Fighting for Life
They paused but little in covering the distance to the cove where their
sloop lay at her anchor and less time was taken in swimming out to her.
Clambering aboard they hauled up the mainsail and foresails as rapidly
as possible, swung the anchor aboard and laid a course at all possible
speed for the comparative safety of the open bay. Far across the water
glittered a few lights--the outposts of Centerport’s homes, and towards
those lights the boys now headed with sheets eased before the steady
bay breeze. Dipping and swaying, the brave little vessel raced for home.
At the wheel John did an expert job of getting every bit of speed out
of the boat, as they left the western end of Porpoise Island. Stan
sat in the cockpit, watchful eyes studying the fading outlines of the
island against the stars, as if he expected something to be seen
there. His hunch proved right, for he gave a low whistle and pointed
aft.
“See, John! Lights! The pursuit is on! We’re in for something and it
isn’t play!”
“But, if Mr. Nevens really is after us, why didn’t he try to find and
catch me, Stan, to-night, instead of just sending you off with Dago?
Modest piles of doubloons, and knee-deep heaps of silver bullion!”
Stan had briefly told of his part of the adventure, confirming John’s
visual knowledge of what had happened out on the cove and John had told
of his race for the bow and arrows, and of arriving just in time to
wing the bulky Mr. Dago. John’s suspicion was sound--why had not Mr.
Nevens ordered an immediate search for John, since he knew both boys
very likely would be about the island together?
“I figure he did, as soon as he could without scaring us too seriously.
John, that man is up to some nefarious work and he wants to keep us
innocent of the facts. But he’ll catch us if he possibly can! And,
unless I’m far wrong, we’ll hear water spraying from the bow of racing
speedboats long before we hear their motors!”
“Let them come, Stan. We’ll fight.”
“Don’t forget this, John--we’ll be fighting for our lives! And it will
be bows and arrows against bullets!”
“Chills and fevers! Bones of long-lost galleons!” John cried. “Do you
really think they’d kill us?”
“I do! We’ve got a reputation, John, as Sleuths, and they know we’ve
got clues enough to start an investigation. Any attitude of innocence
we may have kept up was finished by my swim into the cove to-night!”
Lights were now winding down into the cove the boys had just left, but
Stan was wrong in one thing.
“Get those kids alive, do you understand?” Mr. Nevens, back at the
barge, had ordered as soon as Stan had been spotted in the water of the
cove. As soon as Dago had captured Stan and was taking him away in the
rowboat, another boat had pushed off to the other side of the cove,
bearing two men with lights. And still others had begun to scour the
island in other directions. Only the bare feet of the boys, treading in
silence and speed along the pathways, had saved them from being taken
before reaching the _Water Witch_--that and the fact that Mr. Nevens
and his men did not know where the sloop was anchored. He had ideas,
but it would take time to verify them.
One speedboat from the boat-house had gone humming out of the channel
and along the sea side of the island, searching for a little black
sloop. Another had followed the first outside, then turned eastward,
rounded the snout of the Porpoise and gone down the north side. But
Porpoise Island has dozens of fine little anchorages along its shores
and it took time to go in and out in the dark with all eyes watching
for a tell-tale mast against the stars and an almost invisible
hull! That alone had helped to delay the pursuit so that the _Water
Witch_ was well on her way before the men had covered the island and
surrounding waters.
“They ain’t-a here, men!” Dago remarked, in one of the gray boats, the
one in the bay. “Let’s swing out and zig-zag the bay. I’d like ta get
my paws on the kid that slung that arrow! I break-a the neck!”
“Talk’s cheap, Dago!” remarked one of the other men who, at the wheel
of the swift boat, guided it expertly across the dark waters while
spray cascaded on either side. “You hurt either of those kids and
Cowboy will chop your ears off!”
“I s’pose he wants-a to make soup of them himself, eh, Butch?” queried
Dago sarcastically.
