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+Project Gutenberg's The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol, by Howard Payson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol
+
+Author: Howard Payson
+
+Posting Date: March 8, 2009 [EBook #12112]
+Release Date: April 22, 2004
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY SCOUTS OF THE EAGLE PATROL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sean Pobuda.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BOY SCOUTS OF THE EAGLE PATROL
+
+
+By
+
+Lieut. Howard Payson
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+       I  SCOUTS ON THE TRAIL
+      II  A CRUISE TO THE ISLAND
+     III  BOY SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE
+      IV  SAM IN DIRE STRAITS
+       V  THE BULLY SPRINGS A SURPRISE
+      VI  AN ISLAND MYSTERY
+     VII  SOME STRANGE DOINGS
+    VIII  THE STOLEN UNIFORMS
+      IX  THE HYDROPLANE QUEERLY RECOVERED
+       X  WINNING THE CONTEST
+      XI  A FORTUNATE DISCOVERY
+     XII  JACK FORMS A PLOT
+    XIII  THE  "FLYING FISH" ON HER METTLE
+     XIV  THE EAGLES IN CAMP
+      XV  THE CHUMS IN PERIL
+     XVI  LOST IN THE STORM
+    XVII  ALMOST RUN DOWN
+   XVIII  JOE DIGBY MISSING
+     XIX  SAM REBELS
+      XX  THE HUNT FOR TENDERFOOT JOE
+     XXI  SAVED BY "SMOKE MORSE"
+    XXII  THE ESCAPE OF THE BULLY
+   XXIII  SCOUTS IN NEED ARE FRIENDS INDEED
+    XXIV  A MEETING IN THE FOG--CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+SCOUTS ON THE TRAIL
+
+
+The dark growth of scrub oak and pine parted suddenly and the lithe
+figure of a boy of about seventeen emerged suddenly into the little
+clearing.  The lad who had so abruptly materialized from the
+close-growing vegetation peculiar to the region about the little town
+of Hampton, on the south shore of Long Island, wore a well-fitting
+uniform of brown khaki, canvas leggings of the same hue and a soft hat
+of the campaign variety, turned up at one side.  To the front of his
+headpiece was fastened a metal badge, resembling the three-pointed
+arrow head utilized on old maps to indicate the north.  On a metal
+scroll beneath it were embossed the words: "Be Prepared."
+
+The manner of the badge's attachment would have indicated at once, to
+any one familiar with the organization, that the lad wearing it was the
+patrol leader of the local band of Boy Scouts.
+
+Gazing keenly about him on all sides of the little clearing in the
+midst of which he stood, the boy's eyes lighted with a gleam of
+satisfaction on a largish rock.  He lifted this up, adjusted it to his
+satisfaction and then picked up a smaller stone.  This he placed on the
+top of the first and then listened intently. After a moment of this he
+then placed beneath the large underlying rock and at its left side a
+small stone.
+
+Suddenly he started and gazed back.  From the distance, borne faintly
+to his ears, came far off boyish shouts and cries.
+
+They rose like the baying of a pack in full cry.  Now high, now low on
+the hush of the midsummer afternoon.
+
+"They picked the trail all right," he remarked to himself, with a
+smile, "maybe I'd better leave another sign."
+
+Stooping he snapped off a small low-growing branch and broke it near
+the end so that its top hung limply down.
+
+"Two signs now that this is the trail," he resumed as he stuck it in
+the ground beside the stone sign.  "Now I'd better be off, for they are
+picking my tracks up, fast."
+
+He darted off into the undergrowth on the opposite side of the
+clearing, vanishing as suddenly and noiselessly as he had appeared.
+
+A few seconds later the deserted clearing was invaded by a scouting
+party of ten lads ranging in years from twelve to sixteen.  They were
+all attired in similar uniforms to the leader, whom they were tracing,
+with but one exception they wore their "Be Prepared" badges on the left
+arm above the elbow.  Some of them were only entitled to affix the
+motto part of the badge the scroll inscribed with the motto.  These
+latter were the second-class scouts of the Eagle Patrol.  The exception
+to the badge-bearers was a tall, well-knit lad with a sunny face and
+wavy, brown hair.  His badge was worn on the left arm, as were the
+others, but it had a strip of white braid sewn beneath it. This
+indicated that the bearer was the corporal of the patrol.
+
+As the group of flushed, panting lads emerged into the sandy space the
+corporal looked sharply about him.  Almost at once his eye encountered
+the "spoor" left by the preceding lad.
+
+"Here's the trail, boys," he shouted, "and to judge by the fresh look
+of the break in this branch it can't have been placed here very long.
+The small stone by the large one means to the left. We'll run Rob Blake
+down before long for all his skill if we have good luck."
+
+"Say, Corporal Merritt," exclaimed a perspiring lad, whose "too, too
+solid flesh" seemed to be melting and running off his face in the form
+of streaming moisture, "don't we get a rest?"
+
+A general laugh greeted poor Bob or Tubby Hopkins' remark.
+
+"I always told you, Tubby, you were too fat to make a good scout,"
+laughed Corporal Merritt Crawford, "this is the sort of thing that will
+make you want to take some of that tubbiness off you."
+
+"Say, Tubby, you look like a roll of butter at an August picnic,"
+laughed Simon Jeffords, one of the second-class scouts.
+
+"All right, Sim," testily rejoined the aggrieved fat one, "I notice at
+that, though, that I am a regular scout while you are only a rookie."
+
+"Come on, cut out the conversation," exclaimed Corporal Crawford
+hastily, "while we are fussing about here, Rob Blake must be halfway
+home."
+
+With a groan of comical despair from poor Tubby, the Boy Scouts darted
+forward once more.  On and on they pushed across country, skillfully
+tracking their leader by the various signs they had been taught to know
+and of which the present scouting expedition was a test.
+
+Their young leader evidently intended them to use their eyes to the
+utmost for, beside the stone signs, he used blaze-marks, cut on the
+trees with his hunting knife.  For instance, at one place they would
+find a square bit of bark removed, with a long slice to the left of it.
+This indicated that their quarry had doubled to the left.  The slice to
+the right of the square blaze indicated the reverse.
+
+Suddenly Corporal Crawford held up his hand as a signal for silence.
+The scouts came to an abrupt stop.
+
+From what seemed to be only a short distance in front of them they
+could hear a voice upraised apparently in anger.  Replying to it were
+the tones of their leader.
+
+"Seems to be trouble ahead of some kind," exclaimed Crawford. "Come on,
+boys."
+
+They all advanced close on his heels--guided by the sound of the angry
+voice, which did not diminish in tone but apparently waxed more and
+more furious as they drew nearer.  Presently the woodland thinned and
+the ground became dotted with stumps of felled timber and in a few
+paces more they emerged on a small peach orchard at the edge of which
+stood Rob Blake and a larger and older boy.  As Crawford and his
+followers came upon the scene the elder lad, who seemed beside himself
+with rage, picked up a large rock and was about to hurl it with all his
+might at Rob when the young corporal dashed forward and held his hand
+up to stay him.
+
+"Here, what's all this trouble?" he demanded.
+
+"You just keep out of it, Merritt Crawford," said the elder lad, a
+hulking, thick-set youth with a mean look on his heavy features.  "I'm
+just reading this kid here a lesson.  This orchard is my father's and
+mine and you'll keep out of it in future or suffer the consequences,
+understand?"
+
+"Why, we aren't doing any harm," protested Rob Blake heatedly.
+
+"I don't care what you are doing or not doing," retorted the other,
+"this is my father's orchard and you'll keep off it.  You and the rest
+of you tin soldiers.  I don't want you stealing our peaches."
+
+"I guess you are sore, Jack Curtiss, because you couldn't get a boy
+scout patrol of your own!  I guess that's what the trouble is,"
+remarked Tubby Hopkins softly, but with a meaning look at the big lad.
+
+"You impudent little whipper-snapper," roared Jack Curtiss, "if you
+weren't such a shrimp I'd lick you for that remark, but you're all
+beneath my notice.  All I want to say to you is keep away from my
+orchard or I'll give you a trimming."
+
+"Suppose you start now," said Rob Blake quietly, "if you are so anxious
+to show what a scrapper you are."
+
+"Bah, I don't want anything to do with you, I tell you," rejoined
+Curtiss, turning away, with a rather troubled expression, however, for
+while he was a bully the big lad had no particular liking for a fight
+unless he was pretty sure that all the advantage lay on his side.
+
+"It was too bad you didn't get that patrol of yours, Jack," called the
+irrepressible Tubby after him as the big youth strode off across the
+orchard toward the old-fashioned farmhouse in which he lived with his
+father, a well-to-do farmer.  "Never mind; better luck next time," he
+went on, "or maybe we'll let you into ours some time."
+
+"You just wait," roared the retreating bully, shaking his fist at the
+lads, "I'll make trouble for you yet."
+
+"Well," remarked Rob Blake, as Jack Curtiss strode off, "I guess the
+run is over for to-day.  Too bad we should have come out on his land.
+Of course he feels sore at us; and I shouldn't wonder but he will
+really try to do us some mischief if he gets a chance."
+
+As it was growing late and there did not seem much chance of restarting
+the "Follow the Trail" practice, that day at least, the boys strolled
+back through the woodland and soon emerged on a country road about
+three miles from Hampton Inlet, where they lived.
+
+While they are covering the distance perhaps the reader may care to
+know something about the cause of the enmity which Jack Curtiss
+entertained toward the lads of the Eagle Patrol.  It had its beginning
+several months before when the boys of Hampton Inlet began to discuss
+forming a patrol of boy scouts.  They all attended the Hampton Academy,
+and naturally the news that Rob Blake was going to try to organize a
+patrol soon spread through the school.
+
+Jack Curtiss, as soon as he heard what Rob--whom he considered more or
+less a rival of his--intended doing he also forwarded an application to
+the headquarters of the organization in New York. As Rob Blake's had
+been received first, however, and on investigation he was shown to be a
+likely lad for the leader, he was appointed and at once began the
+enrollment of his scouts.
+
+The bully was furious when he realized that he would be unable to
+secure an authorized patrol, and he and his cronies, two lads about his
+own age named Bill Bender and Sam Redding, had been busy ever since
+devising schemes to "get even" as they called it.  None of these,
+however, had been effective and the encounter of that day was the first
+chance Jack had had to work off any of his rancor on Rob Blake's patrol.
+
+Young Blake was the only son of Mr. Albert Blake, the president of the
+local bank.  His corporal, Merritt Crawford, was the eldest of the
+numerous family of Jared Crawford, the blacksmith and wheelwright of
+the little town, and Tubby Hopkins was the offspring of Mrs. Hopkins--a
+widow in comfortable circumstances. The other lads of the Patrol whom
+we shall meet as the story of their doings and adventures progresses
+were all natives of the town, which was situated on the south shore of
+Long Island--as has been said--and on an inlet which led out to the
+Atlantic itself.
+
+The scouts trudged back into Hampton just at twilight and made their
+way at once to their armory--as they called it--which was situated In a
+large room above the bank of which Rob's father was president.  At one
+side of it was a row of lockers and each lad--after changing his
+uniform for street clothes--placed his "regimentals" in these
+receptacles.
+
+This done the lads broke up and started for their various homes. Rob
+and his young corporal left the armory together, after locking the door
+and descending the stairs which led onto a side street.
+
+"I wonder if that fellow Curtiss means to carry out his threat of
+getting even?" said Crawford as they made their way down the street arm
+in arm, for their homes were not far apart and both on Main Street.
+
+"He's mean enough to attempt anything," rejoined Rob, "but I don't
+think he's got nerve enough to carry out any of his schemes.  Hullo!"
+he broke off suddenly, "there he is now across the street by the post
+office, talking to Bill Bender and Sam Redding.  I'll bet they are
+hatching up some sort of mischief. Just look at them looking at us.
+I'll bet a doughnut they were talking about us."
+
+"Shouldn't wonder," agreed his companion.  "By the way, I've got to go
+and see if there is any mail.  Come on over."
+
+The two lads crossed the street and as they entered the post office,
+although neither of them had much use for either of the bullies' two
+chums, they nodded to them pleasantly.
+
+"You kids think you're pretty fine with your Eagle Patrol or whatever
+you call it, don't you," sneered Bill Bender, as they walked by.  "I'll
+bet the smell of a little real powder would make your whole regiment
+run to cover."
+
+"Don't pay any attention to him," whispered the young corporal to Rob,
+who doubled up his fists and flushed angrily at the sneering tone Jack
+Curtiss' friend had adopted.
+
+Rob restrained his anger with an effort, and by the time they emerged
+from the post office the trio of worthies--who, as Rob had rightly
+guessed, had been discussing them--had moved on up the street.
+
+"I had trouble with those kids myself this afternoon," remarked Jack
+Curtiss with a scowl, as they wended their way toward a shed in the
+rear of Bill Bender's home, which had been fitted tip as a sort of
+clubroom.
+
+"What did they do to you?" incautiously inquired Sam Redding, a youth
+as big as the other two, but not so powerful.  In fact he was used more
+or less as a tool by them.
+
+"Do to me," roared the bully, "what did I do to them, you mean."
+
+"Well what did you do to them then?" asked Bill Bender, as they entered
+the clubroom before referred to and he produced some cigarettes, which
+all three had been strictly forbidden to smoke.
+
+"Chased them off my land," rejoined the other, lighting a paper roll
+and blowing out a cloud of smoke, "you should have seen them run.  If
+they want to play their fool games they've got to do it on the property
+of folks who'll let them.  They can't come on my land."
+
+"You mean your father's, don't you?" put in the unlucky Sam Redding.
+
+"Sam, you've got a head like a billiard ball," retorted the bully,
+turning on the other, "it'll be mine some day, won't it? Therefore it's
+as good as mine now."
+
+Although he didn't quite see the logic of the foregoing, Sam Redding
+gave a sage nod and agreed that his leader was right.
+
+"Yes, those kids need a good lesson from somebody," chimed in Bill
+Bender.
+
+"I think we had better be the 'somebodies' to give it to them,"
+rejoined Jack Curtiss.  "They are getting insufferable.  They actually
+twitted me this afternoon with being sore at them because I didn't get
+my patrol--as if I really wanted one.  That Blake kid is the worst of
+the bunch.  Just because his father has a little money he gives himself
+all kinds of airs.  My father is as rich as his, even if he isn't a
+banker."
+
+"I've been thinking of a good trick we can put up on them, but it will
+take some nerve to carry it out," announced Bill Bender, after some
+more discussion of the lads of the Eagle Patrol.
+
+"Out with it, then," urged the bully, "what is it?"
+
+In a lowered tone Bill Bender sketched out his scheme in detail, while
+Jack and Sam nodded their approval.  At length he ceased talking and
+the other two broke out into a delighted laugh, in which malice as much
+as merriment prevailed.
+
+"It's the very thing," exclaimed Jack.  "Bill, you're a genius. We'll
+do it as soon as possible.  If that doesn't take some starch out of
+those tin soldiers nothing will."
+
+Half an hour later the three cronies parted for the night.  Sam went to
+his home near the waterfront, for his father was a boat builder, and
+Jack started to walk the three miles to his father's farm in the
+moonlight.  His way took him by the bank.  As he passed it he gazed up
+at the windows of the armory on which was lettered in gilt: "Eagle
+Patrol of the Boy Scouts of America."
+
+"That's a slick idea of Bill's," said the bully to himself, "I can
+hardly wait till we get a chance to carry it out."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A CRUISE TO THE ISLAND
+
+
+"Whatever are you doing, Rob?"
+
+It was the morning after the consultation of Jack Curtiss and his
+cronies, and Corporal Crawford was looking over the fence into his
+leader's yard.
+
+Rob was bending over a curious-looking apparatus, consisting of a bent
+stick held in a bow-shape by a taut leather thong.  The appliance was
+twisted about an upright piece of wood sharpened at one end--which was
+rotated as the lad ran the bow back and forth across it.
+
+Presently smoke began to rise from the flat piece of timber into which
+the point of the upright stick had been boring and depositing sawdust,
+and Rob, by industriously blowing at the accumulation, presently caused
+it to burst into flame.
+
+"There I've done it," he exclaimed triumphantly, arising with a flushed
+face from his labors.
+
+"Done what?" inquired young Crawford interestedly.
+
+"Made fire in the Indian way," replied Rob triumphantly.
+
+"I thought they made it by rubbing two sticks together."
+
+"Only book Indians do that," replied Rob, "I'll tell you it took me a
+time to get the hang of it, but I've got it now."
+
+"It's quite a stunt, all right," commented the corporal admiringly.
+
+"You bet, and it's useful, too," replied Rob.  "I'll put the bow and
+drill in my pocket, and then any time we get stuck for matches we'll
+have no trouble in making a signal smoke or lighting cooking fires."
+
+"Say, I've got some news for you," went on young Crawford, "did you
+know that Sam Redding has entered that freak motor boat he's been
+building in the yacht club regatta?  He's out for the club trophy."
+
+"No, is he, though?" exclaimed Rob, keenly interested.  "Then the crew
+and skipper of the Flying Fish will have to look alive. I know that
+Sam's father helped him out with that boat and put a lot of new
+wrinkles in it.  I didn't think, though, he'd have it ready in time for
+the races."
+
+The boys referred to the coming motor-boat races which were to take
+place shortly on the inlet at Hampton.  Like most of the other lads in
+the seashore town, Merritt and Rob had a lot of experience on the water
+and some time before had built a speedy motor boat from knock-down
+frames.  The Flying Fish, as they called her, was entered for the main
+event referred to, the prize for which was a silver cup, donated by the
+merchants of the town.  There were several other entries in the race,
+but Rob and his crew, consisting of Merritt and Tubby Hopkins,
+confidently expected the Flying Fish to easily lead them all.
+
+"I wonder if the Sam Redding can show her stern to the Flying Fish?"
+mused Rob.  "I'd like to lake a good look at her."
+
+"Let's go down to Redding's boat yard," suggested Merritt; "she's lying
+there on the ways.  I don't suppose any one would object to our sizing
+her up."
+
+Rob hailed the suggestion as a good one.
+
+"We can call in for Tubby on the way," he said, as he darted into the
+house after his hat.
+
+The boys dropped in at Tubby's house on their way to the water-front,
+and received from the stout youth some additional details regarding
+Sam's boat.
+
+"She's a hydroplane," volunteered Tubby, "and Tom Jennings, down at the
+yard, says she's as fast as a race horse."
+
+"A hydroplane?--that's one of those craft that cut along the top of the
+water like a skimming dish, isn't it?" asked Merritt.
+
+"That's the idea," responded Rob.  "They're supposed to be as speedy as
+anything afloat in smooth water."
+
+Thus conversing they reached the boat-building yard of Sam Redding's
+father and were greeted by Tom Jennings, a big good-natured ship
+carpenter.  "Hullo, Tom!  Can we see that new boat of Sam's?" inquired
+Rob.
+
+"Sure, I guess there's no objection," grinned Tom, "come right this
+way.  There she is, over there by that big winch."
+
+Report had not erred apparently as to the novel qualities of Sam
+Redding's speed craft.  She was about twenty-five feet long, narrow and
+painted black.  She was perfectly flat-bottomed, her underside being
+deeply notched at frequent intervals.  On the edge of those notches she
+was supposed to glide over the water when driven at top speed.
+
+"She certainly looks like a winner," commented Rob, as he gazed at her
+clean, slender lines and sharp bow.
+
+"She's got wonderful speed," Tom Jennings confided.  "We tried her out
+the other night when no one was around.  But I don't think that in
+rough water she'll be much good."
+
+"No, I'd prefer the Flying Fish for the waters hereabouts," agreed Rob,
+"it's liable to come on rough in a hurry and then a chap who was out in
+a dry-goods box, like that thing, would be in trouble."
+
+"What are you calling a dry-goods box?" demanded an indignant voice
+behind them, and turning, the lads saw Sam Redding with a menacing look
+on his face.  A little way behind him stood Bill Bender and Jack
+Curtiss.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon, Sam," said Rob.  "I really admire your
+hydroplane very much, and I think it will give us a tussle for the
+trophy, all right; but I don't think she'd be much good in any kind of
+a sea-way."
+
+"That's my business, you interfering little runt," snapped Sam, who,
+with Bill Bender and Jack Curtiss to back him, felt very brave; though
+ordinarily he would have avoided trouble with the young scouts.  "What
+are you doing spying around the yard here, anyhow?" he went on
+insolently.
+
+"We are not spying," indignantly burst out Merritt.  "We asked Tom
+Jennings if we couldn't look at your hydroplane, as we were naturally
+interested in her, and he gave us permission."
+
+"Well, he had no business to," growled Sam; "he ought to be attending
+to his work instead of showing a lot of nosy young cubs my new boat."
+
+"They are capable of stealing your ideas," chimed in Jack Curtiss, "and
+putting them on their own boat."
+
+"That's ridiculous," laughed Rob, "as I said I wouldn't want to have
+anything to do with such a contrivance except on a lake or a river."
+
+"Well, you keep your advice and your ideas to yourself, and get out of
+this yard!" roared Sam, waxing bolder and bolder, and mistaking Rob's
+conciliatory manner for cowardice.  "I've a good mind to punch your
+head."
+
+"Better come on and try it," retorted Rob, preparing for the immediate
+onslaught which it seemed reasonable from Sam's manner to expect.
+
+But it didn't come.
+
+Muttering something about "young cubs," and "keeping the boat-yard gate
+locked," Sam turned to his chums and invited them to come and try out
+his new motor in the shop.
+
+As the three chums had no desire to "mix it up with Sam on his own
+place," as Tubby put it, they left the yard promptly, and walked on
+down the water-front to the wharf at which lay the Flying Fish, the
+fastest craft in the Hampton Motor Boat Club. Rob's boat was, to tell
+the truth, rather broad of beam for a racer and drew quite a little
+water.  She had a powerful motor and clean lines, however, and while
+not primarily designed solely for "mug-hunting," had beaten everything
+she had raced with during the few months since the boys had completed
+her.  The money for her motor had been given to Rob by his father, who
+was quite indulgent to Rob in money matters, having noticed that the
+lad always expended the sums given him wisely.
+
+"Let's take a spin," suddenly suggested Tubby.
+
+"Nothing to prevent us," answered Rob; "we've got plenty of time before
+dinner. Come on, boys."
+
+The lads were soon on board and examining the gasoline tank, to see how
+much fuel they had on hand, and oiling up the engine. The fuel
+receptacle proved to be almost full, so after filling the lubricant
+cups and attending to the batteries, they started up the engine--a
+powerful, three cylindered, twelve-horse affair capable of driving the
+twenty-two foot Flying Fish through the water at twelve miles an hour
+or better.
+
+Just as Rob was casting off the head-line there came a hail from the
+wharf above them.
+
+"Ahoy, there, shipmates!  Where are yer bound fer this fine, sunny day?"
+
+The lads looked up to see the weather-beaten countenance of Captain Job
+Hudgins, one of the characters of the vicinity.  He was a former
+whaler, and lived on a small island some distance from Hampton.  On his
+little territory he fished and grew a few vegetables, "trading in" his
+produce at the Hampton grocery stores for his simple wants.  He,
+however, had a pension, and was supposed to have a "snug little
+fortune" laid by.  His only companion in his island solitude was it big
+Newfoundland dog named "Skipper."
+
+The animal stood beside its master on the dock and wagged its tail at
+the sight of the boys, whom it knew quite well from their frequent
+visits to the captain's little island.
+
+"Hullo, captain!" shouted Rob, as the veteran saluted his three young
+friends.   "Where's your boat?"
+
+"Oh, her engine went--busted, and I had to leave her at the yard below
+fer repairs," explained the captain.  "I wonder if yer boys can give me
+a lift back if yer goin' near Topsail Island?"
+
+"Surest thing you know," rejoined Rob hastily.  "Come right aboard.
+But how are you going to get off your island again if your motor is
+laid up here to be fixed?"
+
+"Oh, I'll use my rowboat," responded the old mariner, clambering down
+into the Flying Fish.  "Say, this is quite a right smart contraption,
+ain't she?"
+
+"We think she is a pretty good little boat," modestly replied Rob,
+taking his place at the wheel.  "Now, then, Merritt, start up that
+engine."
+
+"Hold on a minute!" shouted Tubby.  "We forgot the dog."
+
+Sure enough, Skipper was dashing up and down the wharf in great
+distress at the prospect of being deserted.
+
+"Put yer boat alongside that landin' stage at the end of the wharf,"
+suggested his master.  "Skipper can get aboard from there, I reckon."
+
+Rob steered the Flying Fish round to the floating landing, to which an
+inclined runway led from the wharf.  Skipper dashed down it as soon as
+he saw what was happening, and was waiting, ready to embark, when the
+Flying Fish came alongside.
+
+"Poor old Skipper, I reckon yer thought we was goin' ter maroon yer,"
+said Captain Job, as the animal jumped on board with a bark of "thanks"
+for his rescue.  "I tell yer, boys, I wouldn't lose that dog fer all
+the money in Rob's father's bank.  He keeps good watch out an the
+Island, I'll tell yer."
+
+"I didn't think any one much came there, except us," said Rob, as the
+Flying Fish headed away from the wharf and began to cut through the
+waters of the inlet.
+
+"Oh, yes; there's others," responded the old man.  "That Jack Curtiss
+lad and his two chums are out there quite often."
+
+"Bill Bender and Sam Redding, I suppose you mean," said Tubby.
+
+"Those their names?" asked the captain.  "Well, I don't know any good
+uv any uv 'em.  Old Skipper here chased 'em away from my melon patch
+the other day.  I reckon they thought Old Scratch was after them, the
+way they run; but they got away with some melons, just the same."
+
+The old man laughed aloud at the recollection of the marauders'
+precipitous flight.
+
+That Jack Curtiss and his two cronies had made a rendezvous of the
+island was news to the boys, and not agreeable news, either. They had
+been planning a patrol camp there later on in the summer, and the bully
+and his two chums were not regarded by them as desirable neighbors.
+However, they said nothing, as they could not claim sole right to use
+the island, which was property that had been so long in litigation that
+It had come to be known as "No Man's Land" as well as by its proper
+name.  The captain was only a squatter there, but no one cared to
+disturb him, and he had led the existence of a semi-hermit there for
+many years.
+
+The Flying Fish rapidly covered the calm waters of the inlet and was
+soon dancing over the swells outside.
+
+"I'm going to let her out a bit," said Rob suddenly; "look out for
+spray."
+
+"Spray don't bother a brine-pickled old salt like me," laughed the
+captain.  "Let her go."
+
+The Flying Fish seemed fairly to leap forward as Merritt gave her the
+full power of her engine.  As Rob had said, it did indeed behoove her
+occupants to look out for spray.  The sparkling spume came flying back
+in sheets as she cut through the waves, but the boys didn't mind that
+any more than did their weather-beaten companion.  As for Skipper, he
+barked aloud in sheer joy as the Flying Fish slid along as if she were
+trying to live up to her name to her utmost ability.
+
+"This is a good little sea boat," remarked the captain, as they plunged
+onward.  "She's as seaworthy as she is speedy, I guess."
+
+"She'll stand a lot of knocking about, and that's a fact," agreed Rob.
+
+"Well," remarked the old man, gazing about him, "it's a good thing that
+she is, fer, if I'm not mistaken--and I'm not often off as regards the
+weather--we are goin' ter have quite a little blow before yer boys get
+back home."
+
+"A storm?" asked Tubby, somewhat alarmed.
+
+"Oh, no; not what yer might call a storm," laughed the captain; "but
+just what we used to term a 'capful uv wind.'"
+
+"Well, so long as it isn't a really bad blow, it won't trouble the
+Flying Fish," Rob assured him.
+
+"Hullo!" exclaimed the old man suddenly.  "What queer kind uv craft is
+that?"
+
+He pointed back to the mouth of the now distant inlet, from which a
+curious-looking black craft was emerging at what seemed to be great
+speed.
+
+"It's that hydroplane of Sam Redding's, for a bet!" cried Rob. "Here,
+Tubby, take the wheel a minute, while I put the glasses on her."
+
+The lad stood up in the heaving motor craft, steadying himself against
+the bulwarks by his knees, and peered through his marine-glasses.
+
+"It's the hydroplane, sure enough," he said.  "By ginger, but she can
+go, all right!  Sam and Jack and Bill are all in her.  They seem to be
+heading right out to sea, too."
+
+"Say!" exclaimed Tubby suddenly, "if it comes on to blow, as the
+captain said it would, they'll be in a bad fix, won't they?"
+
+"In that ther shoe-box thing," scornfully exclaimed the old captain,
+who had also been looking through the glasses, "why, I wouldn't give a
+confederate dollar bill with a hole in it fer their lives."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BOY SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE
+
+
+"Hadn't we better put back and warn them?" suggested Merritt rather
+anxiously, for he was alarmed by the confident manner in which the old
+seaman prophesied certain disaster to the hydroplane if the weather
+freshened.
+
+"No; see, she's heading toward us.  I guess they want a race," cried
+Rob.  "We'll slow down a bit and let them catch up."
+
+In a few moments the hydroplane was alongside.  The yellow hood over
+her powerful engines glistened with the wet of the great bow-wave her
+speed had occasioned, and her powerful motor was exhausting with a roar
+like a battery of machine guns.
+
+Crouched aft of the engine hood was Sam Redding, who held the wheel.
+Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender were in the stern.  They sat tandem-wise
+in the narrow racing shell.
+
+"Want a tow rope for that old stone dray of yours?" jeered Jack
+Curtiss, as the speedy little racer ranged alongside.
+
+He did not know that the Flying Fish was slowed down, and that although
+the hydroplane appeared to be capable of tremendous speed, she was not
+actually so very much faster than Rob's boat.
+
+"Say, you fellows," warned Rob, making a trumpet of his hands, "the
+captain says it's coming on to blow before long.  You'd better get back
+into the inlet with that craft of yours."
+
+"Save your breath to cool your coffee," shouted Sam Redding back at
+him, across the fifty feet or so of water that lay between the two
+boats.  "We know what we are about."
+
+"But you're risking your lives," shouted Merritt.  "That thing wouldn't
+live ten minutes in any kind of a sea."
+
+"Well, we're not such a bunch of old women as to be scared of a little
+wetting," jeered Jack Curtiss.  "So long!  We've got no time to wait
+for that old tub of yours."
+
+Before the boys could voice any more warnings, the hydroplane, which
+had been slowed down, dashed off once more.
+
+"I don't know what we are to do," spoke up Merritt.  "We can't compel
+them to go in, and, after all, the captain may be mistaken."
+
+"No, I'm not, my son," rejoined the veteran.  "I can smell wind--and
+see them 'mare's tails' in the sky over yonder.  They're as fall uv
+wind as a preacher is uv texts."
+
+"Well, we've done our best to warn them," concluded Rob.  "If they are
+so foolhardy as to keep on, we can't help it."
+
+In half an hour more the boys had landed the captain at the little pier
+he had built on his island, and to which his rowboat was attached, and
+were ready to start back, good-bys having been said.
+
+"Hark!" exclaimed the captain, as Rob prepared to give the order to "Go
+ahead."
+
+The boys listened, and heard a low, distant moaning sound, something
+like the deepest rumbling notes of a church organ.
+
+"That's the wind comin'," warned the captain.  "Yer'd better be
+hurryin' back."
+
+With more hasty good-bys, the lads got under way at once.  As they
+emerged from the lee of the island they could see that seaward the
+ocean was being rapidly lashed into choppy, white-crested waves by the
+advancing storm, and that the wind was freshening into a really stiff
+breeze.
+
+"Those fellows must be wishing they took our advice now if they are
+fools enough to have kept out," said Merritt, as he slowed down the
+engine so as to permit the Flying Fish to ride the rising seas more
+easily.
+
+"Yes, I guess they're doing some tall thinking," agreed Tubby, as a
+wave caught the little Flying Fish "quartering" on her port bow, and
+sent a white smother of spray swirling back over her occupants.
+
+"That's the time we got it," laughed Rob, from the wheel, peering
+straight ahead.  Suddenly he uttered a shout and pointed seaward.
