CHAPTER XIII
STEALING A SWIFT MARCH
“GR-R-R!” snarled the bull-dog, still holding lightly onto Halstead’sneck, ready to sink his fangs in at the first sign of resistance.
At Ellis’s startling information Mr. Bolton leaped from his car,crossing the road and bounding over among the bushes.
“So we’ve got _you_, have we—the young man who refused to aid us fora good price?” cried the dog’s owner, exultantly. “Ellis, this isn’tbad news. It’s about the best thing that could have happened. We’llstuff this young man’s mouth up, tie him and take him to keep hisemployer company. It reduces the danger of any successful pursuit bythe ‘Rocket.’”
Tom Halstead wasn’t a coward, as everyone familiar with his career wellknows. But the dog had the upper hand at this moment, and any attemptto show fight would have been sheer folly.
“I guess you’ll agree to offer no nonsense, won’t you, Halstead?”chuckled Mr. Bolton, roughly. “If you do, I’ll call my dog off, thoughthe beast will be at hand if needed.”
Hank Calmly Dropped the Rock]
Captain Halstead’s blood was boiling over the hopelessness of thisdefeat in what he had hoped would be the very hour of his success.Before he could reply, however, the dog made the next move.
Behind the whole group was a quick, light step. The dog was the firstto hear it. Springing back from the young skipper with a new growl ofwarning, the brute turned, making a fresh spring.
Hank Butts had just crossed the stone wall that bordered the road. Inhis two hands Hank held a rock slightly larger than his head. Nor didthe freckle-faced youth seem greatly alarmed. As the bull dog sprangHank calmly bent forward and dropped the heavy rock on the animal’shead just in the nick of time.
Without uttering a sound the savage brute dropped to the ground, dead.Ellis leaped forward at the newcomer, but Hank Butts, with a speed thatseemed strange in him, snatched up the dog and hurled it full in theface of the sham reporter.
“Here, you young rascal!” roared Justin Bolton, as Ellis toppled overbackward. He rushed at Hank, but Mr. Bolton was a stout, middle-agedman—no match in agility for a country boy.
“Get back before I have to do something impolite,” mocked Hank,sidestepping and throwing himself on guard. But Tom Halstead, leapingto his feet at the first sign of rescue, now tripped Justin Boltonneatly. That astounded person fell backward, striking the groundheavily.
“This way, Hank, on the hustle!” called Tom, making a plunge for theroad. Halstead was in the automobile, at the steering wheel, like aflash. Hank, trembling slightly, but all a-grin, followed.
Ellis was the first to regain his feet, though Bolton was close behindhim as he gained the road. They were just a second or so too late. Withthe machine cranked up, the engine running, Halstead had only to givethe steering wheel a turn and push on the speed. The car rolled ahead,then began to travel fast just as the angry pair dashed up. In anotherinstant Halstead had distanced them, speeding the car eastward down thecountry road.
Bang! There was a single shot. A bullet sped by their heads, but bothboys were crouching low. There was a second shot, but this time nobullet was heard. The swift car had borne them out of revolver range.
“Hank,” exploded Tom, gleefully, “I want to say that I’ve known somereal fellows, but you’re one of the best ever. But how did you manageit? I thought you were on your way back to East Hampton.”
“I ought to have been,” admitted Hank Butts, soberly. “But—well, Isuppose I’ve a notion for minding other people’s business. I was justaching to see how you came out, so—well, I follered.”
“And the luckiest thing for me that you did,” asserted young Halstead,shutting off much of the speed, now, and running along more slowly.“But see here, Hank, can you run this car for a moment or two?”
“I can steer it,” Hank agreed.
Tom surrendered the wheel to this new friend, and climbed over backwardinto the tonneau. He promptly examined the cushions under the rearseat. As he had hoped, he found a large locker space under the seat,and some tools.
“See here, Hank, listen,” admonished Halstead, leaning over the back ofthe front seat. “I think our people will run after us a little way inthe hope that we’ll leave the auto and take to our heels. I’m going tostay here and hide under the back seat. There’s a wrench or two therethat I can fight with if I’m cornered. If Bolton will only overtakehis machine and go where I think he’ll go, I’ll be on the track of thebiggest kind of news. But this time I want you to really run back toEast Hampton. Don’t even think of waiting to see what happens to me.Get aboard the ‘Rocket’ and tell Joe Dawson, from me, to get the engineall ready for an instant start. Then he wants to be near the cigarstore, close to the pier, so I can call him over the telephone thereif I want to send him any message. Tell him to have the tank full ofgasoline, ready for a long chase. Here, I’ll give you a note that’llmake Joe Dawson pay a whole lot of attention to you. Shut off theengine.”
