A TREACHEROUS GUEST
"Do you suppose that is the fellow Captain Joe caught prowling around
the stem of the boat?" asked Jule as the canoe disappeared down the
river.
Captain Joe answered the question by trotting up to the prow and
snarling at the disappearing canoe.
"Now, what do you think he wanted here, anyway?" asked Alex.
"Possibly he just dropped down to see if we were ready to start
north," Case observed with a yawn.
"It looks to me," Alex said, "that we have struck a storm center of
some kind, and I'm going to bed and think it over.
"I'm glad you're going to bed," Clay laughed, "for you get lost
whenever we leave you on watch."
"But I always find myself!" answered Alex, with a provoking grin.
It was finally arranged that Case should stand guard that night, and
the others prepared for sleep. The bunks were let down in the cabin,
the prow light was switched off, and directly all was dark, save when
the moon broke out from a bank of wandering clouds.
Sitting well wrapped at the door of the cabin, shortly before
midnight, Clay once more heard the sweep of a paddle or an oar. He
arose and went to the prow.
Off to the right, on a point of land below St. Luce, a column of flame
was beckoning in the gale from the gulf. Only the flame was to be
seen. There was neither habitation nor human figure in sight under its
light. While the boy watched, a signal shot came from the east.
Then an answering light came from the north, and a ship's boat,
four-oared and sturdy, passed for an instant under the light of the
moon and was lost in the darkness.
The rowboat had passed so close to the _Rambler_ that the watching boy
could have seen the faces of the occupants if they had not been turned
away. For a moment he had feared that it was the intention of the
rowers to board the _Rambler_, but they had passed on apparently
without noticing the boat at all.
After following the boat with his eyes for an instant, he switched on
the prow light and turned to the cabin to awaken his chums. Here was a
new feature of the night which must be considered.
As he turned toward the cabin, a white package lying upon the deck
caught his eye. It had not been there a moment before, so the boy
naturally concluded that it had been thrown from the row boat. He
lifted it and, going back under the prow light, opened the envelope
and read.
"Don't interfere with what doesn't concern you. Go on about your
business, if you have any. Life is sweet to the young. Do you
understand? Be warned. Others have tried and lost."
The puzzled boy dashed into the cabin with the paper in his hand.
"Look here, fellows!" he shouted, pulling away at the first sleeping
figure he came upon, "R. F. D. postman number two has arrived. Here's
the letter he brought."
He read the message aloud to the three wondering boys, sitting
wide-eyed on their bunks, and handed the paper to Clay.
"What about it?" he asked.
"I reckon," Alex observed with a grin, "that we're going to be
arrested for opening some one else's mail."
"Don't you ever think this letter wasn't intended for us," Jule
declared.
"And now," Case said, "I suppose we'll have to give up following the
orders given in the first letter. We're ordered off the premises.
See?"
"Not for mine," Alex cried. "You can't win me on any sawed-off
mystery! I want to know what this means."
After a time the boys switched off the prow light, turned on the small
lamp in the cabin, and sat down to consider seriously the events of
the night. While they talked, the clouds drifted away, and the whole
surface of the river was flooded with moonlight. The flame on the
south bank was seen no more. It had evidently been built as a beacon
for the men in the ship's boat.
After a time, Captain Joe, who had been sitting in the middle of the
deliberative circle in the cabin, raced out to the deck. The boys
heard him growling, heard a conciliatory human voice, and then a quick
fall.
When the boys switched on the prow light and gained the deck, they
found Captain Joe standing guard over a slender youth who had
evidently fallen to the deck to escape being tumbled down by the dog.
They gathered about waiting for him to speak--waiting for some
explanation of his sudden appearance on the motor boat. Captain Joe
seemed proud of his capture, and remained with threatening teeth
within an inch of the boy's throat.
"Say, you!" shouted Alex. "Did you come by parcel post? We've been
getting letters all right, but no such packages as this."
"Looks to me like he must have come in a parachute," Jule suggested.
"Where's your boat, kid?" he added.
The visitor smiled brightly and sprang alertly to his feet. He looked
from face to face for a moment, smiling at each in turn, and then
pointed to a light canoe bumping against the hull of the _Rambler_.
He was a lad of, perhaps, eighteen, slender, lithe, dark. His clothing
was rough and not too clean. His manner was intended to be
ingratiating, but was only insincere.
"What about you?" demanded Alex. "Do you think this is a passenger
boat?"
"A long time ago," replied the visitor, speaking excellent English, "I
read of the _Rambler_ and her boy crew in the Quebec newspapers. When
I saw the boat here to-night, I ran away from my employer and came out
to you. I want to go with you wherever you are going."
"You've got your nerve!" Alex cried.
"Oh, let him alone," Case interposed. "We've had a stranger with us on
every trip, so why not take him along?"
Alex took the speaker by the arm and walked with him back to the
cabin.
"Say," he said then, "this fellow may be all right, but I don't like
the looks of his map."
"You'll wash dishes a week for that," Case announced. "You're getting
so you talk too much slang. Anyway, you shouldn't say 'map'--that's
common. Say you don't like his dial."
