CHAPTER II
A TREACHEROUS GUEST
"Do you suppose that is the fellow Captain Joe caught prowling aroundthe stem of the boat?" asked Jule as the canoe disappeared down theriver.
Captain Joe answered the question by trotting up to the prow andsnarling at the disappearing canoe.
"Now, what do you think he wanted here, anyway?" asked Alex.
"Possibly he just dropped down to see if we were ready to startnorth," Case observed with a yawn.
"It looks to me," Alex said, "that we have struck a storm center ofsome kind, and I'm going to bed and think it over.
"I'm glad you're going to bed," Clay laughed, "for you get lostwhenever we leave you on watch."
"But I always find myself!" answered Alex, with a provoking grin.
It was finally arranged that Case should stand guard that night, andthe others prepared for sleep. The bunks were let down in the cabin,the prow light was switched off, and directly all was dark, save whenthe moon broke out from a bank of wandering clouds.
Sitting well wrapped at the door of the cabin, shortly beforemidnight, Clay once more heard the sweep of a paddle or an oar. Hearose and went to the prow.
Off to the right, on a point of land below St. Luce, a column of flamewas beckoning in the gale from the gulf. Only the flame was to beseen. There was neither habitation nor human figure in sight under itslight. While the boy watched, a signal shot came from the east.
Then an answering light came from the north, and a ship's boat,four-oared and sturdy, passed for an instant under the light of themoon and was lost in the darkness.
The rowboat had passed so close to the _Rambler_ that the watching boycould have seen the faces of the occupants if they had not been turnedaway. For a moment he had feared that it was the intention of therowers to board the _Rambler_, but they had passed on apparentlywithout noticing the boat at all.
After following the boat with his eyes for an instant, he switched onthe prow light and turned to the cabin to awaken his chums. Here was anew feature of the night which must be considered.
As he turned toward the cabin, a white package lying upon the deckcaught his eye. It had not been there a moment before, so the boynaturally concluded that it had been thrown from the row boat. Helifted it and, going back under the prow light, opened the envelopeand read.
"Don't interfere with what doesn't concern you. Go on about yourbusiness, if you have any. Life is sweet to the young. Do youunderstand? Be warned. Others have tried and lost."
The puzzled boy dashed into the cabin with the paper in his hand.
"Look here, fellows!" he shouted, pulling away at the first sleepingfigure he came upon, "R. F. D. postman number two has arrived. Here'sthe letter he brought."
He read the message aloud to the three wondering boys, sittingwide-eyed on their bunks, and handed the paper to Clay.
"What about it?" he asked.
"I reckon," Alex observed with a grin, "that we're going to bearrested for opening some one else's mail."
"Don't you ever think this letter wasn't intended for us," Juledeclared.
"And now," Case said, "I suppose we'll have to give up following theorders given in the first letter. We're ordered off the premises.See?"
"Not for mine," Alex cried. "You can't win me on any sawed-offmystery! I want to know what this means."
After a time the boys switched off the prow light, turned on the smalllamp in the cabin, and sat down to consider seriously the events ofthe night. While they talked, the clouds drifted away, and the wholesurface of the river was flooded with moonlight. The flame on thesouth bank was seen no more. It had evidently been built as a beaconfor the men in the ship's boat.
After a time, Captain Joe, who had been sitting in the middle of thedeliberative circle in the cabin, raced out to the deck. The boysheard him growling, heard a conciliatory human voice, and then a quickfall.
When the boys switched on the prow light and gained the deck, theyfound Captain Joe standing guard over a slender youth who hadevidently fallen to the deck to escape being tumbled down by the dog.They gathered about waiting for him to speak--waiting for someexplanation of his sudden appearance on the motor boat. Captain Joeseemed proud of his capture, and remained with threatening teethwithin an inch of the boy's throat.
"Say, you!" shouted Alex. "Did you come by parcel post? We've beengetting letters all right, but no such packages as this."
"Looks to me like he must have come in a parachute," Jule suggested."Where's your boat, kid?" he added.
The visitor smiled brightly and sprang alertly to his feet. He lookedfrom face to face for a moment, smiling at each in turn, and thenpointed to a light canoe bumping against the hull of the _Rambler_.
He was a lad of, perhaps, eighteen, slender, lithe, dark. His clothingwas rough and not too clean. His manner was intended to beingratiating, but was only insincere.
"What about you?" demanded Alex. "Do you think this is a passengerboat?"
"A long time ago," replied the visitor, speaking excellent English, "Iread of the _Rambler_ and her boy crew in the Quebec newspapers. WhenI saw the boat here to-night, I ran away from my employer and came outto you. I want to go with you wherever you are going."
"You've got your nerve!" Alex cried.
"Oh, let him alone," Case interposed. "We've had a stranger with us onevery trip, so why not take him along?"
Alex took the speaker by the arm and walked with him back to thecabin.
"Say," he said then, "this fellow may be all right, but I don't likethe looks of his map."
"You'll wash dishes a week for that," Case announced. "You're gettingso you talk too much slang. Anyway, you shouldn't say 'map'--that'scommon. Say you don't like his dial."
