TOM ENCOUNTERS SOME OLD FOES.
"Let us thank Providence he is saved."
It was the professor who spoke. His words made a deep impression
upon Jack. After all, it might only have been his fancy. It seemed
like a wild dream to imagine that Dampier and Walstein could have----
A sudden deluge of brilliant light encompassed those on the bridge of
the tossing _Sea Ranger_. It was the searchlight from the hitherto
lightless tug. For an instant the brilliant effulgence bathed them,
and then it vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
While they were still wondering what could have been the reason of
the sudden illumination, there was a crash right above Jack's head,
and a shower of glass fell about him. At the same instant, above the
screaming of the storm, could be heard the sharp report of a firearm
of some kind.
The men on the tug, for some inscrutable reason, had seen fit to
shiver the _Sea Ranger's_ searchlight with a bullet.
"It wasn't any mistake of mine," flashed out Jack; "nobody but
Dampier or Walstein would have been guilty of such a trick."
Evidently those on the tug were not anxious to be observed. The mere
fact that they risked being abroad without lights on such a night
showed that. The shivering of the _Sea Ranger's_ searchlight only
added emphasis to the mysterious character of the craft.
"Let us pursue them," urged the professor.
"Yes, let's get after them," echoed Sandy. "Puir Tom is in bad
hands, I'm thinking."
"How on earth are we going to pursue them?" gasped out Jack, whose
pulses were throbbing with indignation, "even if we could sight them
in the darkness, they are faster than we."
"That is so," agreed the professor glumly, "and what is worse, they
must have recognized us."
The professor, as we have hinted before, had been with the boys on
that memorable cruise to tropic waters, when Dampier and Walstein
very nearly succeeded in marooning the Dacre party and stealing their
treasure recovered from a sunken galleon. He, as well as the boys,
knew the desperate character of the two men.
"All we can do is to keep as nearly as possible in this spot all
night," advised Jack; "then, as soon as daylight comes, the storm may
abate, and we can take some action."
And so it was arranged. Leaving the wheel to Sandy, who was a
muscular youth, Jack dived below to attend to the engines, which he
had neglected for some time. Luckily, however, the machinery was
working smoothly. The professor remained with Sandy on the bridge,
doing what he could to help in controlling the vessel through the
fury of the night.
Somehow the long hours of darkness passed away, and daylight came.
The sunrise was yellow and sickly, breaking through ragged clouds. A
chilly wind swept across the lake, but the backbone of the storm was
broken.
But, as Jack had feared deep down in his heart, on all the expanse of
leaden, rolling water, there was no sign of another craft. The _Sea
Ranger_ was alone in the desolate scene. A hasty examination had
shown that she had suffered no material damage in the collision.
Some paint was scraped off, but that was all.
Sandy got breakfast, which they ate with faint hearts. Jack, for his
part, could hardly swallow more than a few mouthfuls of bacon and
bread and gulp down a cup of coffee. His mind was actively busied
with plans to rescue his brother from the hands of men he knew to be
unscrupulous, clever and revengeful.
"It's hardly likely that they'll neglect such a chance to get even on
us for sending them to jail and recovering the treasure," thought
Jack, with a sigh that was almost a groan.
After a hasty meal, he announced his plans. A consultation of the
chart had shown them to be about opposite--so far as Jack could
judge--a place called Rockport. The others heartily agreed with his
determination, which was to head in to that place, and, by the use of
the telegraph and the assistance of the police of the town, to get on
the track of the mysterious tug which had vanished with Tom.
While the _Sea Ranger_ is cutting through the seas toward her hastily
determined destination, let us see what had become of Tom on board
the tug that carried no lights.
"Wonder where under the sun I can be?" was Tom's first thought, as he
opened his eyes.
He had swooned from shock and immersion immediately after he had been
dragged from the water by the crew of the tug, and had no clear
recollection of anything that followed his being knocked overboard
when the tug and the _Sea Ranger_ collided.
But it was plain enough to him, on awakening, that he was in a place
entirely strange, and of which he had no previous recollection.
