineseship, but had, somehow, saved himself after the others had been picked upby the passing steamer. It had been he who had built the cabin by thecliff. That explained the presence of the razor in the cabin. Itexplained, too, the mystery of the missing chests; he had brought themashore and had hidden them somewhere on the island.
He had been hiding out, but, on seeing the ship wrecked the previousnight, had doubtless decided to cast his lot with these marooned men.
He did not have long to wait for the proof that at least some of theseconclusions were correct, for almost instantly the Professor, turning,saw the stranger. For a second his face went white and he seemed about tofall. He recovered himself and sprang forward, and the two men embracedone another, like two children who had been a long time separated.
But now Johnny's attention was attracted by a suppressed laugh from themen about him, who had been watching the new pilot in his attempt tostart the "Dust Eater." As he looked, he saw that the man's face was asblack as it might have been had he smeared it with burnt cork.
What had happened was that having attempted to start the engine, andhaving failed, he had climbed back to the fuel tank and there hadunscrewed the top, thinking to see if there was gasoline in it. Inattempting to look inside, he had put his face too close to the opening,had blown into it, and the feathery coal dust with which the boys hadfilled the tank had risen up in a cloud to besmirch his damp visage.
The purser was in a fine rage. He ordered the sailor who had rowed himout to the "Dust Eater" in the canvas boat to take him ashore. Once hisfeet touched the beach, he came racing toward Johnny and Pant.
"Leave this to me," said Pant. "You and the Professor quietly drop out ofthe bunch, and then make your way to the north end of the island asquickly as possible."
He had hardly said this than the purser was upon him:
"Smart trick!" he snarled. "Thought you'd balk us. Took out the gasolineand filled the tank with coal dust!" He seemed about to strike Pant.
With a tiger-like spring, Pant leaped back.
"Better not." His voice was low, like the warning hiss of a panther.
The purser hesitated.
"Let me tell you something," Pant said evenly. "There isn't a drop ofgasoline on this island as far as I know; not a drop in that plane,either, but all the same, she'll fly for a man who understands her.
"Now, I'll tell you what," he went on. "You come over to the plane withme. Look her all over. See if there is any gasoline on her. Then you letme try to get her going. See if I can't do it."
"All right." The other man's smile showed his incredulity.
Together in the canvas boat they went out to the plane. Carefully thepurser looked the plane over, then expressing himself satisfied thatthere was no gasoline on board, he seated himself carelessly astride thefuselage, and with a mock-smile, said:
"All right. Let's see you start her."
Pant dropped silently into his seat. This was his chance. If he couldmake a clean get-away all would be well. Johnny and the Professor wouldbe waiting at the north end of the island. He would pick them up and theywould fly away. They would report the wreck of the steamer at the nearestport and leave the rest to the American consul.
Catching a quick breath, he touched a button, then pulled a lever. Atonce the engine thundered. They were moving.
"Now a little quick work," he whispered to himself.
He whirled about, and with one swing of his powerful arm pitched theastonished purser from the fuselage into the sea. The next instant theplane rose gracefully from the water. He was away.
The purser came up sputtering, to swim for the shore. The captain roaredat Pant, commanding him in the name of all things he knew to stop.Bullets from a seaman's rifle sang over his head, but all these argumentswere lost on him. He was on his way.
Taking a wide circle, that he might give his companions time to arrive atthe meeting-place, he at last swung back to the end of the island.
To his surprise, as he eased the plane down into the water, he saw, nottwo men, but four, awaiting him. Besides his two companions, there wasthe Professor's brother and the little shanghaied English sailor.
There was no time for demanding and receiving explanations; not even whenhe saw four large chests piled on the rocky shore did Pant ask aquestion. The canvas boat had been fastened to the "Dust Eater"; it wasstill there. Righting this, he pulled for the shore. The chests werequickly tied together, and the men loaded into the boat. Then, with theline of chests following in their wake, they pulled back to the plane.
The lashing of the chests, two back and two before the cabin, consumedtime. When this was done, Pant tumbled into his seat, the other fourpiled, pell-mell, into the cabin; the motors thundered and they wereaway.
They were not a moment too soon, for the captain, suspecting the move,had ordered his men to race to the end of the island. Just as the "DustEater" rose, graceful as a swan, out of the water, the first man appearedat the top of the cliff.
"Close one!" grumbled Pant through the tube.
"Safe enough now, though," sighed Johnny.
Their journey to a port on the largest island of the scattered group wasmade in safety. The wreck was reported; then the "Dust Eater" was loadedaboard a steamer bound for San Francisco. They were to have a safer ifnot a more eventful journey home.
