Chapter 7

SOME STRANGE DOINGS

It was not far from midnight when the boys, sorely perplexed, once more reached Hampton. The main street had been deserted long since, and every one in the village had returned to rest.

The boys left the captain by the water-front, while they headed up the Main Street for their respective homes. Rob remained up, pondering over the events of the evening for some time, without arriving at any solution of them. He was just about to extinguish his light when he was startled by a loud:

"His--s--st!"

The noise came from directly below his open window, which faced onto the garden.

He put out his head, and saw a dark figure standing in the yard.

"Who is it?" he demanded.

"It's me, the captain, Rob," rejoined the well-known voice. "I wouldn't have bothered yer but that I saw a light in yer window."

"What's the trouble, captain?" asked the boy, noting a troubled inflection in the old man's voice.

"My boat's gone!" was the startling reply.

"Gone! Are you sure?"

"No doubt about it. I left her tied ter the L wharf when I come up from the island, and now there ain't hide nor hair uv her there."

"I'll bet anything that that fellow Curtiss is at the bottom of all this," cried Rob. "I remember now I heard some time ago that he was thick with that Hank Handcraft."

"I don't know what ter do about it at this time uv ther night," went on the distressed captain, "an' I can't go round waking folks up ter get another boat."

"Of course not," agreed Rob. "There's only one thing for you to do, captain, and that is to put up here to-night, and in the morning we'll see what we can do."

"That's mighty fair, square, and above board uv yer, lad," said the captain gratefully. "Punk me anywhere. I'm an old sailor, and can aways find the softest plank in the deck."

"You won't have to do that," said Rob, who had slipped downstairs by this time and opened the door; "we've got a spare room you can bunk in to-night. I'll explain it all to father in the morning. Perhaps he can help us out."

"Gee whiz! almost twelve o'clock," exclaimed Hiram Nelson, looking up at the clock from the dining-room table in Paul Perkins' house. The chamber was strewn with text books on model aeroplane construction and littered with figures and plans of the boys' own devising. "How time flies when you're on a subject that interests you."

"Yes, it's a good thing it's vacation time," agreed Paul. "We wouldn't be in much shape to work at our books to-morrow, eh?"

"I should say not!" rejoined Hiram with conviction. "Well, so long, Paul. I guess we've got it all figured out now, and all that is left to do is to go ahead."

"That's the idea," responded Paul. "We'll get the prize for the glory of the Eagle Patrol, or--or--"

"Bust!" Hiram finished for him.

Hiram's way home lay past the bank, and as he walked down the moonlit street he thought for a minute that he perceived a light in the windows of the armory.

Almost as he fancied he glimpsed it, however, it vanished, and the lad was convinced that he must have been mistaken, or else seen a reflection of the moonlight on the windows.

"Queer, though," he mused. "I could almost have sworn it was a light."

Another curious thing presently attracted his attention. As he neared the bank a dark figure seemed to vanish into the black shadows round the corner. Something familiar about it struck Hiram, and the next moment he realized why.

"If that wasn't Bill Bender, I'm a Dutchman," he muttered, his heart beating a little faster. "But what can he be doing round here at this time of night?"

As he put the question to himself, Bill Bender, walking rapidly, as if he had come from some distance, and had not dodged round the corner a moment before, suddenly appeared from round the angle of the bank building.

"Good evening, Bill," said Hiram, wondering if his eyes were not playing him some queer tricks; "wasn't that you just went round the corner?"

"Who, me?" blustered Bill. "You need to visit an oculist, young man. I've just come from a visit to my aunt's. It was her birthday, and we had a bully time. Sat up a little too late, though. Good night."

And with a great assumption of easiness, the crony of Jack Curtiss walked rapidly off up the street.

"I guess he's right," mused Hiram, as he hurried on home. "But if that wasn't Bill Bender who walked round that corner it was his ghost, and all the ghosts I ever read about don't wear squeaky boots."

If Hiram had remained he would have had further cause to be suspicious and speculative.

The lad's footsteps had hardly died out down the street before Bill Bender cautiously retraced his way, and, going round to the side street, upon which the steps leading to the armory opened, gave a cautious whistle. In reply a sack was lowered from a window to him by some person invisible above.

