DOCTOR BARRELL'S "ACCIDENT"
"Begorra!"
That was the first expressive word that Dave Fearless heard as he
realized that he had been suddenly saved from death by suffocation.
His eyes, mouth, ears, and nostrils were oozing with the sticky stuff in
which he had taken so dangerous a bath. The top of his head seemed
coming off. Dave felt as if he had been scalped.
Dave was lying on the grass and Stoodles was working over him, digging
and dabbling with a handkerchief to get the youth's eyes and mouth clear
of the glutinous "frew-frew."
"Sorra a bit too soon was I," said Pat, as Dave blinked and groaned.
"I've a lock of your hair for a keepsake, lad! I saw you go into that
threacherous pit, I threw a plank across, I grasped your topknot. It
was loike taking a drowned cat out of glue. Sit up, if you can't stand
up. If you let that stuff harden once, you'll be stiff as a statoo."
Dave tried to arise. He dragged grass, dirt, vines, and weeds up with
him. By this time he could breathe and see. Stoodles got a stick and
scraped off from his clothes as much as he could of the adhesive mass
that coated Dave.
"Come on, lad," directed Stoodles, grasping an arm of his tottering
companion. "It's a brickdust bath in soft soap you'll be needing.
Acushla! but I stick to you like a brother."
Dave's feet gathered up everything they came in contact with. Then,
every time he brushed a bit of foliage, the frew-frew took off leaves,
and he began to look green and picturesque.
"Where is Bob Vilett?" he asked.
"I dunno," answered Stoodles. "I do know it was lucky I saw you
thrailing the pilot and that rascally pawnbroker. If I hadn't you'd
have been a goner, Dave Fearless."
"I guess I should," responded Dave, with a shudder, and then a grateful
look at this eccentric but loyal friend. "Where have those two
gone--did you notice, Mr. Stoodles?"
"Only that they set off seaward in a little launch."
"Get me to the _Swallow_, I have a lot to tell Captain Broadbeam now."
They lined the beach. A good many craft of various kinds were visible
in the opening. All of them were too far distant to enable Dave to make
out which one might contain the pilot and Schmitt-Schmitt.
When they got to the place of rendezvous where they had left the ship's
yawl, Bob Vilett was discovered lying on the sand.
"Wandered off on a wrong trail," he reported; "wasted time and thought I
was due here. Dave, what have you been into!"
"Frew-frew, I believe they call it, Bob."
"Phew-phew I'd call it," remarked Pat. "Up with the jibboom and across
the briny, Bob. If we don't get our friend Fearless into hot water and
soap soon, we'll have to chip off his coat of mail with chisels."
When they reached the _Swallow_ they found the steamer the center of
vast bustle and industry. Captain Broadbeam had keeled the craft and
gangs of men were working inside and outside to repair the breaks in the
hull.
The cabins and forecastle were accessible, but Mike Conners had
temporarily removed cooking headquarters to a tent at the side of the
creek. Stoodles sought out Mr. Drake, the boatswain, and explained
Dave's dilemma. They rigged up a canvas bathroom on shore and supplied
it with brushes, two tubs of boiling suds, and plenty of soap.
It took Dave over an hour to get off the worst of the villainous
frew-frew. His hair was the hardest to clean. Finally he emerged,
fresh and tingling in every nerve from the vigorous bath.
They had supper ashore and hammocks were rigged up under the trees.
Captain Broadbeam set a guard about camp and ship. About half the crew
decided to quit and he paid them off. They and curious visitors from
the town were warned to keep away from the _Swallow_.
About dusk Captain Broadbeam had given out all necessary orders for the
night.
"Well, lad," he said, coming up to Dave and placing his hand on the
youth's shoulder in his usually friendly way, "I understand you have
something important to tell me."
"Yes, considerable," answered Dave.
"All right. The others interested must hear it, too. We'll hold a
council of war in my cabin."
