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

CHAPTER XV
PLAYING SALT WATER BLIND MAN’S BUFF

“I’ve got to do something!” growled Hepton, his teeth tightly shut.

Raising his rifle to his shoulder, making his guess by sound, the man let two shots drive at the shore, not far back from the beach’s edge. Then, after a pause and a long look, he let three more shots drive, slightly changing his sighting each time.

“Come on, Mr. Seaton,” he urged. “They’re firing on your skipper and engineer this time. It’s up to us to answer ’em – clear case of self-preservation. The first law that was ever invented!”

Bang! bang! rang Seaton’s rifle, twice. He, too, fired for the forest, near the beach. It was like the man to hope he had hit no one, but he was determined to stop if possible this direct attack on Tom Halstead and Joe Dawson.

Evidently the first sign of resistance was not to stop the bothering tactics of those on shore, for one wire that Joe was handling was zipped out of his hands.

“They mean business, the enemy,” called down Skipper Tom, softly, to the tune of a low laugh. “But we’ll get rigged, in spite of them. All we ask for is that they let us get the wire fixed often enough for a few minutes of sending and receiving once an hour.”

Hepton and his employer continued to fire, using a good deal of ammunition. The guard was much more vengeful in his firing and in his attempts to locate the hidden marksmen than was Seaton.

“That’s what those two men went ashore for last night,” called down Halstead, quietly. “First of all, to fool us and get us guessing, and, next, to hunt up some of their own rascals for this work. The seventy-footer led us into this trap on purpose. Finely done, wasn’t it?”

“It shows,” retorted Mr. Seaton, wrathily, “that along this sparsely settled shore there is a numerous gang organized for some law-breaking purpose.”

“Smuggling, most likely,” guessed Tom. “And it must pay unusually well, too, for them to have such a big and so well-armed a crew.”

Three more shots sounded from the shore. All of the trio of bullets went uncomfortably close to the young skipper and engineer, though doing no actual damage. Hepton, with his ear trained to catch the direction of the discharge sounds, changed his guess, firing in a new direction.

“There, it’s done, until it’s put out of business again,” muttered Joe, finally. “Slide, Tom.”

Almost immediately after Dawson disappeared the crash of the spark across the spark-gap and up the wires was heard. The young wireless operator of the “Restless” was making the most of any time that might be left to him.

“How about that storm that threatened last night, captain?” inquired Mr. Seaton. “Has it come any nearer?”

“No, sir,” replied the motor boat captain, shaking his head. “It acted the way many September storms do on this coast. It passed by us, out to sea, and ought to be down by Havana by now. The barometer has been rising, and is at nearly the usual pressure. But I don’t like the looks of the sky over there” – pointing.

“Why not?” queried the charter-man, following the gesture with his eyes.

“We’ll be playing in great luck, sir,” answered the young captain, “if a fog doesn’t roll in where the storm threatened to come.”

“Fog?” Mr. Seaton’s tone had an aghast ring to it.

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you sure, Captain?”

“No, sir. It’s only a possibility, but a good one.”

Hepton was making his rifle bark again, deep, snappy and angry in its throat, in answer to a challenge from shore, but Powell Seaton stood surveying the weather with a look of deepest concern.

Then he turned to regard the drab seventy-footer at anchor near by.

“It would be the enemy’s real chance, wouldn’t it?” he inquired.

“Just what I dread, sir,” Captain Tom admitted. “Let us be wrapped in a thick bank of fog, and the Drab would be out of our vision and hearing in a very short time.”

“Shades of hard luck!” groaned the charter-man, growing pallid.

Off on the seaward horizon an indefinite haze was soon observable. To the untrained eye it didn’t look like much. Though Mr. Seaton spoke of it, he didn’t appear much concerned.

“It’ll be a pity to bother him until the time comes when he throbs with worry,” thought Captain Tom Halstead, sympathetically. “But if that low-hanging haze doesn’t spell t-r-o-u-b-l-e, then I’ve been raised among a different breed of sea fogs!”

The crashing of sparks over the spark-gap had ceased for the present, and Joe, reporting that there was no wireless craft within reach of his limited aerials, was on deck once more, waiting until the time should come around for another trial.

Hank had gone below to start the motors, connecting them with the dynamo, to renew the supply of electrical “juice” in the storage batteries, which was running low, as proved by the last message sent.

