SAM IN DIRE STRAITS
"Kree-ee-ee!"
Merritt paused the next morning in front of Tubby's home, and gave the
"call" of the Eagle Patrol with a not uncreditable resemblance to the
scream of a real eagle.
The cry was instantly echoed--though in a rather thicker way--from
inside the house, and in a minute Tubby, who knew that some one of the
patrol must have uttered the call, appeared at his door, munching a
large slice of bread and jam, although it was not more than an hour
since breakfast.
"Say, you, did you ever hear an eagle scream with his mouth full of
bread and jam?" demanded Merritt, as the stout youth appeared.
"Eagles don't eat bread and jam," rejoined Tubby, defending his
position. "Have some?"
"Having had breakfast not more than an hour ago, I'm not hungry yet,
thank you," politely rejoined the corporal; "besides, I'm afraid I'd
get fat."
Dodging the stout youth's blow, the corporal went on:
"Heard the news?"
"No--what news?" eagerly demanded the other, finishing his light repast.
"Why, the Dolphin--you know, that fishing boat--picked up Sam's
hydroplane at sea and towed it in. It's in pretty good shape, I hear,
although the engine is out of commission and it was half full of water."
"He's a lucky fellow to get it back."
"I should say so," replied Merritt; "but it will cost him a whole lot
to reclaim it. The captain of the Dolphin says he wants fifty dollars
for it as salvage."
"Gee! Do you think Sam's father will give him that much?" said Tubby,
with round eyes.
"I don't know. He can afford it all right. He's made a lot of money
out of that boat-building shop, my father says; but he's so stingy that
I doubt very much if he will give Sam such a sum."
"Why, here's Sam coming down the street now," exclaimed the
good-natured Tubby. "I wonder if he's heard about it. Hullo, Sam!
Get all the water out of your system?"
"I'm all right this morning, if that is what you mean," rejoined the
other, with dignity.
"Heard the news about your boat?" asked Merritt suddenly.
"No; what about her? Is she safe? Who picked her up?"
"Wait a minute. One question at a time," laughed Merritt. "She's safe,
all right. The Dolphin picked her up at sea. But it will cost you
fifty dollars to get her."
"Fifty dollars!" gasped Sam, turning pale.
"That's what the skipper of the Dolphin says. He had a lot of trouble
getting a line fast to her, he says, and he means to have the money or
keep the boat."
"Oh, well, I'll get it from my father easily enough," said Sam
confidently, preparing to swagger off down the street. "I've got to
get my boat back and beat Rob's Flying Fish, and that hydroplane can do
it."
"Can you match that?" exclaimed Merritt to the fat youth, as Sam
strolled away. "Here he was saved from drowning by the Flying Fish
only yesterday, and all he can think of this morning is to promise to
beat her. What makes him so mean, I wonder?"
"Just born that way, I guess," rejoined the stout youth; "and as for
the Flying Fish saving him, if it hadn't been for a certain Corporal
Crawford, he--"
"Here, stow that," protested Merritt, coloring up. "I heard enough of
that yesterday afternoon."
As the boys had surmised, Sam's father was not at all pleased when he
learned that his son wanted fifty dollars. In fact, he refused point
blank to let him have it at all.
"That boat of yours has cost enough already, and I'm not going to spend
any more on it," he said angrily, as he turned to his work.
"But I can't get the hydroplane back if I don't pay it," urged Sam.
"I've seen the captain of the Dolphin, and he refuses absolutely to let
me have her unless I pay him for his trouble in towing her in."
"I can't help that," snapped the elder Redding. "What have I got to do
with your boat? Look here!" he exclaimed, turning angrily and
producing a small memorandum book from his pocket and rapidly turning
the leaves. "Do you know how much I've given you in the last two
months?"
"N-n-no," stammered Sam, looking very much embarrassed, and shuffling
about from one foot to the other.
"Then I'll tell you, young man; it's exactly--let me see--ten, twenty,
five, three, fifteen and eight. That's just sixty-one dollars. Do you
think that money grows on gooseberry bushes? Then there'll be your
college expenses to pay. No, I can't let you have a cent."
"That means that I will lose my boat and the chance of winning the race
at the regatta!" urged Sam gloomily.
"Well, you should have had more sense than to take that fool hydroplane
out into a rough sea. I told you she wouldn't stand it. There, go on
about your own affairs. I'm far too busy to loaf about, arguing with
you."
And with this the hard-featured old boat builder--who had made his
money literally by the sweat of his brow--turned once more to his task
of figuring out the blue prints of a racing sloop.
Sam saw that it was no use to argue further with his father, and left
the shop with no very pleasant expression on his countenance.
"I'll have to see if I can't borrow it somewhere," he mused. "If only
I was on better terms with Rob Blake, I could get it from him, I guess.
