SOMETHING ABOUT A PISTOL
“Off at last, and glad of it! Hurrah for the South Pole and the finding
of the treasure ship!”
It was Bob who uttered the words as he stood on the stern deck of the
steam yacht, watching the harbor of Pernambuco fading rapidly in the
distance.
“Glad to get away, eh, Bob?” replied Barry. “Well, I am not sorry,
myself. Only I should have liked to hear what became of Captain Fenlick
and Basker, after they broke jail.”
“We are well rid of those villains, Barry; I never want to see either
of them again.”
“Neither do I. We have the red book back and can do very well without
them.”
It was a perfect day, and long before nightfall the steam yacht was
far out of sight of land and heading southwest by south, straight for
Tierra del Fuego--the last stop to be made before pushing into the
unknown regions of the Antarctic Circle.
Pat Caven overheard the talk between Bob and Barry, and smiled grimly
to himself.
“Niver want to see Fenlick an’ Basker again, eh?” he muttered. “Well,
yez will be afther seein’ ’em, mark me wurruds!”
The two days following the departure from Pernambuco were busy ones for
the two chums and Captain Gordon.
At the seaport city they had invested in some charts delineating the
vicinity of Cape Horn, and these were studied diligently, in connection
with the maps and the written descriptions contained in the red book.
From these they learned that almost directly south of Cape Horn
were the South Shetland Islands, with Trinity Land and Palmer Land
still farther south. Palmer Land was reported to be covered with
mountains from a mile to seven thousand feet in height, and covered
continually with huge icebergs and snow. Beyond these points was the
great unexplored region of the South Pole, called by many the Land of
Desolation. Here were to be encountered thick fogs, terrific winds,
perilous floating icebergs, and submarine eruptions such as no other
portion of the globe knew.
“Not a cheerful prospect,” said Barry, with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Does it make you feel like turning back, Bob?”
“No, I’ll go on as long as anybody will go with me,” was the sturdy
answer. “We’ll come out on top, I feel it in my bones.”
“The Antarctic night is six months long,” went on the owner of the
Arrow. “That’s a pretty good while to stay in darkness.”
“Pooh! We’ve got lamps on board and barrels and barrels of oil. What
more do you want?”
“And they say the cold is something fierce. But I know that won’t hurt
you. You’ll be for taking a swim whenever we strike open water, I
suppose.”
“We are in for the trip, and there shall be no turning back,” said
Captain Gordon. “We can at least go as far as others have gone. And if
we go farther it will be a great feather in our caps, for all the world
will hear of it.”
“That’s the way to talk!” cried Barry. “I was only testing Bob. I
wouldn’t turn back now for anything.”
On and on sped the Arrow, as if understanding the honor of her mission
and as if to do her level best. The weather remained fine, with just
enough breeze to temper the equatorial heat, and as they drew southward
it gradually grew cooler until, as Bob expressed it, “it was worth
living again.”
So far, Pat Caven had taken food and drink to the stowaways three times
without detection, but the fourth time he was noticed by Paul Ferris,
the cabin boy.
“What are you doing with that stuff?” questioned Paul, as he and Caven
came together in an unfrequented gangway.
“It’s all right, me boy,” answered Pat, smoothly. “I’m obeyin’ orders,
that’s all. You keep yer mouth shut about it, or you’ll git into
trouble.”
“Does the cook know you have that stuff?” went on Paul.
“Av course he does,” answered Caven. “But don’t you say nuthin’ about
it, or there will be trouble for ye, mind that!” And he shook his head,
warningly, at the cabin boy.
Paul hardly knew what to do. At first he was for keeping silent, but
later on he sounded Stults, the cook, on the subject.
The German was at once wrathful, for there was no love lost between him
and Caven.
“He got no right to dake some eatings, not much, py chiminy!” he cried.
“Of you cotch him at it again, you tole me kvick, und I vos tole
Captain Gordon.”
“All right, I will tell you,” answered Paul. But in the future Pat
Caven was so careful that nothing came of it until it was too late.
In the mean time, Caven had been sounding some of the members of the
crew and had gotten one sailor named Logger to go into the mutiny with
him.
