Boy Scouts in Southern Waters Part 6

"Good idea, I say," offered Harry. "Who do you suppose it is making the smoke? Wish it were someone from Chicago."

"Maybe it would be a good idea to see how our pa.s.senger is getting on,"

suggested Arnold. "I believe I'll slip down and see."

He stepped down the companion way and in a moment the boys heard him shout excitedly back:

"Somebody come here, quickly. The Fortuna's taking in water fast. It's up over the floor boards now and the engine is throwing it around in great shape. Our pa.s.senger's gone!"

CHAPTER V

WIG-WAGGING A WARNING

Tom and Harry quickly followed their chum to the cabin, where their eyes were greeted by the sight of water rising above the floor of the forward compartment.

"She's started a b.u.t.t!" declared Tom with a tremor in his usually cheery voice. "She's started a b.u.t.t and we'll have to beach her or she'll sink right out here in the Gulf of Mexico!"

"No, she won't!" snapped Harry. "Get the hand bilge pump going and I'll start the power pump with the electric light engine!"

Quickly the directions were followed. Tom and Arnold speedily a.s.sailed the rising water with the hand pump, while Harry started the gasoline engine that operated their dynamo, connecting it to the power pump.

Together the two agencies gained on the rising flood that threatened to swamp the st.u.r.dy Fortuna. Eagerly the boys plied the handle of the pump, keeping an eye upon the bilge.

Harry went about lifting floor boards and peering here and there in an effort to discover the source of the great leak.

"Ha!" he shouted from the after cabin. "Here's the trouble! Come here, you fellows, and bear a hand. Get something to plug this hole in the Fortuna's side. This is sheer murder!"

Trusting the power pump to keep abreast of the incoming water, Tom and Arnold deserted their post at the hand pump and sprang to a.s.sist their chum whose cries told them that something had been found.

The sight that met their eyes was a startling one.

Harry had removed the floor boards from the center of the cabin and was reaching down to the bilge. A spray of water squirted up into his face drenching him thoroughly.

"Get something to plug this hole!" he gasped. "I'm drowning!"

Looking about hastily for means to plug the hole, Tom offered a jacket he had picked up from the locker. Arnold seized a fid from another locker. Harry shut his eyes, turned his head side-wise and gasped for breath. Reaching out for the jacket he took it from the hand of his friend and tried to push it into the hole through which the water was pouring steadily. His efforts were fruitless.

"Here, take this," urged Arnold. "This fid will plug a big hole and jam it tight, too. Is it a b.u.t.t started?"

Harry took the fid from his chum. Quickly he inserted the pointed end into the hole he had been trying to cover with his hand.

"Give me a hammer or something to knock with and I'll try to drive this into the hole. It's not a b.u.t.t, it's an auger hole!"

"An auger hole?" both boys gasped in horror.

"An auger hole!" repeated Harry, his lips set and white. "Just a little more and we'd have been beyond all help. I think this idea of helping unfortunate castaways is getting to be a good thing."

"Why, who on earth could have been so cold-blooded as to have bored a hole in our vessel?" cried Arnold. "Surely it wasn't the man whose life we just saved a short time ago!"

"I came into this cabin," a.s.serted Harry "and could hear the rush of water. I thought the leak must be here. Of course, I thought at first that we had started a b.u.t.t in the rolling a while back, when our friend Carlos Sneakodorus Madero boarded us and left us."

"But that seems impossible," incredulously offered Tom. "The Fortuna was built at Manitowoc where they have a reputation of doing first cla.s.s work and she hasn't had rough handling at all."

"It was impossible!" cried Harry. "Just as I knelt to raise the floor board I saw that auger lying there. Then as I raised the board, I saw a handful of white chips float up through the hole."

"And then you saw the stream of water?" queried Arnold.

"That's all there is to it, except the fact that the life-belts are pulled from their places on the ceiling," answered Harry.

"Sure enough, they're down in a heap," declared Arnold.

"And if you count them," Harry continued, "I'll wager my next meal that you'll find one missing. I can also guess who is wearing it at this moment if he hasn't thrown it away!"

"Do you mean the man we picked up--the man who was knocked off the schooner?" breathlessly queried the younger boy.

"That's the man we want!" announced Harry. "And maybe I won't do a thing to him when I lay hands on him. Boy Scout or not, I'll put a dent in his dome that'll hold coffee like a saucer!"

"Will that fid hold?" questioned Tom examining the spot.

"No, I don't think it will," was Harry's reply. "We'd better get a plug of that soft pine in the lazarette, then when it gets soaked it'll swell and hold tight. This fid's made of hard wood. It may hold all right for a while, but it'll work loose just when it should hold. If you'll get the pine, Arnold, I'll make a plug."

Arnold hastened to bring the wood while Tom looked to the pumps and examined the cabin for further damage.

"He got an automatic or two from the locker in the kitchenette," he announced returning to the after cabin after his search.

"If he took those two lying on the lower shelf," announced Harry, "he got only one automatic! That's a joke on him."

"What do you mean by that?" Arnold asked returning with the desired piece of wood. "If the man took two, he took only one!"

"Because" explained Harry fitting the plug into place, "the other is a flashlight made in the shape of an automatic."

Laughing over the joke unconsciously played upon himself by their late visitor, the boys repaired to the pilot house where the gravity of the situation was repeated to Jack, who had been at the wheel controlling the movements of the Fortuna and keeping a lookout.

"I was examining the coast a moment ago with the gla.s.ses and saw what I took to be a man wading ash.o.r.e back of our present position," explained Jack. "He looked as if he had on a life belt, but I couldn't be sure because I couldn't hold the gla.s.ses steady and handle the boat, too.

Suppose one of you take the gla.s.ses and see what you can make out along the sh.o.r.e line in both directions."

Tom took the binoculars, mounted to the cabin roof, and swept diligently the sh.o.r.e line in both directions.

"What can you make out?" inquired Jack from the pilot house.

"I see a fellow just as you described, only he's not wearing a life belt. He seems to be crossing the strip of beach sand to the fringe of pines a short distance inland. I don't see any automatic flashlight in his hand, though!" whimsically announced the watching lad. "Then on the other hand, I can see two smokes that look like a Boy Scout call for help and between the two fires I can see a Boy Scout running back and forth and waving his hat."

"How do you know he's a Boy Scout?" challenged Harry.

"Well, if he started Boy Scout signals, he'd be a Boy Scout, wouldn't he?" replied Tom. Besides, he's red headed like Arnold and homely like Harry and kind hearted like Jack and good like Tom. That's enough for me."