Curlie Carson Listens In Part 14

"Yes, quite a bit; had a shift on one of those marine kinds last summer on the Great Lakes."

"Good! You'll have to take a shift here on the _Kittlewake_. This trip can't be made without sleep. I'll spell the captain at the wheel and you can relieve that lanky engineer."

Again they lapsed into silence. Half unconsciously each boy was taking stock of the craft they had requisitioned, trying to judge whether or not she was equal to the task she had been put to. Speed she had in plenty. "Do forty knots a 'our," the skipper put it, "an' never 'eat a bearin'."

She was a trim craft. Narrow of beam, a two-master with a steel hull that stood well out of the water forward, she rode the water with the repose and high glee of the bird she was named after.

"Yes, she's a beauty, and a go-getter," Curlie was thinking to himself, "but in a storm, now, four or five hundred miles from land, what then?"

Had he known how soon his question was to be answered he might well have shuddered.

"Better go down and have a look at the engines before you turn in for a wink of sleep," he told Joe.

When Joe had gone below, Curlie still sat there on the rail aft. The throb of the engines beneath him, the rapid rush of air that fanned his cheek, was medicine to his weary brain. He had been caught in a whirlwind of events and here, for a time, he had been cast down in a quiet place where his mind might clear itself of the wreckage of thought that had been torn up and strewn about within it.

It had been a wild race. He had lost thus far; would he lose in the end? Had he, after all, trusted too much to theory? Had these two sons of rich men really only gone for some picnic trip to a well-known island farther south along the coast? Or had they, as he had a.s.sumed, guided by their ancient map, gone in search of the island of "many barbarians and much gold," an island which he was convinced existed only in name?

The girl, too; what had she meant when she said she was in some ways responsible for her brother's actions? There was something queer about the whole affair. Who had taken the wireless equipment from the wrecked car out there by the Forest Preserve? Did young Ardmore have the ancient original of that interesting map or only the photograph? If he did not have it, who was in possession of it? Strange thing that it would be lost for a hundred years only to have a brand-new photograph of it show up all at once. Rather ghostly, he thought. He had meant to ask Gladys Ardmore about that. He'd ask her now if she were here. But he was more than glad she was not here.

"No trip for a girl," he told himself, "and she said she'd go. Strange she gave it up so easily. Strange that--"

His thoughts broke off suddenly as he stared forward. The _Kittlewake_ was equipped with three cabins; a forecastle and aftercabin, both below the main deck, built largely for stormy weather, and a fair-weather cabin in the center of the main deck. The night was dark, the moon not having come up. It was difficult to distinguish objects at a distance, but, unless his eyes deceived him, Curlie saw some object, all white and ghostly, rising slowly from the hatchway leading to the forecastle. Cold perspiration sprang out upon his brow, his heart beat madly, his knees trembled as he involuntarily moved forward. That was the way he had of treating ghosts; he walked straight at them.

In the meantime, had one been on some craft three hundred miles farther on in the direct course of the _Kittlewake_, he might have caught the thunderous drumming of two powerful Liberty motors. He might also have seen a spot of light playing constantly upon the black waters. While this light was constant, it moved rapidly forward in a wide circle. The circle was never the same in size or location, yet the spot of light did not move more than twenty miles in any direction from a certain given center. The spot of illumination came from a powerful searchlight mounted upon a seaplane. It was manipulated by a boy in the rear seat. A second boy drove the plane. These boys, as you have no doubt long since guessed, were Vincent Ardmore and his reckless pal, Alfred Brightwood.

This light had been playing upon the water since darkness had fallen, some three hours before. They had been circling for four hours. Their hopes of completing their search before dark had been thwarted by a defective engine which had compelled them to make a landing upon the sea when the journey was only half completed.

At this particular moment the plane was climbing steadily. It was a perfect "man-bird" of the air, was this _Stormy Petrel_. With broad spreading planes and powerful motors, it was the type of plane that now and again hops off from some point in England during the dewy morning hours and carries her crew safely to Cuba without a single stop.

Yet these boys were not planning a trip across to Europe. They were, as Curlie had supposed they might be, hunting for the island of "many barbarians and much gold."

When they had mounted to a considerable height, Alfred shut off the engines and allowed her to volplane toward the sea.

