ON THE RIM OF THE CHINA SEA.
The rain fell heavily, persistently, provokingly. Now and then came a crash of thunder which seemed to shake the earth; vivid lightning cut zigzags in the murky sky. The little islands of the Babuyan group in the Balintang channel seemed to rock in the arms of the storm.
The motor boat Manhattan lay tossing and drawing at her anchor in an obscure bay of tiny dimensions on the west coast of a small island which is a member of the Babuyan group and faces the China Sea. Ned, Frank, Jack and Jimmie sat sweating in the little cabin, which was in the back of the boat, the engine being located toward the center. The day was dark because of the clouds and the downpour of the rain, and the heavy foliage of the trees which came down to the very lip of the bay made it dim in the little cabin, but there was no artificial light.
The boys were waiting for the storm to subside. They knew the moods of the weather man of the Philippines well enough to understand that the rain was likely to continue for several days, it being the opening of the rainy season, but they preferred not to face the initial tempest. In a few hours comparative quiet would come, and there would be only the steady fall of rain.
Since leaving the little island where the transport had landed them, they had visited three little dots of land in the channel, and on each one they had found signals in grass pointing to the north and west.
"That Boy Scout, whoever he is," Jimmie said, as they discussed the signals in the almost stifling atmosphere of the cabin, "is strictly next to his job! He's showing the way, all right!"
"I'll bet you a can of corn against a bite of canned pie that he's from New York," Jack Bosworth observed.
"Speaking of pie," Frank cut in, "there's a little restaurant on Beekman street where they serve hot pies at noon for a dime. You go in there at twelve and get a peach pie, and an apple pie, and a berry pie, hot out of the oven, and buy a piece of cheese, and go back to the office and consume your frugal repast. What?"
"If you talk about hot pie here," Jack said, threateningly, "I'll tip you out of the boat. Pie! When I go back to little old New York I'm going to have mother meet me at the pier with a pie under each arm!"
"I won't take your bet, Jack," Jimmie said. "I'd lose. I know he's from New York, an' he belongs to the Wolf Patrol."
"I thought you left your dream book at home!" cried Frank.
"There was a boy named Pat Mack," Jimmie went on, "who enlisted and went to the Philippines a year ago. He was sixteen when he enlisted, but looked older, and so they let him in, he bein' a husky chap. He belonged to the Wolf Patrol, an' was a chum of Ned's. You remember him, Ned?"
"Pat Mack?" repeated Ned. "Who would ever forget him? Why, that red-headed Irishman is not a person to be forgotten, if once known. Why do you think he is with the party we are following, Jimmie?"
"Because Captain Godwin said one of the young men with the Lieutenant has hair so red that he didn't need a light to go to bed by. That's Pat Mack! And if he is with that bunch there'll be something doing before long. That boy will fight a rattlesnake an' give him the first bite."
"He is all to the good as a pugilist," Ned said. "That was the trouble with him in New York. He was always in some kind of a mess because of his quick temper and his ready fists. I hope it is Pat who is leaving these signs."
"You bet it is," Jimmie insisted. "Say, look here! Who's rockin' this boat?"
The boys were all sitting quietly in their seats, but the Manhattan was rocking in a manner not accounted for by the storm. Motioning the others to remain where they were, Ned arose and passed out of the cabin.
The boat was still swaying violently, and Ned could at first see no good reason for it, but presently a commotion in the water, a commotion not caused by the wind and rain, caught his eyes and he advanced to the stern. After looking into the water for a moment he went to the cabin and beckoned to the boys.
"If you don't mind getting soaking wet," he said, "come out here."
"What is it?" asked Frank, lazily.
"Is it anything good to eat?" asked Jimmie.
Jack made no response but bounded forward and looked over the edge of the boat into the bay. What he saw was a great head with protruding jaws and a long, dark back covered with enormous half defined scales, like armor plate.
"What is it?" he asked, drawing a revolver from his pocket.
Ned pushed his hand back and the weapon was returned to a pocket.
"Don't shoot," he said. "We are not yet ready to announce our presence here."
