SENOR RAMO MISSING
Jack's eyes glowed with the brightness of renewed health, and
determination, as he looked at his sister, at Bess and Belle, and at
Walter. It was like old times, when the motor girls had proposed
some novel or daring plan, and the boys had fallen in with it. This
time it had been Jack's privilege to make the suggestion, and the
others were only too ready to agree.
"Oh, Jack, do you think we can do it?" asked Cora.
"Of course we can!" her brother cried, with a growing, instead of
lessening, enthusiasm. "We'll just have to do something, and I can't
think of anything better to do--can you? than going off in search of
the folks."
"We simply must find them--if they're alive," spoke Bess, rather
solemnly.
"We'll find them--alive!" predicted Walter, joining his cheerful
efforts to those of his college chum.
"Oh, you Americans--you are so wonderful, so amazing!" whispered
Inez. "I am so glad I am wiz you," and she divided her affectionate
looks impartially between Jack and his sister.
"What do you think of it, Captain?" asked Walter of the skipper of
the steamship. "Is it possible to go about down among these islands
in a big motor boat?"
"Yes, if the boat be large enough, and seaworthy."
"I'm thinking of the Tartar," said Jack. "I heard of her from the
engineer of the boat we came out in just now."
"Oh, the Tartar. Yes, she is a very fine boat, and quite safe,
except in a very bad storm."
"Oh!" gasped Bess.
"But you are not likely to have bad blows now," the captain went on,
"especially after this one we've just passed through. It is the last
of the hurricane season, I hope. In fact, this was most unusual.
Yes, I should say it would be very safe to make a cruise in the
Tartar. I know the craft well."
"And what are the chances of success?" asked Walter in a low voice of
the commander, as Jack, with his sister and the Robinson twins
withdrew a little apart to discuss the important question of the
coming cruise.
Captain Ponchero shrugged his shoulders in truly foreign fashion.
"One cannot tell, Senor," he said in a low voice. "Certainly it is a
dubious tale the sailors told--a tale of mutiny and shipwreck. But
the sea is a strange place. Many unforeseen things happen on it and
in it. I have seen shipwrecked ones come back from almost certain
death, and again--"
He hesitated.
"Well?" asked Walter, a bit impatiently. "Might as well hear the
worst with the best."
"And again," resumed the captain, "I have seen what would appear to
be the safest voyage result in terrible tragedy. So one who knows
much of the sea, hesitates to speak with certainty about it. I
should say, Senor, that the chance was worth taking."
"Then we may find some of them alive?"
"You may, and again--you may not. But it is worth trying. If you
will come below with me, I will give you the exact longitude and
latitude where we picked up the two sailors in the open boat. Then
you can put for there, and make it the starting point of your
search."
"Good idea," commented Walter.
By this time Jack and the others had finished their little
discussion, and were eager to further question the captain concerning
all the details he could give about the foundering of the Ramona.
But there was little else that could be told.
The sailors had given all the information they possessed. They
repeated again how the ship had suddenly run into a storm, and how
the refusal of the captain to put into a port, hard to navigate in a
storm, brought on the mutiny.
"But did they see any of our folks--either Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, or
Mrs. Kimball?" asked Jack, while his sister and the twins hung
breathless on the answer.
The sailors had not especially noticed any passengers. They had been
in hard enough straits themselves, not having joined the mutineers.
"But they are certain the ship foundered? asked Cora.
"There seems to be little doubt of it, Senorita," said the captain.
"It was a fearful storm. We had three boats carried away, as well as
part of our port rail."
The weather was calm enough now, save for a heavy ground swell. The
waters were marvelously blue, and overhead was the blue sky. Seen
against the background of the wonderfully tinted hills of palms, the
city of San Juan presented a most beautiful picture.
"Well, let's get busy," suggested Jack, and it was only by keeping
thus occupied, mentally and physically, that he and his sister, as
well as the twins, were enabled not to succumb to the grief that
racked them. Belle, rather more nervous and temperamental than her
sister, did give way to a little hysterical crying spell, as they
were on their way back to the marina from the steamer, but this was
due merely to a reaction.
"Don't, dear," said Cora, softly. "We'll find them, never fear!"