+
+"Look there!" he shouted at the top of his voice.  "There are those
+three fellows, and they're in trouble, from the looks of it."
+
+The others looked, and beheld, half a mile or so away, on the
+roughening waters, the hull of the hydroplane.  She was tossing up and
+down like a cork, and apparently was drifting helplessly, with her
+motor broken down, in the heavy sea.  Her occupants seemed to be
+bailing her; but as they caught sight of the Flying Fish they stood up
+and waved frantically.
+
+"Yes, they're in trouble, all right," agreed Tubby.  "And I suppose
+we've got to go and get them out of it."
+
+Rob had already put the Flying Fish about and headed her for the
+distressed craft.  As they drew near, Sam Redding began shouting:
+
+"Help, help!  We're sinking, we're sinking!"
+
+Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender, drenched to the skin with spray and white
+with fright, said nothing, but a look of great relief came over their
+faces as the chums' boat ranged alongside.
+
+"I don't want to risk ramming my boat by coming right alongside,"
+shouted Rob.  "You'll have to jump for it.  Don't be scared. We'll pull
+you aboard."
+
+The three youths on the water-logged hydroplane looked somewhat alarmed
+at the prospect, but Rob knew that Jack and Bill could swim.  He was
+not sure of Sam, but assumed, from the fact that he had lived by the
+sea all his life, that he was equally at home in the water.
+
+The hesitation of Jack Curtiss and his chum was over in a minute, as
+the hydroplane gave a plunge that seemed as if it would be her last.
+Lightly dressed as they were, in canvas trousers, sleeveless jerseys
+and yachting shoes, it was no trick at all for them to swim the few
+feet to the Flying Fish.  As they leaped overboard, Sam lingered.
+
+"Come on, Sam," shouted Jack, as the boys lugged the two dripping,
+sputtering castaways on board.
+
+"I--I can't swim.  You'll have to come alongside for me," stuttered the
+badly-scared Sam.
+
+"All right.  Hold on, and we'll do what we can," hailed Rob, starting
+to carry out the risky maneuver of getting alongside the plunging
+hydroplane in the heavy sea.
+
+In some never-to-be-explained manner, however, the frightened Sam
+suddenly lost his balance in the tossing racing boat, and, clawing
+desperately at her bulwarks to save himself, shot over the side.
+
+"He'll drown!" shouted Jack Curtiss.  "He can't swim, and he'll drown."
+
+"If you knew that, why didn't you stand by him?" truculently growled
+Tubby.
+
+Without an instant's hesitation, Merritt threw off the jacket he had
+put on when it started to blow, and slipped off his shoes. He was
+overboard and striking out for the drowning boy before those in the
+Flying Fish even realized his purpose.
+
+With swift, powerful strokes he got alongside Sam just as the owner of
+the hydroplane was going down for the third time.
+
+As the brave boy seized the struggling, frightened youth he felt
+himself gripped by the panic-stricken Sam in a frenzied hold of
+desperate intensity.  His arms were pinioned by the drowning wretch,
+and they both vanished beneath the waves.
+
+As they went under, however, Merritt managed to get one hand free, and
+recalling what he had read of what to do under such conditions, struck
+the other boy a terrific blow between the eyes.  It stunned Sam
+completely, and, to his great relief, Merritt felt the imprisoning grip
+relax.  He could then handle Sam easily, and as they shot to the
+surface he saw the Flying Fish bearing down on them, with four white,
+strained faces searching the tumbling waters.
+
+In a few moments the unconscious lad and his rescuer were hauled on
+board, and Rob, after congratulations, headed the Flying Fish for the
+mouth of the inlet, which was still some distance off.
+
+Tubby and Bill Bender laid Sam on his stomach, across a thwart, and
+started to try to get some of the salt water, of which he had swallowed
+great quantities, out of him.  He soon gave signs of returning
+consciousness, and opened his eyes just as Jack Curtiss was demanding
+to know if the Boy Scouts weren't going to take the hydroplane in tow.
+
+"Not much we're not," responded Rob.  "I'm sorry to have to leave her;
+but this sea is getting up nastier every minute, and there's no way of
+getting a line to her without running more risk than I want to take.
+We've had one near-drowning and we don't want another."
+
+"If this was my boat, I'd pick Sam's boat up," sullenly replied the
+bully.
+
+"You ought to be mighty glad we came along when we did," indignantly
+spoke up Tubby.  "You'd have been in a bad fix if we hadn't.  Instead
+of being thankful for it, all you can do is to kick about leaving the
+hydroplane."
+
+An angry reply was on the other's lips, but Bill Bender checked it by
+looking up and saying: "I guess the kid's right, Jack.  Let it go at
+that."
+
+The bully glowered.  He felt his pride much wounded at having been
+compelled to seek the aid of the boys whom he despised and hated.
+
+"I suppose you'll go and blab it all over town about how you saved us,"
+he sneered, as the Flying Fish threaded her way through the tumbling
+waters at the mouth of the inlet and began making her way up it.
+
+"I don't think we shall," replied Rob quietly.  "I mean to recommend
+Merritt, though, to headquarters for his Red Honor."
+
+"Oh, you mean that cheap, bronze medal thing on a bit of red ribbon!"
+sneered Jack.  "Why, that isn't worth much.  You couldn't sell it for
+anything but old junk.  Why don't they make them of gold?"
+
+"That 'bronze medal thing,' as you call it, is worth a whole lot to a
+Boy Scout," rejoined Rob in the same even tone.  "More than you can
+understand."
+
+On their arrival at the yacht-club pier the boys were overwhelmed with
+questions, and a doctor was summoned for Sam, who, as soon as he found
+himself safe, began to groan and show most alarming symptoms of being
+seriously affected by his immersion.
+
+The boys were not able to conceal the fact that they had accomplished a
+brave rescue, and were overwhelmed with congratulations.  Merritt
+especially came in for warm praise and commendation.
+
+"You will certainly be granted your Red Honor," declared Mr. Wingate,
+who, besides being commodore of the Yacht Club, was one of the
+gentlemen whom Rob had persuaded to act as Scout Master for the new
+patrol.
+
+Merritt escaped from the crowd of admiring motor-boat men and boys as
+soon as he could, and hastened home for a change of clothes.  On the
+arrival of Dr. Telfair, the village physician, he pronounced that there
+was nothing whatever the matter with Sam but a bad fright, and
+prescribed dry garments and hot lemonade.
+
+"Don't I need any medicine?" groaned Sam, determined to make the most
+out of his temporary notoriety.
+
+"No, you don't," growled the doctor; "unless," he added to himself,
+"they put up 'courage' in bottles."
+
+"I suppose those boys will be more stuck up than ever now," said Jack
+to Bill Bender, as, having perfunctorily thanked their rescuers, they
+started for home with the almost weeping Sam.
+
+"Sure to be," rejoined Bill.  "It's all your fault, Sam, for taking us
+out in that fool hydroplane."
+
+"My fault!  Well, I like that," stuttered out Sam.  "You asked me to
+come, and you know I wanted to come back when the boys told us it might
+come on to blow; but you called me a 'sissy,' and said I was too timid
+to own a boat."
+
+"Um--er--well," rejoined Bill, somewhat confused, "that's so. But
+anyhow, to return to what we were talking about, it's given those kids
+a great chance to set up as heroes."
+
+"Well, we can work that scheme we were talking about last night on them
+just as soon as you're ready," suddenly remarked Jack. "That will give
+them something else to think about."
+
+"Oh, say, Jack, cut it out, won't you?" pleaded Sam.  "I don't like the
+kids any better than you do, but one of them saved my life to-day, and
+I'm not going into anything that will harm them."
+
+"Hear him rave!" sneered Jack.  "Why last night, when we talked it
+over, you thought it would be a prime joke.  It isn't as if it would
+hurt them.  It'll just give them something to study up, that's all.
+They think they're such fine trailers and tracers that it would be a
+shame not to give them a chance to show what they can do."
+
+"That's right, Sam," cut in Bill; "it's more of a joke than anything
+else."
+
+"Well," agreed Sam weakly, "if you put it in that way, I suppose it's
+all right; but I tell you I don't like it."
+
+"Why, you'll have the laugh of your young life after we've pulled the
+stunt off," remarked Bill.  "When will we do it, Jack?"
+
+"Not to-night, that's certain," responded the other.  "I've had enough
+excitement for one day."
+
+"What's the matter with to-morrow night, then?"
+
+"I'm agreeable.  How about you, Sam?"
+
+"I wish you fellows would leave me out of it," rejoined the bully's
+timid chum.
+
+"Like they left you out of their patrol, eh?" sneered Bill, knowing
+that he was touching the other on a tender spot.
+
+"All right, to-morrow night suits me," snapped Sam, flushing angrily at
+Bill's remark--as that worthy had intended he should. "Here's my house.
+We'll meet at Bill's 'boudoir."'
+
+"Right you are," chuckled Jack.  "Oh, say, it's going to be the joke of
+the century!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+SAM IN DIRE STRAITS
+
+
+"Kree-ee-ee!"
+
+Merritt paused the next morning in front of Tubby's home, and gave the
+"call" of the Eagle Patrol with a not uncreditable resemblance to the
+scream of a real eagle.
+
+The cry was instantly echoed--though in a rather thicker way--from
+inside the house, and in a minute Tubby, who knew that some one of the
+patrol must have uttered the call, appeared at his door, munching a
+large slice of bread and jam, although it was not more than an hour
+since breakfast.
+
+"Say, you, did you ever hear an eagle scream with his mouth full of
+bread and jam?" demanded Merritt, as the stout youth appeared.
+
+"Eagles don't eat bread and jam," rejoined Tubby, defending his
+position.  "Have some?"
+
+"Having had breakfast not more than an hour ago, I'm not hungry yet,
+thank you," politely rejoined the corporal; "besides, I'm afraid I'd
+get fat."
+
+Dodging the stout youth's blow, the corporal went on:
+
+"Heard the news?"
+
+"No--what news?" eagerly demanded the other, finishing his light repast.
+
+"Why, the Dolphin--you know, that fishing boat--picked up Sam's
+hydroplane at sea and towed it in.  It's in pretty good shape, I hear,
+although the engine is out of commission and it was half full of water."
+
+"He's a lucky fellow to get it back."
+
+"I should say so," replied Merritt; "but it will cost him a whole lot
+to reclaim it.  The captain of the Dolphin says he wants fifty dollars
+for it as salvage."
+
+"Gee!  Do you think Sam's father will give him that much?" said Tubby,
+with round eyes.
+
+"I don't know.  He can afford it all right.  He's made a lot of money
+out of that boat-building shop, my father says; but he's so stingy that
+I doubt very much if he will give Sam such a sum."
+
+"Why, here's Sam coming down the street now," exclaimed the
+good-natured Tubby.  "I wonder if he's heard about it.  Hullo, Sam!
+Get all the water out of your system?"
+
+"I'm all right this morning, if that is what you mean," rejoined the
+other, with dignity.
+
+"Heard the news about your boat?" asked Merritt suddenly.
+
+"No; what about her?  Is she safe?  Who picked her up?"
+
+"Wait a minute.  One question at a time," laughed Merritt. "She's safe,
+all right.  The Dolphin picked her up at sea.  But it will cost you
+fifty dollars to get her."
+
+"Fifty dollars!" gasped Sam, turning pale.
+
+"That's what the skipper of the Dolphin says.  He had a lot of trouble
+getting a line fast to her, he says, and he means to have the money or
+keep the boat."
+
+"Oh, well, I'll get it from my father easily enough," said Sam
+confidently, preparing to swagger off down the street.  "I've got to
+get my boat back and beat Rob's Flying Fish, and that hydroplane can do
+it."
+
+"Can you match that?" exclaimed Merritt to the fat youth, as Sam
+strolled away.  "Here he was saved from drowning by the Flying Fish
+only yesterday, and all he can think of this morning is to promise to
+beat her.  What makes him so mean, I wonder?"
+
+"Just born that way, I guess," rejoined the stout youth; "and as for
+the Flying Fish saving him, if it hadn't been for a certain Corporal
+Crawford, he--"
+
+"Here, stow that," protested Merritt, coloring up.  "I heard enough of
+that yesterday afternoon."
+
+As the boys had surmised, Sam's father was not at all pleased when he
+learned that his son wanted fifty dollars.  In fact, he refused point
+blank to let him have it at all.
+
+"That boat of yours has cost enough already, and I'm not going to spend
+any more on it," he said angrily, as he turned to his work.
+
+"But I can't get the hydroplane back if I don't pay it," urged Sam.
+"I've seen the captain of the Dolphin, and he refuses absolutely to let
+me have her unless I pay him for his trouble in towing her in."
+
+"I can't help that," snapped the elder Redding.  "What have I got to do
+with your boat?  Look here!" he exclaimed, turning angrily and
+producing a small memorandum book from his pocket and rapidly turning
+the leaves.  "Do you know how much I've given you in the last two
+months?"
+
+"N-n-no," stammered Sam, looking very much embarrassed, and shuffling
+about from one foot to the other.
+
+"Then I'll tell you, young man; it's exactly--let me see--ten, twenty,
+five, three, fifteen and eight.  That's just sixty-one dollars.  Do you
+think that money grows on gooseberry bushes? Then there'll be your
+college expenses to pay.  No, I can't let you have a cent."
+
+"That means that I will lose my boat and the chance of winning the race
+at the regatta!" urged Sam gloomily.
+
+"Well, you should have had more sense than to take that fool hydroplane
+out into a rough sea.  I told you she wouldn't stand it.  There, go on
+about your own affairs.  I'm far too busy to loaf about, arguing with
+you."
+
+And with this the hard-featured old boat builder--who had made his
+money literally by the sweat of his brow--turned once more to his task
+of figuring out the blue prints of a racing sloop.
+
+Sam saw that it was no use to argue further with his father, and left
+the shop with no very pleasant expression on his countenance.
+
+"I'll have to see if I can't borrow it somewhere," he mused.  "If only
+I was on better terms with Rob Blake, I could get it from him, I guess.
+His father is a banker and he must have plenty.  I wonder--I wonder if
+Mr. Blake himself wouldn't lend it to me.  I could give him a note for
+it, and in three months' time I'd be sure to be able to take it up."
+
+With this end in view, the lad started for the Hampton Bank.  It
+required some courage for a youth of his disposition to make up his
+mind to beard the lion in his den--or, in other words, to approach Mr.
+Blake in his office.  For Sam, while bold enough when his two hulking
+cronies were about, had no real backbone of his own.
+
+After making two or three turns in front of the bank, he finally
+screwed his courage to the sticking point, and timidly asked an
+attendant if he could see the banker.
+
+"I think so.  I'll see," was the reply.
+
+In a few seconds the man reappeared, and said that Mr. Blake could
+spare a few minutes.  Hat in hand, Sam entered the ground-glass door
+which bore on it in imposing gilt letters the word "President."
+
+The interview was brief, and to Sam most unsatisfactory.  The banker
+pointed out to him that he was a minor, and as such that his note would
+be no good; and also that, without the permission of his father, he
+would not think of lending the youth such a sum.  Much crestfallen, Sam
+shuffled his way out toward the main door of the bank, when suddenly a
+voice he recognized caused him to look up.
+
+"A hundred and twenty-five dollars.  That's right, all shipshape and
+above board!"
+
+It was the old captain of Topsail Island, counting over in his gnarled
+paw one hundred and twenty-five dollars in crisp bills which he had
+just received from the paying teller.
+
+"You must be going to be married, captain," Sam heard the teller remark
+jocularly.
+
+"Not yet a while," the captain laughed back.  "That ther motor uv mine
+that I left ter be fixed up is goin' ter cost me fifty dollars, and the
+other seventy-five I'm calculating ter keep on hand in my safe fer a
+while.  I'm kind uv figgerin' on gettin' a new dinghy--my old one is
+just plum full uv holes.  I rowed over frum the island this mornin',
+and I declar' ter goodness, once or twice I thought I'd swamp."
+
+Sam slipped out of the bank without speaking to the captain, whom,
+indeed, since the episode of the melon patch, he had no great desire to
+encounter.
+
+As he made his way toward his home in no very amiable mood, he was
+hailed from the opposite side of the street by Jack Curtiss and Bill
+Bender.
+
+"Any news of the boat?" demanded Jack, as he and Bill crossed over and
+slapped their crony on the back with great assumed heartiness.
+
+"Yes, and mighty bad news, too, in one way.  She's safe enough. The
+Dolphin--that fishing boat--found her and towed her in. But--here's the
+tough part of it--it's going to cost fifty dollars for salvage to get
+her from the Dolphin's captain, the old shark!"
+
+"Phew!" whistled Jack Curtiss.  "Pretty steep.  But I suppose your old
+man will fork over, eh?"
+
+"That's just it," grumbled Sam; "he won't come across with a cent.  I
+suppose, if I don't pay for the hydroplane's recovery pretty soon, she
+will be sold at auction."
+
+"That's the usual process," observed Bill.
+
+"Isn't there any way you can raise the wind?"
+
+"No, I've tried every one I can think of.  I don't suppose either of
+you fellows could--"
+
+"Nothing doing here," hastily cried Jack, not giving the other time to
+finish.
+
+"I'm cleaned out, too," Bill also hurriedly assured the unfortunate Sam.
+
+"It looks like everybody but us has coin," complained that worthy
+bitterly.  "While I was in the bank trying to get old man Blake to take
+up a note of mine for the sum I need, who should I see in there but
+that old fossil of a captain from Topsail Island."
+
+"Who grows such fine, juicy melons and keeps such a nice, amiable pet
+dog," laughed Jack, roaring at the recollection of the piratical
+expedition of which the island dweller had told the boys.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" shouted Bill in chorus.  "We'll have to give him another
+visit soon."
+
+"But what about the old land crab, Sam?" demanded Jack the next minute.
+"What was he doing in the bank?"
+
+"Why, drawing one hundred and twenty-five dollars.  Just think of it,
+and we always figured it out that he was poor."
+
+"A hundred and twenty-five dollars!  I wonder what he's going to do
+with it?" wondered Jack, with whom money and its spending was always an
+absorbing topic.
+
+"Why, I overheard that, too, as I passed by," rejoined Sam. "He's going
+to spend some of it for the repairing of his motor, which broke down
+yesterday, and the rest he's going to keep by him."
+
+"Keep it on the island, you mean?" demanded Jack, becoming suddenly
+much interested.
+
+"That's what he said--keep it in his safe," replied Sam.  "But what
+good does that do us?"
+
+"A whole lot, maybe," was the enigmatic reply.  "See here, Sam, you can
+win that race if you get your hydroplane?"
+
+"I'm sure of it."
+
+"You are going to bet on yourself, of course."
+
+"Sure.  I've got to raise some money somehow."
+
+"Well, I've thought of a way you can borrow the money to get your boat
+back, and when you win the race you can return it.  Come on, lees go to
+Bill's den, and we'll have a smoke and talk it over."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE BULLY SPRINGS A SURPRISE
+
+
+That afternoon, in reply to a notice sent round by a runner, the lads
+of the Eagle Patrol assembled at their armory, and on Leader Rob's
+orders "fell in" to hear the official announcement of the coming
+camping trip.  As a matter of fact, they had discussed little else for
+several days, but the first "regimental" notification, as it were, was
+to be made now.
+
+The first duty to be performed was the calling of the roll after
+"assembly" had been sounded--somewhat quaveringly--by little Andy
+Bowles, the company bugler.
+
+Beside Rob Merritt, Tubby and Andy, there were Hiram Nelson, a tall,
+lanky youth, whose hands were stained with much fussing with chemicals,
+for he was a wireless experimenter; Ernest Thompson, a big-eyed,
+serious-looking lad, whose specialty in the little regiment was that of
+bicycle scout, as the spoked wheel on his arm denoted; Simon Jeffords,
+a second-class scout, but who, under Rob's tutelage, was becoming the
+expert "wig-wagger" of the organization; Paul Perkins, another
+second-class boy, but a hard worker and a devotee of aeronautics;
+Martin Green, one of the smallest of the Eagle Patrol, a tenderfoot;
+Walter Lonsdale, also a recruit, and Joe Digby, who, as the last to
+join the Patrol, was the tenderest of the tenderfeet.
+
+Rob's announcement of the program for the eight days they were to spend
+on the island was greeted with cheers.  The news that turns were to be
+taken by two scouts daily at washing dishes and cooking did not awaken
+quite so much enthusiasm.  Everybody cheered up again, however, when
+Rob announced that the Flying Fish would be at the disposal of the boys
+of the patrol.
+
+Corporal Merritt took Rob's place as orator then, and announced that
+each boy would be assessed one dollar for the expenses of the camp, the
+remainder of the money necessary for the providing of tents and the
+provisioning of the camp having been donated by Rob's father, Mr.
+Wingate, of the yacht club, and the other representative citizens of
+Hampton who composed the local scout council.
+
+Further excitement was caused by the announcement that following the
+camp the local committee would pass upon the applications for
+promotions and honors for the lads of the Patrol, and that it was
+likely that another patrol would be formed in the village, as several
+boys had expressed themselves as anxious to form one. The gentlemen
+having charge of the local scout movement, however, had decided that it
+would be wiser to wait and see the result of one patrol's training
+before forming a second one.
+
+"I'm going to try for an aviator's badge," announced Paul Perkins, as
+Rob declared the official business at an end.
+
+"Say, Rob, what's the matter with our fixing up a wireless in the camp?
+I'm pretty sure I can make one that will catch anything in a
+hundred-mile radius."
+
+"That's a good idea," assented Rob; "if you can do it we can get a lot
+of good out of it, I don't doubt."
+
+"What's the good of wireless when we've got wig-wagging and the
+semaphore code," spoke up Simon Jeffords, who was inclined to doubt the
+use of any other form of telegraphy but that in which he had perfected
+himself.
+
+As for Martin Green, Walter Lonsdale and Joe Digby, they contented
+themselves with hoping that they might receive their badges as
+second-class scouts when the camp was over.
+
+"I can take the whole tests except cooking the meat and potatoes in the
+'Billy,'" bemoaned young Green, a small chap of about thirteen.
+"Somehow, they always seem to burn, or else they don't cook at all."
+
+"Well, cheer up, Martin," laughed Rob.  "You'll learn to do it in camp.
+We'll make you cook for the whole time we're out there, if you
+like--that will give you plenty of practice."
+
+"No, thank you," chimed in Andy Bowles.  "I've seen some of Mart's
+cooking, and I think the farther you keep him from the cook fire, the
+better for the general health of the Eagle Patrol."
+
+At this moment there came a rap on the door.
+
+"Come in!" shouted Rob.
+
+In reply to this invitation, the door opened and a lad of about fifteen
+entered.  His face was flushed and he bore in his hand a long sheet of
+green paper.
+
+"Hello, Frank Farnham," exclaimed Rob glancing at the boy's flushed,
+excited face.  "What's troubling you?"
+
+"Oh, hello, Rob.  Excuse me for butting in on your ceremonies, but I
+was told Paul Perkins was here."
+
+"Sure he is, Frank," exclaimed Paul, coming forward.  "What's the
+matter?  It's much too warm to be flying around the way you seem to
+have been.  Come in under this fan."
+
+He indicated an electrically driven ventilator that was whirring in a
+corner of the room.
+
+"Quit your fooling, Paul," remonstrated Frank, "and read this circular.
+Here."
+
+He thrust the green "dodger" he carried into the other's hand.
+
+"What do you think of that, eh?" demanded Frank, as Paul skimmed it
+with delighted eyes.
+
+The circular contained the announcement of a lecture on aeronautics by
+a well-known authority on the subject who had once been a resident of
+Hampton.  To stimulate interest in the subject, the paper stated that a
+first prize of fifty dollars, a second prize of twenty-five, and a
+third prize of ten dollars would be given to the three lads of the town
+making and flying the most successful models of aeroplanes in a public
+competition. To win the first prize it would be necessary for the model
+to fly more than two hundred feet, and not lower, except at the start
+and end of the flight, than fifty feet above the ground.  The second
+prize was for the next best flight, and the third for the model
+approaching the nearest to the winner of the second money.
+
+"Now, Paul, you are an aeronautic fiend," went on Frank, "So am I, and
+Hiram has the fever in a mild way.  What's the matter with you two
+fellows forming a team to represent the Boy Scouts, and I'll get up a
+team of village boys, to compete for the prizes."
+
+"That's a good idea," assented Hiram Nelson.  "I've got a model almost
+completed.  It only needs the rubber bands and a little testing and it
+will be O.K., or at least I hope so.  How about you, Paul?"
+
+"Oh, I've got two models that I have got good results from," replied
+the boy addressed.  "One is a biplane.  She's not so speedy, but very
+steady; and then I have a model of a Bleriot. I'm willing to enter
+either of them or both."
+
+"And I've got a model of an Antoinette, and one of a design of my own.
+I don't know just how well it will work," concluded Frank modestly,
+"but I have great hopes of carrying off that prize."
+
+"Let's see who else there is," pondered Hiram.
+
+"There's Tom Maloney.  He'll go in, I know; and Ed Rivers and two or
+three others, and then, by the way, I almost forgot it, I met Sam
+Redding, Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender, reading a notice of the
+competition, just before I came up.  Of course, as there is a chance of
+winning fifty dollars, Jack is going to enter one, and Bill Bender said
+he would put one in, too."
+
+"What do they know about aeroplanes?" demanded Paul.
+
+"Not a whole lot, I guess; but Jack said he was going to get a book
+that tells how to make one, and Bill said he'd do the same."
+
+"How about Sam?" inquired Rob.
+
+"Oh, I guess he's got troubles enough with his hydroplane," responded
+Rob, whose father had told him at dinner that day of Sam's vain visit
+to the bank.
+
+"It would be just like those fellows to put up something crooked on
+us," remarked Paul, who had had much the same experiences with the
+bully and his chums as his schoolmates generally.
+
+"Oh, there'll be no chance of that," Frank assured him.  "A local
+committee of business men is to be appointed to see fair play, and I
+don't fancy that even Jack or Bill will be slick enough to get away
+with any crooked work."
+
+"How long have we got to get ready?" asked Hiram suddenly.
+
+"Just a week."
+
+"Wow! that isn't much time."
+
+"No; my father told me that Professor Charlton, whom he knows, would
+have given a longer time for preparation but that he has to attend a
+flying meet in Europe, and only decided to lecture at his native town
+at the last moment.  Lucky thing that most of us have got our models
+almost ready."
+
+"Yes, especially as this notice says," added Paul, who had been reading
+it, "that all models must be the sole work of the contestants."
+
+"If it wasn't for that it would be easy," remarked Hiram.  "You can buy
+dandy models in New York.  I've seen them advertised in the papers."
+
+"Well, come on over now and put your name down, as a contestant. The
+blanks are in the office of the Hampton News," urged Frank.
+
+"I guess we're all through up here, Rob, aren't we?" asked Hiram.
+
+"Yes," rejoined the young leader; "but you study up on your woodcraft,
+Hiram, and devote more time to your signaling.  You are such a bug on
+wireless that you forget the rest of the stuff."
+
+"All right, Rob," promised Hiram contritely.  "By the time we go
+camping I'll know a cat track from a squirrel's, or never put a
+detector on my head again."
+
+Piloted by Frank, the two young scouts made their way to the office of
+the local paper, which had already placed a large bulletin announcing
+the aeroplane model competition in its window.  Quite a crowd was
+gathered, reading the details, as the three boys entered.
+
+They applied for their application blanks and walked over to a desk to
+fill them out.  As they were hard at work at this, Jack Curtiss and his
+two chums entered the office.
+
+"You going into this, too?" asked the proprietor of the paper, Ephraim
+Parkhurst, as Jack loudly demanded two blanks.
+
+"Sure," responded Jack confidently, "and we are going to win it, too.
+Hullo," he exclaimed, as his eyes fell on the younger lads, "those kids
+are after the prize, too.  Why, what would they do with fifty dollars
+if they had it?  However, there's not much chance of your winning
+anything," he added, coming up close to the boys, with a sneer on his
+face.  "I think that I've got it cinched."
+
+"I didn't know that you knew anything about aeroplanes," responded Paul
+quietly.  "Have you got a model built yet?"
+
+"I know about a whole lot of things I don't go blabbing round to
+everybody about," responded the elder lad, with a sneer, "and as for
+having a model built, I'm going to get right to work on one at once.
+It'll be a model of a Bleriot monoplane, and a large one, too.  I
+notice that there is nothing said in the rules about the size of the
+machines."
+
+Soon after this the three chums left the newspaper office together.
+
+"Say," remarked Paul, in a rather worried tone, "I don't believe that
+there is anything said about the size of the models.  Bill may build a
+great big one and beat us all out."
+
+"I suppose that the big machines would be handicapped according to
+their power and speed," rejoined Frank.  "However, don't you worry
+about that.  I don't believe that Jack Curtiss knows enough about the
+subject to build an aeroplane in a week, and anyhow, I think it's all
+empty bluff on his part."
+
+"I hope so," replied Paul, as they reached his front gate.  "Will you
+be over to-night, Hiram, to talk things over?  Bring your models with
+you, too, will you?"
+
+"Sure," replied Hiram; "but I've got to do a few things at home after
+supper.  I'll be over about eight o'clock or half-past."
+
+"All right.  I'll be ready for you," responded Paul, as the lads said
+good-by.
+
+A few minutes later Jack Curtiss and his chums emerged from the
+newspaper office, the former and Bill Bender having made out their
+applications.  Sam seemed more dejected than ever, but there was a grin
+of satisfaction on Jack Curtiss' face.
+
+"Well, we sent the note, all right," he laughed under his breath, to
+his two chums.  "He'll have got it by this time, and will be in town by
+dark.  You know your part of the program, Sam.  Don't fail to carry it
+out, or I'll see that you get into trouble."
+
+"There's no need to worry about me, Jack," rejoined Sam, with an angry
+flush.  "I'll get the boat as soon as he lands, and keep it out of
+sight till you've done the trick.
+
+"Nothing like killing two birds with one stone," grinned Bill Bender.
+"My! what a time there'll be in the morning, when they find out that
+there's been a regular double cross."
+
+"Hush!  Here come those three kids now," warned Sam, as Rob, Merritt
+and Tubby came down the street.  After what had passed they did not
+feel called upon to give the bully and his companions more than a cold
+nod.
+
+"Well, be as stuck up as you like to this after-noon!" sneered Jack,
+after they had gone by, taking good care, however, that his voice would
+not carry.  "I guess the laugh will be on you and your old friend of
+the island to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+AN ISLAND MYSTERY
+
+
+"Hullo, Hiram; where are you bound for?"
+
+It was Rob who spoke, as Hiram hastened by his house in the early
+darkness.
+
+"Oh, hullo, Rob," responded the other.  "I was wondering who that was
+hanging over the gate.  Why, I'm going to Paul's house.  I'm going to
+talk over that aeroplane model contest with him.  I think that we stand
+a chance to win if Jack Curtiss doesn't make good his boast."
+
+"What was that?" inquired Rob.
+
+"Oh, he says that he is going to build an aeroplane that will beat us
+all."
+
+"And have it ready in a week?" was Rob's astonished query.
+
+"That's what he says," responded Hiram.  "It all looks kind of
+suspicious to me.  Fifty dollars is a large enough sum to tempt Jack to
+do almost anything.  Well, so long. I've got to hurry along. I'm late
+now."
+
+And the lad hastened away to keep his appointment.
+
+Rob was about to go into the house and get a book, when his attention
+was arrested by a figure coming up the street at a smart pace whose
+outlines somehow seemed familiar to him.  The next minute his guess was
+confirmed, when a hearty voice hailed him:
+
+"Waal, here I am, lad--all shipshape and in first-class trim. Now, what
+is it?  What do yer want?  Yer didn't explain in the note, but old
+Captain job Hudgins'll always stand by a shipmate in distress."
+
+"Why, whatever do you mean, captain?" exclaimed Rob, amazed, and
+thinking that the captain must have taken leave of his wits. "Who do
+you mean is in distress?"
+
+"Mean?" echoed the captain, in his turn, it seemed, surprised. "Why,
+that note yer sent me.  Here it is--all written on one uv them
+new-fangled machines."
