The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless: or, the Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise

CHAPTER XIII
TOM HALSTEAD – READY!

There was no time to raise the anchor. Even had this been possible, it would have been out of the question to get the motors started and running in time to get out of the Drab’s way.

Captain Tom Halstead was taken wholly by surprise, yet he was not caught with his wits asleep.

“Make a dive for those sticks, fellows!” he shouted, bounding for the motor room hatchway. “If we get a chance we’ll give ’em at least a pat for a blow!”

The sticks of firewood that they had used on the night of their long swim were in the motor room. Tom caught up his, wheeling to bound outside again. Joe Dawson was barely a step behind him.

But Hank – he went as though by instinct for the hitching weight that had already made him famous in the annals of the Motor Boat Club.

Swift as they were, the trio were back on deck just in time to witness the final manœuvre of the seventy-footer. That craft, not moving very fast, suddenly veered in its course.

Instead of cutting through the “Restless,” the larger motor boat swung suddenly so as to come up alongside, rail to rail. And now the whole intention was manifest at a glance, for the figures of six men, with their caps pulled well down over their eyes, appeared at the Drab’s rail.

“All hands to repel boarders!” sang out Captain Tom Halstead, his voice ringing defiantly. “Show ’em the best you can!”

Joe swung, with a single-stick trick he had learned and practiced. It was a feint, aimed at the first of the Drab’s crew to try to leap aboard. The intended victim threw up his hands to ward off the blow from the top of his head, but he received, instead, a stinging, crushing slap across the face.

Tom thrust one end of his stick for the face of another of the boarding strangers. The fellow strove to protect his face, and would have guarded easily enough, but, instead, the other end of Tom’s bludgeon struck him in the pit of his stomach, depriving him of all his wind.

“Woof!” grunted Hank, at the first sign of onslaught.

In both hands he clutched that business-like, though not formidable looking, hitching weight. One man set his foot on deck. Hank, almost with deliberation, dropped the weight on the toes of that foot.

There was a yell of pain. Snatching up the weight instantly, Hank let it fly forward and fall across the toes of another of the boarders.

Two of the strangers were limping now. Another was nursing an injured face, from Joe’s heavy blow. Captain Tom’s victim had fallen back aboard his home craft, gasping for breath.

The other two of the invaders got aboard the “Restless” – then wished they hadn’t, for Hank pursued one of them with his terrifying hitching weight, while Tom and Joe divided the sole remaining enemy between them.

Hardly had the affair begun when it ended; it was all over in an instant. The two who had escaped injury leaped back aboard the Drab. Those who needed assistance were helped back. The Drab drifted away, her vagrant course unheeded at first, for it looked as though all aboard had taken part in that disastrous boarding enterprise.

Tom and Hank sprang for their own anchor, while Joe, as soon as he saw the big motor boats drift apart, dropped into the small boat of the “Restless” and rowed swiftly for shore. Hardly had he touched the beach when Powell Seaton, rifle in hand, bounded forth from cover.

“Put across, and see if we can get Hepton, too,” directed the charter-man, in a low voice. “I stepped right up out of the bushes, almost into the face of the fellow who landed on my side of the river. It was neither Dalton nor Lemly. As soon as the fellow saw me he laughed, put a chew of tobacco in his mouth, and went on.”

Hardly had Seaton finished speaking when Joe Dawson shot the bow of the little boat against the further bank. During this time Mr. Seaton had kept his eyes on the drab boat, holding his rifle in readiness in case another effort should be made to ram or board the “Restless.”

“Oh, you-u-u-u!” called Joe, hailing. There was a sound in the woods, and then Hepton came into sight.

“Did you see the man who landed on your side?” whispered Powell Seaton, as Hepton reached the beach.

“Yes; he was just an ordinary roustabout chap,” grunted Hepton, disgustedly. “I had no orders to follow him, so I didn’t take the trouble.”

“That’s right. Jump in and we’ll get aboard the ‘Restless.’”

Hank had the motors working long before Joe returned with his two passengers, and was standing by. Captain Tom was at the wheel, but keeping the searchlight inquisitively on the Drab.

Now, the seventy-footer began to move off slowly down the coast, going at a speed of perhaps six miles an hour. Halstead, without waiting for orders, went in chase, keeping his place two hundred yards behind the other craft. All the while he kept the searchlight swinging over the Drab, from her port to starboard sides.

“That must annoy those fellows,” observed Powell Seaton, with a chuckle, as he stood by the young skipper.