His father is a banker and he must have plenty. I wonder--I wonder if
Mr. Blake himself wouldn't lend it to me. I could give him a note for
it, and in three months' time I'd be sure to be able to take it up."
With this end in view, the lad started for the Hampton Bank. It
required some courage for a youth of his disposition to make up his
mind to beard the lion in his den--or, in other words, to approach Mr.
Blake in his office. For Sam, while bold enough when his two hulking
cronies were about, had no real backbone of his own.
After making two or three turns in front of the bank, he finally
screwed his courage to the sticking point, and timidly asked an
attendant if he could see the banker.
"I think so. I'll see," was the reply.
In a few seconds the man reappeared, and said that Mr. Blake could
spare a few minutes. Hat in hand, Sam entered the ground-glass door
which bore on it in imposing gilt letters the word "President."
The interview was brief, and to Sam most unsatisfactory. The banker
pointed out to him that he was a minor, and as such that his note would
be no good; and also that, without the permission of his father, he
would not think of lending the youth such a sum. Much crestfallen, Sam
shuffled his way out toward the main door of the bank, when suddenly a
voice he recognized caused him to look up.
"A hundred and twenty-five dollars. That's right, all shipshape and
above board!"
It was the old captain of Topsail Island, counting over in his gnarled
paw one hundred and twenty-five dollars in crisp bills which he had
just received from the paying teller.
"You must be going to be married, captain," Sam heard the teller remark
jocularly.
"Not yet a while," the captain laughed back. "That ther motor uv mine
that I left ter be fixed up is goin' ter cost me fifty dollars, and the
other seventy-five I'm calculating ter keep on hand in my safe fer a
while. I'm kind uv figgerin' on gettin' a new dinghy--my old one is
just plum full uv holes. I rowed over frum the island this mornin',
and I declar' ter goodness, once or twice I thought I'd swamp."
Sam slipped out of the bank without speaking to the captain, whom,
indeed, since the episode of the melon patch, he had no great desire to
encounter.
As he made his way toward his home in no very amiable mood, he was
hailed from the opposite side of the street by Jack Curtiss and Bill
Bender.
"Any news of the boat?" demanded Jack, as he and Bill crossed over and
slapped their crony on the back with great assumed heartiness.
"Yes, and mighty bad news, too, in one way. She's safe enough. The
Dolphin--that fishing boat--found her and towed her in. But--here's the
tough part of it--it's going to cost fifty dollars for salvage to get
her from the Dolphin's captain, the old shark!"
"Phew!" whistled Jack Curtiss. "Pretty steep. But I suppose your old
man will fork over, eh?"
"That's just it," grumbled Sam; "he won't come across with a cent. I
suppose, if I don't pay for the hydroplane's recovery pretty soon, she
will be sold at auction."
"That's the usual process," observed Bill.
"Isn't there any way you can raise the wind?"
"No, I've tried every one I can think of. I don't suppose either of
you fellows could--"
"Nothing doing here," hastily cried Jack, not giving the other time to
finish.
"I'm cleaned out, too," Bill also hurriedly assured the unfortunate Sam.
"It looks like everybody but us has coin," complained that worthy
bitterly. "While I was in the bank trying to get old man Blake to take
up a note of mine for the sum I need, who should I see in there but
that old fossil of a captain from Topsail Island."
"Who grows such fine, juicy melons and keeps such a nice, amiable pet
dog," laughed Jack, roaring at the recollection of the piratical
expedition of which the island dweller had told the boys.
"Ha, ha, ha!" shouted Bill in chorus. "We'll have to give him another
visit soon."
"But what about the old land crab, Sam?" demanded Jack the next minute.
"What was he doing in the bank?"
"Why, drawing one hundred and twenty-five dollars. Just think of it,
and we always figured it out that he was poor."
"A hundred and twenty-five dollars! I wonder what he's going to do
with it?" wondered Jack, with whom money and its spending was always an
absorbing topic.
"Why, I overheard that, too, as I passed by," rejoined Sam. "He's going
to spend some of it for the repairing of his motor, which broke down
yesterday, and the rest he's going to keep by him."
"Keep it on the island, you mean?" demanded Jack, becoming suddenly
much interested.
"That's what he said--keep it in his safe," replied Sam. "But what
good does that do us?"
"A whole lot, maybe," was the enigmatic reply. "See here, Sam, you can
win that race if you get your hydroplane?"
"I'm sure of it."
"You are going to bet on yourself, of course."
"Sure. I've got to raise some money somehow."
"Well, I've thought of a way you can borrow the money to get your boat
back, and when you win the race you can return it. Come on, lees go to
Bill's den, and we'll have a smoke and talk it over."