CHAPTER 8

“Dan Carter—Take Warning”

On the night prior to the departure of Den 2 for Skeleton Island, all the Cubs gathered at the Cave to receive final instructions.

Mr. Hatfield informed the boys they were to meet at the Webster City Yacht Club promptly at eight o’clock the next morning. Transportation would be provided to the island in a launch contributed by a friend of Midge’s father.

“Now don’t oversleep,” he warned as the meeting broke up. “And don’t arrive at the dock before the crack of dawn either! Try to make it about a quarter to eight so we can leave on the hour.”

After nearly all of the Cubs had gone, Mr. Hatfield and Brad busied themselves straightening the clubroom. Dan brought the record of the meeting up to date. Then, pulling a chair up beside the gasoline lamp, he reverted to his favorite occupation—that of trying to solve the coded message left by Jacques.

“Having any luck?” Mr. Hatfield presently inquired.

“Not yet.” Dan dropped his pencil in a gesture of utter discouragement. “I guess I’m a sap to waste time trying to figure it out. Maybe it isn’t even a code.”

Mr. Hatfield paused at the table to study the scratch pad on which the boy had been writing.

“Don’t give up, Dan,” he advised, resting his hand for a moment on his shoulder. “Worthwhile things usually come hard. Keep plugging.”

“I’ve tried every possible combination of letters. No soap.”

Mr. Hatfield studied the odd grouping of numerals: “020614 7552845 24.”

“Number 5 reappears three times,” he observed. “If only you could figure that one out, it might give you a start.”

“I’ve tried at least twenty combinations with no luck.”

“Well, don’t give up hope, Dan. Bring the message along with you to camp. Perhaps some of the Den Dads can figure it out while we’re there.”

“Guess I’ll have to,” Dan sighed. “I’d rather do it myself though. I have one more idea I want to try.”

Mr. Hatfield, who was ready to leave for home, remarked that the hour was growing rather late.

“Shouldn’t you break it off for tonight, Dan?” he suggested. “Remember, we leave early for Skeleton Island.”

“I’ll be there, Mr. Hatfield. I just want to try one more idea. Don’t wait for me. You and Brad go on.”

The Cub leader was reluctant to leave the boy alone in the Cave. Twice during the week, Red and Chips had reported that they thought someone might be spying on the clubroom.

Although inclined to believe the boys were fanciful, Mr. Hatfield nevertheless disliked to leave Dan by himself.

“Sure you’ll be all right?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Brad and I will be glad to wait if you’re set on working longer on that code.”

“No need, Mr. Hatfield. I’ll put out the light and see that everything is ship-shape when I leave.”

“Well, don’t stay too long, Dan.”

In departing, Mr. Hatfield and Brad lowered a canvas covering which served as a door across the cave entrance. Of no practical value in protecting the clubroom from intruders, it kept out wind and rain.

Left to himself, Dan devoted himself once more to the task at hand.

Writing out the letters of the alphabet in orderly rows, he gave each a number, thus:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4

and on through the alphabet.

When this brought no solution he tried a second combination, starting with the number “2” instead of “1”.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5

For the next twenty minutes he worked on, trying many combinations. Each time, he started off with a higher number for the letter “A,” working up as high as “7”.

“It’s no use,” he decided at last. “I may as well go home.”

On the pad before Dan was a string of unused alphabetical letters. Absently, with no hope of striking upon anything that would work, he wrote in corresponding numbers, starting with “8.”

A B C D E F G H I J K L 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3

Referring to Jacques’ coded message, he then began to transfer the numbers into counterpart letters.

“Let’s see,” he mused. “‘0’ could be either C, M or W; and ‘2’ might be E, O or Y. Number 6 would have to be I or S. Number 1 could represent D, N or X. And 4 would have to be G—”

Dan went no further, for suddenly he saw that the puzzle actually was beginning to make sense. Excitedly he wrote in the first combination of letters:

020614 COMING

“Yipee! I’ve got it!” he muttered. “I’ve found the key!”

