Motor Boat Boys Among the Florida Keys Part 12

Once Jimmy stumbled, and made quite a little splash ere he recovered his footing. It may have been a jellyfish upon which he placed his foot, and which caused him to slide; or some obstacle in the shape of a clump of 'c.o.o.n oysters. The cause was immaterial; but what splash he made gave them all a thrill, since they fully expected that it would bring about discovery.

At the time it chanced that they had pa.s.sed over more than half the distance separating them from the boat, and were standing up to their knees in the water.

Jack noted that the murmurous sound which they had decided must be the mingling of voices, had suddenly stopped. From this he imagined that those within the closed cabin of the power boat had heard the splash and were waiting for a repet.i.tion of the same, in order to gauge its meaning.

Would they come out to investigate? If so, what should be the programme of the three who stood there in the water? None of them had ever fired a shot at a human being in all their lives; and the mere thought of such a thing was distasteful to them. At the same time, if their comrade were in the hands of unscrupulous men, and heroic measures had to be adopted in order to effect his release, not one of them would hesitate.

Jack often looked back to that strained moment, when he and his comrades stood there, knee deep in the lagoon, within a dozen feet of the mysterious little power boat, keyed up to a condition when their nerves were all on edge, and waiting for whatever might happen. He could feel a sense of amus.e.m.e.nt over it, too, at some future time; but it was certainly no laughing matter then.

Then there suddenly flashed out a broad beam of light. The door of the cabin had been opened; and, as those standing there in the water were directly behind the stern, the light fell full upon them.

Jack saw a figure push into view. Outlined against the lighted interior of the boat it stood up in plain sight, and they could even make out the fact that the unknown party wore knickerbockers, as though dressed for an outing.

Of course he must have discovered the threatening trio there just as soon as he thus partly emerged from the cabin. They could tell this from the way in which he stood as if riveted to the spot, making no motion either to advance further, or retreat back into the recesses of the boat's interior.

Jack did not mean to give him a chance to take the initiative. He raised his gun, and immediately covered the unknown party; which action was accepted as proof by his two chums that they were to follow suit, and they proceeded to do so.

If astonishment had held the man motionless up to this moment, a due sense of caution kept him so after he discovered those three menacing guns turned full in his direction. Apparently he must be either stunned by the situation that had burst upon him without warning; or else he kept his head, and knew there was only one thing to do in order to avoid trouble, which was to submit to the inevitable.

"Don't think of trying to drop back into that cabin," said Jack, in a voice that was quite stern, even if it did quiver a little; "we've got you covered all right, and you might as well surrender!"

"That's the ticket!" rasped George, trying to seem very formidable, in order to hide the fact that his knees were knocking together just a trifle, with excitement of course, not fear!

CHAPTER X.

ABOARD THE STRANGE POWER BOAT.

"Well, this _is_ a rich joke!" laughed the man. "Just keep your fingers from pressing those triggers, please, boys. No danger of my trying the disappearing act. Fact is, we've been expecting you to come along for some time now."

Jack was not going to allow himself to be deceived. "Soft words b.u.t.tered no parsnips," he had often heard his mother say; and because this unknown fellow chose to talk smoothly, was no sign that he should be trusted.

And so he continued to keep his gun raised, seeing which the others did likewise.

"That's nice, to hear you say such fine things; but what we want to know is, what have you done with our chum?" he demanded.

"Yes, tell us that!" said George, menacingly.

"Sure, we want to know, by the same token!" observed the Irish lad.

"Oh! he's aboard our boat, just now, and will be glad to welcome you,"

the other party remarked, coolly. "And I hereby invite you one and all to come along to see for yourselves. It's a mistake all around, I guess.

Please accept my invitation in the same friendly spirit in which it is given, and honor us with your company, boys. Josh is getting back to his old self, but he had a nasty tumble, I give you my word."

"What's that?" asked Jack.

"He tripped over a root," said the man, earnestly, "and struck his head on a lump of coquina rock. It made a bad cut on the side of his head, and he bled quite a little. Besides, the blow must have knocked him senseless. My friend Carpenter and myself were just coming back to the boat, after a little side hunt for a deer, when we discovered him lying there, and took him aboard. After he came to, he told us who he was, and all about the rest of you. And am I right in believing that you are Jack Stormways?"

