THE BOYS MEET AN OLD FRIEND,--AND AN ENEMY.
As the boys hurried from the office of the Secretary of the Navy they
almost collided with a plump faced, spectacled young man in an
aggressively loud suit of light summer clothes who was just rushing in.
"I say, look out where you are coming, can't you?" he was beginning when
he broke off with a cry of delight.
The next minute the boys were wringing the hand of Billy Barnes the
youthful newspaper reporter who had been with them in Nicaragua and
whose life they had saved when he was a captive among the Nicaraguans.
Boy fashion the three slapped each other on the back and went through a
continuous pump-handle performance at this unexpected meeting.
"What on earth are you doing here?" asked Harry when the first
enthusiasm of the greetings had worn off.
"Working," replied Billy briefly. "I'm on the Washington Post."
"But I thought you were going to take a holiday after you had realized
your money on the sale of your share of the rubies we found in the
Toltec cave;" said Frank wonderingly.
"Well," rejoined Billy, "of course the money I got for my two rubies
looked good and it feels pretty nifty to have a check-book in your
inside pocket; but I guess I can't be happy unless I'm working. I bought
my mother up the state a pretty little place in Brooklyn and tried to
settle down to be a young gentleman of leisure but it wouldn't do. I
wasn't happy. Every time I saw the fire-engines go by or read a good
thrilling story in the paper I wanted to be back on the job, so I just
got out and hustled about for one and here I am."
"But what are you doing at the office of the Secretary of the Navy,"
demanded the boys.
"Ah, that's just it," rejoined Billy mysteriously, "I'm on the track of
the biggest story of my career and I think it's a scoop. Can you fellows
keep a secret?"
"We can do better than that," laughed Frank, "we can tell you one. What
would you say if we could tell you your errand here?"
"That you are pretty good mind-readers," retorted Billy promptly. "I can
guess yours though. You are here to try to sell the government an
air-ship."
"Wrong," shouted Frank triumphantly. "But you--William Barnes--" he went
on, making a mysterious pass at the other boy's head, "you are here to
find out about Lieutenant Chapin."
"How on earth did you know that?" gasped Billy, "you are right though.
Do you know anything about it?" he inquired anxiously.
"Everything," replied Frank.
"Oh, come off, Frank," retorted Billy, "that's too much. How on earth
can you--?"
"That matters not, my young reporter--we do," struck in Harry.
"Give me the story then, will you?" begged Billy.
"No, we can't do that," replied Frank in a graver tone.
"Oh, of course I wasn't trying to worm it out of you," said Billy
abashed somewhat.
"We know that, Billy," said Harry kindly. The reporter looked at him
gratefully.
"I just thought you might have something to give out," went on Billy. "I
see that you are in the confidence of the naval department."
"No, Billy," continued Frank, "we can't give you anything for
publication. But we can do better than that, we can tell you we are
about to start on what may prove the most exciting trip we have ever
undertaken."
"What do you mean?" questioned Billy seeing clearly by Frank's manner
that something very unusual was in the wind.
"That we are going to try to find Lieutenant Chapin and the men who
kidnapped him," replied Frank; "but come along, Billy, we've just an
hour before train time and if you feel like having a bite of lunch come
with us and we can talk it over as we go along."
The young reporter gladly assented and, linked arm in arm, the three
boys passed out onto the sunny avenue which was glowing in the bright
light of a late May day.
Frank rapidly detailed to Billy the gist of their conversation with the
Secretary of the Navy, having first called up that official on the
telephone and secured his permission to enlist Billy as a member of the
expedition. For Frank had made up his mind that the reporter was to come
along almost as soon as the boys encountered him.
The young journalist could hardly keep from giving a "whoop," which
would have sadly startled the sedate lunchers at the Willard, as Frank
talked. He resisted the temptation, however, and simply asked eagerly:
"When do you start?"
The boys told him. They could see the eager question framing itself on
Billy's lips.
"Say, Frank, couldn't you take me along?"
Frank feigned an elaborate indifference.
"Well, I don't know," he replied, winking at Harry as Billy's face fell
at this apparent refusal, "we might, of course, but really I think we
shall have to go 'without a chronicler.'"
The boys might have kept the jest up but Billy's face grew so lugubrious
that they had not the heart to keep him in suspense any longer.
"If you would care to come we were sort of thinking of taking you,"
laughed Harry.
"If I would care to come?" gasped Billy, "Jimminy crickets! If I'd care
to come! Say, just wait a minute while I go to 'phone my resignation."
"What an impetuous chap you are," laughed Frank, "we don't start for
three weeks yet and here you are in a hurry to throw up your job
to-day."
"Well," replied Billy somewhat abashed, "I was a bit previous. But it's
so white of you chaps to take me along that I hardly know what I'm
doing. How I'm to wait three weeks I don't know."
"How would you like to help us build the _Golden Eagle II_?" asked Frank
suddenly.
"Say, Frank," burst out Billy earnestly, "you are a trump. That was just
the very thing I longed to do but I didn't have the nerve to ask you
after you were so decent about taking me with you to Florida. I don't
know how to thank you."
