AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER.
“You younkers are certain you are telling me the truth?”
Dugan, the treacherous private, paused, and, from his immense height,
looked down into the faces of Jack Curtiss and Freeman Hunt.
“As sure as we stand here,” Jack assured him, “I’ve told you how we came
to overhear what was said. If you want those plans, now is your chance
to get them.”
“And don’t forget to beat Rob Blake up good and proper,” chimed in Hunt,
who had lost all prudence in his eagerness to have his grudge avenged.
“You bet I won’t,” Dugan grunted. “I guess if he’s the sort of boy you
describe him to be, he won’t give them up without a struggle.”
“You could break him in two with one hand tied behind your back,” struck
in Jack, gazing at the immense frame and loosely hung, ape-like arms of
Dugan.
“Leave that to me, kid,” Dugan assured him, with an ominous grin,
“and—hullo, here comes Hashashi now. That’s lucky. I may need him if
there are three of them.”
Turning in the direction in which the soldier had spied the newcomer,
the lads saw a small, slightly-built figure approaching them. It was the
Japanese with whom Dugan had been seen conversing in the hut when the
unsuspected listeners had overheard.
“Guess we’ll be going,” said Jack Curtiss uneasily.
“Hold on!” exclaimed Dugan, clutching him with a grip of iron, as he
spoke. “You’ve got to promise me that you don’t tell nothing of this.”
“Of course,” Jack assured him; “we’ve promised you once.”
“And I guess you’ll keep your word,” said the man, grimly compressing
his lips till they formed a narrow line. “If I ever suspect you of
telling a thing about it, I’ve got you two ways. In the first place,
I’ll reveal your part in the plot, and, in the second, I’m a bad man to
have for an enemy.”
Dugan drew his low forehead into a dozen horizontal puckers, as he
spoke. With his lowering brow and ape-like face, he looked indeed, as he
had said, “a bad man to have for an enemy.”
“D’ye understand?” he grated harshly, glaring at Jack grimly.
Curtiss, who was as big a coward as he was a bully and reprobate, felt
his knees knock together under that ferocious gaze.
“Y-y-yes, sir,” he said.
“You, too!” hissed Dugan, switching suddenly on Freeman Hunt, who was
looking nervous and ill at ease. He began to think that perhaps they had
let themselves in for something more serious than they had bargained
for.
“I won’t breathe a word of it,” Hunt hastened to assure him.
“You’d better not,” snarled Dugan, more savagely than ever, “now, git!”
Without further loss of time, Jack Curtiss and Freeman Hunt “got.” To
their surprise, as they turned to hasten off, no sign of the Jap was to
be seen, yet an instant before he had been in the road, not more than
ten yards from them. There were no hedges at this point, and salt
meadows stretched out to the sea on one side, and stubble-fields, flat
and level, on the other.
“Where on earth did that Jap go to?” asked Jack in a mystified tone, as
they hurried away.
“Don’t know,” rejoined Freeman, with a trembly feeling. “There was
something uncanny about it.
“I—I begin to wish we hadn’t met those fellows or had anything to do
with them,” he burst out, in a complaining tone.
“There you go, sniveling like a baby,” sneered Jack Curtiss. “Why, a
short time ago, you were only too pleased to have found such an easy way
of getting even on Rob Blake and those other young whelps.”
“I know,” rejoined Hunt timidly, “but—but I don’t like the look of that
fellow Dugan. He scared me. If he ever suspects us of betraying him,
he’ll take a terrible revenge. I wish we hadn’t meddled in the thing at
all, I wish——”
“Say, you make me tired,” broke in his companion angrily, “we’re not
going to tell about it, are we? We won’t be foolish enough to let on
that we had anything to do with the beating Rob Blake is bound to get.”
“No, but——” quavered Hunt.
“Oh, tell it to your grandmother,” scoffed Jack. “Come on. Hurry up; we
want to get away from here before the fun begins.”
Hastening on, they soon were out of sight and earshot of the spot in
which their momentous colloquy had taken place.
In the meantime, from behind a large rock, not far from where Dugan was
standing, the lithe form of the Jap suddenly upreared itself.
“Wow! You gave me a scare that time!” exclaimed Dugan, as his ally came
into view. “How did you vanish like that, a few minutes ago?”
“Simple, my dear friend. I simply took advantage of a large rock by the
roadside, and dodged behind it. There was nothing of Oriental mystery in
it, I assure you.”
“Huh!” rejoined Dugan, as if only half convinced. “You’re a queer
fellow, Hashashi. What did you come after me for, anyhow? Not but what
I’m mighty glad to see you right now.”
“I hastened after you to give you some final instructions I had
forgotten,” was the reply. “But what were you talking to those boys
about?”
“Something mighty interesting to us both. Listen.”
Dugan rapidly related all that Jack had told him.
