Barbour Ralph Henry
Four Afloat: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the Water

CHAPTER XII – WHEREIN NELSON SOLVES THE MYSTERY

The Vagabond rolled and dipped while the boys silently struggled with the problem confronting them.

Where was Spencer Floyd?

There was the boat, there were the oars, there were the fish which he had promised, and, entangled with one of the oars, was the line he had used. But – where was he? Also, why was the tender full of water?

“It’s the funniest thing I ever ran up against!” breathed Dan, finally breaking the silence. After that questions came fast and furious and no one tried to supply the answers until Tom cried:

“I know! Su-su-su-su-somebody ru-ru-ran him du-du-du – !”

“Pshaw!” said Nelson. “Collisions don’t happen in broad daylight in a place like this where there’s water enough to float a fleet of warships!”

“Bu-bu-bu-but look at the tu-tu-tender!”

“I know,” Nelson muttered, “but I don’t believe – ”

“If it was an accident Spencer’s a goner,” said Dan.

“Not necessarily,” said Bob. “If he was run down by a steamer or a schooner they might have stopped and picked him up.”

“If they had wouldn’t they have landed him when the harbor was just around the corner?”

“They might not have,” Bob answered. “They might have been in a hurry and just taken him along.”

“That doesn’t seem likely,” objected Dan.

“No,” added Nelson. “The least they could have done would have been to land him.”

“Then he’s a gu-gu-gu-gu-goner!” said Tom sadly.

“I don’t believe he was run into,” protested Nelson.

“I know you don’t; you said so before,” Dan replied. “But if it wasn’t that, what was it? Where’s he got to and why is the boat full of water?”

“I don’t know, but there are lots of things that might have happened.”

“Such as what, Mr. Solomon?”

“Well, he might have gone ashore for more bait and left the tender on the beach. Then the tide floated it out while he was gone. When he came back and saw that he couldn’t get it he decided to walk to town in hopes of finding us before we left.”

“Well, that might be it,” acknowledged Bob after a moment’s consideration of the theory, “but somehow I can’t make myself think so. If you’re right then he’s waiting for us in the village.”

“And maybe the officer fellow has him,” added Dan.

“Hold on!” protested Tom. “That’s all ru-ru-right, but how did the boat get full of water?”

Nelson looked nonplused.

“It might have gone floating around and hit against something,” he finally ventured, “maybe a rock or a submerged log.”

“Submerged poppycock!” said Dan. “I’ll tell you what really happened.”

“Of course you will,” said Tom. “You know all about it, du-du-du-don’t you?”

“A boat of some kind came along and Spencer saw a chance of getting away in it, maybe to New York. Probably he offered to work his passage and they took him aboard. And somehow the tender got a hole stove in her.”

“How?” demanded Tom.

“Oh, I don’t know; there’s plenty of ways. Maybe Spencer thought if he sank the boat and disappeared altogether Captain Chowder would stop hunting him.”

“The first part of your yarn is all right, Dan,” said Bob, “but the last part is mighty weak. But whatever happened there’s no use in our spending the day out here. The question now is: What’s to be done next? If Spencer’s drowned we can’t do any good here. If he’s run away on another boat, why, we might as well attend to our own affairs. What about it?”

“Best thing to do,” said Nelson, “is to tow the tender back to the wharf and get the water out of it. Then we can see what’s happened to it. Anyhow, it will probably have to be repaired and that means staying here until to-morrow. Pull her in, Dan, and I’ll get hold of the painter.”

“All right,” answered Dan, who was holding the tender with the boat hook. “But won’t she go under completely and sink if we try to tow her?”

“I don’t think so. How about it, Bob?”

“Not in this sea, if we go slow,” answered Bob.

“Anyhow, it isn’t likely that we’d ever get the water out of her here. There’s a little beach at the end of that slip by the wharf where we were, and we can beach her there.”

