“Why is that?” asked Nat, striving to keep his temper, while Joe hoppedabout, first on one foot and then on another in his irritation.
“’Cos we hev a prior claim to it, thet’s why,” retorted the old man, asudden fiery gleam coming into his cold eyes. “We don’t want none of youspies an’ interferers comin’ from the mainland and mixin’ up in ouraffairs.”
“We’ve no intention of mixing up in your affairs,” flung back Nat, withan emphasis on the last word. “You’ve just as legitimate a right to usethe island as we have and we’ll concede you that, but, as for quittingit at your orders—well, that’s another story.”
“See here, Harley,” interpolated Mr. Anderson, “we suspect you of havingon board your boat one Miles Minory. He is wanted for several graveoffences. You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble by giving him up. Weknow he paid you well to help him escape, but the jig is up and we meanto have him.”
The old man stared at him with what appeared to be absolutebewilderment.
“Lan’s sake!” he exclaimed, “you’re as loony as the kids are. Do you seeany signs of anyone on this yer craft but me, my two sons and my nevvyhere? We’re on a peaceable run to Santa Barbara ter git terbaccy, and soforth, and then you overhauls us and springs this line of talk on us.It’s an insult, that’s what it is! I ain’t harborin’ no criminals. Ifthere was one on board here, d’ye think I wouldn’t give him up? Myname’s as good as the next man’s, and I ain’t mixin’ up in that sort ofbusiness.”
“He certainly appears to be telling the truth, and yet it isn’t possiblewe could have been deceived,” said Nat to his companions, in sorebewilderment.
“Do you think he could have slipped overboard into another boat while welost sight of them?” queried Joe.
Nat shook his head.
“I hardly see how that is possible,” he said. “In the first place, wemust have sighted a second craft, if there was one, and, in the secondplace, there’s nowhere they could land between Whale Creek and SantaBarbara.”
“See here, young feller,” hailed old Harley, addressing himself to Nat,“come aboard if you like and take a look around. If you find anyone herebut me an’ the boys, I’ll make you a present of the boat. I can’t speakno fairer than that.”
“What do you think?” asked Nat, turning to his companions.
“I don’t see what harm there can be in accepting that proposal,” saidMr. Anderson. “The boat is broken down and if this was a trap they stillcouldn’t work you any harm while we are on hand.”
“Then I’m going to go ahead and take him up,” declared Nat. “There’s abare chance that they may have him in some secret hiding place.”
“Be careful, Nat,” urged Joe.
“Yes, they’re a bad lot,” supplemented the sailor.
“They certainly look it,” agreed Nat; “but, as Mr. Anderson says, theycan’t get away from here in their crippled boat, so I don’t see whatharm they can do me.”
“All right, go ahead then. We’ll watch carefully and see that no harmcomes to you,” said Joe, and Nat swung himself over the side and droppedlightly into the black motor boat.
“Go ahead! Look around all you want to,” said old Harley, squinting atthe boy with his odd, twinkling little eyes.
Nat looked around the interior of the hull. It had lockers on each side,far too narrow, however, to hide the body of a man. There were crossseats, too, but these were mere thwarts laid from side to side of thecraft and couldn’t have concealed a ten-year-old child.
He examined the floor, but no cracks appeared in it which might indicatea trap-door leading to some place of hiding within the hull. Only thebig space under the raised hull forward that housed the engines remainedunexamined. Nat hardly thought it worth while, but just the same hedecided to make his search thorough. Nevertheless, against his betterjudgment and against his certain knowledge that Minory had boarded themotor craft, he was beginning to believe that, in some extraordinaryway, a mistake must have been made, or else by some inexplicable meansMinory had managed to evade them.
He examined the engine-space with due care, but could see nothing withinthe dark machinery cabin to warrant him in assuming that Minory wasconcealed within.
“Wall, what did I tell yer?” cried old Harley triumphantly, as Natlooked perplexed and chagrined. “You’re a nice one, you are, to comeaccusing a respectable old man who makes an honest livin’ of hidin’criminals and avadin’ the law, ain’t you?”