“I reckon it does,” returned Tom, dryly. “But it also prevents their letting anyone off the boat without our seeing it. You see, sir, they’re only about a quarter of a mile off the coast here. Their small boat could make a quick dash for the shore. Even a good swimmer could go overboard. I don’t intend to let anyone get off that seventy-footer without our knowing all about it.”

Halstead had not been silent long when he saw a bright flash from the Drab, aft. It was followed, almost immediately, by the sound of a gun. Then a bullet went by about two feet over their heads.

“That was meant for our searchlight,” laughed Tom Halstead, coolly. “Those fellows want to put it out of business.”

With an ugly cry Hepton leaned over the edge of the forward deck-house, sighting.

“Don’t do that,” called Captain Tom, sharply. Then he added: “I beg your pardon, Mr. Seaton, but I don’t believe you want any shooting to come from us unless it’s necessary.”

“No, I don’t,” replied the charter-man, thoughtfully. “Dalton and Lemly seem willing to take desperate chances, acting like pirates, in fact. But we don’t want to kill anyone, and, above all, we want to be very sure we have the law on our side.”

“They fired our way,” urged Hepton, rather stubbornly. “We have a right to defend ourselves.”

“But they sent only one shot,” replied Seaton. “They might afterwards claim that it was an accidental discharge. Unless they make it very plain that they’re playing the part of pirates, we’d better take the best of care not to put ourselves wrong before the law.”

“That’s all right, sir,” admitted Hepton. “But, while I’m willing to take any chances that go with my job, it doesn’t seem just fair to ask me to be exposed to bullets from that other boat without the right to answer their fire.”

“You can get down before the forward deck-house, Hepton,” nodded Halstead, pleasantly. “You can’t be hit through the deck-house.”

“But you can be hit, fine,” objected Hepton.

“Like Mr. Seaton,” answered the young skipper, “I’d rather take the chance than do anything to put us in the wrong.”

Grumbling a bit, though under his breath, Hepton seated himself where the forward deck-house would protect him. Joe remained leaning nonchalantly over the edge of the house.

“I wonder if they will dare to keep up a fusillade?” he presently said, watching the deck of the drab boat in the glare of light that Halstead now held steadily on it.

“If they fire another shot at us,” replied Powell Seaton, “then Hepton and I will crouch over the forward deck-house, rifles ready, and fire at the flash of the third shot. We’ll keep within the law, but we won’t stand for any determined piracy that we have the power to resist.”

“Take the wheel, Hank,” called Tom, presently. Then the young skipper signed to his employer that he wanted to speak with him aft.

“Mr. Seaton,” began Tom, “I want to ask you a few questions, with a view to making a suggestion that may be worth while.”

“Go ahead, Halstead.”

“You trust me now, fully? Have you gotten wholly over your suspicions of early this afternoon?”

“Halstead,” replied the charter-man, in a tone uneasy with emotion, “I’m wholly ashamed of anything that I may have said or thought. You’ve shown me, since, how perfectly brave you are. I don’t believe a young man with your cool, resolute grit, and your clear head, could be anything but absolutely honest.”

“Thank you,” acknowledged the young motor boat captain. “Now, Mr. Seaton, though the two sets of papers describing and locating your diamond field are out of your hands, don’t you remember the contents of the papers well enough to sit down at a desk and duplicate them?”

“Yes; surely,” nodded Mr. Seaton, slowly.

“You feel certain that you can seat yourself and write out a set of papers that would tell a man down in Brazil just how to locate the diamond field?”

“I can, Halstead. It would be a matter of some hours of writing, that’s all. But why are you asking this? What plan have you in your mind?”

“Well, I’ve got a hunch, sir,” replied Tom Halstead, quietly, “that you’re never going to see the lost papers again. If Anson Dalton found you getting close to him, and knew you could seize the papers, he’d destroy them. It seems to me that our sole game must be to prevent his ever getting those papers to Brazil ahead of a second set that you can just as well write to-night.”

“If we trail him all the time,” replied Powell Seaton, thoughtfully, “we can know whether the fellow succeeds in getting away on a ship to Brazil. He can’t go on that drab boat ahead, can he?”

“The seventy-footer would be quite good enough a boat to make the voyage to Brazil,” Halstead answered. “So would the ‘Restless,’ for that matter. The only trouble would be that neither boat could carry anywhere near enough gasoline for such a voyage.”