Although there was some little light on the Main Street by reason of the moon and the few scattering lamps along the thoroughfare, the spot in which Bill now stood was as black as the proverbial pocket.

"Is the coast all clear?" came down a voice from the window above.

"Yes; but if I hadn't spotted young Hiram Nelson coming down the street and warned you to put out that light, it wouldn't have been," responded Bill in the same cautious tone.

"Well, we're safe enough now," came back the voice above, which any of his acquaintances would have recognized as Jack Curtiss'. "I've got the rest of them in this other sack. Here, take this one when I drop it."

Bill made a bungling effort to catch the heavy receptacle that fell following Jack's warning, but in the darkness he failed, and it crashed down with quite a clatter.

"Look out!" warned Jack anxiously, "some one might hear that."

"Not in this peaceful community. You seem to forget that eleven o'clock is the very latest bedtime in Hampton."

After a brief interval Jack Curtiss himself slipped out of the side door of the armory and joined his friend on the dark sidewalk.

"Well, what's the next move on the program?" asked Bill.

"We'll sneak down Bailey's Lane--there are no lights there--to Hank's place. Sam will be waiting off there with the boat," rejoined Jack.

"Yes, if he hasn't lost his nerve," was Bill's rejoinder as they shouldered their sacks and slipped off into the deep blackness shrouding the side streets.

"Well, if he has lost it, he'll come near losing his head, too," grated out Jack, "but don't you fear, he wants that fifty too badly to go back on us."

Silently as two cats the cronies made their way down the tree-bordered thoroughfare known as Bailey's Lane and after a few minutes gained the beach.

"Say, that's an awful hike down to Hank's gilded palace," grumbled Bill, "why didn't you have Sam wait for us off here?"

"Yes, and have old man Hudgins discover him when he finds his boat is gone," sneered Jack, "you'd have made a fine botch of this if it hadn't been for me."

The two exchanged no further words on the weary tramp along the soft beach. They plodded along steadily with the silence only broken by a muttered remark emanating from Bill Bender from time to time.

"Thank heaven, there's the place at last," exclaimed Bill, with a sigh of relief, as they came in sight of the miserable hut, "I began to think that Hank must have moved."

Jack gave a peculiar whistle and the next instant the same light the boys had seen earlier in the evening shone through the chinks of the hovel.

"Well, he's awake, at any rate," remarked Jack with a grin, "now to find out where the boat is."

As the wretched figure of the beach-comber appeared Jack hailed him roughly.

"Where's that boat, Hank?"

"Been cruising off and on here since eleven o'clock," rejoined the other sullenly, "ah! there she is now off to the sou'west."

He pointed and the boys saw a red light flash twice seaward as if some one had passed their hands across it.

"All right, give him the answer," ordered Jack. "We've got to hurry if we're to be back before the captain and those brats of boys get after our trail."

Hank at Jack's order dived into the hut and now reappeared with the smoky lantern. He waved it four times from side to side like a brakeman and in a short time a steady "put-put!" told the watchers that a motor boat was approaching.

"Now for your dinghy, Hank," urged Jack, "hurry up. You move like a man a hundred and ninety years old, with the rheumatism."

"Well, come on, then," retorted Hank, "here's the boat," pointing to a cobbled dinghy lying hauled up above the water line, "give me a hand and we'll shove off."

The united strength of the three soon had the boat in the water and with Hank at the oars they moved steadily toward the chugging motor boat.

"Well, Sam, you're on the job, I see," remarked Jack as the two craft ranged alongside and Sam cut off the engine.

"Oh, I'm on the job all right," rejoined Sam, feeling much braver now that the other two had arrived, "have you got them all right?"

"Right here in this bag, and some more in this, my bucko," chuckled Jack as he handed the two sacks over to Sam.

"Ha! ha! ha!" chortled Bill under his breath as he climbed out of the cobble into the motor boat, "won't there be a fine row in the morning."

"Well, come on; start up, Sam. We've no time to lose," ordered Jack as he and Bill got aboard, "good night there, Hank."

"Good night," rejoined Hank quietly enough, as the motor boat moved swiftly off over the moonlit sea. He added to himself, "It won't be a very 'good night' for you, my lad, if you don't pay me as handsomely as you promised."

And chuckling to himself till his shoulders shook, Hank resumed his oars and rowed back to the miserable shanty he called home.