She put her arms about her chum, and Inez slipped a slim brown hand
into one of Belles. Then the wave of emotion passed, and the girl
was herself again.
"Are you going out for a long cruise?" asked Walter, "or shall you
come back to San Juan from time to time? I ask, because I want to
send word to my folks not to worry, if they don't hear from me very
often."
"I think we'll cruise as long as we can," said Cora, who had assumed
as much of the burden of the search as had her brother. "If the
Tartar is large enough to allow us to take a big enough supply--of
provisions and stores, we'll cruise until we--well, until we find out
for certain what has happened."
Her voice faltered a little.
"Oh, the Tartar's big enough, Senorita," said the engineer of the
motor boat in which they were making their way to shore. "You could
go for a long cruise in her."
"Then we'll plan that," declared Jack. "Notify your folks
accordingly, Wally."
"I shall. But you'll have to have help along, if she's as big as all
that, won't you?"
"I suppose so," agreed Jack. "I'm not altogether up to the mark, if
it comes to tinkering with a big, balky motor."
"I'd like to go as engineer," said the man at the wheel. "I've often
run her, and I know her ways. If you were to ask the owner, Senor
Hendos, he'd let me go."
The young people had taken a liking to Joe Alcandor, the obliging
young engineer of the motor boat they had engaged to go out to the
steamer, and Jack made up his mind, since he had to have help aboard
the Tartar, to get this individual.
"This is a strange ending to our happy holiday," said Cora, with a
sigh, as they left the boat and walked up the steps at the water's
edge of the marina. The outing, up to now, had been a most happy
one, once Jack's improvement in health was noticed.
"It hasn't ended yet," said Jack, significantly. "There's more ahead
of us than behind us."
"I hope more happiness," said Cora, softly.
"Of course," whispered Jack.
They told Joe they would see Senor Hendos, and arrange with him for
chartering the Tartar. Then, in two hacks, they made their way back
to the hotel. All of them were anxious to get started on the cruise
that might mean so much. "Do you really mean you'll take me wiz
you?" asked Inez, of Cora, as they entered the hotel.
"Of course, my dear! I wouldn't think of leaving you," was the warm
answer. "And we need you with us. Besides, you heard what Jack said
about your father."
"Oh, will he try to rescue him?"
"I'm sure he will, if it's at all possible."
Something of the news concerning the young Americans was soon current
in the hotel, and Cora and her friends were favored with many strange
glances, as they walked through the foyer.
"We must thank Senor Ramo for his kindness in giving us the note to
the captain,"' said Cora, ever thoughtful of the nice little
courtesies of life.
"Indeed we must," agreed Belle, who had quite recovered her
composure, and, save for a suspicious redness of the eyes, showed
little of the grief at her heart.
Indeed, they were all rather stunned by the suddenness of the news,
and only for the fact that under it lay a great hope, they would not
have been able to hear up as well as they did.
The blow was a terrible one--to think that their loved ones were lost
in a shipwreck! But there was that merciful hope--that eternal hope,
ever springing up to take away the bitterness of death or despair.
There was, too, the necessity of work--hard work, if they were to go
off on an unknown and uncertain cruise. And work is, perhaps, even
better than hope, to mitigate grief.
So, though the sorrow would have been a terrible one, and almost
unbearable, were it not for the ray of light and hope, they were able
to hold themselves well together--these young Americans in a strange
land.
"Jack, perhaps you had better go and thank Senor Ramo at once,"
suggested Cora. "He may be able to give you some good advice, too,
about fitting up the Tartar for the cruise. He seems to know a great
deal about these islands."
"I'll see him at once," agreed her brother. "Just send up my card to
him, please," he requested the hotel clerk.
"To whom, Senor?"
"To Mr. Ramo."
"But he is not here--he is gone!"
"Gone?" Jack looked at the clerk blankly.
"Yes. He left, Senor, soon after you went away. He said business
called him."
"That is strange," murmured Jack.
Inez, who had heard what was said, looked curiously at Cora, and then
exclaimed:
"Ze papairs--for my father's release!"
A look of alarm showed in her face, as she hurried toward the
stairway that led to her room.