+
+Rob took the crumpled paper the old seaman drew out of his coat and
+scanned it hastily by the light of the street lamp.  The following note
+met his puzzled gaze.
+
+"DEAR CAPTAIN: Please come over and see me at once.  Something serious
+has happened at the bank.  I need your aid and advice.
+
+"Yours,
+
+"ROB BLAKE."
+
+"Hum!  The signature is typewritten, too," mused Rob.  "What kind of a
+joke is this?  I don't know, but I'll bet anything that Jack Curtiss is
+at the bottom of it."
+
+"Well," demanded the captain, "what is it, a bit of gammon?  I'll
+keel-haul the man as did it if I can find him."
+
+"It looks like a hoax of some sort," admitted Rob, sorely puzzled; "but
+I can't for the life of me see the object of it. Come into the house a
+minute, captain, and we'll try to figure it out."
+
+Seated beneath the lamp in the library of his home, Rob scrutinized the
+letter closely, but could find absolutely no indication about it to
+betray who could have typewritten it.
+
+"How did you come to receive it?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Why, old Hank Handcraft come out in that crazy launch uv his and guv
+it ter me," rejoined the captain.  "I ought ter hev told yer that in
+the first place, but I was all took aback and canvas a-shiver when yer
+tole me yer never wrote it."
+
+"Hank Handcraft," repeated Rob.  "He's that queer old fellow that lives
+in a hut away down the beach?"
+
+"Yes, and a bad character, too," replied the captain.  "He used ter be
+a smuggler, and done a term in jail fer it."
+
+"Well, it's pretty certain that he didn't write this," said Rob. "He
+couldn't get hold of a typewriter, even if he could use one. What did
+he tell you about it?  Did he say who gave it to, him?"
+
+"No, he just handed it ter me, and says: 'A young party in Hampton says
+ter give yer this and hurry.'  I was just gettin' my supper when I
+heard his hail of 'Island, ahoy!'  I hurried out, and there he was in
+that old teakettle uv his, at the end uv my wharf."
+
+"And he left before you read the note?"
+
+"I should say.  He hurried right off ag'in."
+
+"Well, I don't see any way to get at the bottom of this mystery but to
+go and see old Hank himself," mused Rob, after a period of thought.
+"What do you think, captain?"
+
+"That's the tack ter go about on, youngster," agreed the man of Topsail
+Island; "but if yer are goin' down ter his place at this hour uv night,
+we'd better take somebody else along.  He's a bad character, and I'm
+only a feeble old man and yer are a lad."
+
+"I'll go round by Merritt Crawford's house," proposed Rob; "then we'll
+pick up Tubby Hopkins.  I guess we can handle any trouble that Hank
+wants to make, with that force on hand."
+
+"I guess so," agreed the old man. "I must say I'd like ter get ter the
+bottom uv this here mystery.  'All fair and above board' is my motto.
+I don't like these secret craft."
+
+The two young scouts were both at home, and after brief explanations
+the four started off at a lively pace for Hank Handcraft's hut, which
+was situated about two miles along the beach.  As they hastened along,
+Rob explained to the others in more detail the nature of their mission,
+but though they were as much mystified by the sudden summons of Captain
+Hudgins as Rob and the captain himself, they could hit upon no
+plausible explanation for it.
+
+It was a little over half an hour before they reached the dilapidated
+hut where old Handcraft, a beach-comber, made his dwelling place.  A
+short distance off the shore they could see by the moon, which had now
+risen, that his crazy old motor boat lay at anchor.  This was a sign
+that Hank was at home.  Lest it be wondered that such a character could
+have owned a motor boat, it may be explained here that the engine of
+Hank's old oyster skiff had been given him by a summer resident who
+despaired of making it work.  Hank, however, who was quite handy with
+tools, had fixed it up and managed to make it drive his patched old
+craft at quite a fair speed--sometimes.  When it broke down, as it
+frequently did, Hank, who was a philosopher in his way, simply got out
+his oars and rowed his heavy craft.
+
+As an additional indication that the hut was occupied, light shone
+through several of its numerous chinks and crannies, and a knock at the
+door brought forth a low growl of: "Who's there?"
+
+"We want to see you," said Rob.
+
+"This is no time of night to call on a gentleman; come to-morrow and
+leave your cards," rumbled the gruff voice from inside the hut.
+
+"This is serious business," urged Rob.  "Come on, open that door, Hank.
+This is Rob Blake, the banker's son."
+
+"Oh, it is, is it?" grumbled the voice, as the clank of the door-chains
+being taken off was heard from within.  "Well, I ain't had much
+business deals with your father lately, my private fortune being
+somewhat shrunk."
+
+With a muffled chuckle from the speaker, the door slowly opened, and
+Hank, a ragged figure, with an immense matted beard, long tangled hair
+and dim blue eyes, that blinked like a rat's, stood revealed.
+
+"Come in, come in, gentlemen," he bowed, with mock politeness. "I'm
+glad to see such a numerous and representative party.  Now, what kin I
+do you for?"
+
+He chuckled once more at his little jest, and the boys involuntarily
+shrank from him.
+
+There was nothing to do, however, but enter the hut, and Hank
+accommodated his guests with a cracker box apiece as chairs.  On a
+table, roughly built out of similar boxes, a battered old stable lamp
+smoked and flared.  A more miserable human habitation could not be
+imagined.
+
+"Hank," began the captain, "speak me fair and above board, mate--who
+give yer that letter ter bring ter me ter-night?"
+
+"What letter?" blankly responded Hank, a look of vacancy in his shifty
+eyes.
+
+"Oh, yer know well enough; that letter yer give me at supper time."
+
+"Captain, I'll give you my davy I don't know what you're talking
+about," returned the beachcomber.
+
+"What!" roared the captain: rising to his feet and advancing
+threateningly.  "Yer mean ter tell me, yer rapscallion, that yer don't
+recall landin' at Topsail Island earlier ter-night and givin' me a note
+which says ter come urgent and immediate ter see young Rob Blake here?"
+
+"Why, captain," calmly returned Hank, with an indulgent grin, "I really
+think you must be gettin' childish in your old age.  You must be seeing
+things.  I hope you ain't drinking."
+
+"You--you scoundrel, you!" roared the old captain, almost beside
+himself with rage, and dancing with clenched fists toward Hank.
+
+The beach-comber's filthy hand slipped into his rags in a minute, and
+the next instant he was squatting back on his haunches in the corner of
+the hut, like a wildcat about to spring.  In his hand there glistened,
+in the yellow rays of the lamp, a blued-steel revolver.
+
+"Don't get angry, captain.  It's bad for the digestion," grinned the
+castaway.  "Now," he went on, "I'm going to tell you flat that if you
+say I came to your island to-night, you're dreaming. It must have been
+some one else.
+
+"Come on, boys," directed the captain, with an angry shrug. "There's no
+use wastin' time on the critter.  I'm inclined ter think now that
+there's somethin' more than ordinary in the wind," he added, as they
+left the hut, with the half-idiotic chuckles of its occupant ringing in
+their ears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SOME STRANGE DOINGS
+
+
+It was not far from midnight when the boys, sorely perplexed, once more
+reached Hampton.  The main street had been deserted long since, and
+every one in the village had returned to rest.
+
+The boys left the captain by the water-front, while they headed up the
+Main Street for their respective homes.  Rob remained up, pondering
+over the events of the evening for some time, without arriving at any
+solution of them.  He was just about to extinguish his light when he
+was startled by a loud:
+
+"His--s--st!"
+
+The noise came from directly below his open window, which faced onto
+the garden.
+
+He put out his head, and saw a dark figure standing in the yard.
+
+"Who is it?" he demanded.
+
+"It's me, the captain, Rob," rejoined the well-known voice.  "I
+wouldn't have bothered yer but that I saw a light in yer window."
+
+"What's the trouble, captain?" asked the boy, noting a troubled
+inflection in the old man's voice.
+
+"My boat's gone!" was the startling reply.
+
+"Gone!  Are you sure?"
+
+"No doubt about it.  I left her tied ter the L wharf when I come up
+from the island, and now there ain't hide nor hair uv her there."
+
+"I'll bet anything that that fellow Curtiss is at the bottom of all
+this," cried Rob.  "I remember now I heard some time ago that he was
+thick with that Hank Handcraft."
+
+"I don't know what ter do about it at this time uv ther night," went on
+the distressed captain, "an' I can't go round waking folks up ter get
+another boat."
+
+"Of course not," agreed Rob.  "There's only one thing for you to do,
+captain, and that is to put up here to-night, and in the morning we'll
+see what we can do."
+
+"That's mighty fair, square, and above board uv yer, lad," said the
+captain gratefully.  "Punk me anywhere.  I'm an old sailor, and can
+aways find the softest plank in the deck."
+
+"You won't have to do that," said Rob, who had slipped downstairs by
+this time and opened the door; "we've got a spare room you can bunk in
+to-night.  I'll explain it all to father in the morning. Perhaps he can
+help us out."
+
+"Gee whiz! almost twelve o'clock," exclaimed Hiram Nelson, looking up
+at the clock from the dining-room table in Paul Perkins' house.  The
+chamber was strewn with text books on model aeroplane construction and
+littered with figures and plans of the boys' own devising.  "How time
+flies when you're on a subject that interests you."
+
+"Yes, it's a good thing it's vacation time," agreed Paul.  "We wouldn't
+be in much shape to work at our books to-morrow, eh?"
+
+"I should say not!" rejoined Hiram with conviction.  "Well, so long,
+Paul.  I guess we've got it all figured out now, and all that is left
+to do is to go ahead."
+
+"That's the idea," responded Paul.  "We'll get the prize for the glory
+of the Eagle Patrol, or--or--"
+
+"Bust!" Hiram finished for him.
+
+Hiram's way home lay past the bank, and as he walked down the moonlit
+street he thought for a minute that he perceived a light in the windows
+of the armory.
+
+Almost as he fancied he glimpsed it, however, it vanished, and the lad
+was convinced that he must have been mistaken, or else seen a
+reflection of the moonlight on the windows.
+
+"Queer, though," he mused.  "I could almost have sworn it was a light."
+
+Another curious thing presently attracted his attention.  As he neared
+the bank a dark figure seemed to vanish into the black shadows round
+the corner.  Something familiar about it struck Hiram, and the next
+moment he realized why.
+
+"If that wasn't Bill Bender, I'm a Dutchman," he muttered, his heart
+beating a little faster.  "But what can he be doing round here at this
+time of night?"
+
+As he put the question to himself, Bill Bender, walking rapidly, as if
+he had come from some distance, and had not dodged round the corner a
+moment before, suddenly appeared from round the angle of the bank
+building.
+
+"Good evening, Bill," said Hiram, wondering if his eyes were not
+playing him some queer tricks; "wasn't that you just went round the
+corner?"
+
+"Who, me?" blustered Bill.  "You need to visit an oculist, young man.
+I've just come from a visit to my aunt's.  It was her birthday, and we
+had a bully time.  Sat up a little too late, though.  Good night."
+
+And with a great assumption of easiness, the crony of Jack Curtiss
+walked rapidly off up the street.
+
+"I guess he's right," mused Hiram, as he hurried on home.  "But if that
+wasn't Bill Bender who walked round that corner it was his ghost, and
+all the ghosts I ever read about don't wear squeaky boots."
+
+If Hiram had remained he would have had further cause to be suspicious
+and speculative.
+
+The lad's footsteps had hardly died out down the street before Bill
+Bender cautiously retraced his way, and, going round to the side
+street, upon which the steps leading to the armory opened, gave a
+cautious whistle.  In reply a sack was lowered from a window to him by
+some person invisible above.
+
+Although there was some little light on the Main Street by reason of
+the moon and the few scattering lamps along the thoroughfare, the spot
+in which Bill now stood was as black as the proverbial pocket.
+
+"Is the coast all clear?" came down a voice from the window above.
+
+"Yes; but if I hadn't spotted young Hiram Nelson coming down the street
+and warned you to put out that light, it wouldn't have been," responded
+Bill in the same cautious tone.
+
+"Well, we're safe enough now," came back the voice above, which any of
+his acquaintances would have recognized as Jack Curtiss'. "I've got the
+rest of them in this other sack.  Here, take this one when I drop it."
+
+Bill made a bungling effort to catch the heavy receptacle that fell
+following Jack's warning, but in the darkness he failed, and it crashed
+down with quite a clatter.
+
+"Look out!" warned Jack anxiously, "some one might hear that."
+
+"Not in this peaceful community.  You seem to forget that eleven
+o'clock is the very latest bedtime in Hampton."
+
+After a brief interval Jack Curtiss himself slipped out of the side
+door of the armory and joined his friend on the dark sidewalk.
+
+"Well, what's the next move on the program?" asked Bill.
+
+"We'll sneak down Bailey's Lane--there are no lights there--to Hank's
+place.  Sam will be waiting off there with the boat," rejoined Jack.
+
+"Yes, if he hasn't lost his nerve," was Bill's rejoinder as they
+shouldered their sacks and slipped off into the deep blackness
+shrouding the side streets.
+
+"Well, if he has lost it, he'll come near losing his head, too," grated
+out Jack, "but don't you fear, he wants that fifty too badly to go back
+on us."
+
+Silently as two cats the cronies made their way down the tree-bordered
+thoroughfare known as Bailey's Lane and after a few minutes gained the
+beach.
+
+"Say, that's an awful hike down to Hank's gilded palace," grumbled
+Bill, "why didn't you have Sam wait for us off here?"
+
+"Yes, and have old man Hudgins discover him when he finds his boat is
+gone," sneered Jack, "you'd have made a fine botch of this if it hadn't
+been for me."
+
+The two exchanged no further words on the weary tramp along the soft
+beach.  They plodded along steadily with the silence only broken by a
+muttered remark emanating from Bill Bender from time to time.
+
+"Thank heaven, there's the place at last," exclaimed Bill, with a sigh
+of relief, as they came in sight of the miserable hut, "I began to
+think that Hank must have moved."
+
+Jack gave a peculiar whistle and the next instant the same light the
+boys had seen earlier in the evening shone through the chinks of the
+hovel.
+
+"Well, he's awake, at any rate," remarked Jack with a grin, "now to
+find out where the boat is."
+
+As the wretched figure of the beach-comber appeared Jack hailed him
+roughly.
+
+"Where's that boat, Hank?"
+
+"Been cruising off and on here since eleven o'clock," rejoined the
+other sullenly, "ah! there she is now off to the sou'west."
+
+He pointed and the boys saw a red light flash twice seaward as if some
+one had passed their hands across it.
+
+"All right, give him the answer," ordered Jack.  "We've got to hurry if
+we're to be back before the captain and those brats of boys get after
+our trail."
+
+Hank at Jack's order dived into the hut and now reappeared with the
+smoky lantern.  He waved it four times from side to side like a
+brakeman and in a short time a steady "put-put!" told the watchers that
+a motor boat was approaching.
+
+"Now for your dinghy, Hank," urged Jack, "hurry up.  You move like a
+man a hundred and ninety years old, with the rheumatism."
+
+"Well, come on, then," retorted Hank, "here's the boat," pointing to a
+cobbled dinghy lying hauled up above the water line, "give me a hand
+and we'll shove off."
+
+The united strength of the three soon had the boat in the water and
+with Hank at the oars they moved steadily toward the chugging motor
+boat.
+
+"Well, Sam, you're on the job, I see," remarked Jack as the two craft
+ranged alongside and Sam cut off the engine.
+
+"Oh, I'm on the job all right," rejoined Sam, feeling much braver now
+that the other two had arrived, "have you got them all right?"
+
+"Right here in this bag, and some more in this, my bucko," chuckled
+Jack as he handed the two sacks over to Sam.
+
+"Ha!  ha!  ha!" chortled Bill under his breath as he climbed out of the
+cobble into the motor boat, "won't there be a fine row in the morning."
+
+"Well, come on; start up, Sam.  We've no time to lose," ordered Jack as
+he and Bill got aboard, "good night there, Hank."
+
+"Good night," rejoined Hank quietly enough, as the motor boat moved
+swiftly off over the moonlit sea.  He added to himself, "It won't be a
+very 'good night' for you, my lad, if you don't pay me as handsomely as
+you promised."
+
+And chuckling to himself till his shoulders shook, Hank resumed his
+oars and rowed back to the miserable shanty he called home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE STOLEN UNIFORMS
+
+
+Rob and his old friend lost no time the next morning in getting down to
+the water-front to make inquiries about the captain's missing boat.  To
+their astonishment, however, almost the first craft that caught their
+eyes as they arrived at the L wharf to begin their search was the old
+sailor's motor dory, to all appearances in exactly the same position
+she had occupied the preceding night when the captain moored her.
+
+"Have I clapped deadlights on my optics, or am I gone plumb locoed?"
+bellowed the amazed captain, as he saw the little craft dancing lightly
+on the sunny waters.
+
+"You are certainly not mistaken in supposing that is your boat. I'd
+know her among a thousand," Rob assured him.  "Are you quite certain
+that she was not here last night, captain?"
+
+"Just as sure as I am that yer and me is standin' here," rejoined the
+bewildered captain.  "I've sailed the seven seas in my day, and man and
+boy seen many queer things; but if this don't beat cock fightin', I'm
+an inky Senegambian!"
+
+The captain's voice had risen to a perfect roar as he uttered the last
+words, and a sort of jack-of-all-trades about the wharf, whose name was
+Hi Higgins, came shuffling up, asking what was the trouble.
+
+"Trouble," roared the hermit of Topsail Island.  "Trouble enough fer
+all hands and some left over fer the cat!  Say, shipmate, yer hangs
+about this here L wharf a lot.  Did yer see any piratical humans
+monkeyin' around my boat last night?"
+
+"Why, what d'yer mean, cap'n," sniffled Hi Higgins.  "I seen yer tie up
+here, and there yer boat is now.  What d'yer mean by pira-pirawell,
+them parties yer mentioned?  Yer mean some one took it?"
+
+"Took it--yes, yer hornswoggled longshore lubber!" bellowed the
+captain.  "I thought yer was hired as a sort uv watchman on this wharf.
+A find watchman yer are!"
+
+"Well, yer see, cap'n," returned Hi Higgins, really alarmed at the
+captain's truculent tone, "I ain't here much after nine at night or
+before five in the morning."
+
+"Well, was my boat here at five this mornin'?" demanded the captain.
+
+"Sure it was," rejoined Hi Higgins, with a sniffle; "the fust boat I
+seen."
+
+"Rob, my boy, I'm goin' crazy in my old age!" gasped the captain. "I'm
+as certain as I can be that the boat wasn't here when I came down to
+the wharf last midnight, but the pre-pon-der-ance of evidence is
+against me."
+
+The captain shook his head gravely as he spoke.  It was evident that he
+was sorely puzzled and half inclined to doubt the evidence of his own
+senses.
+
+"Douse my toplights," he kept muttering, "if this don't beat a flying
+Dutchman on wheels and with whiskers!"
+
+"I certainly don't believe that your eyes deceived you, captain," put
+in Rob, in the midst of the captain's rumbling outbursts. "It looks to
+me as if somebody really did borrow your boat last night, and that the
+decoy note supposed to be from me had something to do with it."
+
+"By the great horn spoon, yer've got it, my boy!" roared the captain.
+"And now yer come ter speak uv it, my mind misgives me that all ain 't
+right at the island.  I didn't tell yer, but I left a tidy sum uv money
+in that old iron safe off the Sarah Jane, the last ship I commanded,
+and all this what's puzzled us so may be part uv some thievish scheme.
+
+"I'm going ter hurry over ter the island and make certain sure," he
+went on the next minute.  "The more I think uv it, the more signs uv
+foul weather I see.  Good-by, my lad, and good luck. Will yer be out
+ter see me soon?  The bluefish are running fine."
+
+"We may be out this afternoon, captain," responded Rob.  "I am curious
+myself to see if any mischief has been done on your island.  If there
+has been," he added earnestly, "you can count on the Eagle Patrol to
+help you out."
+
+"Thanks, my boy!" exclaimed the old man, who was bending over his
+gasoline tank.  "Hullo!" he shouted suddenly.  "I wasn't crazy! This
+boat was took out last night.  See here!"
+
+He held up the gasoline measuring stick which he had grabbed up and
+plunged into the tank.  The instrument was almost dry.  The receptacle
+for fuel was nearly empty.
+
+"And I filled her before I started out!" thundered the captain.
+"Whoever took my boat must have run her a long ways."
+
+Fresh fuel was soon obtained, and the captain, after more shouted
+farewells, started for the island to try to obtain some clue to the
+mysterious happenings of the night.
+
+Rob, after watching him for a few moments, as he sped down the blue
+waters of the sunlit inlet, turned away to return to his home, just
+recollecting that, in their eagerness to search for the boat, both he
+and the captain had entirely forgotten about breakfast.  He was in the
+middle of the meal, and eagerly explaining to his interested parents
+the strange incidents of the missing boat and the decoy note, when
+Merritt Crawford burst into the room unannounced.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon!" he apologized, abashed.  "I didn't know you
+were at breakfast.  But, Mr. Blake--Rob--something has happened that I
+just had to come and tell you about at once."
+
+"Good gracious!  More mysteries," Mr. Blake was beginning in a jocular
+way, when the serious look on the boy's face checked him. "What is it?
+What has happened, Merritt?" he asked soberly, while Rob regarded the
+spectacle of his usually placid corporal's excitement with round eyes.
+
+"The uniforms are all gone!" burst out Merritt.
+
+"What uniforms?"
+
+"Ours--the Eagle Patrols'."
+
+"What!  Stolen?"
+
+"That's right," hurried on Merritt.  "I met old Mrs. Jones in a
+terrible state of mind.  You know, Mr. Blake, she's the old woman who
+scrubs out the place in the morning.  I asked what was the matter, and
+she told me that when she went to the armory early to-day, she found
+the lock forced and all the lockers broken open and the uniforms gone!"
+
+"Have you seen the place?" asked Mr. Blake.
+
+"Yes, I followed her up.  The room was turned upside down.  The locks
+had been ripped right off and the lockers rifled of everything.  Who
+can have done it?"
+
+"I'll bet anything Jack Curtiss and his gang had something to do with
+it, just as I believe they put up some crooked job on the captain!"
+burst out Rob, greatly excited and his breakfast entirely forgotten.
+
+"Be careful how you make such a grave accusation," warned his father.
+
+"I know it's a tough thing to say," admitted Rob; "but you don't know
+that bunch like we do.  They'd--"
+
+He was about to explain more of the characteristics of the bully and
+his cronies when a fresh interruption occurred.  This time it was Hiram
+Nelson.  He was almost as abashed as Merritt had been when he found
+that his excitement had carried him into what seemed a family
+conference.
+
+"It's all right, Hiram.  Come right in," said Mr. Blake cheerfully.
+"Come on out with your news, for I can see you can hardly keep it to
+yourself."
+
+"It's going round the town like wildfire!" responded the panting boy.
+The others nodded.  "I see you know it already," he went on.  "Well, I
+think I've got a clue."
+
+"You have!  Come on, let's hear it quick," cried Rob.
+
+"Well, I was up late with Paul Perkins last night, talking over the
+aeroplane model competition, and didn't start home till about midnight.
+As I was approaching the armory I thought I saw a light in one of the
+windows.  I couldn't be certain, however, and I put it down to a trick
+that my eyes had played me."
+
+"Well, that's all right as far as it goes," burst out Rob.  "It
+probably was a light.  I wish you'd investigated."
+
+"Wait a minute, Rob," said his father, noting Hiram's anxious face.
+"There's more to come, isn't there, Hiram?"
+
+"You bet!  The most exciting part of it--the most important, I mean,"
+went on young Hiram, with an important air.
+
+"Oh, well, get down to it," urged the impatient Rob.  "What was it?"
+
+"Why, right after I'd seen the light," went on Hiram, "I thought I saw
+a dark figure slip around the corner into that dark street."
+
+"A dark figure!  Hum!  Sounds like one of those old yellow--back
+novels," remarked Mr. Blake, with a smile.
+
+"But this was a figure I recognized, sir," exclaimed Hiram.  "It was
+Bill Bender!"
+
+"Jack Curtiss' chum!  They're as thick as two thieves," burst out
+Merritt.
+
+"And I believe they are two thieves," solemnly put in Rob.
+
+"Well," went on Hiram, "the next minute Bill Bender came walking round
+the corner as fast as if he were coming from somewhere in a great
+hurry, and was hastening home.  He told me he had been to a birthday
+party at his aunt's."
+
+"At his aunt's," echoed Mr. Blake.  "Well, that's an important point,
+for I happen to know that his aunt, Mrs. Graves, is out of town.  She
+visited the bank yesterday morning and drew some money for her
+traveling expenses.  She informed me that she expected to be gone a
+week or more."
+
+"I knew it, I knew it!" shouted Rob.  "That fellow ought to be in jail.
+He'll land there yet."
+
+"Softly, softly, my boy," said Mr. Blake.  "This is a grave affair, and
+we cannot jump at conclusions."
+
+"I'd jump him," declared Rob, "if I only knew for certain that he was
+the thief!"
+
+"I will inform the police myself and have an investigation made," Mr.
+Blake promised.  "We will leave no stone unturned to find out who has
+been guilty of such an outrage."
+
+"And in the meantime the Eagle Patrol will carry on an investigation of
+its own," declared Rob sturdily.  "What do you say, boys?"
+
+"I'll bet every boy in the corps is with you on that," rejoined Merritt
+heartily.
+
+"Same here," chimed in Hiram.
+
+"The first step is to take a run to Topsail Island and see if all the
+queer things that happened last night have not some connecting link
+between them," suggested Mr. Blake.  "I am inclined, after what you
+boys have told me, to think that they have."
+
+"I am sure of it," echoed Rob.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE HYDROPLANE QUEERLY RECOVERED
+
+
+Seldom had the Flying Fish been urged to greater speed than she was a
+short time after the discovery of the looting of the scouts' armory.
+She fairly flew across the smooth waters of the inlet and out on to the
+Atlantic swells, leaving a clean, sweeping bow-wave as she cut her way
+along.  Her four young occupants, for Tubby had been called on and
+notified of the occurrences of the night, were, however, wrapped in
+slickers borrowed from the yacht club, so that the showers of spray
+which fell about them had little effect on them.
+
+The run to Topsail Island was made in record time, and as they drew
+near the little hummock of tree and shrub-covered land the boys could
+perceive that something unusual had happened.  A figure which even at a
+distance they recognized as that of Captain job Hudgins was down on the
+little wharf, and had apparently been on the lookout there for some
+time.  A closer view revealed the captain waving frantically.
+
+"Something's up, all right," remarked Tubby, above the roar of the
+motor-boat's engine.
+
+The others said nothing, but kept their gaze riveted on the captain's
+figure.  With the skill of a veteran boatman, Rob brought the Flying
+Fish round in a graceful curve and ran her cleanly up to the wharf
+without the slightest jolt or jar.
+
+"Ahoy, lads, I'm glad yer've come!" exclaimed the captain, as he caught
+the painter line thrown out to him by Merritt, and skillfully made the
+boat fast.
+
+"Why, what has happened?" demanded Rob, as he sprang on to the wharf,
+followed by the others.
+
+"Happened?" repeated the captain.  "Well, in a manner of speakin',
+about twenty things has happened at once.  Lads, my spirits and
+emotions are in a fair Chinese tornado--every which way at once.  In
+the first place, I'm seventy-five dollars poorer than I was last night;
+in the second, poor old Skipper's been given some kind av poison that's
+made him so sick I doubt he'll get over it."
+
+"You've been robbed?" gasped Merritt.
+
+"That's it, my lad.  That's the word.  My poor old safe's been scuttled
+and her hold overhauled.  But I don't mind that so much--it's poor old
+Skipper I'm worried about.  But come on up ter the house, lads, and see
+fer yerselves."
+
+Followed by the sympathetic four, the old man hobbled up from his
+little wharf to a small eminence on which stood his neatly whitewashed
+hut.  He opened the door and invited them in.  A first glance
+discovered nothing much the matter, but a second look showed the boys
+poor old Skipper lying on the floor in front of the open fireplace
+which was filled with fresh green boughs--and evidently a very sick dog
+indeed.  He gave the boys a pathetic glance of recognition as they came
+in, and with a feeble wag or two of his tail tried to show them he was
+glad to see them; but this done, he seemed to be completely exhausted,
+and once more laid his head between his forepaws and seemed to doze.
+
+"Poor old dog," said the captain, shaking his head.  "I doubt if he'll
+ever get about again."
+
+The safe now engaged the boys' attention.  It is true that it was a
+rickety old contrivance which might well have been forced open with an
+ordinary poker, but to the captain, up to this day, it had been a
+repository as safe and secure as a big Wall Street trust company's
+vaults.
+
+"Look at that, boys!" cried the captain, with tragic emphasis, pointing
+to the door, which had been forced clear off its rusty hinges.  "Just
+busted open like yer'd taken the crust off'n a pie!  Ah, if I could lay
+my hands on the fellers that done this, I'd run 'em tip ter the yardarm
+afore a foc'sle hand could say 'Hard tack'!"
+
+"Why, we think that--" began Tubby, when Rob checked him.  The captain,
+who had been bending over his dog, didn't hear the remark, and Rob
+hastily whispered to Tubby:
+
+"Don't breathe a word to anyone of our suspicions.  Our only chance to
+get hold of the real culprits is to not give them any idea that we
+suspect them."
+
+After a little more time spent on the island, the boys took their
+leave, promising to come back soon again.  First, however, Rob and his
+corporal made a brief expedition to see if they could make out the
+tracks of the marauders of the previous evening. Whoever they had been,
+however--and the boys, as we know, had a shrewd guess at their
+identity--they had been too cunning to take the path, but had
+apparently, judging from the absence of all footmarks, made their way
+to the house through the coarse grass that grew on each side of the way.
+
+"Well, what are we going to do about it?" Tubby inquired, as they
+speeded back toward home.
+
+"Just what I said," rejoined Rob.  "Keep quiet and not let Jack or his
+chums know that we suspect a thing.  Give them enough rope, and we'll
+get them in time.  I'm certain of it."
+
+How true his words were to prove, Rob at that time little imagined,
+although he felt the wisdom of the course he had advised.
+
+As they neared the inlet, Rob, who was at the wheel and scanning the
+channel pretty closely, for the tide was now running out, gave a sudden
+shout and pointed ahead.  As the others raised their eyes and gazed in
+the direction their leader indicated they, too, uttered a cry of
+astonishment.  From the mouth of the inlet there had stolen a long,
+low, black craft, gliding through the water at tremendous speed.
+
+In the strange craft the boy scouts had little difficulty in
+recognizing Sam Redding's hydroplane.
+
+"So he's got her back," exclaimed Merritt, recovering from his first
+astonishment.
+
+"Yes, and she seems little the worse for her experience," remarked
+Tubby.  "It doesn't appear, though, that they are going to profit by
+their lesson of the other day, for there they go out to sea again."
+
+"Probably consulted the glass this time," remarked Rob.  "It read 'set
+fair' when we started out."
+
+"Well, that's the only kind of weather for them," commented Merritt;
+"though as both Jack and Bill can swim, I wouldn't mind seeing them get
+a good ducking."
+
+"I suppose the coincidence has struck you fellows, too?" remarked Rob
+suddenly, as he skillfully twisted and turned the dancing Flying Fish
+through the devious ways of the channel at low water.
+
+"What on earth are you talking about?" demanded Merritt.
+
+"Why, that it seems rather queer that Sam, who was round town
+desperately trying to raise money with which to get his boat out of
+pawn suddenly manages to redeem her, and that on the very day after the
+robbery of Captain Hudgins hut."
+
+"By hookey, that's right!" shouted Tubby.  "I'll bet your guess was
+correct, Rob--that gang of Jack's robbed the old captain."
+
+"And stole our uniforms," put in Merritt.
+
+"Yes; but how are we going to prove it?" was Rob's "cold water" comment
+which silenced further speculation for the time being. Each boy,
+however, determined then and there to do his share in running down the
+persons responsible for the vandalism.