Dave's father, Doctor Barrell, Stoodles, and Bob Vilett were invited to
accompany the captain and Dave to the _Swallow_. The six of them soon
found themselves seated in the captain's cabin. It slanted slightly
from the present awkward position of the ship, but they managed to
adjust the stools and settees comfortably.
"Now then, lad," spoke Captain Broadbeam to Dave, "my old friend here,
your father, has intimated to me that you have discovered some things of
general interest to all of us."
"I think I have," said Dave.
"Then fire away, my hearty."
Dave began his story with a narration of the visit to the _Swallow_ of
the young artist Adair. He followed this up with his discovery of
Schmitt-Schmitt, and his overhearing of the conversation between that
worthy and the treacherous native pilot.
Captain Broadbeam was interested from the first; when it became apparent
from Dave's clear, logical story that the stolen treasure was still
somewhere in the vicinity of the Windjammers' Island, the old tar's eyes
glistened and he looked eager and excited. Then, as Dave told of the
evident existence of a plot to delay, possibly destroy, the _Swallow_,
Captain Broadbeam sprang to his feet.
"Delay me, will they?" he shouted, growing red of face and blazing with
anger. "Why, the miserable scum! if they so much as hang around here
I'll fill them with a charge of pepper and salt. If I catch them up to
any tricks aboard, I'll swing them from the yardarm."
The doughty old mariner paced the cabin in a fine rage. When he had
subsided Dave approached the subject nearest his thoughts.
"Captain," he began, "from what I have told don't you really think my
theories are right as to the treasure being hidden?"
"I do, lad, I'll admit that," growled the captain.
"And that this fellow Schmitt-Schmitt is an emissary of the Hankers and
the _Raven_, looking for a ship to go after the treasure?"
"Mebbe, lad, mebbe."
"Then what is the matter with hurrying up your repairs and getting back
to the Windjammers' Island before Schmitt-Schmitt? Don't you see,
captain, we are bound to locate the _Raven_ crew, if they are there?"
Captain Broadbeam sank to a stool, bent his head, and groaned.
"Lad," he said, "I know what you want to do and what I'd like to do. It
can't be done--no, no."
"Captain," interrupted Amos Fearless, in an eager, quivering tone, "we
are old friends----"
"Belay there!" roared the veteran tar, springing to his feet and waving
his ponderous arms like windmills. "Would ye tempt a man from his duty
who has never yet over-stepped discipline? That duty is plain, Amos
Fearless. This here _Swallow_ was sent out to collect curiosities for
the United States Government. Those curiosities are duly collected.
Incidentally I helped you fellows all I could on the side. Now it's San
Francisco. Them's my sailing orders. There's my duty."
"Ochone!" groaned Pat Stoodles, "and phwat of the foine treasure?"
"I'm out of this hornets' nest here the minute the _Swallow_ is
seaworthy," announced Broadbeam. "The minute I land at San Francisco
and get my clearance, I'll hark back to the Windjammers with you if I
have to put all my savings into chartering a ship specially."
"It will be too late then, captain," murmured Dave, in a dejected tone.
"Sorry," said the commander of the _Swallow_. "I am responsible to the
owners. Why, friends, if I should step outside of my duty I am
personally liable to a fine that would make me a ruined man and a
pauper."
Dave gave a queer start at this, a quick color came into his cheek, a
quick flicker into his eyes. He gazed at Stoodles in an eager,
speculative way.
"One moment, captain, please," he said, arising and beckoning Stoodles
to follow him from the cabin, "I have just thought of something
important. I hope you will not decide finally on this matter until I
have had a word in private with Mr. Stoodles."
"Surely not, lad," nodded the captain, but in some wonder regarding this
peculiar move on the part of the young fellow he had grown to like
greatly.
Silence fell over the little coterie in the cabin then. They could hear
the low hum of voices outside; Dave talking rapidly and earnestly, and
such violent ejaculations from Stoodles now and then as "Begorra!" "Luk
at that now!" "Bedad!" and the like.