They could cover the miles back and forth across the bay at an alarming
speed, zooming almost in silence save for the constant rasping of spray
flying like sheets of metal, so fast was the passage of the powerful
boat, bouncing and plunging in long swoops through the waves. They
passed within a hundred yards of the _Water Witch_ twice and did not
see her, then Dago began using a potent searchlight which he swung in
all directions. Mile after mile they raced, Dago urging more and more
speed, confident that the sloop could not be far towards Centerport yet.
Then the light fell upon white canvas for a split second!
“There she is! Circle back!” ordered Dago.
They swung and skidded on a sharp turn, came humming back, the
searchlight played on canvas again, and the boat closed in!
On the _Water Witch_ the white spray of the searching boat had been
long audible and visible even in the night as it raced back and forth
and, knowing that the shortest distance to home was in a straight line,
the sailboat had held its course. But the boys were ready, their bows
and arrows in the cockpit, and sharp boat hooks also handy.
“Let them have a brace of arrows in the most visible part, John, and
put sting in the flight of those arrows!” Stan remarked. “And don’t
quit fighting unless you’re completely overpowered or nearly dead!”
“Right, Skipper! See, the searchlight!”
Back and forth moved the light, seeking them out, and on they sailed;
then the light blinded them for a moment! They had been spotted. The
light went past, the spray whipped like a lash on the breeze, and
circled back. The light again blinded them and this time stayed upon
them.
Low in the cockpit, with sheet belayed and the wheel steadied by his
feet against the lower spokes, while the sloop held her course, John
put an arrow to his bow and drew back the cord slowly. Stan, in the
spot near the cabin slide, did likewise, estimating the distance and
trying to spot an opponent in the light. Nothing could be seen but that
light, but arrows aimed at it should find a mark!
Any second might bring the rat-rat of a machine gun and death but the
two chums had been through that sort of situation before and they stood
their ground, hoping, waiting!
The boat came on towards the _Water Witch_, slower now, and began to
run alongside.
“You keeds!” yelled Dago. “Come on now, lay down those bows before you
getta hurt! You come on peaceful and we no--break your necks!”
“Guess you’ll have to come and get us, Mr. Dago!” scoffed Stan, loudly.
A loud roar of laughter came from the boat; the other men were amused
at Dago’s sputtering and swearing reply. Dago was Nevens’ right hand
man, and it amused these lesser henchmen to see him baited by a couple
of boys! Dago practically frothed with anger.
“I’ll skin you keeds alive!” roared Dago, and ordered the speedboat
alongside the sloop.
Somewhat accustomed now to the glare of the light, Stan and John could
make out men back of the searchlight and most visible was big Dago. As
the boat swung over, two steel-pointed hunting arrows zipped through
the air, carefully regulated by two boys fighting for their lives, so
that, allowing for the rolling boats, and the wind, they would find
a mark! Dago gave one terrified squawk of amazed agony and leaped
backwards right onto the helmsman! With a sputter and then a cascading
leap of spray off the bows, the speedboat darted past the stern of the
_Water Witch_!
The boys lost no time getting in two more arrows and from the yells of
pain, those stinging barbs must have gone into flesh! A hunting arrow,
at that range, is a penetrating projectile and there would be no more
pursuit that night from the gray speedboat.
In the cold waters of the bay a fat, swarthy man swam slowly and
painfully, bellowing to the stars his opinion of bows and arrows, cold
water, fools of helmsmen, and the two boys in particular. The wounded
helmsman, for he had received the second brace of arrows as well as one
of Dago’s big feet in the face, lay helpless and moaning in the boat
while the others attempted to find Dago who had fallen overboard. They
circled slowly, using the light, for a full half hour, before locating
the center of the volley of exploding oaths and yells, then pulled the
wet and wounded Dago into the rear compartment of the boat.
“Head for Porpoise Island,” ordered Dago. “We need an army and navy to
getta those keeds!”
Humming, the boat made her way back to Porpoise Island and into
the channel and the cove to find the other gray boat also back at
the boat-house. A nervous group of men, to the number of twenty or
more, filed into Mr. Nevens’ den a little later. These men, with the
exception of Dago and a very few others, were usually hidden away
in the side-passages of the underground part of the cabin during
the daytime, to emerge at night to do the bidding of their chief.
