CHAPTER XXV.
QUATTY AS A SCOUT.
Acting on Billy's suggestion Lathrop did not, as we know, wireless anynews of the disappearance of Ben Stubbs to the Boy Aviators. He in factagreed, after some pondering of the situation, with the reporter'sopinion that it was needless to worry them when they already had theirhands full. The night after Ben Stubbs' mysterious vanishment was passedin no very agreeable way by the young dwellers at Camp Walrus and as forPork Chops his wails when he learned of it rang to heaven and backagain.
"Ah jes' knowed dat dis yer trip was hoodooed fum de moment dat MarseFrank got dat lil' green mummery from dat moonshine man," he saidgloomily, and made dire and dismal prophecies till Billy, seeing thatLathrop was very nearly breaking down under the strain, packed theskipper of the _Carrier Dove_ off to bed. Billy and Lathrop spent mostof the night hours--except when they fell into troubled dozes from timeto time--seated beside the silent wireless instrument, hoping againsthope that news of some kind might be received from the boys. Ben'sself-reliance and adaptability had made itself so manifest on theexpedition that, as Billy said, it seemed impossible to believe that anyreally serious mishap had befallen him.
Again and again as they sat by the fire the boys went over and over thepuzzling affair. Lathrop repeated his story to Billy a dozen times andeach time the young reporter asked for a repetition hoping that somepoint that would shed a light on the mystery might have been omitted bythe other. But Lathrop's recitals of the incident varied not at all andBilly was fain to give it up at last.
"I've worked on a lot of queer disappearance cases," he remarkedsententiously, "but this has them all beaten by ten blocks and the CityHall."
And when Billy dropped off into a troubled nap he had a vivid dream thathis city editor had presented him with a big crocodile, stuffed in alifelike manner and equipped with silver teeth and claws of enormoussize. The young reporter was in the midst of an elaborate speech ofthanks when he awoke and found that the first gray heralding of dawn wasbroad in the east and that the great multitude of herons and fish-eatingbirds that roosted among the islands was already beginning itspilgrimage to the feeding grounds on the oyster bars of the Archipelago.Dawn in the Everglades is a beautiful and impressive sight, but Billy atthat time had no eyes for it. His sole thought was to find Ben Stubbs.He therefore aroused Lathrop and the two boys, after routing out PorkChops and making him cook them a quick breakfast and put them up a lightlunch, started for the canoes, determined to circumnavigate the islandin search of their missing comrade. Carefully they explored every inchof the soft muddy beach and in due time arrived at the spot whereseveral feet, intermingled in an inextricable pattern, marked the spotwhere the Seminoles had blindfolded and kidnapped Ben.
Billy, with a reporter's trained instinct, was on his hands and knees ina minute and came amazingly near reconstructing the scene of Ben'scapture.
"Ben was seized by several men--Indians I should say. He made a briefresistance but was overpowered and dragged some distance and thencarried. He was then hurled into an Indian canoe, which was followed bytwo others, and taken to some Indian village; where or why, I don'tknow," he declared.
"Well, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said Lathrop, laughing, in spite of hisheavy heart, at Billy's surprising enthusiasm, which led him toconstruct what seemed to the other boy at best a fanciful theory, "likeDr. Watson I can understand part of your reasoning, namely that he wasseized by Indians for I can see the marks of their moccasins, I can alsounderstand--knowing Ben as I do--that he struggled;" he chuckled againas he pictured the wiry, steel-muscled Ben laying out his captors, "butfor the rest please explain."
"It's simple enough, my dear Watson," said Billy in the manner of thecelebrated sleuth of fiction, "Ben's boots had hob-nails--very well, Ican see that after stamping round a lot, hob-nails were dragged bymoccasins--see the little lines they made in the sand? Then the linesstop but there are no more hobnails, clearly then he was carried."
"Yes, but the two canoes that followed the one they put him in?" askedLathrop. "How do you know that there were two others?"
"Ridiculously simple," replied Billy, "here is the mark made by the keelof one canoe; beyond that, my dear Watson, if you will use your eyes,you will see two other keel marks--hence three canoes."
