A MIDNIGHT SCARE
There was a trolley line, newly built, which ran through Seabright,
touching some of the other seacoast towns, but not Harbor View. As luck
would have it, just when Frank Racer took after the strange man, hoping
to make him stop by calling to him, one of the trolley cars came past.
In a flash the man had jumped aboard the electric vehicle, and, as fate
would have it, the motorman happened to be behind time. No sooner was
the queer stranger in the car, which had not even stopped for him, than
the knight of the controller handle swung it clear around in an endeavor
to keep up to his schedule, and with a whizz the car darted off.
[Illustration: IN A FLASH THE MAN HAD JUMPED ABOARD THE ELECTRIC
VEHICLE.]
“Wait! Wait!” yelled Frank, waving at the conductor. The latter shouted
something, what it was the lad could not make out. Andy rushed up and
joined his brother.
“Missed him; didn’t we?” exclaimed the younger lad ruefully.
“Yes, worse luck,” replied Frank. “He always seems to get away from us.”
“There’ll be another car along in fifteen minutes, boys,” said a kindly
fisherman passing along.
“It wasn’t the car we wanted, it was someone on it,” answered Frank.
“Fifteen minutes will give him such a start that we can’t follow him.”
“Was he a pickpocket?” asked the fisherman.
“We don’t know what he was,” said Andy. “Come on, Frank, we’ll go back
and talk to Jim Hedson.”
“I was thinking of taking the next car, and keeping after this fellow,”
spoke Frank, with his usual determined manner.
“What would be the use?” asked Andy, who generally took the easiest way.
“He might get off anywhere along the line, and we could hunt all day and
not find him. It would be time wasted.”
“I guess you’re right,” assented Frank, with a sigh. “But I hate to give
up. I’m sure there’s some great mystery back of all this, and Paul and
that man are in some manner connected with it. I shouldn’t be surprised
if that man had wronged Paul in some way.”
“How, by taking his motor boat?”
“No, in some other way. It was a queer thing why Paul should be out in
his boat alone in the blow. Then to have the boat disappear, and to be
seen again towed by this man.”
“You’re not sure of the last part.”
“I am pretty sure. But let’s ask Mr. Hedson what he knows about it.”
The boys did not find the boatman in a very kindly frame of mind. He
greeted them rather sulkily as they approached:
“What do you lads mean by scaring off my customers?” he asked.
“We didn’t scare him off,” answered Frank sturdily.
“What do you call it then? Wasn’t he coming here to hire a sailboat off
me, and didn’t you chase after him, and make him leave on the car? Now
he’ll likely go to Hank Weston at Edgemere, and hire a boat off him. I
lose the trade.”
“We’re sorry,” explained Frank, “but if you noticed that man you saw
that he ran as soon as he saw us. We didn’t say a word to him. He just
turned tail and sprinted.”
“So I see,” grumbled Mr. Hedson, “but I thought maybe you flew some kind
of a distress signal.”
“We were only too anxious to talk to him,” put in Andy. “But he’s afraid
of us.”
“Afraid; why?”
“Well, there’s some mystery about him,” went on Frank, “and we’d like to
discover it. It’s connected with a boy whom we saved from a gale.” And
he told about Paul, and how the man had hastened away that day on the
beach. “Do you know anything about him?” finished the elder Racer lad.
“Only this,” spoke the boatman, not quite so angry now. “He come to see
me yist’day, and asked if I had a sailboat I could hire out for a few
days. He said he wanted to go cruising out to sea to bring in a boat of
his that was disabled.”
“A boat!” interrupted Frank eagerly. “Did he say what kind? Was it a
damaged motor boat?”
“He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask him. I arranged with him to take my
_Spray_ and he was to come to-day and get her. Now you see what
happened.”
“We’re sorry to have spoiled your business,” spoke Frank regretfully,
“but perhaps it’s just as well you didn’t hire that man your boat. I
don’t believe he’s to be trusted,” and he told about the suspicion they
had that the stranger had already been seen towing a disabled motor boat
with a gasolene craft.
“The question is, where has he left the damaged boat—Paul’s boat?” went
on Andy. “This thing is getting more and more complicated. Why should he
want a sailboat to go out and tow in the motor craft, when he was seen
in a power vessel yesterday?”
“Maybe whoever owned the power vessel took it away from him,” suggested
Frank.
