Secret Service Duty.
"Great Smoking Fireboxes!" exclaimed Jimmie.
"No, Jimmie, you should say 'Hot Boxes,'" corrected Jack.
"I meant to say 'Great Frozen Hot Boxes,'" smiled Jimmie.
"Here, here!" Harry cried impatiently, holding up a warning hand. "Just
imagine what Ned would say if he heard that!"
"All right, when I see him I shall ask his permission to use that as an
intense explosive when the occasion requires."
"You mean 'expletive,' Jimmie," Jack again suggested.
"You win the argument!" Jimmie announced resignedly, sinking further
into the depths of a great chair. "I wish Ned would hurry!"
The three boys were seated in the club rooms of the Black Bear Patrol
and were the only members present. Nearly the entire fourth floor of
the handsome residence of Jack Bosworths's father had been given over
to the use of the Black Bear Patrol. All the members had lent their
best efforts to fitting the rooms up in a manner becoming the use to
which they were being put. About the walls hung trophies of their
prowess as hunters and fishermen. Rugs of skins were on the floors,
chairs and settees fashioned by the boys themselves offered comfort,
while pennants and ribbons indicating prizes awarded in athletic
contests were plentifully in evidence.
By great good fortune the boys had succeeded in escaping from the
attention of the gang of rowdies they had unwittingly disturbed earlier
in the day. Having just time to leave the damaged motorcycles with
their friend Pierre they caught the next train for New York, and had
proceeded at once to the club rooms, where they now rather impatiently
awaited the coming of Ned Nestor.
"Maybe Ned didn't think we could get here so quickly," Harry suggested,
moving a camp stool nearer the window and seating himself.
"Maybe he didn't think we nearly failed to get here at all!"
"If it hadn't been for the good qualities of that little 'buzz-wagon'
of mine we would be arguing with that gang of toughs out on Long
Island this minute!" declared Jimmie with some force.
"Right you are, Jimmie! You can handle a motorcycle. I'll hand you
that. But they nearly got us in spite of your ability!"
"They're a tough lot of lads," admitted Jack. "They work only when
they have to and loaf around living on someone else. It is getting to
be a caution the way they annoy us, too. There ought to be some way of
stopping them. We should see father about it."
"Good idea, Jack! Just now, it's too hot to think about that subject.
What do you say to having a pitcher of lemonade?"
"The ayes have it!" declared Jimmie in a grave manner.
A step on the stair interrupted further remarks.
Ned Nestor, accompanied by an older man whom the boys at once
recognized as Mr. Nobles, an attorney associated with Jack's father,
came into the club room, glancing quickly about with a worried look
on his usually bright and sunny face. His dark eyes were positively
somber.
"Guilty, your Honor, as charged in the indictment," gravely remarked
Jimmie in greeting as he rose to his feet and lifted his right hand.
"I'm guilty. My alibi's no good!"
A general laugh went round the group as this characteristic greeting
was given. The boys noticed, however, that Jimmie's hand formed the
well-known Boy Scout signal, and also detected the quick lift of the
lawyer's hand with the palm outward, the thumb and little finger
touching and the other three fingers extended upward. Instantly they
all followed suit and then a general handshake followed.
"And now, Ned," began Jimmie as they all took seats, "why the
'four-eleven'? Somebody trying to run away with the town?"
"It looks mighty serious!" Ned soberly replied.
"Great Frozen Hot Boxes!" ejaculated Jimmie.
"What's that?" inquired Ned, instantly half rising.
"I've got a new 'by-word,'" Jimmie hastened to explain. "I'm using it
only on special occasions, such as getting shot at or some little
thing like that, or having a motorcycle put out of business."
"That's fine!" ironically declared Ned. "Now we'll omit the special
occasions and it will be all right. Where did you get it?"
"Where Jack got his real hot box!" declared Jimmie.
In answer to Ned's puzzled looks the boys quickly detailed the events
of the morning. Their previous experiences had taught them to overlook
nothing no matter how trifling it might at first appear.
A big pitcher of lemonade was prepared and passed about, to which the
attorney helped the boys do full justice.
"Now," began Jimmie, as the pitcher was emptied and he sat with a huge
slice of lemon in each hand, "can't you do something to stop that gang
of rowdies out there? They bother us a lot! Only the other day they
threw several milk bottles into the road in front of our machines. The
broken glass nearly cut our tires to scrap!"
"Possibly I might hire a detail of guards to protect you and make the
lads stop," laughingly decided the attorney, "but they'd only stop
while the guards were there. If you stop them yourself, Jimmie, they'd
stop while you are there! See the point?"
"I'll think about that!" declared Jimmie, sinking back into the big
chair and meditatively chewing on a lemon rind.
"But, Ned," protested Harry impatiently, "we're anxious to hear the
story of this hurry call. What's the reason for such haste?"
Ned's face, which had cleared somewhat, again became grave.
"I wanted you boys to help me. I need your advice."
"We're the regular little advisers!" stoutly maintained Jack. "What we
don't know we can find out from Jimmie and his dream book!"
"You're wonderfully kind. This case needs more than a dream book, I'm
afraid. It looks to me like international complications, with some
treason and a few other things on the side!"
