The Mystery Boys and Captain Kidd's Message

by Van Powell

  CHAPTER XVI CAPTAIN NICKY TAKES COMMAND

  There was every kind of excitement on the _Senorita_! Men rushed thisway and that; they came together in excited groups, spoke quicklytogether, separated.

  “The cutter’ll be on us any minute!” said a deckhand.

  “This is no place to stand ’em off!” grunted another.

  “Great captain, dat Don!” grumbled the cook. “Know de channel! Huh! Lookwhah we’s at!”

  “Lower the tender!” called Tew. “We’ll get away. Grab what you can!”

  “Bettah we do dat!” agreed the cook. “Ashore we gits tuh hide; heah deykin shell us out-a de watah!”

  Tom gripped Nicky’s arm. “Come on!” he cried, “let’s get there so theywon’t forget and leave us!”

  “No!” urged Nicky. “Wait—come on with me!”

  “What for?” demanded Cliff. “Where are you going?”

  “Come on!” Nicky demanded of his chums. “We don’t want to go.”

  “Don’t want to go—” began Cliff. Then he followed Nicky.

  The self-appointed leader went hastily down into the forecastle. His twocomrades followed, wonderingly.

  “I don’t see—” began Cliff.

  “Look at it this way,” begged Nicky. “If we go with them we are in theirhands, aren’t we? When the cutter has come and gone, without findinganything but the wrecked boat, these men will want to make us tell themwhere the treasure is supposed to be. Then they’ll desert us!”

  “That’s good common sense,” agreed Cliff.

  “Yes, it is,” Tom nodded.

  “Let them go in the tender,” Nicky pursued his argument. “Then we cantake possession of this boat, and when the cutter comes we can signal,and then—isn’t there some reward for claiming salvage on a boat, someway?”

  “You’re going to get a treasure out of this adventure somehow, aren’tyou?” laughed Tom. “I never saw such a money-grabbing fellow!”

  “Whether I do—we do—or not,” Nicky defended, “we are safer here thanwith those hi-jackers. If the cutter doesn’t come, we have all the foodand things—maybe the arsenal. We can stand them off and——”

  “Instead of them making us toe the mark, we can make them do it!” Cliffcried, fired by Nicky’s eagerness.

  “That’s it!” Tom agreed. “Nicky has the right idea!”

  The tender, which was used with muffled oars according to need, had bythat time been lowered over the slanting side of the _Senorita_.

  “But suppose she sinks!” a new thought came to Cliff.

  “The channels can’t be very deep, even at the deepest, between theseislands,” Nicky asserted. “I think she has settled onto the rock now. Ifshe starts down we can almost jump onto that island—and we won’t be asbadly off as in the hands of hi-jackers!”

  Gathering most of their weapons and some supplies and dropping them intothe boat, the crew hurriedly rowed away on the course toward the distantmainland and the mouth of the Shark River where they could hide for atime.

  Tom, Cliff and Nicky assured that the ship was completely desertedexcept for themselves, came on deck and from the points of vantagewatched the departure without disclosing themselves.

  The cutter, in the meantime, had pursued to the best of her speed duringmost of the night, but when the _Senorita_ rounded the western end ofCape Sable and was, for the time, out of sight of her pursuer, a man onthe cutter sighted what he took to be her lights again.

  They were not, however. A coasting schooner, of the old type, blownsomewhat off her course, had hove in sight.

  Naturally, not being aware of the true facts, and supposing that thequarry had doubled on her course to escape them, believing that hermasthead light—which the schooner’s light, from the rear, closelyduplicated, was that of the _Senorita_, the cutter changed her course.

  By dawn she overhauled the schooner, saw her mistake and lay to, hercommander and Mr. Neale and the others completely baffled.

  Had they been pursing that schooner all the while?

  At the same time Nicky was delivering an oration, on the silent,stricken _Senorita_.

  “Now, fellows,” he said, “we have to organize. We’re the captain, andcrew, and cook and cabin boy, all in three. Which is which? If thecutter doesn’t come, we have to make plans. Those men will come back.They may not be able to use this boat again but they will want to findout what we know about the treasure before they leave—and they may dosomething to us after we’ve told. We ‘signed on’ in a way aspirates—hi-jackers.”

  “And, sure enough, we are hi-jackers!” exclaimed Cliff. “We’ve taken awhole ship!”

  “That’s so!” said Tom. “Well, I move that the Mystery Boys nominate theacting chief for this year of their order as Captain in this emergency.”

  “Second the motion!” cried Cliff.

  “All in favor!” grinned Nicky. “But Tom has the cooler head and you,Cliff, know more than I do.”

  “Aye—just the same—you’re elected!” laughed Cliff.

  “I’ll volunteer to cook,” Tom offered.

  “Then I’m crew and cabin boy,” chuckled Cliff.

  “What are your orders, cap’n?” asked Tom with assumed deference,touching his forelock in approved nautical fashion.

  “Of course we all are captain, really,” Nicky stated. “But just whilewe’re in no danger, I’d say we ought to see what weapons the men left,and where the food is and how badly broken the hull is.”

  “That’s one job for each of us,” Cliff agreed. “I’ll round up theartillery. Tom will cook, so that leaves the captain the rightful dutyof estimating damage to his ship!”

  “Then we may try to repair her,” grinned Nicky, “and sail, and sail theseven seas, and spread our sails to every breeze and take our captivesas we please——”

  “Only we have no sails!” Cliff reminded him.

  “Well, then, we’ll gaily man our ocean rover and swiftly turn herengines over and if we’re chased—if we’re chased——”

  “We’ll run for cover!” suggested Tom, chuckling.

  “‘Rover’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘cover’ but let it go at that!”

  Then, with the spirit of youth and daring alert in their strangesituation, they departed for their several tasks.

  Over a plentiful breakfast, helping to make up for the fast of the longday on the island, they compared notes. There was a long rent in thevessel’s side, below waterline, Nicky reported, not easily to berepaired even if they could float the ship at all. Plenty of canned foodand some fresh supplies, Tom stated. Five automatic pistols, two riflesand a small signaling cannon was Cliff’s list of weapons. “So far, sogood,” said Nicky. “What next?”

  From a little beyond the ship came a hail.

  The chums became tense.

  “You’re captain,” his chums told Nicky. “Go and parley!”