The Boy Aviators' Flight for a Fortune Part 13

It was very late-or rather early morning-when they retired, and before long all were wrapped in the deep sleep of exhaustion. Ben was the first to awaken, to find the sun streaming into the hut.

"Great guns!" he exclaimed, glancing at Billy's alarm clock on a shelf, "it's after seven."

Broad awake in a jiffy, he aroused the others, going from the floor sleepers to the bunks. Dr. Perkins, Mr. Sterrett and the latter's friend were awakened in turn, and it was not till then that Ben noticed that Duval's bunk was empty.

"Good fer him," he said to himself warmly, "the young chap has started to turn over a new leaf by gittin' out early. I'll take a turn outside afore breakfast and see if I can find him."

But Duval was not about the workshop, nor did Ben's calls summon him to breakfast. It was not till that instant that an ugly suspicion flashed into Ben's. .h.i.therto unsuspecting mind. Without saying a word to the others he hastily drew out his wallet and, withdrawing to a corner of the hut, examined its contents. Instantly his suspicions were verified.

The plan of the location of the wreck of the _Belle of New Orleans_ was missing!

Stifling his anger as well as he could, Ben hastened to the beach. As he had suspected the moment he found the plan missing, the small skiff was gone. What had happened was as plain as print to Ben now. Young Duval had waited till all in the hut were asleep, then he had stealthily crept from his bunk, recovered the plan he had given to Ben, and had decamped in the small boat.

"Waal, the dern scallywag!" burst out Ben, as he stood on the beach in the first shock of his discovery.

In his anger he shook his fist at the strip of sea between the island and the mainland to which, he did not doubt, Duval had crossed in his flight.

"The-the-precious scamp!" he continued, his bronzed features working, "and I trusted him as I would have trusted his dad."

Shaking his head, Ben slowly made his way from the beach back to the hut. He said nothing of his discovery during breakfast, but after the meal he found a pretext for drawing Dr. Perkins to one side. To him he communicated what had occurred.

"A good riddance of bad rubbish," said Dr. Perkins when Ben, whose voice shook with anger, had concluded his story; "we are cheaply rid of him, Ben."

The inventor, while not a selfish man, was so wrapped up in the success of the _Sea Eagle_ that, to him, the loss of the plan of the wreck did not appeal in the same way that it did to Ben Stubbs. But the old adventurer took him up indignantly.

"Bad rubbish, as you say, sir," he grated out, "but if that paper hadn't bin worth something Duval wouldn't have taken it. It's good-by to recovering that stuff from the _Belle of New Orleans_ now."

"By Jove! I'd quite forgotten my promise to you," said Dr. Perkins contritely; "but never fear, Ben, I'll see that you are not a loser."

"It ain't that," rejoined Ben; "I don't give a snap for the plan; but it's the ingrat.i.tood of that young whippersnapper that's got me sore.

I'd like-I'd like to find that wreck just to get ahead of him."

"Humph!" rejoined the inventor, "I understand your feelings. He has certainly treated you very badly. But possibly we can think up some way to outgeneral him."

"Don't see how we are goin' to do it without that plan," rejoined Ben; "but I ain't one to cry over spilt milk. It's gone, and that's all there is to it. The best thing to do is to forget it."

Frank and Harry, on their way to the _Sea Eagle's_ shelter, were pa.s.sing at the moment. After asking the inventor if he thought it would be advisable, and receiving an affirmative reply, Ben called them over. As briefly as he could he told them what had happened.

"Well, the precious rascal!" broke out Frank; "I thought there was something snaky-looking about the chap last night. Isn't there a chance of catching him?"

"Not such a slick rascal as he is, Frank," rejoined Ben despondently; "no, the plan is gone, and gone for good-so good-by to that."

But Harry now spoke up, and to the astonishment of the others his voice did not hold a trace of the disappointment they could not help but feel.

"Cheer up, Ben," he said heartily, "and by the way you might just cast your eye over this and see if it looks familiar."

As he spoke he dipped a hand into his breast pocket and produced a folded paper. Ben, with a mystified expression, took it and opened the thing up. The next instant it almost fell from his hands.

"Why!-why, by the glittering Pole Star!" he choked out, "it's the plan itself!"

"Not exactly," laughed Harry, "but I think it's a pretty good copy. You see I always liked drawing and that sort of thing, so when you showed me that plan I memorized it, and when I got a chance I sketched out this copy in case anything happened to the original. I think it's good enough to take a chance on."

"Good enough!" roared Ben, "why, lad, it's the plan itself. Now, then, if we don't beat Master Duval to the _Belle of New Orleans_ call me a double-decked, lee-scuppered sea cook!"

CHAPTER XV.-WHAT HAPPENED ASh.o.r.e.