“I’ll have to accept your statement as true,” said Nat slowly, “but I’mstill convinced that there is some trickery about this affair.”
“Hark at him!” cried old Harley, throwing his hands high in the air inapparently righteous indignation. “But say, son,” he went on, placing agrimy, gnarled hand on Nat’s shoulder, “I don’t bear no malice, not me.To prove it, I’m going to ask you a favor. You’re summat of a inginesharp, I’ve heard tell; will you take a look at our motor an’ see whatails it? I can’t fix it, no more can the boys here.”
“Oh, I’ll look it over, if that’s all you want,” said Nat, who, truth totell, had rather a hankering to inspect the piece of machinery thatcould force a boat through the water at the pace that old Harley’s wasdriven. “I won’t guarantee to be able to remedy the trouble, though.”
“That’s all right, lad; jes look at it, an’ if you can’t fix it I’ll hevto ask you fellows for a tow into Santa Barbara, I reckon, fer we’replumb busted down now.”
Nothing could have appeared more open and above board than this. Nat,without hesitation, stooped to crawl in under the whaleback hood thatprotected the motor from spray.
As he stooped he heard a sudden shout from above.
“Look out, Nat!”
But it was too late. The boy was felled by a terrific blow from behind.All the world went red about him and then faded into blackness amidstwhich a humming noise like that of a speeding motor rang vibrantly.
CHAPTER XIV.
NAT A PRISONER.
“Is he coming round, Seth?”
These words in old Israel’s voice were Nat’s next conscious impression.They were coupled with the dousing in his face of a bucket of sea water.
“He’s coming out of it all right, Pop,” was the rejoinder. “Hooky,though, that was a whaler of a crack you gave him.”
“Wall, it had to be a hard one. He’s a powerful strong kid and wecouldn’t have afforded to have a tussle with him. He! he! he!” chuckledthe old man, “how plumb flabbergasted those looneys on that _Nomad_ waswhen they saw the kid knocked out and us gliding away like sixty!”
“Yes, that was a slick trick, pretending to break down. We’ve got ’emwhar we want ’em now. They can’t do anything to us fer fear uv causingtrouble fer the kid here.”
“That’s so,” struck in a third voice, that of old Israel’s other son,“but jes the same, it ’pears to me like we’ve bitten off more’n we kinchew this trip.”
“Sho!” exclaimed the old man scornfully. “Ain’t we a-gittin’ paid ferit?”
“Yes, and enough to git us right out of these diggins if they git toohot to hold us,” chimed in Seth reassuringly. “Ain’t no call to benarvous.”
“Of course there isn’t,” struck in another voice, which Nat recognizedas Minory’s. He lay perfectly still, feigning that he was stillunconscious. He wanted to hear all that he could. From what he hadalready caught, he realized that a trick had been played on them andthat the motor craft owned by old Harley had not been injured at all;and that the pretended breakdown was only a deception to get him onboard and divert the hunt from Minory to himself.
“You’re perfectly safe in this,” Minory went on, addressing old Harleyand the others; “the interests I represent would go to a good deal moreexpense than this to get me safely on my way with what I have in mypossession. As for the boy there, you’d best keep him out of the way fora while. That’ll keep his friends busy chasing around after him insteadof b
othering me.”
“Say, mister, you’re a slick ’un, all right,” declared old Harley in anadmiring tone. “It was a good thing we had that little cubby hole up inthe bow to stow you in, though, or your scheme might hev fallenthrough.”
“Phew! I thought I’d die cooped up in there,” declared Minory. “How didyou ever come to have a secret hiding place on your boat?”
“Wall, guv’ner, that’s our business,” responded the old man; “but oncein while we have stuff on board that it might be inconvenient for theCustoms officers to find, an’ so we just rigged up that little stowagefer safe keeping.”
Nat guessed that the “cubby hole” referred to and in which Minory hadevidently been hidden while he vainly searched the boat for him, wasused in old Israel’s illicit trade for the convenient and safe hiding ofthe opium he smuggled.