A strong gust of wind unexpectedly flapped the light canvas which hung across the cave doorway.

So engrossed was Dan that he did not notice. Nor did he see a shadowy figure crouching on the platform.

Then the light suddenly was extinguished. Startled, Dan jerked to attention.

As he groped for a match with which to relight the lamp, a deep voice entoned:

“_Take warning, Dan Carter! Remain away from Skeleton Island!_”

Dan felt the hair rise on his neck. Chills slithered down his spine. The mysterious voice, he realized, came from the cave entranceway.

Recovering from the first shock of surprise, the boy sprang to his feet, upsetting his chair.

In three long strides he reached the entrance and jerked aside the canvas flap.

No one was there. But disappearing down the steps Dan saw a lean, dark figure.

“Hey, you!” he shouted furiously.

The intruder only ran the faster, pulling a jacket high around his neck to shield his face.

Angered by the threat and determined to learn who had been spying upon him, Dan started down the steps in hot pursuit.

The intruder, a fleet runner, raced across the beach, heading for a clump of bushes along the highway. Dan pounded closer and closer at his heels.

Then, the one ahead unexpectedly tripped in the loose sand. He stumbled and fell. In a flash Dan was upon him, pulling the jacket away so that he could see the culprit’s face.

“Ross!” he recognized him. “Ross Langdon! Well, of all the dirty, low tricks!”

“Take it easy, will you?” panted the Cub from the rival Den. “You’re smashing my ribs!”

“Serves you right! So you’ve been spying on the Cave!”

“Aw, I wasn’t spying,” Ross protested. “Can’t you take a joke?”

“How long were you hiding there behind the canvas flap?”

“Only a minute or two, Dan. Honest! I saw the light burning, so I thought I’d take a peek and see who was there.”

“It was a lousy trick—especially that warning about going to Skeleton Island.”

“Scared you, didn’t I?” Ross chuckled, squirming to free himself from the other’s tight grasp.

“You startled me. But I don’t scare that easily.”

“Like fun! You nearly jumped through the roof of the Cave! What were you working on so late, anyhow?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Nothing? You were so absorbed you didn’t hear a thing until I waved the canvas flap to make the light go out. You were figuring out something with paper and pencil. Your income tax?”

“Just a little work for the Den,” Dan replied vaguely.

“Keeping it to yourself, eh? If you’ll climb off my mid-section, I’ll amble back there with you. I’ve always been curious to see the set-up of your much advertised Cave.”

Dan made no comment as he let Ross up. Both boys dusted their clothing free of sand.

“Well, let’s go,” Ross said impatiently. He started toward the Cave.

“I was just thinking it’s time to go home,” Dan said, following the other boy reluctantly. “It’s getting late—”

“I’ll help you close up the Cave for the night.”

“I don’t need any help.”

“Sure you do. Don’t be so inhospitable,” Ross chuckled. “You may as well invite me, because I’m going along anyhow.”

Dan made no further protest as he fell into step with the Den 1 boy. He knew that Ross had in mind learning if he could, the nature of the paper upon which he had been working. Dan was equally determined to keep Jacques’ coded message a Den 2 secret.

“If Ross hadn’t pulled that fool trick, I’d have had the code completely broken by this time,” he thought. “Now I’ll have to take the message home, because I don’t want him to see it.”

The two Cubs climbed the stairs and entered the dark Cave. Dan groped his way to the table and lighted the wick of the kerosene lamp.

In its flickering light, the room somehow did not appear exactly as he had left it. His chair lay overturned. Papers on the table were very disordered. Dan did not recall having left them so.

Not wishing Ross to see the coded message upon which he had been working, the boy looked about for it. But the paper was not on the table. Nor could he find it anywhere on the floor.

Even the scratch papers on which he had written various combinations of letters, had disappeared.

“Lose something?” Ross inquired as his gaze traveled about the well-furnished room. He added admiringly: “Nice diggings you have here! Wish our Den had a cave.”