Hank Butts ran the car in at the side of the lonely road and stopped.Halstead hastily scribbled on an envelope:
Joe, trust Hank Butts to the limit. He’s all right. Tom.
“Take this,” ordered the young skipper. “Now, after I get in under theseat, pile the cushions over it again as they should go.”
Captain Tom quickly stowed himself away, finding the space rathercramped after all. Under the edge of the seat he slipped the end of hisjackknife, to keep the lid raised barely enough for a supply of air.This done, Hank placed the cushions.
“Now take to the woods and make a real travel back to East Hampton,”muttered Tom. “Be quick about it, before Bolton and Ellis get insight.”
“Good-bye, Cap. Best of luck!” breathed Hank Butts, fervently. Then theconfined young skipper heard his new friend leap down into the road andscamper away.
There followed some weary moments, full of suspense and anxiety. Theyoung motor boat boy hoped that the rascally pair would pursue theircar thus far, but he knew, too, that they might be suspicious enough toexplore that locker space under the big rear seat. Though Tom gripped awrench tightly, this pair might both be armed and ready to proceed toany lengths to prevent the defeat of their plot to wrest millions froman excited stock market.
At last Halstead heard running steps, followed by a shout:
“There’s the car! Just as I had hoped!”
The running steps slowed down to a walk. Then, as the new arrivals drewnear, Justin Bolton’s voice proclaimed, triumphantly:
“I thought it might be so. Those boys didn’t dare take the risk ofstealing a valuable car, so, as soon as they got away safely, theydeserted the machine.”
“I hope they haven’t done anything to disable the car,” hinted Ellis,concernedly. “I don’t know who that hulking Simple Simon chap is, butyoung Halstead undoubtedly knows enough about gasoline motors to knowhow to leave one in mighty bad shape.”
“We’ll soon know,” declared Bolton, as he reached the car. “Why, theengine seems to be running all right. Jump in, and we’ll try the car alittle way.”
After the pair had gotten in at the front the car rolled ahead. Whoeverwas at the wheel let the speed out a few notches, then slowed down andstopped the car.
“It’s all right, Ellis, and a tremendously fortunate thing for us. Now,you can get out and go back to East Hampton. Sorry I can’t take youback, but it wouldn’t do for me to take the slightest risk of beingseen and recognized with you.”
“That’s all right,” nodded Ellis, leaping down to the ground.
“You know just what to do, young man, and you won’t fail me?”
“Not with the big reward that’s in sight,” laughed Ellis.
“Good-bye, for a little while. Be alert!”
The car started ahead again, though not at great speed. Plainly Boltonwas in no immediate hurry about what he had to do. As he guided the caralong he hummed, merrily, in a low voice.
“Just as though he were an honest man,
” muttered Halstead, indignantly.
Often, indeed, was the young motor boat skipper tempted to try thelifting of the lid of the seat enough to look at the country throughwhich they were now passing. But the risk that Justin Bolton might betaking a backward glance at the same moment seemed too great.
Twice, as sounds told, they passed other automobiles headed in theopposite direction. Peeping through the narrow crevice that he had madewith his knife-end—an opening that was concealed by the overlappingcushions—Halstead saw that daylight was now rapidly waning.
Twenty minutes later it was fully dark. The car now turned off the softroad over which it had been running, to a more gravelly road. Then thecar stopped altogether.
“All well, sir?” hailed a voice that made Halstead start. The toneswere those of that red-haired young man, Rexford.
“Not quite all well,” replied the voice of Bolton, though the speakerseemed hardly worried. “We ran into that young captain of the ‘Rocket,’Halstead, and into another young fellow, a human cyclone. They knowsomething of our game, but they were glad enough to get away from us.”
Calvin Rexford gave vent to a low, prolonged whistle of amazement.
“However,” Bolton continued, “they don’t know enough of what we’redoing to spoil our enterprise. As I said, we got rid of them.”