It was only after the four chests had been safely stowed away in a largestateroom aboard the steamer that Johnny and Pant were let into thesecret of their contents. Then, with his brother by his side, the medicalmissionary unlocked one of the chests and lifted the lid.
The two boys leaned forward eagerly.
What they saw first was nothing more than sawdust. The missionary put hishand into this sawdust, and drew out a half-gallon can. This can had asmall screw top. This he took off, and, having poured a little of thecontents into the palm of his hand, held it out for the boys' inspection.
"Oh!" exclaimed Johnny in surprise. "Do you mean to tell us that we havegone through all this to save four chests of oil?"
"But wait," said the Professor quickly. "This is no ordinary oil. It isRussian napthalan. It is worth at the present moment, a dollar and a halfan ounce. There are sixty-four ounces in that can, seventy-five cans tothe chest, and four chests. Figure for yourself its value. But money," hewent on in a very serious tone, "is not the principal reward. It neveris. There are in America today tens of thousands of children sufferingfrom a terrible skin disease. They have no relief. A salve, of which thisoil is the base, will at once relieve their condition, and in time willcure them. To save these children, is this not a cause for which onemight gladly risk his life many times?"
"It is," said Johnny with conviction. "I am glad we came." In thisexpression he was quickly seconded by Pant.
Later that evening, after the moon had spread a long yellow streameracross the waters, Johnny and Pant sat in steamer chairs side by sidesilently gazing across the sea. Each was busy with his own thoughts.Johnny was going over the events of the past few months. In these monthsmany mysteries had leaped out of the unknown to stare him in the face andchallenge his wits to find their answers. Some had been solved; othersremained yet to be solved. There was the white fire of the factory whichhad worked such wonders with steel and, closely associated with that,were the fires that had started, apparently without cause, on the redracer in the desert and the savages' canoe. These remained mysteries, asdid the problem of the composition of the new steel. He wondered still ifthe vial he had put away on the upper shelf of the laboratory in thefactory could possibly add some light to this problem.
Of two things he was certain: The dust-burning motor was a completesuccess and the blue steel was the most marvelous steel ever invented. Hehoped that Pant and he would not now be long in revealing these facts tothose most interested. They would delight the heart of their employer andwould bring great joy to the aged inventor of the motor.
First, though, they must return from the coast to the factory with theirmachine. He hoped that, by this time, they had succeeded in shaking thecontortionist off their trail.
"But you never can tell," he whispered to himself.
As if his mind had been working on these very problems, Pant saidsuddenly:
"We'll take the boat rigging off the 'Dust Eater' when we reach theGolden Gate and rig her up with landing wheels. Then we'll fly home. Whatdo you say?"
"Looks like the best plan," said Johnny. "That'll give the motors onemore try-out and us another thrill."
Had he known the kind of thrill it was going to be, he would doubtlesshave favored shipping the plane by freight.
CHAPTER XVI A RACE IN MID-AIR
Johnny Thompson was happy; he thought he had never been so happy in hislife. They were on their last lap home. The flight over the Rockies andacross the Great American Desert, then over the vast prairies, had beenaccomplished with ease and pleasure. In a few hours they would bedropping down to the landing field at the factory.
"I only hope the inventor has come to himself enough to tell them thesecret formula," he mumbled to himself. He was thinking of the newprocess steel and again, for the hundredth time, the vial in thelaboratory flashed through his mind.
"Guess I should have told them," he mused. "Might be something in it.Might be--"
Pant's signal at the speaking tube broke in on his reflections.
"Plane to our larboard aft," he called. "Big blue one with wide planes.Looks like a racer."
Johnny started. What plane could this be? They were not in a regionfrequented by airplanes, nor in the path of an air mail line. But then,he reassured himself, planes were common enough the country over.
He could not, however, shake off at once the sense of fear that grippedhim. He had not forgotten their mad race across the desert, nor hisnarrow escape on the mountain lake. A race in an airplane might not endhappily, especially with him at the wheel.
His mind became at ease presently, and he again took up the thread ofthought that had been broken off. Should this day's work be completed insafety, their days of thrills and dangers would, for a time at least, beover.
"Seem to be following us," broke in Pant again. "Man, but they've gotsome speed! Let her out a notch or two."
The plane seemed fairly to leap from beneath them as Johnny, obeyinginstructions, "let her out." She was a good, substantial plane, of thetype that is destined to become the express-carrier of tomorrow, but shewas not of the fastest model.