He lay in a rough bunk on a pile of none too clean blankets. The
walls of the small room were bare, but a round port light and the
motion of the tug told him that he was out on the water.
The boy was striving to marshal his thoughts, when the sudden sound
of voices struck on his ears. They seemed to come from an adjoining
cabin. Tom listened, idly at first, but before long he was shocked
into the keenest attention. It was evident that the conversation
related to him and his companions of the _Sea Ranger_. With his
senses vibrantly on the alert, he drank in every word that he could
catch.
No doubt, the men who were talking so freely thought that the boy was
still in a state of coma, for they took no trouble to lower their
tones. As Tom listened, a vague sense of having heard at least two
of the voices somewhere before stole over him. He could not recall
where, at first, but suddenly he caught the name "Dampier," and a
moment later "Walstein." The identity of the familiar voices was
thus instantly revealed to him as by a flash of lightning.
"I tell you," were among the first words that struck Tom's attention,
"that we've run into the biggest stroke of luck yet."
"Then you don't intend to throw the brat overboard, as he deserves?"
In the light of what he heard later, Tom identified this amiable
proposal as coming from Walstein.
"Throw him overboard! Why, my dear fellow, I have nothing so crude
in mind," came Dampier's sharp, rather fastidious tones. "If we use
him rightly, we can make a pile of money with this lad."
"How do you propose to go about it?"
The question came from a third speaker. For the sake of clearness,
it may be said here that he was Captain Jeb Rangler, the skipper of
the tug, and a man whose character was of the worst.
"Simple enough," rejoined Dampier easily. "His uncle is rich. He
was so before they stole the treasure of the sunken galleon away from
us."
"That's pretty cool cheek," thought Tom to himself, as he lay
listening; "as if the rascals didn't try all sorts of roguery to
obtain it from the rightful discoverers."
"Ah; I see what you mean," came in Walstein's rumbling, hoarse tones,
"you think we can get a ransom for him?"
"You've caught the idea. I should say that old Chisholm Dacre would
give a good bit of money to have his nephew back safe and sound.
Especially if he knew into whose hands he had fallen."
There was a laugh, in which all three joined, at this. Tom felt a
shudder run through him.
"This is a nice nest of ruffians," he thought to himself. But the
voices went on, and he eagerly resumed his listening.
"You've got the head after all, Dampier," rumbled Captain Walstein's
heavy bass voice. "I wish we could have got the others, too."
"We might have, only it was too risky to take a chance on attacking
their craft."
Tom hailed this as a bit of good news. It showed him that what he
had half-feared, namely, the loss of the _Sea Ranger_ in the
collision, was no longer to be dreaded.
"Yes; we can't afford to take any more chances," muttered Captain
Rangler gloomily. "That last one almost finished us. I don't like
the idea of having the authorities so close on our heels."
"We've got to put in for more coal, too," came Walstein's voice.
"Oh, well, there's no danger of the tug being identified," laughed
Dampier defiantly. "At Alpena and at Dead Fish Point lighthouse, she
was a black and green craft named the _War Eagle_. Now she is
changed to a slate-colored tug named the _Flyaway_. Jove! that's a
good name, too," he chuckled.
A great light broke upon Tom. So this was the mysterious tug for
which the authorities had been searching? But, from what he had
heard, the gang in control of her had disguised her beyond
recognition, and intended to keep on with their evil trade of
ship-wrecking.
"Well, I'm going to head in toward the coast," he heard Captain
Rangler say presently. "We've only got enough coal for a few hours."
The voices died away, as the three rose and left the adjoining cabin.
But their conversation, brief as it had been, had shown Tom several
things. Not the least among these was the fact that he was in one of
the most serious predicaments of his life. The reflection that, not
his own fault, but a series of extraordinary coincidences had thrown
him into his perilous position, failed to console him.
"I might just as well have been hurled into a den of hungry tigers,"
thought Tom to himself, with a rueful attempt at humor.
The door-latch rattled and the portal was flung open at this
juncture. Without waiting to see who his visitor might be, Tom flung
himself from his sitting posture down among the blankets. It did not
suit his plans that the men in whose power he was should realize that
he knew at least a part of their rascally plans concerning him.