"Aw, let's give it up and get back," said Vincent downheartedly. "It's not here. Probably that old map-maker made a mistake of a trifling hundred miles or so."

"That's a grand idea!" exclaimed Brightwood, grasping at a straw. "Not a hundred miles but perhaps thirty or forty miles. Old boy, we'll be cooking lunch on a stove of pure gold in half an hour. You'll see! Just get your light fixed right and I'll take a wider circle. That'll get it."

"But if we use up much more gas we won't get back to land," hesitated Vincent.

"Land! Who wants to get back to land!" the other exploded. "If worst comes to worst we've got the wireless, haven't we? We can light on the water and send out an S. O. S., can't we? I must say you're a mighty b.u.m sailor."

"Oh, all right," said Vincent, stung into silence, "go ahead and try it."

Again the motors thundered. Again the spot light traced a circular path across the dark waters, which to the boy who held the light, appeared to be reaching up black, fiendish hands to drag them down. This time the circle they cut was many miles in circ.u.mference, miles which drew deeply from the supply of gasoline in their tanks.

CHAPTER XIV

THE COMING STORM

As Curlie's feet carried him forward on the deck of the _Kittlewake_, his eyes beheld the ghost which rose from the hatch taking on a familiar form. A white middy blouse, short white skirt and a white tarn, worn by a slender girl, moved forward to meet him. As the form came into the square of light cast by a cabin window, his lips framed her name:

"Gladys Ardmore!"

"Why, yes," she smiled, "didn't you expect me? I told you I thought I'd go."

"And I said you should not." Her coolness angered him.

"You forget that this is my father's boat. A man's daughter should always be a welcome guest on his boat."

"But--but that's not it," he hesitated. "This is not a pleasure trip.

We are going five hundred miles straight to sea in a boat intended for sh.o.r.e travel. It's likely to storm." He sniffed the air and held his cheek to the breeze that was already breaking the water into little choppy waves. "It is going to be dangerous."

"But you are going," she said soberly, "to the a.s.sistance of my brother.

I have a better right than you to risk my life to save my own brother. I can be of a.s.sistance to you. Truly, I can. I can be the galley cook."

"You a cook?" He looked his surprise.

"Certainly. Do you think a rich man's daughter can do nothing but play tennis and pour tea? Those times are gone, if indeed they ever existed.

I am as able to do things as is your sister, if you have one."

"But," said Curlie suddenly, "I am going from a sense of duty. Having set out to have your brother arrested I mean to do it."

For a full moment she stared at him stupefied. Then she said slowly, through set, white lips: "You wouldn't do that?"

"Why shouldn't I?" His tone was more gentle. "He has broken the laws of the air. Time and again he sent messages on 600, a radio wave length reserved to coast and ship service alone. He has hindered sea traffic and once narrowly escaped being the death of brave men at sea."

"Oh," she breathed, sinking down upon a coil of cable, "I--didn't know it was as bad as that. And I--I--knew all about it. I--I--"

She did not finish but sat there staring at him. At last she spoke again. Her tone was strained and husky with emotion.

"You--you'll want to arrest me too when you know the truth."

"You'll not be dragged into it unless you insist."

"But I do insist!" She sprang to her feet. Her nails digging into her clenched fists, she faced him. Her eyes were bright and terrible.

"Do you think," she fairly screamed, "that I would be part of a thing that was wrong, whether I knew it or not at the time, and then when trouble came from it, do you think that I would sneak out of it and allow someone else to suffer for it? Do you think I'd sneak out of it because anyone would let me--because I am a girl?"

Completely at a loss to know what to do upon this turn of events, Curlie stood there staring back at the girl.

She at last sank back upon her seat. Curlie took three turns around the deck. At last he approached her with a steady step.

"Miss Ardmore," he said, taking off his cap, "I apologize. I--I really didn't know that a girl could be that kind of a real sport."

Before she could answer he hurried on: "For the time being we can let the matter we were just speaking of rest. Matters far more important than the vindicating of the law, important as that always is, are before us. Your brother and his friend, unless I am mistaken, are in grave danger. We may be able to save them; we may not. We can but try and this trial requires all our wisdom and strength.