"It won't be all a picnic," laughed Frank. "We've got a lot of hard work
ahead of us and we'll all have to pitch in and take a hand, share and
share alike."
"You can count on me," exclaimed the reporter eagerly.
"I know we can," replied Frank, "or we would not have asked you to
accompany us."
"What are your plans?" asked Billy eagerly.
"At present so far as I have thought them out," replied Frank, "we shall
sail from New York for Miami about the middle of June. I think it will
be best to go by steamer as we can keep a better watch on any suspicious
fellow passengers in that way than if we went by train. The key on which
the Mist was wrecked is on the opposite coast from there, I understand,
and the men who kidnapped Chapin and stole the plans must have entered
the Everglades by one of the numerous small rivers that lead back from
the coast at the Ten Thousand Island Archipelago.
"My idea, then, is to establish a permanent camp from which we can work,
the location of course to depend entirely on circumstances, that may
arise after we reach our destination. We are going into this thing
practically blindfold you see, and so we shall have to leave the
arrangement of a host of minor details till we arrive there."
"You mean to strike right back into the wilderness?" asked Billy.
"As soon as possible after our arrival at Miami," was the businesslike
rejoinder. "Every minute of our time will be precious. Oh, there's heaps
to be done," broke off Frank.
All the boys had to laugh heartily at the wave of the hands with which
Frank accompanied his last words. But their merriment was cut short by a
sharp exclamation from Billy.
"I say, Frank," whispered the young reporter, "have you noticed that
fellow at the next table?" He indicated a short dark sallow-faced man
sitting at a table a few feet from them and to whom most of their
conversation must have been audible.
"He's not a beauty," remarked Harry in the same low tone; "what about
him, Billy?"
"Well," said the reporter seriously, "I may be wrong and I may not--and
I rather think I'm not,--but if he hasn't been listening with all his
ears to what we've been saying I'm very much mistaken."
Frank bit his lip with vexation. In their enthusiasm the youthful
adventurers had been foolishly discussing their plans in tones which any
one sitting near could have overheard without much difficulty. The boys
realized this and also that if the man really turned out to have been an
eavesdropper that they had involuntarily furnished him with much
important information about their plans.
The object of their suspicion apparently saw that they had observed him,
for as they resumed their talk in lowered tones he called for his bill
and having paid it with a hand that flashed with diamonds, he left the
dining-room.
"Have you seen him before?" asked Frank of Billy.
"I was trying to think," replied the reporter. "It seems to me that I
have. I am almost certain of it in fact. But I can't think where."
"Try to think," said Frank, "it may be very important."
Billy cudgeled his brains for a few minutes and then snapped his fingers
in triumph.
"I've got it," he exclaimed joyously. "I've seen him hanging around the
Far Eastern embassy. I was up there the other day to report a reception
and this fellow was wandering around as if he hadn't got a friend in the
world."
"He might have had an object in that," said Frank gravely. "There is no
doubt that he was listening to what we were talking about."
"And not much question that he heard every word of it," put in Harry.
"Well, it can't be helped," said Frank in an annoyed tone, "we shall
have to be more cautious in the future. I see that the secretary was
right, this place is swarming with spies."
"I should say it is," replied Billy, "Washington is more full of
eavesdroppers and secret-service men of various kinds than any other
city in the world."
If the boys had seen the bediamonded man hasten from the hotel direct to
a Western Union telegraph office where he filed a long telegram, they
would have been even more worried than they were. If in addition they
had seen the contents of the message they would have been tempted, it is
likely, to have abandoned the expedition or at least their present
plans, for the message, which was addressed to "Mr. Job Scudder, Miami,
To Be Called For," and signed Nego, gave about as complete an account of
what they intended to do as even Billy Barnes with his trained ear for
catching and marshaling facts could have framed. There was a very
amiable smile on Mr. Nego's face as he left the telegraph office and
drew on a pair of light chamois gloves that gave a finishing touch of
fashion to his light gray spring clothes, whose every line bore evidence
to the fact that they had come from one of the best tailors in
Washington. He had done a good morning's work.
The boys of course had no means of knowing that, even as they hurried to
their train, the wires were rushing to Florida the news of their coming
three weeks before they planned to start and even if they had been aware
of it they could not then have stopped it. With Billy Barnes they dashed
up to the Pennsylvania depot in a taxi-cab just as the big locomotive of
the Congressional Limited was being backed up to the long train of
vestibuled coaches. They had their return tickets so that there was no
delay at the ticket window and they passed directly into the depot, and
having found their chair car deposited themselves and their hand-baggage
in it. Billy stayed chatting with them till the conductor cried "all
aboard." As the reporter rose to leave he gave a very perceptible start.
He had just time to cry to Frank:
"Look behind you," when the wheels began to revolve and Billy only
avoided being carried off by making a dash for the door almost upsetting
the colored porter in his haste.
As the train gathered speed Frank glanced round as if in search of
somebody. He almost started, as had Billy, as his eyes encountered the
direct gaze of the very black orbs of the man whom they were certain had
overheard their conversation at lunch and who had signed the telegram
"Nego."