THE LAD WITH THE "DRAG"
When the federal officer appeared in front of the spirited team,
announcing that he had a warrant for the arrest of the boys, Tommy and
Sam both whispered to the driver to cut loose with the whip.
"Run him down!" Tommy insisted.
"Jump the rig over him!" Sam advised.
The doctor, however, stretched forth a detaining hand and the driver
held in the horses.
"That's right!" Frank exclaimed.
"You mustn't get into any quarrel with the officers," Dr. Pelton
suggested. "We can soon settle this matter."
"Je-rusalem!" exclaimed Tommy. "Here we've been hanging around an old
blacksmith shop all day, and skulking through the streets, and not
getting half enough to eat, only to get pinched at the last minute! If I
had my way, I'd bump that officer on the coco and make for the landing.
We can't stay in this blooming little burg all the rest of our natural
lives. Will will be anxious."
"Now don't get excited!" laughed Frank. "We'll get out in, a few
minutes, all right."
"If it was so easy to get out in a few minutes," argued Tommy, "why
didn't you get out hours ago?"
Frank only laughed as the impatient question and sprang out of the
carriage. The doctor alighted, too, and they both stood for a moment in
close consultation with the officer.
Jamison, who was now very drunk, stood weaving about in the street,
demanding that all the boys, and the doctor, and the driver of the
carriage, be thrown into jail on a charge of piracy.
"Don't you think," Frank suggested to the officer, "that this man is too
drunk to be out on the street?"
"Why, of course he is," replied the officer beckoning to an associate
who stood watching the group from the next corner.
When the associate came up, Jamison was ordered under arrest, and was
taken away with many threats and exclamations of rage.
"I don't like this man Jamison any better than you do," the officer
said, speaking to Frank and Dr. Pelton, "but the case did look rather
bad for the boys, and I had to do something."
"He collected three hundred dollars of me, for a trip to and from
Cordova," Frank explained, "and then tried to maroon us on one of the
Barren islands. There's a member of his crew back here in the blacksmith
shop who will tell you the same story."
"So you paid him three hundred dollars, did you?" asked the officer.
"Yes, sir," answered the boy.
"And you have proof that he tried to maroon you?"
"Yes, sir!"
"And you took the boat only to enforce the contract you had made?"
"That's the idea!" replied Frank.
"Then I'm not going to bother with the case at all!" replied the
officer. "If you had come to me with this story the minute Jamison began
to rave about arrest, you wouldn't have been put to all this
inconvenience."
"I think," grinned Frank, "that Jamison ought to pay us back the three
hundred dollars, because he never brought us to Cordova at all, and even
if he had, he wouldn't have earned the money until he returned us to
Katalla. He ought not to keep the money."
"That's a fact!" exclaimed the officer with a smile at the boy. "I'll go
down to the jail and make him give it back."
The officer started away, and Tommy and Sam sat in the carriage
regarding Frank with wide open eyes.
"Say, who is that kid?" Tommy asked.
"I don't know," replied Sam.
"Did you notice that any time he said anything to the officer that the
officer just fell right in with his ideas?"
"Sure I did," was the reply.
"And did you notice how the doctor paid special attention to every
remark he made?"
"I couldn't help but notice it," was the reply.
"Well, that kid's got these fellows up here buffaloed all right," Tommy
declared. "And that being the case, I wonder why he didn't use some of
his influence hours ago and get us started on the road to Katalla."
"I give it up!" Sam replied.
Frank and the doctor stood talking together for a few moments, and then
the federal officer returned and handed two hundred dollars in bank
notes over to Frank.
"Jamison thinks he ought to have a hundred dollars because he paid the
tug for bringing him and his crew in," the officer said, "and because
he's going to let you run his motor boat up to Katalla."
"What do you know about that?" whispered Sam.
"I'll bet that boy's father is president of the United States," replied
Tommy. "Or he may be king of England."
"Whoever he is, he's got a pull," replied Sam.
"Drag!" exclaimed Tommy. "Whenever a man's got a dead sure cinch like
that, it's a drag and not a pull!"
"Well," the doctor said, "we're losing time! We may as well go to the
wireless office and get our code message. I presume it's ready for
delivery by this time."
"It's about time we were thinking about that boy with his head in a
sling, too!" Tommy suggested.
"It won't take us long to get there now," Doctor Pelton remarked.
The Gulf of Alaska was remarkably smooth, when the vicious habits of
that body of water are taken into consideration, and the boys made the
run to Katalla without accident in little less than three hours,
arriving at the floating dock with the sun still more than three hours
in the sky.
"Now for the rotten part of the journey," Tommy suggested. "If we hadn't
had to wait for the wireless after we landed at the dock we should have
arrived here in time to reach the cabin before dark."
"Who's got the wireless?" asked Sam.
"Frank's got it tucked away under his uniform!" laughed Doctor Pelton.
"He wouldn't even let me take a look at the envelope!"
"Do you know what's in it, Frank?" asked Tommy.
"Sure I do," was the reply.
"Then, what's all this mystery about? Why don't you pass the information
around?" demanded Tommy impatiently.
"All in good time!" laughed the boy.
"I don't see any use of all this mystery!" Tommy grumbled, turning to
Sam, "I get shut out of the inside features of every game I'm in!"
"Now, how do we get to the cabin?" asked the doctor.
"Walk, I suppose," grumbled Tommy. "It's only about fourteen or fifteen
miles, and the country between the two points is mostly on end. We ought
to get there by an hour or two after midnight, if we don't stop to play
marbles on the way."
"If you will all wait here a few moments," Frank said, "I'll go and see
what I can do in the shape of a rig."
"A rig!" repeated Tommy. "Fat lot of fun you'd have driving a rig over
that moraine!"
"Of course we can't drive clear to the cabin," Frank replied, "but we
can get quite along way from the coast if we have a strong team and a
good wagon!"
"Yes, I remember smooth country somewhere on the route," replied Tommy.
"But even at best," Frank explained, "we shall have to walk five or six
miles, so we may as well be getting busy."
In a very few minutes Frank returned with a pair of strong horses and
wagon more desirable for its strength than its comfort.
"Where'd you find it?" asked Tommy.
"Sent a wireless ahead asking for it!" replied Frank.
"I wish you'd send a wireless over to the cabin," Tommy grinned, "and
ask the boys to have supper all ready when we get there, and you might
suggest that Sandy and George meet us a half a mile this side with a pie
under each arm."
"I believe if that kid should ask to have some one dip him a blue blazer
out of an ice cold spring it would be done," Sam whispered to Tommy, as
the party clambered into the wagon.
"He's certainly got a drag somewhere!" replied Tommy.
"Things are running pretty smoothly boys," suggested Doctor Pelton as
the straggling buildings of the coast town disappeared from view.
"They're running too smoothly!" exclaimed Tommy. "First thing we know,
there'll be a cylinder head blowing out, or a volcanic eruption, or
something of that kind. We've been having things altogether too easy
ever since we landed at Cordova."
"Just listen a moment," Frank said, "I guess there's something going to
happen, right now!"
There came a long, low rumbling sound, apparently moving from east to
west, followed by a tipping of the moraine which almost brought the
horses to their knees.
"It would never answer," Tommy grumbled, "for us to make a trip to
Alaska without bunting into a glacier ready to smash up things!"
"That's not a glacial slide!" Frank said. "It's an earthquake!"