THE MYSTERY
"What I don't understand," said Tom, in his dull way, "is how if that
fellow was drowned or killed that night, he managed to get back to this
boat again--that's what gets me."
"What?" said Roy.
"What are you talking about?" chimed in Pee-wee.
They were sitting in the little cabin of the _Good Turn_ eating rice
cakes, about an hour after the launching. The boat rocked gently at its
moorings, the stars glittered in the wide expanse of water, the tiny
lights in the neighboring village kept them cheery company as they
chatted there in the lonesome night with the hills frowning down upon
them. It was very quiet and this, no less than the joyous sense of
possession of this cosy home, kept them up, notwithstanding their
strenuous two days of labor.
"Just what I said," said Tom. "See that board you fixed the oil stove
on? I believe that was part of that skiff. You can see the letters
N-Y-M-P-H even under the paint. That strip was in the boat all the time.
How did it get here? That's what _I'd_ like to know."
Roy laid down his "flopper" and examined the board carefully, the
excited Pee-wee joining him. It was evidently the upper strip of the
side planking from a rowboat and at one end, under the diluted paint
which they had here used, could be dimly traced the former name of the
launch.
"What-do-you-know-about-that?" ejaculated Roy.
"It's a regular mystery," said Pee-wee; "that's one thing I like, a
mystery."
"If that's a part of this boat's skiff," said Tom, "then it proves two
things. It proves that the boat was damaged--no fellow could pull a
plank from it like that; and it proves that that fellow came back to the
launch. It proves that he was injured, too. That man said he could swim.
Then why should he bring this board back with him unless it was to help
him keep afloat?"
"He wouldn't need to drag it aboard," said Roy.
"Now you spoil it all," put in Pee-wee.
"I don't know anything about that," said Tom, "but that board didn't
drift back and climb in by itself. It must have been here all the time.
I suppose the other fellow--the one they found drowned--_might_ have got
it here, some way," he added.
"Not likely," said Roy. "If he'd managed to get back to the launch with
the board, he wouldn't have jumped overboard again just to get drowned.
He'd have managed to stay aboard."
There was silence for a few minutes while Roy drummed on the plank with
his fingers and Pee-wee could hardly repress his excitement at the
thought that they were on the track of a real adventure. Tom Slade had
"gone and done it again." He was always surprising them by his stolid
announcement of some discovery which opened up delectable possibilities.
And smile as he would (especially in view of Pee-wee's exuberance), Roy
could not but see that here was something of very grave significance.
"That's what I meant," drawled Tom, "when I told her that we could
_try_--to find her brother."
This was a knockout blow.
"This trip of ours is going to be just like a book," prophesied Pee-wee,
excitedly; "there's a--there's a--long lost brother, and--and--a deep
mystery!"
"Sure," said Roy. "We'll have to change our names; I'll be Roy Rescue,
you be Pee-wee Pinkerton, the boy sleuth, and Tom'll be Tom Trustful.
What d'you say, Tom?"
Tom made no answer and for all Roy's joking, he was deeply interested.
Like most important clues, the discovery was but a little thing, yet it
could not be accounted for except on the theory that Harry Stanton had
somehow gotten back to the launch after the accident, whatever the
accident was. It meant just that--nothing less and nothing more; though,
indeed, it did mean more to Pee-wee and as he slept that night, in the
gently rocking boat, he dreamed that he had vowed a solemn vow to Mr.
Stanton's daughter to "find her brother or perish in the attempt." He
carried a brace of pistols, and sailing forth with his trusty chums, he
landed in the island of Madagascar, to which Harry Stanton had been
carried, bound hand and foot, in an aeroplane. The three, undaunted,
then built a Zeppelin and sailed up to the summit of a dizzy crag where
they rescued the kidnapped youth and on reaching home, Mr. Stanton gave
them a sea-going yacht and a million dollars each for pocket money.
When he awoke from this thrilling experience he found that the _Good
Turn_ was chugging leisurely up the river in the broad daylight.
The boat behaved very well, indeed. She leaked a little from the strain
of launching, but the engine pumped the water out faster than it came
in. All day long they lolled in the cockpit or on the cabin roof, taking
turns at the steering. Roy, who best understood gas engines, attended to
the motor, but it needed very little attention except that it missed on
high speed, so he humored it and they ambled along at "sumpty-sump miles
an hour," as Roy said, "but what care we," he added, "as long as she
goes." They anchored for several hours in the middle of the day and
fished, and had a mess of fresh perch for luncheon.
Naturally, the topic of chief interest was the possibility that Harry
Stanton was living, but the clue which appeared to indicate that much
suggested nothing further, and the question of why he did not return
home, if he were indeed alive was a puzzling one.
"His sister said he had been to Costa Rica, and was fond of traveling,"
suggested Tom. "Maybe his parents objected to his going away from home
so he went this way--as long as the chance came to him--and let them
think he was drowned."
