THE ACCUSATION—CONCLUSION
“Frank! Andy!” came a hail from the swift motor boat.
“It’s dad!” cried the two brothers together.
“Yes, and Paul Gale is with him!” added the older lad. “They arrived
just in time. Now we’ll be all right.”
“And this will wind you up, Mr. Man!” exclaimed Frank, looking at the
prisoner.
“We’ll see,” was the sullen answer.
“We might as well put back to shore, and unload our stuff,” proposed
Andy.
“No, stay on the raft,” suggested Frank. “It will be easier to get in
the motor boat then, as she can’t run in too close to shore.”
It was a good idea, for the speedy craft of Mr. Lacey, as it proved to
be, could not have come in very close. But the raft made a good landing
float.
“Well, Andy and Frank!” exclaimed Mr. Racer, when he could grasp their
hands. “You’ve given us a fine scare.”
“We didn’t mean to,” spoke Andy.
“And we have the man who caused all the trouble,” added Frank. “He’s a
prisoner, dad. See, Paul. Here’s the man we’ve been after.”
Paul Gale pressed to the side of the motor craft as it floated near the
raft. At once a strange change came over the lad’s face. His cheeks
flushed and his eyes grew bright. There was a look of fear, and then it
gave place to one of anger. As for the prisoner he tried to turn his
head away, but his bonds held him.
“Ha! Now I remember!” cried Paul. “I know you, James Shallock! I
remember all! It all comes back to me when I see you face to face.”
“Who is he?” asked Frank eagerly.
“And who are you, if you can tell us?” demanded Mr. Racer. This was more
important than learning about the prisoner. Frank and Andy thought it
even more to the point than learning how their father had come to their
rescue. While, as for Mr. Racer, as long as his boys were safe he could
forgive them the anxiety they had caused him. “Who are you, Paul?”
demanded the silk merchant.
“I am—I am—” the lad hesitated. He seemed to be undergoing a severe
mental struggle. “I am Paul—Bartlett!” he cried. “That’s it! I remember
it all now! And this man, who tried to swindle my sick father and
myself, ought to be in jail!”
“That’s where he’ll be, soon,” declared Frank.
“Tell us about it,” urged Andy.
“How did you happen to come for us, dad?” asked Frank.
“We came here as a last hope, after we ran down your rowboat at sea, and
found the _Gull_ adrift.”
“The _Gull_,” exclaimed Frank. “That explains it then. Our rowboat was
washed away by the tide. The _Gull_ pulled her anchor in the storm.”
“And we thought you were drowned or had fallen overboard,” said the
father. “Thank the Lord you are safe! It will be good news to your
mother. But let us hear Paul’s story.”
“This man is a scoundrel,” began the lad who had so suddenly recovered
his memory. “For a number of years he was my father’s confidential
secretary. My father, who had large business interests, fell ill, and
this man took advantage of him to secure important papers. He sought to
ruin my father, and enrich himself.
“There came a time when my father could no longer attend to business,
and he went to a sanitarium to be cured. I was an only son, and as there
were no other near relatives I stopped at a seaside hotel not far from
here. I had only just arrived when I found that this man, James
Shallock, was following me. I had certain important papers of my
father’s and I knew he was trying to get them away from me as they were
very valuable.
“I made up my mind to escape. Perhaps I acted foolishly, but I was very
much afraid of this man. I decided to go away in my motor boat, which my
father had given me just before I went to the seaside hotel. One night I
started out, taking the papers with me. I was all alone, and I decided
to go to some quiet place in my boat, and there stay until I could
communicate with my father. I hoped to throw this man off my track.
“I left one evening, and soon found myself in this bay. I did not know
much about navigation, and I soon got off my course in the darkness.
Then in the morning the storm came up, and my boat hit some obstruction
which threw the steering gear out of order.
“Next something went wrong with my engine, so I shut it down, hid the
papers, and drifted at the mercy of the wind and waves, for no boat
answered my signals of distress. The storm grew worse, and all the next
day I was driven about. Then came a calm, but I could not make land, nor
were my signals of distress answered. I drifted farther and farther, and
as I had no food or water I soon became partly delirious, I suppose.
“Then came another storm, and I saw some jagged rocks, there was no way
of avoiding them. I thought of leaping overboard for I am a good
swimmer, but my foot caught in an electric wire. I pulled it from place
as I fell, injuring my arm, and this made a short circuit. There was
some gasolene, from a leaky tank, on the floor of the cockpit, and this
caught fire from the electric spark.
“The storm grew worse. I did not know what to do. Then came an explosion
and I found myself in the water. I remember some one calling to me, and
taking me on board a sailing vessel, and then it all became a blank. My
mind left me.”
“That was when we rescued you,” spoke Frank, as Paul Bartlett finished.
“But what did you do with the important papers?”
“Wait. Let me think,” pleaded the lad. “I put them—”
They all leaned eagerly forward to hear his answer. The mysterious man
struggled vainly at his bonds.
“I put them in one of the cylinders of the engine,” cried the lad. “One
of the cylinders went out of commission. I shut off the water supply,
took off the head and stuffed the papers between the outer wall and the
inner one. They ought to be there now.”
“No wonder we couldn’t find them,” exclaimed Frank.
“And where is your father now?” asked Mr. Racer.
“Still in the sanitarium I hope,” answered Paul. “That is the reason
none of our advertisements about me were answered. My father did not see
them, and I have no other relatives. His business was closed up, and his
friends did not know where he or I had gone. But it’s all right now. Oh,
how I want to see my father!”
“We’ll send him word at once, if you have his address,” said Mr. Racer.
“And what shall we do with this man?” inquired Mr. Lacey.