So, running very slowly, the Vagabond returned to town, the submerged tender rolling and splashing along behind at the end of a short painter and threatening to disappear completely every minute. But she didn’t carry out her threat, and when the launch was once more tied up at the float the tender was pulled along to the end of the slip until she grounded. There they left her until the tide, which was still running out, should leave her high and dry. Bob and Dan went in search of a carpenter to patch her up, following the explicit directions of the gasoline man, who was very much interested in the sudden and unexplained appearance on the scene of the tender. Nelson and Tom made discreet inquiries for Spencer, describing his personal appearance without mentioning his name. But neither the man at the wharf nor the loungers at the street end of it had seen anyone answering to their description. Bob and Dan returned presently with the information that the carpenter was busy but would be on hand in about half an hour. So they went back to the launch, made themselves comfortable in the cockpit and speculated anew on the disappearance of Spencer. Many new and ingenious theories were aired, but in the end it was all nicely summed up in Tom’s verdict:

“It’s a regular jim-dandy mystery,” declared Tom. “That’s what it is!”

At twelve the carpenter had not arrived.

“He won’t come now until after his dinner hour,” said the gasoline man when asked for his opinion.

“Then I vote that we find a hotel or restaurant,” said Dan, “and have a thundering good dinner. If the old duffer comes while we’re gone he can wait till we get back.”

The vote was carried, the cabin was locked again and the quartet set off in search of dinner. It wasn’t hard to find, and at a quarter before one they were back at the wharf. The carpenter, garrulous and apologetic, arrived a few minutes later and the entire party went back up the pier, climbed down a slippery ladder and reached the little beach where lay the tender looking like a novel bathtub. The beach was composed largely of black muck and the resulting operations were disastrous to four pairs of white canvas shoes.

“Catch ahold here,” said the carpenter, “and turn her over.”

Out splashed the water and the dead fish and over went the tender until she lay bottom up. It wasn’t necessary to hunt long for the leaks. Half a dozen small splintered holes on each side of the keel confronted them. The carpenter examined them attentively.

“How’d you do it?” he asked finally.

“We don’t know,” answered Nelson lamely. “We think, though, that she struck a rock or something.”

“Rock, eh?” said the other with a sniff. “Must have been inside the boat then, unless you had her turned inside out. See them splinters? Point outward, don’t they? Whatever made them holes was inside the boat, gentlemen.”

“That’s so,” Nelson acknowledged. “I wonder what did it.”

“If you’re asking me, ’twas a boat hook as did it. And it wa’n’t no accident, neither. Boat hooks don’t up of themselves and go to punchin’ holes in the bottom of a boat like that.” He looked expectantly around as though explanations were in order. But Nelson and the others only looked grave and unenlightened.

“Humph!” said the carpenter, returning to his examination of the injuries. But that “Humph!” said a whole lot.

“Can it be mended?” asked Nelson.

“Course it can be mended,” was the reply, “but I can’t do it here. I’ll have to put in two new planks. I’ll get my dory and tow her around to the shop.”

“How long will it take?” asked Bob.

“Oh, I cal’ate you can have her to-morrow some time.”

“That won’t do. We’ve got to start away first thing in the morning. Can’t you work on it this afternoon?”

The carpenter pushed back his old felt hat and rubbed his bald head reflectively.

“Well, I’m pretty busy right now, but I’ll do my best. Got any oakum, cap’n?”

The gasoline man went in search of some and when he returned the holes were temporarily stopped up and the carpenter ambled off for his dory. The others carried the tender down to the water and towed her around to the end of the float. Presently the carpenter returned in a disreputable tub of a dory and the tender was towed away. The gasoline man, who had given them the pleasure of his company continuously since the tender was examined, finally took himself off to carry gasoline to a small launch which had puffed up to the float, and the Four seated themselves in the cockpit and looked inquiringly from one to another.

“It’s mighty funny,” said Dan.

“The mystery deepens,” said Tom excitedly.

“It certainly does,” agreed Bob, “eh, Nel?”

“I think the mystery is explained,” Nelson replied quietly.

“The dickens you do!” exclaimed Dan. “What’s the explanation?”

“The boat hook.”

“Boat hook? What boat hook?” asked Bob impatiently.

“The one that made those holes.”

“Well, but – !”

“It’s as clear as daylight now,” said Nelson. “There’s only one person we know of who would deliberately stave holes in that boat.”