“Well, I’ve fallen into the hands of a fine lot of rascals,” he thoughtto himself, “but they’ll hardly dare to do more than keep me a prisoner,and maybe I’ll find some way of getting out before long. I wonder wherewe’re headed for? Gracious, how my head aches!”
“Reckon I’ll douse the kid with some more water,” humanely suggestedSeth; “he don’t appear to be coming around very fast.”
But Nat saved him this trouble. He opened his eyes and assumed a look asif he had just come out of a stupor. It wouldn’t do to let the Harleysknow that he had overheard their conversation and was conversant withthe situation.
“Where am I?” he asked in as bewildered a voice as he could assume.
“On board the _Rattlesnake_, my hearty,” piped up old Israel. “Reckonyour head aches pretty well, don’t it?” he added with a grin.
“Sort of,” rejoined Nat, in the easy tone he had decided to assume. Heknew that with the odds against him it would be of no use to struggle,and by remaining apparently indifferent to the situation he might standa chance of bettering it, or at least of gaining some valuableinformation.
“You see what comes of meddling in other people’s affairs,” struck inMinory meaningly. “You young cub, you! I’d like to——”
He started toward Nat, who was still recumbent, with the apparentintention of striking him a vicious blow in the face. But old Israelinterposed.
“Stop that,” he said gruffly; “the boy’s been man-handled enoughalready.”
“Bah! Not half enough to suit me,” snarled Minory. “If it hadn’t beenfor the interference of him and the other whelps, I’d have been safelyaway now.”
“I should think that if you are the honest man you pretend to be, you’dbe ashamed to be associated with such a rascal,” declared Natindignantly, addressing old Israel.
“They’re being well paid for what they’re doing,” scoffed Minory, “andmoney will buy almost anybody.”
“You ought to know,” retorted Nat stingingly, and he saw the rascalwince under the thrust.
“Where are you taking me to?” demanded Nat, sitting up and looking abouthim.
They had reached a point of the coast that he knew lay below SantaBarbara, which they must have passed while he was still unconscious.
“Plenty of time for that when we get there,” grinned old Israel; “butyou can bet your boots it’ll be a place where you can’t make any troubletill we get ready to let you.”
“For the last time, Harley, I’ll give you a chance to set me ashore andlet me bring that rascal to book,” cried Nat.
Harley’s answer was not unexpected by the boy, who had already formed apretty fair estimate of the old reprobate’s character.
“How much’ll you give?” he demanded.
“Not a penny of blackmail, you can rest assured of that,” declared Natwarmly. “If you don’t want to do your duty as honest men, then I’m notgoing to pay you to do so.”
Harley did not reply but went forward and said something to Seth, whohad the wheel. The course of the black motor boat was changed and shebegan to head in toward the shore. Nat took advantage of thisopportunity to gaze astern. He hardly expected to see any sign of the_Nomad_, yet somehow, he was disappointed when he didn’t.
What was going to be the outcome of it all, he wondered as he rapidlyran over in his mind the events that had taken place since the afternoonbefore, when they had set out to answer that wireless call from the_Iroquois_. How little had any of them dreamed into what a strangetangle the wireless was to plunge them when Ding-dong Bell hadenthusiastically enlisted them in “the cause”! For a moment or so Natalmost wished that they had never engaged in the enterprise, but beforelong his naturally buoyant spirits asserted themselves. He recalled themany seemingly hopeless situations in which he and his chums had beenbefore during their adventurous careers. With such thoughts came aconviction that buoyed and strengthened his flagging spirits. Come whatmight, he would face it manfully and try to win out against seeminglydesperate odds.
Although his head still ached with a racking pain, Nat concentrated hisfaculties on observing the movements of those on the speedy black motorboat. It was plain enough now that they were heading in landward, andNat noticed with astonishment that their objective point appeared to bethe foot of a blank wall of cliffs, where no sign of a landing place wasvisible. But, after running straight toward the land till they were notmore than a quarter of a mile from the forbidding bastion of rockyescarpments, the motor craft was headed southward again, skirting alongthe coast.