"But what is that thing?" demanded Jack. "Is he trying to eat up the boat?"
"That is a crocodile," Ned replied. "Corker, eh?"
"Will he bite?" asked Jack, reaching for a boathook.
"Jump in and see," laughed Ned. "They live on fish, but eat dogs and men when they feel just right. The rivers and lakes of the Philippines swarm with them."
Jimmie and Frank now came out of the cabin and looked down at the crocodile.
"He's scratching his old nose on the boat!" Jimmie said. "That's what makes it rock so!"
"He thinks it's a sandwich, with meat inside," laughed Frank. "Suppose we give him a poke in the ribs?"
He reached forward with the boathook, which he took from Jack's hand, and jabbed at the creature, which did not appear to mind the presence of the boys at all, but continued his nosing of the boat.
"His hide is as tough as the crust of the pies Bridget used to make!" the boy said, jabbing harder than before and throwing his weight on the handle of the hook.
Just then the boat shunted to one side, the crocodile swished away, and Frank fell headlong into the agitated waters of the little bay. Jack saw him going and tried to catch him, but did not succeed.
The crocodile had turned away from the boat when Frank struck the water with a great splash, but he turned back and surveyed the submerged figure with some degree of interest.
Frank of course went down under the surface as he fell, and remained there for a second. When his body rose toward the surface the crocodile approached him. Jimmie and Jack drew their revolvers.
"Don't shoot!" commanded Ned.
"He'll eat Frank alive!" whispered Jimmie.
"He's making a grab for his leg now!" Jack added.
Frank came to the surface and struck out for the boat, which was only a few strokes away, the crocodile following in his wake, the giant armor-plated body moving through the water stolidly and without visible means of motion. The rough back looked like a log which had lain long in the waters of a swamp and had caught rust from mineral deposits and a nasty brown from decaying vegetation.
Frank knew the danger he was in, but did not seem to understand that the boys on the boat were aware of his peril, for he swung his body out of the water and whirling, pointed to the crocodile. As he did so the monster speeded forward and snapped at his arm.
"Shoot! Shoot!" cried Jimmie.
But no shots were fired. When the great mouth of the monster opened something shot out from the boat and landed squarely between the extended jaws of the crocodile. There was a snap, a crunching sound, then the water was whipped into commotion by the writhing body of the monster.
A rope was thrown to Frank and he was soon on board, not much wetter than his chums, standing in the driving rain, and not at all injured by his adventure.
"Cripes!" Jimmie cried, as Frank stood panting by his side, "I thought he had you where the whale had Jonah."
"What was that you fed him?" asked Frank of Ned.
"Just a bottle of gasoline which lay here," was the reply.
"You couldn't make a throw like that again in a hundred years!" Frank said.
"If you're goin' to feed gasoline to the crocodiles," grinned Jimmie, "I'll notify the government."
"If the breed listens to what that fellow has to say of gasoline as an article of food," Ned laughed, "there won't be much demand for it."
"He'd have had my arm if you hadn't hit the mark," Frank said. "I'll owe you an arm as long as I live, old man!"
"And that big fish owes Uncle Sam a quart of gasoline and a good blue glass bottle," laughed Jack. "I wonder how it will set on his tummy?"
"Now," Ned said, "I'm as wet as it is possible to get, so I'm going on shore to see if our Boy Scout left any mail for us. I'm getting anxious to catch up with the Lieutenant and his abductors."
"I'm goin' too!" said Jimmie.
"You're not," Ned replied. "I'm not going to the trouble of keeping track of you in that wilderness."
"All right!" Jimmie grunted, apparently resigned to his fate, but when Ned rowed ashore and disappeared in the thicket which skirted the bay the little fellow recklessly slipped into the water and came out unharmed on the beach farther to the south than Ned had landed. He stood for a moment with the salt water running out of his hair and over his freckled face, made an amusing grimace at the boys in the boat, and scurried into the jungle.
"The little dunce!" Jack exclaimed.