“Who’s that?” asked the others in chorus.

“Captain Sauder!”

CHAPTER XIII – WHEREIN DAN TELLS A STORY AND TOM IS INCREDULOUS

“By Jove!” murmured Bob.

“Then you think – ?” began Dan.

“I think that the Henry Nellis happened along this morning, saw Spencer Floyd out there in the tender, took him aboard and knocked holes in our boat in the hope of sinking her.”

“But – !” exclaimed Bob. Then he stopped and looked thoughtful. Finally he nodded his head. “Yes, that’s just about what happened,” he concluded.

“That’s right,” said Dan.

“And he got Spencer again after all,” added Tom unhappily.

“Well, we did the best we could for him,” said Nelson. “If we had kept him aboard the officer would have got him.”

“But what I don’t understand,” said Bob, “is how Captain Sauder happened to be here. If he expected the officers to catch Spencer and return him to Sanstable why did he leave there?”

“We don’t know that he did expect them to send Spencer back to Sanstable. Maybe he told them to hold him here until he came.”

“That’s it!” Tom cried. “And he was on his way here when he found Spencer in the tender. So instead of coming into the harbor he just went on.”

“Right-O,” said Dan. “You’re a regular Sherlock W. Holmes, Tommy.”

“That blamed old pirate was smarter than we were, after all,” said Tom disgustedly. “Couldn’t we follow him and – and – ?”

“Take Spencer away by main force?” laughed Nelson. “I’m afraid not, Tommy. Especially as we don’t know where the schooner has gone.”

“Spencer said she was going to Newfoundland, didn’t he?” asked Tom.

“And you propose that we follow it up there?”

“But we might catch her before she got there!”

“That would be a wild-goose chase for sure,” said Dan. “No, I guess we’ve done our duty by Spencer. After all, I dare say he will be able to put up with the captain for another voyage, although I’d hate to have to do it myself, and that’s a fact.”

“Maybe Spencer will manage to slip away again,” said Bob. “Let’s hope so, anyway.”

“You bet! Poor little cuss!” muttered Dan.

Spencer’s fate continued the subject for discussion all the rest of the day, but, as Dan had said, their duty in the affair seemed to have ended and it was decided that the next day, as soon as they could do so, they would continue on to Newport for their mail and then to New York.

They went for a long walk before supper-time, visiting the lighthouse and a life-saving station, and returning at six o’clock very hungry, so hungry, in fact, that the possibilities of the Vagabond’s larder seemed quite inadequate to the demands of the occasion. So they returned to the hotel in the village and fared very well indeed. After supper they adjourned to the writing room and levied on the hotel stationery. Everyone found plenty to write home about and for half an hour the pens scratched diligently. It was Tom whose ideas were exhausted first. After addressing and sealing his letter and thumping a stamp on to the corner of the envelope he picked up a newspaper and tilted himself back in his chair under the light. Two minutes later the front legs of the chair hit the floor with a crash.

“The Sue won!” cried Tom.

The others frowned but failed to look up from their letters.

“I say, you chaps!” called Tom more loudly. “The Sue won!”

“For gracious sake, Tommy,” protested Bob, “shut up! How do you think we’re going to write letters when – ”

“Oh, go ahead and write your old letters,” grumbled Tom. “I thought you’d want to know how it came out, that’s all.”

“What’s he talking about, Bob?” Dan asked.

“I’m telling you that the Sue won,” answered Tom with dignity.

“Won what?”

“The race, you idiot!”

“Sue who? What race?”

“Who’s being sued, Tommy?” asked Nelson, looking up from his sixth sheet of paper. Tom looked about him despairingly.

“Say, you lunatics,” he exclaimed after an eloquent silence, “stop gibbering a moment, will you? I’m trying to tell you that the Sue– ”

“Oh, Sioux!” said Nelson, turning back to the letter. “I thought you were talking about some one suing some one. Anyone scalped yet? I’d like to live out your way and see some of these Indian uprisings, Tommy. Are there any Sioux in Chicago?”

“There are plenty of Indians there,” laughed Dan, “but maybe they’re not Sioux.”