“Jail is the place for him,” declared Mr. Racer. “He is a desperate
criminal to have followed Paul about as he did. Now, boys get aboard,
and we’ll take Mr. James Shallock in with us also. Cast off the raft,
and we’ll go home.”
“Wait until I get Paul’s papers!” cried Frank.
It did not take long to remove one of the engine cylinder heads, and
there, between the two walls, were the important papers, safe. They
involved the possession of much property that Shallock hoped to get
under his control.
They set out for the mainland with their sullen prisoner. He soon
realized that his games were up, and when turned over to the authorities
he made a partial confession. He admitted that he had followed Paul,
soon after the lad left the hotel, hoping to get the papers. When the
lad left in his motor boat the scoundrel lost track of him for a while.
Then he learned of Paul’s efforts to escape and set out after him. From
the Racer boys the man learned of Paul’s rescue, but naturally he would
not tell what he wanted of him, and hurried away. He hung about Harbor
View, hoping for a chance to get hold of the helpless lad, or steal the
papers. That was the cause of his midnight visit to the Racer home.
Then he had an idea that the papers were in the boat, and he made a
search for that. He found it floating at sea, and hiring a sailboat,
started to tow it to land.
He was frightened by the Racer boys, however, and soon afterward, a
storm coming up, the tow line parted and the _Swallow_ was once more
afloat. Shallock made another attempt to find it, and succeeded. Then he
decided to tow it to Cliff Island so he might have plenty of time to
search it.
The arrival of the boys spoiled his plans, and once more he fled, after
imprisoning them in the cave.
He next hired a boatman to put him on the island with the wreck of the
boat, but there was the quarrel which the boys witnessed, and once more
the scoundrel’s plans failed. The rest is known to my readers. Shallock
confessed to setting fire to the sailboat of the Racer boys, and after a
trial he was sent to jail for a long term.
Mr. Racer explained to the boys how he and Mr. Lacey had set out in
search for them, and how they had run down the rowboat. Then sure, after
a fruitless search in the storm, that his sons were drowned, the silk
merchant was distracted. He was more so when the _Gull_ was found adrift
a little later, having dragged her anchor in the gale.
After that Mr. Racer, in the motor boat of Mr. Lacey, made a search up
and down the coast for his sons’ bodies. Paul Bartlett, who was much
improved, went with them, and it was Paul who suggested the possibility
of the boys still being on the island. Accordingly another trip was made
there, with what result we have seen.
“Oh, I’m so glad I know who I am, and that I have a father!” exclaimed
Paul, when word had been sent to the invalid in the sanitarium. “I
thought I would never get my memory back.”
“It was the shock of seeing Shallock the second time that did it,” said
Dr. Martin. “You are as good as ever now, Paul, and you won’t need any
more medicine.”
And the doctor was right. The former invalid joined his father, who also
recovered his health and Paul grew into a sturdy youth who had many good
times with the Racer boys, and with Bob Trent. He also helped to play
several jokes on Chet Sedley, the Harbor View dude, for Paul was as
lively as was Andy.
“I declare I don’t know what to do with our two boys,” said Mrs. Racer
in despair one day to her husband. “Here is the latest. Andy took out
that Chet Sedley for a row, and dumped him overboard. Something ought to
be done.”
“I suppose they ought to be sent away to school,” said Mr. Racer
reflectively. “They are getting to be old enough now.”
“Yes, a good quiet school would do them good,” said his wife. “I think I
know of the right place, kept by an old professor who is a very deep
student. It is a nice quiet place.”
“We’ll send them there,” decided Mr. Racer. And how the Racer boys went
to this same “quiet” school, and how they gave that same school a very
rude, but very necessary, awakening, will be related in the second
volume of this series, to be called, “The Racer Boys at Boarding School;
Or, Striving for the Championship.”
Paul went back to his sick father a few days after the mystery had been
cleared up, taking the important papers with him. He gave Andy and Frank
the wrecked motor boat, which they brought from Cliff Island and had
repaired, so that it was a fine craft. In it the brothers and Bob Trent
had many a trip.
Mr. Bartlett’s health improved very much after his son joined him at the
sanitarium. Though the truth about the lad’s disappearance had been kept
from him as much as possible, yet something of it had to be told, and
this, naturally, made the invalid worry.
“But I am all right, now that you are safe, Paul,” he said,
affectionately patting his son on the shoulder. “I think I will soon be
able to leave this place.”
And he was, for his condition grew rapidly better after that. The
finding of the important papers, without which much of his fortune would
have gone to Shallock, no doubt aided in Mr. Bartlett’s return to
health.
“I should like to meet those brave Racer boys who aided you so much,
Paul,” said his father one day. “How would it do for you and me to take
a trip to Harbor View?”
“Just the thing, dad!” exclaimed the boy, and thither they went. That
Frank and Andy were glad to see their chum once more goes without
saying, and in the repaired motor boat they went to the island where
Frank and Andy had undergone such an experience, visiting the cave where
the lads had been held prisoners.
Paul and his father remained at Harbor View for some weeks, and then
business called Mr. Bartlett away. He left, promising to see his friends
again soon.
“Come on,” called Andy to Frank one day, “I’ve just thought of a fine
trick to play on Chet Sedley.”
“Not for mine!” exclaimed Frank. “I’ve had enough of your tricks for a
while. I’m going fishing. We haven’t much more time at the beach, as it
will soon be time to go back to New York.”
“And then for boarding school,” exclaimed Andy, turning a handspring. “I
heard dad talking to mother about it. Say! Maybe we won’t have sport!”
“If we don’t, it won’t be your fault,” spoke Frank.
Then he and his brother went for a run in the _Swallow_; and here we
will take leave of them for a time.
THE END