CROSS PURPOSES.
Following out his prearranged plans, Ralph ordered the _River Swallow_
to be made ready for her run to Cardinal that night. After a good supper
the three young Border Boys, now changed to motor boatmen, sauntered
down toward the dock somewhat ahead of the time they had decided on
leaving.
Harry Ware was in advance of his comrades, and as he turned an angle in
the patch he came into full view of the _River Swallow_ lying at her
dock.
“What a pretty picture she makes lying there,” he thought. “My, to look
at her you’d never think she could hustle over the water the way she
can!”
Malvin and Hansen were standing near the craft, and the former turned as
Harry came round the corner.
Instantly a long, low whistle came from the fellow’s lips, and Harry
could have sworn that at the same instant a third figure arose from the
deck of the _River Swallow_, where it had seemingly been lounging, and
vanished down the forescuttle.
Harry Ware rubbed his eyes.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he exclaimed. “Am I seeing things, or what?
There are Malvin and Hansen on the dock. Besides the servants, they are
the only men on the island, and that man on the deck—or the man I
thought I saw on the deck—is most assuredly not one of them.”
He stood there puzzled exceedingly by what he had seen, for he was
almost certain that his eyes had played him no tricks. Yet if he had
really seen a third man on the _River Swallow_, how had he come there?
No boat had come into the dock that afternoon, and there was no other
way of landing on the island except at a point which was commanded by
the house. It was another mystery to be added to the strange events that
appeared to be piling up around the boys in baffling confusion.
“Shall I tell the others about it and risk getting the life joshed out
of me?” thought Harry to himself, as his comrades’ steps drew nearer.
After a minute’s cogitation, he decided to remain silent about what he
had seen—for that it was no optical delusion he was certain.
“But I couldn’t convince them of that,” he mused. “They’d say I had been
seeing spooks again, and Persimmons would kid the life out of me. No, I
guess I’ll keep my mouth shut and do some detective work on my own
account.”
With this resolution in his mind, he joined his chums, and, arm in arm,
the three strolled down to the _River Swallow_.
“All ready, sir,” declared Malvin, “but you’re a little bit ahead of the
time you said, sir. I wasn’t expecting you.”
Harry looked sharply at the man.
“No, I’ll bet you weren’t expecting us,” he thought.
“All right,” responded Ralph to Malvin. “Percy, get below and tune the
engines up. It is almost dusk. I would like to get under way before
dark.”
Persimmons dived below, donned his engineer’s overalls and began to test
up his engines for the night run. To his surprise, they responded
sluggishly to his efforts to get them in working order.
“The first time they’ve laid down on me,” he muttered, as, monkey wrench
in hand, he tried to locate the source of the trouble.
“What’s the matter?” hailed Ralph impatiently down the tube. “Aren’t you
ready yet?”
“Not yet. There is some trouble here I can’t locate.”
“Bother! I wanted to get under way as soon as possible. What do you
think is the matter?”
“Impossible to say yet.”
“Well, hurry up and do the best you can.”
“You bet I’ll do that. It may take some time, though.”
“But they were working all right when we tied up this afternoon.”
“That makes it all the more puzzling. Something has happened to them
between then and now, that is certain.”
The young engineer went vigorously to work. Systematically he went over
wiring and ignition and tested the compression. All were in perfect
working order, and yet the engines only responded with a lifeless series
of “shoo-oo-o-oofs-s-s!” to all his efforts.
Percy Simmons knitted his brows. He sat down on a leather-covered bench
that ran along one side of the engine room.
“Let’s see; I’ve been over everything,” he mused, “gasoline valves,
spark plugs, wiring, batteries, magneto and all. They’re all running as
smoothly as a hundred-dollar watch. What the dickens——”
He broke off suddenly.
“I’m a fine engineer!” he exclaimed. “The carburetors!”
Industriously he commenced examining the carburetors, the “hearts of the
motors.” There were four in all on the twin four-cylinder engines of the
_River Swallow_. After he had worked a while, Percy Simmons made a
discovery that brought him to his feet with a yell.
In the bowls of all the carburetors sand had been placed. This, of
course, prevented the proper mixture of air and gasoline taking place,
and made it impossible to start the engine.
“Now what wretch can have done such a thing?” exclaimed Percy to himself
as he made this discovery. “Somebody with a knowledge of engines and how
to cripple them in just the last place any one would think of looking to
locate the trouble!”
Malvin’s was the first name that flashed into his mind, for suspicion is
one of the most infectious of mental maladies, and Ralph’s attack of
“nerves” in regard to the former captain of the _River Swallow_ had
communicated itself swiftly and forcibly to his two young chums.
But a moment’s reflection caused Persimmons to reject this explanation
of the sanded carburetors. Malvin, while capable of running an engine
when it was in perfect working order, had no technical knowledge of
machinery such as the person who had maliciously “doped” the carburetors
must have possessed.
Hansen? No, the Norwegian was even less skillful about a motor than
Malvin. Who, then, could have been responsible for such a wanton act of
vandalism?
“Gee! If we get up against any more mysteries I’m going to quit and go
back home,” breathed Persimmons agitatedly to himself. “What with spook
motor boats, mysterious ghostly lights and strange doings on uninhabited
islands, and lastly these sanded carburetors, life along the St.
Lawrence is getting too rich for my blood.”
In response to Persimmons’ summons, Ralph came below. The young
captain’s shipmate explained the state of the case to him.
“What do you make of it?” he concluded.
Ralph could only assume a puzzled expression.
“I don’t know what to say,” he said.
“Well, Malvin and Hansen are pretty well eliminated, don’t you think?”
“I guess so. I agree with you that neither is possessed of enough
technical engineering knowledge to enable him to cripple a motor in this
fashion.”
“That settles that, then. But it is equally certain that none of us did
it.”
“That goes without saying.”
“Then we come down to one culprit,” announced Percy, looking important.
“Who is that?”
“One of Harry Ware’s ghosts,” declared Persimmons soberly, but with a
twinkle in his eye nevertheless.
“I guess we can safely call the ghosts out of it,” laughed Ralph, in
spite of his vexation. “The thing is, who would have a motive to try to
prevent the _River Swallow_ leaving Dexter Island to-night.”
“There’s only one motive that I can suggest,” said young Simmons
seriously.
“And that one is?”
“A desperate desire to prevent us from communicating to the authorities
our experiences of last night.”
“But who could know anything about that? We agreed to keep that part of
the object of our journey to ourselves. Nobody could know of it.”
“Unless somebody overheard us when we talked it over.”
“What do you mean?”
“That maybe Harry Ware wasn’t so far off as we thought he was, when he
declared he heard a rustling in that shrubbery.”
“But, even so; even if anyone did overhear us, Malvin, for instance,
we’ve already decided that he couldn’t cripple the engines in such a
skillful manner.”
“That being so, there is only one explanation. The sand is there. Some
one placed it there. It wasn’t one of us. It is practically impossible
that it could have been Malvin or Hansen. That lets everybody out.”
“Yes,” said Ralph slowly, “unless——”
He paused.
“Well, unless what?”
“Unless there is somebody on board this boat that we know nothing
about.”
Percy Simmons broke out in a frantic yell.
“Holy Mackerel! You’re getting ’em, too. We’ll all be seeing things
before we get through.”