Tom passed the insult disdainfully and retired behind his paper with insulted dignity.

“Anyhow, she won,” he muttered defiantly.

“Oh, hang!” exclaimed Bob, throwing down his pen, pushing back his chair, and making for Tom. “You’re worse than Poe’s raven, Tommy!” He pulled the paper out of Tom’s hands and whacked him over the head with it. “Now you speak out plainly and say what you’re trying to say, Tommy, and get it over with. Go ahead! Tell us all about it quite calmly.”

“Tu-tu-tu-tell you!” stammered Tom crossly. “I’ve bu-bu-bu-been tu-tu-telling you for half an hour!”

“Well, tell us again,” said Bob soothingly. “Listen attentively, fellows; Tommy’s got a great secret to unfold.”

“I tu-tu-tell you the Su-su-su-su-su – !”

“It’s all off!” exclaimed Dan despairingly. “Tommy’s missing sparks again!”

“ – Su-su-su-Sue won the ru-ru-race!”

“Oh! What race is that, Tommy?” asked Nelson.

“Why, the ru-ru-race to New York.”

“The launch race?” cried Nelson. “Is that so? The Sue won, eh?”

“Good for her!” said Bob. “She was the smallest one of the lot, wasn’t she, Nel?”

“Yes. Is it in the paper, Tommy? Read it out to us.”

So Tom, appeased by the flattering if tardy interest, read the account. The Sue had finished last in thirty-nine hours and five minutes, averaging an actual speed of 8.25 miles an hour. With her handicap of thirteen hours and four minutes she won the race from her nearest competitor, the Sizz, by about an hour and three-quarters. The Gnome had made the best actual speed, averaging just under ten miles an hour. Of the twelve starters nine had finished the race. They had found good weather all the way save while in the neighborhood of Martha’s Vineyard, when the sou’wester had met them.

“Say,” asked Nelson when Tom had finished, “when was that race?”

“Why,” answered Tom, “it was the day before yesterday, wasn’t it?”

“Day before yesterday!” exclaimed Dan. “What are you talking about, Tommy?”

“It was!”

“Tommy’s right,” said Bob, “but – ”

“Well, if it doesn’t seem like two weeks ago I’ll eat my hat!” said Nelson.

“I should say so!” agreed Dan. “Then we left Boston only four days ago? That can’t be right, fellows!”

“It is, though,” answered Bob. “And to-morrow’s Sunday. We haven’t been cruising a week yet and enough has happened to fill a month.”

“That’s so,” said Dan. “If the rest of the trip is like the last four days – !” He stopped and whistled expressively.

“It’s been great fun,” said Tom eagerly.

“It sure has,” Dan agreed. “Why, if – ”

But just then Barry, who had been curled up in the only upholstered chair in the writing room, jumped to the floor, yawning loudly.

“You’re right, Barry,” said Bob gravely. “It’s time we went to bed. Let’s finish our letters, fellows, and get back to the boat.”

The following morning the Vagabond, with the tender once more in place on the cabin roof, chugged past Long Point at twenty minutes past eight. The weather was bright, but somewhat chill, with a bank of haze hiding the horizon toward the east and south. But the weather signals were fluttering a prediction of good weather. Off Race Point Dan, who was acting as navigator, turned the launch northeast and held her so until off the life-saving station. Then it was due east for some three miles, followed by a gradual turn southward along the gently curving coast. For some time almost the only objects of interest in sight, aside from the few vessels which they saw, were the life-saving stations which dotted the sandy coast at about four-mile intervals. Tom found their names on the chart and called them off; Race Point, Peaked Hill Bar, High Head, Highland, and so on. They passed Highland Light at about ten o’clock, or, as Dan, who had at length mastered the science of telling time by the ship’s clock, would have had it, four bells. Then came more life-saving stations, and Tom, who was lolling in one of the chairs in the cockpit, with the chart spread out ont his knees, said:

“This is almost as bad along here for life-saving stations as the south coast of Long Island. Remember how many we counted there that day we went over to Fire Island, Nel?”

“Yes, twenty-three, weren’t there?”

“No, that’s your number,” said Dan unkindly. “I remember perfectly that we counted twenty-nine.”