Old Israel stood by Seth in the bow directing him, apparently, in hissteering. It appeared to Nat as if the old man was looking for somefamiliar landmark. At last it hove in sight. Nat saw old Israel point toa lone pine tree on the summit of the cliff. It towered like a signalvane from the midst of a wind-racked tangle of scrub oak and madrone.Beneath it, the cliff dropped sheer and precipitous for a hundred andfifty feet or more.
Once this bearing had been taken, the motor boat was headed in straightfor the cliff at a smart speed.
“Looks like he means to run bang into the cliff,” commented Nat tohimself, as, with no abatement of speed the black craft rushed onwardtoward the wall of solid rock.
But, just as it appeared as if Nat’s surmise might be verified,something occurred which the boy, familiar as he was with the coast,would never have suspected to be possible. Before them loomed an openingin the cliff, rising in a horseshoe shape above the sea level. It waspartially screened from seaward by some clumps of trailing bushes, butwas plainly enough to be seen on close inspection.
“It’s a cave!” exclaimed Nat under his breath. “I’ve heard of suchplaces along the coast here in the limestone cliffs, but this is thefirst one I’ve seen.”
In spite of his precarious and uncertain position, Nat felt a keeninterest as old Harley’s craft headed straight for the cave mouth. Inanother moment it had penetrated the dark entrance and was within thenatural tunnel. There was a click and sputter of blue flame from forwardand a scimitar of brilliant light slashed the curtain of gloom within.It came from the motor boat’s powerful searchlight.
“Well, at any rate, this is a novel experience,” thought Nat to himself,as, moving swiftly, the craft on which he was held prisoner still kepther headway. It was plain enough that old Harley knew the cave well, andperhaps in this lay the secret of some of his seemingly miraculousescapes from officers despatched to look for him. At such times hevanished mysteriously and did not reappear till public sentiment haddied down and his case had been “fixed” by his political friends.
Suddenly Harley gave an order:
“Slow her down, Seth.”
The end of this strange journey was evidently close at hand.
CHAPTER XV.
UNDER THE EARTH.
The boat’s pace decreased and then came another sharp command:
“Stop her!”
The light flashed on a sort of platform of rock ahead of them, a naturaldock in this subterranean harbor. The white rays showed numerous balesand boxes piled all about and also a rough sort of table with tin cupsa
nd dishes on it, and in one corner, blackened with smoke, was a pile ofrocks apparently dedicated to use as a cooking range.
“Well, of all the odd adventures,” thought Nat to himself as the motorcraft was run alongside the rock shelf, “this is the queerest I’veencountered, and all within striking distance of home, too, that’s thestrangest part of it.”
But he was not given much time for reflection. Old Israel, in a gruffvoice, bade him get out and climb up on the rock platform. There wasnothing to do but to obey and Nat clambered up on the natural dock andwas followed by the others. The searchlight was extinguished and theplace was momentarily plunged into an abysmal darkness. But presentlyold Israel produced some matches and lit a large lamp that stood on therude table.
“Better make yourself at home,” he gruffly advised Nat, “you may be herefor quite a while.”
Nat gave a sigh of resignation. Had it not been for the anxiety he knewhis friends must be feeling about him he could easily have found it inhis heart to rather enjoy this weird adventure. As it was, though, hefelt anxious and worried over what they must be thinking.
Seth and his brother set about preparing a meal consisting of friedfish, potatoes and coffee, with flapjacks. When it was ready they wereall summoned to sit down and eat, and Nat took his place with the restof them. He had the hearty appetite of energetic, healthy youth, whicheven his dilemma had not dulled.
During the meal old Israel and Minory sat apart conversing in wranglingtones. Nat judged that there was some hitch over the payment of themoney that had been promised by the latter as the price of the Harleys’aid. However, at length everything must have been patched up amiably,for the two shook hands as though cementing a bargain. Nat caught themlooking at him once or twice, but deemed it wisest not to let them knowthat he was aware of this fact.