The chug-chug of the twin motors was heard over on the seventy-footer, and soon an unknown man, his cap pulled well down over his eyes, appeared at the stern of the Drab. He took a long, keen look at the “Restless.”

“He’s wondering if we’re going to hoist the mud-hook,” smiled Tom.

“And hoping that we are,” grinned Joe. “Oh, but we must be an eyesore to those wistful scoundrels!”

Powell Seaton now spent most of his time gazing at the line of haze, which, by degrees, was growing bigger and coming nearer.

“Captain Halstead,” he faltered, “I’m beginning to feel certain that you’re a prophet.”

“Or a Jonah?” laughed Tom, though it was not a very cheerful sort of laugh.

“No, no, no!” cried the charter-man, earnestly. “Never that! The little luck that I’ve had in these trying days has all come through you youngsters. Without you I’d have been flat on my back in the fearful game that I’m playing with such desperate hopefulness against hope. But I see our fog is coming in as a sure thing. If it envelops us, what can you do with regard to that drab-tinted sea-monster over yonder?”

“It depends upon the depth and duration of the fog, sir,” Halstead answered. “We have our motors going. At the first strong sign of our getting hemmed in by it we’ll lift our mud-hook [the anchor] and move in closer. If the fog isn’t too thick we may be able to take up a position where we can at least observe her dimly. If she starts to pull out into a fog-bank, we’ll follow at her heels, keeping as close as necessary to keep the Drab’s stern flag-pole in sight. We won’t lose her if there’s any way of stopping it.”

The advance guard of the fog was in upon them by the time that Joe went once more to his sending table in the forward end of the cabin. The light mist extended to the shore, though it did not altogether screen it. But the lookout on the Drab’s deck appeared wholly watchful at the weather side of the craft.

“Not in touch with any other wireless boat yet,” reported Dawson, coming on deck, presently.

“Look at that heavier white curtain rolling in,” uttered Powell Seaton, in a tone near to anguish.

Whoever was in the drab boat’s pilot house took occasion to toot derisively twice on the auto whistle.

“That’s as much as warning us that their turn is coming,” declared Mr. Seaton, wrathfully.

Their faces were wet, now, with the fog as it rolled in. Slowly the nearby shore faded, wrapped in the mist.

“We’d better get up anchor,” decided Skipper Tom. “Come along, Hank, and you, Hepton.”

As the anchor came up and was stowed, Captain Halstead moved the deck speed control ever so little. The “Restless” began to barely move through the water. They overhauled the seventy-footer, passing within a hundred feet of her starboard rail. Yet only the same deck watch appeared in sight. He favored those on the bridge deck of the “Restless” with a tantalizing grin.

Halstead slowly circled the drab seventy-footer, Mr. Seaton keeping ever a watchful eye on the stranger.

“There! They’re hoisting anchor!” muttered the charter-man, at last.

“I saw ’em start,” nodded the young skipper. “And the fog is growing thicker every minute.”

“How are you going to beat them, if they try hard to get away?”

“I don’t know,” confessed Halstead, honestly. “We may keep ’em in trail, but the chances are all in favor of the drab boat.”

Presently the seventy-footer slipped slowly away from her anchorage. Halstead promptly closed in, keeping not more than a hundred feet behind her drab stern. If the fog grew no heavier, and the enemy’s speed no greater, he could maintain his position.

But the sea-born fog continued to come, looking as though it arrived in ever-increasing billows.

Once the seventy-footer’s stern vanished for a moment or two. Tom, cautiously increasing the speed, soon came in sight of that drab stern once more.

“I don’t want to croak, sir,” warned the young motor boat skipper, “but, luck aside, it looks as though we’re about done for in this salt water blindman’s buff.”

“I realize it,” nodded Powell Seaton.

Just then the seventy-footer crawled ahead again into the fog, and was lost to the pursuer. Throwing the wheel somewhat to port, Captain Halstead tried to come up on the Drab’s quarter. A full minute’s anxious suspense followed, but the enemy’s stern did not show through the white shroud of the atmosphere.

Then Halstead threw off the power without applying the reverse. The “Restless” drifted under what was left of her headway.

“They’ve done it,” uttered Tom Halstead, grimly. “They’ve given us the slip – gotten away in this white mass of mystery!”