“Well, if they don’t look out,” said Tom, as he cast his eye down the chart, “they’re going to run out of names pretty quick. Then what’ll they do?”

“Number them, probably,” Bob suggested.

“Well, I’d take mighty good care not to get wrecked off Number Thirteen if I was a captain,” said Dan.

“Huh! Nobody would bother to rescue you, anyway,” remarked Tom. “The lookout would come in to the station and say, ‘There’s a two-master going to pieces on the bar.’ Then they’d get the telescope and look through it, and the – the captain would say, ‘Oh, it’s the Mary Ann, of Newark, Captain Dan Speede! Don’t you know better than to wake me out of a sound sleep for nothing?’ Then everybody would go back to bed.”

When the laugh had subsided Dan said:

“They might name the stations the way the folks named the streets of the town out West.”

“How’s that?” Nelson asked.

“Well, it’s a story dad used to tell. He said it happened in a place out in Illinois, I’ve forgotten the name of it.”

“Huh!” grunted Tom.

“Some folks from the East went out there and settled,” said Dan, “and after a while they decided that, as the town was growing fast, they’d plat it out.”

“What’s that?” asked Tom.

“Why, lay it out.”

“Oh, was it dead? Thought you said it was growing?”

“Shut up, Tommy, and let’s hear the worst,” said Nelson.

“So they got the surveyors to work and pretty soon they had a nice map of the town with streets and avenues running all around into the prairies. Then the question of naming the streets came up and they decided they’d name them after the citizens of the place. So they started in and named the main street after the Mayor, Jones Street. And so on until they’d used all the names and hadn’t begun to get through. So they thought again and decided to use their wives’ names. So they had Mary Street and Matilda Street and Jane Street, and still there were lots of streets left. So they started then on their children’s names and used those all up. Then – ”

“It sounds like a blamed old lie to me,” said Tom in a loud aside.

“So,” continued Dan, missing Tom’s shin with his foot by half an inch, “after they’d got through with their Tommy Streets and their Susie Streets they didn’t know what to do, because there were still a lot of streets away out that hadn’t been named. So some one suggested that they might use the names of the dogs. So they did that. There was Hover Street and Tige Street and Towser Avenue – ”

“Towser Avenue!” giggled Tom.

“And so on. And still there weren’t enough names. So they began on the cats. Well, most every family had at least one cat and some had two or three and the cats pretty nearly finished things up; they would have finished things up only lots of the folks just called their cats ‘Kittie.’ But they had Tabby Street and Maltie Street and – and lots more.”

“Our cat’s name is Ben Hur,” said Tom helpfully.

“But there were about half a dozen streets still left and they were in a fix until some one remembered that there were several canary birds in the town. So they used up the canaries and had Dickie Street and Fluff Street and Lovey-Dovey Street – ”

“Oh, get out!” scoffed Tom.

“You shut up! I’m telling this. And so then everything was all right until they got to looking the map over very carefully and found that they had missed one of the principal thoroughfares, a fine, wide boulevard running from one side of the town to the other. Well, they were in a fix then, for they had to have another name and they’d used all the names up, as far as they could see. The Mayor of the town was a widower and for a while it looked as though he’d have to get married again so they could name the boulevard after his wife. But he didn’t like the idea of it; said he’d resign from office first; and about that time the City Treasurer remembered that his youngest boy had a guinea pig for a pet. They said that was fine, and they took a vote on it and decided to name the boulevard after the guinea pig. Well, the City Treasurer didn’t remember what his boy called the pig and so they sent for the boy. And when he came the Mayor asked him what he called his guinea pig. ‘Piggy,’ said the boy. ‘But that will never do,’ said the Mayor, ‘haven’t you a better name than that?’ ‘His name’s Piggy,’ said the boy. Well, they argued with him and argued with him, and pleaded and pleaded, the Mayor and all the Council, but it didn’t do any good. And the City Treasurer told the boy he’d take him home and give him a whipping if he didn’t change the guinea pig’s name. But it didn’t do any good, for the boy said the guinea pig’s name was ‘Piggy,’ always had been ‘Piggy’ and couldn’t be anything else. So if you go out there now you’ll find that the finest street in the city is called Piggy Boulevard.”