+
+By the time they got back to Hampton the news had spread among the
+entire Eagle Patrol, and an indignation meeting was called in the
+devastated armory.  Mr. Blake entered in the midst of it, and offered,
+in conjunction with the rest of the local council, to furnish new
+uniforms.  On the matter being put to a vote, however, the lads all
+agreed that it would be better not to accept such an offer till they
+had made a determined effort to run down the plunderers.
+
+"Very well," said Mr. Blake; "your spirit does you great credit, and if
+you need any help, don't fail to call upon me at any time."
+
+"Three cheers for Mr. Blake and the members of the council!" shouted
+Merritt, jumping on a chair.
+
+They were given with such roof-raising effect, that people outside in
+the street, many of whom knew of the robbery, began to think that the
+uniforms must have been recovered.
+
+As the lads surged out of the armory, all talking at once about the
+robbery and its likely results, whom should they encounter on the
+street but Jack Curtiss and his two chums, evidently, from the fact
+that they carried waterproof garments over their arms, just back from
+their trip in Sam's newly-recovered hydroplane.
+
+It might have been fancy, but as the eyes of the Boy Scouts met those
+of the three lads who would have so much liked to belong to the
+organization, Rob thought that a look of embarrassment spread over Jack
+Curtiss' heavy features, and that even Bill Bender's brazen face took
+on a shade of pallor.  If this were so, however, it could have been
+only momentary, for the next minute Jack, with what seemed very much
+overdone cordiality, came forward with:
+
+"Why, hullo, boys.  I just heard about your loss.  Any news?"
+
+"No, not a word," chirped little Joe Digby, one of the few lads in the
+Eagle Patrol who had never run afoul of the bully.
+
+"Well," went on Jack, affecting not to notice the silence with which
+his advances had been greeted, "I hope you find the fellows who did it,
+whoever they were."
+
+"Same here," chimed in Bill Bender, now quite at his ease, "although,
+at that, I guess it was only a joke, and you'll get 'em back again
+before long."
+
+"Do you think so, Bill?" asked Merritt, looking the bully's crony
+steadily in the eye. "I hope so, I'm sure.  By the way, Hiram Nelson
+here says that he saw you hurrying up Main Street at just about the
+time the robbery must have taken place.  You didn't hear any unusual
+sounds or see anything out of the way, did you?"
+
+"I--why, no--I--you see, I was on my way home from my aunt's home,"
+stuttered Bill, seemingly taken off his guard.
+
+"Yes; your aunt, who left home yesterday afternoon to be gone a week,"
+shot out Merritt.
+
+"Queer that she should have changed her mind and come home in such a
+hurry."
+
+"Oh, come on, Bill," stuck in Sam, seeing that things were getting very
+unpleasant.  "We've got to hurry up if we're to get out to Jack's in
+time."
+
+Without another word, the three hurried off, seemingly not at all
+unrelieved to escape from what Merritt was pretty sure were
+embarrassing questions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+WINNING THE CONTEST
+
+
+The day which was to witness the tests of the aeroplane models for the
+prizes offered by the professor of aeronautics dawned still and fair.
+It followed several days of storm, in which the boys had been unable to
+make any excursions in their motor boat, or into the country, or,
+indeed, even to devote any time to the engrossing subject of tracing
+the theft of the uniforms to its source.
+
+Early in the morning a small field in the rear of Mr. Blake's house was
+well filled with boys of all ages and sizes, watching the contestants
+in the model contest trying out their craft.  The models were of all
+sorts and sizes.  Some were freak craft that had been constructed in a
+hurry from pictures, without any attention being paid to scale or
+proportions, while others were carefully made bits of mechanism.
+
+Among the latter class were Paul Perkins' monoplane--Silver Arrow, he
+called it,--Hiram Nelson's two models, the monoplane of Tom Maloney, a
+lad of about sixteen, and Ed River's little duplicate of a Curtiss
+biplane.  The contest was to take place on the Main Street of the town,
+in front of the bank, and in the middle of the course two poles had
+been erected, one on each side of the street, between which a brightly
+colored tape had then been strung, forming a sort of aerial hurdle.
+The tape was fifty feet above the ground, and to qualify at all it
+would be necessary for the contesting models to clear it.
+
+The lecture which took place in the village hall came first and was
+well attended, most of the young folks of Hampton being there.  If the
+truth must be told, however, while the lecturer was expounding his
+subject, illustrating it on the blackboard with chalk drawings, the
+majority of his young hearers were wishing that it was over and the
+contest really begun.
+
+Especially was this true of the boys of the Eagle Patrol, who were
+every one of them anxious to see what kind of aeroplanes Jack Curtiss
+and Bill Bender would have produced.  The lecture, however, at last
+came to an end, and the gentlemen on the platform shook hands with the
+professor and the professor shook hands with them, and somebody called
+for three cheers for "Hampton's distinguished son."
+
+Everybody then lost no time in filing out into the afternoon sunlight,
+where they found quite a crowd already on the streets, and a small
+wooden grand stand, which had been erected near what was expected to be
+the finishing line, seating several guests. The committee and the
+professor, led by the Hampton brass band, blaring away at patriotic
+airs, made their way to the front seats in the structure, and everybody
+was requested to line up on each side of the street, so as to make a
+clear lane for the models to fly in.
+
+The starting line was about a hundred yards from the red tape, and the
+contestants were compelled to stand back of this.  Mr. Wingate, the
+president of the yacht club and member of the Boy Scout Council, had
+already shuffled the numbers of the contestants in a hat, and they were
+to fly their models in the order in which they drew their figures.
+
+Up to this time there had been no sign of Jack Curtiss or Bill Bender,
+but the boys now saw them hastening up to a member of the committee and
+whispering to him.  A moment later a man, with a megaphone boomed out
+from the grand stand:
+
+"William Bender announces that he has withdrawn from the contest."
+
+"Aha!  I'll bet Jack's got cold feet, too," whispered Hiram, nudging
+Paul, who was kneeling down and winding up the long rubber bands which
+drove the propellers of the Silver Arrow, an Antoinette model.
+
+But a short interval showed him to be mistaken, for Jack, with his
+usual confident air, repaired to the buggy in which he had driven into
+town from his father's farm, and speedily produced a model that caused
+loud sighs of "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" to circulate through the juvenile
+portion of the crowd.
+
+However he had managed to accomplish it, the bully had certainly
+produced a beautiful model.  It was of the Bleriot type, and finished
+perfectly down to the minutest detail.  Every wire and brace on it was
+silvered with aluminum paint, and it even bore a small figure at its
+steering wheel.  Beside it the other models looked almost clumsy.
+
+The faces of the Boy Scouts fell.
+
+"If that machine can fly as well as she looks," said Rob to Merritt,
+"she wins the first prize."
+
+"Not a doubt of it," was Merritt's reply.
+
+"Oh, well," put in Tubby, for the three inseparables were standing
+together, "if he can win the prize fairly, don't knock him.  He
+certainly has built a beautiful machine.  You've got to give him credit
+for that."
+
+And now, as Jack, with a triumphant smile at the glances of admiration
+his model excited, strode to the starting point, elbowing small boys
+aside, and drew from the hat, the man with the megaphone once more
+arose.  He held in his hand the result of the drawing and the order in
+which the models would fly.
+
+"The f-i-r-s-t model to com-pete for the big p-r-ize," he bellowed,
+"will be that of Thomas Maloney--a Bler-i-ot!"
+
+Poor Tom might have called his machine a Bleriot, but it is doubtful if
+the designer of the original machine of that name would have recognized
+the model as having any more than a distant relationship to the famous
+type of monoplane.  It was provided with a large tin propeller,
+however, and seemed capable of at least accomplishing a flight.  In
+fact, at the trials in the morning it had flown well, and by some of
+the lads was regarded as a sort of "dark horse."  As Tom was on the
+village team, as opposed to the Boy Scout contingent, he was greeted
+with loud cheers and whistles by his friends as he stepped to the
+starting line, and, holding his already wound up machine in his hand,
+made ready to launch it.
+
+"Crack!" went the pistol.
+
+At the same instant Tom, with a thrusting motion, released his model;
+but, alas! instead of darting forward like the Sparrow Hawk it was
+named after, the craft ingloriously wobbled about eccentrically, and
+finally alighted on an old lady's bonnet, causing her to exclaim as the
+propeller whizzed round and entangled itself in her hair:
+
+"No good'll ever come of teaching lads to meddle with these here
+contraptions."
+
+The model having finally been extricated, amid much laughter, and poor
+Tom having offered mortified apologies, the announcer made known that
+Hiram Nelson's Doodlebug monoplane would essay a flight.
+
+As the pistol sounded, Hiram launched his craft, and amid cheers from
+the crowd it soared up, and, just clearing the red tape, settled
+gracefully down a few feet the other side of the two hundred foot line.
+
+"Good for you, Hiram!" exclaimed Ernest Thompson, the bike scout, who
+was acting as a patrol on the course.  "Whose turn next?"
+
+"You kids wait till I get my Bleriot started," sneered Jack. Several
+small boys near him, who were mortally afraid of the big fellow and
+rather admired him as being "manly," set up a cheer at this.
+
+"Wait for Jack's dandy model to fly!" they cried.
+
+"Edward Rivers--model of a Curtiss biplane!" came the next announcement
+through, the megaphone.
+
+Another cheer greeted this, as young Rivers was also on the "town team."
+
+The little Curtiss darted into the air at the pistol crack and flew
+straight as an arrow for the red tape.  It cleared it easily and
+skimmed on down past the grand stand, and alighted, fluttering like a
+tired butterfly, beyond Hiram's model.
+
+"Three hundred feet!" cried the announcer, amid a buzz of approval,
+after the measurers of the course had done their work.
+
+"Paul Perkins--Bleriot!" was the next announcement.
+
+A hum of excitement went through the crowds that lined the track. It
+began to look as if the record of Ed Rivers' machine would be hard to
+beat, but from the determined look on his face and his gritted teeth it
+was evident that Paul meant to try hard.
+
+Before the report of the pistol had died out, the yellow-winged
+Dragonfly soared upward from Paul's hand and darted like a streak
+across the red tape, clearing it at the highest altitude yet achieved
+by any of the models.
+
+"Hurrah!" yelled the crowd.
+
+On and on sped the little Bleriot, while Paul watched it with
+pride-flushed cheeks.  It was evident that it was going to out-distance
+the record made by Ed Rivers' machine.  The Boy Scouts set up their
+Patrol cry:
+
+"Kr-ee-ee-ee-ee!"
+
+As the little machine settled to the ground, far beyond the grand
+stand, the officials ran out with their tapes, and presently the
+announcement came blaring down the packed ranks of the onlookers:
+
+"Three hundred and fifty feet!"
+
+What a cheer went up then.
+
+"I guess you've got it won.  Congratulations!" said Ed Rivers, pressing
+forward to Paul's side.
+
+"Thanks, Ed," returned the other; "but 'there's many a slip,' you know,
+and there are several others to be flown yet."
+
+Now came in rapid succession several of the smaller models and freak
+designs.   Some of these wobbled through the air and landed in the
+crowd.  Others sailed blithely up toward the red tape and just fell
+short of clearing it.  Another landed right on the tape and hung there,
+the target of irreverent remarks from the crowd.
+
+While this was going on, Bill Bender, Jack Curtiss and Sam were in
+close consultation.
+
+"Remember, you promised that if you won the prize you'd give that money
+back," Sam whispered to Jack, "and for goodness' sake, don't forget it.
+I half believe that those boys suspect us already."
+
+"Nonsense," returned the bully.  "And what if they do?  We covered up
+our tracks too well for them to have anything on us. They can't prove
+anything, can they?"
+
+"I--I--I don't know," stammered Sam, and was about to say more, but the
+clarion voice of the announcer was heard informing the crowd that:
+
+"John Curtiss' Bleriot model will now make a flight for the great
+prize."
+
+With a confident smile on his face, Jack stepped forward and held his
+model ready.  The murmur of admiration that had greeted its first
+appearance was repeated as he held it high in the sunlight and the
+afternoon rays glinted and shimmered on its fittings and wings.
+
+"That's the model for my money," remarked a man in the crowd.
+
+"It's going to win, too," said Jack confidently.
+
+Just at that moment the pistol cracked, and Jack released his
+much-admired air craft.
+
+Its flight showed that it was as capable of making as beautiful a
+soaring excursion as its graceful outlines and careful finish seemed to
+indicate.  In a long, sweeping glide, it arose and cleared the red tape
+by a greater margin than had Paul Perkins' model.
+
+"Jack Curtiss wins!" yelled the crowd, as the machine soared right on
+and did not begin its downward swoop for some distance. After it had
+alighted and the measurers had laid their tapes on the course, the
+announcer megaphoned, amid a perfect tornado of roars and cheers:
+
+"The last flight, ladies and gentlemen--and apparently the winning
+one--accomplished the remarkable distance of four hundred and fifty
+feet--four hundred and fifty feet."
+
+"Three cheers for Jack Curtiss!" shouted Bill Bender, slapping Jack
+heartily on the back and giving most of the cheers himself.
+
+"I guess those cubs won't be quite so stuck up now," commented Sam,
+shaking Jack's hand warmly.
+
+"I was pretty sure I'd win," modestly remarked the bully, as he began
+shouldering his way through the press toward the judges' stand.  He was
+closely followed by the boys, as it looked as if Paul Perkins might
+have won the second prize and Ed Rivers the third.
+
+Urged by Bill Bender, the band began puffing away at "See, the
+Conquering Hero Comes," and Jack, nothing averse to appearing in such a
+role, bowed gracefully right and left to the admiring throngs.
+
+The professor shook hands warmly with the victorious Jack, and remarked:
+
+"You are to be congratulated, young man.  I have rarely seen a better
+model, and your skill does you great credit.  Are you thinking of
+taking up aeronautics seriously?"
+
+The bully, his face very red, stammered that he had entertained some
+such thoughts.
+
+The professor was about to reply, when there came a sudden sound of
+confusion among that portion of the crowd which had surrounded the
+delegates deputed to pick up the aeroplanes and bring them to the
+stand.  This was in order that they might be exhibited as each prize
+was awarded.  A small boy with a very excited face was seen struggling
+to get through the mass, and he finally gained the judges' stand.  As
+he faced the congratulatory professor he stuttered out:
+
+"Please, sir, there's something wrong about Jack Curtiss' machine."
+
+"What do you mean, you impudent young shaver!" shouted the bully,
+turning white, nevertheless.
+
+"Let the lad speak," said Mr. Blake, who as one of the committee was
+standing beside the professor.  "What is it, my boy?  Let me see.
+You're Joe Digby, of the Eagle Patrol, aren't you."
+
+"Yes, sir; and I live out on a farm near Jack Curtiss.  I was watching
+him fly his machine this morning, from behind a hedge, and I heard them
+saying something about 'their store-made machine beating any country
+boy's model.'"
+
+"He's a young liar!  Pay no attention to him," stammered Jack, licking
+his dry lips.
+
+"Silence, sir!" said Mr. Blake gravely.  "Let us listen to what this
+boy has to say.  If he is not speaking the truth, you can easily
+disprove it.  Go on, my boy."
+
+"Well, I guess that's about all I know about it: but I thought I ought
+to tell you, sir," confusedly concluded the small lad.
+
+"You young runt, I'll half kill you if I catch you alone!" breathed
+Jack, under his breath, as the lad sped off to join his companions.
+
+"Of course, you are not going to pay any attention to that kid's--I
+mean boy's--story," demanded Jack, addressing the professor.  "It's
+made out of whole cloth, I assure you."
+
+In the meantime the machines had been brought to the grand stand and
+were being examined.  Naturally, after young Digby's statement, Jack's
+was one of the first to be scrutinized.  The committee turned it over
+and over, and were about to pass on it, when Mr. Wingate, who had been
+bending attentively over the bully's model, gave a sudden exclamation.
+
+"Look here, gentlemen," he cried, pointing to a small tag which Jack
+had evidently forgotten to remove, "I think this is conclusive
+evidence.  Here is the label of the 'Manhattan Model Works' pasted
+right under this wing."
+
+"Somebody must have put it there.  It's a job those Boy Scouts put up
+on me," protested Tack.  "I made that model every bit myself."
+
+"I regret to say that we must regard the price tag as conclusive
+evidence that this machine comes from a store," said the professor
+sternly, handing Jack his unlucky model.  "You are disqualified for
+entering a machine not of your own workmanship.
+
+"Stand back, please," he went on, as Jack tried to protest.  "I want to
+say," he went on in a loud tone, holding up his hand to command
+attention, "that there has been a grave mistake made. The machine which
+actually flew the longest distance is disqualified, as it was made at a
+New York model factory.  The first prize of fifty dollars, therefore,
+goes to Paul Perkins, of the Boy Scouts, the second to Edward Rivers,
+of Hampton, and the third to Hiram Green, also of the Boy Scouts.
+
+"Hold on one minute," he shouted, as the crowd began to cheer and hoot.
+"There is an additional announcement to be made.  The committee has
+decided to offer a further reward of five dollars to Thomas Maloney,
+whose model shows evidence of praiseworthy and painstaking work."
+
+As the cheers broke loose once more, Jack Curtiss and his cronies slunk
+off through the crowd, and having placed the rejected model in the
+buggy, drove off into the country in no very amiable or enviable frame
+of mind.
+
+"Well, you made a fine mess of it," grumbled Bill Bender savagely.  "I
+told you to look carefully and see that all the tags were off it."
+
+"It's no more my fault than yours," grated out Jack, lashing the horse
+savagely, to work off some of his rage.  "It's all the fault of those
+young cubs of Rob Blake's.  Let them look out, though, for I'll get
+even with them before long, and in a way that will make them sit up and
+take notice."
+
+"Don't forget that young mischief maker, Joe Digby," suggested Bill
+Bender.  "It was all his fault--the young spy!"
+
+"Oh, I'll attend to him," Jack assured his chum, with a grating laugh
+that boded no good for the youngest member of the Eagle Patrol.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A FORTUNATE DISCOVERY
+
+
+"Want to go fishing?" Rob inquired over the telephone of Merritt
+Crawford a few days later.
+
+"Sure," was the response.
+
+"We can run into Topsail Island and get a site for the camp picked at
+the same time," suggested Rob.
+
+"Bully!  I'll meet you at the wharf.  Going to bring Tubby?"
+
+"You bet! We'll be there in ten minutes."
+
+"All right. Good-by."
+
+At the time set the three boys met on the wharf of the yacht club, and
+were speedily ready to start on their trip.  Rob brought along bluefish
+squids and lines, and Tubby--never at a loss to scare up a hurried
+lunch--had a basket full of good things to eat.
+
+The run to the island was made without incident, and the boys were glad
+to see that, contrary to the captain's fears, his dog Skipper was all
+right again, for the animal came bounding and barking down the wharf as
+they drew near, in token of his gladness to see them.
+
+Attracted by his dog's barking, the old captain, who was at work in a
+small potato patch he cultivated, came hobbling to meet the boys as
+they tied up and disembarked.
+
+"Well, well, boys; come ter stay?" he cheerily remarked, as the three
+lads shook hands.
+
+"No, we're off after 'blues,"' said Rob; "but we thought we'd drop in
+and see how things are coming along with you, and if you have heard any
+news yet concerning the robbery."
+
+"Not a thing, boys, not a thing," said the old man.  "In fact, I
+haven't left the island since my old safe was busted open. Skipper, as
+yer see, got over his sickness.  It's my belief that them fellers fed
+him poisoned meat or something."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," remarked Rob dryly.  "It would be quite in their
+line."
+
+"By the way," exclaimed the old man suddenly, "a queer thing happened
+the other day.  Skipper had been a-skirmishin' round the other side uv
+the island after rabbits and critters, and he brought home this--  Wait
+a minute and I'll show it to yer."
+
+After some fumbling in his pocket, the old man produced a torn strip of
+yellow material with a brass button attached to it.
+
+"I wonder where that come from," he remarked, as he handed the fragment
+to Rob for his inspection.
+
+"Why, it's khaki," exclaimed Rob, as he felt it.  "And, by hokey!" he
+ejaculated the next instant, "it's a piece of a Boy Scout uniform!"
+
+Old Skipper was jumping about in great excitement, and endeavoring to
+sniff the bit of torn material as Rob examined it, and a sudden idea
+struck the boy.
+
+"I wonder if Skipper could pilot us to where he found this bit of
+material."
+
+"Are you sure it's a bit of uniform?" asked Tubby doubtfully.
+
+"Certain of it.  No one else wears khaki in these parts.  Hey, Skipper,
+hey, good dog!  Sic 'em, sic 'em!" cried Rob, holding up the khaki for
+the intelligent creature to see.
+
+The animal seemed to be greatly excited and gave short, quick barks as
+he danced about the boys.
+
+"Well, we might try and see if he will lead us anywhere." remarked
+Merritt somewhat dubiously.  "At any rate, there's no harm done, except
+wasting a little time; and if we can get on the track of our uniforms,
+it's not such a much of a waste, after all."
+
+"He sure wants ter be off somewhere," observed the old captain,
+watching the antics of his dog, whom he regarded in the light of a
+human being.  "He never acts nor talks that way unless he's got suthin'
+on his mind.  Yer boys follow him, and I'll bet he'll lead yer ter
+suthin'.  It may be nothin' more than a dead rabbit, and it may be what
+ye think.  I'll stay here an' dig my pertaters, fer my rheumatiz is
+powerful bad today."
+
+"Very well, captain.  We shan't be long," rejoined Rob, calling to the
+dog.  "Hey, Skipper, hey, old boy!  After 'em, Skipper--after 'em!"
+
+The dog bounded on ahead of the three boys, occasionally looking back
+to see if they were following and then plunging on again.
+
+"As the Captain said, he 'sure has got suthin' on his mind'!" laughed
+Merritt.
+
+After traversing about a mile of beach, the dog suddenly bounded into a
+thicket overhanging the shore and began barking furiously.
+
+"He's treed something, all right," remarked Rob, pushing the branches
+aside.
+
+The next minute he gave a loud shout of triumph.
+
+"Look there, boys!  Old Skipper sure did 'have suthin' on his mind'!"
+
+Peering over Rob's shoulder, the other two were able to make out two
+hidden sacks, the mouth of one of which had been torn open, evidently
+by the investigating Skipper.
+
+From the aperture appeared the torn sleeve of a Boy Scout's uniform,
+and a brief searching of the sacks after they had been lugged out on
+the beach revealed the entire stolen equipment.
+
+"Bones for you, Skipper, for the rest of your life!" promised Tubby, as
+the dog, evidently well pleased with the petting he received and the
+admiration showered upon him, pranced about on the beach and indulged
+in a hundred antics.
+
+The only one of the uniforms damaged was the one that Skipper had torn.
+The others were all intact, but badly crumpled, having been hastily
+thrust into the sacks, and, as it appeared, tamped down to make them
+fit more compactly.
+
+"Well, what do you know about that?" was Merritt's astonished
+exclamation, as one by one Rob drew forth the regimentals and laid them
+on the beach.
+
+"You mean what does Jack Curtiss and Company know about that,"
+seriously returned Rob.
+
+"However, we found them--that's one thing to be enthusiastic over,"
+observed Tubby sagely.
+
+"I'd like just as well almost to find out exactly who hid them there,"
+was Merritt's reply.
+
+"The same folks that stole the old captain's seventy-five dollars, I
+guess," returned Rob, thrusting the garments back into the sacks
+preparatory to carrying them to the boat.  "Here, Tubby, you carry this
+one--it'll take some of that fat off you to do a hike along the beach
+with it.  I'll shoulder this one."
+
+"Well, boys, yer certainly made a haul, thanks ter old Skipper here,"
+declared Captain Job, after the delighted boys had made known their
+discovery.  "He's a smart one, I tell yer.  No better dog ever lived."
+
+"That's what we think," agreed Merritt warmly, patting old Skipper's
+black and white head.
+
+The recovery of the uniforms had quite put all thoughts of blue or any
+other fishing out of the boys' heads, and after bidding farewell to the
+captain, who promised to point out to them a good site for a camp on
+their next visit, they made their best speed back to Hampton.  On their
+way to the armory they spread the news of their discovery broadcast, so
+that in a short time the town was buzzing with the information that the
+Boy Scouts' lost uniforms had been found under most surprising
+circumstances; and the editor of the Hampton News, who was just going
+to press, held his paper up till he could get in an item about it.
+
+It was this item that caught Jack Curtiss' eye, the next morning as he
+and Bill Bender and Sam were seated in Bill's "club room."
+
+"Confound those brats, they seem always to be putting a spike in our
+schemes!" muttered Jack, as he handed the paper to Bill for that
+worthy's perusal.  "Which reminds me," he went on, "that we haven't
+attended to the case of that young Digby yet."
+
+"I wish you'd leave those kids alone for a while, Jack," objected Sam,
+in his usual whining tones.  "You've had your fun with them. They've
+had to do without their uniforms for a long time.  Now let up on them,
+won't you?"
+
+"Oh, you're feeling friendly toward 'em, now, are you?" sneered Jack.
+
+"Oh, no, it isn't that," Sam hastened to assure him; "nothing of the
+kind.  What I mean is that we are liable to get into serious trouble if
+we keep on this way.  I saw Hank Handcraft the other day, and I can
+tell you he's in no very amiable mood.  He wants his money for the
+other night, he says, and he intimated that if he didn't get it he'd
+make things hot for us."
+
+"He'd better not," glowered Bill Bender, looking up from his paper.
+"We know a few things about friend Hank."
+
+"Yes, and he knows a good deal about us that wouldn't look well in
+print," retorted Sam gloomily.  "I wish I'd never gone into that thing
+the other night."
+
+"Pshaw, it was just borrowing a little money from the old man, wasn't
+it?" snorted Jack.  "We'll pay it back some time."
+
+"When we get it," rejoined Sam more gloomily than ever; "and I don't
+see much immediate chance of that."
+
+"Oh, well, cheer up; we'll get it all right somehow," Jack assured him.
+"And in connection with that I've got a scheme. Why shouldn't we three
+fellows go camping after the motor-boat races?"
+
+"Go camping--where?" asked Bill, looking up surprised.
+
+"Well, I would have suggested Topsail Island, but those pestiferous
+kids are going there, I hear.  However, there are plenty of other
+islands right inside the Upper Inlet.  What's the matter with our
+taking possession of one of those?"
+
+The Upper Inlet was a sort of narrow and shallow bay a short distance
+above Topsail Island, and was well known to both Bill and Jack, who had
+been there in the winter on frequent ducking expeditions.
+
+"We might as well do something like that before school opens," said
+Sam.  "I think that Jack's suggestion is a pretty good one."
+
+"I don't know that it's so bad myself," patronizingly admitted Bill;
+"but what connection has that with your scheme for getting money, Jack?"
+
+"A whole lot," replied the bully.  "I'm going to get even with that
+young Digby if it takes me a year.  He cost me the fifty-dollar prize,
+and, beside that, all the kids in the village now call me 'cheater,'
+and hardly anybody will have anything to do with me."
+
+"Well, how do you propose to get even by going camping?" inquired Bill.
+
+"I plan to take that Digby kid with me," rejoined Jack calmly.
+
+"You're crazy!" exclaimed Bill.  "Why, we'd have the whole country
+after us for kidnapping."
+
+"Oh, I've got a better plan than that," laughed Jack coolly, "and we
+won't need to be mixed up in it at all.  It'll all come back on Hank
+Handcraft, I owe him a grudge for bothering me about money, anyhow, the
+old beach-combing nuisance!"
+
+"But where do we come in to get any benefit out of it?" demanded Sam.
+
+"I'll explain that to you later," said Jack grandiloquently.  "I
+haven't quite worked out all the details yet; but if you'll meet me
+here this evening I'll have them all hot and smoking for you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+JACK FORMS A PLOT
+
+
+The next morning Jack lost no time in making his way toward Hank
+Handcraft's tumble-down abode.  He found its owner in, and likewise
+disposed to be quarrelsome.
+
+"'Oh, here you are at last!" exclaimed the hairy and unkempt outcast,
+as the bully approached heavily through the yielding sand.  "I'd about
+given you up, and was seriously contemplating making a visit to your
+home--"
+
+"If you ever did," breathed Jack threateningly.
+
+"Well," grinned Hank impudently, with his most malicious chuckle, "if I
+did, what then?"
+
+"I'd have you thrown out of the house," calmly replied Jack, seating
+himself on a big log of driftwood, once the rib of a schooner that went
+ashore on the dangerous shoals off Hampton and pounded herself to
+pieces.
+
+"Oh, no; you wouldn't have me thrown out!" chuckled Hank, resuming his
+task of scaling a mackerel.  "Cause if you did, I'd go to the chief of
+police and tell him something about the robbery of the armory and the
+cracking of old man Hudgins' safe."
+
+"You wouldn't dare to do that!" sneered Jack.  "You are implicated in
+that as badly as we are."
+
+"That's a matter of opinion," rejoined Hank, industriously scraping
+away at his fish, and showing no trace of any emotion in his pale eyes.
+"Anyhow, what I want right now is some cash.  You agreed to pay me well
+for what I did the other night, and I haven't seen the money yet."
+
+"Be a little patient, can't you?" irritably retorted the other. "Money
+doesn't grow on trees.  Now listen, Hank.  How would you like to get a
+nice little sum of money--more than I could give you--for camping out
+on Kidd's Island, in the Upper Inlet, for a few days?"
+
+Hank's fishy eyes showed some trace of feeling at this.
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked.  "Is this a new joke you're putting up on
+me?"
+
+"No, I am perfectly serious.  You can make a good sum by following our
+directions, and I'll see that you get into no trouble over it."
+
+"Well, if you can do that, I'll keep my mouth shut," chuckled Hank in
+his mirthless way; "but if I don't get some money pretty quick, I'm
+going to make trouble fer somebody, I tell you!"
+
+"Haven't you got some place where we can talk that is less exposed than
+this?" said Jack, looking about him apprehensively.
+
+"Sure, there's my mansion," grinned Hank, pointing over his shoulder
+with a fishy thumb.
+
+"That's the place," said Jack, "although I wish you'd clean it out
+occasionally.  Now listen, Hank, here's the plan--"
+
+Still talking, the ill-assorted pair entered the ruinous shack.
+
+ * * * * * *
+
+Motor-boat engines were popping everywhere.  The club house was dressed
+in bright-colored bunting from veranda rail to ridge pole.  Ladies
+strolled about beneath their parasols with correctly dressed yachtsmen,
+asking all sorts of absurd questions about the various boats that lay
+ready to take part in the various events.  It was the day of the
+Hampton Yacht Club's regatta.
+
+Among the throng the Boy Scouts threaded their way, watching with
+interest the events as they were run off, one after the other. But
+their minds were centered on the race for the trophy which, although
+there were several other entries, had been practically conceded to Sam
+Redding's hydroplane.
+
+"She's a wonder," said one of the onlookers, pointing from the porch to
+the float, where Jack Curtiss, Bill Bender and Sam were leaning over
+their speedy craft, stripping her of every bit of weight not absolutely
+necessary.  On the opposite side of the float the crew of the Flying
+Fish, the Snark, the Bonita and the Albacore were equally busy over
+their craft.
+
+"Douse the engine with oil," directed Rob,  as Merritt gave the piece
+of machinery a final inspection; "and how about that extra set of
+batteries?"
+
+"They're aboard," rejoined Tubby, who was perspiringly removing
+cushions and other surplus gear from the fleet boat.
+
+"That's right; if it comes to an emergency, we may need them," said
+Rob.  "Nothing like being prepared."
+
+"Do you think we have any show?" asked Tubby, who was to be a sort of
+general utility man in the crew.  Rob was to steer.
+
+"I don't see why not," rejoined the other, wiping his oily hands on a
+bit of waste.  "The race is a handicap one, and we get an allowance on
+account of our engine not being as powerful as the hydroplane's."
+
+The course to be run was a sort of elongated, or isosceles triangle.
+The turning point was at the head of the inlet, a buoy with a big red
+ball on it being placed just inside the rough waters of the bar.  It
+made a course of about five miles.  The race for the Hampton Motor Boat
+Club's cup, for which the boys and the others were entered, was twice
+round.
