The Boy Aviators on Secret Service; Or, Working with Wireless

CHAPTER VII
A NIGHT ATTACK

Most of that day they dropped leisurely down Hawk Channel and at night anchored off a small key covered with a luxuriant tropical growth and topped by the feathery crowns of a group of stately royal palms. It was early afternoon when they let go the anchor and the boys lost no time in getting into the Squeegee and rowing ashore. They carried with them the Carrier Dove’s water keg which held ten gallons and which had been discovered by them to be half empty the first time they went forward for a drink. What water there was in it was so stale as to be almost undrinkable. Pork Chops was summarily sent for and arraigned on the “quarter deck.”

“I done declar I clean forgit all about deh watah,” he gasped, as Frank read him a lecture on his carelessness. Indeed everything about the Carrier Dove bore witness to Pork Chops’ shiftless ways. Her rigging was spliced in innumerable places and her halyards badly frayed so that they wedged in the blocks sometimes. Her paint was peeled off her sides in large flakes and altogether she was quite as disreputable a proposition as her owner; but in her, Pork Chops had navigated the waters about Miami for many years and was accounted a skilful mariner.

The boys uttered a cry of delight as the Squeegee’s nose grated on a beach of white sand and they sprang out. The key was a veritable fairyland. Lime, lemon and guava trees grew almost down to the water’s edge and further back were several wild banana plants with their yellow fruit hanging temptingly for the boys to pluck. And pluck it they did and declared they had never known what real bananas were like before, – which is hardly surprising as the fruit is picked for the northern market long before it is ripe and shipped in a green state.

After they had fairly gorged themselves on fruit, they set out to look for a spring. They were not long in finding it and Billy Barnes, dipper in hand, started in to fill the keg. He had ladled out a few dipperfuls when he started back with a yell. The others, who had been roaming about in the vicinity, hurried back and found the reporter gazing petrified at a huge cotton mouth moccassin. Frank, who had one of the sixteen gauge guns with him, quickly despatched the creature, which was about three feet long.

“Ugh, what a monster,” exclaimed Lathrop, as he gazed at the ugly, dirty-brown colored body.

“He is a pretty sizeable reptile and that’s a fact,” remarked Frank, “But what would you say to a serpent twenty feet long?”

The others looked at him incredulously.

“Twenty feet long – Oh come, Frank,” laughed Billy. “That sounds like the fish that got away.”

“Lieutenant Willoughby, who explored the Everglades in 1897, reports that he heard from Indians and believed himself that in the southern portions of the Everglades there are snakes bigger than any known species,” replied Frank, “his guide killed a reptile marked with longitudinal stripes, – but otherwise like a rattlesnake, – which measured nine feet from tip to tip.”

“Well, I don’t want to be around when any such creatures as that are about,” said Lathrop.

“I’m with you there,” cried Billy, “snake stories are all right in print but I don’t want to figure in any of them.”

“Come on, boys, – volunteers to get supper,” cried Frank, after the group had strolled back to the boat landing, – all hands taking turn at packing the water keg.

“Supper?” cried the others.

“Yes,” replied Frank, “we can row the keg off to the Carrier Dove, get some duffle ashore and camp here in the jungle for a night. There’s no use trying to navigate this coast in the dark. Who says – yes?”

Of course they all did, – hailing his suggestion with acclamation, – and, after Frank and Harry had rowed off to the sloop, Lathrop and Billy Barnes set about getting in a supply of firewood and laying a fire between two green logs set parallel, in a manner that did credit to Bill’s training as a woodsman in Nicaragua.

Frank and Harry were too tender-hearted to resist Ben Stubbs’ pleadings to be made one of the party – moreover he promised to cook them what he called a bush supper if allowed to come ashore, so that when the boys shoved off in the placid water on their return trip to the Island Ben made one of the Squeegee’s load.

As soon as they got ashore Ben approvingly commended Billy’s camp-fire arrangements, at which the reporter glowed with pleasure. Somehow in the wilderness a small tribute to a boy’s handiness will send him into the seventh heaven of gratified pride. Under Ben Stubbs’ orders the party had soon secured several bunches of oysters from the mangroves, – which were laden with the bivalves where they dipped into the water at low tide, – as well as half a dozen turtles, small fellows which Ben declared made as good eating as the terrapin of the northern restaurant and banquet. To crown the feast, Frank, who had been scouting about with one of the shot-guns, brought down a couple of small ducks.

The oysters Ben roasted in their shells, laying them when finished on plantain leaves on previously heated rocks. The turtles he prepared by scalding them and then, after cutting down the center of the lower shell, the meat was easily got at. Salted and peppered inside and out and the meat removed from the shell after a half-an-hour’s boiling with onions and the young campers had a meal fit for a president, who, as Billy observed, “is a heap more particular than a king.”

