THE MEN OF THE ISLAND.
Once on board the _Carrier Dove_ the mystery was deepened. There was not
a trace of Pork Chops, though his blankets lay apparently just as they
had been thrown aside when he leaped up at the invasion of the
motor-boat intruders. Frank lit a lantern and naturally the first thing
the boys hastened to investigate was whether any harm had come to the
cases containing the frame of _The Golden Eagle II_. To their
unspeakable relief everything was intact, nor did any of the boxes show
traces of having been tampered with.
"The whole thing seems inexplicable," mused Harry.
"Not at all," replied Frank, "I suppose that they figured we were asleep
ashore and sneaked up in their motor-boat to rifle our possessions."
"Yes, but why did they carry off Pork Chops?" protested Billy; "for
unless they threw him overboard, they must have taken him,--unless he's
been carried off by mosquitoes."
"They would naturally have carried him off as I figure it," rejoined
Frank, "not wishing to have him meet us and describe the appearance of
our visitors."
"That sounds good horse sense," put in Ben Stubbs. "And in my opinion
them chaps in the motor-boat was the same limpets as stuck around the
aerodrome in White Plains," he continued sagely.
"I don't think there's much doubt of that, Ben," replied Frank, "the
thing is how did they get here?"
"Wall, the rate we've been coming it would have been mighty easy for
them in a light draught motor-boat to have kept track of us from near
inshore if they had a good glass," rejoined Ben.
"But how did they trace us to Miami?" puzzled Harry.
"Easy enough," replied Billy, "I've done it dozens of times--traced
people I mean. I guess they just looked up the baggage man and found
where our stuff was checked to."
"Of course I ought to have guessed that," exclaimed Frank. "It's really
too mortifying," he concluded in a vexed tone.
"Consarn 'em," muttered Ben, embracing his rifle longingly, "I'd like to
get 'em quartered off this sight. I'd drop a precious bad pair of birds
in a couple of shots."
"No use thinking of that now," rejoined Frank, briskly shaking off his
annoyance over what couldn't be helped, "the thing to do at present is
to finish our night's sleep and set a watch. We don't want those fellows
coming back and blowing the boat up."
It was agreed that Ben Stubbs was to sit up and take the watch, and that
hardy veteran himself had no small share in influencing the verdict. He
felt that he as the oldest of the party and the more experienced should
have the responsibility in case real trouble was to come. The boys were
not long, even after the exciting interruption to their slumbers, in
sinking to sleep again on the transoms in the summer cabin of the
_Carrier Dove_. As for Ben he sat up on the after deck with his rifle
between his knees till the moon went down and the stars began to wane.
And all the time he never took his eyes off the shore where the dying
camp-fire still spread a reddish glow against the blackness of the thick
jungle tangle.
He might have been watching an hour when he gave a sudden start.
"Well that's queer too," he remarked to himself, as he fixed his eyes
with stern intensity on the little glow of light thrown out by the
embers. A dark figure had cautiously crossed the illumination, standing
silhouetted for a moment against it. Suddenly a loud "hoo-hoo" like the
hoot of an owl sounded from the shore. The same moment in the old
adventurer's reckless heart was borne a resolve which bore fruit when at
dawn, as the rim of a glorious sun poked itself over the sparkling blue
expanse of waters, and showed them vacant, he drew in the Squeegee's
painter and slipped lightly into her. He sculled ashore and approaching
the camp crouched almost on his hands and knees. He examined the ground
closely for a few minutes, as if in keen search of something. After a
few minutes of this concentrated scrutiny he suddenly straightened up
and strode off unhesitatingly into the jungle. But as he parted the
creepers before him he gripped his rifle in the crotch of his arm with
his finger on the trigger. He was not going to be taken by surprise.
The green mystery of the forest had not long closed on Ben's stalwart
form when the boys awoke as the sunlight streamed through the
canvas-curtains of the _Carrier's Dove's_ "main saloon". Rubbing their
eyes sleepily they hastened out on deck. For a few seconds the glory of
the tropic dawn engrossed their attention to the exclusion of all else.
Then with a cry of alarm Lathrop shouted:
"The Squeegee's gone!"
"Gone?" echoed the others.
For answer Lathrop pointed to the stern. It was true, no Squeegee swung
there at her painter. It was only a fraction of time before the absence
of Ben Stubbs was also discovered. For a minute a dark thought crossed
Frank's mind,--but he dismissed it as unworthy, and was glad he did, for
suddenly Billy shouted:
"Why, there's the Squeegee ashore."
They all looked and there, sure enough, lay their sneak-box where Ben, a
short time before, had deserted her.
"He must have gone ashore hunting," cried Harry.
Frank shook his head.
"He had some graver reason than that for going," he said.
"Well, let's swim ashore and find out what has become of him," cried
Lathrop, and indeed the turquoise water into whose depths one could see,
did look tempting enough for an early morning plunge.
"It would be our last swim, Lathrop," remarked Frank, pointing as he
spoke to a wicked-looking triangular black fin that cruised by.
"See that leg o' mutton?" he continued, "well, that's hitched onto the
back of a man-eating shark and they don't encourage early morning
bathing except for their larder's benefit."