“That will give us seven against nine,” said Caven to Captain Fenlick
when they met. “That cabin boy don’t count.”
Those in the hold of the Arrow were getting tired of the confinement,
and Basker was for beginning the attack without delay, but the
ex-captain of the Vixen told him they must not hurry or they might
spoil the game.
“Caven must first doctor the weapons belonging to Filmore and the
others,” he announced. “If that is done, we’ll have them at our mercy.”
This was a ticklish piece of business, for Barry and his friends kept
their weapons in their staterooms and most of them were under lock and
key.
After watching for several days, Pat Caven succeeded in getting at
Barry’s pistols and a rifle in Captain Gordon’s stateroom, and he fixed
the hammers of the firearms so that they could not be raised.
Then he made his way to Bob’s little stateroom.
He was at work over the best pistol Bob possessed when he heard
footsteps in the cabin. He had just time enough to get out of sight
behind a curtain when Bob came in.
Bob was humming gayly to himself and started to look for a certain book
he was after when his eye rested upon the hook where the pistol had
hung suspended by a leather strap.
“Hullo, the pistol’s gone!” he muttered. “Wonder if Barry took it?”
Then he got the book he was after and turned to leave the stateroom.
Pat Caven hardly dared to breathe, for Bob passed within a foot of him
on his way out.
“Begorra, but that was a narrow escape,” said the Irishman to himself.
“I’ll have to git out av this,” and he placed the pistol on the hook
again and followed Bob out.
A quarter of an hour later Bob met Barry on the after deck and
mentioned the pistol to the owner of the Arrow.
“I haven’t touched the pistol,” declared Barry. “It must have been
somebody else. Better ask Captain Gordon.”
“I will,” answered Bob, and did so, and then asked Paul Ferris. Of
course, neither knew anything about the pistol, and Bob was much
mystified and even more so when, on returning to the stateroom, he
found the pistol hanging in its accustomed place.
“This beats the Dutch!” he declared.
“You must have been dreaming,” answered Barry. “The pistol is just
where it has always been.”
Bob shook his head, dubiously. “I can’t understand it at all, Barry.
Somebody had that pistol and that is all there is to it.”
“Is the weapon all right?”
“Appears to be. I’ll tell you one thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to keep it where only myself can lay hands on it in the
future.”
“There won’t be any harm in doing that, Bob. But whom are you afraid
of?”
“I don’t know, excepting it is that Pat Caven.”
“Pat Caven? Has he given you any more back talk?”
“Not exactly. But I don’t like his looks. He acts as if he was planning
to do me an injury.”
“If he tries it I’ll put him in irons, Bob.”
“I suppose your pistols are all right.”
“Why, of course.”
“Have you looked after them?”
“No, but I’m sure they are just where I left them.”
“Better look and make sure.”
Barry smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“You are certainly getting nervous,” he said. “However, I’ll look after
the pistols as soon as I go to my stateroom.”
Half an hour went by, when Captain Gordon came rushing up to where Bob
and Barry sat reading.
“Tell me!” he cried. “Have either of you been tampering with my pistol?”
Bob and Barry leaped up in amazement.
“No!” came from both.
“It’s strange. Somebody has fixed my pistol so it won’t go off.”
Barry turned as pale as death.
“Wait,” he muttered, and ran for his stateroom. Inside of three minutes
he was back, his face full of strange forebodings.
“My pistols and the rifle have also been doctored,” he ejaculated.
“There is something wrong here.”
He had scarcely uttered the words when Gus Stults came running up, his
round face full of fear.
“Captain--Mr. Filmore!” he gasped. “It vos awful--I can’t believe him!”
“What?” came from the three others.
“Dare vos strange mens in der hold--two udder dree udder more of dem. I
vos shpot dem from der galley ven I go me town to git some perdaders.”
“Men!” thundered Captain Gordon. “Men, and my pistols gone!”
“Yah, und Pat Caven, he was steal food from der galley more as vonce.”
“Food stolen--men in the hold--our weapons tampered with,” groaned
Barry. “What can it all mean?”
“It means mutiny!” answered Bob. “Somebody is going to try to take the
Arrow from us!”