When Dave came back into the cabin he was calm and collected, but
Stoodles squirmed about with a wise, important look on his moonlike
face.
"Captain Broadbeam," said Dave, "I have just consulted with Mr. Stoodles
on a matter covering his ability to raise a certain sum of money."
The captain of the _Swallow_ grinned. It was so ridiculous to think of
Stoodles ever earning or saving a penny that he could not well help it.
"Yes," announced Pat gravely, "by my royal authority as king of the
Windjammers' Island."
"Nonsense," muttered Captain Broadbeam.
"You will take my word for it, captain, won't you?" insinuated Dave, in
his smooth, convincing way. "I can say to you positively that if you
will land Mr. Stoodles among his former subjects for a single hour, and
later safely at San Francisco, he will be prepared to pay you five
thousand dollars to meet any fines the owners of the _Swallow_ may
assess you for going back there."
"Why, Dave," began Mr. Fearless in wonderment--but Bob Vilett
interrupted.
"If Dave says five thousand dollars, he means five thousand dollars."
"Remarkable!" commented Doctor Barrell, surveying Dave in astonishment
through his eyeglasses close-set.
Captain Broadbeam was impressed. He studied Dave and Stoodles
speculatively.
"How can you possibly get that sum of money?" he demanded.
"We can," declared Dave positively, "can't we, Mr. Stoodles?"
"Begorra! and ten if we nade it!" cried Pat enthusiastically. "Oh, the
broth of a boy! It takes my friend Dave Fearless for brains."
"Of course it is a secret," said Dave.
"A deadly saycret--I mane a close one," declared Stoodles. "I never
knew how rich I was till the lad told me just now."
"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Captain Broadbeam, dismissing the matter with a
worried motion of his hand. "Money can't count in this case. My duty
is plain! I was ordered to sail for the home port as soon as the
government collection was made. Doctor Barrell reported a month ago
that he had finished that collection."
"H'm, just so," observed Doctor Barrell, "but, my dear sir--ha, a
thought. A moment, Captain Broadbeam, just a moment."
"Thunder!" whistled Bob Vilett amazedly in his chum's ear. "What does
that mean now?"
Dave shook his head in silent wonderment. Doctor Barrell had winked at
them in a quizzical, encouraging way that was mightily suggestive.
To have the high-class old scientist so far forget his dignity was a
most remarkable thing.
They heard Doctor Barrell stumbling about in the aft cabin where he had
stored some of the curiosities he had gathered for the government.
Suddenly there was a loud bump followed by a great clash. The next
minute the doctor burst into the captain's cabin holding aloft two
cracked and broken specimens of starfish.
"Captain," he cried--"bad accident! The collection is incomplete. See,
Captain Broadbeam, the only specimens of the _Mercuria stellaticus_ we
had, destroyed, case tipped over."
The commander of the _Swallow_ bestowed a searching look on the speaker,
but was silent. "They are to be found only at the Windjammers' Island,"
went on Doctor Barrell. "Oh, dear, dear! This will, I fear,
necessitate a return to the island."
"Oh, will it?" snorted the captain sarcastically. "So, you're in the
plot, too, to lure me from my duty, hey, you old conspirator? Well, you
mutinous old humbug, after breaking your mercurian stellians purposely,
you'll not get me to go a single knot back on the west course till you
sign a paper officially ordering me to do so as a necessity of the
expedition."
"Pen and ink--quick," chuckled Doctor Barrell. "Captain," he added
pathetically, indicating their sturdy, loyal companions with a kindly
affectionate wave of his hand, "their hearts are set on that stolen
treasure, rightly too. They are our true, good friends. Honestly,
won't you be glad to help them try and find it?"
"Shiver my timbers, but you're a set of conspiring mutineers!" roared
the captain doughtily, but the fierce words were spoken with a secret
chuckle.