“That’s a likely yarn!” laughed Bob.

“Well, that’s the way it was told to me,” answered Dan gravely.

“Where did you say the place is?” asked Tom.

“Oh, out in Illinois somewhere; near Chicago, I think.”

“More likely it was right in your own State,” Tom retorted warmly.

“Now, don’t you two get to scrapping about your old villages,” said Bob. “Neither one of them is worth living in. Why don’t you live in Portland? Then you won’t feel ashamed of your town.”

“Huh!” jeered Tom. “Portland! S’pose I did live there and some one asked me what place I was from. ‘Portland,’ I’d say. ‘Oh! Maine or Oregon?’ they’d ask. No, sir, I don’t want a city I have to explain. There’s only one Chicago.”

“That’s one good feature of it,” said Dan.

“Is that su-su-so?” began Tom pugnaciously. But Nelson intervened.

“You’re wrong about Portland, Tommy,” he said. “They wouldn’t ask you ‘Maine or Oregon’; they’d say ‘Cement or salmon?’”

“We don’t make Portland cement in my town,” said Bob disgustedly.

“Of course they don’t,” Dan agreed. “Portland is famous only as having been the birthplace of Henry Longworth Wadsfellow and of Robert Wade Hethington.”

“There’s another life-saving station, Tommy,” said Nelson. “What’s its name?”

“Pamet River. Now, there’s a fool name; Pamet. But I suppose they got crazy in the head like a fish when they got this far. I’ll bet the rest of the names are terrors.”

“I heard that years and years ago all this part of the Cape was thick forest,” observed Bob.

“Oh, you hear funny things,” said Dan.

“Fact, though,” Bob asserted.

“Well, a few trees would help some now,” said Nelson. “It’s a lonely looking stretch, isn’t it? They say the State pays out thousands of dollars every year planting beach grass along here.”

“What for?” asked Tom suspiciously.

“To hold the sand,” Nelson replied. “The wind and the ocean play hob with the coast along here.”

“What’s that ahead there on the shore?” asked Bob, pointing.

“Looks like – Oh, I know! It’s the wireless-telegraph station,” answered Tom. “That’s Wellfleet.”

“Let’s get them to report us,” suggested Dan. “‘Passed South, launch Vagabond, Captain Tilford; all well except the cook who is suffering with stomach ache from too much candy.’”

“First thing I heard this morning,” said Nelson, “was Tommy chewing that peanut taffy stuff he bought. I’ll bet his bunk is full of it.”

“I don’t know about the bunk,” said Bob dryly, “but I’ll bet that Tommy is.”

At a little after two they reached Pollock Rip, passed within two hundred yards of Shovelful Light-ship and bore southwest around the lower corner of the Cape. Shoals were numerous and the water decidedly unquiet. The Vagabond plunged and kicked, rolled and tossed until Handkerchief Light-ship had been left to port. Southward Nantucket lay stretched upon the water, and to the southwest the hills of Martha’s Vineyard rose blue and hazy from the sea. There was much to see now, for Nantucket Sound was well dotted with sails, while here and there smoke streamers proclaimed the presence of steamboats. One of these, an excursion boat well loaded with passengers, passed close to starboard of them and they spent several moments in politely answering with the whistle the fluttering handkerchiefs and waving hats. It was nearly half-past five when the Vagabond, with over eighty-five miles to her credit since morning, swung around East Chop Light, chugged into Vineyard Haven Harbor and dropped her anchor off the steamship wharf.

“To-day’s cruise,” said Nelson, while they were sprucing up for an evening ashore, “goes to show the difference between poor gasoline and good gasoline. I’d like to fill a launch up with some of those Standard Oil people, put some of that Sanstable gasoline in her tank and set her fifty miles offshore; that’s what I’d like to do!”

They walked over to Cottage City and had dinner – and oh, didn’t it taste good! – at a big hotel, returning to the launch at nine o’clock through a sweet-scented summer night and tumbling into bed as soon as their sleepy bodies allowed.