Of course the three boys were more or less thunderstruck by what they had just heard. It knocked all their theories "into flinders," as Jimmy would have said. Here they had been concocting all manner of wonderful stories in connection with the two parties aboard the little power boat.

They had even gone so far as to believe the men must be some desperate characters, fleeing from the sheriff, who might turn up at any hour in full pursuit.

And now, from what the other had just declared, it would seem that the shoe was exactly on the other foot. Instead of proving to be lawless men, criminals in fact, they gave evidence of turning out to be Good Samaritans. Why, Josh might have been in a bad way, only for them, according to what the man had just said.

But could he be believed? Might it not all be a part of some clever trap? George, always inclined toward suspicion, would have held back, had the decision been left to him; Jack was inclined to take the man's word, for he had a frank way about him; while Jimmy was hanging in the balance, hardly knowing what to believe.

Just then there came a shout from within the cabin of the little boat.

"h.e.l.lo, Jack; it's all right!"

All of them readily recognized the well known voice of Josh; and his a.s.surance went far toward alleviating the fear George entertained, that danger lurked in their putting themselves in the power of the unknown parties.

"You hear what your mate says, Jack?" remarked the man whose figure was outlined against the glow of the cabin's interior. "Tell them to come aboard, and see what we did for you, Josh."

"That's just what, fellers. n.o.body could have been kinder. Don't stop there, but push your way aboard. Cabin's small; but you can all get your heads in," Josh went on to say.

Of course, after that even suspicious George saw no reason for holding back longer. So the three splashed along until they stood hip-deep in the lagoon. The man even stretched out a hand and a.s.sisted Jack aboard, as though he bore them not the least bit of malice for having held him up at the muzzle of their guns.

As Jack clambered aboard, the first thing he saw through the opening was Josh, with a bandage around his head, which showed signs of gore, telling that he must have received something of a bad cut when he tripped and fell.

Then all those signs around the spot, which they supposed meant a struggle between the boy and his two captors, had in reality been made when the men attempted to lift Josh, and carry his senseless form to their boat near by.

Well, one thing was apparently explained. There was no longer any mystery as to why Josh had failed to respond when they shouted, and fired their guns. If at the time, he was lying there senseless, he could not very well be expected to give an answering halloo. But then, why had not these two men done something to let his companions know what had befallen him?

That was what puzzled Jack. He should have thought that the very first thing to occur to them would be to send word to the camp of the motor boat boys--unless, now, there was some good reason for holding back until they could question Josh, and make sure that he did not have any connection with the sheriff and his posse!

"This is my friend, and cruising partner, Mr. Bryce Carpenter," said the one who had thus far been conducting the conversation from their side.

"My own name is Sidney Bliss. How about your friends, Jack?"

"George Rollins, the first one, and Jimmy Brannigan the other," Jack immediately spoke. "We've left two more in camp, while we hunted for our lost chum. h.e.l.lo! Josh; awful glad to find you alive and kicking; but don't like the looks of that b.l.o.o.d.y pack around your head."

"Huh! I guess I got a pretty hard knock on my coco, all right," grinned Josh; and he did look so comical, with that turban-like bandage, and his face flecked with little specks of dried blood, that Jimmy burst out into a merry laugh.

"Sure, ye did, Josh, ye spalpeen!" he declared, thrusting one arm into the cabin, so as to clutch the hand of the discovered comrade; "but 'tis a tough nut ye're afther having, I do declare, which is a fortunate thing for ye this night."

"All that he told you is square as a die, fellers," Josh went on. "And they've been mighty kind to me, I give you my word. I didn't know where I was when I came out of the doze; but they asked me a lot of questions, and in that way we got to be right well acquainted."

"H'm! you see," the man who had called himself Sidney Bliss hastened to say, "we had some good reasons for feeling suspicious toward your party, Jack."

"I don't know why," returned the boy, instantly. "We've come all the way down the coast from Philadelphia, and never once bothering ourselves about anybody else's business. George, here, got into rather a little fever because he said you seemed to be watching us through the gla.s.ses whenever we happened to come near each other, but it was none of our business, and I wouldn't let it bother me."

That was as plain an invitation for an explanation as could be imagined; and apparently so the other looked at it.

"Well, after learning just who you were, and that you couldn't have the least connection with Lenox and his crowd, we had to laugh at our suspicions," Bliss went on to say.

"We don't happen to know anybody by the name of Lenox, do we, boys?"