Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol

  CHAPTER XX

  THE HUNT FOR TENDERFOOT JOE

  Rob, Merritt, Tubby Hopkins and Captain Hudgins rested, perspiringunder the noon-day heat, on a group of flat rocks at the highest pointof the island. Their search had been fruitless, and their downcastfaces showed it.

  "How ever are we going to break the news to his parents?"

  Merritt it was who voiced the question that had been troubling all ofthem.

  Before any one had time to frame a reply the captain, whose keen eyeshad been gazing about him, gave a sudden shout:

  "There's that smoke yonder yer boys were lookin' fer," he exclaimed,pointing.

  "Four columns of it," shouted Rob, "hurray, boys, that means news!It's 'Come to counsel.' Come on, don't let's lose any time in gettingback."

  Rapidly the boys stumbled and ran forward over the rocks and pushed onamong the dense growth that covered the hillside they had climbed.They hardly noticed the obstacles, however, so keenly were they bent ongetting back to camp and learning the news which they knew must beawaiting them. They covered the distance in half the time it had takenthem to ascend the hillside and were met in the camp by the body ofsearchers--Andy Bowles, Sim Jeffords and Ernest Thompson--who had swungoff to the left or mainland side of the island.

  "Well, boys, what news?" breathlessly exclaimed Rob, "we saw thecounsel smoke and hurried down at top speed."

  "Well, there's not very much, I'm afraid, Rob," began Andy, "but wefound something that may give us a clue. About half a mile down thebeach there's the distinct mark of a boat keel where it was drawn up onthe hard sand and the marks of three separate pairs of feet."

  "Good," exclaimed Rob, "that's something and half confirms mysuspicion. Go on, Andy, what else?"

  "Well, we examined the marks carefully and found that two pairs of feetwore good shoes and the third a very broken, disreputable pair."

  "Yes," exclaimed Rob, while the others listened breathlessly.

  "Of course that indicated to us that three persons must have carriedJoe off--for I don't think there's much doubt now that he was carriedoff, do you?"

  "I don't," said Rob sadly, "but for what possible motive?"

  "I have it," suddenly exclaimed Tubby Hopkins, snapping his fingers,"you remember the day of the aeroplane model contest?"

  "Yes, but what--" began Rob.

  "Has that to do with it," finished Tubby for him. "Everything. It wasJoe who first told the committee that Jack's model was a bought one andso lost him the fifty-dollar prize."

  "By cracky, that's right!" assented Rob, "and you think that Jack andhis gang have carried him off in revenge for it?"

  "Looks that way to me," nodded the stout youth.

  "Why, they wouldn't dare," began Andy Bowles.

  "Oh, yes, they would," amended Rob bitterly, "they'd dare anything toget even on us for their fancied wrongs. But whose could have been thebroken ragged shoes?" he asked, suddenly taking up another train ofthought.

  "Hank Handcrafts, the beach-comber's," suggested Tubby.

  "Gee Whillikens! I'll bet a cracker that's the solution," cried Andy,"and now I come to think of it I heard, before we left, that Jack andhis gang had gone camping."

  "Where?"

  "Up around the Upper Inlet somewhere. You know that's full of islandsand as there's no drinking water there few people ever think offrequenting the place. If they wanted to do anything like carrying offJoe that is where they would have been likely to go."

  "You may be right, Andy. It's worth looking into, anyway," declaredRob. "I'll leave a note here for the others and we'll take a run overthere in the Flying Fish. If Joe is there we'll get him out."

  "And in jig time, too," chimed in Ernest Thompson.

  "Come on, boys, get some gasoline, hop in the dinghy and let's getaboard. We've got to move fast if we're to accomplish anything. Youget the boat, Andy, while I write a line to tell the others what we'vegone after."

  The young leader hastily ran into his tent and sitting down at thetable dashed off these lines:

  "Boys, we think we have a clue to Joe's whereabouts. Have gone afterhim. Keep camp in regular way while we are gone. Hiram Nelson isleader, and Paul Perkins corporal, in our absence.

  "ROB BLAKE, Leader,

  "Eagle Patrol, B. S. of A."

  With a piece of chalk the boy marked a rough square and an arrow on atree--the arrow pointing to a spot in the sand in which he buried theletter.

  "Now, then, come on," he shouted, dashing toward the boat, "shove off,boys, and if Joe's in the Upper Inlet we'll find him."

  "Hurray," cheered the others, much heartened by the prospect of anytrace of the missing boy, however slight.

  "Give way, boys," bellowed the captain, who had insisted on comingalong armed with a huge horse pistol of ancient pattern which he hadstrapped on himself in the morning when the news of Joe Digby'sdisappearance reached him. "This reminds me uv the time when I was A.B. on the Bonnie Bess and we smoked out a fine mess of pirates in theCaribees."

  "Regular pirates?" inquired Andy as Rob and Merritt bent to the oars.

  "Reg'lar piratical pirates, my boy," responded the old salt, "wedecorated the trees with 'em and they looked a lot handsomer there thanthey did a-sailin' the blue main."

  Further reminiscences of the captain's were cut short by their arrivalat the Flying Fish's side. They had hastily thrown two cases ofgasoline into the dinghy before they shoved off so that all thatremained to be done was to fill the fast craft's tank and she was readyto be off.