"Oh, I guess I'll have plenty of help washing dishes," Alex grunted."But what are we going to do with this boy?" he added.
Clay now joined the two boys in the cabin and asked the same question.
"It is my idea," he said, "that the appearance of this lad is in someway connected with the other events of the night."
"What did you find out about him?" asked Clay.
"He says his name is Max Michel, and that he lives at St. Luce," wasthe reply.
"Well," Clay decided, "we can't send him away to-night, so we'll givehim a bunk and settle the matter to-morrow."
"I just believe," Alex interposed, "that this boy Max could tell ussomething about those two boats if he wanted to."
"I notice," Case put in, "that he's paying a good deal of attention towhat is going on in the cabin just now. He may be all right, but hedoesn't look good to me."
Clay beckoned to Jule, and the two boys entered the cabin together,closely followed by Captain Joe, who seemed determined to keep closewatch on the strange visitor.
"How long ago did you leave St. Luce?" asked Clay of the boy.
"An hour ago," was the answer. "I rowed up the river near the shorewhere the current is not so strong and then drifted down to the motorboat. I called out to you before I landed, but I guess you did nothear."
Alex, standing at the boy's back and looking over his head, wrinkled afreckled nose at Clay and said by his expression that he did notbelieve what the boy was saying.
"Did you see a light on the point below St. Luce not long ago?"continued Clay.
The boy shook his head.
"There are often lights there at night," he said. "Wreckers andfishermen build them for signals. But I saw none there to-night."
"What about the four-oared boat that left St. Luce not long ago?" Clayasked. "Do you know the men who were in it?"
"I didn't see any such boat," was the reply.
"Well, crawl into a bunk here," Clay finally said, "and we'll tell youin the morning what we are going to do."
The boy did as instructed, and was, apparently, soon sound asleep.Then the boys went out to the deck again and sat in the brilliantmoonlight watching the settlement on the right bank.
There is a railway station at St. Luce
, and while they watched andtalked, the shrill challenge of a locomotive came to their ears,followed by the low rumbling of a heavy train.
The prow light was out, and the cabin light was out, and the cabin wasdark now, because when the boys had sought their bunks, a heavycurtain had been drawn across the glass panel of the door. From wherethe boys sat, therefore, they could see nothing of the interior of thecabin.
Five minutes after the door closed on the stranger, he left his bunkand moved toward the rear of the cabin. Against the back wall, stood asquare wooden table, and upon this table stood an electric coil usedfor cooking. Above the table, was a small window opening on the afterdeck.
The catch which held the sash in place was on the inside and waseasily released. The boy opened it, drew the swinging sash in, passedthrough the opening, and sprang down to the deck.
Reaching the deck, the visitor, as though familiar with the situation,ran his hand carefully about his feet feeling for a closed hatch. Hefound it at last and, lifting it, peered into the space set aside forthe electric batteries and the extra gasoline tanks.
Reaching far under the planking, he found what he sought--the wireconnecting the electric batteries with the motors. Listening for amoment to make sure that his motions were not being observed, he drewa pair of wire clippers from a pocket and cut the supply wire. Onlyfor the fact that the lights on the boat were all out, this villainousact would at once have been discovered. As it was, the boys remainedat the prow believing the visitor was still asleep in his bunk.
This act of vandalism accomplished, the boy dropped softly over thestern into his canoe, still trailing in the rear of the motor boat.Once in the canoe, he laid the paddle within easy reach and propelledthe boat along the hull of the _Rambler_, toward the prow with hishands. Once or twice discovery seemed to the boy to be certain, forCaptain Joe came to the gunwale of the boat and sniffed suspiciouslyover the rail.
Once, Clay left his place at the prow and looked over into the stream,but the moon was in the south and a heavy shadow lay over the water onthe north side, so the dark object slipping like a snake to do an actof mischief reached the prow unseen.
At that moment the boys left the prow and moved toward the cabin door.In another instant they would have entered and noted the absence oftheir guest, but Alex paused and pointed to lights moving in thevillage of St. Luce.
"There's something going on over there," he said "and I believe it hassomething to do with what we've been bumping against. There's theletter from the canoe, and the warning from the boat, and the boydropping out of the darkness on deck, and the signal lights, and nowthe stir in the village. Some one who wishes us ill is running thescenes to-night, all right."
While the boys stood watching the lights of St. Luce, Max caught themanila cable which held the motor boat and drew his canoe up to it.Cutting the cable, strand by strand, so as to cause no jar or suddenlurching of the boat, he left it slashed nearly through and, leavingthe strain of the current to do the rest, worked back through theshadow and struck out up stream.
Standing in the door of the cabin, the boys felt the boat swayviolently under their feet, then they knew from the shifting lights inthe village that they were drifting swiftly down with the current.Clay sprang to the motors, but they refused to turn.
Case hastened to the prow and lifted the end of the cable. There wasno doubt that it had been cut. Clay made a quick examination of themotors and saw that the electrical connection had been broken. ThenJule called out in alarm that they were drifting directly upon a rockyisland.