“Why, of course we’re going to-day!” came from Jule’s bed. “Why not?
Haven’t we been planning on to-day right along?”
The boy bounced out of his bed. His three chums regarded each other with
glances of understanding. They had almost forgotten, in the excitement
of the moment, that, though all hope of getting away in the immediate
future had been abandoned by them, Jule did not know.
“Of course, this very day!” shouted Case. “We will be ready in no time,
just as soon as we get breakfast. Here, Alex,” he cried, “you make
coffee, and I’ll run over and see Captain Joe. We’ll have to tell him
about it.”
“If Frank Porter is going with us,” Clay declared, “he’ll have to be
showing up.”
Alex busied himself making coffee and frying bacon and eggs and Clay
stepped outside with Case.
“Now, don’t get a grouch on,” he advised, “and tell Jule that he came
near defeating all our plans.
He mistook someone for me, but that wasn’t anything unusual. I’ve made
mistakes about people before now myself. Just let it all go, and the kid
won’t have the thing to worry over.”
“I wonder where he went last night?” Case said, doggedly.
“Why, he told us that he went to see Dr. Holcomb,” Clay explained.
“He’ll tell us what he went to see him about when he gets ready. Now,
don’t forget and let the cat out of the bag.”
“Don’t you ever think I will,” promised Case. “I’ll go now and see
Captain Joe, and tell him to be quick with the gasoline, and he’ll have
it on board before noon. Good old boy, Captain Joe.”
“There never was any better!” echoed Clay. While they talked a stoutish,
gray-haired man with a very red face and a wooden leg not at all
concealed by his trousers came stumping down the pier, waving a pudgy
hand in greeting.
“Morning, boys!” he cried.
“Morning, Captain Joe!” answered the boys, in a breath. “We were just
going up to see you about the gasoline. We’re off to-day, you know,”
they both shouted, talking so fast that neither sensed that the other
was speaking.
Captain Joe came to where the boys stood and looked the motor boat over
critically. He had been a sea captain for years, and was never so happy
as when passing judgment on a vessel. Two years before he had met with
an accident which had deprived him of one leg, and since that time he
had gained a living by conducting a little ship and motor boat supply
store not far from the slip where the _Rambler_ lay. His practical
suggestions had been invaluable to the boys in fitting out the
_Rambler_.
“She looks fit as a fiddle,” the old man declared, cocking his head to
one side and running his eyes over the graceful lines of the craft.
“When you get out into the ocean just keep her head on, and she’ll sail
like a duck. My! It would be a treat to go along with you!”
“We’ll make an extra bunk for you, Captain Joe,” Clay cut in, eagerly.
“You know you’d be welcome.”
“I’m too old, lads,” returned the captain, “and besides. I’ve got my own
little bread-and-butter shop to look after. But here,” he continued,
taking a packet sealed in oilskin from his breast, “here’s a little
present for you. I’m giving it to you with the understanding, though,
mind, that you never open it until you find yourself in a tight place!
There is a word of advice in it,” he went on, “and it may cheer you up a
bit when you open it.”
Clay’s face was very grave as he took the packet. “We’ll do just as you
say, Captain Joe,” he promised, “and we’ll think of you as often as you
think of us! But we hope never to get into a tight place. You’ll come
and see us off?”
“Certainly—certainly!” declared the captain. “I couldn’t let my boys
sail away without being there to wish ’em good luck. I’ll have the
gasoline down here in an hour, and then off you go, and may every hope
you have be thrifty and bud into two more—all coming into harbor with
sails set!”
The old man stumped away, and the boys returned to the cabin. While
breakfast was being eaten a knock was heard and Frank Porter’s face
showed through the glass panel. Alex opened the door and grabbed him by
the shoulders.
“Come on in,” he shouted. “You’re just in time for some of my
world-without-end pancakes. No one else ever made such pancakes as
these. You’re just in time, for we’re going to sail before noon.”
The boys were so happy in their good fortune that all suspicions of the
integrity of the lad were for the time forgotten, and he was given a
very friendly welcome indeed. He explained that he had been out in the
city for a walk, and had been delayed by an accident which had blocked a
street and sent him a long way around.
“Now,” said Clay, after breakfast, “I’ll go up to this advertiser’s
address and get the reward for the restoration of the diamonds, and then
we’ll be all ready for blue water.”
“I’ll go with you,” volunteered Alex.
“Not much you won’t,” Case put in. “You’ll stay here on the boat and
wash dishes as a penalty for talking slang.”
While the boys argued Clay and Jule started away. It was a bright Spring
morning, and the air was clear and invigorating, for Chicago. Jule threw
out his chest as they walked along, taking in long breaths.
“I begin to feel well already!” he said. “Oh, I’ll be well before we get
to the Gulf of Mexico!”
“What did Dr. Holcomb tell you last night?” asked Clay, curious to know
the reason for the visit of the night before to the office of the
physician. Jule hesitated an instant, and then turned a pair of merry
blue eyes on his companion.