Shaking, Powell Seaton leaned against the deck-house, his face pallid with sheer misery.

CHAPTER XVI
A GLEAM OF HOPE THROUGH THE SHROUD OF FOG

Resting one hand lightly on the top spokes of the wheel, young Halstead turned to his employer with a look of keenest sympathy.

“Is there any order you wish to give now, Mr. Seaton?”

“What order can I give,” demanded the charter-man, with a piteous smile, “unless it be to say, ‘find the drab boat’?”

Tom made a grimace.

“Of course I know how senseless that order would be,” pursued Seaton, with a nervous twitching of his lips. In fact, at this moment it filled one with pity, just to witness the too-plain signs of his inward torment and misery.

There was a pause, broken, after a few moments, by the charter-man saying, as he made a palpable effort to pull himself together:

“Halstead, you’ve shown so much sense all along that I leave it to you to do whatever you deem best.”

Skipper Tom’s brow cleared at once. A look of purpose flashed into his eyes.

“Then we’ll keep eastward out to sea, sir, or a little bit to the northeast, until we get out in the usual path of the southbound steamers.”

“And after that?” demanded Powell Seaton, eagerly.

“All we can do, sir, then, will be to wait until we get a wireless communication with other vessels.”

“Go ahead, lad.”

Tom moved the speed control slowly, until the “Restless” went loafing along at a speed of six miles an hour. Heading weatherward, he gave more heed to the wheel, for there were signs that the water was going to roughen somewhat.

“Hank!” called the young skipper, and Butts came to the bridge deck.

“Sound the fog-whistle every minute,” directed Halstead.

“Too-whoo-oo-oo!” sounded the melancholy, penetrating note through the mist.

“Are you going to keep that up, Captain Halstead?” inquired Mr. Seaton, in instant apprehension.

“Got to, sir. It’s the law of the ocean in a deep fog.”

“But it signals our location to the enemy on the drab boat.”

“If it keeps the seventy-footer within sound of our horn all the time,” laughed Halstead, “so much the better. Then the Drab will be within range of our marine glasses when the fog lifts.”

“It shows those rascals the direction of our course, too,” cried Seaton, in a still troubled voice.

“We’ve got to observe the law, sir, even if they do break it,” Tom gently urged. “That other boat’s people have been acting like pirates all along, but that would be no excuse for us. What if we cut into a lumber-laden schooner, and sank her at once?”

Mr. Seaton was obliged to nod his assent.

“It’s a fearfully tough piece of luck for us, this fog,” Tom continued, feelingly, “but we’ve got to make the most of it.”

“And, if Anson Dalton gets aboard any Brazil-bound steamer while we’re in this fog, the whole great game for myself and my friends is lost,” faltered Seaton.

“If that steamer has a wireless installation,” retorted the young motor boat skipper, “then we’ve every chance in the world to reach her before the Drab possibly can. Joe will hear her wireless two hours or more before the other fellows can hear or locate a fog-horn.”

“It’s – it’s a dreadful uncertainty that this fog puts upon us,” groaned the unhappy charter-man. “Dalton may take advantage of this white shroud to run straight for the nearest post office and mail the papers that he stole.”

Captain Tom’s mildly warning look checked Mr. Seaton ere he had time to say more in the hearing of Hepton.

“If you’ll come aft, sir, we’ll talk this over,” suggested Halstead, in a low voice.

“Gladly,” murmured the charter-man.

“Now, then, sir,” almost whispered the motor boat skipper, as he and his employer stood on the deck aft, “you’ve written out a duplicate of the papers that were stolen.”

“I have the duplicate set in an inside pocket,” responded Seaton, tapping his coat.

“Are you ready to chance the mailing of them?”

“It’s – it’s a fearful risk, a terrible one, even to think of sending such priceless papers by registered mail.”

“At least, sir,” urged Tom, “you would be sure the documents were properly started on their way.”

“Yet with no surety that they wouldn’t fall into wrong hands at the other end,” shuddered Seaton.

“Then, since your life would undoubtedly be the forfeit if you attempted to take the papers yourself, will you trust me, or Joe, to board the first steamer we pick up by wireless?”

“Wh – what do you advise, Halstead?” queried Seaton, with the air and tone of a man tortured by uncertainty and hesitation.