"If he keeps close to Ned he will be all right," Frank observed, "but if he goes to wandering about on his own account he will get into trouble. I've got a hunch that the people we are following are on that island."
In five minutes Ned made his appearance, rowing swiftly out to the boat.
"They are there!" he exclaimed. "I found the trail mark and the direction. A yard from the last direction I found the triple warning three times repeated. You know what that means?"
"Life or death," was the reply, and the three boys stood looking into each other's faces for a moment without speaking.
"I guess they're going to murder the prisoners," Jack said, presently, breaking the painful silence.
"That is what the sign seems to read," Ned said, gravely.
"Then we may as well be getting out our guns," Frank said.
Ned nodded, and turned toward the shore again. In a moment he faced his chums again, his eyes startled and anxious.
"Where's Jimmie?" he asked.
"He went ashore!"
"Didn't you see him?"
Ned turned from Frank to Jack and then pointed toward an elevation toward the center of the island.
The clouds hung low and the rain was still falling in torrents, but under the gray sky and through the downpour of the rain two columns of smoke lifted an eloquent voice.
"That's a Boy Scout call!" exclaimed Jack.
"Two columns of smoke," Frank said, "mean 'Help'! Jimmie couldn't have kindled two fires since he has been gone, could he?"
"Of course not," Jack replied. "That's Pat Mack, the red-headed rascal!"
"I bet he wishes he was back on Chatham Square!" observed Frank.
The boys waited ten minutes, but Jimmie did not make his appearance.
"He's in trouble!" cried Frank. "We better go and see what kind of a fix he's gotten into."
"It may be," Ned said, after a short pause, "that he has seen the call for help, and is making his way in that direction."
"That is just like him!" Jack burst out.
"Are we going in there after him?" Frank asked.
"We are likely to lose him in the thicket if we go," Ned cautioned, "and it seems to me that we ought to wait a short time. He is wise enough not to go butting into a camp."
"What sort of a place is it in there?" asked Jack.
"It is one of the nameless islands of the Babuyan group," Ned answered. "Like most of the others, it is of volcanic formation. There is a central elevation, and a stream of good size starts up there somewhere and runs into a bay farther north. I was thinking of speeding up and trying to get into the interior by way of the river."
"With the engine barking like a terrier in a rat pit!" said Frank.
"For once," said Ned, with a smile, "you have said a good thing! We've got to lie here and wait until dark. Then we can advance through the jungle and look for their campfire."
"Perhaps they won't build a fire."
This from Frank, who was stuffing his pockets with cartridges.
"Of course they will!" Jack put in. "They will have to keep the wildcats away."
"Wildcats!" laughed Frank. "There isn't a wildcat within a thousand miles of this island."
"Don't you ever think it," Jack insisted. "There are plenty of wildcats in the Philippines, and snakes, and lizards. In fact, the islands are not unlike the Isthmus of Panama in this regard. And monkeys! Well, we've heard enough chattering already to put us wise to them."
As the boy spoke a great chattering broke out in a thicket only a few rods away from the beach. The monkeys seemed frightened, and moving toward the shore.
"Jimmie is in there!" Ned exclaimed. "I wish I could chloroform the little pests. They will betray the presence of the lad."
While the boys waited, wondering what was to be the outcome of the dangerous situation, the sharp whistle of a launch came from the opposite side of the island. The first blast was followed by three others, in quick succession, and then a shot was heard from the interior.
"This must be receiving day for the little brown men!" said Jack. "There's a boat over there talking to them. What about it, Ned?"
"If you boys will promise not to leave the boat," Ned said, "I'll go ashore and try to find out what is going on. This island lies on the rim of the China Sea, and that boat may be from the land of the Celestials!"
"Bringing arms to put Uncle Sam to the bad!" exclaimed Frank. "I'd like to pull their pigtails!"
The boys promised not to leave the Manhattan, and Ned rowed ashore and struck into the jungle. There was now an uproar of chattering all over the island, it seemed, and he walked swiftly under cover of the racket. In half an hour he was on an elevation which gave him a view of the China Sea. What he saw caused him to drop suddenly to the ground.