As Ben had surmised, Duval had waited till the boys and their friends were sound asleep, and had then, in accordance with a plan he had thought of the instant he set eyes on his kind-hearted friend, sneaked out of his bunk and, tip-toeing softly to Ben's clothes, located the wallet and with small trouble or loss of time abstracted the plan of the lost wreck. During the evening the ingrate had heard a description of the island given to Mr. Sterrett by Dr. Perkins, so that after taking the plan he left the hut and made for the beach by the path through the woods.

Shoving off the skiff, he had taken up the oars and started rowing as fast as he could for the mainland. But what with the darkness and his unfamiliarity with that part of the coast, he had failed to land in the cove adjoining the fisher village of Motthaven, and had beached his craft a considerable distance to the south of the place. It was just growing light when the bow of the skiff grated on the sand, and Duval hastily scrambled out and started off. His object was to find a railroad station and travel as far as his scant supply of money would take him from the vicinity of Brig Island.

After that his plans were still vague; but he had an indefinite idea of getting to New York or some large town, and interesting anybody with capital to finance an expedition for the recovery of the gold dust chest and the bag of black pearls that lay at the bottom of the Black Bayou amid the moldering timbers of the lost steamer. The utter depravity and black-heartedness of this plan, and his base ingrat.i.tude to the man who had aided him in every way, did not strike him. Instead, there was but one over-mastering thought in his mind, and that was to secure whatever treasure might be in the wreck as quickly as possible, and then vanish from America for some foreign country with his ill-gotten wealth.

Busy with such thoughts as these, he hastened up the beach in the gray of the dawn, and finding a rough sort of path leading up the low cliff that overhung the beach, he started to ascend it. He had not gone more than a few paces, however, before he saw, buried back in some trees, a rough-looking hut.

Duval was hungry and thirsty, and, moreover, his long row, at such a feverish pace, had exhausted him. Determining to tell a story that would account for his presence in that isolated part of the coast at such an early hour, he made up his mind to apply at the hut for some refreshment. His story was to be that he had set off on a fishing expedition and had lost his way and been wandering all night.

"Probably only some fool fisherman lives there who will believe anything I choose to tell him," he thought; "these fellows are all as thick as mud, anyhow."

Musing to himself in this fashion, the renegade fellow made his way toward the hut and, coming to the door, knocked loudly on it. But there was no answer, and when, after repeated knockings, he could elicit no response, Duval determined that, as there appeared to be n.o.body at home, he would walk in uninvited and see what he could "forage" for himself.

The door was unlocked; in fact, it had no latch and hung crazily on its rusty hinges. Opening it, Duval found himself in an interior as rough and uncouth as the outside of the hut had promised. A table made of old planks, seemingly flotsam from the beach, two soap boxes for chairs, and a rough sort of bunk, or rather shelf, littered with a pile of dirty old blankets, made up the furnishings. On the table were the remains of a meal, which had consisted apparently of roasted lobsters and fish. Two tin cups and tin plates, with battered knives and forks beside them, completed the table service.

"Confound it all," muttered Duval, "whoever lives here is as poor as a church mouse. Some miserable fisherman, I suppose, who has hardly enough to keep body and soul together."

He walked to a corner of the shack where there was a sort of cupboard contrived out of old boxes. He had guessed that this formed the pantry of the establishment. Sure enough, in it he found a loaf half consumed, and the remains of a roasted lobster, as well as some sc.r.a.ps of fish. He was too hungry to be particular and was just about to start eating when a quick step behind him caused him to start violently, dropping the food he had in his hand.

But before he could utter a word the young man-or, rather, loutish boy-who had entered so quietly, owing to his being barefooted, stepped up to him and, raising a heavy oar he carried, dealt the intruder a blow that deprived him of his senses for the time being.

As Duval fell to the floor a man in rough fisherman's garb, with a wrinkled, mahogany-tinged face and a tuft of gray whisker on his prominent chin, entered.

"Why, Zeb, what's up?" he exclaimed, in an astonished voice.

"I found this feller snoopin' about in here, pop," was the rejoinder, "an' I calkelated ter lay him out till we could find out what his business was."

"Good ernuff, boy," responded the elder Daniels, for most of our readers must be aware by this time of the ident.i.ty of the two newcomers; "but who do yer suppose he is? He's dressed like one of them fancy sailors off'n a yacht."

"Dad, I figger he's a detective sent here by them kids on Brig Island.

That's the way it looks to me."

"I guess you're right, Zeb. Here, give me a hand to get him up on the bunk. By hickory, but you must have hit him a clip."

"Reckon I did land kind er hard on him, dad, but I wasn't takin' chances of his turning on me."

The two worthies lifted Duval's limp form and laid it, not over-gently, on the tumbled pile of frowsy blankets. This done, a sudden thought struck the elder Daniels.