“Of course,” he concluded, “there is a chance that they may not come
down this road, but, in any event, we know now where the plans are, and
if the worst comes to the worst——”
“The vaults of country banks are not proof against Shimose,” grinned the
Jap.
“Hark!” exclaimed Dugan suddenly. “I hear voices—boys, too,” he went on,
after a minute’s listening; “get behind that rock yonder. I’ll stop them
and ask the time of day or something, and you make your appearance when
you think you are needed.”
“All right, my honorable comrade,” chuckled the Jap, sliding like a
gray-suited shadow toward the rock, and vanishing from view behind it.
On came the three unsuspecting boys, chatting and laughing, and little
dreaming of what lay in store for them round the turn of the road.
Dugan, an evil expression on his countenance, drew back a little, and
then, as they drew closer, started forward.
“Got the time, young fellow?” he asked in a natural, easy tone, as the
three lads came up to him.
“It’s the man we saw in the hut!” exclaimed Tubby, in a rather
affrighted tone, but so low that Dugan did not hear him.
“Well, he can’t possibly know what we have been doing,” rejoined Rob, in
an equally cautious voice. Thinking it best not to give the man even a
slight excuse for suspicion, he drew out his watch.
“It’s just three-thirty,” he said.
“Thanks,” said Dugan, who all this time had been carefully sizing up the
three lads. Rob he recognized by description as being the one who was
likely to carry the plans of the equalizer.
“Phew!” he remarked to himself. “They’re three husky youngsters for
fair. Glad I’ve got a revolver, or I might get the worst of it.”
The boys were starting on again when Dugan stepped back a pace or two
and spread his immense bulk across their path.
“Hold on a minute, boys,” he said. “I’ve got something to say to you.
You’ve been calling on Lieutenant Duvall.”
“We’ve been for a walk,” rejoined Rob boldly. “I don’t know who this
Lieutenant Duvall is you’re talking about.”
“You don’t, eh, you young mucker?” Dugan had decided that his best
chance lay in scaring the three lads. “Well, I do. Don’t try to lie to
me.”
He contorted his face in hideous fashion. This was a trick he had found
very successful in intimidating other persons he wished to bully or
oppress. But in the three boys before him, as we know, Dugan was up
against boys out of the ordinary run. Instead of being impressed, Rob
simply took a step forward, turning to his chums and saying in a
natural, unshaken voice.
“Come on, fellows.”
“Yes, come on, fellows,” sneered the other. “Not so fast, my young
buckos. I want a word with you. You’ve got some plans in your pockets.
Are you going to give them up peaceably, or do you want a taste of Bill
Dugan’s fists?”
Rob could not repress a start, not of fear, but of astonishment, as the
fellow spoke.
How could he know anything about the plans he was carrying to the safe
deposit vaults?
Dugan misinterpreted his hesitation.
“Come on now,” he grated, coming closer, with an ugly leer on his face;
“fork over!”
As he spoke his hand crept back toward his hip. He might have to use his
revolver. These boys were proving more obstinate than he had imagined.
To his amazement, no trace of fear or alarm appeared on their faces for
all his blustering.
“See here,” exclaimed Rob boldly, “I don’t know who you are and I don’t
think I want to better the acquaintance. I do know this, however, that
you wear the uniform of a United States soldier. Let us pass at once,
and stop this nonsense, or——”
With a bellow of rage, Bill Dugan leaped forward. At the same instant he
aimed a powerful blow at Rob’s head. The lad could hear the ponderous
fist whistle as it cut through the air. But somehow, when the blow
landed—or reached the point where it should have landed—Rob wasn’t
there. The boy had nimbly sidestepped.
[Illustration: With a bellow of rage Bill Dugan leaped forward.]
“That won’t do you no good,” bellowed Dugan, assuming furious rage, both
to impress the boys and to conceal his astonishment. “I’ve got you where
I want you. Are you going to give up them plans?”
“I am not!”
The reply came swift as a bullet. Rob realized that in some way the
rascal before him knew that the precious designs were in his possession.
He determined that they would not leave his person without a struggle.
Somehow he felt that the three of them, all clean-lived, healthy,
muscular boys, should prove a match for the hulking, bloated, blustering
brute before him. He was totally unprepared for the fellow’s next move,
however. With a gliding motion of one hand, so swift as to be almost
imperceptible, Dugan suddenly produced a gun. At the same instant he
gave a shrill whistle, and from behind his rock the serpentine form of
the Jap appeared. His almond shaped eyes glittered balefully as he took
in the scene before him.
Dugan took quick advantage of the temporary distraction of the lad’s
attention.
With an agility which would hardly have been expected from his huge
proportions, he suddenly sprang forward. Rob, totally unprepared as he
was for such a move, could not defend himself. Down he toppled into the
dust, before the savage onslaught of the giant Dugan’s great form
falling on top of him and pinning the lad securely to the ground.