The ducks were incased by Ben in a sort of matrix of clay – feathers and all, – having first been cleaned. Thus enclosed they were placed in the glowing embers and more hot coals raked over on top of them. When in half an hour Ben drew out the hard-baked clay casings and cracked them free with a hatchet, – which automatically skinned the birds and plucked them at the same time, – the boys were ready to acclaim him a very prince of chefs. The meal was eaten with pilot bread and washed down with lemonade made from spring water and lemonade tablets. For dessert they had bananas and wild oranges. Many times after that when they were plunged in hardships and difficulties the boys talked over that first meal on the lone Florida Key.

After supper there was no washing up to do; big plantain leaves having served as plates and hunting-knives as table utensils. The little party sat round the big camp-fire and sang songs and talked and laughed till Pork Chops out on the Carrier Dove muttered to himself as he tried to sleep.

“Dem white boys done bein’ as clean crazy as loons, – yas, sah.”

However, at last even the boys’ spirits began to flag and they tucked themselves up in their blankets and lulled by the croaking and snoring of a big tree lizard in a near-by custard apple-tree, sank into dreams which were more or less tinctured by the happenings of the last few days.

Frank, more wakeful than the others, lay awake perhaps half an hour after Ben Stubbs’ nasal performances had begun to rival those of the tree-lizard; who was himself no mean performer. The boy-leader’s brain was busy turning over their momentous expedition. In a few days now they would be in the Archipelago and the plunge into the unknown would have to be taken. As he gazed about him at the sleeping party – Harry and Billy, light and careless, Lathrop, apparently made of far better metal than Frank had believed, and at old grizzled Ben Stubbs sleeping, like most woodsmen, as soundly as an infant, he felt a sensation of heavy responsibility steal over him.

Was the expedition well advised? It might all end in nothing or even in disaster. These thoughts flitted through Frank’s brain as he lay awake and pondered the situation. Of one thing he was determined, as soon as the wireless could be put in operation and a permanent camp established in the ’glades he would establish communication with the Tarantula. That at least would put them in touch with powerful allies whatever foes and evil influences they might encounter in the great fastnesses they were about to penetrate. Satisfied with this last resolve Frank fell asleep; but his was a troubled slumber. It seemed to him but a few minutes after he had dropped off that he awakened with a start:

The fire had died low and there was only a dull red glow to indicate where its cheerful blaze had been. As his eyes opened, however, Frank had a queer sensation that his awakening had been directly caused by some outside action that had affected him. In a second he sensed what it was.

There was a hand poking about under his pillow where he had tucked his revolver!

At the same instant there came a loud agonized hail from over the moonlit water where the Carrier Dove swung at anchor.

It was Pork Chops’ voice, and Frank sprang to his feet as he heard it, reckless of injury from the unseen intruder. He need not have been under any apprehension, however, for whoever the prowler was he had vanished. At the same moment Pork Chops’ yells awakened the others and Ben Stubbs roared out with stentorian lungs:

“Ahoy, there aboard the sloop – What’s up?”

For reply came a wail from Pork Chops, which was stifled as suddenly as if a hand had been placed on his throat:

“Help! murder! Dey’s – ”

Then all was silent.

Like a flash the boys and Ben piled into the Squeegee and Ben manned the oars. As they fairly flew over the water under his powerful strokes a long, low dark body, – almost reptilian in its swift movement, – glided from the opposite side of the Carrier Dove. At the same instant the sharp staccato sound of an engine exhaust came to the boys’ ears and a strong odor of gasolene.

“A motor-boat,” shouted Frank, as the low body, gathering speed momentarily, tore off across the moonlit water and vanished in the dark shadows off the end of the island.

CHAPTER VIII
THE MEN OF THE ISLAND

Once on board the Carrier Dove the mystery was deepened. There was not a trace of Pork Chops, though his blankets lay apparently just as they had been thrown aside when he leaped up at the invasion of the motor-boat intruders. Frank lit a lantern and naturally the first thing the boys hastened to investigate was whether any harm had come to the cases containing the frame of The Golden Eagle II. To their unspeakable relief everything was intact, nor did any of the boxes show traces of having been tampered with.

“The whole thing seems inexplicable,” mused Harry.

“Not at all,” replied Frank, “I suppose that they figured we were asleep ashore and sneaked up in their motor-boat to rifle our possessions.”

“Yes, but why did they carry off Pork Chops?” protested Billy; “for unless they threw him overboard, they must have taken him, – unless he’s been carried off by mosquitoes.”

“They would naturally have carried him off as I figure it,” rejoined Frank, “not wishing to have him meet us and describe the appearance of our visitors.”