“Then Anson Dalton, if he gets away to Brazil, will have to board some regular liner or freighter? Well, as long as we keep him in sight, we’ll know whether he’s doing that.”

“But Dalton will get desperate,” Tom warned his employer. “While holding onto the papers he has succeeded in obtaining, he can make a copy, and he may very likely determine to send the copies to your old enemy, Terrero, by mail. Now, Mr. Seaton, it seems to me that your best hope is to duplicate the missing papers at once, and, if you can’t find in haste a messenger you’ll trust, then you had better send the papers by registered mail to your friends in Rio Janeiro.”

Powell Seaton stared at the young skipper, going deathly pale.

“Captain Halstead, don’t you understand that the possession of such a set of papers, at Rio Janeiro, would mean that the possessor could locate and file a patent to the diamond field, of which no one, save myself, at present knows the exact location? Why, even if the postal authorities do their very best to put the papers in the proper hands, anyone like a dishonest clerk might get the papers in his hands. The temptation would be powerful for anyone who had the papers to locate the mine at once for himself.”

“I understand, fully,” agreed Captain Tom. “But the whole thing has become a desperate case, now, and some desperate chances must be taken if you’re to have a good chance to win out against Terrero and his crooked friends.”

“Then you – you – honestly believe I’d better make out another set of papers and mail them to my friends of the syndicate, at Rio Janeiro?” faltered Mr. Seaton.

“Yes; unless you prefer to be almost certain of losing your fight for the great fortune. For Dalton, of course, knows that you can send a set of the papers by mail. He’ll feel like taking the same desperate chance in order to have a better chance of getting in ahead of you.”

“By mail – even registered mail?” groaned Mr. Seaton. “It seems an awful – desperate chance to take. Yet–”

“Prepare a duplicate set of the papers,” proposed Tom Halstead, “and, if you’ll trust me, I’ll board the first Rio-bound steamer that we meet, and go through for you. I’ll give you every guarantee that’s possible to find your people in Rio and turn the papers over to them.”

“Will you?” demanded Seaton, peering eagerly into his young skipper’s eyes.

“Then you’ll trust me to go as your messenger to Rio?”

“Yes, in a minute, Halstead! Yet I’m thinking of the great danger you’d be running. At this moment Terrero’s spies must be plentiful in Rio Janeiro. Why, even every steamer that leaves New York for Brazil may carry his men aboard, alert, watchful and deadly. You don’t know what a man like Terrero is like. The constant danger to you–”

“Constant danger,” laughed Tom Halstead, softly, “is something that most men learn readily to face. Otherwise, wars would be impossible.”

“But that is very different,” retorted Powell Seaton, quickly. “In war men have the constant elbow-touch, the presence and support of comrades. But you would be alone – one against hundreds, perhaps, at the very instant when you set foot ashore in Brazil.”

“I’ll take the chance, if you let me,” declared Captain Tom. “But, now, sir, you’re losing time. Why don’t you go below, get writing materials, and start in earnest to get out the duplicate papers?”

“I will,” nodded the charter-man. “Should I change my mind, it will be easy enough to burn the sheets after I have written them.”

As Powell Seaton turned to go down into the cabin Joe Dawson called sharply:

“Tom, something’s up ahead! Come here, quickly!”

CHAPTER XIV
GRIT GOES UP THE SIGNAL MAST

Even before Captain Tom turned he heard the sudden throb of the twin screws of the propellers, and felt the speed being reversed. That told him, instantly, that Joe had found some reason for stopping the “Restless” in a hurry.

As the young commander bounded forward the steady ray of his own searchlight showed him that the seventy-footer had also stopped her headway.

Hank was still at the wheel, but young Dawson was beside him on the bridge deck.

“There they go – dropping their anchor overboard,” cried Joe, pointing. “The water’s shallow along this coast, of course.”

“We’ll move right in, between that boat and the shore, and drop anchor, too,” decided Captain Halstead, taking the wheel and reaching for the engine control. He sent the “Restless” slowly forward into place, then shut off headway, ordering:

“Joe, you and Hank get our anchor over. Dalton can’t get anything or anybody ashore, now, without our knowing it.”

“But what can his plan be, anchoring on an open coast?” demanded young Dawson, as he came back from heaving the anchor.

“Our job is just to wait and see,” laughed Captain Halstead.

Mr. Seaton came on deck again, to learn what this sudden stopping of the boat meant.

