The Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
HARDY STRIKES A HOT TRAIL
The morning of the day before, when Hardy had got the peevish doctor in place and had taken his own seat in the airplane, he steered his bird off from Roanoke Island in what, by no stretch of fancy, could be called flying-weather. The wind was freshening to a gale and the waters of the Sound were choppy and ugly-looking. But, even if the pilot had to play hide and seek in the storm-clouds, the emergency admitted of no hesitation, and, after all, it was merely a question of a very few minutes' flying. So the venturesome airman gritted his teeth, clamped his rod, and with the machine swaying to and fro in the sweep and swelter and with wings at times perilously tipped, plunged into the teeth of the tempest.
As Windjammer approached the sea, the going became more and more hazardous; but the inevitable luck of the pilot warranted his confidence. He soon hovered over his goal, and, after some maneuvering, the staggering feat was done. Under heavy pressure, he landed on the bleak coast in full view of the heaving ocean.
The danger over, Smith, the passenger, jumped from his seat with the change of countenance of a man risen from the dead. He evidently thought that for the rest of his life he would be living on borrowed time after what he had just been through. He recovered himself sufficiently, however, to lend his aid to Hardy in sheltering the flyer from the wind and threatening rain. Then the two proceeded to the lighthouse.
The wireless operator of the Kitty Hawk Station, who was in temporary charge, bubbled over with delight on seeing the new arrivals. The regular keeper had been removed to his home in a serious condition, he reported with a wealth of detail.
The doctor hurried off to his patient.
"Just given you up," he pursued, "and was looking for one deuce of a time. What with a storm roaring and bellowing, and the chance of my apparatus being blown to kingdom come, I wasn't feeling very jimmy."
"I know you weren't," agreed Hardy.
"And, by the way," continued the operator, "about two hours ago, just before my machine broke down, I picked up a message for Seagulls' Nest."
"You did? Let's have it quick," said Hardy eagerly, turning his head in order to listen with greater sharpness to the answer.
"It was from Commodore Hatton. Said he was passing and wouldn't be able to stop. He was trying to beat the gale and put into Hampton Roads. Important business was hurrying him."
"Where you s'pose the yacht is by this time?" demanded the pilot as the other paused.
"Judging by what they said when they spoke to us, the boat was then right off this point; so it must be well up the coast by now."
"Don't think he'll have any trouble making his port?"
"Ought not to. And see here, there was a message for us here, too. He had expected to stop in the Sound to report on that suspicious case—"
"Suspicious case? What suspicious case?" insisted Hardy with breathless interest.
"I thought you'd got wind of that. That drowning."
"Drowning! Who? Where?"
"We all thought there was something crooked about it."
"Let's have it, man, quick!" Thought of the telltale lifeboat had instantly flashed across Hardy's brain.
"Well, I swear I thought you'd 'a heard of that by this time," the operator went on. "It was this way. A couple of weeks ago when the Commodore's yacht was lying here in the Sound to take on some local capitalists he was going to carry down to Mexico to look into those oil fields, there happened what looked like a pretty serious accident. The night before the boat planned to steam out was dark as tarred pitch. Now, it seems Hatton had a Dago or Greaser or some such cuss on board who could speak Spanish—s'posed to be taken along as an interpreter. Well, this night the fellow insisted on going ashore for one reason or the other; had to mail an important letter or send a telegram—some trumped-up excuse."
Hardy gave an involuntary start that the other did not fail to notice.
"And they went in one of the ship's boats?" the airman could not resist putting in.
"Of course, how else was he to go?" demanded the operator. "You didn't see him, did you?"
"No, go on!"
"Well, he got permission and asked a sailor to help him row. About twenty minutes after the pair had pulled off, the crew heard a yell from the water, a yell for help, and on lowering a boat to investigate, found this same sailor splashing around in the water pretty near played out, or making out he was. They hauled him aboard the lifeboat, got him on the yacht, and stimulated up to the talking point. Then he panted out a yarn about his lifeboat being run down in the Sound by a tug or something that didn't show a light, which sounds pretty fishy to start with. Said the boat was smashed, and that his companion must have gone down like a stone, for, as soon as he managed to get his own senses, he swam around and didn't see a sign of him. He floundered around, he claimed, for several minutes; then he realized his only hope of safety was to make for the yacht half a mile away, a heap nearer than the shore. So he struck out and made it by the hardest.
"As soon as that bird told his tale, they got him to his bunk, for he did seem all in, and then the Commodore started to investigate. He sent another boat over to the supposed scene of the collision, but not a sign of anything was in sight—not a plank floating on the water so far as they could make out. Then they came over here and sent a message to the sheriff to be on the lookout and make every effort to recover the body."
"I've seen the boat," blurted out Hardy, who had been listening with deep absorption.
"The mischief you have!" exclaimed the operator, his eyes popping. "Where?"
Hardy recounted the story of the discovery on Knott's Island.
