CHAPTER XVII

HANK BUTTS DROPS SOMETHING

“FINE and swift!” chuckled the young skipper, though he had not much faith that the nervous one would remain up to pitch, “Don’t forget that new idea of yours, Mr. Moddridge.”

“I won’t,” promised the other, though his voice trembled a bit.

Under the young skipper’s orders Joe and Hank brought up the grappling hooks and chains and made them fast in place at the starboard rail.

These chains, only a few feet long, ended in hooks that were intended to catch in the rail of another vessel, holding the two craft locked fast together.

“Bring me a wrench, and get one for Mr. Moddridge, too, Hank,” was Halstead’s next order. “Also, get one for yourself. They’re handy, if strangers try to get rough with you.”

Young Butts quickly obeyed, though his own wrench he dropped into a hip pocket. He came on deck bearing the same heavy hitching weight that had been shied at the boat’s young skipper on the pier a few nights before.

“Like that better, do you?” asked Tom, his gaze lighting on it as Hank sprang on deck.

“Well, it might come handy,” replied the freckle-faced one, speculatively.

The three men left on the schooner had already hauled in their sheets and headed around in the effort to reach their own boat’s crew. But the “Rocket” ran swiftly up alongside.

“You keep away from us!” yelled the man at the schooner’s wheel.

“Don’t you believe it for a minute,” Captain Tom retorted. Joe and Hank were already at their stations with the grappling hooks.

“You’re acting like pirates, if you try to come aboard us,” shouted back the fellow at the schooner’s wheel.

“A fine lot you are, to talk about piracy,” retorted Captain Halstead, ironically. Then, by a piece of neat steering, he ran the motor boat up so close alongside that she almost grazed the other vessel.

“Let go the hooks!” he ordered. Hank and Joe threw the grapplers so that both made fast over the schooner’s rail. In the same instant Halstead shut off power. The schooner, if it remained under sail, could tow the “Rocket” now.

The instant that Joe Dawson and Hank Butts let go of the hooks they sprang to board the schooner. A sailor brandishing a belaying pin ran to intercept Hank, but that freckle-faced youth bounded to the sailing vessel’s deck, bearing the hitching weight before him in both hands.

Just as the sailor was about to close in with him Hank, almost as if by accident, dropped the heavy iron weight. It fell, just where he had intended it should, on the sailor’s advanced left foot.

There was a roar of pain as the sailor doubled up and sat down on the deck. But Hank, who had sidestepped before the downward stroke with that belaying pin, now regained his weapon and straightened up, grinning.

“Sorry, matey,” observed Hank to the squatting sailor. “But didn’t your father ever tell you that you oughtn’t to run into anyone who’s carrying too much weight for his age.”

Joe, a heavy wrench in one hand, and fire in both eyes, had leaped forward to meet the other sailor half-way. But that fellow, though armed with a length of stout rope, knotted at the end, prudently retreated, snarling all the while.

Tom Halstead was followed by Eben Moddridge as the young skipper made his way aft to where the helmsman stood.

Hank, seeing that the sailor with the crushed foot was really out of the running, followed Halstead aft. Butts, holding his iron weight, perched himself on the cabin house, his feet dangling over the hatchway.

The helmsman had hastily made a few turns of rope fast around the wheel, to hold the vessel to its course. Now, his eyes glaring, he stepped in front of Halstead.

“What on airth d’ye mean by these pirate tactics?” he bellowed.

“Keep cool, and keep your distance,” ordered young Halstead, holding the wrench so that he could use it in a twinkling at need. “You have a friend of ours on board here. Where is he?”

“There ain’t no one on board ’cept you pirates and us three of the crew,” retorted the late helmsman. “And you fellers ain’t going to be aboard but a few seconds more.”

“If you won’t help me out, I’ll go below and search the cabin,” proposed Captain Tom.

