SOME STRANGE DOINGS
It was not far from midnight when the boys, sorely perplexed, once more
reached Hampton. The main street had been deserted long since, and
every one in the village had returned to rest.
The boys left the captain by the water-front, while they headed up the
Main Street for their respective homes. Rob remained up, pondering
over the events of the evening for some time, without arriving at any
solution of them. He was just about to extinguish his light when he
was startled by a loud:
"His--s--st!"
The noise came from directly below his open window, which faced onto
the garden.
He put out his head, and saw a dark figure standing in the yard.
"Who is it?" he demanded.
"It's me, the captain, Rob," rejoined the well-known voice. "I
wouldn't have bothered yer but that I saw a light in yer window."
"What's the trouble, captain?" asked the boy, noting a troubled
inflection in the old man's voice.
"My boat's gone!" was the startling reply.
"Gone! Are you sure?"
"No doubt about it. I left her tied ter the L wharf when I come up
from the island, and now there ain't hide nor hair uv her there."
"I'll bet anything that that fellow Curtiss is at the bottom of all
this," cried Rob. "I remember now I heard some time ago that he was
thick with that Hank Handcraft."
"I don't know what ter do about it at this time uv ther night," went on
the distressed captain, "an' I can't go round waking folks up ter get
another boat."
"Of course not," agreed Rob. "There's only one thing for you to do,
captain, and that is to put up here to-night, and in the morning we'll
see what we can do."
"That's mighty fair, square, and above board uv yer, lad," said the
captain gratefully. "Punk me anywhere. I'm an old sailor, and can
aways find the softest plank in the deck."
"You won't have to do that," said Rob, who had slipped downstairs by
this time and opened the door; "we've got a spare room you can bunk in
to-night. I'll explain it all to father in the morning. Perhaps he can
help us out."
"Gee whiz! almost twelve o'clock," exclaimed Hiram Nelson, looking up
at the clock from the dining-room table in Paul Perkins' house. The
chamber was strewn with text books on model aeroplane construction and
littered with figures and plans of the boys' own devising. "How time
flies when you're on a subject that interests you."
"Yes, it's a good thing it's vacation time," agreed Paul. "We wouldn't
be in much shape to work at our books to-morrow, eh?"
"I should say not!" rejoined Hiram with conviction. "Well, so long,
Paul. I guess we've got it all figured out now, and all that is left
to do is to go ahead."
"That's the idea," responded Paul. "We'll get the prize for the glory
of the Eagle Patrol, or--or--"
"Bust!" Hiram finished for him.
Hiram's way home lay past the bank, and as he walked down the moonlit
street he thought for a minute that he perceived a light in the windows
of the armory.
Almost as he fancied he glimpsed it, however, it vanished, and the lad
was convinced that he must have been mistaken, or else seen a
reflection of the moonlight on the windows.
"Queer, though," he mused. "I could almost have sworn it was a light."
Another curious thing presently attracted his attention. As he neared
the bank a dark figure seemed to vanish into the black shadows round
the corner. Something familiar about it struck Hiram, and the next
moment he realized why.
"If that wasn't Bill Bender, I'm a Dutchman," he muttered, his heart
beating a little faster. "But what can he be doing round here at this
time of night?"
As he put the question to himself, Bill Bender, walking rapidly, as if
he had come from some distance, and had not dodged round the corner a
moment before, suddenly appeared from round the angle of the bank
building.
"Good evening, Bill," said Hiram, wondering if his eyes were not
playing him some queer tricks; "wasn't that you just went round the
corner?"
"Who, me?" blustered Bill. "You need to visit an oculist, young man.
I've just come from a visit to my aunt's. It was her birthday, and we
had a bully time. Sat up a little too late, though. Good night."
And with a great assumption of easiness, the crony of Jack Curtiss
walked rapidly off up the street.
"I guess he's right," mused Hiram, as he hurried on home. "But if that
wasn't Bill Bender who walked round that corner it was his ghost, and
all the ghosts I ever read about don't wear squeaky boots."
If Hiram had remained he would have had further cause to be suspicious
and speculative.
The lad's footsteps had hardly died out down the street before Bill
Bender cautiously retraced his way, and, going round to the side
street, upon which the steps leading to the armory opened, gave a
cautious whistle. In reply a sack was lowered from a window to him by
some person invisible above.
