CHAPTER XVIII
Unwelcome Visitors
"Why, Bud, what do you mean?" Hal demanded, in astonishment. "Who else is on this island?"
"Some men. I don't know how many," Bud replied in cautious tone. "I heard them talking about us. But keep your voice low, for this island is small and they may hear you."
"I was going to remark that this is a small island to contain much of a hiding place for anybody."
"Yes, but it's wild with bushes. And these men are bad fellows, I could tell from the way they talked about us. They're as mad as hops 'cause we're here. They're studying how to get rid of us without making more trouble for themselves."
"That's funny," Hal remarked. "Why should they care if we're here? Do they claim they own this island?"
"I don't know whether they do or not. I didn't hear them say anything about that."
"Where are they now?"
"Over near our fishing place, if they haven't left. They were hidden in some bushes, and I might 'ave run right into them if it hadn't been for their voices. After I heard them I kept myself under cover and crept closer till I could get what they said."
"Were you listening to them all the time you were gone?"
"Just about."
"And didn't you find out anything more specific than what you've told me?"
"No, I don't think I did."
"Why did you leave them?"
"They seemed to 've talked the subject dry and turned to other matters, and I thought I'd better come and tell you about it."
"And they're there yet?"
"So far as I know."
"After they'd talked their subject dry, what did they find to discuss?" asked Hal.
"Something wet," Bud answered with a grin.
"I get you; you mean they had some moonshine with them."
"Or some Canadian whisky."
"Probably that. But this makes the situation look a little better for us. If they're just a bunch of fellows out for a liquor outing, maybe we don't need to be much concerned about them if we keep shy of them."
"I don't think that's all there is to it," Bud replied, with a note of warning in his voice. "I heard one of them say we were likely to make trouble for them and we ought to be chased away and scared so badly we'd never come around here again, and the others seemed to agree with him."
"That sounds like a mystery," said Hal.
"I don't believe Mr. Perry would talk mathematics to explain such conversation," Bud declared.
"If he did, he'd probably make another pun about sines and cosines. But, say, don't you think we'd better make further investigation?"
"I don't know what we could do unless we did some more eavesdropping, and that might cause them to get ugly if they caught us in the act," Bud reasoned.
"Yes," Hal agreed; "I suppose we'd better wait as quietly as we can till
Mr. Perry and Cub get back; then we can decide better what to do."
"I don't see that there's anything for us to do but get away from here as soon as possible," said Bud. "Mr. Perry won't want to get into trouble with four men."
"He'll probably have a talk with them to find out what's on their minds," was Hal's conclusion.
"And then get out rather than have a fight," Bud added.
"Oh, I hope there won't be anything as bad as that."
"Why not, if we insist on staying? If these fellows are the rough characters we suspect them of being, that's the very sort of thing they'd resort to, provided, of course, that they thought they could get the best of us."
"Here they come now!" suddenly gasped Hal, indicating, with his gaze, the direction from which "they" were approaching.
Bud turned quickly and saw four men emerge from the thicket some fifteen feet to the rear of the tent. They did not look like rowdies, for they were fairly well dressed, but there was nothing reassuring in the countenance of any of them. One was tall and angular, another was heavy and of medium height, another was very broad-shouldered and deep-chested and had long arms and short legs, a sort of powerful monstrosity, he seemed, and the fourth was fairly well proportioned, but small. There was not a reassuring cast of countenance among them.
"We'll just have to stand our ground and hear what they have to say," Hal whispered: "Maybe they'll be reasonable if we don't provoke them. Be careful and don't say anything sassy."
"I won't," was the other's reassurance.
The four men approached to a point a few feet from the radio table and halted, and the tall angular man, assuming the role of spokesman, demanded in deep tones:
"What're you kids doin' here?"
"We're just waiting for some of our friends to come back," Hal replied.
"Where'd your friends go?" continued the spokesman with a leer that caused the two boys to shrink back a step or two.
"They just took a trip in the motor boat," replied Hal cautiously.
"They'll be back soon."
"Oh, they will, eh," leered the man as if he penetrated the weakness of the warning in the boy's answer. "How many are they of your friends?"
"More than we are," replied Hal, having reference to physical size of Mr.
Perry and Cub.
"Oh, come now, kids, tell us the truth," ordered the leering spokesman, advancing a pace nearer. "Tell us how many went away in your boat and how soon they'll be back."
"There was a large man and a big boy," Bud interposed with more assurance that he felt.
Sly grins crept over the countenances of the four men.
"Oh," grunted the spokesman; "you hope by that kind o' talk to scare us away. Well, nothin' doing along that line. This here island belongs to us, and we don't allow no trespassin."
"Is the island for sale?" inquired Hal, who thought he saw an opening through which he might work up the interest of the three men without arousing their antagonism.
"Fer sale?" repeated the spokesman of the quartet, all four of whom seemed to exchange among themselves a round of sinister glances. "Well, I guess nit. They ain't enough money this side o' the United States treasury to buy this island from us."
"We might be able to scrape up a handsome sum, if necessary," Hal reasoned.
A suggestion of covetous greed shone in the eyes of all four men, but the spokesman belied his own looks by saying:
"Nothin' doing. We want you guys to git out o' here. This is our summer resort, eh, Spike"—turning to the long-armed, deep chested man.
"Spike" nodded grimly and replied:
"You bet it is, cap'n. We're gen'lemen of leisure an' don't care fer money. All we want is our own, and they's sure to be trouble if anybody tries to take it away from us."
"Well, we don't want anything that doesn't belong to us," was Bud's reassuring answer; "and if this island is yours, we surely don't want to stay here. But we thought that maybe you'd be glad to sell, for a member of our party said he'd like to buy all of the islands of this group if he could find the owner."
"Who is he?" asked the quartet's spokesman.
"His name is Perry and he lives at Oswego, New York," Bud replied.
"Well, you all go somewheres else to talk that matter over and then take it up with my real estate agent. Meanwhile I don't allow no trespassers on this ground."
"But we can't go until our friends come back with their boat," said Hal.
"They promised to return soon."
"Where did they go?"
"To the Canadian Coast."
"What fer?"
"To get another friend who will join us."
"Well, they'd better hurry up or they won't find you when they get back."
"What's that you got there?" asked the man who had been addressed as
"Spike", indicating the radio table and outfit thereon.
"That's a wireless outfit, you goof," replied the tall, angular spokesman.
"I tell you what we'll do," Hal announced, taking inspiration from the attention thus called to his radio apparatus. "We'll call our friends by wireless and have them return at once and take us away. How's that?"
"All right," was the assenting response. "Go ahead, but be careful, no tricks, or our revenge will be speedy, and that's no name fer it."
With this warning the four men walked away and Hall got busy with a diligence inspired by a sense of danger and, at the same time, a sense of the opportunity afforded by the possibilities of the world's latest great invention, radio.