"BEST LAID PLANS"
"How fast do you imagine this boat is going, Mr. Temple?"
Jack asked the question at the breakfast table next morning. None of the
four were seasick. At their homes on the far end of Long Island they
maintained a speed boat. Bob and Frank, in addition, owned an airplane.
All, as a consequence, were long since seasoned to the pitch and toss to
which they were now subjected.
Breakfast had been served in the salon by several Chinamen under the eye
of Matt Murphy. The room, as well as their cabins, they saw had been
refitted luxuriously. The quarters were considerably larger than one
would expect to find aboard a trawler, and the furnishings were those of
a wealthy sportsman's yacht. In addition to the two cabins opening from
one side of the salon and which they occupied, two others were similarly
located opposite. One was occupied by Matt Murphy who, apparently, was
captain of the vessel, and the other by "Black George."
"Oh, I don't know," said Mr. Temple in answer to Jack's question. "But a
boat such as this is not built for speed. Its especial quality is
staunchness."
"Well, but how fast do you imagine it is going?"
"About eight knots an hour or thereabouts," said Mr. Temple,
considering. "That would be nine to ten miles. A nautical mile, or knot,
you know, is between one and one-sixth and one and one-seventh land
miles. But, why, Jack? What have you in mind?"
Jack glanced at "Black George's" door. It was closed. The other, he
knew, lay there helpless to move, under care of a man whom they had not
yet seen. So much had been gathered from Matt Murphy. The latter had
disappeared above deck. Leaning closer, Jack lowered his voice.
Instinctively, to hear him better, all put their heads together.
"It was midnight when we came aboard," said Jack. "It is ten in the
morning now. That means we have been at sea ten hours. We have gone one
hundred miles, if you are correct about our speed. Now we are heading
south. Our cabins are on the port side and the sun from the east is in
our portholes.
"Do you know what?" He leaned closer.
"What?" asked Frank.
"I believe we are heading for the smugglers' cove. And that's in the
south somewhere."
The others nodded.
"Well," continued Jack, "I've been thinking this over. San Diego is
about six hundred miles south of San Francisco, isn't it, Mr. Temple?"
"Roughly that. Go on. What have you in mind?"
"Just this. The smugglers' cove is either above or below San Diego, said
Inspector Burton, and not far from it in either direction. We shall
reach San Diego in forty-eight hours more, at this rate, or about this
time day after tomorrow. If the cove is this side of it, probably we
would make it tomorrow night. If it is below San Diego, probably we
would reach there the following night.
"Now, hold your horses, Frank," Jack interrupted, good-naturedly, as he
saw Frank growing impatient. "I'm coming to the point.
"What I have in mind is simply this: With 'Black George' _hors de
combat_, and Matt Murphy lukewarm, we may have a chance to seize the
ship before we reach the smugglers' headquarters. If we don't do it
before landing, our chance to gain our freedom later will be slim. And
the way I figured it out, we can't reach the smugglers' cove until
tomorrow night at the earliest, which gives us the best part of two days
in which to see what we can do."
Warm approval was voiced by Frank and Bob. Mr. Temple, however, spoke of
the almost insuperable handicaps--their lack of any sort of weapons,
their ignorance as to the numbers or composition of the crew, or even as
to the physical characteristics of the ship. He pointed out they had
been forbidden to go above deck and, consequently, would know nothing
beforehand of their field of battle.
"I agree with you, boys, of course," he added, in conclusion, "that, if
we can seize the ship, we must do so. But it is one thing to conceive an
idea, and a far more difficult matter to work out the details. However,
let us go into my cabin and leave the door open into the salon. There we
can discuss the situation from every angle with less fear of discovery."
"There is one thing I haven't mentioned yet," said Jack. "I've been so
excited that it slipped my mind this morning. That is, I have a radio
receiving set that may come in handy."
"Yes. That ring set which Inventor Bender showed us. I persuaded him to
sell it to me, you remember?"
The boys nodded.
"Well, when we went out sightseeing last night, I wore it on my left
hand, and there it still is." And Jack held up the device for
inspection. "The inventor said it had a receiving radius of ten miles.