“It’s some trick, and all we can do is to watch it, sir,” reported the young skipper of the “Restless,” pointing to the anchored Drab. “Yet I think the whole situation, sir, points to the necessity for your taking my recent advice and acting on it without the loss of an hour.”

“Either the registered mail, or yourself as a special messenger,” whispered Seaton, hoarsely, in the boy’s ear. “Yes, yes! I’ll fly at the work.”

“Don’t hurry back below, though,” advised Halstead. “Stroll along, as though you were going below for a nap. A night glass on the seventy-footer is undoubtedly watching all our movements.”

As the two boats swung idly at anchor, on that smooth sea, their bows lay some three hundred yards apart. The night air was so still, and voices carried so far, that those on the deck of the “Restless” were obliged to speak very quietly.

Over on the seventy-footer but one human being showed himself to the watchers on the smaller boat. This solitary individual paced the drab boat’s bridge deck, puffing at a short-stemmed pipe.

“I’d give a lot to be smart enough to guess what their game is,” whispered Joe, curiously.

“It’s a puzzle,” sighed Captain Tom Halstead. “It looks, now, as though Dalton and Lemly are trying to hold us here while someone else does something on shore.”

“Then you think the two who landed on either bank of the river–”

“We know that neither of them was Dalton or Lemly, but I’m beginning to suspect that one, or both, of those fellows carried messages, somewhere and of some nature. In that case, we’re letting our curiosity hold us up here while the enemy are accomplishing something at some other point.”

“Confound ’em!” growled Joe, prodding the bulwarks with his toe. “They’re clever rascals!”

“Meanwhile,” whispered Tom, “I’ve just been thinking of something else that we ought to be doing.”

“What?”

“There may be another steamship for Rio Janeiro passing somewhere in these waters at any time. We ought to send out a call on the wireless at least once an hour. There’s something else in the wind, old fellow, and we do want to know when the first steam vessel for Rio passes through these waters.”

“Then I’ll go below and get at work at the sending key,” proposed Dawson. “Send out the wireless call once an hour, you say?”

“Yes; yet we don’t want to forget that we’re being watched all the time from that old drab pirate yonder. Don’t let the enemy see you going to the cabin.”

“I’ll drop down into the motor room and use the passageway through.”

Dawson was gone ten minutes. When he returned he shook his head, then stood looking out over the sea. Excepting the “Restless” and the drab seventy-footer there was no craft in sight. Not so much as a lighthouse shed its beams over the ocean at this point of the coast.

“Say, it’s weird, isn’t it?” muttered Joe Dawson. “We can’t see a thing but ourselves, yet down in the cabin I’ve just been chatting with the Savannah boat, the New Orleans boat, two Boston fruit steamers, the southbound Havana liner and a British warship. Look out there. Where are they? Yet all are within reach of my electric wave!”

“There are no longer any pathless roads of the sea – not since the wireless came in,” declared Tom Halstead. “If there were enough vessels to relay us we could talk direct with London now. The next thing will be a telephone in every stateroom, with a wireless central on the saloon deck or the spar deck. But gracious! We’ve been forgetting all about our poor prisoner in the starboard stateroom. He must have a royal case of hunger by now. Tell Hank to take him in some food and to feed the poor fellow, since he can’t use his own hands.”

Later time began to drag by. There were few signs of life aboard the seventy-footer. Sending Joe and Hepton down to the motor room berths as watch below, Tom kept Hank on deck with him. Bye-and-bye Joe and Hepton took their trick on deck, while Halstead and Hank Butts went below for some sleep. Through most of the night Powell Seaton remained hard at work over his writing, often pausing to read and make some corrections.

Morning found the two boats still at anchor. With sunrise came a stiffer wind that rocked the “Restless” a good deal.

“Now, look out for one of the sudden September gales,” warned Captain Tom Halstead, as, after the second short sleep of the night, he came up on deck, yawning and stretching. He stepped over to read the barometer, then turned quickly to Joe.

“Looks like something’s going to happen, doesn’t it?” queried Dawson.

“Yes; there’s a disturbance heading this way,” admitted Tom, looking around at the sky. “Yet it may be hours, or a day, off yet. If we were going under canvas, though, I’d shorten it.”

“The captain of the Drab evidently believes in being prepared,” hinted Joe, nodding in the direction of the other craft. Two men were now visible on the deck of the seventy-footer. They were taking up anchor, though not doing it with either speed or stealth.