Dan, thumbing through the loose papers on the table, made no reply.

“What’s wrong?” Ross demanded.

“I’m looking for some work I was doing when you broke in here,” Dan answered reluctantly. “Ross, you didn’t—”

“How could I have taken anything?” the other demanded. “You were hot on my heels every minute.”

“Yeah, that’s right, Ross. You were alone when you came here?”

“Sure. What you driving at anyhow?”

“I’ve lost something—an important paper. You saw me working on it when you came up here.”

“I remember, Dan. Maybe you stuffed it in your pocket when you took after me.”

“I don’t think so. I left everything here on the table.”

To make certain, Dan searched all his pockets. The coded message was in none of them.

Thinking that perhaps a gust of wind had carried the paper far across the floor of the cave, he looked in every corner and even under the couch.

“Ross, it’s gone,” he said with sudden conviction.

“But how could it have disappeared? Honest, Dan, I didn’t take a thing. And none of the Cubs from Den 1 were with me.”

“I believe you, Ross,” Dan assured him. “But someone has been in here while we were on the beach. I sensed it the instant I came in.”

“Anything else missing?”

“Not that I’ve noticed. Mr. Hatfield never allows us to keep anything of great value here because we can’t lock up the cave.”

“Gosh, if it was my fault, I’m sorry,” Ross said. “I wouldn’t have pulled that stunt, only it struck me as a good joke. Who would have come here?”

“That’s what I can’t figure.”

“We didn’t see anyone on the beach, Dan.”

“I know, but we weren’t paying particular attention.” Dan prepared to blow out the kerosene lamp. “Let’s go down there now and look around.”

The boys descended the long flight of wooden steps to the beach. A pale half-moon only faintly illuminated the stretch of glistening sand.

“No one around, Dan,” Ross said, looking up and down the beach. “You’ll probably find that paper in the morning.”

The other boy made no reply. He was staring at the sand near the base of the steps.

“What do you see now?” Ross demanded.

“Someone has been here,” Dan said quietly.

“Footprints, you mean?” Ross was inclined to scoff at the other boy’s observation. “You can’t tell anything by that. You had a Den meeting tonight. Probably those large footprints were made by one of the Den Dads.”

“That could be, Ross. But I’m noticing something else too.”

“Well, don’t keep it a secret, Wise Guy,” Ross said, a trifle irritably. “What have those bright little searchlights of yours picked up?”

Dan pointed to a series of tiny circular marks in the hard-packed sand. Approximately one-half inch deep and perhaps a foot and a half apart, the imprints led down-beach into a clump of bushes.

“What’s so strange about that?” Ross demanded.

Offering no reply, Dan walked over to the bush. As he had expected, no one now was hiding there.

However, in the soft sand appeared additional footprints from a large man’s shoe. And beside them were several mysterious circular marks which he thought might have been made by someone using a walking stick.

Dan turned to Ross who had followed him. “Will you do me a favor?” he asked.

“What kind?” the other boy asked with caution.

“Say nothing to any of the Cubs about what happened tonight—either those in your Den or mine.”

“W-e-ll,” Ross hesitated, for he knew the story would make good telling. “Okay, I’ll keep mum if you will. The joke didn’t pan out quite as I expected. But why do you care?”

“I’ll tell you, Ross. What happened tonight convinces me someone has been spying on the Cave. I know Mr. Hatfield would just as soon the fact isn’t advertised.”

“You think a gang of boys—fellows who aren’t Cubs—are aiming to make trouble?”

“I don’t believe boys are mixed up in it, Ross.”

“Grownups?”

“That would be my guess.”

Ross was inclined to make light of Dan’s theory. “Oh, you’re building up too much out of nothing,” he insisted. “You’ll find that missing paper in the morning. Mark my words.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” Dan said as the two boys started for home.

Actually, he had no hope whatsoever. A conviction had grown upon him that the paper left by Jacques never would be seen again.

And with its disappearance had vanished his last chance to solve the mysterious coded message.