Just as the helmsman sprang forward to intercept this move Joe darted between them, shoving the fellow back and threatening him with a wrench. The sailor who had first moved to engage Dawson was now stepping stealthily aft.

“Jorkins,” yelled the engaged helmsman, “don’t you let no one go down that companionway. Stop it!”

“Ya-ah!” sneered Jorkins, sulkily. “With that feller balancing his ton of iron for a crack at my head?”

For Hank Butts had suddenly risen to a standing position on the cabin house roof, and was holding the hitching weight in a way that did not look remarkably peaceful.

Halstead sprang down the companionway. Moddridge started to follow, then turned, feeling that he might be wanted on deck. In his present excitement he actually forgot to be nervous.

Below were two staterooms and a small saloon. Captain Tom quickly explored these rooms, searching also the lockers and cupboards. Just as he was finishing he heard sounds of a tussle above, then a heavy fall. Like a flash the boy was on deck, fearing mischief. The troublesome helmsman had made a spring at Dawson, only to be tripped by that agile youth. Now Mr. Moddridge was seated on the helmsman’s chest, while Hank Butts had taken up a new post from which he could drop the weight, at need, upon the helmsman’s legs. The latter fellow, therefore, was now keeping quiet. Turning, Joe, wrench in readiness, had driven the other uninjured seaman forward. The fellow whom Hank had first encountered was limping about, though he did not look likely to cause any trouble.

One swift glance Halstead shot out over the water, at that small boat, still more than half a mile distant. Then the “Rocket’s” young skipper ran forward, looking in at forecastle and galley. He even looked down into the water butts, but no Mr. Delavan was to be found.

“I am afraid we’ve boarded the wrong ship,” declared Mr. Moddridge, hesitatingly.

“Ye’ll find out ye have, afore ye’re through with the law,” growled the prostrate and now prudent helmsman, from his “bed” on the deck. “Boarding a craft forcibly, on the high seas, is a crime.”

“Aw, be a good well, and run dry,” advised Hank.

There remained, now, only the holds to be investigated. Oppressed by the shortness of the time that was left to him, and fearing, also, that his guess had not been a good one, Tom Halstead sprang down the ladder into the forward hold. Here there was nothing beyond a miscellaneous cargo of supplies. The after hold was empty. With a white face Halstead reached the deck.

Here the young skipper beheld Joe and the seaman whom his chum was holding at bay.

“See here, my man,” Tom uttered hastily, turning to the sailor, “tell me just where to find the man that’s a prisoner on board, and, on behalf of Mr. Moddridge, I’ll offer you five hundred dollars in cash and a safe passage ashore on our boat.”

“There ain’t no one on this boat a prisoner, unless it’s us fellers of the crew,” returned the sailor, sulkily.

Yet, as he spoke, there was a cunning gleam in his eyes that made Halstead believe him to be lying.

“By gracious, there’s one place I overlooked,” ejaculated Captain Halstead, turning from the seaman and heading again for the hold ladder. Down he went, as fast as he could travel. With the wrench he tapped along the floor.

“Oho! It’s hollow here,” muttered the young skipper, halting in the middle of the fore hold, right over the keel. His keen eyes moved fast as he looked for some indication of unfastened planking. Finding one crack that looked suspicious, he pried in an edge of the wrench. The plank yielded, came up in Tom’s nervous, ready, strong fingers, and——

There lay Francis Delavan!

“Good gracious! What have they done to him?” gasped the young motor boat skipper.

The Wall Street man lay on his back, his arms under him, as though tied behind him.

The plank he was holding fell to one side as Tom Halstead’s first glimpse of his employer revealed that much.

There was a gag in Mr. Delavan’s mouth, but the startling signs were the purplish blue in his face and the queer, lifeless look in his partly-open eyes.

“Have they killed him? Is it spite work, or all part of their fearful plot?” shuddered Tom Halstead.

Then, his heart pounding against his ribs at a fearful rate, the boy bent down to rest an inquiring hand on that unnatural-looking face.