As he spoke the monster glided close to the side of the _Carrier Dove_,
perhaps in search of ship scraps, for which sharks will sometimes follow
ships for days to satisfy their insatiable appetites. With an
ill-concealed shudder Lathrop watched the great shadowy body flit by the
sloop's side, with a wicked little pig-like eye cocked knowingly up, as
much as to say:
"Any breakfast ready yet?"
"I like those fellows less than the snakes," exclaimed Lathrop.
When the laugh at his expense had subsided Frank suggested that they get
into canoes at once and go ashore to discover what had become of Ben.
The proposal was greeted as a good one and in short time the light craft
were overboard and the boys paddling with all their might for the shore.
Lathrop kept his eyes steadily ahead all the way, nor did he once look
at the transparent water about them which, as the sun got higher, began
to swarm with black fins and queer ill-shaped monsters of the
deep,--jew-fish, rays, and huge sun-fish,--which seen through the water
looked like so many ill-shaped dragons. On shore the boys hastened at
once to their camp-fire of the night before. Its ashes were strewn
abroad but in the gray dust, Frank, with an exclamation of surprise,
made out the numerous indentations of a queer-shaped flat foot--it was
the same mark that had made Ben set off through the jungle. But the
boys, less expert than he, could not track their way by looking out for
bent ferns or broken bits of undergrowth.
A council of war was held. There were some of the leavings of the feast
of the night before in the cooking-pots, and on these and some coffee
brought ashore in the small emergency box fitted into each canoe, they
made a satisfactory breakfast, after which, as the result of their
confab, it was decided to attempt to circumnavigate the island in the
canoes. By this means they thought they were pretty sure of finding Ben
as the fact that the spot of land being unchartered argued against its
being of any considerable size.
In fifteen minutes the canoes were underway and rapidly skirting the
island. On the smooth water they made swift progress and in little more
than an hour had rounded the southerly point and were working their way
up the other coast. The island had turned out to be even smaller than
they thought. They were opposite a pretty little bay in which, instead
of the everlasting mangroves, an inviting little strip of pure white
sand, fringed by a green palm grove, sloped down to the water, when
suddenly their ears were saluted by a shot from the woods.
"Ben Stubbs!" was their simultaneous thought and the canoes were at once
headed for the shore.
Having landed, the boys with loud shouts of "Ahoy, Ben!" dashed up
through the woods which, to their astonishment, were threaded at this
point by a path--a crude track certainly, but still a path. They did not
give much time to the consideration of their surroundings however, their
minds being bent on finding Ben. Suddenly out of the brush right ahead
there sounded the "hoo-hoo" of an owl. Now even Lathrop was enough of a
naturalist to know that owls do not hoot in the broad daylight, so they
all stopped and exchanged wondering glances.
"Well, that's a new one," remarked Billy sententiously.
"Who ever heard of an owl that knocked about in the sunlight before?"
added Lathrop.
"Even in this enchanted land," concluded Harry.
Frank put all further speculation to rout by exclaiming, as the hoot was
repeated from a further recess of the forest, and yet again in the still
further distance:
"That is not an owl's hoot, boys. It's a signal given by some human
being."
No wonder the boys looked startled. After the adventure of the previous
night they had good reason to distrust any human being they might
encounter on the island. Whoever the inhabitants were they certainly had
no good will toward the young adventurers, so much at least was patently
evident.
"Well, come on, boys," cried Frank at last, "There's no use stopping
here," he added, as the "hoo-hoo" sounded uncannily from right behind
them, "our escape to the boats is cut off."
With grave looks they followed their young leader down the blind trail
that led to they knew not what. Suddenly, and without an instant's
warning, a number of wild-looking, unkempt men and youths sprang out of
the dense growth as if they had sprouted from the earth. They all
carried ancient Winchesters and one or two even had an old-fashioned
flint-lock. Their clothes were ragged to a degree. As ragged in fact as
their hair and beards. With their thin, peaked noses, sunken cheeks, and
wild, hawk-like eyes they were sinister looking specimens.
"What d'ye want y'ar, strangers?" demanded one in a high nasal voice.
"We came ashore on a hunting trip," rejoined Frank.
At this all the crackers set up a loud roar of laughter.
"You 'uns are hunting big game, we reckon," remarked a gangling youth in
tattered blue homespun.
There was an angry murmur. Things looked just about as bad as they could
when suddenly an unexpected diversion occurred. A wild-looking young
woman, whose movements, despite her miserable rags, were as graceful as
those of a wild fawn, dashed through the jungle and appeared in the
middle of the group which hemmed the boys in.
"Josh, you're a fool. Jed, you're another, and you too, Amelech, and
Will. Why for don't you alls bring they 'uns into camp?"
The men all looked sheepish.
"Yer see--," began one.
The girl stamped her foot impatiently.
"You alls ain't none of yer got no more sense than so many loons," she
cried angrily. "Don't you 'uns see that they 'uns is Black Bart's
friends?"
The men looked incredulous, but nevertheless their attitude changed.
"Wall, bein' that's the case, come ahead, strangers," said the tall man
who had first spoken and, with their wild escort clustering about them,
the wondering boys followed him down the dim trail.
Of who Black Bart might be or where they were going they had not the
slightest idea, but that Black Bart's influence was so far favorable to
them there seemed no reason to doubt.