Johnny risked a glance back. Pant seemed to be fumbling at something nearhis belt beneath his heavy leather coat.
"If he were only up here at the wheel!" Johnny groaned.
"Drop down a few hundred feet," suggested Pant. "If it's necessary, wemight make a landing." Johnny tilted her nose groundward.
As they came closer to earth, they realized at once that a landing wasimpossible; they were passing over range after range of low, rollinghills. There were no valleys to the crooked streams that flowed betweenthe hills.
"Shoot her up again; better traveling," suggested Pant.
It seemed to Johnny that he could catch the thundering throb of the otherplane's engine. But this was only imagination. Truth was, however, thatthe other plane was gaining on them. Yard by yard they came closer. Asthe miles sped from beneath them, the distance diminished. Now they werea mile away; now three-quarters. And now they plunged into a great massof white mist, which was a cloud, and were for a time lost to view.
As they came again into clear sky, Johnny gasped. The other planeappeared to have doubled her speed. It could be only a matter of momentsnow. What mad thing did those fellows mean to attempt? Did they hope toforce them to the ground? Would they ram them? To do so seemed certaindeath to all.
"They've got parachutes!" shouted Pant through the tube.
Parachutes? Johnny's mind was in a panic. Perhaps they meant to take totheir parachutes after ramming the "Dust Eater."
"Johnny!" Pant's voice was even and composed, "just slow her up a bit andhold her in a steady, straight line."
"Slow up!" Was Pant mad? The other plane must be all but upon them!Without question he obeyed. Straight as a chalk line they shot on throughthe blue.
One minute, two, three, four, five. As Johnny counted them on the dial ofthe clock in front of him, he expected at any one of them to feel asudden shock.
But the shock did not come.
"As you are," he heard Pant breathe at last. "No, I think you mightcircle a bit. Looks like we're over a meadow. Not a bad landing-place.They've taken to their parachutes. Their plane's on fire, but she'llcarry on a mile or two before she drops."
"Their plane's on fire!" Pant had said it in such a composed tone ofvoice that one might think it quite the thing to expect at this juncture.
Glancing back, Johnny saw him struggling to replace something beneath hisleather coat. It looked like a long black leather case.
With trembling hands he set the plane to circle downward, to follow theburning plane, which was now careening wildly. Some two miles back thetwo parachutes of the others, white specks against the blue, were nearingthe ground.
"We'll just have a look at their plane and be away again before theyarrive," suggested Pant. "Their fuselage is of sheet-steel. It won'tburn. There may be something of interest in the seat or somewhere."
Johnny did not fully approve of this maneuver. Yet, since Pant was incharge of this expedition, he proceeded to put the suggestion intoexecution.
* * * * * * * *
"Here's what I found in that plane." Pant drew some jagged bits of rustymetal from a canvas bag. It was four hours after the burning of the blueracer. The two boys had made a landing near the wreck, and Pant hadhurried over there, to return with two objects which he found in theseat: a canvas sack and a pair of gloves.
They were now safe on the landing-field of the factory. They were "home."Their journey and its dangers at an end, they were resting on the grassfor a few moments before going to report to their em
ployer.
"This is all there is left of the bar of new process steel they made awaywith. They tried to work it by heating it in the usual way, and failed.They found out some way that we were trying out some parts made of thesteel, and were all for running us down and taking it away from us."
Johnny examined the bits of metal carefully. "I believe you're right," heanswered.
"And these gloves," said Pant, holding the pair up for inspection,"establish the identity of the driver of the blue racer. No one but yourfriend, the contortionist, the frog-man, could wear such long-fingeredaffairs as these. I suppose," he said thoughtfully, "that we could havethe sheriff out in that country hunt those fellows up."
"What kind of a case would we have on them, though?" smiled Johnny. "Thesky's all free property up to date, isn't it? You can't have a fellowarrested for following you, can you?"
"I suppose not," Pant reluctantly admitted. "Well, anyway, we got theirmachine."
"Pant," said Johnny suddenly, "you set that airplane on fire."
"What?" Pant started and stared. "Well," he said after a few seconds,"what if I did? Didn't do it until they had shown they were planning torun us down, and then, not until I knew they had parachutes. That was allright, wasn't it?"
"Sure it was all right," smiled Johnny. "It was more than all right--itwas good."
For a time the two were silent.
"You set their auto on fire back in the desert, too," Johnny resumed.
"Sure I did."
"How'd you do it?"
The masked look that appeared to hide Pant's face faded. "I'll show you,Johnny. Just because you're such a good pal I'll show you."