"Well, I am a dummy," exclaimed Lathrop, considerably vexed that he hadnot puzzled the problem out for himself, "but I don't see how that putsus any further--in fact it makes it more inexplicable for the Indians,through that rascal Quatty, promised us that they would not molest thecamp and yet, if your theory is the right one, they have carried off oneof the most valuable members of our party."
"Hum," said Billy and scratched his head, "there's one thing, however,"he said consolingly, "they can't mean him any real harm or else theywould probably have killed him right here."
"Maybe they are cannibals and mean to eat him," suggested Lathrop.
"He'd be a pretty tough morsel," laughed Billy, "but don't worry aboutthat, Lathrop, the Seminoles are not cannibals and from all I hear arepretty good sort of people, as Indians go. I have got a sort of aninkling that we shall hear from Ben before very long in some way oranother."
"I hope so," said Lathrop and then--there being nothing else to do--theypaddled back to the camp. It was then past noon and after waiting forsome word from the boys for an hour or more their two comradesdetermined to call them up and acquaint them with what had happened.
Patiently Lathrop operated the _Golden Eagle's_ call for half-an-hour ormore.
"What's the matter?" asked Billy, seeing a troubled look on the boy'sface.
"I don't understand it," responded the other boy, "I can't raise them."
"Keep on trying," urged Billy.
But it was no good, there was no answer from the _Golden Eagle_ for areason that our readers know. At the time that Lathrop was shooting hisurgent summons into space the boys were lying in the stocks on CaptainBellman's island.
Thoroughly alarmed Lathrop sent out the navy call and after a short timegot into communication with the _Tarantula_.
Lieutenant Selby himself responded, after the operator had told him ofLathrop's grave news. For an hour he and Lathrop talked across space andit was finally agreed that the _Tarantula_ was to send a detachment ofmen to the island with a machine-gun and other provisions and that ifthe boys did not shortly reappear a relief expedition would be startedinto the interior after them.
"What is your latitude and longitude?" spelled out the _Tarantula's_wireless, when the arrangements had been completed. At Lathrop's requestBilly hurried into the hut and fetched out Frank's log-book in which, inhis neat writing, the position of the island was jotted down:
"Latitude 25 deg. 29' 30" N," he read out, "Longitude 80. 56. 45. W."
As the young reporter read off Frank's entries Lathrop rattled them outon the wireless and when they had been repeated through the air, to makecertain they were correct, he cut out the instrument.
"It's queer that if Frank's information was correct that there is nosign of the submarine at the mouth of Jew-Fish River," remarked Lathrop.
Billy agreed with him.
"How far is the river mouth from here?" he asked. Lathrop fetched themap and weighting down the corners with stones till it lay flat on theground, both boys studied it intently. Lathrop announced, after a fewminutes' figuring with dividers and compass, that the river--at themouth of which the submarine of the Far Eastern power was supposed tobe,--was not more than ten miles from the island on which they were thenencamped.
"If only the boys were here we could make it in the canoes in a shorttime," sighed Billy, "but what are we to do? we don't know a thing aboutnavigation and we could never find it without Frank."
"That's so," agreed Lathrop. "Oh," he burst out suddenly, "I wish we'dnever seen the Everglades. If only we could get safe on board the_Tarantula_ I believe I'd stay there till she sailed for home."
"And leave the boys here
," exclaimed Billy, "not much you wouldn't--notif you are the kind of boy I take you for. Cheer up, Lathrop, we'll pullout all right. I was with Frank and Harry in Nicaragua in places thatyou'd think three boys could never have escaped from, but we got throughall right and we'll get through this--try that old sparker of yoursagain."
Lathrop once more adjusted his operator's harness and sent wave afterwave humming through the air in search of the _Golden Eagle II's_answering vibrations, but no reply came and at last he gave up in sheerweariness.
"It's more than fifteen hours since we have heard from them," he said indespair, "and Frank promised not to remain out of communication with usfor long, unless something very serious had occurred. What can be thematter?"
"Perhaps her apparatus is out of order," suggested Billy, "and they arenot getting your calls."
"With an expert like Frank looking after it--not likely," replied theother boy. "I wish I could consider it probable."