“I wouldn’t wonder but what you’re right!” exclaimed Jim Hedson,
slapping his big palm down on his broad leg. “Now I think of it, I
didn’t like the looks of that man. He wouldn’t look you square in the
eye, but kept shifting around. I’m just as glad I didn’t hire him my
_Spray_, and I’m sorry I took you fellows up so short. I’ll keep a
lookout for that man, and if I see or hear anything of him I’ll let you
know. You’re cottaging over Harbor View way; aren’t you? I think I’ve
seen you there.”
“Yes, we’re the Racer boys,” replied Frank, “and we’ll be obliged to you
if you can put us on the track of this man. It isn’t so much for our
sake, as that we want to find out who Paul Gale is.”
“Paul Gale!” exclaimed Mr. Hedson. “That’s a good name for the lad found
as he was. Well, I’ll do my best.”
“Where to now?” asked Andy, as he followed his brother up the street.
“To the fertilizer factory. I think we can make a deal with them about
our whale better by talking than over the telephone.”
“We ought to have some of Chet Sedley’s fifteen cent perfume if we’re
going up there,” said Andy. “It smells worse than ten skunks on a wet
night.”
“Oh, well, I guess we can stand it a little while.”
The fertilizer factory, where fish, chiefly menhaden, were ground up and
treated, before being spread on farms and gardens to enrich them, was
not a very delightful place. The boys soon located the manager, who had
heard about their whale, and he made them a good offer for it, agreeing
to take the carcass away promptly.
Paul improved but slowly, and, as far as his mind was concerned, there
was no change. The past was an entire blank to him, and Dr. Martin, as
the days passed, shook his head in doubt.
“I’m afraid it’s going to take a long time,” he said.
“Have you given up hope, Doctor?” asked Mrs. Racer, as she followed him
from Paul’s room.
“No, not entirely, but I’m disappointed that there is not a glimmer of
the past. Perhaps if he could see something or someone connected with
his former life it might produce a shock that would start the sluggish
brain cells to working. Otherwise I don’t know what can be done.”
Andy and Frank, in their goings to and fro about the bay in their
sailboat, kept a close watch for the mysterious man. But they did not
see him. Neither had Jim Hedson heard anything.
“I guess you’ll have to give it up,” said Paul one night, when, with his
chums and Mr. and Mrs. Racer, he was discussing the case. “You’d better
ship me off somewhere. I—I’m afraid I’m becoming a burden to you.”
“Not a bit of it!” cried Frank heartily. “Andy and I always wanted
another chum, and now we’ve got him.”
“Don’t you feel strong enough to come for a sail with us to-morrow?”
asked Andy.
“I think so,” answered Paul. “Dr. Martin said I could go for a walk
to-morrow.”
“Then we’ll arrange for a sail,” decided Frank. “It will do you lots of
good.”
“But mind, no chasing after whales, dead or alive!” stipulated Mr.
Racer, with a laugh.
“All right,” agreed his sons.
Paul soon afterward went to his room. A chamber on the ground floor,
with a window opening into the garden had been fitted up for him, to
save him the necessity of climbing up and down stairs. It was in this
little chamber that, soon afterward, he went to bed, hoping against hope
that he might awaken on the morrow with his memory restored.
It was about midnight when Frank, who was a light sleeper, was awakened
suddenly by hearing a noise under his window. He occupied the room over
Paul.
“I wonder if he’s sick?” he thought, as he arose softly. “Perhaps he is,
and doesn’t want to call anyone. I’ll take a look I guess.”
Before going down, however, Frank stepped to his window, softly raised
the screen, and looked out. As he did so he was startled by a shrill cry
from the room below him. It was Paul’s voice, and the mysterious lad was
crying:
“Get away! Leave me alone! What do you want of me again? Oh, why can’t
you let me alone!”
“What’s the matter?” shouted Frank in alarm.
“That man! He’s after me again!” screamed Paul.
Before Frank could leave his window to rush to the aid of the lad below
him, he saw a bright light flash out from the casement of the boy who
had no memory. In an instant Frank recalled that it must be the portable
electric light with which they had furnished the invalid in case he
wanted to get up in the night.
Then a movement below him attracted Frank’s attention, and he saw a dark
figure spring from Paul’s window. As this happened the light flashed out
once more, and in the glare of it the elder Racer lad saw the
countenance of the mysterious man, while Paul called out in fear: “Oh,
don’t come near me! Let me alone! I’m afraid of you!”
Then it became dark, and Frank could hear someone crashing away through
the bushes of the garden.