"The darn crook!" the operator burst out when he had heard him through. "That makes it clear as day. It was a frame-up."
"What does it all mean?" Hardy wanted to know.
"That's what I can't make out. Here a fellow who had just got a job, and then tries to beat it and make his employer think he is dead. Something behind it."
"Anything missing from the yacht in the way of valuables?"
"Nothing reported. You see, the Commodore had to steam out the next day, as he didn't have any more margin left him before the time he was due in Mexico. It appears a pile of money was dependent on his getting down in time to pull off a deal."
"So he left the next morning?"
"Must have! When I took a look out, the yacht was gone."
"Has Hatton communicated with anybody since he's been away?"
"I hear he's been in touch with the sheriff, but King—that's the deputy who's on the job—is mum as wax about it, attending to his own business. That's what I hear from Dareville."
"He has his headquarters in Dareville?" asked Hardy.
"Ye-ah, and I know they've made a pretty close search of the waters hereabouts for that busted boat and the remains of the fellow Blanco."
"Called himself Blanco, did he?"
"That was the name he gave Hatton. I reckon he picked up that Buffalo Dare alias when he heard that crazy man's name over in Dareville."
"Funny the sheriff hasn't searched the other end of the Sound."
"Maybe he did, but detectives, amateur ones, think they know it all. They see pretty much everything but what's right under their noses."
"That's sure so," agreed Hardy. "But what happened to that rescued sailor? He must have been in the game."
"He was carried off in the yacht, but I understand that Hatton left word he would keep him close till the matter was cleared up."
"It's a blame funny thing," said Hardy, half to himself. "And beating it up to Knott's Island! That's not actually an island, though; it's connected with the mainland, and he could have made off on foot through the wilds. S'pose he had any reason to go to Cape Peril?"
A vague apprehension had seized the speaker that the villain might be meditating some devilment in that direction.
"Cape Peril! If he's hooked something," declared the operator, "he's going to get to some big city and try to lose himself. No Cape Peril for him."
"Anyhow, I'd like to get over and interview that deputy."
"Well, you won't get that interview for some time yet, I'm thinking, from the sound of that wind and the look of that aggravated ocean. You're not fool enough to try to fly back, I hope."
"Not quite," conceded the pilot.
"Didn't think you were," granted the operator. "Reckon you want to solve this mystery before you pass in your checks."
"That would be some satisfaction," laughed the other.
"Glad you are gradually getting a little sense. Though I'm powerful glad you got here, believe me, if I'd been in your place, I'd stuck to where I was and let lighthouse keepers be hanged. But you airmen get to thinking you are windproof and thunderproof and every other sort of proof until you slip a cog sometime and get a dose of discretion—that is, if you ever come to your senses again after you tumble."
"I know my business," asserted Hardy, somewhat hotly.
"They all do; I never knew one who wasn't thoroughly familiar with his business. Don't want to hear any more of this? All right. I'll shut up. But we're all fools in the same boat together."
Hardy had frowned, but his face cleared instantly. He didn't mind a little jollying.
"I have been a big one today," he granted. "I brought Commodore Hatton's son as far as Roanoke. Intended to leave him at Knott's Island, but, after that boat find and when Smith didn't turn up, the boy pestered me so I had to fly him further."
Then he told of the house-party at Seagulls' Nest.
"You're just a kid along with the rest of them," asserted the operator, "and you always will be. You'll never grow up till your dying day. Well, I reckon that's the way to die without making the acquaintance of trouble. I'm thinking, though, the Commodore will make a little trouble for you if he hears about this trip."
"That's the reason I want to beat it back as soon as possible. Isn't there any way of getting off this forsaken sandbar?"
"Not today or tonight," declared the operator cheerfully. "Afraid you'll have to give me your company for some hours, or maybe days yet."
"Confound it!" exploded Hardy.
"'Tis pretty tough!"
"How long you think this blow will last?"
"To tell you the truth, I don't think it will be a long one." And he added, to give the excited man a grain of comfort, "Maybe a tug or something will be in hailing distance after the worst is over."
"If I can get over on anything floating," declared Hardy, grasping at the possibility, "I'll have you keep an eye on Windjammer and I'll try to scare up an auto to make Cape Peril through the country. Turner and I can come down in the seaplane after this blasted storm peters out and pick up my bird again."
With this arrangement in mind, the pilot tried to make the best of the situation. He and the operator settled themselves in the wireless station to smoke and chat away the hours, interrupting the occupation to snatch a bite to eat and, ever and anon, to inspect the prospects out of doors and the condition of the barometer. Amid the howling wind and the rain, they sat till the tempest that evening had spent its force. By ten o'clock things looked vastly more promising.
At this hour, Hardy learned to his great delight that a tug, weathering the blast on the Sound side of the Kitty Hawk bar, was about to put out for Roanoke Island and then proceed to Knott's Island and he found that he could get accommodations for the voyage over.