“I advise, sir, your making a very definite move of one kind or another, without the loss of another hour,” rejoined young Halstead, almost sharply. “Simply drifting in a fog won’t settle anything.”

“Oh, I know that only too well,” replied Powell Seaton, desperately.

“Let us,” proposed Skipper Tom, “take a northerly course. We’ll try to pick up a Rio-bound steamship. Failing in that, let us put in for land, you to send the papers off by registered mail – or I’ll take train for New York and go by the first boat.”

“I – I’ll do it,” agreed Powell Seaton, falteringly. “Halstead, my boy, I’ve pondered and worried over this until my brain almost refuses to act. I’m glad to have your clearer brain to steady me – to guide me.”

“Are your papers sealed?” asked Captain Tom, after a little further thought.

“No; but I can soon attend to that.”

“I’d go below and do it, then, sir.”

“Thank you; I will.”

Powell Seaton, as he started down the after companionway, trembled so that compassionate Halstead aided him. Then, returning, the Motor Boat Club boy stepped steadily forward to the bridge deck.

Studying the time, Tom determined to keep to the present course for fifteen minutes more, and at the same speed, then to head about due north. This, he figured, would keep him about in the path of southmoving coast steamships.

Hank, who was still at the wheel, took the orders. Joe, after a glance at the bridge deck chronometer, dropped below on his way to his sending table. The crash of his call soon sounded at the spark-gap and quivered on its lightning way up the aerials.

“Nothing happening in my line,” announced Dawson, soberly, when, some minutes later, he returned to deck.

Captain Tom stood by, almost idly attending to the fog-horn, though Butts would have been able to do that as well as steer.

“Did you get anything at all?” Halstead inquired.

“Nothing; not a click by way of answer,” Joe Dawson responded. “I had half a hope that I might be able to pick up a ship that could relay back to another, and so on to New York. If that had happened, I was going to ask the companies direct, in New York, when their next boats would leave port. I’ll do that, if I get a chance. I’m bound to know when to look for the next Rio boat.”

“If this fog seems likely to last,” resumed Halstead, “I’ve been thinking about increasing to ten miles and keeping right on toward New York.”

“Bully!” enthused Dawson. “Fine!”

“Yes; so I thought at first, but I have changed my mind. If we get wholly out of these waters we might put a messenger aboard a steamship bound for Rio Janeiro, and then Dalton, by hanging about in these waters, might find a chance to board. If he suspected our messenger – and it may be you or I – it might be the same old Clodis incident all over again.”

Joe’s face lengthened.

“It’s growing wearing, to hang about here all the time,” he complained. “I’m near to having operator’s cramp, as it is.”

“Don’t you dare!” Skipper Tom warned him.

“Well, then, I won’t,” agreed Dawson.

For four hours more the “Restless” continued nearly due north, at the same original speed of six miles an hour. Halstead began to think of putting back, slowly retracing his course. Joe went down for his regular hourly “sit” at the sending table.

“Hurrah!” yelled Dawson, emerging from the motor room several minutes later.

He was waving a paper and appeared highly excited.

“Picked up anything?” called Tom Halstead, eagerly.

“Yes, sirree!” uttered Joe, delightedly, thrusting a paper into his chum’s hand. “The Jepson freight liner, ‘Glide,’ is making an extra trip out of schedule. Here’s her position, course and gait. We ought to be up to her within two and a half hours.”

Tom himself took the news to Powell Seaton. That gentleman, on hearing the word, leaped from the lower berth in the port stateroom.

“Glorious!” he cried, his eyes gleaming feverishly as he hustled into an overcoat.

Then he whispered, in a lower voice:

“Tom Halstead, you’re – you’re – It!”

“Eh?” demanded the young motor boat skipper.

“You’ll take the papers on to Rio!”

A gleam lit up Halstead’s eyes. Yet, in another instant he felt a sense of downright regret. He was not afraid of any dangers that the trip might involve, but he hated the thought of being weeks away from this staunch, trim little craft of which he was captain and half-owner.

“All right, sir,” he replied, though without enthusiasm. “I’ll undertake it – I’ll go to Rio for you.”