Roy, sitting on the cabin roof with his knees drawn up, shook his head.
"Or maybe he left the boat again and tried to swim to shore to go home,
and didn't make it," he added.
"That's possible," said Tom, "but then they'd probably have found his
body."
"We aren't sure he's alive," Roy said thoughtfully, "but it means a
whole lot not to be sure that he's dead."
"Maybe he was made away with by someone who wanted the boat," said
Pee-wee. "Maybe a convict from the prison killed him--you never can
tell. Jiminys, it's a mystery, sure."
"You bet it is," said Roy. "The plot grows thicker. If Sir Guy Weatherby
were only here, or Detective Darewell--or some of those story-book ginks
they----"
"They probably wouldn't have noticed the plank from the skiff,"
suggested Pee-wee.
Roy laughed and then fell to thinking. "Gee, it would be great if we
could find him!" he said.
And there the puzzling matter ended, for the time being; but the _Good
Turn_ took on a new interest because of the mystery with which it was
associated and Pee-wee was continually edifying his companions with
startling and often grewsome theories as to the fate or present
whereabouts of Harry Stanton, until--until that thing happened which
turned all their thoughts from this puzzle and proved that bad turns as
well as good ones have the boomerang quality of returning upon their
author.
It was the third afternoon of their cruise, or their "flop" as Roy
called it, for they had flopped along rather than cruised, and the _Good
Turn's_ course would have indicated, as he remarked, a fit of the blind
staggers. They had paused to fish and to bathe; they had thrown together
a makeshift aquaplane from the pieces of an old float which they had
found, and had ridden gayly upon it; and their course had been so
leisurely and rambling that they had not yet reached Poughkeepsie, when
all of a sudden the engine stopped.
Roy went through the usual course of procedure to start it up, but
without result. There was not a kick left in it. Silently he unscrewed
the cap on the deck, pushed a stick into the tank and lifted it
out--dry.
"Boys," said he, solemnly, "there is not a drop of gasoline in the tank.
The engine must have used it all up. Probably it has been using it all
the time----"
"You make me sick," said Pee-wee.
"I have known engines to do that before."
"Didn't I tell you to get gasoline in Newburgh?" demanded Pee-wee.
"You did, Sir Walter, and would that we had taken your advice; but I
trusted the engine and it has evidently been using the gasoline while
our backs were turned. _We_ should worry! You don't suppose it would run
on witch hazel, do you?"
"Didn't I tell----" began Pee-wee.
"If we could only reduce friend Walter to a liquid," said Roy. "I think
we could get started all right--he's so explosive."
"Bright boy," said Tom.
"Oh, I'm a regular feller, I am," said Roy. "I knew that engine would
stop when there wasn't any more gasoline--I just felt it in my bones.
But what care we!
'Oh, we are merry mountaineers,
And have no carking cares or fears--
Or gasoline.'
Get out the oars, scouts!"
So they got out the oars and with the aid of these and a paddle
succeeded in making the shore where they tied up to the dilapidated
remnants of what had once been a float.
"There must be a village in the neighborhood," said Tom, "or there
wouldn't be a float here."
"Sherlock Holmes Slade is at it again," said Roy. It would have been a
pretty serious accident that Roy wouldn't have taken gayly. "Pee-wee,
you're appointed a committee to look after the boat while Tomasso and I
go in search of adventure--and gasoline. There must be a road up there
somewhere and if there's a road I dare say we can find a garage--maybe
even a village. Get things ready for supper, Pee-wee, and when we get
back I'll make a Silver Fox omelet for good luck."
The spot where they had made a landing was at the foot of precipitous
hills between which and the shore ran the railroad tracks. Tom and Roy,
carrying a couple of gasoline cans, started along a road which led
around the lower reaches of one of these hills. As Pee-wee stood upon
the cabin watching them, the swinging cans were brightened by the rays
of the declining sun, and there was a chill in the air as the familiar
grayness fell upon the heights, bringing to the boy that sense of
loneliness which he had felt before.
He was of the merriest temperament, was Pee-wee, and, as he had often
said, not averse to "being jollied." But he was withal very sensitive
and during the trip he had more than once fancied that Tom and Roy had
fallen together to his own exclusion, and it awakened in him now and
then a feeling that he was the odd number of the party. He had tried to
ingratiate himself with them, though to be sure no particular effort was
needed to do that, yet sometimes he saw, or fancied he saw, little
things which made him feel that in important matters he was left out of
account. Roy would slap him on the shoulder and tousle his hair, but he
would ask Tom's advice--and take it. Perhaps Roy had allowed his
propensity for banter and jollying to run too far in his treatment of
Pee-wee. At all events, the younger boy had found himself a bit
chagrined at times that their discussions had not been wholly
three-handed. And now, as he watched the others hiking off through the
twilight, and heard their laughter, he recalled that it was usually _he_
who was appointed a "committee to stay and watch the boat."
