Saboteurs on the River Part 25

"Why, the fellow who rented the boat did have such a watch!" Sara cried when Penny mentioned the timepiece. "I didn't notice the scar. What is his name?"

"Louise and I never were able to learn," Penny replied with regret. "The Green Parrot has closed its doors, so I don't know how you can get in touch with him."

Sara sighed. Placing an oar, a bailer, and a can of gasoline in the boat, she prepared to leave the dock.

"I'll be lucky if I ever see the fellow again," she commented. Hesitating a moment, she asked diffidently: "Don't suppose you girls would like to go along?"

Penny and Louise wondered if their ears had betrayed them. It seemed beyond belief that Sara actually would invite them to accompany her.

"Why, of course, we'd like to go," Penny accepted, before her chum could find her voice.

Scrambling out of the dinghy, the girls made it fast to the dock and transferred to the other boat. Sara opened the throttle, and they shot away, leaving behind a trail of churning foam. Out through the slip they raced, rounding a channel buoy at breakneck speed.

"You can certainly handle a boat," Penny said admiringly.

"Been at it since I was a kid," Sara grinned. "I could cruise this river blindfolded."

They pa.s.sed the floating barge, observing that a Coast Guard cutter was proceeding up river to take it in tow. Turning upstream, Sara swung the boat toward sh.o.r.e.

"Keep close watch of the bushes," she directed the girls. "If you see anything that looks like a hidden boat, sing out."

At low speed they crept along the river, watching for marks in the sand which might reveal where a craft had been pulled out of water. Once, venturing too close in, Sara went aground and had to push off with the oars.

"It doesn't look as if we'll have any luck," she remarked gloomily. "The boat's probably so well hidden, it would take a ferret to find it."

They kept on upstream toward the Seventh Street Bridge, a structure much in use since the more modern Thompson's Bridge had been closed to auto traffic. Penny, watching the stream of vehicles pa.s.sing above, remarked that Riverview commerce would be paralyzed should anything occur to damage it.

"The Seventh Street Bridge now is the only artery open to the Riverview Munitions Plant," Sara added. "I understand it's being guarded day and night. By a better watchman than Carl Oaks, I hope."

Without pa.s.sing the bridge, the girls turned downstream, searching the opposite sh.o.r.e. Before they had gone far, Sara beached the boat on a stretch of sand.

"It was along here that Burt found our canoe last year," she explained.

"If you don't mind waiting, I'll get out and prowl around a bit."

"Aren't we near Bug Run?" Penny inquired.

Sara pointed out the mouth of the stream which was hidden from view by a clump of willows.

"If you expect to be here a few minutes, Louise and I might pay Old Noah a flying visit," Penny said eagerly. "We're curious to learn what has happened to him."

"I'll be around for at least half an hour," Sara replied. "Take your time."

Penny and Louise set off along the twisting bank of Bug Run. Approaching the vicinity of the ark, they noticed many corked blue bottles caught amid the debris of the sluggish stream.

"I'll bet a cent and a half that Old Noah still is on the old stamping grounds!" Penny remarked. "Sheriff Anderson probably hasn't found a way to get rid of him. Why, unless a regular deluge floods this stream, the ark never could be floated out to the main river."

"The sheriff could put Old Noah in jail."

"True, but a great many people would criticize him if he did."

A moment later the girls rounded a bend and saw the ark in its usual setting. A long clothes line had been stretched from bow to stern, and wet garments fresh from the wash tub, flapped in the breeze.

"Well, Noah is still here," chuckled Penny. "He's run up the white flag though! Or should we say the white flags!"

On the deck of the ark, Old Noah was so busy that he failed to note the approach of the two girls. He stood in the center of a ring of soiled clothes, laboring diligently over a tub of steaming suds.

As the girls reached the gangplank, a dog from inside the ark began an excited barking. Startled, Old Noah glanced up. Unnoticed by him, his long white beard slipped into the soapy water and he rubbed it vigorously on the washboard.

Scarcely able to control a giggle, Penny followed her chum aboard the ark. As Old Noah kept on scrubbing his beard she could not resist asking: "Excuse me, but aren't you was.h.i.+ng your whiskers by mistake?"

Surprised, the old man straightened to his full height. Squeezing the dripping beard, he carefully wrung it out. Next he produced a comb from his loose fitting brown pantaloons, and painstakingly unsnarled the tangles. Then turning to the girls, he greeted them with his usual dignity.

"Good morning, my daughters. I am glad you kept your promise to visit me again."

"Good morning, Noah," responded Penny, trying not to laugh. "We thought we would drop by and see if you were still here. I remember Sheriff Anderson said he was going to call on you again."

The old man's weather beaten face crinkled into deep wrinkles. "Ho, ho!

So he did, but he reckoned without the Might of the Righteous. I was watching for him when he came."

"I hope you didn't mistreat him," Penny said uneasily.

"When I observed his approach I untied my two hounds, Nip and Tuck, and hid myself in the forest. He was gone when I returned to the ark."

"Likewise, part of his anatomy, I suppose," commented Penny.

"Nip and Tuck did cause a commotion," Old Noah acknowledged, "but they did him no harm. When he went away the sheriff left a cowardly note tacked to a tree. It said he would return to dispossess me. Before that happens, I will blow this ark to Kingdom Come!"

"How will you do that?" inquired Penny, rather amused.

"With dynamite."

"Do you have any aboard the ark?"

Old Noah smiled mysteriously. "I know where I can lay my hands on all I'll need. When I was hiding in the woods yesterday, I saw where they keep it."

Penny and Louise glanced quickly at each other. While it was possible that Old Noah was talking wildly, the mention of dynamite made them uneasy. If it were true that he had come into possession of such a cache, then obviously it was their duty to report to the authorities.

"Who hid the dynamite?" Penny asked.

"I do not rightly know," replied Old Noah. "It may have been those strangers who were pestering me last night. They came to my ark and were very nosey, asking me about this and that."

"Not officers?"

"They had no connection with the Law, speaking of it with great contempt."

"How many men were there, Noah?"

"Two."