CHAPTER XVII
WHEN THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB BOYS “WENT DAFFY”

All this had been spoken in whispers. Both Mr. Seaton and Tom Halstead were keenly aware of the presence of the prisoner in the starboard stateroom.

“You don’t seem as overjoyed as I thought you might be,” observed Powell Seaton, in a tone of disappointment.

“I’m going through for you, sir, and I’ll deliver the papers into the proper hands, if I live,” replied Tom Halstead.

“And you’re not afraid of the big chances of danger that you may be running?” persisted his employer.

“Why, I believe every human being has times when he’s afraid,” Skipper Tom replied, honestly. “But I shan’t be any more afraid than you’ve seen me once or twice since this cruise began.”

“Then I’ll bet on your success,” rejoined Mr. Seaton, holding out his hand, which the young motor boat captain grasped.

“Suppose we go on deck where we can talk a little more safely, sir,” whispered Tom.

They made their way above and forward.

“Any further word, Dawson?” inquired the charter-man.

“I haven’t signaled since I brought up that last message,” Joe replied.

“Oh, of course not,” retorted Powell Seaton. “It was an idiotic question for me to ask, but I’m so excited, boys, that I don’t pretend to know altogether what I’m talking about.”

Captain Halstead bent forward to look at the compass. He found Hank Butts steering as straight as the needle itself pointed.

“What on earth can I do to pass the time of waiting?” wondered Mr. Seaton, feverishly.

“Eat,” laughed Tom. “You haven’t had a meal since I don’t know when. Give me the wheel, Hank, and see what you can fix up for Mr. Seaton in the way of food.”

Yet, poking along at that slow rate of speed, cutting through the fog but not able to see a boat’s length ahead, proved an ordeal that tested the patience of all.

After awhile Joe returned to the sending table, in order to get in touch with the “Glide” and make sure that the two vessels were still approaching each other head-on.

“It’s wonderful – wonderful, this wireless telegraph that keeps all the great ships and many of the small ones in constant communication,” declared Powell Seaton, coming up on deck after having finished his meal. “Yet it seems odd, doesn’t it, to think of even freight boats carrying a wireless installation?”

“Not when you stop to consider the value of the freight steamships, and the value of their cargoes,” rejoined Tom Halstead. “If a ship at sea gets into any trouble, where in older times she would have been lost, now all she has to do is to signal to other vessels within two or three hundred miles, and relief is sent on its way to the ship that needs it. In the case of a freight steamer the wireless aboard means greater safety for the crew and often saves the owners the cost of ship and cargo. The Standard Oil people were among the first to think of the wireless for cargo-carrying boats. They installed the wireless on their tank steamers, and it wasn’t long before the owners of other freight vessels realized the value of such an installation. Now, every freight boat that amounts to much has the wireless aboard.”

“You speak of the wireless being used at a distance of two or three hundred miles,” pursued the charter-man. “Dawson can’t send the electric wave that far, can he?”

“No, sir; because our signal mast is shorter than that on a big steamship. The length of our aerials is less. Still, we can handle a message for a pretty good distance.”

“What distance, Halstead?”

“Why, our ideal distance is about sixty miles; we can make it seventy easily, and, under the best conditions, we can drive a message, so that it can be understood, for about ninety miles. But that doesn’t really hold us down to even ninety miles. If there’s a wireless ship within our radius we can ask her to relay for us. With a few ships spread out at proper intervals we could easily wire direct from the ‘Restless’ to the coast of England.”

“Joe,” called Tom to his chum as the latter came on deck between wireless performances, “do you notice that the fog is lightening off to weatherward?”

“Yes; the fog is heaviest off to westward, and we’ve been working out of that.”

“By the time we reach the ‘Glide’ I believe we’re going to have some open weather around us.”

“It will be fine if we do,” nodded young Dawson. “It’s nasty work going up alongside of a big ship when you can’t see fifty feet away.”

As they watched and waited, while the “Restless” stole slowly along, the fog about them became steadily lighter, though off to the westward it remained a thick, dense bank.

“Say, it’d be great to have four or five miles of clear sea around us, so that we could see whether the seventy-foot boat has kept to anything like our course,” declared Hank.

At last the “Restless” came to within twenty minutes’ hailing distance of the “Glide,” as the young motor boat skipper figured it. Then, a few minutes later, a deep-toned fog-horn came to them faintly. As the minutes passed, now, this blast became heavier and nearer.

