DAVE A CAPTIVE
It took Dave an hour to find out just what had happened to him. He
roused up to find two men carrying him, one at his feet, one at his
shoulders. All that he could guess was that they were on land. How
he had been fished out of the water, and what had become of the
Drifter, the young aviator had no means of knowing.
The two men were rough looking fellows and reminded Dave of dock
laborers or loiterers. They were big and sturdy, and as Dave
stretched out and showed signs of life, one of them remarked
gruffly.
"None of that--no squirming, now."
Dave's clothes were soggy and dripping. He felt somewhat sore on
one side of his head, but so far as he could figure it out he was
not crippled; or seriously hurt.
The young aviator cast his eyes about him to, learn that they were
going through a patch of timber. Then came a meadow-like stretch,
and then a thicket. They had not gone far into that before the men
dropped him on the ground and stood over him.
"Can you walk?" asked one of the two.
"I think I can," replied Dave, arising quite nimbly to his feet.
The instant he did this both of the men reached, out and seized an
arm. Dave was thus pinioned tightly as the men forced him along.
"Most there," growled one of them gruffly.
"Good thing," retorted the other.
Finally they came to a dense thicket that covered a rise. About
half way up this, almost hidden by saplings and vines, Dave made
out a grim looking patched-up building.
It was an old hut to which various additions had been made. One of
Dave's companions uttered a peculiar whistle. The door of the place
was opened, and a disreputable looking fellow like themselves
admitted them.
"Hello, who's this?" he spoke in a tone of curiosity.
"Oh, some one to take care of," was the short reply.
"He don't look like a revenue."
"Worse than that. Ridgely will tell you when he comes," was the
indifferent retort. "Have you a place to keep him tight and safe?"
"I guess so," laughed the other, "a dozen of them."
"One will do."
Dave was led through several rooms. Then they came to a partition
formed of heavy timbers. In its center was a stout door with an
immense padlock.
"Get in there," spoke the most ferocious of his captors, giving Dave
a push.
Then the door was closed with a crash that showed how heavy it was.
Dave could hear those outside securing the padlock.
"A prisoner, eh?" mused Dave, looking about him. "Yes, it is,
indeed, tight and safe."
Dave's prison place was gruesome in the extreme. On three sides was
solid rock, forming a semicircular back to the room. The partition,
closed the entire front. Near its top in several places were cut
out apertures, admitting air and a little light.
There were some broken boxes in the place and a heap of burlap.
Dave decided that it had been used at some time or other as a place
of storage. He did not yet feel normal, so he sat down on one of
the boxes and felt about his head.
"Just a bruise," he reported. "I suppose they, dragged me aboard of
the Drifter from the water, but what about Hiram and the Monarch
II?"
Dave started up, all weakness and dizziness disappearing as if by
magic, as he thrilled over the possible peril of his comrade. With
a recollection only of his last sight of Hiram grid the Monarch II,
he feared what might have happened to either or both.
It worried Dave a good deal and made him restless and unhappy, but
finally he figured out a theory. In some unaccountable way the
Monarch II had no sooner glided along on its pontoon, than it had
run straightway up into the air, as though the self starter was in
perfect action. Dave recalled Hiram struggling to reach the pilot's
seat. Then he had witnessed the disappearance of the Monarch II.
"I doubt if Hiram could manage the machine--I even doubt with
something wrong with it, as there surely was, if he could keep it
adrift," decided Dave. "What then?"
The young aviator pictured Hiram and the machine in a tangle among
the trees, or dropping upset among the rocks. He had not seen
anything of the Dawsons or the Drifter since he had fallen into the
water of the bay. Perhaps, he reasoned, they had resumed an air
chase of the fugitive.
Dave had several hours to himself. He detected no sound or movement
outside of the strange room he was in. It was dreadfully dull and
lonesome, and he wondered what the outcome of his present adventure
would be.
It was well along in the day, when Dave from sheer weariness and
worry had lain down among the heaps of burlap, that a diversion came
to monotony. He started up as he heard voice outside of the door.
Then the padlock rattled, the door opened, and some one stepped
across the threshold. The visitor stared about to locate Dave, and
spoke the words:
"That you, Dashaway?"
The room was lighter now, with the door half open. Dave rubbed his
eyes and strained his gaze, and took a good look at the speaker.
"Don't you know me?" challenged the latter.
"Oh, yes," replied Dave, "I see now. You are the gentleman we
rescued from the lake at Columbus."
"I don't suppose you think me much of a gentleman just now,
Dashaway," spoke Ridgely, for, he was, in fact Dave's visitor.
His tone was somewhat regretful, and not at all unfriendly. Dave
was shrewd enough to discover this, and politic enough to take quick
advantage of it.
