Boy Scouts in Southern Waters Part 15

"I can't eat it," cried the boy. "It's poisoned."

"Ah, ha," gloated Jack. "I thought so."

"Oh, please let me go away," begged the lad. "I'll promise not to do anything against you again. I'll never bother you at all."

"We don't want to do anything rash," Frank suggested. "We won't harm you if you'll agree not to injure us, but we must know why you came aboard tonight as you did and what your purpose was."

"Wyckoff made me," groaned the boy covering his face with his hands.

"There," he cried sitting up in bed, "now I've told, he'll kill me sure.

Oh, I'm in trouble now."

"Not so you could notice it," gritted Jack, taking a firmer hold on his automatic. "If Wyckoff tries any of his dirty tricks around here, we'll fill him so full of holes he'll leak straw."

"You don't know him," shuddered the boy. "He's a desperate man. He shot a n.i.g.g.e.r once just because the fellow disputed Wyckoff about a match.

He's a bad, bad man. I know him."

"And still he had the nerve to tell us on Pet.i.t Bois that his hands were clean," scornfully declared Jack. "He makes me sick."

"Oh, have you seen him?" questioned Carlos.

"He didn't tell me that! He just told me what I must do."

"What did he tell you to do?" inquired Frank not unkindly.

"He said that in the after cabin of this boat under the floor boards I would find a plug driven into the skin of the boat to fill an auger hole.

"He directed me to remove that plug carefully and swim ash.o.r.e. I was not to awaken you but to get away quietly."

"Well, you surely were the p.u.s.s.y-footed little sleuth," declared Harry.

"It would have been impossible to hear you more than forty or fifty miles away. There's nothing the matter with that voice of yours. I know an auctioneer who could use that noise."

"Don't rub it in, Harry," advised Tom. "The poor lad is having troubles of his own right now as it is. He's all in."

"He brought it on himself," maintained Harry. "He wasn't invited aboard.

If he'd stayed away, this never would have happened."

"I know," soothed Tom, "and you'll find that most of the troubles we get into are caused by our own acts. I'm sleepy. Move we postpone this third degree business until morning."

"Second the motion," declared Harry. "Let's set a guard over the prisoner and go back to sleep. I'm all in, myself."

The suggestion met with the approval of all the boys. They were tired after their long and strenuous day and needed rest badly.

Arnold, feeling elated because his crab sh.e.l.l had been the means of trapping the midnight visitor, volunteered to act as guard during the first watch. He stoutly maintained that he was not sleepy and would be only too glad of the chance to watch.

The poisoned meat was thrown overboard and quiet reigned again.

Frank awoke and stretched himself. Then he reached across to the bunk occupied by Jack and shook that worthy by the arm.

"Let's get up and visit the hospital," he suggested, springing up.

Arnold sat sleeping on the bunk. The prisoner was gone!

CHAPTER XI

AN ELUSIVE BOB WHITE

"Hey," cried Jack grasping Arnold roughly by the shoulder, "Where is your prisoner? You're a pretty guard, you are."

Sheepishly Arnold glanced around, now thoroughly awake.

"Has he gone?" he asked in a wondering tone. "Where is he?"

"Yes, indeed, he went hours ago," a.s.serted Frank. "He was lying here sleeping and a big side wheel boat pulled up with a band playing. They tied up to the Fortuna, fired a salute of twenty-one guns in honor of royalty and then the band filed through the cabin, one at a time, playing their instruments as hard as they could blow. The invalid got up and walked away with them and after another salute of twenty-one guns, the steamer pulled away upstream."

"They did not," protested Arnold stretching himself.

"Well, if they had, it wouldn't have affected you in the least,"

declared Jack. "We were all tired out and none of us heard him get away.

Even Rowdy didn't say anything against it and when Rowdy keeps quiet things are pretty still. He's a light sleeper."

"How about it, Rowdy?" inquired Arnold caressing the bulldog. "You'll stick up for me, won't you, old pal?"

Rowdy's stumpy tail wagged ecstatically as Arnold lavished affection upon him. He endeavored to "kiss" all hands, but this was discouraged.

The boys dearly loved their pet but objected to "kisses."

"Anyhow," decided Arnold, "Rowdy never would have let the chap get away if he had thought he was here for harm. So that means the boy is all right! He may have come here a bad boy, but he went away a good one or Rowdy never would have let him go. So there!"

"There might be something in that, too," admitted Jack.

"All hands on deck for a bath," sang out Tom. "I feel dirty!"

"Let's run out of the harbor and get some clean water," Harry proposed.

"This river looks pretty thick to me."

All the boys thought the idea a good one and accordingly the anchor was lifted and the Fortuna put out to sea a short distance.

The morning was a glorious one. Old Sol cast his rays upon the sea which gave them back broken and shattered into a thousand shafts of shimmering light. The air was cool and clear. Here and there in the distance a white sail like a fleeting gull marked the position of a sailing vessel, while a smudge of smoke from a steamer far away to the west lent a touch of color.

No time was lost by the boys in starting the pump. Soon a stream of water from the hose was playing on the deck. All hands seized brushes and scrubbed the decks industriously until they shone in spotlessness.

Then the hose was turned on the crew, each boy in turn enjoying hugely a shower bath of sea-water. After splashing about to their hearts' content someone mentioned breakfast.

"Let's run out a ways and see what we can catch," cried Arnold. "I'd like a broiled fish for breakfast."