  "Hold on," warned Rob, as Tubby Hopkins was about to secure the dinghyto the mooring buoy, "we'll tow her along. We may need her. There'slots of shoal water in that Upper Inlet."

  "Right yer are, my boy; there's nothin' like bein' forehanded,"remarked the captain as Merritt bent over the flywheel and Rob threw inthe spark and turned on the gasoline. After a few revolutions anexplosion resulted and the Flying Fish was off on the mission whichmight mean so much or so little to the anxious hearts on board her.

  "Do you know the channel," asked Merritt as Rob with his eyes glued onthe coast sent the Flying Fish through the waves, or rather wavelets,for the sea was almost like a sheet of glass.

  "I've been up here once or twice after duck," rejoined Rob, "but it's atricky sort of a place to get through. However, I guess we'll make it."

  As they drew nearer the shores the boys made out an opening which Robsaid was the Upper Inlet channel.

  "Say, Tubby, get out the lead line and let's see how much water wehave," directed Rob as the color of the ocean began to change from darkblue to a sort of greenish tinge, lightening in spots, where the shoalswere near to the surface, to a sandy yellow.

  The stout lad took a position in the bow and swinging the lead abouthis head cast it suddenly ahead of the Flying Fish's bow.

  "Slow down," ordered Rob, and Merritt cut down the motor to not morethan two hundred revolutions a minute.

  The lead line, tagged with different colored bits of flannel at eachfathom length, sang through the stout lad's fingers.

  "By-a-quarter-three," he called out the next instant.

  This meant that three fathoms and a quarter or eighteen feet threeinches of water was under the keel of the little craft.

  "Nough fer a man-uv-war," grinned old Captain Hodgins.

  Slowly the Flying Fish forged ahead till right under her bow lay apatch of the yellow water.

  "By-a-half-two," came a sharp hail from the fat youth, who had oncemore heaved the lead.

  "Cut her down some more," sharply ordered Rob, without turning hishead, "we draw only three feet so I guess we'll do nicely for a while."

  "Great hop-toads, there's regular shark's teeth ahead," commentedCaptain Hudgins, pointing to the still shallower water indicated by thelightening tint of the channel.

  "By-one-by-a-quarter-one!" came sharply from Tubby, as the Flying Fishseemed hardly to crawl along the water.

  "By-a-half!" came an instant later, meaning that only t
hree feet ofwater lay right ahead.

  "Stop her," roared out Rob.

  But he was too late. Instantly, almost as Merritt's hand had flown tothe lever, the nose of the Flying Fish poked into the sandbank and hermotor with a gentle sigh came to a stop.

  "Hard a-ground!" roared the captain, "too bad and with a fallin' tide,too."

  "Full speed astern," came the next order.

  The propeller churned up the water aft into a white turmoil. The FlyingFish trembled in her every timber, and began to slide slowly backwardfrom the treacherous shoal.

  "Safe, by the great horn spoon!" roared the captain, fetching AndyBowles a slap on the back that almost toppled the small bugler into thewater.

  "For a time," said Rob quietly, "come ahead a bit, Merritt."

  Slowly the little vessel slid ahead once more. Rob seemed fairly tofeel his way through the narrow channel he had picked out and finallythe Flying Fish, after as much coaxing as is usually bestowed on abalky horse, floated in the deep water beyond the sandy bar.

  Eagerly the boys looked about them as they "opened up," as sailors callit, the narrow stretch of water known as the Upper Inlet. It did nottake them long to spy the island with the tent on it in which theconversation between Jack and his cronies, and the mutineer to hisplans, had taken place.

  "There's their camp!" shouted Rob, eagerly sending the Flying Fishahead at full speed, "now we'll find out something."

  "And, maybe, use this." The captain, as he spoke, grimly produced hisformidable weapon and flourished it about.

  "No, none of that," sternly rejoined Rob, "the Boy Scouts can take careof those fellows--without using firearms."

  "You bet," rejoined Merritt, grimly "muscling up," "we'll show 'em ifit comes to a fight."

  But bitter disappointment awaited the boys. As we know, the camp wasdeserted and no trace or clue of the whereabouts of its occupants wasto be found. In the tent, however, lay a piece of blotting paper withink-marks on it. It was the material with which Jack had dried hisletter.

  "Anybody got a mirror?" asked Rob. "This blotter may help some if wecan read what's on it."

  "I've got a pocket one," said Andy Bowles, who was somewhat particularabout his person and always carried a small toilet case.

  "That will do; let's have it."

  Rob seized the bit of looking glass and held the blotter to it.

  "Just as I thought," he exclaimed a minute later, with a cry oftriumph. "It's Jack Curtiss' writing, though he has tried to disguiseit, and they've got Joe hidden somewhere. Look here, they want $200for his return."

  "Yes, but what good does it do us to know that," objected Merritt, whenthe sensation this announcement caused had subsided. "They evidentlyhad him here overnight and then deserted the camp for fear we'd pick uptheir trail. They've taken Joe with them."

  "By the great sea-serpent, that's right," grunted the captain, "it's ablind trail, boys!"