+
+The waters about the club house were so dotted with motor craft which
+darted about in every direction that Commodore Wingate of the club and
+the other regatta officials had a hard time keeping the course clear
+for the contestants.  On the threat, however, that the races would be
+called off if a clear course was not kept, order was finally obtained.
+
+The boys were too busy to pay much attention to the results of the
+other races, but a member of the club who had won the Blake trophy for
+the cabin cruiser boats, warned the boys to beware of the turn above
+the far buoy.
+
+"It's choppy as the dickens there," he said, as he made his way to the
+club house, "and you want to take the turn easily.  Don't 'bank' it, or
+you'll lose more than you gain."
+
+The boys thanked him for his advice, and laid it to heart to be used
+when the race was on.
+
+Sam's boat having been tuned up to the last notch of readiness, Jack
+Curtiss strolled consequentially about on the float, making bets freely
+on the hydroplane's chance of winning.
+
+"I'll bet you twenty-five to any odds you like that the hydroplane wins
+the race," he said, addressing Colin Maxwell, the son of a well-to-do
+merchant from a neighboring town.  Young Maxwell had heard nothing of
+Jack's mean trick in the aeroplane contest, and therefore didn't mind
+talking to him.
+
+"I like the look of the Flying Fish pretty well," was the response,
+"and I'll take you up.  You'll have to give me odds, though."
+
+"Oh, certainly," responded the bully, with a confident grin;
+"twenty-five to thirty, say."
+
+"Make it thirty-five."
+
+"All right; done," said Jack.  "You know me, of course; no necessity of
+putting up the money."
+
+"Oh, not the least," rejoined the other politely, though had he known
+the state of Jack's finances he might have thought differently.
+
+The bully went about making several bets at similar odds, until finally
+Bill Bender came up behind him and in a low voice warned him to be
+careful.
+
+"What are you going to do if we lose?" he breathed.  "You haven't got a
+cent to pay with."
+
+"Oh, it's like taking gum from a busted slot machine," rejoined the
+bully, with a laugh.  "They can't win.  We know what their boat can do,
+and the race is practically conceded to us. Besides--" he placed his
+hand close to Bill's ear and whispered a few minutes.  "I guess that's
+a bad scheme, eh?" he resumed in a louder tone, though his voice was
+still pitched too low for those about to hear him.  "If it's done
+right, we'll ram them and it'll never be noticed."
+
+"Hum, I'm not so sure," grunted Bill.  "However, if we really perceive
+we are losing, I don't see what else we are to do.  Are you going to
+steer?"
+
+"Sure.  Sam lost his nerve at the last moment--like him, eh? It's a
+good thing, though, I'm to be at the wheel, because I don't think Sam
+would have had the courage to carry out my plan."
+
+"Not he," said Bill, with a shrug.  "He's got the backbone of a snail."
+
+More of this interesting conversation was cut short by the "bang" of
+the pistol which warned the contestants of the racing boats to get
+ready.
+
+"The race for the Hampton Yacht Club's trophy will take place in five
+minutes!" cried the announcer.
+
+The five contestants cast off from the float and slowly chugged out to
+a position in the rear of the starting line and behind the committee
+boat.  Then came the nervous work of awaiting the starting gun.  The
+boys had all donned slickers, and the crew of the hydroplane wore
+rubber coats which covered them completely. A sort of spray hood had
+been erected over the hydroplane's engines.
+
+"That means she's going to do her best," remarked Rob, pointing to this
+indication that great speed was expected.  "That's what we want to do,
+too, isn't it?"
+
+At last came the gun that started off the Snark, the Bonita and the
+Albacore, which were all of about the same speed.
+
+"Our turn next," said Rob, who had previously received his instructions
+from the committee.
+
+"Well, I'm all ready," said Merritt, nervously twisting a grease cup.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE  "FLYING FISH" ON HER METTLE
+
+
+"Bang!"
+
+With a nervous twitch, Rob threw in the first speed clutch, for the
+engine had been kept running on her neutral speed, and was able to take
+up way as soon as the propeller began to "bite."
+
+Rapidly the boy increased the speed up to the third "forward," and the
+Flying Fish darted through the water like a pickerel after a fat frog.
+
+"Bang!" came behind them once more, as the sound of the cheers which
+greeted them as they shot across the line grew faint.
+
+"Crouch low!" shouted Rob back to his crew.  "We'll need every inch of
+advantage we can get."
+
+The white spray shot in a perfect fountain from the sharp bow of the
+Flying Fish, and her every frame and plank quivered under the vibration
+of her powerful engine.
+
+"She's doing better than she ever did!" shouted Merritt to Tubby, who
+crouched in the center of the boat, ready to take any part in an
+emergency.
+
+The other nodded and kept his eyes ahead on the white wake of the other
+three craft.
+
+Suddenly the Albacore began to fall back.  As the Flying Fish roared by
+her, Rob heard a shout of something about "missing fire."
+
+A steady downpour of spray was drenching the occupants of the racer,
+but they paid scant heed to it.  Rob dived in his pockets and put on a
+pair of goggles.  The spray was blinding him.  He waved to Tubby to go
+further astern and keep the rear part of the boat well down when they
+made the sharp turn at the red buoy.
+
+In an incredibly short time, it seemed, the turning buoy faced them.
+Rob set his wheel over and spun the Flying Fish through the rougher
+water at the mouth of the inlet at as sharp an angle as he dared.  In a
+few seconds more they had passed the Snark and the Bonita, which were
+racing bow and bow.  The crew of the Flying Fish, though, knew that
+both boats had a time allowance over them, so that the mere passing
+didn't mean much, unless they could increase the lead.
+
+Faster and faster the boy's craft forged ahead.  A thrill shot through
+Rob's frame.  The Flying Fish was showing what she was made of.
+
+But as he turned his head swiftly he saw that the hydroplane had
+rounded the stake and was coming down the straight stretch of water
+like an express train.  A great wave of water shot out on either side
+of her bow.  So low in the water had her powerful engines dragged her
+that she seemed to be barely on the surface, and yet, as the boys knew,
+she was actually "coasting" over the surface.
+
+Try as he would, Rob could not get an ounce more speed out of the
+Flying Fish, and as the speedy hydroplane roared by them they heard a
+mocking shout from her crew.
+
+Rob, more determined than ever to stick it out, sent the Flying Fish
+plunging at top speed through the wash of the speedy craft, hoping to
+keep up the distance between them at least equal.  But as he saw the
+hydroplane gradually drawing away and heard the great roar that went up
+from the thrilled spectators as she shot by the club house, his heart
+sank.
+
+It looked as if the Plying Fish was beaten.  And now the club house
+loomed near once more.
+
+"Go on, Plying Fish, go on!"
+
+"You've got a time allowance on her!"
+
+"Push along, Rob!"
+
+"Kr-ee-ee-ee-ee!"
+
+A tumult of other shouts roared in Rob's ears as they tore past the
+crowded porch.
+
+"Kr-ee-ee-ee-ee!" screamed back Merritt and Tubby, with waves of the
+hand to the brown uniformed figures they could see perched on every
+point of vantage.
+
+Suddenly the Flying Fish began to creep up on the hydroplane, which had
+slowed down for some reason.
+
+"Hurrah!  We've got'em now!" shouted Merritt, as he saw, far ahead,
+Jack and the other two occupants of the seeming winner leaning over the
+craft's engine, the hood having been raised.
+
+Rob said nothing, but with burning eyes clung to the wheel and shot the
+Flying Fish straight ahead on her course.
+
+As they thundered past the hydroplane, the slender craft lay almost
+motionless on the water, with a great cloud of blue smoke tumbling out
+of her exhausts.
+
+"Looks like they've flooded her cylinder," said Merritt, observing
+these signs.
+
+"Kr-ee-ee-ee-ee!"
+
+It was Tubby giving utterance triumphantly to the Eagle scream.
+
+Jack Curtiss straightened up angrily as he heard, his face black and
+greasy from his researches into the engine.  He shook a menacing fist
+at the others as they tore by.  The next minute, however, a quick look
+back by Rob showed that the hydroplane was coming ahead again, and that
+the engine trouble, whatever it was, had been adjusted.
+
+As they neared the turning point, Rob saw, to his dismay, that the
+hydroplane was creeping up faster and faster.  It was the last lap, and
+if Sam Redding's boat passed them at the stake the race was as good as
+over.
+
+"Come on, Flying Fish! Come on!" shouted Rob, as the hydroplane crept
+ever nearer and nearer to his boat's stern.
+
+Rob noticed, as he swung a trifle wide of the stake raft, that it
+seemed to be the intention of Jack Curtiss, who was at the wheel, to
+swing the hydroplane round the sharp angle of the course inside of the
+Flying Fish. Guessing that this would mean disaster to her ill-advised
+occupants, he waved his hand at them to keep out.
+
+"When we need your advice we'll send for it.  This is the time we've
+got you!" yelled Jack Curtiss, bending low over his wheel, as he grazed
+by the Flying Fish's stern to take the inside course.
+
+At the same instant, so quickly that the boys did not even get a mental
+picture of it, the hydroplane overturned.
+
+Taking the curve at such a speed and at such a sharp angle had, as Jack
+had surmised, proved too much for her stability.   Her occupants were
+pitched struggling into the water.
+
+"Shall we pick them up?" yelled Merritt.
+
+"No," shouted Rob; "they've all got life belts on.  A launch from the
+club will get them."
+
+Indeed, as he spoke a launch was seen putting off to the rescue. The
+accident had been witnessed from the club, and as the water was warm,
+the boys were satisfied that no harm would come to the three from their
+immersion.
+
+But the delay almost proved fatal to the Flying Fish's chance of
+winning.  Close behind her now came creeping up the speedy Albacore.
+
+But a few hundred feet before the finish the Flying Fish darted ahead
+once more, and shook off her opponent amid a great roar of yells and
+whoops and cheers.  An instant later she shot across the line--a winner.
+
+"Bang!" went the gun, in token that the race was finished.
+
+"I congratulate you," said Commodore Wingate, as the boys brought their
+craft up to the float.  "It was a well-fought race."
+
+And now came the captains of the Albacore, Snark and Bonita.
+
+"You won the race fairly and squarely," said the former, shaking Rob's
+hand.  "I presume, commodore, the time was taken?"
+
+"It has been," replied that official.  "The Flying Fish wins by one
+minute and four and seven hundredths seconds."
+
+More cheers greeted this announcement, mingled with laughter and some
+sympathy, as the club launch, towing the capsized hydroplane, puffed up
+to the float.  From the launch emerged three crestfallen figures with
+dripping garments.  But wet as he was, Jack Curtiss was not going to
+surrender the race without a protest.
+
+"A foul!  We claim a foul!  The Flying Fish fouled us!" he shouted.
+
+"My dear young man," calmly replied the commodore, "I was watching you
+every foot of the way through binoculars, and I should rather say that
+you fouled the Flying Fish.  Anyhow, you should have better sense than
+to try to shave round that turn so closely."
+
+More mortified, and angrier than ever, Jack strode off to put on dry
+clothes, followed by his equally chagrined companions, who, however,
+had sense enough now not to make any protests.  They knew well enough
+that Jack, in his hurry to grab the prize, had attempted a foolish and
+dangerous thing which had cost them the race.
+
+"A great race, a great race," said Mr. Blake, as the boys, followed by
+the crowd, entered the club house, where the awards were to be
+distributed.  "You boys certainly covered yourselves with glory," he
+went on.
+
+"Yes, and here is your reward.  I hope it will stimulate you to put up
+a fine defense for it next year," said Commodore Wingate, handing to
+the elated boys a fine engraved silver cup, the trophy of the Hampton
+Yacht Club.
+
+"Get up and make a speech!" shouted some one.
+
+The boys felt inclined to run for it.
+
+"Go ahead!  Make some sort of a talk," urged Rob, helping Tubby on to
+the platform from which the prizes had been handed out.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," puffed the stout youth, "we want to thank you
+for your congratulations and thank the club for the fine cup.
+Er--er--er--we thank you."
+
+And having made what was perhaps quite as good a speech as some of his
+elders', Tubby stepped down amid loud and prolonged cheering.
+
+Up in the dressing room Jack and his cronies, changing into other,
+garments, heard the sounds of applause.
+
+"It's high time something was done," said Bill, as he gazed from a
+window at several of the yacht club attendants bailing out the unlucky
+hydroplane.  "Those young beggars will be owning the town next."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE EAGLES IN CAMP
+
+
+The next few days were full of excitement and preparation for the Boy
+Scouts.  Their headquarters resounded all day to the tramp of feet, and
+the Manual of Instructions was consulted day and night. The official
+tents had arrived, and every boy in the Patrol was eager for the time
+to arrive to put them up.  So much so that two or three confessed that
+they could hardly sleep at night in their impatience for the hour when
+the embarkation for Topsail Island was to take place.
+
+Besides the tents, there was much other equipment to be overhauled and
+set in order, for, before their departure, the boys were to be reviewed
+by their scout master and a field secretary from New York.  There were
+haversack straps to be replaced, laces mended, axes sharpened, "Billys"
+polished and made to shine like new tin, and a hundred and one things
+to be done.  At last, however--although it seemed that it would never
+come--the eventful Monday arrived, as eventful days of all kinds have a
+habit of doing; and the Eagle Patrol, spick and span and shining from
+tan boots to campaign hats, fell in line behind the band.  Proudly they
+paraded up the street, with their green and black Eagle Patrol sign
+fluttering gallantly in the van.
+
+The "reviewing stand" was the post-office steps, around which most of
+the citizens of Hampton and the proud parents and relatives of the
+young scouts were assembled.
+
+Plenty of applause greeted them, as, in response to Rob's orders, given
+in the sharp, military manner, they drew up in line and gave the Boy
+Scout's salute.  This done, the young scouts went through a smart drill
+with the staffs they carried.  Then, after saluting once more, and
+being warmly complimented on their appearance by the field secretary,
+they marched off to the wharf where they were to embark for their camp.
+
+The day before Merritt, Hiram Nelson, Paul Perkins and the three
+"tender feet"--Martin Green, Walter Lonsdale and Joe Digby--had been
+told off by Rob as on "pioneer service"; that is to say, that they had
+gone down to the island in the Flying Fish. Arrived there, they
+selected a good spot for the camp, aided by Commodore Wingate's and
+Captain Hudgins' suggestions, and set up the tents and made the other
+necessary preparations.  The camp was therefore practically ready, for
+the "army" to move into.
+
+At Tubby's special request, a list of the rations for the week's camp
+had been made out by Rob and affixed to the bulletin board in the
+headquarters of the Eagles.  As perhaps some of my young readers may
+care to know what to take on a similar expedition, is the list,
+exclusive of meat, which was to be brought from the mainland, and fish,
+which they expected to catch themselves:
+
+  Oatmeal, 8 lbs.;
+  rice, 4 lbs.;
+  crackers, 35 lbs.;
+  chocolate, 1 1-2 lbs.;
+  tea, 3 lbs;
+  coffee, 1 lb.;
+  lard, 6 lbs.;
+  sugar, 8 lbs.;
+  condensed milk, 10 cans;
+  butter, 4 lbs.;
+  eggs, 12 dozen;
+  bacon, 20 lbs.;
+  preserves, 14 jars;
+  prunes, 8 lbs.;
+  maple syrup and molasses, 4 quarts;
+  potatoes, 1 bushel;
+  white beans, 6 quarts;
+  canned corn, 6 tins;
+  canned tomatoes, 6 tins;
+  flour, 35 lbs.;
+  baking powder, 2 lbs.;
+  salt, 4 lbs.;
+  pepper, 2 ounces.
+
+"Well," Tubby had remarked, as he gazed attentively at the list, "we
+won't starve, anyhow."
+
+"I should say not," laughed Rob; "and besides all that, I've got lots
+of lines and squids, and the blues and mackerel are running good."
+
+"Can't I take along my twenty-two rifle--that island's just swarming
+with rabbits, and I think I heard some quail when we were there the
+other day," pleaded Merritt.
+
+"Not in season," answered Rob laconically.  "Laws not up on them till
+November."
+
+"Oh, bother the law!" blurted out Merritt.  "However, I suppose if
+there wasn't one there wouldn't be any rabbits left."
+
+"I guess you're right," agreed Tubby.  "Still, it does seem hard to
+have to look at them skip about and not be able to take a shot at them."
+
+"Maybe we can set a springle and snare some," hopefully suggested
+Tubby, as a way out of the difficulty; "that wouldn't be as bad as
+shooting them, you know, and I can build a springle that will strangle
+them instantaneously."
+
+"No fair, Tubby," laughed Rob.  "You know, a boy scout promises to obey
+the law, and the game law is as much a law as any other."
+
+Arrived at the L wharf, the boys found the Flying Fish and Captain
+Hudgins' Barracuda waiting for them.  With much laughter they piled
+in--their light-heartedness and constant joking reminding such
+onlookers, as had ever seen the spectacle, of a band of real soldiers
+going to the front or embarking for foreign stations.
+
+With three ear-splitting cheers and a final yell of, "Kr-ee-ee-ee-ee!"
+the little flotilla got under way.
+
+They arrived at the camping ground at the northeast end of the island
+before noon, and found that the "pioneers" appointed by Rob had done
+their work well.  Each tent was placed securely on a level patch of
+sandy ground, cleared from brush and stamped flat. The pegs were driven
+extra deep in anticipation of a gale, and an open cook tent, with flaps
+that could be fastened down in bad weather, stood to one side.
+
+A small spring had been excavated by the pioneers, and an old barrel
+sunk in place, which had filled in the night and now presented
+sparkling depths of cool, clear water.
+
+"I suppose that water is all right, captain?" inquired Leader Rob, with
+a true officer's regard for his troops.
+
+"Sweet as a butternut, son," rejoined the old man.  "Makes the sick
+strong and the strong stronger, as the medicine advertisements say."
+
+For the present, the cooking was to be done on a regular camp fire
+which was built between two green logs laid lengthwise and converging
+toward the end.  The tops of these had, under Commodore Wingate's
+directions, been slightly flattened with an axe.  At each end a forked
+branch had been set upright in the ground, with a green limb laid
+between them.  From this limb hung "cooking hooks," consisting of green
+branches with hooked ends at one extremity to hang over the long
+timber, and a nail driven in the other from which to hang the pots.
+
+"That's the best form of camp fire, boys," said Commodore--or perhaps
+we would better call him scout master now--Wingate, who had accompanied
+the boys to see them settled.  "Now, then, the next thing to do is to
+run up the Stars and Stripes and plant the Eagle flag.  Then you'll be
+all O.K."
+
+Little Andy Bowles made the woods behind them echo with the stirring
+call of "assembly," and halliards were reeved on a previously cut pole,
+about fifteen feet in height.  The Stars and Stripes were attached, and
+while the whole company stood at attention and gave the scout salute,
+Scout Master Wingate raised the colors.  Three loud, shrill cheers
+greeted Old Glory as it blew bravely out against the cloudless blue.
+
+"That's a pretty sight now, shiver my timbers if it ain't," observed
+old Captain Hudgins, who had stood, hat in hand, during the ceremony.
+"I've seen Old Glory in many a foreign port, and felt like takin' off
+my hat and givin' three cheers fer the old flag; but I never seen her
+look better or finer than she does a-streakin' out from that there bit
+of timber."
+
+"Now, Patrol cooks," was Scout Master Wingate's next command, "it's
+only an hour to dinner time, and we want the first mess to be right.
+Come on, and we'll get the pot boiling."
+
+Cook duty fell that day to Hiram Nelson and Walter Lonsdale, and under
+the scout master's directions they soon had potatoes peeled, beans in
+water, and a big piece of stew meat chopped up with vegetables in a
+capacious pot.
+
+After every errand to the store tent, Walter was anxious to know if it
+was not yet time to light the fire.
+
+"Never be in a hurry to light your fire when you are in the woods,"
+rejoined the scout master; "otherwise you will be so busy tending the
+fire you won't be able to prepare your food for cooking.  Now we're all
+ready for the fire, though, and you can bring me some dry bark and
+small sticks from that pile of wood the pioneers laid in yesterday."
+
+This was promptly done, and the lads watched the next step with
+interest.  They saw the scout master take a tiny pile of the sticks and
+then light a roll of bark and thrust it into them.
+
+"I thought you piled them up all criss-cross," remarked Hiram.
+
+"No woodsman does that, my boy," was the rejoinder.  "Now get me some
+larger timber from that pile, and I'll show you how to go about it like
+regular trappers."
+
+The fire builder shoved the ends of the sticks into the blaze and then
+the bean pot was hung in place.
+
+"We won't put the potatoes on now, as they take less time," he
+remarked; "those beans will take the longest."
+
+Soon the heat was leaping up about the pots, and the cheerful crackle
+and incense of the camp fire filled the air.  As the sticks burned down
+the scout master shoved the ends farther into the blaze, instead of
+throwing them on top of it.
+
+"Now, then, boys, you've had your first lesson in camp fire making and
+cooking," he announced.  "Now go ahead, and let's see what kind of a
+dinner you can produce.  I'm going for a tour of exploration of the
+island."
+
+Among the other things the pioneers had accomplished was the building
+of a table large enough to seat the entire Patrol, with planks set on
+logs as seats.  Hiram put Walter to setting this, while he burned his
+fingers and smudged his face over his cookery.  Long before the beans
+seemed any nearer to what experience taught the young cook they ought
+to be, Walter announced that the table was all set, with its tin cups
+and dishes and steel knives and forks.
+
+Suddenly, while Hiram was considering putting the potatoes on their
+hook, there came from the rear of the store tent the most appalling
+succession of squeals and screams the boy had ever heard.  Springing to
+his feet, he dashed to the scene of the conflict--for such it seemed to
+be though not without a heart that beat rather faster than usual.  He
+bad no idea what the creatures could be that were producing all the
+uproar, and for all he knew they might have been bears.
+
+Behind him came Walter, rather pale, but determined to do his best as a
+Boy Scout to fight off any wild beasts that might be attacking the
+camp.  As he dashed behind the tent, however, Hiram was impelled to
+give a loud laugh.  The contestants--for he had rightly judged they
+were in high dispute--were two small black pigs which had looted a bag
+of oatmeal from under the flap of the store tent and were busily
+engaged in fighting over their spoils.
+
+"Get out, you brutes!  Scat!" shouted the boy, bringing down a
+long-handled spoon he carried over the backs of the disputants.
+
+The spoon, being almost red-hot, the clamor of the porkers redoubled,
+and with indignant squeals and grumblings they dashed off into the
+dense growth of scrub oak and pine that covered the island in its
+interior.  At the same moment the captain, who had been taking a snooze
+under some small bushes, awoke with a start.
+
+"Eh--eh--eh!  What's all that?" he exclaimed, hearing the yells. "Why,
+it's that plagued Betsy and Jane, my two young sows," he cried the next
+moment.  "Consarn and keelhaul the critters, they're breakin' out all
+the time.  I reckon they're headed fer home now," he added, when Hiram
+related how he had scared them.
+
+"I'm glad that they were nothing but pigs, captain," said Hiram, going
+back with flushed cheeks to his cookery.  "I was afraid for a minute
+they were I hardly know what.  We'll have to fix that store tent more
+snugly in future."
+
+"And I'll have ter take a double reef in my pig Pen," chuckled the
+captain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE CHUMS IN PERIL
+
+
+Even the epicurean Tubby Hopkins voted dinner that day a great success,
+and Hiram, with becoming modesty, took his congratulations blushingly.
+In mid-afternoon, after seeing that the camp was in good working order,
+the scout masters started for the home shore in Captain Hudgins's boat,
+which was also to bring back some additional supplies for the next day.
+
+After dinner Rob had assigned Merritt and Tubby to form a "fishing
+squad," to range seaward in the Flying Fish and "halt and detain" all
+the bluefish they could apprehend.  The others were given the afternoon
+to range the island and practice up their woodcraft and landmark work,
+while Rob busied himself in his tent, which was equipped with a small
+folding camp table, in filling out his pink blank reports which were to
+be forwarded to Commodore Wingate and dispatched by him to the
+headquarters of the Boy Scouts in New York.
+
+Merritt and Tubby were both ardent fishermen, and in response to
+Hiram's pleadings, they allowed him to accompany them on their
+expedition.  The fish were running well, and the boys cast and pulled
+in some time without particularly noticing how far out to sea they had
+gone.
+
+Suddenly the stout youth, who was fishing with an unusually heavy line
+and hook, felt a hard tug on his apparatus, so powerful a tweak, in
+fact, that it almost pulled him overboard.  He tried to haul in, but
+the resistance on the other end of his line was so great that he was
+compelled to twist it about a cleat in order to avoid either letting go
+or being dragged into the sea.
+
+"What in the name of Sam Hill have you hooked?" gasped Merritt, as the
+Flying Fish began to move through the water faster than even her engine
+could propel her.
+
+"I've not the least idea," remarked Tubby placidly, "but I rather think
+it must be a whale."
+
+"Whale nothing!" exclaimed Merritt scornfully and with superior wisdom.
+"Whales sound, don't they?"
+
+"Well, there's not been a sound out of this one so far," truthfully
+observed Hiram.
+
+"What kind of a sound do they make, corporal?"
+
+"Oh, you chump," responded Merritt good-naturedly, "you've lived by the
+sea all your life, and you don't know how a whale sounds. Sound means
+when a whale blows, spouts, sends up a big fountain of water."
+
+"Oh, I see," responded Hiram, much enlightened.  "But see here,
+Merritt, whatever we are fast to is beginning to pick up speed pretty
+rapidly.  Don't you think we'd better cut the line or try to haul in?"
+
+"Haul in!  Not much!" exclaimed Tubby indignantly.  "We'll just hang on
+till we tire him out, that's what we'll do, and then haul in."
+
+"But we're getting a good way out from shore," objected Hiram, who,
+however much at home he was at the key of a wireless apparatus, had no
+great relish for blue water in a small motor boat.
+
+"Don't you worry, sonny," put in Merritt patronizingly.  "We'll be all
+right.  My, that was a plunge!"
+
+As he spoke the bow of the Flying Fish dipped till she shipped a few
+gallons of green water.
+
+"I'll pay out some more line," said the unperturbed Tubby.  "I guess
+whatever we're onto begins to believe that he has swallowed something
+pretty indigestible."
+
+Faster and faster the Flying Fish began to cut through the sea. The
+water sprayed out from both sides of her cutwater in a steady stream.
+
+"She's doing as well as she did the day of the race," said Merritt,
+with a laugh, gazing at Hiram's rather pale face.  The wireless youth
+was casting longing glances at the shore.
+
+"Well, I wish Mr. Whale, or whatever he is, would come up and let us
+have a look at him!" exclaimed Tubby suddenly.  "This is getting pretty
+monotonous."
+
+As he spoke the boy paid nut a little more line.  He had only just time
+to belay it round the cleat to avoid its being jerked out of his hand,
+so fast was the creature they had hooked now traveling.
+
+"Say, Tubby," spoke Merritt at length, "I'm beginning to think myself
+that it might not be a bad idea to put back.  Those clouds over there
+on the horizon look as if they meant trouble."
+
+"Oh, let's keep it on a little while longer pleaded Tubby; cutting
+through the water like this, without any expenditure of gasoline or
+power, is the real luxurious way of ocean traveling. It beats the
+Mauretania. Just think if liners could hitch a whole team of things
+like whatever has got hold of us to their bows! Why, the Atlantic would
+be crossed in four days."
+
+For some time longer the boat shot along over the waves, towed by its
+invisible force.  The boys, with the exception of Tubby, began to get
+anxious.  The shores of the mainland were dim in the distance behind
+them, and Topsail Island itself only showed as a dark blue dot.
+
+Suddenly the motion ceased.
+
+"He's free of the line!" shouted Hiram, inwardly much relieved to think
+they had got rid of what to him was an alarming situation.
+
+"No, he's not," replied Tubby, bending over the line.  "He's still fast
+to us.  The line's as tight as a fiddle string."
+
+He was standing up as he spoke, and as the Flying Fish gave a sudden,
+crazy jerk forward, he was almost thrown overboard.  In fact, he would
+have toppled into the sea if Merritt had not bounded forward and
+grabbed the fleshy lad just as he was losing his balance.
+
+"We're off again!" exclaimed Hiram, as the Flying Fish once more began
+to move through the water.
+
+But now the creature that had seized Tubby's big hook started to move
+in circles.  Round and round the Flying Fish was towed in dizzy swings
+that made the heads of her young occupants swim.
+
+"Start the engine on the reverse, and see if that will do any good,"
+said Tubby, bending anxiously over his line.
+
+Merritt brought the reverse gear to "neutral," and then started it up,
+gradually bringing back the lever governing the reversing wheel till
+the Flying Fish was going second speed astern, and finally at her full
+gait backward.
+
+The tug thus exercised seemed to have no effect on the monster that had
+caught Tubby's bait, however.  With the exception that the speed was
+diminished a trifle, the Flying Fish was still powerless to shake off
+her opponent.
+
+Suddenly, and without the slightest warning, a huge, shiny, wet body
+shot out of the water almost directly in front of the amazed and
+startled boys, and settled back with a mighty splash that sent the
+spray flying in a salt-water shower bath over their heads.
+
+"Whatever was it?" gasped Hiram in awed tones.
+
+"A shark," replied Merritt, "and a whopper, too.  What are we going to
+do, Tubby--keep on or cut loose?"
+
+"Just a little longer," pleaded the other.  "He must be tiring by this
+time.  If we can only wear him out, we can tow him ashore and make a
+little money out of him.  You know shark skin is valuable."
+
+"I'd rather have a whole skin of my own," quavered Hiram, who had been
+considerably alarmed by the momentary glimpse he had had of Tubby's
+quarry.
+
+"He's off again!" shouted Merritt, as the sea tiger started straight
+ahead once more.
+
+Suddenly the line slackened again.
+
+"Look out!" Tubby had just time to shriek the warning before a mighty
+shock threw them all off their feet in a heap on the bottom of the boat.
+
+"Zan-g-g-g!"
+
+The line twanged and snapped under the sudden strain, and a great rush
+seaward showed the boys, as soon as they recovered their senses, that
+they had lost their shark.
+
+"And a good line," moaned Tubby.
+
+"What are you kicking about?" demanded Merritt.  "It's a lucky thing
+the beast didn't start some plank of the boat when it charged; but as
+far as I can see, the Flying Fish stood the shock all right."
+
+"It felt like an earthquake," murmured Hiram, whose face was white and
+eyes frightened.
+
+"Well, I suppose we'd better head for home," said Tubby at length.
+"Those bluefish will go fine for supper."
+
+"Spoken like a Tubby," laughed Merritt.  "All right, I'll start up.
+Hullo--" he looked up with a puzzled face from the reverse lever.  "I
+can't get her on the forward speed."
+
+"What's the matter?" gasped Hiram.
+
+"I don't know.  Something's stuck.  Shut off that engine, will you,
+Tubby, while I see?"
+
+Tubby promptly shut down the motor, and Merritt struggled with the
+refractory lever.  It was all in vain, however; he could not get it on
+the forward speed.
+
+"I've got to investigate," puffed the perspiring corporal; "something
+must be wrong with the reversible propeller."
+
+"Well, whatever you are going to do, hurry up about it," spoke Tubby,
+with unwonted sharpness in his tones.
+
+"Why, what's the--" began Merritt.
+
+Tubby checked him with a finger on his lips.
+
+"Don't scare the kid," he whispered, leaning forward, "but we're in for
+a storm."
+
+He pointed seaward.
+
+Rolling toward them was a spreading wall of heavy clouds traveling at
+seemingly great speed, while below the wrack the water darkened
+ominously and became flecked with "white horses."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+LOST IN THE STORM
+
+
+"The trouble's in the reversible propeller.  I always told Rob he was
+foolish not to have a regular reverse gear on the shaft itself and a
+solid wheel," said Merritt.
+
+"Well, never mind that now," urged Tubby anxiously.  "I'll shift all
+the cushions and stuff up in the bow, and Hiram and I will get as far
+forward as we can.  That will raise the stern and you can hang over and
+reach the wheel."