“That sounds good horse sense,” put in Ben Stubbs. “And in my opinion them chaps in the motor-boat was the same limpets as stuck around the aerodrome in White Plains,” he continued sagely.

“I don’t think there’s much doubt of that, Ben,” replied Frank, “the thing is how did they get here?”

“Wall, the rate we’ve been coming it would have been mighty easy for them in a light draught motor-boat to have kept track of us from near inshore if they had a good glass,” rejoined Ben.

“But how did they trace us to Miami?” puzzled Harry.

“Easy enough,” replied Billy, “I’ve done it dozens of times – traced people I mean. I guess they just looked up the baggage man and found where our stuff was checked to.”

“Of course I ought to have guessed that,” exclaimed Frank. “It’s really too mortifying,” he concluded in a vexed tone.

“Consarn ’em,” muttered Ben, embracing his rifle longingly, “I’d like to get ’em quartered off this sight. I’d drop a precious bad pair of birds in a couple of shots.”

“No use thinking of that now,” rejoined Frank, briskly shaking off his annoyance over what couldn’t be helped, “the thing to do at present is to finish our night’s sleep and set a watch. We don’t want those fellows coming back and blowing the boat up.”

It was agreed that Ben Stubbs was to sit up and take the watch, and that hardy veteran himself had no small share in influencing the verdict. He felt that he as the oldest of the party and the more experienced should have the responsibility in case real trouble was to come. The boys were not long, even after the exciting interruption to their slumbers, in sinking to sleep again on the transoms in the summer cabin of the Carrier Dove. As for Ben he sat up on the after deck with his rifle between his knees till the moon went down and the stars began to wane. And all the time he never took his eyes off the shore where the dying camp-fire still spread a reddish glow against the blackness of the thick jungle tangle.

He might have been watching an hour when he gave a sudden start.

“Well that’s queer too,” he remarked to himself, as he fixed his eyes with stern intensity on the little glow of light thrown out by the embers. A dark figure had cautiously crossed the illumination, standing silhouetted for a moment against it. Suddenly a loud “hoo-hoo” like the hoot of an owl sounded from the shore. The same moment in the old adventurer’s reckless heart was borne a resolve which bore fruit when at dawn, as the rim of a glorious sun poked itself over the sparkling blue expanse of waters, and showed them vacant, he drew in the Squeegee’s painter and slipped lightly into her. He sculled ashore and approaching the camp crouched almost on his hands and knees. He examined the ground closely for a few minutes, as if in keen search of something. After a few minutes of this concentrated scrutiny he suddenly straightened up and strode off unhesitatingly into the jungle. But as he parted the creepers before him he gripped his rifle in the crotch of his arm with his finger on the trigger. He was not going to be taken by surprise.

The green mystery of the forest had not long closed on Ben’s stalwart form when the boys awoke as the sunlight streamed through the canvas-curtains of the Carrier’s Dove’s “main saloon”. Rubbing their eyes sleepily they hastened out on deck. For a few seconds the glory of the tropic dawn engrossed their attention to the exclusion of all else. Then with a cry of alarm Lathrop shouted:

“The Squeegee’s gone!”

“Gone?” echoed the others.

For answer Lathrop pointed to the stern. It was true, no Squeegee swung there at her painter. It was only a fraction of time before the absence of Ben Stubbs was also discovered. For a minute a dark thought crossed Frank’s mind, – but he dismissed it as unworthy, and was glad he did, for suddenly Billy shouted:

“Why, there’s the Squeegee ashore.”

They all looked and there, sure enough, lay their sneak-box where Ben, a short time before, had deserted her.

“He must have gone ashore hunting,” cried Harry.

Frank shook his head.

“He had some graver reason than that for going,” he said.

“Well, let’s swim ashore and find out what has become of him,” cried Lathrop, and indeed the turquoise water into whose depths one could see, did look tempting enough for an early morning plunge.

“It would be our last swim, Lathrop,” remarked Frank, pointing as he spoke to a wicked-looking triangular black fin that cruised by.

“See that leg o’ mutton?” he continued, “well, that’s hitched onto the back of a man-eating shark and they don’t encourage early morning bathing except for their larder’s benefit.”

As he spoke the monster glided close to the side of the Carrier Dove, perhaps in search of ship scraps, for which sharks will sometimes follow ships for days to satisfy their insatiable appetites. With an ill-concealed shudder Lathrop watched the great shadowy body flit by the sloop’s side, with a wicked little pig-like eye cocked knowingly up, as much as to say:

“Any breakfast ready yet?”

“I like those fellows less than the snakes,” exclaimed Lathrop.

