Dave Fearless and the Cave of Mystery Part 5

"One thing at a time, then," Dave heard the pilot say next in order.

"See, my friend."

"A brush, a little bottle of paint?" inquired Schmitt-Schmitt.

Dave wriggled and twisted his neck to get a focus on these two articles, which the pilot held up. Then the pilot leaned over and said something to his companion in so low a tone that Dave could not catch its import.

"Capital, capital, oh, that is just famous!" gloated Schmitt-Schmitt.

"You have found the man to experiment on?"

"He will be here to-night."

"And after the stuff is on?"

"Bah--a sponge and some turpentine, and the patient recovers."

"Good, good!" said Schmitt-Schmitt. "Yes, that will indeed delay the _Swallow_. Now, listen, my friend: I must not run the risk of being seen by any of the _Swallow_ people."

"No, indeed."

"It would at once give them their cue--my escape from the Windjammers'

Island. I have packed my valise, I will disappear for a few days."

"Excellent. You will go at once?"

"I think so. You will remember! A blue light, I am sick or in danger.

A red light, I need provisions."

"Signal any time from ten to twelve. I will be on the watch. If you say so I will start up the launch at once and take you to your destination."

"H'm," mused Dave, as double footsteps sounded the length of the porch.

"Some new mysterious trick to delay the _Swallow_? Schmitt-Schmitt going away somewhere? This is too interesting to miss."

Dave crept out from under the porch. He dodged in among some bushes.

Peering thence he saw Schmitt-Schmitt leading the way towards the beach, the pilot carrying his wicker satchel.

Dave did not venture to follow them direct. He lined the "frew-frew"

plantation, and at a clearing in it near the treadmill cut across it.

From the grinding-mill a rude wooden trough extended. This was full of a sticky resinous ma.s.s, and the ground all round was spattered with the glutinous substance.

"Frew-frew must be a sort of gum or oil they make from those stalks yonder," decided Dave. "The mischief! it's worse than fly paper."

Dave's shoes stuck to broad leaves and lifted them bodily as he walked; they became tangled in vines which raised about him like ropes. He made an effort to get out of the direct zone of stickiness.

Dave leaped over the edge of a board where the wooden trough ran in among tangled vines and plants.

"Oh, yes!" he gasped. In an instant, as his feet struck a soft, giving ma.s.s, Dave knew he was in danger. Unconsciously he had landed in the center of an immense cistern--the storage receptacle for the frew-frew product.

He tried to reach its edge but was held fast. He struggled to release his limbs but was pulled back and dragged down.

Dave sank in five seconds to the neck. His chin went under. As he started to yell his mouth was submerged. With a last dip eyesight was shut out and Dave sank under the sticky ma.s.s entirely submerged.

CHAPTER V

DOCTOR BARRELL'S "ACCIDENT"

"Begorra!"

That was the first expressive word that Dave Fearless heard as he realized that he had been suddenly saved from death by suffocation.

His eyes, mouth, ears, and nostrils were oozing with the sticky stuff in which he had taken so dangerous a bath. The top of his head seemed coming off. Dave felt as if he had been scalped.

Dave was lying on the gra.s.s and Stoodles was working over him, digging and dabbling with a handkerchief to get the youth's eyes and mouth clear of the glutinous "frew-frew."

"Sorra a bit too soon was I," said Pat, as Dave blinked and groaned.

"I've a lock of your hair for a keepsake, lad! I saw you go into that threacherous pit, I threw a plank across, I grasped your topknot. It was loike taking a drowned cat out of glue. Sit up, if you can't stand up. If you let that stuff harden once, you'll be stiff as a statoo."

Dave tried to arise. He dragged gra.s.s, dirt, vines, and weeds up with him. By this time he could breathe and see. Stoodles got a stick and sc.r.a.ped off from his clothes as much as he could of the adhesive ma.s.s that coated Dave.

"Come on, lad," directed Stoodles, grasping an arm of his tottering companion. "It's a brickdust bath in soft soap you'll be needing.

Acushla! but I stick to you like a brother."

Dave's feet gathered up everything they came in contact with. Then, every time he brushed a bit of foliage, the frew-frew took off leaves, and he began to look green and picturesque.

"Where is Bob Vilett?" he asked.

"I dunno," answered Stoodles. "I do know it was lucky I saw you thrailing the pilot and that rascally p.a.w.nbroker. If I hadn't you'd have been a goner, Dave Fearless."

"I guess I should," responded Dave, with a shudder, and then a grateful look at this eccentric but loyal friend. "Where have those two gone--did you notice, Mr. Stoodles?"

"Only that they set off seaward in a little launch."

"Get me to the _Swallow_, I have a lot to tell Captain Broadbeam now."

They lined the beach. A good many craft of various kinds were visible in the opening. All of them were too far distant to enable Dave to make out which one might contain the pilot and Schmitt-Schmitt.

When they got to the place of rendezvous where they had left the ship's yawl, Bob Vilett was discovered lying on the sand.

"Wandered off on a wrong trail," he reported; "wasted time and thought I was due here. Dave, what have you been into!"

"Frew-frew, I believe they call it, Bob."

"Phew-phew I'd call it," remarked Pat. "Up with the jibboom and across the briny, Bob. If we don't get our friend Fearless into hot water and soap soon, we'll have to chip off his coat of mail with chisels."