CHAPTER VII
SOME STRANGE DOINGS
It was not far from midnight when the boys, sorely perplexed, once morereached Hampton. The main street had been deserted long since, andevery one in the village had returned to rest.
The boys left the captain by the water-front, while they headed up theMain Street for their respective homes. Rob remained up, ponderingover the events of the evening for some time, without arriving at anysolution of them. He was just about to extinguish his light when hewas startled by a loud:
"His--s--st!"
The noise came from directly below his open window, which faced ontothe 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. "Iwouldn't have bothered yer but that I saw a light in yer window."
"What's the trouble, captain?" asked the boy, noting a troubledinflection 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 upfrom 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 allthis," cried Rob. "I remember now I heard some time ago that he wasthick with that Hank Handcraft."
"I don't know what ter do about it at this time uv ther night," went onthe distressed captain, "an' I can't go round waking folks up ter getanother 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'llsee what we can do."
"That's mighty fair, square, and above board uv yer, lad," said thecaptain gratefully. "Punk me anywhere. I'm an old sailor, and canaways find the softest plank in the deck."
"You won't have to do that," said Rob, who had slipped downstairs bythis time and opened the door; "we've got a spare room you can bunk into-night. I'll explain it all to father in the morning. Perhaps he canhelp us out."
"Gee whiz! almost twelve o'clock," exclaimed Hiram Nelson, looking upat the clock from the dining-room table in Paul Perkins' house. Thechamber was strewn with text books on model aeroplane construction andlittered with figures and plans of the boys' own devising. "How timeflies when you're on a subject that interests you."
"Yes, it's a good thing it's vacation time," agreed Paul. "We wouldn'tbe 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 leftto do is to go ahead."
"That's the idea," responded Paul. "We'll get the prize for the gloryof the Eagle Patrol, or--or--"
"Bust!" Hiram finished for him.
Hiram's way home lay past the bank, and as he walked down the moonlitstreet he thought for a minute that he perceived a light in the windowsof the armory.
Almost as he fancied he glimpsed it, however, it vanished, and the ladwas convinced that he must have been mistaken, or else seen areflection 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 nearedthe bank a dark figure seemed to vanish into the black shadows roundthe corner. Something familiar about it struck Hiram, and the nextmoment he realized why.
"If that wasn't Bill Bender, I'm a Dutchman," he muttered, his heartbeating a little faster. "But what can he be doing round here at thistime of night?"
As he put the question to himself, Bill Bender, walking rapidly, as ifhe had come from some distance, and had not dodged round the corner amoment before, suddenly appeared from round the angle of the bankbuilding.
"Good evening, Bill," said Hiram, wondering if his eyes were notplaying him some queer tricks; "wasn't that you just went round thecorner?"
"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 wehad a bully time. Sat up a little too late, though. Good night."
And with a great assumption of easiness, the crony of Jack Curtisswalked rapidly off up the street.
"I guess he's right," mused Hiram, as he hurried on home. "But if thatwasn't Bill Bender who walked round that corner it was his ghost, andall the ghosts I ever read about don't wear squeaky boots."
If Hiram had remained he would have had further cause to be suspiciousand speculative.
The lad's footsteps had hardly died out down the street before BillBender cautiously retraced his way, and, going round to the sidestreet, upon which the steps leading to the armory opened, gave acautious whistle. In reply a sack was lowered from a window to him bysome person invisible above.
Although there was some little light on the Main Street by reason ofthe moon and the few scattering lamps along the thoroughfare, the spotin 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 streetand warned you to put out that light, it wouldn't have been," respondedBill in the same cautious tone.
"Well, we're safe enough now," came back the voice above, which any ofhis acquaintances would have recognized as Jack Curtiss'. "I've got therest 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 fellfollowing Jack's warning, but in the darkness he failed, and it crasheddown with quite a clatter.
"Look out!" warned Jack anxiously, "some one might hear that."
"Not in this peaceful community. You seem to forget that eleveno'clock is the very latest bedtime in Hampton."
After a brief interval Jack Curtiss himself slipped out of the sidedoor 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'splace. Sam will be waiting off there with the boat," rejoined Jack.
"Yes, if he hasn't lost his nerve," was Bill's rejoinder as theyshouldered their sacks and slipped off into the deep blacknessshrouding the side streets.
"Well, if he has lost it, he'll come near losing his head, too," gratedout Jack, "but don't you fear, he wants that fifty too badly to go backon us."
Silently as two cats the cronies made their way down the tree-borderedthoroughfare known as Bailey's Lane and after a few minutes gained thebeach.
"Say, that's an awful hike down to Hank's gilded palace," grumbledBill, "why didn't you have Sam wait for us off here?"
"Yes, and have old man Hudgins discover him when he finds his boat isgone," sneered Jack, "you'd have made a fine botch of this if it hadn'tbeen for me."
The two exchanged no further words on the weary tramp along the softbeach. They plodded along steadily with the silence only broken by amuttered remark emanating from Bill Bender from time to time.
"Thank heaven, there's the place at last," exclaimed Bill, with a sighof relief, as they came in sight of the miserable hut, "I began tothink that Hank must have moved."
Jack gave a peculiar whistle and the next instant the same light theboys had seen earlier in the evening shone through the chinks of thehovel.
"Well, he's awake, at any rate," remarked Jack with a grin, "now tofind out where the boat is."
As the wretched figure of the beach-comber appeared Jack hailed himroughly.
"Where's that boat, Hank?"
"Been cruising off and on here since eleven o'clock," rejoined theother 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 someone had passed their hands across it.
"All right, give him the answer," ordered Jack. "We've got to hurry ifwe're to be back before the captain a
nd those brats of boys get afterour trail."
Hank at Jack's order dived into the hut and now reappeared with thesmoky lantern. He waved it four times from side to side like abrakeman and in a short time a steady "put-put!" told the watchers thata motor boat was approaching.
"Now for your dinghy, Hank," urged Jack, "hurry up. You move like aman a hundred and ninety years old, with the rheumatism."
"Well, come on, then," retorted Hank, "here's the boat," pointing to acobbled dinghy lying hauled up above the water line, "give me a handand we'll shove off."
The united strength of the three soon had the boat in the water andwith Hank at the oars they moved steadily toward the chugging motorboat.
"Well, Sam, you're on the job, I see," remarked Jack as the two craftranged alongside and Sam cut off the engine.
"Oh, I'm on the job all right," rejoined Sam, feeling much braver nowthat the other two had arrived, "have you got them all right?"
"Right here in this bag, and some more in this, my bucko," chuckledJack as he handed the two sacks over to Sam.
"Ha! ha! ha!" chortled Bill under his breath as he climbed out of thecobble 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 ashe and Bill got aboard, "good night there, Hank."
"Good night," rejoined Hank quietly enough, as the motor boat movedswiftly off over the moonlit sea. He added to himself, "It won't be avery 'good night' for you, my lad, if you don't pay me as handsomely asyou promised."
And chuckling to himself till his shoulders shook, Hank resumed hisoars and rowed back to the miserable shanty he called home.
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