When the laugh at his expense had subsided Frank suggested that they get into canoes at once and go ashore to discover what had become of Ben. The proposal was greeted as a good one and in short time the light craft were overboard and the boys paddling with all their might for the shore. Lathrop kept his eyes steadily ahead all the way, nor did he once look at the transparent water about them which, as the sun got higher, began to swarm with black fins and queer ill-shaped monsters of the deep, – jew-fish, rays, and huge sun-fish, – which seen through the water looked like so many ill-shaped dragons. On shore the boys hastened at once to their camp-fire of the night before. Its ashes were strewn abroad but in the gray dust, Frank, with an exclamation of surprise, made out the numerous indentations of a queer-shaped flat foot – it was the same mark that had made Ben set off through the jungle. But the boys, less expert than he, could not track their way by looking out for bent ferns or broken bits of undergrowth.

A council of war was held. There were some of the leavings of the feast of the night before in the cooking-pots, and on these and some coffee brought ashore in the small emergency box fitted into each canoe, they made a satisfactory breakfast, after which, as the result of their confab, it was decided to attempt to circumnavigate the island in the canoes. By this means they thought they were pretty sure of finding Ben as the fact that the spot of land being unchartered argued against its being of any considerable size.

In fifteen minutes the canoes were underway and rapidly skirting the island. On the smooth water they made swift progress and in little more than an hour had rounded the southerly point and were working their way up the other coast. The island had turned out to be even smaller than they thought. They were opposite a pretty little bay in which, instead of the everlasting mangroves, an inviting little strip of pure white sand, fringed by a green palm grove, sloped down to the water, when suddenly their ears were saluted by a shot from the woods.

“Ben Stubbs!” was their simultaneous thought and the canoes were at once headed for the shore.

Having landed, the boys with loud shouts of “Ahoy, Ben!” dashed up through the woods which, to their astonishment, were threaded at this point by a path – a crude track certainly, but still a path. They did not give much time to the consideration of their surroundings however, their minds being bent on finding Ben. Suddenly out of the brush right ahead there sounded the “hoo-hoo” of an owl. Now even Lathrop was enough of a naturalist to know that owls do not hoot in the broad daylight, so they all stopped and exchanged wondering glances.

“Well, that’s a new one,” remarked Billy sententiously.

“Who ever heard of an owl that knocked about in the sunlight before?” added Lathrop.

“Even in this enchanted land,” concluded Harry.

Frank put all further speculation to rout by exclaiming, as the hoot was repeated from a further recess of the forest, and yet again in the still further distance:

“That is not an owl’s hoot, boys. It’s a signal given by some human being.”

No wonder the boys looked startled. After the adventure of the previous night they had good reason to distrust any human being they might encounter on the island. Whoever the inhabitants were they certainly had no good will toward the young adventurers, so much at least was patently evident.

“Well, come on, boys,” cried Frank at last, “There’s no use stopping here,” he added, as the “hoo-hoo” sounded uncannily from right behind them, “our escape to the boats is cut off.”

With grave looks they followed their young leader down the blind trail that led to they knew not what. Suddenly, and without an instant’s warning, a number of wild-looking, unkempt men and youths sprang out of the dense growth as if they had sprouted from the earth. They all carried ancient Winchesters and one or two even had an old-fashioned flint-lock. Their clothes were ragged to a degree. As ragged in fact as their hair and beards. With their thin, peaked noses, sunken cheeks, and wild, hawk-like eyes they were sinister looking specimens.

“What d’ye want y’ar, strangers?” demanded one in a high nasal voice.

“We came ashore on a hunting trip,” rejoined Frank.

At this all the crackers set up a loud roar of laughter.

“You ’uns are hunting big game, we reckon,” remarked a gangling youth in tattered blue homespun.

There was an angry murmur. Things looked just about as bad as they could when suddenly an unexpected diversion occurred. A wild-looking young woman, whose movements, despite her miserable rags, were as graceful as those of a wild fawn, dashed through the jungle and appeared in the middle of the group which hemmed the boys in.

“Josh, you’re a fool. Jed, you’re another, and you too, Amelech, and Will. Why for don’t you alls bring they ’uns into camp?”

The men all looked sheepish.

“Yer see – ,” began one.

The girl stamped her foot impatiently.

“You alls ain’t none of yer got no more sense than so many loons,” she cried angrily. “Don’t you ’uns see that they ’uns is Black Bart’s friends?”

The men looked incredulous, but nevertheless their attitude changed.

“Wall, bein’ that’s the case, come ahead, strangers,” said the tall man who had first spoken and, with their wild escort clustering about them, the wondering boys followed him down the dim trail.

Of who Black Bart might be or where they were going they had not the slightest idea, but that Black Bart’s influence was so far favorable to them there seemed no reason to doubt.