He then gave a rather truthful account of the meeting in the woods, ofthe seizure of the auto and of its abandonment, as Bolton supposed.
“I don’t like the sound of that story,” said Rexford, uneasily.
“Nor do I, either,” agreed Justin Bolton. “Still, the boys don’t knowthe most important part of what they’d like to find out—where FrankDelavan is. And, now, Rexford, how has Delavan been behaving?”
“Naturally, he hasn’t been giving us any trouble,” laughed Rexford. “Wehaven’t given him any chance.”
“I think I’ll take a look at him; though, mind you, he mustn’t have theslightest glimpse of me.”
“I think that can be easily arranged,” replied the red-haired one. “Butdid the boys, this afternoon, hear your name?”
“I don’t believe they did,” replied Bolton, stepping out of the car.“It might disarrange our plans some if they did happen to know my name.”
The next words, spoken by Rexford, were not distinguishable to TomHalstead, crouching under that rear seat. He raised the lid somewhat assoon as he was satisfied that the two speakers were moving away.
The car had been run in under a shed, open at one end. Bolton andRexford being out of sight, Tom softly raised the lid, cushions andall, then replaced the leather cushions and leaped hastily to theground.
The shed had been built onto a barn that was now rather dilapidated.Two hundred feet beyond the barn was an old, spacious house of twostories. Toward this the two men were walking.
“So that’s Mr. Delavan’s prison, is it?” thought the young skipper,throbbing with the excitement of his discovery. “Whereabouts is thisplace? Probably near Cookson’s Inlet. I wonder if the water can be seenfrom any point around here?”
Then, gazing after the two men, Tom saw them disappear into the house.There seeming to be no one else about, the boy stole slowly towardthe house. He had reached an old, tumble-down summer-house when thesound of voices made him hide there. Two other men, middle-aged andstrangers, came from the direction of the house, going towards thebarn. They had been talking in undertones, but ceased before they camenear enough for the young motor boat captain to make out anything.
“Confound ’em,” grumbled Halstead, a few moments later. For the twomen, having reached the barn, now lighted pipes and stood there,smoking and chatting in undertones.
Halstead could not move from where he crouched. If he did he ran thealmost certain chance of being discovered. Thus some ten or twelveminutes passed. The young skipper of the “Rocket” studied the oldhouse, trying to guess in what part of it Francis Delavan was confinedagainst his will. Not a single light, however, showed from the outside.
Someone was coming away from the house. As he came nearer, Halsteadmade him out to be Rexford. That young man kept on past the barn tothe shed. He soon returned slowly in the car, the two men with pipesswinging aboard as he passed them.
To Tom’s great alarm the car stopped close to the summer house. The twostrangers now stepped out again, going toward the main house. Hardlyhad they vanished when Justin Bolton came out once more, going straightto the automobile, though he did not board it.
“You understand your orders fully now, Rexford?” inquired Bolton. “Youknow what to do to-night, and you are aware that, this house havingserved its brief purpose, we shall not use it again. The launch willremain where it is, in hiding, for a day or two, at least. Then, whenall is ready, the launch will take you and your charge out to sea. Youknow the rest?”
“It’s all quite clear, thank you, Mr. Bolton,” Rexford replied.
“I shall rely upon you, then, Rexford. Don’t fail me.”
“No fear, Mr. Bolton. You are wagering millions on the game, but I haveat least a fortune at stake. Trust me. I won’t fail you.”
“Good-night, then, Rexford. Caution and good luck!”
“Good-night, Mr. Bolton. We’ll both be richer when I see you again,”laughed the red-haired one, recklessly.
Justin Bolton walked rapidly away. Had Tom Halstead wished to follow,he could not have done so. Rexford, sitting in the nearby car, wouldhave been sure to see the boy.
Ten minutes passed. Then another crunching was heard on the gravel.This time the young motor boat captain felt as though his heart muststop beating. The two strange men now appeared, carrying the helplessform of Francis Delavan between them.
“Stow him in carefully. Drop these blankets over him,” directedRexford. Francis Delavan, bound and gagged for the journey, was placedin the bottom of the tonneau and covered over. One of the men got inbeside him, the other sitting on the front seat with Calvin Rexford.
Honk! The toot from the automobile’s horn was unintentionally jeering,for Tom Halstead was left behind, helpless, at the very instant when helonged, as never before, to be of the utmost service.