"Whew, what big words!" gasped Jack. "Why don't you give the case right
over to the Secret Service Department and be done with it?"
"Because it isn't considered polite to return presents!"
"Do you mean to say----?" began Jack in astonishment.
"Just that!" nodded Ned. "The Chief has asked me to take this case in
hand and make an attempt to forestall a dangerous man in his suspected
attempt to sell out the United States!
"This fellow is a 'bad man' who has been engaged in various enterprises
of a very suspicious nature whereby he always made money. He has a
reputation for being a 'gunrunner' and an opium smuggler, as well as
several other things that are decidedly not nice.
"His latest act is the alleged theft of some plans of the defences of
the Panama Canal, and it is thought that he is going to try to get
across the Atlantic and endeavor to sell these plans to one of the
nations now concerned in the European war! What makes it worse is that
he is a naturalized citizen of the United States, is a trained military
man as well as a navigator, and knows that he is wanted to the extent
of a very handsome reward. He's a desperate man."
"Then all we've got to do is run out and pick him up, return him to
the United States Marshal, take a receipt and collect?"
"That's all!"
"Fine!" put in Harry. "Do we visit the burning mountains of Mexico
again or go to the North Pole or into Death Valley?"
"Worse than any of those!" soberly declared Ned. "It looks as if we'd
have to go across the Atlantic and get mixed up in the scrap over in
Europe if we get our man! He is reported to have left Colon some days
ago and, if indications are correct, is now on the Atlantic ocean bound
for the other side where he hopes to sell the plans."
"And the Chief hands us a package like that? Kind of him, I must say!"
Harry rather indignantly answered. "No older men handy?"
"He asked me to take the case," returned Ned. "If you boys want to help
me, all right. It's a dangerous mission, and you are not required to
go. There's no disgrace if we fail, and there may be no little credit
if we succeed. But he's a dangerous character!"
"Let's get out the big car and take a ride around the park to settle
our brains," suggested Jack. "I'm all in a whirl!"
Gleefully accepting the proposition, the entire party made for the
garage. Jimmie alone pleaded that he was hungry and asked to be excused
from the trip. He declared that Wolves were always hungry, especially
red-headed ones, and that he would await the boys' return to the club
rooms. Accordingly he was left behind.
A ride through the pleasant scenes of Central Park did much to relieve
the boys of the strain under which they had been laboring during the
earlier part of the day. They were accompanied by their friend the
attorney, who thoroughly enjoyed their company.
"We'll have the engine in place tomorrow," Harry announced joyfully,
"and then maybe we can plan to take the aeroplane along!"
"It seems to be settled, then, that we shall undertake the mission?"
inquired Ned, much relieved to note the attitude of his chums in the
matter. "This is volunteer service, remember!"
"Do you think for a minute that we'd see you undertake a trip of this
kind and remain quietly at home?" asked Jack, dividing his attention
between the car and Ned. "Why, Ned, Old Scout, we couldn't think of
such a thing. It's enough for us if you decide to go anywhere. We'll
trail along and do what little we can to help!"
"That's the talk, Jack!" declared Harry heartily. "We're with you, Ned,
on anything you see fit to undertake!"
"If the 'Grey Eagle' only comes up to our expectations," Ned hesitated,
"I'd not be afraid to cross the Atlantic in her!" Then, turning to
the attorney, he continued: "The new airship is expected to mark a
revolution in aerial navigation. We've been working on it this long
time, and tomorrow sees the installation of the engines."
"Yes, sir," gleefully put in Harry, "that little craft has greater
lifting power than any aeroplane of which we have any record. It
handles better than a Taube or a Voisin or a Curtiss, and we have had
a twenty-four-hour trial of her with the old engines while we were
carrying nearly nine hundred pounds weight besides we four boys!"
"It's simply marvelous," put in Jack, "the way the craft handles. In
the fuselage is room for we four comfortably, and on occasion we can
crowd in two more, with plenty of room for stores. Not an inch of space
is wasted, but there is no crowding."
"To what do you attribute this wonderful lifting power and the other
remarkable qualities?" inquired their friend.
"Principally to the way the planes are set and balanced," replied Jack.
"That is the idea of Ned, here. He has been studying that end of it
ever since he shot the eagle on the cliff in California. Really, it
is remarkable! Then, with the new engine that Harry has designed, we
should be able to make a twenty-four-hour flight as a matter of course,
instead of considering it a remarkable matter!"
"Come, come, Jack," protested Ned, "you take none of the credit
yourself, when you know full well that your share in the affair was not
a small one. But let's get back to the club rooms. Jimmie The Wolf will
have satisfied his appetite by this time."
Accordingly, the car was turned toward home, and in a short time the
party again ascended the stairway to the club rooms.
Imagine their astonishment to find that Jimmie was not there!
For a long time they sat about the rooms discussing the equipment
needed for the trip. Details of the case were gone over again and again
and discussed from all angles. Intense interest was manifest on the
part of all the boys as they talked.
A stumbling step on the stair interrupted their talk.
Covered with blood, his clothing in tatters, Jimmie half fell into the
room, reeling toward a chair in utter exhaustion.
"Well, Great Frozen Hot Boxes, I stopped 'em!" he cried.