“I’ve only a few minutes left with you, Joe, old chum,” declared Captain Tom, with a half-sigh. “You’ll take great, good care of the dear old craft, I know, while I’m gone.”

“As soon as Mr. Seaton is done with the boat I’ll tie her up until you get back – that’s what I’ll do,” grunted Dawson. “No sailing without a skipper for me.”

“You needn’t look so bad about it, Cap,” grinned Hepton. “I wish it was me, cut out for a long trip to Rio and back. Maybe I wouldn’t jump at such a chance. Some folks are born lucky!”

Too-woo-oo!

The oncoming steamship’s deep fog-horn sounded loud and sullen, now. Tom Halstead, still at the wheel, was peering constantly forward for the first glimpse of the freighter, for the fog had lightened much by this time.

“There she is!” hailed keen-eyed Joe, on the lookout for this sight. “You can just make out her bow poking up through the fog. She must be a thousand feet off yet.”

With two boats approaching each other, this distance was, of course, quickly covered. Finding that he could see the other craft at such a distance, Skipper Tom threw on a little more speed, making a wide turn and so coming up alongside on a parallel course.

“Take the wheel, Hank,” directed the young skipper, seizing the megaphone and stepping to the port rail.

“‘Glide,’ ahoy!” bawled Halstead through the megaphone.

“‘Restless,’ ahoy!” came back from the freighter’s bridge.

“Lie to and let us come alongside, won’t you? We want to put a passenger aboard.”

“Passenger? Where for?”

“Rio, of course. That’s where you’re bound, isn’t it?”

“You’ll have to be mighty quick about it,” came the emphatic answer. “We can’t afford stops on our way.”

“We may want to delay you a few minutes,” began Tom.

“Few minutes, nothing!” came the gruff retort. “We can’t be held up in that fashion.”

“We can pay for all the trouble we put you to,” retorted Halstead. Powell Seaton produced and waved a bulky wad of banknotes.

“Oh, if you want to pay extra, above the fare, it’ll be a little different,” came, in mollified tones, from the bridge. The captain of the “Glide” was now much more accommodating. The fare received from a passenger put aboard in mid-sea would go to the owners of the freighter. But any extra money, paid for “trouble,” would be so much in the pocket of the “Glide’s” sailing-master.

Several new faces appeared at the rail of the freighter, as that big craft slowed down and one of her mates superintended the work of lowering the side gangway.

“Hullo, lobster-smack!” roared one derisive voice above the freighter’s rail.

“Say,” called another voice, jeeringly, “it may be all right to go lobster-fishing, but it’s no sort of good business to leave one of your catch of lobsters in command of even a smack like that!”

Tom Halstead reddened angrily. One of his fists clenched unconsciously as he shot a wrathful look upward at the rail.

“Say, you mentally-dented pilot of a fourth-rate peanut roaster of a boat, do you go by craft you know without ever giving a hail?” demanded a mocking voice, that of the first derisive speaker.

Standing at the rail of the “Restless,” Tom Halstead almost dropped the megaphone overboard from the sheer stagger of joy that caught him.

“Hey, you Ab! You worthless Ab Perkins!” roared the young motor boat skipper, in huge delight. “And you, Dick Davis!”

The two who stood at the “Glide’s” rail overhead, and who had called down so mockingly, stood in uniform caps and coats identical with those worn by Halstead and his mates aboard the motor boat. They wore them with right, too, for Perkins and Davis were two of the most famous of the many youngsters who now composed the Motor Boat Club of the Kennebec.

“Hey! What’s this?” roared the usually quiet Joe Dawson, his face wreathed in smiles. He almost danced a jig.

Hank Butts had never before seen either Davis or Perkins, but he knew about them, all right. He knew that uniform, too, the same that he wore.

“Now, then – altogether!” yelled Hank. “Give it with a roar, boys!”

Powell Seaton stared in bewildered amazement. So did officers, crew and others at the “Glide’s” rail and on her bridge.

For five lusty young Americans, all wearing the same uniform, all bronzed deeply with the tan that comes of the gale and the sun, all keen-eyed, quick and sure as tars ever are, roared in mighty chorus:

“M-B-C-K! M-B-C-K! Motor Boat Club! WOW!”