Although there was some little light on the Main Street by reason of
the moon and the few scattering lamps along the thoroughfare, the spot
in which Bill now stood was as black as the proverbial pocket.
"Is the coast all clear?" came down a voice from the window above.
"Yes; but if I hadn't spotted young Hiram Nelson coming down the street
and warned you to put out that light, it wouldn't have been," responded
Bill in the same cautious tone.
"Well, we're safe enough now," came back the voice above, which any of
his acquaintances would have recognized as Jack Curtiss'. "I've got the
rest of them in this other sack. Here, take this one when I drop it."
Bill made a bungling effort to catch the heavy receptacle that fell
following Jack's warning, but in the darkness he failed, and it crashed
down with quite a clatter.
"Look out!" warned Jack anxiously, "some one might hear that."
"Not in this peaceful community. You seem to forget that eleven
o'clock is the very latest bedtime in Hampton."
After a brief interval Jack Curtiss himself slipped out of the side
door of the armory and joined his friend on the dark sidewalk.
"Well, what's the next move on the program?" asked Bill.
"We'll sneak down Bailey's Lane--there are no lights there--to Hank's
place. Sam will be waiting off there with the boat," rejoined Jack.
"Yes, if he hasn't lost his nerve," was Bill's rejoinder as they
shouldered their sacks and slipped off into the deep blackness
shrouding the side streets.
"Well, if he has lost it, he'll come near losing his head, too," grated
out Jack, "but don't you fear, he wants that fifty too badly to go back
on us."
Silently as two cats the cronies made their way down the tree-bordered
thoroughfare known as Bailey's Lane and after a few minutes gained the
beach.
"Say, that's an awful hike down to Hank's gilded palace," grumbled
Bill, "why didn't you have Sam wait for us off here?"
"Yes, and have old man Hudgins discover him when he finds his boat is
gone," sneered Jack, "you'd have made a fine botch of this if it hadn't
been for me."
The two exchanged no further words on the weary tramp along the soft
beach. They plodded along steadily with the silence only broken by a
muttered remark emanating from Bill Bender from time to time.
"Thank heaven, there's the place at last," exclaimed Bill, with a sigh
of relief, as they came in sight of the miserable hut, "I began to
think that Hank must have moved."
Jack gave a peculiar whistle and the next instant the same light the
boys had seen earlier in the evening shone through the chinks of the
hovel.
"Well, he's awake, at any rate," remarked Jack with a grin, "now to
find out where the boat is."
As the wretched figure of the beach-comber appeared Jack hailed him
roughly.
"Where's that boat, Hank?"
"Been cruising off and on here since eleven o'clock," rejoined the
other sullenly, "ah! there she is now off to the sou'west."
He pointed and the boys saw a red light flash twice seaward as if some
one had passed their hands across it.
"All right, give him the answer," ordered Jack. "We've got to hurry if
we're to be back before the captain and those brats of boys get after
our trail."
Hank at Jack's order dived into the hut and now reappeared with the
smoky lantern. He waved it four times from side to side like a
brakeman and in a short time a steady "put-put!" told the watchers that
a motor boat was approaching.
"Now for your dinghy, Hank," urged Jack, "hurry up. You move like a
man a hundred and ninety years old, with the rheumatism."
"Well, come on, then," retorted Hank, "here's the boat," pointing to a
cobbled dinghy lying hauled up above the water line, "give me a hand
and we'll shove off."
The united strength of the three soon had the boat in the water and
with Hank at the oars they moved steadily toward the chugging motor
boat.
"Well, Sam, you're on the job, I see," remarked Jack as the two craft
ranged alongside and Sam cut off the engine.
"Oh, I'm on the job all right," rejoined Sam, feeling much braver now
that the other two had arrived, "have you got them all right?"
"Right here in this bag, and some more in this, my bucko," chuckled
Jack as he handed the two sacks over to Sam.
"Ha! ha! ha!" chortled Bill under his breath as he climbed out of the
cobble into the motor boat, "won't there be a fine row in the morning."
"Well, come on; start up, Sam. We've no time to lose," ordered Jack as
he and Bill got aboard, "good night there, Hank."
"Good night," rejoined Hank quietly enough, as the motor boat moved
swiftly off over the moonlit sea. He added to himself, "It won't be a
very 'good night' for you, my lad, if you don't pay me as handsomely as
you promised."
And chuckling to himself till his shoulders shook, Hank resumed his
oars and rowed back to the miserable shanty he called home.