The Adventure Club Afloat Part 22

"I--I didn't know!" gasped Perry. "I--we saw you come in--and you looked like--like a--"

"You've said that already!" said the man, "Never mind my criminal looks, young man!"

"No, sir, we don't--I mean I was mistaken, sir! But, you see, it looked so--so queer, you coming in like that--"

"Queer! What was queer about it!" demanded Mr. Drummond irascibly, "No one but a parcel of young idiots would think it queer!" He took an envelope from his pocket, tossed it into the safe, closed door and panel and faced them again. "Who are you, anyway? I don't remember you."

"Er--my name--my name--" stammered Perry, "my name--"

"Well, well! Don't you know your name? Who invited you here?"

"Yes, sir, oh, yes, sir! It's Bush. We--you see, we were on the porch there, and we wanted to get back to the--the front of the house--"

"Who invited you here, tonight? Who--" The host's expression changed from indignation to suspicion. "Huh!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Robber, eh! Well, what were you doing in this room? Seems to me--hm! We'll look into this, I think!" He stepped back and touched a b.u.t.ton in the wall. "We'll have this explained! We'll see who the robber is! We--"

"_Good night!_" Perry spurned the table against which he was leaning, hurdled a chair and plunged down the room. Ossie was at his heels and Wink was a good third. They fled at top speed and from behind them came the irate commands of their host:

"Stop! Come back! Stop, I say!"

But they didn't stop. They only ran faster. Wink beat Ossie to the first window easily and pa.s.sed out even with Perry. And as they landed on the stone flagging outside they heard Mr. Drummond excitedly directing the pursuit.

"Quick, Wilkins! Get them! They tried to rob the house!" Mr. Drummond's voice pursued them along the verandah. "Help! Robbers! Head them off!"

The boys took the stone steps in two bounds, crashed at the bottom into a hedge, went tearing through and emerged beyond in a service yard, dimly lighted by one struggling electric bulb over a back doorway. It was Ossie who fell into the clothes basket and Wink who collided with the clothes reel and sent it spinning wildly and creakingly around in the darkness. Perry fortunately avoided all pitfalls and was leading by six yards when he reached the top of another flight of steps and saw the marquee and the dancing platform and the gay lights at his right. To make their way in that direction would be sheer folly, while in front of them lay a tangle of shrubbery and trees. Into this they hurtled, as from behind them came cries of "Stop, thief!" and the crunching of many footsteps.

Off went Wink's hat as he fled after the scurrying Perry. Ossie went down in a tangle of briars and p.r.i.c.kly things with a grunt, rolled somehow clear and was off again. "This way!" shouted a voice. "I seen 'em! They went in here! Come on, men!"

Perry was running alongside a wall now, as he hoped, in the general direction of the street. Behind him came Wink and Ossie, cras.h.i.+ng through shrubbery with a desperate disregard for noise. Then suddenly, the wall turned abruptly to the right. Perry stopped short, looked and decided.

"We've got to get over!" he gasped, as Wink ran blindly into him. "Give me a leg-up!"

Wink leaned weakly against the wall and Perry set a foot on his cupped hands and was just able to reach the top of the wall. But that was enough. Up he climbed. Then up came Ossie, and together, while the pursuit drew instantly closer, they pulled Wink to safety. For a brief moment they sat there and caught their breath while wondering what lay below them in the gloom of the further side. But there was scant time for conjectures, for the pursuit was in sight. Three bodies launched themselves into s.p.a.ce, there was a frightful, devastating sound of breaking gla.s.s and the boys disengaged themselves from a cold-frame and sped on again into the darkness.

A house loomed suddenly before them, a house with lights and folks about the porch and a panting automobile curving its way down a drive. They turned to the right and kept along a lawn in the shadows of the trees.

The automobile pa.s.sed them with a purr and a sweeping flare of white light. Then Perry was after it and in another moment they were all three huddled somehow on the gas-tank at the rear and going with increasing speed out of the grounds and along a road. For a few minutes they hung there, breathing hard, and then Wink gasped:

"We've got to get off, Perry! It's going the wrong way!"