"Oh, I guess I'll have plenty of help washing dishes," Alex grunted.
"But what are we going to do with this boy?" he added.
Clay now joined the two boys in the cabin and asked the same question.
"It is my idea," he said, "that the appearance of this lad is in some
way connected with the other events of the night."
"What did you find out about him?" asked Clay.
"He says his name is Max Michel, and that he lives at St. Luce," was
the reply.
"Well," Clay decided, "we can't send him away to-night, so we'll give
him a bunk and settle the matter to-morrow."
"I just believe," Alex interposed, "that this boy Max could tell us
something about those two boats if he wanted to."
"I notice," Case put in, "that he's paying a good deal of attention to
what is going on in the cabin just now. He may be all right, but he
doesn't look good to me."
Clay beckoned to Jule, and the two boys entered the cabin together,
closely followed by Captain Joe, who seemed determined to keep close
watch on the strange visitor.
"How long ago did you leave St. Luce?" asked Clay of the boy.
"An hour ago," was the answer. "I rowed up the river near the shore
where the current is not so strong and then drifted down to the motor
boat. I called out to you before I landed, but I guess you did not
hear."
Alex, standing at the boy's back and looking over his head, wrinkled a
freckled nose at Clay and said by his expression that he did not
believe what the boy was saying.
"Did you see a light on the point below St. Luce not long ago?"
continued Clay.
The boy shook his head.
"There are often lights there at night," he said. "Wreckers and
fishermen build them for signals. But I saw none there to-night."
"What about the four-oared boat that left St. Luce not long ago?" Clay
asked. "Do you know the men who were in it?"
"I didn't see any such boat," was the reply.
"Well, crawl into a bunk here," Clay finally said, "and we'll tell you
in the morning what we are going to do."
The boy did as instructed, and was, apparently, soon sound asleep.
Then the boys went out to the deck again and sat in the brilliant
moonlight watching the settlement on the right bank.
There is a railway station at St. Luce, and while they watched and
talked, the shrill challenge of a locomotive came to their ears,
followed by the low rumbling of a heavy train.
The prow light was out, and the cabin light was out, and the cabin was
dark now, because when the boys had sought their bunks, a heavy
curtain had been drawn across the glass panel of the door. From where
the boys sat, therefore, they could see nothing of the interior of the
cabin.
Five minutes after the door closed on the stranger, he left his bunk
and moved toward the rear of the cabin. Against the back wall, stood a
square wooden table, and upon this table stood an electric coil used
for cooking. Above the table, was a small window opening on the after
deck.
The catch which held the sash in place was on the inside and was
easily released. The boy opened it, drew the swinging sash in, passed
through the opening, and sprang down to the deck.
Reaching the deck, the visitor, as though familiar with the situation,
ran his hand carefully about his feet feeling for a closed hatch. He
found it at last and, lifting it, peered into the space set aside for
the electric batteries and the extra gasoline tanks.
Reaching far under the planking, he found what he sought--the wire
connecting the electric batteries with the motors. Listening for a
moment to make sure that his motions were not being observed, he drew
a pair of wire clippers from a pocket and cut the supply wire. Only
for the fact that the lights on the boat were all out, this villainous
act would at once have been discovered. As it was, the boys remained
at the prow believing the visitor was still asleep in his bunk.
This act of vandalism accomplished, the boy dropped softly over the
stern into his canoe, still trailing in the rear of the motor boat.
Once in the canoe, he laid the paddle within easy reach and propelled
the boat along the hull of the _Rambler_, toward the prow with his
hands. Once or twice discovery seemed to the boy to be certain, for
Captain Joe came to the gunwale of the boat and sniffed suspiciously
over the rail.
Once, Clay left his place at the prow and looked over into the stream,
but the moon was in the south and a heavy shadow lay over the water on
the north side, so the dark object slipping like a snake to do an act
of mischief reached the prow unseen.
At that moment the boys left the prow and moved toward the cabin door.
In another instant they would have entered and noted the absence of
their guest, but Alex paused and pointed to lights moving in the
village of St. Luce.
"There's something going on over there," he said "and I believe it has
something to do with what we've been bumping against. There's the
letter from the canoe, and the warning from the boat, and the boy
dropping out of the darkness on deck, and the signal lights, and now
the stir in the village. Some one who wishes us ill is running the
scenes to-night, all right."
While the boys stood watching the lights of St. Luce, Max caught the
manila cable which held the motor boat and drew his canoe up to it.
Cutting the cable, strand by strand, so as to cause no jar or sudden
lurching of the boat, he left it slashed nearly through and, leaving
the strain of the current to do the rest, worked back through the
shadow and struck out up stream.
Standing in the door of the cabin, the boys felt the boat sway
violently under their feet, then they knew from the shifting lights in
the village that they were drifting swiftly down with the current.
Clay sprang to the motors, but they refused to turn.
Case hastened to the prow and lifted the end of the cable. There was
no doubt that it had been cut. Clay made a quick examination of the
motors and saw that the electrical connection had been broken. Then
Jule called out in alarm that they were drifting directly upon a rocky
island.