Detaching from his belt the black leather case, which Johnny had seentwice before, he walked to the plane and, after attaching two wires,started the motor.
"Watch the grass over there a hundred feet."
Suddenly the ground began to smoke, and a patch of grass turned to brown,then black.
"Fairly rips up the ground, she does," Pant said with a proud grin."There's a piece of gas pipe somebody's left sticking up in the groundover there about three hundred feet. Watch that!"
Johnny watched with popping eyes while a foot of the pipe turned firstred, then intensely white, then toppled over like a weed in a forestfire.
"Pant," he said breathlessly, "what is it?"
"I don't quite know myself," Pant smiled, as he shut off the motor."There's been a lot of things like it. X-ray, violet-ray, radium and thelike, you know. But this is something I got up myself--sort of a crossbetween fire and lightning, near's I can find out. I'm having itpatented, though for the life of me I don't know what you'd use it for.You can't go around the world setting autos and planes on fire when theycome up behind you."
"And that," said Johnny, "is the white fire?"
"Exactly! I got a lot of fun out of that business in the factory. Fooledyou, didn't I?"
"Yes, and helped us a lot. That's why you didn't stay about when themanager was with us?"
"Sure it was. I had to go back and get the show going." Pant threw backhis head and laughed.
"Well," said Johnny, rising and stretching, "guess we'd better go in andmake our report."
"Leave that to you," said Pant. "I'll run over and see if my patentpapers are at the postoffice."
"And there," said Mr. McFarland, a half-hour later, as Johnny sat by thedesk in his private office, "are a couple of papers you might beinterested in."
The instant he had them in his hand Johnny recognized his father'ssignature.
"Notes," he murmured. "Why, they're marked 'Paid in full.' I--I don'tunderstand."
"You will remember," said the manager, struggling against a huskiness inhis voice, "that your banker told you he held notes against your father.He never told you who the real owner was. He was acting according toorders in doing this. I was the real owner, and now--since you haverendered a service to our company which more than balances the account--Iam giving them to you marked 'Paid in full.'"
Johnny's mind whirled. His good fortune seemed too good to be believed.His debt of honor was canceled. He might face the world with a cleanstart.
"I--I," he stammered, "I can't thank you."
"There is no occasion," said the magnate. "It is a plain businessproposition--value for value received.
"You may be pleased to know," he hurried on, glad to change the subject,"that we found a glass bottle left in the laboratory by the inventor,that tells us what the new element in the steel is. We have alsodiscovered a method of heat treatment which enables us to work the metal.We are now in a position to manufacture engines and utilize this newsteel. It will be worth millions, and the inventor, who is slowlyrecovering, will receive his share."
Johnny was experiencing strange sensations. "Where," he managed to ask,"did you find the bottle which gave you the secret of the formula?"
"Upper shelf; right-hand corner; central laboratory. Why do you ask?"
"For no reason," said Johnny, a queer smile playing about his lips,"except that I guess I was the fellow who put that bottle there."
He then explained how he had made the test at night, to help keep himselfawake, and how he had not dared to reveal the results for fear of beingcensured.
They had a good laugh over it, and at the end Mr. McFarland said:
"Just for that you may have the chummy roadster which you and Pant droveso far. And, by the way, send Pant to me. He must have some reward. Howdo you think he'd like the plane you drove?"
"Guess he'd like that O. K.," smiled Johnny. "Thanks for the car. Ifyou'll allow me, I should like to use it driving back and forth from yourfactory to the School of Engineering. I'd like to spend a half day ineach place. There are a lot of things I need to know."
"A splendid idea!" said Mr. McFarland. And at that Johnny bowed himselfout.
A half hour later he and Pant sat drinking coffee and munching doughnutsin the small kitchen of the aged inventor of the dust-burning motor. Theywere telling their story to the delighted old couple. And that story,better than mere assurance, informed them that the invention was a hugesuccess and that they were rich. No other pleasure could have sofittingly crowned this series of adventures than did this simplestory-telling to two old people who appreciated it all as no otherscould.
Johnny stuck to his purpose of attending the engineering school. Helearned there many of the secrets of science and industry. The time sooncame, too, when he might put his knowledge to work. For, one day, hereceived a wire from Pant, who was again on the Pacific coast with the"Dust Eater."
"Come at once," the telegram ran. "Need you. Big new sea mystery. Willexplain on arrival."
What that mystery was and how they solved it must be told in our nextvolume of mystery and adventure, "The Black Schooner."
Transcriber's Notes
--Copyright notice provided as in the original printed text--this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.
--Silently corrected palpable typos.
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