The Mystery Part 10

"Where are we?" he asked Barnett. "I mean since you picked me up. How long ago was that, anyway?"

"Yesterday," replied the navigating officer. "We've stood off and on, looking for some of our men."

"Then that's the same volcano----"

Barnett laughed softly. "Well, they aren't quite holding a caucus of volcanoes down in this country. One like that is enough."

But Slade brushed the remark aside.

"Head for it!" he cried excitedly. "We may be in time! There's a man on that island."

"A man!" "Another!" "Not Billy Edwards?" "Not some of our boys?"

Slade stared at them bewildered.

"Hold on," interposed Dr. Trendon authoritatively. "What's his name?" he inquired of the journalist.

"Darrow," replied the latter. "Percy Darrow. Do you know him?"

"Who in Kamschatka is Percy Darrow?" demanded Forsythe.

"Why, he's the a.s.sistant." It's a long story----"

"Of course, it's a long story. There's a lot we want to know,"

interrupted Captain Parkinson. "Quartermaster, head for the volcano yonder. Mr. Slade, we want to know where you came from; and why you left the schooner, and who Percy Darrow is. And there's dinner, so we'll just adjourn to the messroom and hear what you can tell us. But there's one thing we're all anxious to know; how came you in the dory which we found and left on the _Laughing La.s.s_ no later than two days ago?"

"I haven't set eyes on the _Laughing La.s.s_ for--well, I don't know how long, but it's five days anyway, perhaps more," replied Slade.

They stared at him incredulously.

"Oh, I see!" he burst out suddenly; "there were twin dories on the schooner. The other one's still there, I suppose. Did you find her on the stern davits?"

"Yes."

"That's it, then. You see when I left----"

Captain Parkinson's raised hand checked him. "If you will be so good, Mr.

Slade, let us have it all at once, after mess."

At table the young officers, at a sharp hint from Dr. Trendon, conversed on indifferent subjects until the journalist had partaken heartily of what the physician allowed him. Slade ate with keen appreciation.

"I tell you, that's good," he sighed, when he had finished. "Real, live, after-dinner coffee, too. Why, gentlemen, I haven't eaten a civilised meal, with all the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, for over two years. Doctor, do you think a little of the real stuff would hurt me? It's a pretty dry yarning."

"One gla.s.s," growled the surgeon, "no more."

"Scotch high-ball, then," voted Slade, "the higher the better."

The steward brought a tall gla.s.s with ice, in which the newcomer mixed his drink. Then for quite a minute he sat silent, staring at the table, his fingers aimlessly rubbing into spots of wetness the water beads as they gathered on the outside of his gla.s.s. Suddenly he looked up.

"I don't know how to begin," he confessed. "It's too confounded improbable. I hardly believe it myself, now that I'm sitting here in human clothes, surrounded by human beings. Old Scrubs, and the n.i.g.g.e.r, and Handy Solomon, and the Professor, and the chest, and the--well, they were real enough when I was caught in the mess. But I warn you, you are not going to believe me, and hanged if I blame you a bit."

"We've seen marvels ourselves in the last few days," encouraged Captain Parkinson.

"Fire ahead, man," advised Barnett impatiently. "Just begin at the beginning and let it go at that."

Slade sipped at his gla.s.s reflectively.

"Well," said he at length, "the best way to begin is to show you how I happened to be mixed up in it at all."

The officers unconsciously relaxed into att.i.tudes of greater ease.

Overhead the lamps swayed gently to the swell. The dull throb of the screw pulsated. Stewards clad in white moved noiselessly, filling the gla.s.ses, deferentially striking lights for the smokers, clearing away the last dishes of the repast.

"I'm a reporter by choice, and a detective by instinct," began Slade, with startling abruptness. "Furthermore, I'm pretty well off. I'm what they call a free lance, for I have no regular desk on any of the journals. I generally turn my stuff in to the _Star_ because they treat me well. In return it is pretty well understood between us that I'm to use my judgment in regard to 'stories' and that they'll stand back of me for expenses. You see, I've been with them quite a while."

He looked around the circle as though in appeal to the comprehension of his audience. Some of the men nodded. Others sipped from their gla.s.ses or drew at their cigars.

"I loaf around here and there in the world, having a good time travelling, visiting, fooling around. Every once in a while something interests me. The thing is a sort of instinct. I run it down. If it's a good story, I send it in. That's all there is to it." He laughed slightly. "You see, I'm a sort of magazine writer in method, but my stuff is newspaper stuff. Also the game suits me. That's why I play it. That's why I'm here. I have to tell you about myself this way so you will understand how I came to be mixed up in this _Laughing La.s.s_ matter."

"I remember," commented Barnett, "that when you came aboard the _South Dakota_, you had a little trouble making Captain Arnold see it." He turned to the others with a laugh. "He had all kinds of papers of ancient date, but nothing modern--letter from the _Star_ dated five years back, recommendations to everybody on earth, except Captain Arnold, certificate of bravery in Apache campaign, bank identifications, and all the rest. 'Maybe you're the _Star's_ correspondent, and maybe you're not,' said the Captain, 'I don't see anything here to prove it.' Slade argued an hour; no go. Remember how you caught him?" he inquired of Slade.

The reporter grinned a.s.sent.

"After the old man had turned him down for good, Slade fished down in his warbag and hauled out an old tattered doc.u.ment from an oilskin case.

'Hold on a minute,' said he, 'you old sh.e.l.lback. I've proved to you that I can write; and I've proved to you that I have fought, and now here I'll prove to you that I can sail. If writing, fighting, and sailing don't fit me adequately to report any little disturbances your antiquated washboiler may blunder into, I'll go to raising cabbages.' With that he presented a master's certificate! Where did you get it, anyway? I never found out."

"Pa.s.sed as 'fresh-water' on the Great Lakes," replied Slade briefly.

"Well, the s.p.u.n.k and the certificate finished the captain. He was an old square rigger himself in the Civil War."

"So much for myself," Slade continued. "As for the _Laughing La.s.s_----"

PART TWO

THE BRa.s.s BOUND CHEST

_Being the story told by Ralph Slade, Free Lance, to the officers of the United States cruiser Wolverine_.

I