+
+When the stout lad had done as he suggested there was quite a
+perceptible tilt forward to the Flying Fish, and Merritt, hanging over
+the stern, could feel about the propeller better.
+
+"Just as I thought," he shouted presently.  "That shark when he came
+astern fouled that heavy line on the propeller."
+
+He got out his knife, and in a few minutes succeeded in cutting the
+entangling line free.
+
+It was not any too soon.  From far off there came a low sound,
+something like the moaning of a large animal in pain.  It grew louder
+and closer, and with it came an advancing wall of water crested with
+white foam.  The sky, too, grew black, and air filled with a sort of
+sulphurous smell.
+
+"It's a thunder squall," shouted Tubby, as Merritt shoved over the
+lever and started the engine.
+
+As he spoke there came a low growl of thunder and the sky was illumined
+with a livid glare.
+
+"Here she comes!" yelled Merritt; "better get out those slickers or
+we'll be soaked."
+
+Tubby opened a locker and produced the yellow waterproof coats. The
+boys had hardly thrust their arms into them before the big sea struck
+them.  Thanks to Tubby's steering, however, the Flying Fish met it
+without shipping more than a few cupfuls of water.
+
+The next minute the full fury of the storm enveloped the Boy Scouts and
+the Flying Fish was laboring in a heaving wilderness of lashed and
+tumbling water.
+
+"Keep her head up!" roared Merritt, above the screaming of the wind and
+the now almost continuous roar and rattle of the thunder.  It grew
+almost dark, so overcast was the sky, and under the somber, driving
+cloud wrack the white wave crests gleamed like savage teeth.
+
+Hiram crouched on the bottom of the boat, too terrified to speak, while
+Tubby and Merritt strove desperately to keep the little craft from
+"broaching to," in which case she would have shipped more water than
+would have been at all convenient, not to say safe.
+
+As if it were some vindictive live thing, seized with a sudden spite
+against the boat and its occupants, the storm roared about the dazed
+boys.
+
+The Flying Fish, however, rode the sweeping seas gallantly, breasting
+even the biggest combers bravely and buoyantly.
+
+"It's getting worse," shouted Tubby, gazing back at Merritt, who was
+bending over the laboring motor.
+
+"Yes, you bet it is!" roared back the engineer; "and I'm afraid of a
+short circuit if this rain keeps up."
+
+"Cover up the engine with that spare slicker," suggested Tubby.
+
+"That's a good idea," responded the other, rummaging in a stern locker
+and producing the garment in question. In another moment he had it over
+the engine, protecting the spark plugs and the high-tension wires from
+the rain and spray.  But the wind was too high to permit of the
+covering remaining unfastened, and with a ball of marlin the young
+engineer lashed the improvised motor cover firmly in place.
+
+Hiram, with a white face, now crawled up from the bottom of the boat.
+In addition to being scared, he was seasick from the eccentric motions
+of the storm-tossed craft.
+
+"Do you think we'll ever get ashore again?" he asked, crawling to
+Merritt's side.
+
+"Sure," responded the corporal confidently. "'Come on, buck up, Hiram!
+You know, a Boy Scout never says die. We'll be back in camp in three
+hours' time, when this squall blows itself out."
+
+"I--I don't want you to think me a coward, Merritt," quavered Hiram,
+"but--but you know this is enough to scare any fellow."
+
+Indeed, he seemed right.  The Flying Fish appeared no more than a tiny
+chip on the immense rollers the storm had blown up.  Time and again it
+looked as if she would never be able to climb the huge walls of green
+water that towered above her; but every time she did, and, as the storm
+raged on, the confidence of the boys began to grow.
+
+"She'll ride it out, Tubby!" yelled Merritt, dousing the engine with
+more oil.
+
+"Sure she will!" yelled back Tubby, with a confidence that was,
+however, largely assumed.  The stout youth had just been assailed by an
+alarming thought that flashed across his mind.
+
+"Would the gasoline hold out?"
+
+There was no opportunity on the plunging, bucking craft to examine the
+tank, and all the boy could do was to make a rapid mental calculation,
+based on what he knew of the consumption of the engine.  The tank, he
+knew, had been half full when they came out, and that, under ordinary
+conditions, would have sufficed to drive the Flying Fish for five or
+six hours.
+
+But they were not ordinary conditions under which she was now laboring.
+Tubby knew that Merritt was piling in every ounce of gasoline the
+carburetor could take care of.
+
+Suddenly, while the stout youth's mind was busied with these thoughts,
+and without the slightest warning, there came a sort of wheezing gasp
+from the motor.
+
+Merritt leaned over it in alarm.  He seized the timing lever and shoved
+it over and opened the gasoline cock full tilt.
+
+But there was no response from the motor.
+
+It gasped out a cough a couple of times and turned over in a dying
+fashion for a few revolutions and then stopped dead.
+
+The boys were adrift in the teeth of the storm in a crippled boat.
+
+"What's the matter?" roared back Tubby from the wheel. "She's lost
+steerage way!"
+
+"Motor's gone dead," howled back Merritt laconically.
+
+"Great Scott, we are in for it now! What's the matter?"
+
+"No gasolene," yelled Merritt.
+
+"Sosh-osh-soh!"
+
+A huge green wave climbed on to the Flying Fish's bow, shaking her from
+stem to stern like a terrier shakes a rat.
+
+"We've got to do something quick, or we'll be swamped!" roared Merritt.
+
+"The cockpit cover, quick!" shouted Tubby, steadying himself in the
+bucking craft by a tight grasp on the bulwarks.
+
+"That's it. Now the oars. Hurry up. Here, you Hiram, grab that can and
+bail for all you're worth!"
+
+The fat youth seemed transformed by the sudden emergency into the most
+active of beings.
+
+"What are you going to do?" yelled Merritt, framing his mouth with his
+hands.
+
+"Make a spray hood. Come forward here and give me a hand."
+
+With the oars the two boys made a sort of arched framework, secured
+with ropes, and over it spread the canvas cockpit cover, lashing it
+down to the forward and side cleats. This work was not unattended with
+danger and difficulty. Time and again as they worked the boys had to
+lie flat on their stomachs and hang on while the Flying Fish leaped a
+wave like a horse taking a barrier. At last, however, their task was
+completed, and the improvised spray hood served to some extent to break
+the waves that now threatened momentarily to engulf the laboring craft.
+
+"Now to get out a sea anchor!" shouted the indefatigable Tubby.
+
+He seized up an old bait tub, a boat hook and a "swabbing-out" broom,
+and lashed them all together in a sort of bridle. Then he attached the
+Flying Fish's mooring cable to the contrivance and paid it out for a
+hundred feet or more, while the storm-battered craft drifted steadily
+backward.  Instead, however, of lying beam on to the big sea, she now
+headed up into them, the "drag," as it is sometimes called, serving to
+keep her bow swung up to the threatening combers.
+
+"There, she'll ride for a while, anyhow," breathed Tubby, when this was
+done.
+
+"What's to be done now?" shouted Merritt in his car.
+
+"Nothing," was the response; "we've got to lie here till this thing
+blows over."
+
+"It's breaking a little to the south now," exclaimed Merritt, pointing
+to where a rift began to appear in the solid cloud curtain.
+
+This was cheering news, and even the seasick but plucky Hiram, who had
+been bailing for all he was worth, despite his misery, began to cheer
+up.
+
+"Hurrah!  I guess the worst of our troubles are over," cried Tubby.
+"It certainly looks as if the sea was beginning to go down, and the
+wind has dropped, I'm sure."
+
+That this was the case became apparent shortly.  There was a noticeable
+decrease in the size and height of the waves and the wind abated in
+proportion.  In half an hour after the rift had been first noticed by
+Merritt, the black squall had passed, and the late afternoon sun began
+to shine in a pallid way through the driving cloud masses.
+
+The lads, however, were still in a serious fix.  They had been driven
+so far out to sea that the land was blotted out altogether.  All about
+them was only the still heaving Atlantic. The sun, too, was westering
+fast, and it would not be long before darkness fell.
+
+Without gasoline and with no sail, they had no means of making land.
+Worse still, they were in the track of the in and out-bound steamers to
+and from New York--according to Tubby's reckoning--and they had no
+lights.
+
+"Well, we seem to have got out of the frying pan into the fire," said
+Merritt in a troubled voice.  "It's the last time I'll ever come out
+without lights and a mast and sail."
+
+"That's what they all say," observed Tubby grimly.  "The thing to do
+now is to get back to shore somehow.  Maybe we can rig up a sail with
+the cockpit cover and the oars.  We've got to try it, anyhow."
+
+After hauling in the sea anchor, the lads set to work to rig up and
+lash the oars into an A shape.  The canvas was lashed to each of the
+arms of the A, and the contrivance then set up and secured to the fore
+and aft cleats by the mooring line they had utilized for the sea anchor.
+
+"Well," remarked Tubby, as he surveyed his handiwork with some
+satisfaction and pride, "we can go before the wind now, anyhow--even if
+we do look like a lost, strayed or stolen Chinese junk."
+
+"Say, I'm so hungry I could eat one of those fish raw!" exclaimed
+Hiram, now quite recovered, as the Flying Fish, under her clumsy sail,
+began to stagger along in the direction in which Tubby believed the
+land lay, the wind fortunately being dead aft.
+
+"Great Scott, the kid's right!" exclaimed Merritt.  "We forgot all
+about eating in the gloom but now I believe I could almost follow
+Hiram's lead and eat some of those fellows as they are."
+
+"Well, that's about all you'll get to eat for a long time," remarked
+Tubby, grimly casting an anxious eye aloft at the filling "sail."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ALMOST RUN DOWN
+
+
+It grew dark rapidly and the night fell on three lonely, wet, hungry
+boys, rolling along in a disabled boat under what was surely one of the
+queerest rigs ever devised.  It answered its purpose, though, and under
+her "jury mast" the Flying Fish actually made some headway through the
+water.
+
+None of the boys said much, and Tubby, under the cover of the darkness,
+tightened his capacious belt.  It spoke volumes for his Boy Scout
+training that, though he probably felt the pangs of hunger as much or
+even more keenly than the others, he made no complaint.  Hiram, the
+second-class scout, complained a bit at first, but soon quieted down
+under Merritt's stern looks; as for the latter, as corporal of the
+Eagle Patrol, it was his duty to try to keep as cheerful as possible;
+which, under the circumstances, was about as hard a task as could well
+be imagined.
+
+The eyes of all three were kept strained ahead for some sign of a
+light, for they had been so tossed about in the squall that all sense
+of direction had been lost, and they had no compass aboard, which in
+itself was a piece of carelessness.
+
+Suddenly, after about an hour of "going it blind" in this fashion,
+young Hiram gave a shout.
+
+"A light, a light!"
+
+"Where?" demanded Tubby and Merritt sharply.
+
+"Off there," cried the lad, pointing to the left, over the port side of
+the boat.
+
+Both the elder lads gazed sharply.
+
+"That's not the direction in which land would lie," mused Tubby.
+
+"The light's pretty high up, too, isn't it?" suggested Merritt. "It
+might be a lighthouse.  We may have been blown farther than we thought."
+
+Tubby offered no opinion for a few seconds, but his ordinarily round
+and smiling face grew grave.  A sudden apprehension had flashed into
+his mind.
+
+"Tell me, Merritt," he said, "can you see any other lights?"
+
+"No," replied Merritt, after peering with half closed eyes at the white
+light.
+
+"I can," suddenly shouted young Hiram.
+
+"You can?"
+
+"Yes; some distance below the white light I can see a green one to the
+right and a red one on the left."
+
+"Shades of Father Neptune!" groaned Tubby.  "It's just as I thought,
+Merritt--that light yonder is a steamer's mast lantern, and the fact
+that Hiram can see both her port and starboard lamps beneath shows that
+she's coming right for us."
+
+This was alarming enough.  Without lanterns, without the means of
+making any noise sufficiently loud to attract the attention of those on
+the approaching vessel, the occupants of the Plying Fish were in about
+as serious a predicament as one could imagine.  To make matters worse,
+the wind began to drop and come in puffs which only urged the Flying
+Fish ahead slowly.  Tubby made a rapid mental calculation, and decided
+that hardly anything short of a miracle could save them from being run
+down, unless the steamer saw them and changed her course.
+
+"Can't we shout and make them hear us?" asked Hiram in an alarmed
+voice.  He saw from the troubled faces of both the elder lads that
+something serious indeed was the matter.
+
+"We might try it," responded Tubby, with a bitter shrug.  "But it's
+about as much use as a mouth organ in a symphony orchestra would be.
+Better get on the life belts."
+
+With hands that trembled with the sense of impending disaster, the
+three boys strapped on the cork jackets.
+
+"Now all shout together," said Merritt, when this was done.
+
+Standing erect, the three young castaways placed their hands
+funnel-wise to their mouths and roared out together:
+
+"Ship ahoy!  St-eam-er a-hoy!"
+
+They were alarmed and not ashamed to admit it.
+
+"No good," said Tubby, after they had roared themselves hoarse. "When
+she strikes us, jump over the starboard bow and dive as deep as you
+can.  If you don't, the propellers are liable to catch us."
+
+It was a grim prospect, and no wonder the boys grew white and their
+faces strained as the impending peril bore down on them.
+
+They could now see that she was a large vessel--a liner, to judge from
+the rows of lighted portholes on her steep black sides.  Her bow lights
+gleamed like the eye of some monster intent on devouring the Flying
+Fish and her occupants.  On and on she came. The air trembled with the
+vibration of her mighty engines, and a great white "'bone" foamed up at
+her sharp prow.
+
+Not one of the boys spoke as the vessel came nearer and nearer,
+although it speedily grew evident that unless a wind sprang up or the
+lookout saw them, it was inevitable that they would be cut in two
+amidships.
+
+"Remember what I said," warned Tubby, in a strange, strained voice.
+"Dive deep and stay tinder as long as you can."
+
+And now the great vessel seemed scarcely more than two or three boat
+lengths from the tiny cockleshell on which she was bearing down.  As a
+matter of fact, though, her towering bulk made her appear much nearer
+than she actually was.
+
+"Can't we do anything, Merritt?" gasped Hiram, with chattering teeth.
+"We might try shouting once more," suggested Tubby in a voice that
+quivered in spite of his efforts to keep it steady.
+
+"All together now--come on!"
+
+"Ship ahoy!  You'll run us down!  St-eam-er a-hoy!"
+
+Suddenly there were signs of confusion on the bow of the big vessel.
+Men could be seen running about and waving their arms.
+
+"By hookey, they've seen us!" breathed Merritt, hardly daring to
+believe it, however.
+
+The others were speechless with suspense.
+
+Suddenly from the bow of the oncoming steamer a great fan-shaped ray of
+dazzling light shot out and enveloped the boys and their boat in its
+bewildering radiance.
+
+"Hard over, hard over!" the boys could hear the lookout roaring, and
+the command rang hoarsely back along the decks to the wheelhouse.
+
+Slowly, very slowly, as if reluctant to give up her prey, the bow of
+the mighty liner swung off, and the boys were safe.
+
+"Look out for the wash," warned Merritt, as the great black bulk,
+pierced with hundreds of glowing portholes, ploughed regally by them,
+her deck crowded with curious passengers.  A voice shouted down from
+the bridge:
+
+"What in blazing sea serpents are you doing out here in that marine oil
+stove?"
+
+The boys made no attempt to reply.  They had all they could do to hang
+on, as the Flying Fish danced about like a drifting cork in the wash of
+the great vessel.  They could see, however, that several of her
+passengers were clustered at her stern rail, gazing wonderingly down at
+them in great perplexity, no doubt, as to what manner of craft it was
+that they had so narrowly escaped sending to the bottom.  For had the
+vessel even grazed the Flying Fish, the small boat would have been
+annihilated without those on board the liner even feeling a tremor.  It
+would have been just such a tragedy as happens frequently to the
+fishing dories on the foggy Newfoundland banks.
+
+"Wh-ew!" gasped Merritt, sinking down on a locker.  "That was a narrow
+escape if you like it!"
+
+"I don't like it," remarked Tubby sententiously, mopping his forehead,
+on which beads of cold perspiration had stood out while their
+destruction had seemed inevitable.  So thoroughly unnerved were the
+lads, in fact, by their experience that it was some time before they
+could do anything more than sit limply on the lockers while the Flying
+Fish rolled aimlessly with an uncontrolled helm.
+
+"Come on," said Tubby at length; "we've got to rouse ourselves. In the
+first place, I've got an idea," he went on briskly.  "I've been
+thinking over that gasoline stoppage, and the more I think of it the
+more I am inclined to believe that there's something queer about it.
+It's worth looking into, anyhow."
+
+"You mean you think there may be some fuel in the tank, after all?"
+asked Merritt, looking up.
+
+"It's possible.  Have you tried the little valve forward of the
+carburetor?"
+
+"Why, no," rejoined Merritt; "but I hardly think--"
+
+"It wouldn't be the first time a carburetor had fouled, particularly
+after what we went through in that squall," remarked Tubby.  "It's
+worth trying, anyhow."
+
+He bent over the valve he had referred to, which was in the gasoline
+feed pipe, just forward of the carburetor, and placed there primarily
+for draining the tank when it was necessary.
+
+"Look here!" he yelled, with a sudden shout of excitement.  "No," he
+cried the next moment, "I don't want to waste it--but when I opened the
+valve a stream of gasoline came out.  There's plenty of it.  That
+stoppage is in the carburetor.  Oh, what a bunch of idiots we've been!"
+
+"Better sound the tank," suggested Merritt; "what came out of the valve
+might just be an accumulation in the pipe."
+
+"Not much," rejoined the other, "it came out with too much force for
+that, I tell you.  It was flowing from the tank, all right."
+
+"We'll soon find out," proclaimed Merritt.  "Give me the sounding stick
+out of that locker, Hiram."
+
+Armed with the stick, Merritt rapidly unscrewed the cap of the fuel
+tank and plunged the sounder into it.
+
+"There's quite a lot of gasoline in there yet," he exclaimed, with
+sparkling eyes, as he withdrew and felt the wet end of the instrument.
+
+The carburetor was rapidly adjusted.  The rough tossing about the
+Flying Fish had received had jammed the needle valve, but that was all.
+Presently all was in readiness to get under way once more with the
+little boat's proper motive power. The "jury rig" was speedily
+dismantled Merritt swung the flywheel over two or three times, and a
+welcome "chug, chug!" responded.
+
+"Hurray! she's working," cried Hiram.
+
+"As well as ever," responded Merritt.  "Now for the shore.  By the
+way," he broke off in a dismayed tone, "where is the shore?"
+
+"I know now," rejoined Tubby in a confident tone.  "Off there to the
+right.  You see, that steamer was hugging the coast preparatory to
+heading seaward--at least, I'm pretty sure she was, and that would put
+the shore on her port side, or on our starboard."
+
+They chugged off in the direction Tubby indicated, and before long a
+joyful cry from Hiram announced the sudden appearance of lights.
+
+"What are they?" asked Merritt.
+
+"Don't know--they look like bonfires," rejoined the other lad. "I
+wonder if we have been lucky enough to pick up Topsail Island?"
+
+As they drew nearer the lads soon saw that it was the island that they
+were approaching, and that the lights they had seen were campfires
+ignited by order of the anxious young Patrol leader to guide them back.
+
+In a short time they had anchored the Flying Fish opposite the camp,
+and jumped into the dinghy left at her moorings when they embarked.
+
+"A fine scare you've given us," cried Rob, as they landed and flung
+down their afternoon's catch.  "We were afraid for a time that you were
+lost in that black squall--it blew two of our tents down, and we were
+mighty anxious about you, I can tell you."
+
+"You did not alarm our folks?" asked Hiram anxiously.
+
+"No, I thought that it would be best to wait.  Somehow, I thought you'd
+turn up safe.  Where on earth have you been and what has happened?  You
+look as pale as three ghosts."
+
+"Towed to sea by a shark--caught in a squall--almost run down by a
+liner--and so hungry we can't talk now," sputtered out Tubby
+comprehensively.
+
+"All right; come on up to the fire and get dried out and pitch into the
+grub."
+
+After such a meal as it may be imagined the young scouts indulged in,
+they told their whole yarn of their adventures to the listening Patrol.
+A short time after they concluded--so long had it taken to relate
+everything and answer all questions--the mournful call of "Taps"
+sounded and it was time to turn in. Little Digby alone, who was to do
+sentry service, remained on duty.
+
+Merritt's dreams were a strange jumble.  It seemed to him that he was
+being towed to sea on the back of a huge shark, by a big liner with a
+row of blazing portholes that winked at him like facetious eyes.
+Suddenly, just as it seem he was about to slip off the marine monster's
+slippery back, he thought he heard a loud cry of  "Help, scouts!"
+
+So vivid was the dream and so real the cry that he awoke trembling, and
+listened intently while peering out through the tent flap.
+
+There was no sound, however, but the ripple of the waves on the beach
+and the "hoot hoot" of an owl somewhere back in the woods on the island.
+
+"Funny," mused the boy, as he turned over and dozed off again, "that
+certainly sounded loud enough to have been a real, sure enough call for
+help."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+JOE DIGBY MISSING
+
+
+"Merritt! Merritt, wake up!"
+
+The boy sleepily opened his eyes and saw bending over him the pale
+features of Rob, whose voice quivered with suppressed excitement as he
+shook the other's shoulder.
+
+"I didn't hear reveille blow yet.  What's up?  Have I overslept?"
+murmured the young corporal.
+
+"No, it's not six-thirty yet--barely after half past four, in fact.
+But young Digby--he had the night watch, you know--and was to have been
+relieved at three o'clock.  Well, Ernest Thompson, his relief, roused
+out at that hour, but not a trace of Digby was to be found!"
+
+"What!" The sleepy boy was drowsy no longer.  "Digby gone?"
+
+"Hush!  We don't know yet.  Don't wake any of the others. Thompson and
+I have skirmished around ever since it began to get light, and we have
+not been able to find a trace of him."
+
+Merritt was out of his cot while his leader was still speaking, and ten
+minutes later, during which time the boys exchanged excited questions
+and answers, he was in his uniform and outside the tent.
+
+The sun was just poking his rim above the western horizon and the
+chilly damp of early dawn lay over the island.  The sea, as calm almost
+as a lake, lay sullen and gray, scarcely heaving.  Behind the sleeping
+camp a few shreds of mist--the ghosts of the vapors of the night were
+arising like smoke among the dim trees.  At the further end of the
+assemblage of tents, and beyond the smoldering fire, stood a silent
+figure, that of Ernest Thompson.
+
+"Have you explored the island thoroughly?" asked Merritt under his
+breath.  Somehow the dim hour and the situation seemed to preclude the
+idea of loud talking.
+
+"Of course not.  Not yet," breathed the other in the same tones. "We
+will break the news to the rest of the Patrol after breakfast.  It's no
+use alarming them yet."
+
+"It isn't possible that he went off on an early fishing expedition?"
+
+For answer, Rob waved his hand toward the water, where the Flying Fish
+lay rocking gently at her anchor.  Ashore the dingy lay as Merritt and
+his companions had left it the night before.
+
+"But what can have happened to him?" burst out Merritt, as they made
+their way over to Ernest Thompson's side.
+
+"I cannot think.  It is absolutely mystifying.  I am going to start for
+the captain's place now.  He may be able to throw some light on the
+affair."
+
+Merritt shook his head.
+
+"Hardly likely.  If there is no trace of Joe Digby on this side of the
+island, it is improbable that Captain Hudgins knows anything about him."
+
+"Well," rejoined Rob in a troubled voice, "we've got to try everything.
+I am responsible for his safe keeping while he is in camp.  I blame
+myself for allowing the kid to go on sentry duty at all."
+
+"No use doing that," comforted Merritt; "there's one thing sure, he
+can't have melted away.  He must be somewhere on the island. There are
+no wild beasts or anything like that here to carry him off, so if we
+keep up the search we must come upon him sooner or later."
+
+"That's what makes the whole affair the more mystifying," rejoined Rob.
+"What can have become of him?"
+
+"Well, if he's on the island, we'll find him," he continued; "and if he
+isn't--"
+
+"We'll find him anyway," declared Merritt in a determined voice.
+
+"That's the stuff!" warmly exclaimed the other.  "And now I'm going to
+take a cruise round to the other side of the island, and see if I can
+find out anything there."
+
+A few seconds later he was in the dinghy and sculling out over the
+water to the speedy Flying Fish.  In a short time he was off.
+
+As the "chug chug" of the motor grew fainter, Merritt turned to young
+Thompson.
+
+"Don't breathe a word of this to the others till we know for certain
+that Digby has vanished," he said.
+
+The other boy nodded.
+
+"I understand," he said, and the look with which he accompanied the
+words rendered Merritt perfectly confident that he would be obeyed.
+
+"And now let's rouse out Andy Bowles and get him busy with that tin
+horn of his," cheerfully went on Merritt, walking toward Andy's tent.
+
+That youth was much surprised to find that it was morning, but tumbled
+out of his cot in double-quick time, and soon the cheerful notes of
+reveille were ringing out over the camp, on which the sun's rays were
+now streaming down in that luminary's cheerful morning way.
+
+The soldier who immortalized himself by sing the words: "We can't get
+'em up, We can't get 'em up, We can't get 'em up in the morning--, We
+can't get 'em up, We can't get 'em up, We can't get'em up at
+a-a-l-l-l!" to the stirring notes of the army's morning call had never
+been in a camp of Boy Scouts.  If he had he wouldn't have written them,
+for before the last notes had died away the camp was alive and astir,
+with hurrying lads filling tin washbasins and cleaning up.
+
+The cook and "cookee" for the day--Jim Jeffords and Martin Green--soon
+had their cooking fire going, and presently the appetizing aroma of
+coffee and fried ham and eggs filled the camp.
+
+"Give the breakfast call, Andy," ordered Merritt, as the proud if
+flush-faced cooks announced their labors complete, and with a clatter
+and bang of tin dishes and cups the Boy Scouts sat down to breakfast.
+
+"Where's Rob and Digby?" demanded Andy Bowles, as he dug his spoon into
+an island of oatmeal completely surrounded by an ocean of condensed
+milk thinned down with warm water.
+
+The moment that Merritt had dreaded had arrived.
+
+"Why, he and Rob went off early to see the captain," he said.  "I guess
+they'll be back soon."
+
+"Pretty early for paying social calls," commented Andy, too busy with
+his breakfast, however, to give the matter more attention, for which
+Merritt was duly thankful.
+
+After breakfast Merritt ordered a general airing of bedding, and the
+side walls of the tents were raised to let the fresh air blow through
+them.  Still there was no sign of Rob.  Merritt grew so anxious that he
+could hardly keep from pacing up and down to conceal his nervous state
+of mind.  However, he stuck to his duties and oversaw the first routine
+of the morning without betraying his anxiety to any of the lads under
+his charge.  At last there came the awaited chug chug of the returning
+boat, for which he had been so eagerly listening, and Rob appeared
+rounding the little point below the camp.  In the craft was another
+figure, that of the captain himself.
+
+Merritt's first hope when he saw the two persons in the boat--namely,
+that one of them might be the missing boy--was promptly dashed, and he
+instinctively guessed by Rob's silence as he dropped the anchor and he
+and the captain tumbled into the dinghy that there had been no news.
+
+"No," said Rob, shaking his head dejectedly as they reached the shore,
+"there isn't anything to tell.  The captain is as much in the dark as
+we."
+
+"Well, you'd better have some breakfast," said Merritt, after he and
+the captain had exchanged greetings, "then we can go ahead and notify
+the others and institute a thorough search."
+
+"That's the stuff, my boy," agreed the veteran.  "Overhaul ship from
+bilge ter royals, and if not found, then take a cruise in search uv."
+
+Rob ate his meal with small appetite, but the captain, urging on his
+young companion the necessity of "filling his hold," devoured
+prodigious quantities of food, and then, arising, suggested that the
+time had come to "pipe all hands aft and read orders."
+
+The boys had been so busy about their morning tasks that fortunately
+none of them, except Tubby, whom Merritt had told of the disappearance,
+had found time to notice Rob's return or ask questions; so that when he
+announced to them that Joe Digby was missing it came as a stunning
+shock.
+
+"Now, boys," said Rob, after he had communicated the full details, so
+far as he knew them, of the circumstances of the disappearance, "there
+is only one thing to do, and that is turn this island inside out.  It
+won't take long, but I want it done thoroughly.  Don't leave a stone
+unturned.  If after a painstaking search we find nothing on the island,
+we'll know we have to look elsewhere.  You are all fairly good woodsmen
+by this time, and can trail by signs as effectively as first-class
+scouts.  Use your eyes, and good luck."
+
+Merritt at once assigned searching parties, he and Rob and Tubby taking
+the center of the island and the others being detailed to search along
+the shores in two separate squads for any trace of their missing
+comrade.
+
+"Call me a lubber if this ain't the most mystifyin' thing I've run my
+bow into since the Two Janes, uv Boston, brig, lost her bearings in a
+fog and fetched up off Iceland," declared the captain, who had elected
+to accompany the three leaders of the Patrol.  "But drown or swim, sail
+or sink, we'll find that kid if he's on deck."
+
+The searching parties construed this speech as a sort of valedictory to
+them as, indeed, the captain intended it--and greeted it with a cheer.
+
+"The first scout that finds a trace of Joe is to light the four
+'smokes', meaning come to council," was Rob's last order.  "Light them
+on as prominent a place as you can find and we will all meet in camp to
+hear the news."
+
+The searching parties at once separated, one striking off to the right,
+the other to the left and the three young leaders and their grizzled
+friend making a dead set for the center of the island.
+
+If Joe Digby was to be found, the look of determination on the face of
+each scout showed that it would not be the fault of his young comrades
+if he were not.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+SAM REBELS
+
+
+In the meantime on a small island in the Upper Inlet a strange
+conference was taking place.  Three youths whom our readers will
+recognize as Jack Curtiss, Bill Bender and Sam Redding; were in earnest
+consultation with the unkempt and unsavory individual whom we know as
+Hank Handcraft, the beach-comber.
+
+"Well, the job's put through, all right," Hank was saying, as the three
+sat outside a small tent in front of which was a smoldering fire, about
+which the remnants of a meal were scattered.
+
+"Yes, but now we've got to tackle the hardest part of it," said Jack,
+knitting his brows.  "I've got the letter written and here it is."  As
+he spoke he drew from his pocket a sheet of paper. "The question is who
+to send for the money when the time comes."
+
+"Oh, Hank is the man," said Ben, without an instant's hesitation. "We
+must not appear in this at all."
+
+"Oh, I am the man, am?" put in Hank, with no very gratified inflexion
+in his voice; "and what if I am caught?  I'm to go to prison, I
+suppose, while you fellows get off scot-free."
+
+"As for me," said Sam Redding, who was pale and looked scared, and
+whose eyes, too, were red-rimmed and heavy as if from lack of sleep,
+"you can count me out.  I want nothing to do with it. You've gone too
+far, Jack, in your schemes against the boys.  I'm through with the
+whole thing."
+
+"Well, if you're that chicken-hearted, we don't want you in it at all,"
+sneered Jack, although he looked somewhat troubled at his follower's
+defection.  "All we want you to promise is not to split on us."
+
+"Oh, I won't peach," promised Sam readily.
+
+"It will be better for you not to," warned Bill Bender; "and now let's
+figure this thing out, and quickly, too.  We haven't got any too much
+time.   They'll have discovered the kid has gone by this time and the
+alarm will be spread broadcast."
+
+"I thought, when he yelled like that last night, we were goners sure,"
+remarked Jack, scowling at the recollection.  "It's a good thing those
+kids sleep as hard as they do, or we'd have been in a tight fix."
+
+"Oh, well, no good going back to that now," dissented Bill.  "How was
+the young cub when you left him, Hank?" he asked abruptly.
+
+"Oh, he'd got through crying, and was lying nice and quiet on his
+bunk," remarked Hank, with an amiable chuckle, as though he had just
+performed some praiseworthy act, instead of having left little Joe
+Digby locked in a deserted bungalow on an island some little distance
+from the one on which the conversation related above was taking place.