This is not a pleasant train of thought when you are standing alone in
the bleakness and sadness and growing chill of the dying day, with
tremendous nature piled all about you, and watching your two companions
as they disappear along a lonely road. But the mood was upon him and it
did not cheer him when Roy, turning and making a megaphone of his hands,
called, "Look out and don't fall into the gas tank, Pee-wee!"
He _had_ reminded them that they had better buy gasoline at Newburgh,
while they had the chance. Roy had answered jokingly telling Pee-wee
that he had better buy a soda in the city while _he_ had the chance, and
Tom had added, "I guess the kid thinks we want to drink it."
Well, there they were hiking it up over the hills now in quest of
gasoline and still joking him.
If Pee-wee had remembered Roy's generous pleasure in the "parrot stunt,"
he would have been much happier, but instead he allowed his imagination
to picture Tom and Roy in the neighboring village, having a couple of
sodas--perhaps taking a flyer at a movie show.
He did as much as he could toward getting supper, and when it grew dark
and still they did not return, he clambered up on the cabin roof again
and sat there gazing off into the night. But still they did not come.
"Gee, I'm a Silver Fox, anyway," he said; "you'd think he'd want one of
his own patrol with him _sometimes_--gee!"
He rose and went down into the cabin where the dollar watch which hung
on a nail told him that it was eight o'clock. Then it occurred to him
that it would serve them right if he got his own supper and was in his
bunk and asleep when they returned. It would be a sort of revenge on
them. He would show them, at least, that he could get along very well by
himself, and by way of doing so he would make some rice cakes. Roy was
not the only one who could make rice cakes. He, Pee-wee, could make them
if nobody stood by guying him.
He had never wielded the flopper; that had been Roy's province; but he
could, all right, he told himself. So he dug into Roy's duffel bag for
the recipe book which was famous in the troop; which told the secrets of
the hunter's stew; which revealed the mystery of plum-duff and raisin
pop-overs in all their luscious details and which set you on the right
path for the renowned rice cakes.
Between the leaves, right where the rice cake recipe revealed itself to
the hungry inquirer, was a folded paper which dropped out as Pee-wee
opened the book. For all he knew it contained the recipe so he held it
under the lantern and read:
"Dear Mary:
"Since you butted in, Tom and I have decided that it would be
better for Pee-wee to go with _him_, and I'll stay home. Anyway,
that's what I've decided. So you'll get your wish all right and I
should worry.
"Roy."
Pee-wee read it twice over, then he laid it on the locker and sat down
and looked at it. Then he picked it up and read it over again. He did
not even realize that its discovery among Roy's things would indicate
that it had never been sent. Sent or not, it had been written.
So this was the explanation of Roy's invitation that he accompany them
on the trip. Mary Temple had asked them to let him go. Yet, despite his
present mood, he could not believe that his own patrol leader, Roy
Blakeley, could have written this.
"I bet Tom Slade is--I bet he's the cause of it," he said.
He recalled now how he had talked about the trip to Mary Temple and how
she had spoken rather mysteriously about the possibility of his going
along. So it was she who was his good friend; it was to her he owed the
invitation which had come to him with such a fine air of sincerity.
"I always--crinkums, anyway girls always seem to like me, that's one
thing," he said. "And--and Roy did, too, before Tom Slade came into the
troop."
It was odd how he turned against Tom, making him the scapegoat for Roy's
apparent selfishness and hypocrisy.
"They just brought me along for charity, like," he said, "'cause she
told them to. Cracky, anyway, I didn't try to make her do that--I
didn't."
This revelation in black and white of Roy's real feeling overcame him
and as he put the letter back in the book and the book back in the
duffel bag, he could scarcely keep his hand from trembling.
"Anyway, I knew it all the time," he said. "I could see it."
He had no appetite for rice cakes now. He took some cakes of chocolate
and a couple of hard biscuits and stuffed them in his pocket. Then he
went out into the cockpit and listened. There was no sound of voices or
footfalls, nothing but the myriad voices of nature, or frogs croaking
nearby, of a cheery cricket somewhere on shore, of the water lapping
against the broken old wharf as the wind drove it in shoreward.
He returned to the cabin, tore a leaf from his scout notebook and wrote,
but he had to blink his eyes to keep back the tears.
"Dear Roy:
"I think you'll have more fun if you two go the rest of the way
alone. I always said two's a company, three's a crowd. You've heard
me say it and I ought to have had sense enough to remember it. But
anyway, I'm not mad and I like you just as much. I'll see you at
camp.
"WALTER HARRIS."
"P. S.--If I had to vote again for patrol leader I'd vote for you."
He was particular not to mention Tom by name and to address his note to
Roy. He laid it in the frying pan on the stove (in which he had
intended to make the rice cakes) and then, with his duffel bag over his
shoulder and his scout staff in hand, he stepped from the _Good Turn_,
listening cautiously for approaching footsteps, and finding the way
clear he stole away through the darkness.