“I reckon we have to take our sailing orders from them,” nodded the young skipper. “You’d better get the motors on the mote, Joe. I’ll have Hank and Hepton help me up with our anchor.”

Soon afterwards the Drab was heading north at a ten-mile gait; half a minute later the “Restless” started in leisurely pursuit.

After half an hour or so the Drab headed into another open roadstead, anchoring a quarter of a mile from shore. Tom dropped anchor some three hundred yards to the southward.

“Keep your eye seaward, Hank,” directed the young skipper. “Joe, if you’ll see whether Mr. Seaton wants anything, Hepton and I will keep a keen eye on the shore.”

“Mr. Seaton is asleep in the port stateroom,” Dawson reported back a moment later. “I’ve made eight calls through the night, but I’ll get at the sending key again, and see whether there’s anything in our line within hail.”

Hardly had Joe Dawson vanished below when Skipper Tom uttered a sudden exclamation. A sharp, bright glint of light from under the trees on shore caught his watchful eye.

“Look there!” the young captain called, pointing to the flash.

“There’s another,” muttered Hank Butts, pointing further up the coast.

“By Jimminy, there’s a third,” cried Hepton, pointing.

“Signals for the Dalton-Lemly crew,” uttered Tom, disgustedly. “They are getting news, now, and of a kind we can’t read. Hank! Call Mr. Seaton. He ought to be on deck, watching this.”

The charter-man was speedily up into the open.

In the meantime Joe, at the powerful sending apparatus below, sent the spark leaping across the spark-gap, and, dashing up the aerials, there shot into space the electric waves intended to be gathered in by any other wireless operator within fifty or sixty miles.

Crash-sh! Ass-ss-ssh! hissed the spark, bounding, leaping to its work like a thing of almost animal life.

Bang! This last note that came on the air was sharp, clear, though not loud. Whew-ew! A bullet uttered a swift sigh as it sped past the signaling mast twenty feet over the heads of the watchers of the “Restless.”

“Confound it! Rascals on shore are shooting at us,” exclaimed Powell Seaton, turning swiftly to peer at the forest-clad shore line.

“No; they’re shooting at our aerials!” retorted Captain Tom Halstead.

Bang! Whe-ew-ew! Clash! Then there was a metallic clash, for the second rifle shot from the land had scored a fair bull’s-eye among the clustered aerial wires. There was a rattle, and some of the severed wire ends hung down.

With an ugly grunt, Hepton bounded down into the motor room, passing up the two rifles.

“We must be careful, though,” warned Mr. Seaton. “This time they’re not shooting at us.”

“Load and be ready, though!” uttered Captain Tom, dryly. “They soon will be shooting at us.”

Several more shots clattered out, and two more of the bullets did further damage among the aerial wires. Then Joe came dancing up on deck, his eyes full of ire.

“The infernal scoundrels have put our spark out of business,” he cried, disgustedly. “We haven’t wire enough left to send five miles. Where do the shots come from?”

“From the shore,” Halstead replied, “but see for yourself if you can locate the marksmen. We can’t. They’re using smokeless powder, and are hidden so far in under the trees that we can’t even make out the flashes.”

“It’s out of my line to locate them,” announced Joe Dawson, with vigor. “It’s mine to see that the aerials are put on a working basis again.”

He vanished, briefly, into the motor room, soon reappearing with a coil of wire and miscellaneous tools.

“Good!” commended Halstead, joyously. “Mr. Seaton, we have wire enough to repair a dozen smashes, if need be. On up with you, Joe. I’m at your heels.”

Joe started to climb the mast, using the slightly projecting footholds placed there for that purpose. Tom let him get a clear lead, then started up after his chum.

From the shore broke out a rapid, intermittent volley. Steel-clad bullets sang a song full of menace about that signal mast.

“Come down, boys! You’ll be killed!” roared Mr. Seaton, looking up apprehensively.

While Joe kept on climbing, in silence, Skipper Tom looked down with a cool grin.

“Killed?” he repeated. “Well, if we’re not, we’ll fix the aerials. We can’t allow strangers to put us out of business!”

Joe found his place to go to work. Tom halted, with his head on a level with his chum’s knees. From the shore there came another burst of rifle-fire, and the air about them was sternly melodious with the pest-laden hum of bullets. Two of the missiles glancingly struck wires just above Dawson’s head.

In the lull that followed Joe’s voice was heard:

“Hold the wire, Tom. Pass me the pliers.”