+
+"Well, that's good," said Bill; "although crying, or yelling, either,
+won't do him much good on that island.  He could yell for a week and no
+one would hear him."
+
+"No; the water's too shallow for any motor boats to get up there,"
+agreed Hank.  "I had a hard job getting through the channel in the
+rowboat, even at high water."
+
+"Is the house good and tight?" was Jack's next question.
+
+"Tight--tight as the Tombs," was Hank's answer, the simile being an apt
+one for him to use.  "The door has that big bolt on the outside that I
+put on, besides the lock, of which I carried away the key, and the
+shutters are all nailed up.  No danger of his getting away till we want
+him to!"
+
+"Couldn't be better," grinned Jack approvingly.  "Now, here's the
+letter.  Tell me what you think of it?"
+
+Opening the sheet of paper, the bully read aloud as follows:
+
+"MR. AND MRS. DIGBY:
+
+"Your son is safe and in good hands.  I alone know where the men who
+stole him have taken him.  But I am a poor man, and think that the
+information should be worth something to you.  Suppose you place two
+hundred dollars under the signpost at the Montauk crossroads to-night.
+I will call and get it if you will mark the spot at which you place it
+with a rock.  Look under the same rock in the morning and you will find
+directions how to get your boy back.
+
+CAPTAIN NEMO."
+
+"What do you think of that?" inquired Jack complacently, as he
+concluded the reading of his epistle.
+
+"A bee-yoo-tiful piece of composition," said Hank approvingly, with one
+of his throaty chuckles; "the only thing is--who is Captain Nemo?"
+
+"Why, so far as delivering the letter and getting the money is
+concerned, you are," said Jack decisively.  "Eh, Bill?"
+
+"Oh, by all means," assented Bill.
+
+Sam was not included in the conversation, and gazed sullenly straight
+in front of him as he lay where he had thrown himself on the fine white
+sand.
+
+"Oh, by no means," echoed Hank derisively.  "Say, what do you fellows
+take me for, the late lamented Mr. Easy Mark?  If you do you have
+another think coming."
+
+"Now look here, Hank," argued Jack, "what's the objection?  All you've
+got to do is to take this note ashore, give it to some boy to deliver,
+and then go to the crossroads at whatever time to-night you see fit and
+get the money."
+
+"Of course," Bill hastened to put in, "you've got to bring it to us for
+proper division."
+
+"Oh, I have, have I?" chuckled Hank.  "Well, what do you think of that?
+I'm to do all the work and you fellows are to get the bacon!   That's a
+fine idea--not!  Four into two hundred doesn't go very many times, you
+know."
+
+"Not four," corrected Jack, "three.  Sam is out of this.  He's too much
+of a coward to have anything to do with it," he added, mimicking Sam's
+tone.
+
+The boat-builder's son reddened, but said nothing in reply to the
+bully's taunt.
+
+"Well, three, then," went on Hank; "that's not percentage enough for
+me.  If I'm to have anything to do with this here job, I want half the
+money.  You fellows can split the rest between you!"
+
+Jack and Bill exchanged blank looks.
+
+"Now, look here, Hank, be reasonable," began Jack in a tone meant to be
+conciliatory.
+
+"Now, look here, Jack, be sensible," echoed Hank mockingly.  "You seem
+to forget that you owe me something for the job we did on those
+uniforms the other night, and that other little errand you performed on
+the island.  You've got a very convenient memory, you have.  Why, I
+daresay those kids would have given me a nice little wad of tobacco
+money to have told just who took their Sunday-go-to-meetin' suits, but
+did I peach?  No, you know I didn't; but," he added, with rising
+emphasis, "if I don't get what's coming to me pretty soon, I will."
+
+"Well, you idiot," began Jack truculently; "haven't you got your chance
+now?"
+
+"If I choose to take it--yes," was the rejoinder; "but I don't know as
+I will.  It seems to me I hold all the trumps and you are at my mercy."
+
+"Why, you insolent dog!" bellowed Jack, rising to his feet from the
+position in which he had been squatting.  "For two cents I'd knock your
+bewhiskered head off!"
+
+He advanced threateningly, but Bill, seeing the turn matters were
+taking, and realizing that more was to be gained by peaceful methods,
+intervened.
+
+"Now, Jack, shut up.  Stow that nonsense," he ordered sharply. "Look
+here, Hank, we'll accept your terms.  Half to you if you carry it out
+successfully."
+
+"And if I don't?"
+
+"Then we'll all have to shift for ourselves.  This part of the country
+will be too hot to hold us.  I mean to go out West.  I've got a cousin
+who has a ranch, and I think I could get along all right there if the
+worst comes to the worst."
+
+"See here, I don't agree with your way of dividing the money," began
+Jack, an angry light in his eyes. "Look--"
+
+"Look here, Jack," cut in Bill sharply, "if you don't like it, it
+doesn't do you any good.  If you object to it, keep out.  Hank and I
+form a majority.  You chump" he added, quickly, under his breath, as
+Hank turned away and began to "skip" flat stones over the water, "don't
+you see he takes all the responsibility?  It's a cinch for us to get
+away if anything goes wrong."
+
+"Yes, it's a cinch we get cheated out of our share of the money,"
+argued Jack, with an angry glare in the direction of the unconscious
+Hank.
+
+"Beggars can't be choosers," argued Bill.  "You know, as well as I do,
+that if we are implicated in this affair it means serious trouble.  Our
+parents wouldn't stand for it, and we should be disgraced.  By doing it
+this way we get some of the proceeds--I admit not our fair share but
+what's to be done?"
+
+"Well, I guess you are right, Bill," assented Jack, with a shrug. "It's
+go ahead now; we've gone too far to draw back."
+
+"That's the line of talk," grinned Bill, "and when we've each got fifty
+dollars in our pockets, silenced Hank with a golden gag and had our
+revenge on those kids, we'll be able to talk over future plans.  I'm
+sick of school.  I hate the idea of going back there. I've half a mind
+to strike out for the West anyway."
+
+"Do you think I could get a job on your cousin's ranch?" asked Jack.
+
+"I don't doubt it a bit," rejoined Bill.  "You're a good, husky chap,
+and brawn and muscle is what they need in the West."
+
+"Yes, I'm husky, all right," conceded Jack modestly.  "Sometimes I
+think that I don't get full opportunities to expand here in this
+wretched country hole."
+
+"No, the West is the place," agreed Bill, with an inward smile, "as the
+newspapers say--one can expand with the country out there."
+
+Their conversation was broken in upon by Sam, who demanded in no very
+gentle tones:
+
+"Well, who's going ashore?  I'm off."
+
+"No hurry, Sam," said Jack in a more amiable tone than he had yet used
+that morning.  "Let's sit around here a while and enjoy the sun--we
+might take a swim after a while."
+
+"If you don't come now you'll have to swim ashore," grunted Sam,
+arising and brushing the sand from himself.  "I'm going back to
+Hampton.  I'm tired of camping out here."
+
+He walked toward the beach and prepared to shove off the dinghy,
+preparatory to sculling out to the hydroplane, which lay a few rods off
+shore in the channel.
+
+"Hold on, Sam," cried Bill; "we're coming.  Don't go away sore."
+
+"I'm not sore," rejoined Sam, in a tone which belied his words, "but I
+don't think you fellows are doing the right thing when you maroon a kid
+like Joe Digby on a lone island, in a deserted bungalow in which you'd
+be scared to stop yourselves."
+
+"Why, what's got into you, Sam?" protested Jack.  "It's more a lark
+than anything else."
+
+"Fine lark," grunted Sam, "scaring a kid half to death and then writing
+notes for money.  It's dangerously near to kidnapping--that's what I
+call it, and I'm glad I'm not in it."
+
+Both the others looked rather uncomfortable at this presentation of the
+matter, but Jack affected to laugh it off.
+
+"Pshaw!" he exclaimed, "it's a little bit rough, I know, but such
+things do a kid good.  Teach him to be self-reliant and--and all that."
+
+"Sure," agreed Bill, "you don't look at these things in the right
+light, Sam--does he, Hank?"
+
+Hank, who had shuffled toward the dinghy at the conclusion of these
+edifying remarks, agreed with a chuckle that Sam had no sense of humor,
+after which they all got into the dinghy and we sculled off to the
+unlucky hydroplane.
+
+It didn't take long to get under way, and the little craft was soon
+scudding through the water at a good pace, towing the dinghy behind her.
+
+"Better put us ashore before we get into Hampton," suggested Bill.  "We
+don't want to be seen about there more than can be helped."
+
+"That's where you are wrong," objected Jack.  "We'll put Hank ashore up
+the coast, but the more we are seen about the place the better.  It
+won't look as if we had anything to do with the Digby kid--in case
+things do go wrong."
+
+So it was agreed that Hank was to be landed in a small cove a few miles
+farther down the coast, from which it was a short cut across country to
+the neighborhood of the Digby farm.
+
+Then he was to waylay the first likely-looking messenger and entrust
+the note which Jack had read to him for delivery.  After that he was to
+spend the time as best he could in suitable seclusion, and after dark
+conceal himself near the sign-post.  He was not to make any attempt to
+secure the money if any one hovered about the place, but if the coast
+was clear he was to go boldly in and take it.
+
+Hank was landed at the spot agreed upon, a short time later, and the
+other three then resumed their journey for the hydroplane's home port.
+As they turned seaward Jack pointed mockingly to Topsail Island, which
+lay a short distance on their port bow.
+
+"I'll bet there's plenty going on there right now," he grinned.
+
+"Right you are," assented Bill.
+
+"Hullo," he added hastily the next moment; "what's that?"
+
+He pointed toward the island, and the occupants of the homing
+hydroplane saw, slowly rising from it in the still air, four straight
+columns of blue smoke.
+
+"Looks like a signal of some kind," suggested Jack after a scrutiny.
+
+"It's coming from about the place where we grabbed the kid," added
+Bill, a note of apprehension in his voice.
+
+"I wonder what it signifies?" demanded Jack, whose face began to bear a
+somewhat troubled look.
+
+"I can tell you," said Sam shortly, turning round from the wheel.
+
+"You can?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, hurry up, then--what does it mean?" Jack spoke sharply at Sam's
+deliberation.
+
+"It means," said Sam slowly, as if he wanted every word to sink in,
+"that the Boy Scouts have picked up your trail."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE HUNT FOR TENDERFOOT JOE
+
+
+Rob, Merritt, Tubby Hopkins and Captain Hudgins rested, perspiring
+under the noon-day heat, on a group of flat rocks at the highest point
+of the island.  Their search had been fruitless, and their downcast
+faces showed it.
+
+"How ever are we going to break the news to his parents?"
+
+Merritt it was who voiced the question that had been troubling all of
+them.
+
+Before any one had time to frame a reply the captain, whose keen eyes
+had been gazing about him, gave a sudden shout:
+
+"There's that smoke yonder yer boys were lookin' fer," he exclaimed,
+pointing.
+
+"Four columns of it," shouted Rob, "hurray, boys, that means news!
+It's 'Come to counsel.'  Come on, don't let's lose any time in getting
+back."
+
+Rapidly the boys stumbled and ran forward over the rocks and pushed on
+among the dense growth that covered the hillside they had climbed.
+They hardly noticed the obstacles, however, so keenly were they bent on
+getting back to camp and learning the news which they knew must be
+awaiting them.  They covered the distance in half the time it had taken
+them to ascend the hillside and were met in the camp by the body of
+searchers--Andy Bowles, Sim Jeffords and Ernest Thompson--who had swung
+off to the left or mainland side of the island.
+
+"Well, boys, what news?" breathlessly exclaimed Rob, "we saw the
+counsel smoke and hurried down at top speed."
+
+"Well, there's not very much, I'm afraid, Rob," began Andy, "but we
+found something that may give us a clue.  About half a mile down the
+beach there's the distinct mark of a boat keel where it was drawn up on
+the hard sand and the marks of three separate pairs of feet."
+
+"Good," exclaimed Rob, "that's something and half confirms my
+suspicion.  Go on, Andy, what else?"
+
+"Well, we examined the marks carefully and found that two pairs of feet
+wore good shoes and the third a very broken, disreputable pair."
+
+"Yes," exclaimed Rob, while the others listened breathlessly.
+
+"Of course that indicated to us that three persons must have carried
+Joe off--for I don't think there's much doubt now that he was carried
+off, do you?"
+
+"I don't," said Rob sadly, "but for what possible motive?"
+
+"I have it," suddenly exclaimed Tubby Hopkins, snapping his fingers,
+"you remember the day of the aeroplane model contest?"
+
+"Yes, but what--" began Rob.
+
+"Has that to do with it," finished Tubby for him.  "Everything. It was
+Joe who first told the committee that Jack's model was a bought one and
+so lost him the fifty-dollar prize."
+
+"By cracky, that's right!" assented Rob, "and you think that Jack and
+his gang have carried him off in revenge for it?"
+
+"Looks that way to me," nodded the stout youth.
+
+"Why, they wouldn't dare," began Andy Bowles.
+
+"Oh, yes, they would," amended Rob bitterly, "they'd dare anything to
+get even on us for their fancied wrongs.  But whose could have been the
+broken ragged shoes?" he asked, suddenly taking up another train of
+thought.
+
+"Hank Handcrafts, the beach-comber's," suggested Tubby.
+
+"Gee Whillikens!  I'll bet a cracker that's the solution," cried Andy,
+"and now I come to think of it I heard, before we left, that Jack and
+his gang had gone camping."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Up around the Upper Inlet somewhere.  You know that's full of islands
+and as there's no drinking water there few people ever think of
+frequenting the place.  If they wanted to do anything like carrying off
+Joe that is where they would have been likely to go."
+
+"You may be right, Andy.  It's worth looking into, anyway," declared
+Rob.  "I'll leave a note here for the others and we'll take a run over
+there in the Flying Fish.  If Joe is there we'll get him out."
+
+"And in jig time, too," chimed in Ernest Thompson.
+
+"Come on, boys, get some gasoline, hop in the dinghy and let's get
+aboard.  We've got to move fast if we're to accomplish anything.  You
+get the boat, Andy, while I write a line to tell the others what we've
+gone after."
+
+The young leader hastily ran into his tent and sitting down at the
+table dashed off these lines:
+
+"Boys, we think we have a clue to Joe's whereabouts.  Have gone after
+him.  Keep camp in regular way while we are gone.  Hiram Nelson is
+leader, and Paul Perkins corporal, in our absence.
+
+"ROB BLAKE, Leader,
+
+"Eagle Patrol, B. S. of A."
+
+With a piece of chalk the boy marked a rough square and an arrow on a
+tree--the arrow pointing to a spot in the sand in which he buried the
+letter.
+
+"Now, then, come on," he shouted, dashing toward the boat, "shove off,
+boys, and if Joe's in the Upper Inlet we'll find him."
+
+"Hurray," cheered the others, much heartened by the prospect of any
+trace of the missing boy, however slight.
+
+"Give way, boys," bellowed the captain, who had insisted on coming
+along armed with a huge horse pistol of ancient pattern which he had
+strapped on himself in the morning when the news of Joe Digby's
+disappearance reached him.  "This reminds me uv the time when I was A.
+B. on the Bonnie Bess and we smoked out a fine mess of pirates in the
+Caribees."
+
+"Regular pirates?" inquired Andy as Rob and Merritt bent to the oars.
+
+"Reg'lar piratical pirates, my boy," responded the old salt, "we
+decorated the trees with 'em and they looked a lot handsomer there than
+they did a-sailin' the blue main."
+
+Further reminiscences of the captain's were cut short by their arrival
+at the Flying Fish's side.  They had hastily thrown two cases of
+gasoline into the dinghy before they shoved off so that all that
+remained to be done was to fill the fast craft's tank and she was ready
+to be off.
+
+"Hold on," warned Rob, as Tubby Hopkins was about to secure the dinghy
+to the mooring buoy, "we'll tow her along.  We may need her.  There's
+lots of shoal water in that Upper Inlet."
+
+"Right yer are, my boy; there's nothin' like bein' forehanded,"
+remarked the captain as Merritt bent over the flywheel and Rob threw in
+the spark and turned on the gasoline.  After a few revolutions an
+explosion resulted and the Flying Fish was off on the mission which
+might mean so much or so little to the anxious hearts on board her.
+
+"Do you know the channel," asked Merritt as Rob with his eyes glued on
+the coast sent the Flying Fish through the waves, or rather wavelets,
+for the sea was almost like a sheet of glass.
+
+"I've been up here once or twice after duck," rejoined Rob, "but it's a
+tricky sort of a place to get through.  However, I guess we'll make it."
+
+As they drew nearer the shores the boys made out an opening which Rob
+said was the Upper Inlet channel.
+
+"Say, Tubby, get out the lead line and let's see how much water we
+have," directed Rob as the color of the ocean began to change from dark
+blue to a sort of greenish tinge, lightening in spots, where the shoals
+were near to the surface, to a sandy yellow.
+
+The stout lad took a position in the bow and swinging the lead about
+his head cast it suddenly ahead of the Flying Fish's bow.
+
+"Slow down," ordered Rob, and Merritt cut down the motor to not more
+than two hundred revolutions a minute.
+
+The lead line, tagged with different colored bits of flannel at each
+fathom length, sang through the stout lad's fingers.
+
+"By-a-quarter-three," he called out the next instant.
+
+This meant that three fathoms and a quarter or eighteen feet three
+inches of water was under the keel of the little craft.
+
+"Nough fer a man-uv-war," grinned old Captain Hodgins.
+
+Slowly the Flying Fish forged ahead till right under her bow lay a
+patch of the yellow water.
+
+"By-a-half-two," came a sharp hail from the fat youth, who had once
+more heaved the lead.
+
+"Cut her down some more," sharply ordered Rob, without turning his
+head, "we draw only three feet so I guess we'll do nicely for a while."
+
+"Great hop-toads, there's regular shark's teeth ahead," commented
+Captain Hudgins, pointing to the still shallower water indicated by the
+lightening tint of the channel.
+
+"By-one-by-a-quarter-one!" came sharply from Tubby, as the Flying Fish
+seemed hardly to crawl along the water.
+
+"By-a-half!" came an instant later, meaning that only three feet of
+water lay right ahead.
+
+"Stop her," roared out Rob.
+
+But he was too late.  Instantly, almost as Merritt's hand had flown to
+the lever, the nose of the Flying Fish poked into the sandbank and her
+motor with a gentle sigh came to a stop.
+
+"Hard a-ground!" roared the captain, "too bad and with a fallin' tide,
+too."
+
+"Full speed astern," came the next order.
+
+The propeller churned up the water aft into a white turmoil. The Flying
+Fish trembled in her every timber, and began to slide slowly backward
+from the treacherous shoal.
+
+"Safe, by the great horn spoon!" roared the captain, fetching Andy
+Bowles a slap on the back that almost toppled the small bugler into the
+water.
+
+"For a time," said Rob quietly, "come ahead a bit, Merritt."
+
+Slowly the little vessel slid ahead once more.  Rob seemed fairly to
+feel his way through the narrow channel he had picked out and finally
+the Flying Fish, after as much coaxing as is usually bestowed on a
+balky horse, floated in the deep water beyond the sandy bar.
+
+Eagerly the boys looked about them as they "opened up," as sailors call
+it, the narrow stretch of water known as the Upper Inlet.  It did not
+take them long to spy the island with the tent on it in which the
+conversation between Jack and his cronies, and the mutineer to his
+plans, had taken place.
+
+"There's their camp!" shouted Rob, eagerly sending the Flying Fish
+ahead at full speed, "now we'll find out something."
+
+"And, maybe, use this." The captain, as he spoke, grimly produced his
+formidable weapon and flourished it about.
+
+"No, none of that," sternly rejoined Rob, "the Boy Scouts can take care
+of those fellows--without using firearms."
+
+"You bet," rejoined Merritt, grimly "muscling up," "we'll show 'em if
+it comes to a fight."
+
+But bitter disappointment awaited the boys. As we know, the camp was
+deserted and no trace or clue of the whereabouts of its occupants was
+to be found. In the tent, however, lay a piece of blotting paper with
+ink-marks on it. It was the material with which Jack had dried his
+letter.
+
+"Anybody got a mirror?" asked Rob.  "This blotter may help some if we
+can read what's on it."
+
+"I've got a pocket one," said Andy Bowles, who was somewhat particular
+about his person and always carried a small toilet case.
+
+"That will do; let's have it."
+
+Rob seized the bit of looking glass and held the blotter to it.
+
+"Just as I thought," he exclaimed a minute later, with a cry of
+triumph.  "It's Jack Curtiss' writing, though he has tried to disguise
+it, and they've got Joe hidden somewhere.  Look here, they want $200
+for his return."
+
+"Yes, but what good does it do us to know that," objected Merritt, when
+the sensation this announcement caused had subsided.  "They evidently
+had him here overnight and then deserted the camp for fear we'd pick up
+their trail.  They've taken Joe with them."
+
+"By the great sea-serpent, that's right," grunted the captain, "it's a
+blind trail, boys!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+SAVED BY "SMOKE MORSE"
+
+
+Each member of the party regarded the other blankly.
+
+The captain was right.  The deserted camp was only a blind trail and
+they had all their work to do over again.
+
+"The first people to communicate with are Joe's parents," mused Rob.
+"That note will be delivered very shortly, as the longer they delay the
+more dangerous it will be for them."
+
+"That's right," agreed Merritt, "Jack and his gang will not let the
+grass grow under their feet now that they know the chase must be on.
+What can they have done with Joe?"
+
+Rob had been looking about him with the instinct of the Boy Scout.  He
+was anxious to ascertain if there were not something tangible, some
+clue on which they could base a search for the missing member of the
+Patrol.  Suddenly something remarkable struck him about the tracks that
+lay about the tent.
+
+They were all four those, of persons of larger growth than Joe Digby
+and mingling with them unmistakably was the broken-shoed track of Hank,
+the beach-comber.
+
+"Boys," announced Rob suddenly, "Joe has not been here at all."
+
+"Not been here at all," echoed Merritt, amazedly.
+
+"I mean what I say.  Look at these tracks.   There is not a footmark
+here that could by any chance be his."
+
+The others scrutinized the maze of foot-prints with the same care as
+had Rob and were forced to come to the same conclusion.  There was no
+question about it--they would have to seek elsewhere for a trace of the
+lad.
+
+But where?
+
+They gazed about them at the stretch of lone bay or inlet, the sparse
+scrub grass and vegetation fringing it on the shore side and wheeling
+sea-gulls swooping and soaring above the shoal waters.
+
+Then Rob's gaze rested carelessly on a closed and seemingly deserted
+bungalow, occupying the island above them.  As his eyes fell on it they
+suddenly became riveted and then grew wide with surprise.
+
+A stream of smoke was issuing from the fieldstone chimney roughly
+constructed at one end of the apparently deserted dwelling.
+
+"There's some one living in that bungalow," he exclaimed, as he made
+the discovery, "maybe whoever it is can give us some clue to where Joe
+Digby is."
+
+They all gazed intently at the weather-beaten old house from which the
+paint was scaling, adding to the note of desertion sounded by its
+closed shutters and forlorn-looking yard.
+
+As they looked, astonished at the idea that the barren structure should
+actually house a human being, a sudden thought struck Merritt.
+
+"Suppose Jack Curtiss and his gang are there?" he said.
+
+"Hardly likely," rejoined Rob, "however, we'll get over there and find
+out just who is making that smoke."
+
+Suddenly the old captain, who had been watching the smoke closely, gave
+an astonished snort.
+
+"What's the matter, captain?" asked Rob, who was about to walk to the
+water's edge and get ready to shove off the dinghy.
+
+"Why, there's somethin' queer about that thar smoke," responded the old
+salt.
+
+"Queer--how do you mean?"
+
+"Well, watch it a minute--there--see! now stops--now it starts
+ag'in--then it stops--wha, do yer suppose is happenin' to it?"
+
+Rob knitted his brows and watched the phenomenon to which the captain
+had called attention with narrowed eyes.
+
+There was no question about it the smoke was certainly behaving
+"queerly" as the captain put it.
+
+The blue vapor emerged from the chimney now in a copious puff and then,
+for a space, would cease, only to roll forth once more in larger
+volume.  The boys watched it in some astonishment.
+
+"What can they be doing, do you suppose?" Merritt asked.
+
+"I have no idea.  It's past me to say," responded Rob, "it comes out in
+puffs like--like--by hookey!  I've got it!" he broke off with a shout,
+"like the Morse code!"
+
+"Somebody signaling?" stammered Merritt.
+
+"That's it--watch!"
+
+The smoke, which had not been visible for some seconds, now emerged
+from the stone chimney once more and the boys, fascinated, watched it
+closely with burning eyes.  There was no doubt whatever about it now.
+It was signaling.
+
+Four short puffs.
+
+"Four dots--that's H," exclaimed Rob, trembling with excitement.
+
+The smoke ceased.
+
+"Here comes some more," shouted Merritt.
+
+One short puff from the chimney.
+
+"E, one dot, that's E sure enough," translated Rob.
+
+The others stood like figures carved in stone as their leader read off
+the strange signals.
+
+Puff!  A longer period of smoking by the chimney--then two sharp puffs.
+
+"That's L," interpreted the leader of the Eagles.  Before they could
+say a word the chimney took up its message once more.
+
+Puff--a long puff--another long one, and then a short one.
+
+"Dot--dash--dash--dot," exclaimed Rob.
+
+"That's the letter P," put in Merritt.
+
+"That's right, old man," shouted Rob, slapping him on the back, "and
+we've found Joe Digby.  That smoke signal spelled Help in the Morse
+code."
+
+"You're right," shouted Merritt, "come on, Cap, come on, boys, we've
+got to get a move on and get it on quick!"
+
+They dashed toward the dinghy and a few seconds later had once more
+embarked and were speeding toward the desolate and forsaken bungalow.
+Somehow they managed to get ashore in the dinghy without anyone being
+spilled over the side in their desperate hurry and a minute later were
+pounding at the door.
+
+"Joe--Joe Digby," shouted Rob in a strange, strained voice.
+
+"Here," came back the answer in a feeble tone, "oh, boys, I'm glad
+you've come."
+
+Furiously Rob shook the door.
+
+"It's locked," came the voice from inside, "I tried to break it down.
+Too weak, I guess.  Try the shutters."
+
+At each window in turn the Boy Scouts sought to effect an entrance, but
+in vain.  The owner of the place had screwed up the window coverings
+too tightly for them to be opened without tools.
+
+The rescue party came to a momentary halt.
+
+"I've got it," shouted the captain suddenly, "we'll have him out uv
+there in two shakes uv a drake's tail."
+
+He produced his formidable old pistol and waved it grimly.
+
+"Come on, boys," he yelled, darting round to the front of the
+house--the side on which the door was.
+
+"What are you going to do?" demanded Rob, as much mystified as the rest
+at the old eccentric actions.
+
+"Watch me," grinned the captain as he gained the door.
+
+"Stand clear!" he bawled at the top of his lungs, "stand clear uv the
+door inside there, Joe!"
+
+"All right," came back the reply, "I'm in a corner."
+
+"Now, stand by ter receive boarders!" roared the veteran as he placed
+the muzzle weapon at the lock and pulled the trigger.
+
+"Bang!"
+
+There was a roaring explosion from the wide mouthed weapon and a cloud
+of smoke filled the air.  But simultaneously there came a sound of
+ripping, tearing and splintering and the lock of the door, shot clean
+out by the heavy charge, clattered down to the floor on the inside of
+the room.
+
+An instant later Joe Digby, pale and trembling from privation, surprise
+and happiness all mingled in one, was in the midst of his friends and
+fellow scouts.
+
+"I don't know what made me think of it," he explained in answer to
+eager questions about the smoke telegraph message.  "It was what the
+books call an inspiration, I guess.  There were plenty of loose
+boards--fragments of old packing cases lying about, and luckily they
+had not taken my matches.  I built a blaze and then, while it was still
+smoldering, I covered it with an old strip of sacking that I wetted
+with some water out of the bottle they left me."
+
+"It made about as good a signal, as one could want," responded Rob
+warmly, "but now tell us about your capture, Joe, how did it happen?"
+
+"Why, you see," exclaimed the lad, his voice growing stronger as he
+proceeded, "I was just thinking it was about time to wake my relief
+when I heard a rustling noise in the bushes back of the camp.  I walked
+up there to investigate, for I thought it might be some animals--maybe
+the captain's pigs."
+
+"Keel haul them lubberly swine," from the captain.
+
+"But, as you shall hear, I was mistaken.  Hardly had I reached the edge
+of the dark shadows than I was seized and a hand put over my mouth.  I
+had only time to let out one yell for help."
+
+"The one that woke me," put in Merritt, in parenthesis.
+
+"That was it; I guess," went on the small lad, "well, I was picked up
+and carried some little distance to where they had a boat, and thrown
+into it.  Then the three men who were in the boat rowed to an island
+with a tent on it and there two of them got out.  The other, a fellow
+with a big beard and very dirty, then rowed over to this place with me
+and, after putting some bread and a bottle of water inside the door,
+closed and locked it.
+
+"I carried on like a baby, I guess.  I cried for a long time and
+shouted, but no one came.  Then I grew quieter and tried to find some
+way of escape but the shutters were all fastened and the door was too
+strong for me.  I tried to clamber up the chimney once but I had to
+give it up.  Then suddenly the thought of making a smoke came to me and
+then I improved on that idea and used the Morse code that Rob has been
+drumming into me.  I never thought that I might be able to use it to
+save my life maybe--or at least a lot of hunger and misery."
+
+"Could you recognize the men who took you if you saw them again?" asked
+Rob earnestly.
+
+"I'm not sure," responded the small lad, "one of them I would know--the
+one with the beard.  The other two wore masks.  But I think their
+voices sounded like Bill's and Jack's.  I'm sure of the man with the
+beard though."
+
+"Hank Handcraft," exclaimed Merritt.
+
+"Oh, that's who it was," cried the small lad, "I thought somehow the
+voice and something about the man seemed familiar.  He's that old beach
+comber who lives outside Hampton."
+
+"That's the son uv a sea-swab," roared the captain, "oh, if I could
+only get my hands on him, I'd--"
+
+The fate the captain had reserved for Hank was doomed not to be known,
+for as he was speaking Paul Perkins gave a sudden shout:
+
+"Look--look there!" he cried, pointing.
+
+Sneaking up to the tented island was the familiar outline of Sam
+Redding's hydroplane.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE ESCAPE OF THE BULLY
+
+
+The group standing about the newly rescued lad on the veranda of the
+deserted bungalow galvanized into instant action.
+
+"Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender are in her!" shouted Rob, "come on,
+scouts, we'll get after them while we can."
+
+With a shout the Boy Scouts ran for the boat and speedily pulled out to
+the Flying Fish.  Hastily as they executed this move, however, the two
+in the other boat had had time to head her about and start at top speed
+for the mouth of the inlet.
+
+"Clap on more sail, my hearties," roared the captain, almost beside
+himself with excitement, "I want ter get my hands on them two piratical
+craft."
+
+Rob, with a look of grim determination on his usually pleasant face,
+held the Flying Fish true on her course, but, heavily laden as she was,
+she could not make her usual speed and the hydroplane soon distanced
+her.  Jack Curtiss stood in her stern and waved a mocking hand at the
+Boy Scouts as the light-draft craft shot over the shoals and shallows
+with case while the Flying Fish had to lose much time and way by
+threading in and out seeking the deeper water.
+
+"Douse my toplights, I can't stand that," bellowed the irate Captain
+Hudgins.  "I'll put a shot in that jackanapes' locker."
+
+With these words, and before any of the boys could stop him, he rose to
+his feet and sent a bullet from his ponderous revolver flying in the
+direction of the fleeing motor boat.  It missed and hit the water near
+by, sending up a little fountain of spray.
+
+Even at the distance they were the occupants of the Flying Fish could
+see the fear which this warlike move inspired in the bully and his
+companion.  They threw themselves flat in their boat till only the
+hands of Bill, who was steering, were visible.
+
+They need not have feared, however.  The captain's hasty move brought
+down on his head Rob's wrath, though the young leader could not find it
+in his heart to be really angry with the old man who had been irritated
+past endurance by the bully's mocking defiance.