“Don’t you wish you knew?” he asked, provokingly.
“Oh, if it is anything private——” Clay began.
“It is a secret!” acknowledged the boy. “I’m not to tell anyone about it
until we get back. I think it jolly to have a secret.”
“I know,” Clay guessed, “he said you were going to get well down on the
Amazon. Huh, we knew that before!”
“Guess again,” laughed Jule, as they turned the corner of Madison and
Dearborn streets. “I’ll tell you—when we get back! But there is the
Boyce building, and here is the name of the lawyer who advertised to
give the reward for the return of the diamonds—and no questions asked!”
Lawyer Sharp had just reached his office as the boys entered. He met
them with a smile and seemed to consider the return of the stones as a
matter of course. He opened his safe and took therefrom a package of
banknotes which seemed to have been placed there for that special
occasion.
“I’m not to ask any questions, you know,” he said, as Clay tendered the
brown leather bag and received the money, “but I would like to know who
sent you here with the diamonds. They are worth fifty thousand dollars,
I presume you know?”
“No,” answered Clay, “we didn’t know that.”
“I never knew there was that much money in Chicago!” put in Jule.
“But you didn’t answer my question.”
“I found the diamonds on the ground,” Clay replied, not referring to the
way they came there, “and saw the advertisement in an evening newspaper.
That’s all.”
“Where did you get the newspaper?”
There was a twinkle in the lawyer’s eyes, as if he, too, had a secret
that was hard to keep.
“Why,” Clay answered, “why——”
He turned to Jule with a puzzled look on his face.
“Where do you think that newspaper came from?” he asked, puzzled, too.
Jule shook his head, looking from the lawyer to the brown leather bag,
now empty, the gems being in the lawyer’s hand.
“I don’t know,” he said. “You found it on the boat, I take it.”
“Someone must have placed it there,” said the lawyer.
“It was marked,” Clay explained, “with a finger pointing to the
advertisement. Now, what do you think of that? Why——”
“Then someone put it there,” Jule declared. “Someone who wanted us to
get the reward! I’ll bet it was Captain Joe.”
“Or Dr. Holcomb,” Clay continued.
“Very strange proceeding!” insisted the lawyer. “If anyone knew where
the diamonds were, and saw fit to throw away $500, he might have done
that, but did this Captain Joe you speak of, or this Dr. Holcomb, know
that you had the stones?”
“Of course not!” answered Jule. “No one knew.”
“When were the diamonds stolen?” asked Clay.
“Early yesterday morning, though the loss was not reported then.”
“Who stole them?” was the next question.
The lawyer laughed outright at this.
“If we knew,” he said, “we’d have him in jail But we don’t know. We
thought that, perhaps, the one who came for the reward might know.”
“If you think that,” Clay exclaimed, flushing with anger, “if you think
I stole them, I will return the reward!”
“We don’t think so,” explained the lawyer. “If we did we’d have had a
policeman here. Well, there’s your money. I’m busy!”
The boys went out into the hall and took the elevator without another
word being said. The lawyer’s mood had been more preoccupied and not so
friendly at the last.
“There is something queer about it!” Jule said, as they took a Madison
street-car. “Lookout there!”
A young man who was running for the car slipped and came near falling
under the wheels as the boy started up in his seat and involuntarily
called out.
“That was a close call!” Clay exclaimed.
“But he got on,” Jule said. “There he is, on the back of the car.”
“Why,” Clay whispered, “I saw that man in the lower hall when we went up
to the lawyer’s office, and again when we came down. See that scar on
his cheek? Looks as if he had been wounded there. Well, I noticed that
both times.”
“Perhaps he was thinking of getting the diamonds or the money away from
us,” suggested Jule. “He’d have a good time doing it!”
“Oh, I guess not,” Clay replied, but he was not quite easy in his mind
until the young man—a dark young man in a greenish suit, with little
black eyes and a tiny mustache, turned up at the ends, left the car at
the bridge.
The gasoline was on board long before noon, Captain Joe having seen to
that personally, and then all was bustle as the boys headed down the
drainage canal for the Mississippi. The last familiar figure they saw as
they got under way, the motors ticking merrily under the hatch on the
deck floor, was that of Captain Joe, standing on the pier and waving a
white handkerchief from a pudgy hand.
The boys were delighted with the trip down to the Gulf of Mexico, and
agreed that if they could ever afford it they would some day take a
leisurely journey down the Mississippi in the motor boat.
The _Rambler_ passed through the Caribbean sea without mishap, though
the boys were more than once reminded of the advice of Captain Joe, to
“keep her head on.” It was rather more difficult navigating the eastern
coast, but there were no serious accidents, and Jule gained in health
every minute. On the way down Frank, now a welcome member of the party,
gave the boys lessons in Spanish, and many a friendly tilt they had over
their pronunciation of the tongue spoken principally in South America.
One evening in early June the lights of Para gladdened the eyes of the
boys, for there, away to the north, ran the current of the mighty
Amazon!