Chapter 20

THE HUNT FOR TENDERFOOT JOE

Rob, Merritt, Tubby Hopkins and Captain Hudgins rested, perspiring under the noon-day heat, on a group of flat rocks at the highest point of the island. Their search had been fruitless, and their downcast faces 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 of them.

Before any one had time to frame a reply the captain, whose keen eyes had 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 getting back."

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

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

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

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

"Well, we examined the marks carefully and found that two pairs of feet wore 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 carried Joe off--for I don't think there's much doubt now that he was carried off, 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 was Joe who first told the committee that Jack's model was a bought one and so lost him the fifty-dollar prize."

"By cracky, that's right!" assented Rob, "and you think that Jack and his 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 to get even on us for their fancied wrongs. But whose could have been the broken ragged shoes?" he asked, suddenly taking up another train of thought.

"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 and his gang had gone camping."

"Where?"

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

"You may be right, Andy. It's worth looking into, anyway," declared Rob. "I'll leave a note here for the others and we'll take a run over there 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 get aboard. We've got to move fast if we're to accomplish anything. You get the boat, Andy, while I write a line to tell the others what we've gone after."

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

"Boys, we think we have a clue to Joe's whereabouts. Have gone after him. Keep camp in regular way while we are gone. Hiram Nelson is leader, 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 a tree--the arrow pointing to a spot in the sand in which he buried the letter.

"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 any trace of the missing boy, however slight.

"Give way, boys," bellowed the captain, who had insisted on coming along armed with a huge horse pistol of ancient pattern which he had strapped on himself in the morning when the news of Joe Digby's disappearance 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 the Caribees."

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

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

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

"Hold on," warned Rob, as Tubby Hopkins was about to secure the dinghy to the mooring buoy, "we'll tow her along. We may need her. There's lots 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 in the spark and turned on the gasoline. After a few revolutions an explosion resulted and the Flying Fish was off on the mission which might 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 on the 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 a tricky 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 Rob said was the Upper Inlet channel.

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

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

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

The lead line, tagged with different colored bits of flannel at each fathom 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 three inches 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 a patch of the yellow water.

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

"Cut her down some more," sharply ordered Rob, without turning his head, "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," commented Captain Hudgins, pointing to the still shallower water indicated by the lightening tint of the channel.

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

"By-a-half!" came an instant later, meaning that only three feet of water lay right ahead.

"Stop her," roared out Rob.

But he was too late. Instantly, almost as Merritt's hand had flown to the lever, the nose of the Flying Fish poked into the sandbank and her motor 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 Flying Fish trembled in her every timber, and began to slide slowly backward from the treacherous shoal.

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

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

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

Eagerly the boys looked about them as they "opened up," as sailors call it, the narrow stretch of water known as the Upper Inlet. It did not take them long to spy the island with the tent on it in which the conversation between Jack and his cronies, and the mutineer to his plans, had taken place.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I've got a pocket one," said Andy Bowles, who was somewhat particular about 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 of triumph. "It's Jack Curtiss' writing, though he has tried to disguise it, and they've got Joe hidden somewhere. Look here, they want $200 for his return."

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

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