+
+"Shiver my garboard strake," he exclaimed contritely, when Rob pointed
+out to him that he might have killed one of the occupants of the
+hydroplane, "shiver my garboard strake, lad, I saw red fer a minute
+just like I did that time the Chinese pirates boarded the Sarah Jane
+Butts in the Yellow River."
+
+Although there was not much hope of catching the two, Rob stuck to the
+chase even when he realized the scouts were outdistanced, and in fact
+kept his attention so closely riveted on the other craft that when
+there came a sudden jar and jolt and the Flying Fish stopped with a
+grunt and a wheeze, he realized with a start that he had not been
+watching the treacherous channel and was once more fast on a sand bar.
+
+With a last shout and a yell of defiance the bully and his companion,
+who had by now got over their fright, shot out on to the ocean and
+rapidly vanished.
+
+"There goes our hope of catching those two crooks," cried Tubby
+angrily, while the engine of the Flying Fish was set at reverse. "It's
+all off now.  They know that we have rescued Joe and they'll fly the
+coop for some other part of the country."
+
+"I suppose they came down here to get their tent, not realizing we'd be
+here so soon," observed Andy, which indeed was the fact.
+
+Fortunately the Flying Fish was not very hard aground and a little
+manipulation got her off into deep water once more.
+
+"I guess those two chaps are almost in Hampton by this time and getting
+ready to leave town," observed Rob as the motor boat forged ahead, once
+more.
+
+"This will be the safest thing for them to do," exclaimed Merritt,
+"they are in a serious position this time.  Kidnapping is a dire
+offense."
+
+"I wonder what they came back for?" said Tubby suddenly.
+
+"No doubt to get their tent and the few things they had left on the
+island," vouchsafed Rob, skillfully dodging a shoal as he spoke,
+"maybe, too, they intended to see how Joe was making out."
+
+"I wasn't making out at all," said the small lad, with a shudder at the
+recollection of his imprisonment.
+
+"Never mind, Joe, that's all over now," put in Merritt.
+
+"I'm glad it is," answered the small lad, "and just think, if I hadn't
+been a Boy Scout and understood that code I might have been there yet."
+
+"That's true enough," said Rob, "for we had about made up our minds
+that the bungalow was deserted, and were not going to bother
+investigating it, till we saw the smoke."
+
+About an hour later the boys landed once more in camp, where their
+reception by the others may be well imagined by my young readers.
+
+"And now comes the final chapter in the career of Messrs. Jack Curtiss
+and Bill Bender," said Rob decisively, "I'm going to take a run up to
+Hampton. Joe, you'll come along, and you, Merritt, and Tubby.  If that
+letter was delivered, as I imagine it was, Joe's parents must be in a
+terrible state of anxiety by now and we must hurry up and see them at
+once."
+
+"Right," agreed Merritt, and a few moments later, having left the
+captain and the others ashore, the Boy Scouts and their young leader
+were speeding toward Hampton.  With the craft lightened as she was,
+they made good time and arrived at the yacht club pier speedily.
+
+News of the events which had transpired at the island had evidently
+reached the town, for Mr. Wingate himself, with Mr. Blake and Merritt's
+father were at the landing as the Flying Fish glided up to it.
+
+The three elders were almost as enthusiastic as the boys had been over
+the safe recovery of Joe, the details attendant on which Rob rapidly
+sketched to them.  He had hardly concluded and had not had time to ask
+how they knew of the kidnapping when a wild-eyed man in faded old farm
+clothes, accompanied by an equally distracted woman, came rushing down
+to the wharf.
+
+"Where's them Boy Scouts?  I allers knew no good would come of my son
+joining 'em," the man shouted.  "I'll give a hundred dollars fer a boat
+that'll take me ter Topsail Island in ten minutes."
+
+"'No need of that, Mr. Digby," said Rob quietly stepping forward with
+his hand on Joe's shoulder, "here is Joe safe and sound."
+
+"Great hopping watermelons!" yelled the farmer, rushing at his son
+followed by his wife.  Together the worthy souls almost squashed the
+small lad like a butterfly under a harrow.  But at last the first
+greetings were over and the farmer turned to the somewhat amused group
+of boys and men who were looking on.
+
+"My, what a fright we had," exclaimed Mrs. Digby, a motherly-looking
+woman, dabbing at her eyes with capacious pocket handkerchief, "we gets
+a letter tellin' us that our boy be kidnapped."
+
+"Yes we know all about that, Mrs. Digby," put in Mr. Blake, "you
+recollect your husband telephoned to the chief of police here about it,
+and expecting news from the island, we came down here."
+
+"So he did, so he did," cried Mrs. Digby, "oh, dear me, Mr. Blake, I'm
+in such a takin!  I hardly know what I'm sayin'."
+
+"Consarn them Boy Scouts," sputtered the farmer, returning to his
+original grievance, "if Joe hadn't a joined them none of this would
+have happened."
+
+"Oh, yes it would and worse in fact," said Mr. Blake quietly, "from
+what I have learned of the affair it was your lad's knowledge of the
+Morse code, which every Boy Scout must know, that saved him when he was
+confined on the island."
+
+"That's right, pop," piped up the lad himself.
+
+"Wall, I don't know nothin' about Horses, codes," grunted Mr. Digby,
+somewhat mollified, "but if it saved Joe here it must be all right."
+
+"Then your animosity toward the Boy Scouts is somewhat modified,"
+smiled Mr. Blake, "let me tell you just what happened.  As a matter of
+fact the whole trouble dates back to the day your son exposed the
+contemptible trick by which Jack Curtiss hoped to win the aeroplane
+model prize contest."
+
+The banker drew the farmer aside and related to him the story that had
+been previously narrated by Rob.
+
+"I want ter shake yer hand, boy," exclaimed the fanner, darting at Rob
+at the conclusion, "I want ter shake all yer hands," he yelled in his
+enthusiasm.
+
+"Bless my soul," exclaimed Commodore Wingate suddenly, "we are clean
+forgetting about those two young rascals who tried to extort the money
+from Mr. Digby.  We must get after them at once and their accomplice
+who, I suppose, is, the man delegated to take the money from under the
+rock."
+
+"What do you suggest?" asked Mr. Blake.
+
+"That we hasten to the office of the chief of police and then get into
+my car and ferret them out if possible," said the commodore briskly,
+"they must be made to suffer for this."
+
+"I don't believe that Sam Redding had any hand in it," put in Rob as
+Merritt mentioned the name of the boat-builder's son.  "You know that
+all our investigation only pointed to two persons, Jack and Bill, and
+their assistant, Hank Handcraft."
+
+A short time later Merritt, Tubby and the Digbys being left behind on
+the landing, a high powered car, containing Rob, his father, Commodore
+Wingate and the chief of police of Hampton shot out on to the road
+leading to the farm owned by Jack Curtiss' father.  Inquiry at the
+Bender home had already developed the fact that Jack and Bill had left
+there hurriedly a short time before, saying they were going out to the
+Curtiss place.  The party was doomed to disappointment, however, so far
+as the hope of catching Jack or his accomplices at the farm was
+concerned. Old Mr. Curtiss informed them that his son had taken the
+family buggy and driven furiously off down the road with Bill Bender a
+short time before.
+
+"He got a hundred dollars from me," explained the old man simply, "he
+told me he was goin' ter invest it in some rich mining stock his friend
+Bender had promoted but--what's the matter, gentlemen," he broke off,
+noticing the half-pitying look on the faces of the men in the
+automobile.  Mr. Blake hurriedly explained the attempted extortion of
+which Jack had been guilty.
+
+"What, Jack--my son!" exclaimed the old man in half daze at the
+stunning intelligence, "my boy Jack do a thing like that?  Why, it
+can't be true.  I don't believe it."
+
+"I'm afraid, nevertheless, it is," rejoined Mr. Blake, but the old man
+only shook his head.
+
+"I'll not believe it," he kept repeating.
+
+"I wish that so good a father had a worthy son," remarked Mr. Blake as
+the car shot out of the farm and out upon the highroad in the hope of
+overtaking the buggy.
+
+At the Digby farm the machine was turned off to take the cross roads
+and at this spot they encountered a buggy coming toward them driven by
+a farmer friend of Mr. Blake's.
+
+"Seen a rig with Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender in it?" shouted the
+banker as the car was slowed up by Commodore Wingate.
+
+"Down the road a piece driving like the Mischief," responded the rustic
+pointing back with his whip, "but you're wrong 'bout ther' bein' only
+two of them; that no-good beach-comber, Hank Handcraft, was in there
+with them."
+
+With a shouted word of thanks the car dashed forward once more. It was
+evident that, realizing that their game was up, Jack and Bill had
+picked up Hank, and, with a sense of loyalty for which Rob certainly
+would not have given them credit, were trying to save him too.
+
+"Where can they be headed for?" wondered Mr. Blake as the car dashed
+forward.
+
+"I can hazard a guess," exclaimed Commodore Wingate, "for the Sunnyside
+railroad station.  If they make a train they may escape us yet."
+
+"Je-rus-a-lem," exclaimed the chief of police, a man named Applegate,
+pulling out a huge old-fashioned silver watch, "there's a train due in
+a few minutes now; if we don't make it, they'll slip through our
+fingers!"
+
+Faster and faster the car roared forward and suddenly as it shot round
+a curve the little station of Sunnyside came in sight. Tied outside it
+was the buggy and horse of farmer Curtiss and on the platform stood
+three figures that the party in the auto made out at once as Jack
+Curtiss, Bill Bender and their unsavory ally.
+
+The road took a long curve at this point and while they could see the
+station the pursuers had the mortification of knowing that it would be
+some minutes before they could reach it.  As the car bounded forward,
+swaying like a rocking ship over the rough roads, there came a sudden
+sound that made Rob's heart bound.
+
+The long whistle of an approaching train.
+
+Faster the machine shot onward roaring like a battery of machine guns
+going into action.  Its occupants leaned forward with eyes glued on the
+group on the platform.
+
+The trio of whom the autoists were in pursuit had by this time realized
+that they were the objects of the chase and were nervously staring up
+the track down which was fast approaching the train by which they hoped
+to escape.
+
+The auto was still a good two hundred yards from the station when the
+train rolled in and, hardly stopping, started to move out again.
+
+"Stop! stop!" yelled Chief Applegate, at the top of his lungs, and the
+others waved their hands frantically.  The engineer looked back at them
+with a grin.
+
+"Some more idiots missed their train, Jim," he remarked to the fireman,
+"I might have waited for them but we're five minutes behind schedule
+time now."
+
+The fireman nodded understandingly and as the auto, in a cloud of dust,
+dashed up to the little depot the train, with a screech that sounded
+like the last defiance of the bully, shot round a curve and vanished
+with a cloud of black smoke.
+
+"Beaten!" gasped the chief.
+
+"We can telegraph ahead and have them arrested in New York," suggested
+Rob.
+
+"No, perhaps it is all for the best," counseled Mr. Blake, "the parents
+of both those boys are respected citizens, and it would be a cruel
+grievance to them were their boys to be publicly disgraced.  Let them
+work out their own salvation."
+
+And so Jack Curtiss, Bill Bender and Hank Handcraft vanish for a time
+from the ken of the Boy Scouts, leaving behind them no regrets, except
+it be those of their parents who were for many months bowed down with
+the grief and humiliation of their boys' misdoings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+SCOUTS IN NEED ARE FRIENDS INDEED
+
+
+"Ta-ra-ta-ra-ta!  Ta-ra-ta-ra-ta!  Ta-ra-ta-rata!  Ta-ra-ta-a-a!"
+
+Andy's bugle briskly announced the last morning of the Boy Scouts' camp
+on Topsail Island.  Already the first breath of autumn had begun to
+tint the leaves of the earlier fading trees, and the chill of the early
+dawn was noticeable.
+
+During their stay in camp the lads had profited in every way. The scout
+program as sent out for camps by headquarters had been gone, through
+with some modifications, and Sim Jeffords had qualified as a
+first-class scout while Martin Green, Walter Lonsdale and Joe Digby,
+once more as merry as ever, were all fitted for their second-class
+scout diplomas.  The prospect of another patrol in Hampton had been
+discussed and the outlook for one seemed favorable.
+
+As the last notes of Andy's call--to turn to the subject of the opening
+of this chapter--rang out the tousle-headed, sleepy-eyed scouts
+appeared from their tents and found themselves enveloped in a fleecy
+mist--such a light fog as is common on that part of the Atlantic coast
+at this season of the year.
+
+"Pretty thick!" was Rob's comment as he doused his face in his tin
+basin.
+
+"Hull-o-o-o!" suddenly hailed a voice from the water, "got any
+breakfast fer an old shipmate?"
+
+Through the fog the boys could make out the dim outline of the
+captain's motor boat even if it's apoplectic cough had not already told
+them it was there.
+
+"Sure, come ashore," hailed Merritt.
+
+A few moments later the hearty old seaman was sitting down with the
+lads and performing miracles of eating.
+
+"It's a good thing we haven't all got your capacity," remarked Rob,
+laughing, "or that provision tent wouldn't have held out very long."
+
+"Wall, boys," observed the captain, drawing out a black pipe and
+ramming some equally black tobacco into it with a horny thumb, "a full
+hold makes fair sailin', that's my motto and 'Be Prepared' is yers.  A
+man can be no better prepared than with a good meal under his belt.
+Give me a well-fed crew and I'll navigate a raft to Hindustan, but a
+pack uv slab-sided lime juicers couldn't work a full-rigged ship uv the
+finest from here to Ban-gor."
+
+Having delivered himself of this bit of philosophy, the captain passed
+on to another subject.
+
+"Hear'n anything uv them varmints what slipped their moorings on the
+train?" he asked.
+
+"We heard that they had gone West," rejoined Merritt, "but to just what
+part I don't know."
+
+"That thar Sam Reddin' boy clar'd himself uv all suspicion, did he?"
+went on the old man.
+
+"Yes, after he had admitted that Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender and
+himself stole our uniforms and robbed you--"
+
+"Consarn him," interrupted the captain.
+
+"You needn't grumble, his father paid you back all that was taken,"
+observed Merritt.
+
+"That don't lessen the crime," grunted the captain, "heave ahead with
+yer yarn, my boy; yer was sayin' that that Reddin' boy admitted
+everythin'."
+
+"Well," continued Rob, "in consideration of his confession, it was
+agreed not to prosecute him and he seems to be a reformed character.
+He absolutely denied, though, having had anything to do with the
+kidnapping of Joe Digby here, and I believe he is telling the truth."
+
+"The truth ain't in any uv them fellers, that's my belief," snorted the
+captain, "and if ever I get my hands on that thar Jack Curtiss or Bill
+Bender I'll lay onto 'em with a rope's end."
+
+"Oh, we'll never see them again," laughed Rob.
+
+It may be said here, however, that in this he was very much mistaken.
+Rob and his friends did meet the bully again and under strange
+circumstances, in scenes far removed from the peaceful surroundings of
+Hampton.
+
+"Fog's thickenin'," observed the captain squinting seaward.
+
+As he remarked, the mist was indeed increasing in density, shrouding
+the surroundings of the camp completely and covering the trees and
+bushes with condensed moisture, which dripped in a slow, melancholy
+sort of way from their limbs.
+
+"Bad weather for ships," observed Merritt.
+
+"Yer may well say that, my lad, and this is a powerful bad part uv the
+coast ter be navigatin' on in a fog.  I've heard it said that there's a
+lot uv iron in the Long Island shoals and that this deflects the
+compasses uv ships that stay too near in shore in a fog.  I don't know
+how that maybe, I don't place a lot uv stock in it myself, but I do
+know that steamers and vessels uv al kinds go ashore here more than
+seems ter be natural."
+
+As he finished speaking there came, the fog a sound that fitted in so
+well with subject of his conversation that it almost an accompaniment
+to it.
+
+"Who-oo-oo-oo!"
+
+"A steamer's siren," exclaimed Rob.
+
+"That's what it is, lad," assented the old sailor, as the sound came
+again, booming through the fog with a melancholy cadence.
+
+"Who-o-o-o-o-o!" roared the siren once more.
+
+"I'll bet the feller who's on the bridge uv that ship is havin' his own
+troubles just about now," remarked the captain, "hark at that!"
+
+The whistle was now roaring like a wounded bull, sending distinct
+vibrations of sound through the increasing fog billows.
+
+"Thick as pea soup," commented the captain, refilling his pipe, "reckon
+I'll have ter stay here till she lifts a bit.  Wind's hauled to the
+sou'west too.  Bad quarter means more fog and smother."
+
+"Who-o-o-o-o!" boomed the siren of the hidden vessel once more, and
+this time it was answered by another whistle somewhere further off in
+the fog.
+
+"Two uv 'em now.  Stand by fer a collision," shouted the captain, while
+the scouts, intensely interested in the development of this hidden
+drama of the fog, clustered about him.
+
+"Who-o-o-o-o!  Who-o-o-o-o!  Who-o-o-o-o!" came the nearest siren.
+
+"She's standin' in shore," shouted the captain, "boys, she's in grave
+danger."
+
+"What's she coming in for?" asked Merritt.
+
+"I suppose her skipper thinks he's got plenty uv water under his keel
+and wants ter give a wide berth ter the other vessel," explained the
+captain.  "Boys, if only we had a big bell or a steam whistle we could
+warn them poor fellows uv their peril."
+
+"It does seem hard to hear them blundering in and not be able to warn
+them," agreed Rob, "there should have been a lighthouse put on these
+shoals long ago."
+
+"Right yer are, boy, but the government is a slow movin' vessel and
+hard ter get under way."
+
+The boys had to laugh at this odd way of expressing the difficulty of
+getting new lights erected, but they knew as well almost as their
+companion the dangers of the ocean off this part of Long Island.
+
+The whistle boomed out its wailing note again.
+
+"Closer and closer," lamented the captain, "what's the matter with
+those lubbers?  Yer'd think they'd have a leadsman out."
+
+All at once the catastrophe for which they had been more or less
+prepared happened.  So quickly did it come that they had not time to
+speak.
+
+The echoes of the last note of the siren had hardly died out when there
+came a loud explosion.
+
+"Bang!"
+
+"A signal gun," roared the captain.
+
+"They are calling for help?" asked Rob.
+
+"That's it, my boy.  They've struck, just as I thought they would."
+
+The distress gun sounded again.
+
+"They're in a bad mess by the sound uv that," said the captain.
+
+"It doesn't sound as if they were more than half a mile or so out,"
+remarked Rob.
+
+"I guess they're not.  Hark at that!  They must be scared ter death."
+
+The gun was fired three times in rapid succession.
+
+"They'll never hear that at Lone Hill life savin' station," grimly
+commented the captain, "and this fog's too thick fer them ter see her."
+
+"Do you imagine she is badly damaged, captain?" asked Rob anxiously.
+The idea of the stranded ship lost in the dense fog affected him
+strangely.
+
+"Can't tell," the captain replied to his question, "may have stove a
+hole in herself and be sinking now."
+
+"Can't we do something to help them?" asked Merritt eagerly.
+
+"Only one thing we can do, boy, and that's full uv danger."
+
+"What is it?" demanded Rob, ignoring the last part of the captain's
+speech.
+
+"Get in ther boat and go out thar to 'em.  If they're sinkin' we can
+help 'em a whole lot, and--"
+
+The captain stopped short in amazement.
+
+Rob, Merritt and Tubby had already started for the beach and Hiram,
+"the wireless scout", was close on their heels.
+
+"Well, douse my toplights," exclaimed the captain, rising to his feet
+and lumbering after them, "Yer can't beat the Boy Scouts."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+A MEETING IN THE FOG--CONCLUSION
+
+
+"Can you make her out?"
+
+Five pairs of eyes peered through the mist that hung like a white pall
+an every side of the Flying Fish.
+
+"Stop that motor a minute, while I listen!"
+
+In compliance with Rob's order Merritt shut down the panting engine.
+
+"What's that noise off there?" asked Hiram suddenly.
+
+"That sort of throbbing sound?" rejoined Tubby Hopkins.
+
+"That's it, sounds like a big heart beating," put in Rob.
+
+"I guess that's their engine.  They're tryin' ter back her off,"
+suggested the captain.
+
+"Give them a blast on that fog-horn and see if they answer," said Rob
+suddenly.
+
+Hiram took up the big brass fish-horn, used as a fog signal on the
+Flying Fish, and blew a loud, long call.
+
+After an interval of waiting, from out of the mist came the wail of the
+stranded ship's siren once more.
+
+"There she is, right in there," declared the captain, pointing seaward
+into the mist.  "Steer right on that tack, Rob, and we'll pick her up
+pretty soon."
+
+The motor was started up once more and the Flying Fish forged ahead
+through the smother.  Suddenly Rob, with a sharp cry of:
+
+"Stop her!" swung his wheel over sharp and the Flying Fish headed about.
+
+The gleaming black rampart of a large vessel's side had suddenly loomed
+up dead ahead of him.
+
+"Ahoy! aboard the steamer," roared the captain, framing his mouth with
+his hands, "what ship is that?"
+
+"The El Paso from London to New York," came back a hail from somewhere
+above them in a somewhat surprised tone, "who are you?"
+
+"The Flying Fish of Hampton, Long Island," responded Rob, with a laugh.
+
+"Never heard of her," responded the voice, "we're hard aground on one
+of your Long Island shoals it seems."
+
+"That's what yer are," exclaimed the captain, "how come yer ter be
+huggin' the shore so hard?"
+
+"Trying to avoid a collision with another vessel."
+
+"Are yer all right?" bellowed the captain.
+
+"Seem to be.  So far as we can find out there's not a plate started,
+but if you're from the land we've got a couple of passengers we'd be
+thankful if you'd take ashore.  Will you come on board?"
+
+"Sure, if yer'll drop a Jacob's ladder," bellowed the captain at the
+invisible speaker.
+
+"In a minute."
+
+The conversation had been carried on without either of the parties to
+it being able to see one another, but the captain of the vessel--for he
+had been the boy's interlocutor--now came off the bridge and with some
+of the crew watched two sailors lower a Jacob's ladder and make it fast
+to the rail.
+
+"Now we go aboard," said Captain Hudgins, clambering up the swaying
+contrivance as nimbly as an athlete, "make our painter fast ter the
+ladder, Rob."
+
+This being done, the boys followed the veteran on board.  The steamer,
+when they gained her deck, puzzled them a good deal and it was not till
+her captain, a genial blond-bearded Britisher, explained to them that
+she was a cattle ship that they understood the utility of the wooden
+structures with which her decks were obstructed.
+
+The captain explained that these were pens for the cattle she expected
+to take back to England, from which country she was returning after
+having taken over a large consignment of steers.
+
+"Which," went on the captain, "brings us to my passengers.  They are
+Mr. Frank Harkness and his son, of Lariat, a small cattle town in the
+West, where Mr. Harkness has a large ranch.  They were his cattle that
+we took over and as he had difficulty in engaging a berth on a liner at
+this time of year, when the passenger ships are crowded, he decided to
+return with us.  Here is Mr. Harkness now," he added, as a tall,
+bronzed man, with a long coat draped over a pair of broad shoulders,
+and a wide-brimmed sombrero above keen eyes, approached.
+
+"Visitors from the shore, captain?" he inquired, a pleasant smile
+illuminating his clean-shaven, sun-browned face.
+
+"That's what they are," rejoined the captain, "just dropped in on us,
+don't you know."
+
+"You mean we dropped in on them," amended the other with a laugh, "come
+here, Harry," he called, raising his voice, "we've got some company out
+of the fog."
+
+In response to his call a lad about the age of Rob appeared from the
+after-end of the ship, where the cabins were, and greeted the boys with
+a smile and a nod.  He, like his father, wore a sombrero and was quite
+as sunburned.  For the rest he was well-knit and athletic looking and
+had evidently lived an out-door life.
+
+"Well, we are getting plenty of experiences away from the ranch, eh,
+Harry?" observed his father, after the boys and the captain had
+introduced themselves and there had been a great and ceremonious
+hand-shaking all round.
+
+"We just naturally are," responded the rancher's son.  "Say, captain,"
+he went on, "when do you expect to get off?"
+
+"If we are not too badly hung up we ought to get off at high-water,"
+rejoined the Britisher.
+
+"That won't be till late to-night," observed Rob.
+
+"If I could only get a tug we might do better," observed the captain,
+"in fact, since I've had the engines going I don't think we can back
+off under our own power."
+
+"Have you got a wireless?" asked Hiram, his pet subject uppermost.
+
+"Yes, but our operator went ashore in London and I guess he had too
+good a time; anyhow he never showed up so we had to cross without one."
+
+"Is she working?" asked Hiram interestedly.
+
+"Sure, there's plenty of 'juice' as the operators, call it.  I tried to
+work it coming over," laughed Harry, "but outside of getting a proper
+shock, I didn't do much."
+
+"I'll send out a signal for a tug," said Hiram quietly, "there's a
+station at Island.  They'll pick up the message and transmit it."
+
+"What--you can work a wireless?"
+
+"A little bit," said the lad modestly.
+
+"Come on, I'll show you the way," said the delighted captain, starting
+off with Hiram, and followed by the others.
+
+"Say, don't think it personal of me, will you?" remarked Harry Harkness
+to Rob as they followed, "but would you mind telling me what you all
+are wearing those uniforms for?"
+
+"Why, we're Boy Scouts," rejoined Rob proudly, and went on to explain
+just what the organization is.
+
+"Say, that's great," exclaimed Harry enthusiastically, "I'd like to
+form a patrol out at Lariat.  Do you reckon I could?"
+
+"I don't doubt it," rejoined Rob, smiling the Western enthusiasm.
+
+"By cracky, I'll do it," went on Harry Harkness, "I'll make it a
+mounted patrol and if we don't get old 'Silver Tip' then, besides all
+the other sport we'll have, call me a coyote."
+
+"Who or what is old Silver Tip?" asked Rob, somewhat interested in his
+breezy new acquaintance.
+
+"Silver Tip is a grizzly," explained Harry, "a grizzly bear you know.
+Dad says he's the biggest he's ever seen and he seems to bear--excuse
+the pun, please--he seems to bear a charmed life. All the boys on the
+ranch are crazy to get a shot at him, but they've never been able to."
+
+"Say, that sounds bully," agreed Rob, "I wish I could get out West for
+a while."
+
+"It's a great country," said Harry sagely, as they entered the wireless
+room, where Hiram was already bending over the instrument sending out a
+message for aid, while the blue spark leaped and crackled across its
+gap.  The others gazed on admiringly as Hiram, having completed his
+message, adjusted the detector on his head and awaited an answer.
+
+It soon came.  Tugs would be dispatched as soon as the fog lifted, the
+operator at Fire Island announced.
+
+"That's a weight off my mind," breathed the captain, while Harry
+hastily confided to his father that the lads who had boarded the vessel
+out of the mist were Boy Scouts.
+
+"The fog is lifting," announced Rob, as they streamed out of the
+wireless room.
+
+"Yes, the wind has shifted," remarked Captain Hudgins.  "I guess it was
+that sou'west breeze that brought the mist.  She's hauled ter the
+nor'west now, and in an hour's time it will be clear."
+
+"I wonder if you boys can put us ashore," said Mr. Harkness, as the
+group walked aft to the captain's cabin; "I would be very grateful if
+you could.  It seems that it will be some time before the steamer is
+cleared, and I am anxious to make a train for the West."
+
+The boys agreed to land the ranchman and his son as soon as the fog
+cleared off, which, as the captain had prophesied, it did in about an
+hour's time.  The boys had spent the interim in exploring the ship and
+listening to Harry Harkness' tales of the ranch and the marvelous
+exploits of Silver Tip, the huge grizzly, who derived his name, it
+appeared, from a spot of white fur on his breast.  In fact, so fast did
+they get on, that by the time Harry and his father were called by
+Captain Hudgins to embark in the Flying Fish, the boys had become fast
+friends.
+
+The run to the shore was made quickly and by landing the two travelers
+at a point above Hampton they were enabled to make a train that would
+land them in the city in time for dinner.  Mr. Harkness whiled away the
+trip by plying the boys with all sorts of questions about the Boy
+Scouts and seemed greatly interested in their answers.  Altogether the
+boys felt quite sorry when it came time to part at the wharf at
+Farmingdale, the place where the rancher and his son were put ashore.
+
+"Well, good-bye, boys," said Mr. Harkness, holding out a big hand to
+Rob, who took it and was amazed to find a twenty dollar gold piece
+slipped into his palm by the ranchman.
+
+"Oh, I couldn't think of taking that," he said, insisting on handing it
+back despite the ranchman's protests, "I appreciate your motive, but I
+couldn't think of taking any money for an ordinary courtesy."
+
+"By Sam Hooker, you're right, boy," cried the ranchman heartily, "and
+it's a privilege to meet such a bunch of fine lads.  I thought all you
+Easterners were a bunch of stuck-up tenderfeet, but I find I'm
+wrong--anyhow so far as the Boy Scouts are concerned."
+
+A few minutes later the rancher and his son were hastening to the
+railroad station, followed by the boys' eyes.  As they entered the
+depot, just in time to catch the New York train--they waved a hearty
+farewell and the boys waved and shouted in return.
+
+"We've only known them a few hours, but I feel as if I'd just said
+good-bye to two friends," said Rob as they turned away and prepared to
+go back to the island in their boat and break camp.
+
+"So do I!" said Tubby; "I wonder if we'll ever see them again."
+
+"No, I guess they're kind of ships that pass in the night,"' laughed
+Merritt, "however, I'm glad we did them a good turn."
+
+The boys, however, were destined to meet the ranchers again and to have
+many strange and exciting adventures, among which the ultimate downfall
+of Silver Tip was to be one.  Could they have looked into the future,
+too, they would have seen that in the Far West they were to face
+dangers and difficulties of which they had as yet never dreamed and
+were to be the victims of the malicious contrivings of Bill Bender and
+our old, acquaintance, Jack Curtiss.
+
+A few weeks after the events related above there was great excitement
+in Hampton over the announcement that Merritt's courageous act of
+life-saving and the achievements of the other young scouts of the Eagle
+Patrol were to receive official recognition.  A field secretary of the
+organization arrived at the village one evening and was met at the
+depot by the Patrol in full uniform, and with the village band drawn up
+at their head. Proudly, under the Eagle standard, they marched to the
+Town Hall, which had been illuminated in a style the villagers would
+never have believed possible and were greeted by the local committee
+headed by Commodore Wingate and Mr. Blake.
+
+"Three cheers for the Boy Scouts!" came from a voice in the back of the
+crowded hall after the honors had been distributed and the advances in
+rank announced.
+
+The shout that went up cracked the plaster on the ceiling of the
+venerable building.
+
+"Speech, speech," shouted one of those individuals who always do raise
+that cry on the slightest excuse.
+
+Rob Blake, very red and protesting, was hustled to the front of the
+stage on which the Scouts had been drawn up.
+
+"I can't make a speech," he began.
+
+"Hear!  Hear!" shouted the crowd, most of whom couldn't.
+
+"But on behalf of the Boy Scouts I want to thank you all and--and--"
+
+The rest was drowned by the band which, having been quiescent for ten
+whole minutes, could maintain silence no longer and blared out into
+that favorite of all village bands, "Hail to the Chief."
+
+"Come on, let's get out of here," whispered Rob to Merritt, whose
+breast was decorated with the coveted bronze cross and red ribbon,
+which is the highest honor a scout can attain.
+
+As they slipped out upon the darkened street a boy came up to them with
+an outstretched hand.
+
+"I want to tell you I'm sorry for the part I played in the mean tricks
+Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender put up on you fellows," he said
+contritely, "will you shake hands?"
+
+"Sure we will, Sam Redding," responded Merritt, extending his palm,
+while Rob did likewise.
+
+"At that," added Merritt, "I guess we win."
+
+And here, with their former enemy become a remorseful friend, we will,
+for the present, leave the Boy Scouts to renew our acquaintance with
+them in the next volume of this series which will be called: "The Boy
+Scouts on the Range."
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol, by 
+Howard Payson
+
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