Naturally, Mr. Nevens had avoided these alleys when showing his young
guests about during the daytime. Now he sat in his chair, feet on
desk, smoking a black cigar. He was not pleased.
“Here I send you fellows out to pick up a couple of young kids and you
muff the thing,” Mr. Nevens said, softly. “And yet you expect to be big
shots in the plans we’ve got mapped. What good are you, the lot of you?”
“Cowboy,” Dago admonished, “did you ever get an arrow stuck in you?”
Mr. Nevens smiled slowly and expansively.
“No,” said he, happily. “But, if you get any more, I’ll mistake you for
a pincushion!”
The _Water Witch_ had now taken an abrupt change in her course. Left
behind were the lights of Centerport. Instead, she was shaping her way
westward towards Point Zenith and the village there.
“There’s an ideal spot, just round the point, for what I’ve got
planned, John,” Stan explained, as he stood his own trick at the wheel
while John brought up a bag of doughnuts and sandwiches.
“What you planning, Skipper? You know, they’ll be after us at daybreak!
Honey-coated biscuits--how that Dago loves arrows!”
His last remark was an afterthought and both boys chuckled with
amusement.
“They’ll search for us till they find us, John. But I’ve got a plan.”
“What is it?”
“A plan that ought to work, unless I miss my guess, at least till we
get the dope on Mr. Nevens and his crowd.”
John was consumed with curiosity.
“Batten down the main hatches and show the cook the door--give us the
plan before I bust!” he cried.
“First, we’ll buy some white paint at Zenith Village, John, and at
daybreak paint the sloop white. We’ll keep the sails furled, except the
jib.”
“Except the jib?” asked John, mystified.
“Sure--we’ll take that off, and also the bowsprit!”
“I get it!” John said, admiringly. “You’re going to re-rig the _Water
Witch_!”
“Exactly. But first, I want to disguise her till we can get a Marconi
mast, new sails, and a chance to paint the underbody and the top
sides.”
“The name, Stan!” warned John.
“Of course, we’ll have to change the name. Too bad, too, because I like
the one she has!”
It was indeed too bad to have to so change the _Water Witch_ but there
seemed no other way out. As Stan knew, they must not be recognized at
Porpoise Island as the sloop which had been poking into the affairs of
Mr. Nevens. Besides, the Marconi rig should be faster and easier to
handle. It would prevent them from going under the bridge at Lape’s
Island and mooring at their float-stage but that problem would have
to be faced later. Stan and John were sensible enough to realize that
their lives hung in the balance and they must meet things as they came.
“Maybe Dad could suggest a new name, John,” Stan said quietly.
“Then we’re going to let him in on the case, Stan?”
Stan grinned in the darkness.
“Sure--of course. I wouldn’t dare to do this unaided! We can take care
of the changes in the boat and do a lot of detective work alone but, in
the showdown, if this Mr. Nevens is a big criminal the F. B. I. has
got to be in to take the men prisoners. Say, Dad will think us a couple
of fools for luck, won’t he! We go on a pleasure cruise, and right
smack into more trouble!”
They rounded Point Zenith under the red gleams of the blinking
lighthouse and came to an anchor in a secluded spot. As the sails came
down and were stropped for the night, Stan explained what else he had
in mind.
“We’ve got to get to Centerport after disguising the boat, John, and
get in touch with Dad. Then we’ll have to get our new mast and sails
out and rigged soon. We’ve got _work_ ahead of us!”
“And what gets me, Stan, is--why won’t Mr. Nevens and his playful boys
recognize you and me even if they don’t know the new sloop?”
“Simple. He’s only seen us a matter of an hour or so, except for the
pictures the newspapers printed, and all we have to do is change our
clothes to something quite different from our usual ones to disguise
ourselves. Hats will help a lot!”
“Do you suppose,” asked John, “that a lavender and pink sweater in
stripes would be inconspicuous?”