Pork Chops had gone down to the canoe anchorage to fish earlier in theafternoon. To his simple mind it was necessary for him to provide hisyoung masters with as good food as possible even though the world wereto come to an end; so, seated on a branch overhanging the clear water,he had angled with good luck all the afternoon. As it grew dusk hemuttered to himself:
"Dis yar trip ain't nuffin' but foolishness no how. Ah jes' wish ah'dstayed hum at Miami, but Po'k Chops, you fool niggah, you don' nevahknow when youse is well off--no, sah."
Shaking his head with deep conviction the darky rolled up his tackle andthrusting a long creeper through the gills of his fish he prepared toreturn to camp. As he rose to his feet, however, he perceived somethingcoming toward him down the channel which caused him to throw up hishands with a yell, letting all his fish drop back into the water andscreaming:
"Ghoses!" at the top of his voice, the terrified black raced for thefriendly presence of Lathrop and Billy.
The boys' first impression on seeing Pork Chops' crazy antics was thewild anticipation that the boys had returned. Their hopes were dashedthe next second, however, by the loud wails of their retainer:
"Oh, lawd, Marse Lath'op, oh, lawdy, Mr. Billy. Ah seen a brack ghoses'coming down de creek. Fo' de Lawd's sake, sah, don' go; he put de hanton you," he cried in an agonized wail as Lathrop and Billy started forthe canoe anchorage to see what had caused the demoralization of PorkChops. For a minute they were almost as startled as he as their eyesencountered a figure sufficiently alarming to scare a stronger-mindedindividual than Pork Chops.
Staggering up from the anchorage was a figure in pitiful rags with big,poppy white eyes staring glassily out of a face as black as ink. Thefigure's hands were cut and bleeding and it wore, tied about its head, astrip of calico torn from its shirt which lay open, exposing a chest asblack as its face. It was several seconds before both the boysrecognized this object clearly, and exclaimed in a simultaneous gasp:
"Quatty!"
Quatty it was; but a very different Quatty from the usual debonair blackanswering to that name. It was more like a ghost of Quatty. It was nottill he had been restored with coffee and food that the unfortunatenegro was able to render a clear account of himself.
His news was sufficiently disquieting.
"Ah sat der in de lilly canvas boat foh more'n hour," he said, after hehad detailed the rest of the boys' adventures since leaving the camp,"an' waited fo' dem to come back. Ah tho'ght fum de fus' it was abobbery kin' of fing to do, but Marse Frank and Marse Harry----"
"That will do, Quatty," said Billy checking the garrulous black, "keepto your story."
"Wall, sah," continued Quatty, "I laid dere in de boat waitin',--itmight have been up'ards of an hour--as I said--when I hears de mostconfounded debbil racket of dogs yelping an' shoutin' as ever I didhear--yes, sah. Wall, thinks I, I can creep through the saw-grass a bitan' see what it is, an' I does;--den I sees Marse Frank and Harry and alot of fellers that looked like Chinaman only smaller, an' a big man whoseemed to be boss. Dey had dem two poor boys prisoners an' fum de looksob dem I knew I couldn't hev done no good dere, so I jes' gets in deboat and paddles and poles back yar and I declare I was mos' tuckeredwhen dat misbul, ignant savage yander, Po'k Chops, seen me an' was nomo' of a gen'l'man dan to run fo' he life like I been a duppy."
Of course the first part of his narrative, which is already familiar toour readers, had put the boys in possession of the facts about the_Golden Eagle II_ and the reason they got no answer to their calls.After wirelessing Lieutenant Selby the momentous news the boys held along consultation, while Pork Chops and Quatty sat on opposite sides ofthe camp-fire and glowered at each other.
The upshot of their discussion was that it was their duty to set outimmediately and if possible recover the air-ship and rescue the boys. Itwas a plan full of risks, but where the lives of their comrades were atstake neither boy felt inclined to hold back. As Quatty's strength hadby now quite returned, with the quick recuperative powers of theout-door negro, and he was quite sure he could guide them to themound-builders' island, as well by night as by day, they agreed to startat once.
The canoes were hastily loaded with duffle and as, with Lathrop andBilly in one and Quatty leading in the other, they made their way alongthe dark channels, Lathrop was blessing the days back in old New Yorkwhen he had determined to learn to run an aeroplane.