"If we do, we'll get killed," answered Perry. "Wait till it slows up."

They waited, but it seemed that it never would slow up. It went faster and faster. It pa.s.sed houses and stores and a church. It went like the wind. Ossie groaned as they left the village behind.

"I can't stay on much longer, fellows!" he said hopelessly. "I'm clinging by my t-t-teeth!"

"You've got to!" answered Perry above the noise of the exhaust. "You'll break something if you don't! Wait till it slows up!"

_Toot! Toot! To-o-oot!_ said the horn. And then, so suddenly that Perry's head collided with something particularly hard, the brakes squeaked harshly, the car slewed into an avenue and the boys, making the most of the opportunity, fell off. Ossie rolled a full half-dozen yards before his progress was stayed by a tree, and Wink, or so Perry declared afterwards, described a beautiful and quite perfect circle.

Bruised, breathless and dizzy, they got to their feet and staggered to the side of the road and subsided on the turf.

After a long minute Ossie said feebly: "Where--do you--suppose--we are?"

"About ten miles--in the country," answered Wink.

There was silence then, silence long and profound. At last they climbed to their feet and, without speaking, walked off in the darkness in the direction from which they had come. Perhaps ten minutes later there came the first sound to break the silence. It was a choking sort of gurgle from Wink.

"What's the matter with you?" inquired Perry listlessly.

"I was just--just thinking," replied Wink. "It was so--so--" But words failed him and he began to laugh. After a dubious instant Perry chuckled, and then Ossie, and presently they were clinging to each other convulsively in the middle of the unknown road and sending shrieks of laughter up to the starlit sky.

Over an hour later they reached the landing. Both tenders were gone. The _Follow Me_ was dark, but a faint light still burned aboard the _Adventurer_. Perry cupped his hands and sent a hail across the water. A sleepy response was followed by the sound of someone tumbling into the dingey and then by the measured creak of oars. Han was grumbling as he drew to the float.

"A fine time to be coming back," he said. "Where the d.i.c.kens did you fellows get to, anyway? We looked all around the shop for you. Did you get any grub?"

"N-no," answered Perry, as he sank wearily into a seat. "We got tired of sticking around there and--and went for a ride."

"A ride? Where to?"

"Oh, just around a bit. Out in the country a ways. Was--was the grub any good?"

"Was it!" Han grew quite animated. "It was the best ever! They had about a dozen kinds of salad, and cold meats all over the place, and sandwiches and cakes and ice-cream and ices and coffee and--"

"Oh, shut up!" begged Ossie almost tearfully.

"It was bully! Were you there when we chased the burglars?"

"When you--what?" asked Wink.

"Chased the burglars, I said. Mr. Drummer, or something--I never did get the name of the folks--found three of them trying to break into his safe, and they knocked him down and half-killed him, and the servants chased them, and then everyone took a hand! It was fine and exciting, I tell you! Had you gone off before that?"

"Why--er--seems to me we did hear something," said Perry. "When--when was this?"

"Oh, about a quarter to ten, I suppose. We were dancing--"

"_You_ were dancing?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Wink.

"Sure! All of us danced. Didn't you?"

"Who with, for the love of Mike?"

"Oh, lots of girls. Mrs. Thingamabob happened to find Joe standing around and made him tell her his name, and then she took him off and introduced him to some girls, and then he introduced the rest of us. It was a peachy floor. Some of the girls were all right, too."

"You seem to have got on fairly well," said Wink, "considering you weren't invited."

"We were invited just as much as you were," responded Han indignantly.

"Maybe, son, maybe," answered Wink, as he climbed aboard the darkened _Follow Me_, "but I'll bet they weren't half as sorry to see you go as they were to see us!"

With which cryptic remark Wink stumbled into the c.o.c.kpit and disappeared.