It may mean a lot to us before we see the end of this adventure."
The ring-radio of Inventor Bender is worthy of more extended mention
and, inasmuch as later it was to play a noteworthy part in the
adventures of the boys, perhaps it would be well to describe it at this
time.
In the first place, Inventor Bender's ring-radio was not, strictly
speaking, his own invention, but rather an adaptation of a similar
device earlier invented by Alfred G. Rinehart, a young radio wizard of
Elizabeth, N. J.
The young inventor had not patented his device, but to an interviewer
representing The Radio Globe of New York he had given a sketchy
description of its operations, suppressing details. This had come to
Inventor Bender's attention. With no desire to steal another's idea, but
merely for his own amusement, he had taken up the matter and devised his
own ring-radio, and this it was which he had sold to Jack.
The head phones and connecting wires from the ring to the phones and to
aerial and ground were intact in his traveling bag, Jack already had
ascertained. Whoever had searched the bag for possible concealed weapons
had not considered it important to take them.
"Even my umbrella is strapped to my bag," said Jack. "You remember
Inventor Bender said I could connect a lead to the metal stem of the
umbrella for aerial and stick a screwdriver into the earth for my ground
connection. Of course, there is no earth here, but salt water will do
even better."
The ring of this set was the coil, slender, only slightly more than an
eighth of an inch in diameter, and encircling the finger. The mounting
comprised the controls and measured only 1 × 1-2 × 7-16 of an inch.
These measurements included the brightly polished bakelite panel on
which were mounted a diminutive crystal detector and small switch
control connected with the coil by nine taps, permitting of nine
different tuning adjustments by means of a movable band making
connections in the heads of nine tiny brass studs set in the panel in
the form of a semicircle. The whole was no larger than many ornate
rings, and resembled one in appearance.
"Mr. Bender said it would receive on wave lengths up to and including
550 meters," Jack explained. "This trawler undoubtedly has radio. In
fact, I saw the aerial when we came aboard. Probably, sooner or later,
it will open communication with the radio at the smugglers' cove, and we
can hear it."
"But any conversation would be in code," protested Frank. "Besides, they
might use a very high meter wave length, and your set would be unable to
receive."
Jack looked thoughtful.
"I've considered that," he said. "Naturally. Nevertheless, I have the
feeling that this little radio ring will be mighty handy, indeed."
Meanwhile, the party had adopted Mr. Temple's suggestion and retired to
his cabin. The conversation now was directed by the older man into a
consideration of the possibilities. If they were to make an attempt to
capture the ship, he declared, it was vitally necessary to their plans
to know something of the composition of the crew and the physical aspect
of the vessel itself.
Frank, Mr. Temple believed, seemed to have won Matt Murphy's regard to
some extent by his breezy manner. To him, therefore, was delegated the
delicate task of sounding Murphy in an effort to learn how strongly he
was attached to "Black George."
"Be careful, however, not to give him any indication of what we have in
mind," warned Mr. Temple. "If you report that you saw any sign in
Murphy's words or manner that we could construe favorably, why then,
I'll have a talk with the man if possible."
It was Mr. Temple's thought that he might appeal to the cupidity of Matt
Murphy by the offer of a substantial reward and to his fear by letting
him know how close upon his leader's trail were the officers of the
government.
Like many well-laid plans, however, this was to come to naught. All that
day the barometer acted queerly and Matt Murphy kept the deck. And at
nightfall, after a growing mugginess that made it almost unbearably hot
below deck, the sky which had been growing steely, as they could see
from their cabin portholes, became entirely overcast. Soon the entire
patch of sky visible from the portholes was black as ink, and had it not
been for the switching on of the lights by a Chinese attendant sent down
by Matt Murphy it would have been similarly black in the cabin.
"Isn't a storm in this part of the ocean at this time of year unusual,
Dad?" asked Bob. "I understood never a storm occurred along the
California Coast between June and late September."
"Yes, Bob, it is unusual," answered his father, occupied in reading a
sea story which he had found on a shelf of books in the salon. "Listen.
What's that?"