"Oh, I don't know," he said. "Of course you are with the crowd who
had me locked in here."
"I'm sorry to say that's true," responded Ridgely.
"It's not pleasant here, I can tell you," said Dave, "and the whole
thing is pretty high handed, don't you think so, Mr. Ridgely?"
"I don't think it, Dashaway, I know, it. See here, I've got nothing
against you. On the contrary, I owe you a good deal. I'm not
forgetting that you saved my life when my launch struck the rocks
near Columbus."
Dave was silent, resolved to let the man have his say out.
"I was in a fix then, I was in a fix before I got there, and I'm
afraid I'm in a fix now," continued Ridgely. "I've come to see you
in the right spirit, Dashaway."
"How is that?" inquired Dave.
"Sick of the whole combination. I thought I was smart, but you and
your people are smarter. Young Dawson convinced me that we could
run things so our airship could make trips for a long time, and here
you are on our trail within seventy-two hours."
"Yes, Mr. Ridgely," acknowledged the young aviator. "They found a
clew and started pursuit right after you stole the Drifter."
"You mean you did. Don't be modest, Dashaway. I've learned a good
deal about you, and if I hadn't about decided to quit business I'd
offer you a job."
"What!" smiled Dave--"smuggling?"
"Well, it pays pretty big, you know."
"Does it?" replied Dave. "I fail to see it. I wouldn't like to be
in a position where I was being chased half over the country."
"H'm, we won't discuss it," retorted Ridgely in a moody tone. "I
came to tell you that you won't be hurt any."
"But I want to get away from here," insisted Dave.
"That will be all, too," Ridgely assured him. "You see, we know now
that things are going to break up. I don't suppose you would tell
me how closely the revenue officers are on our track."
"So close," replied Dave gravely, "that you won't dare to cross the
border any more."
"Are they on the Canadian side yet?" questioned Ridgely anxiously.
"I don't know that, and I shouldn't feel right in telling you if I
did," replied Dave. "You had better let me go, Mr. Ridgely. It
won't sound well, when things get righted, that you kept me a
prisoner here."
"I haven't all the say about that, Dashaway," confessed Ridgely in a
rueful way. "I don't think the Dawsons will let you go until they
are sure of making themselves safe."
"Do you know what became of our airship, Mr. Ridgely?" Dave asked
pointedly.
"No, I don't--none of us do. Young Dawson is pretty good in the
air, but he didn't seem to know how to get off the water quickly.
After we got you aboard, we lost a lot of time getting you ashore,
and, up in the air again, when we started in the direction we had
seen your airship go, we could find no trace of it."
"I hope nothing his happened to Hiram," thought Dave, very
anxiously.
"If I get away," resumed Ridgely, "I want you to tell the people
after me, if you can, that I'm all through with the smuggling
business. I've had my fill of it."
The speaker turned to leave the room, but Dave halted him with the
question:
"What are you going to do about me, Mr. Ridgely?"
"I am going to order the people here to treat you the best they know
how," was the prompt response.
"That's all very well enough," said Dave, "but I have business to
attend to."
"What business, Dashaway?"
"Our airship and my friend."
Ridgely looked troubled. He was thoughtfully, silent for a moment
or two. Then he said:
"Look here, Dashaway, our men are looking for your airship, and that
means your friend, too, of course. I've got to go to Brantford, but
I shall leave word that they must look after your friend, and let
you go the minute I send back word that the coast is clear for them
to scatter."
"But what about the Drifter, Mr. Ridgley?" persisted Dave. "It is
the property of my employers. I came after it, and I want it."
A faint smile of mingled amusement and admiration crossed the face
of Ridgely. Reckless fellow that he was, he could not fail to
recognize the fact that Dave, indeed, had business to attend to.
"You take it pretty cool, Dashaway," he observed.
"Because I am in the right," asserted Dave, "as you well know. The
Dawsons are malicious people. I want you to warn them that if they
do, any unnecessary injury to the Drifter, it will make it the worse
for them in the final reckoning that is bound to come."
"I don't think they will do the airship any injury."
"You don't know them as I do. Desperate fellows like the Dawsons
will do anything at times."
"Dashaway, don't you think you are rather hard on them--and on me?"
"I know the Dawsons--I don't know much about you."
"I am not so bad as you think I am."
"Then why don't you set me free?"
"We won't discuss that, now. You had better think it over."
"I have thought it over. I am grateful to you for saving me,
but--well at present I can't do anything."
"You mean, you won't."
"Well, have it that way if you wish."
"You'll be sorry some day," said Dave, bluntly.
Ridgely left the room. He closed the door after him with an
assurance to Dave that things would be "all right." Just then there
was the sound of some one hurrying into the next room, and an
excited voice shouted out in an exultant tone:
"Say, father, we've got the other one, too!"