CHAPTER III A “MYSTERY BOYS” MEETING
Watching Nicky’s contortions, Ma’am Sib began to see pictures in hermind of herself in jail and she became more afraid than she had made theboys.
She knew that the open practice of voodoo was against all laws and shehad not really meant to do any more than frighten the boys off. ButNicky’s actions caused her to dread the consequences to herself. But Tomand Cliff, understanding their comrade, had different thoughts. When Tomlooked at Cliff he saw the latter calmly but determinedly scratching hisleft ear. Tom instantly folded his arms!
Tom hastened to Nicky and grabbed his chum between two somersaults.
“Cliff’s calling for a council,” he whispered. Nicky became at once avery sober and quietly normal young fellow.
The three chums were the sole members of a secret order which they namedfrom the fact that each of them had a mystery in his life; so theirsecret order was called “The Mystery Boys.”
Nicky, to begin with, had in his family the supposed message from theformer pirate, William Kidd. Tom’s mystery had to do with the fact thathis sister had never been located after an attack on a Mexican mine bybandits; after which no trace of the girl, living there with her father,the mine superintendent, had ever been found. Cliff had solved hismystery the summer before; his father, studying Inca civilization, hadbeen held prisoner by Incas of the old Peruvian race, in a city hiddenamong the Andes; a letter had reached Cliff, and he, with Tom and Nickyand a history instructor from Amadale, and with “Quipu Bill” whom theyhad met in Peru, had discovered and rescued the old scholar and hadsecured some Inca gold at the same time.
The purpose of the secret order was to be able to exchange ideas in thepresence of other people who were not members of the clique, without theoutsiders knowing about it. The Mystery Boys had made up their order forthe purpose of helping one another in every way, but in secret. Theirmotto was “Seeing All, I see nothing; Knowing All, I know nothing;Telling All, I tell nothing!”
In order to have help in rescuing Cliff’s father, the order had addedthe young history instructor, a Mr. Whitley, and “Quipu Bill,” but afterthe thrilling adventures among the Incas, wherein the secret signals ofthe order had served the members in many “tight” places, Bill went offto a ranch in the West, and the instructor returned to his classes; bothretained membership, but not actively.
Cliff’s signal to Tom had been a call for a secret communication, andTom, folding his arms in sign of agreement, quickly urged Nicky tosilence. Cliff understood Nicky’s wild capering.
Nicky, very sober, came up with Tom to rejoin the group.
“I was just cutting up,” he said. “I was letting off steam because itstruck me as funny that Ma’am Sib went to all that trouble to scare usaway from a map or a cipher that had already been found and that wasn’tany use anyhow!”
Mr. Neale accepted the explanation; it seemed a natural action thatNicky had indulged in, thus explained. Ma’am Sib was greatly upset andbegan to beg them not to pay any attention to her “spell.” Its effectswere all removed, she declared. They agreed and as it was clear thatyoung Sam was eager to have them cause no trouble for his grandmother,the boys and their older friend forgave the old voodoo woman and hurriedaway.
Mr. Neale returned to his conference with some colored men who wereexcavating near the plantation house where the white people had theirheadquarters. Tom, Cliff and Nicky could hardly wait to get off bythemselves. As soon as they succeeded, Nicky turned to his companions.
“I saw you signal to me to say nothing,” Nicky told Cliff. “It was all Icould do to hold in.”
“I know it,” Cliff replied. “You ‘go off the handle’ easy, anyhow. Iguessed what made you get so excited, and I didn’t want you to talkuntil we had had a meeting of our Order.”
“Nicky’s ‘message’ from Captain Kidd has something to do with it,” Tomguessed.
“Something?” Nicky said. “Everything! Why, that half of the cipher wouldfit in with a half that my uncle has!”
“Honestly?” cried Tom. “Hooray! We’re off again for adventure!”
“Not yet,” Cliff counseled. “There are some things to decide. First ofall, half the cipher is in New York—or with Nicky’s uncle.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Nicky laughed. “I got him to let me take atracing of it. I held the paper against a lamp shade and traced over it.Here’s the ‘other half of the cipher!’ See what you make of it.”
He dragged a leather billfold from his coat pocket and extracted aneatly folded paper. The others stared at it.
“Was the original torn down on the side where this jagged line shows?”demanded Tom.
“Yep!” responded Nicky, “and you see it’s on the side opposite to whereSam’s paper is ripped away. I think they’d just fit together!”
“So do I,” Cliff agreed. “But even if you have this half, there arethings to consider; but let’s see if we can remember the other piece andsketch it on this envelope,” he drew a letter from his pocket.“Here—here’s a pencil!”
They got to work. On the sketch Nicky had already made there wereseveral dots at one side, toward the top. Below them was the word “Dip”and under that were more of the little straggley blotches with a faintline starting at the left hand side and close to a small cross marked“Reck.”
“That word ought to be ‘wreck’ I think,” Nicky suggested. They nodded.“And here, you see, is a nautical direction—but I don’t think it’s thesame as on the other paper.”
“It isn’t!” Cliff stated. “The other was some degrees North Latitude,but this is West Longitude. Now—what was the set of figures on the othermap?”
Nicky shook his head.
“I recall—let’s see—was it thirty degrees and twelve minutes——”
“You’re away off,” Tom broke in. “It was twenty-five degrees and twelveminutes and thirty seconds.”
“No,” Cliff argued. “It was—no, it couldn’t have been twelve degreesNorth—that would be in South America, I think—anyway, if I recall mymap, it wouldn’t be where the pirates used to go.”
“I wish we could remember it,” Nicky said. “Then we could go and get thetreasure.”
“Maybe,” Cliff hesitated. “Maybe not. It would be like stealing to takeany treasure by using the part of the map we don’t own.”
“But Sam doesn’t own it by right!” Nicky urged. “It was sent to theGovernor of Jamaica and stolen from him. Then Sam found it.”
“But there must be part of the Governor’s family still alive,” Tom said,agreeing with Cliff’s attitude, “and if Captain Kidd sent the map in twoparts so that both his friends would be sure to share in his treasure,we have no right to take the other fellow’s share!”
“That’s so,” Nicky agreed. “Anyhow, Sam has no right to it either.”
“But he has part of the map!” Tom reminded Nicky.
“What ought we to do?” Nicky questioned.
“I guess it’s a case for older heads to decide,” Tom suggested. “Cliff’sfather——”
“Yes, we can ask him,” Nicky agreed. “How about letting Mr. Neale knowabout it?”
“I like him,” Cliff asserted. “He’s honest and he knows a whole lotabout these islands. And he could help us a lot. My father could adviseus but he wouldn’t want to go on any adventure; he had enough of thatwith the Incas.”
“Then there is Nicky’s uncle, who has the real map,” Tom reminded hischums. “How about him?”
“Let’s tell Cliff’s father first,” Nicky urged. “Then we can do as hesays.”
It was agreed that this was the best way out. They found the old scholarsorting some broken bits of pottery. These had been taken out of oldmounds of refuse, centuries old, where the Carib Indians had throwntheir cast off and broken utensils. Mr. Gray, by reason of his wideexperience with such things, and with the help of the youngarchaeologist, had become proficient at the art of piecing the
brokenbits into their original places so that many valuable objects wererebuilt, or, at least, reassembled.
After he had heard their story, Mr. Gray deliberated for a while andthen he gave them his opinion.
The boys admitted its soundness and decided to act upon it that veryevening!