WIGWAGS FROM THE BEACH.
For a long time after the departure of Ned, Jack and Frank sat in the cabin of the Manhattan, looking out on the steady downpour. They were not quite satisfied with their share in the activities of the day. Instead of being housed in the cabin, they preferred an exciting hunt even in the rain, over the hills of the little island in view.
"If we stand for it," grumbled Jack, "we'll have to spend most of our time keeping house! Jimmie will scatter himself all over the Asiatic division of the map, and Ned will spend most of his time looking him up!"
Frank laughed at this outbreak of ill humor, although he was as anxious as his chum to be on the firing line.
"I wish we'd not taken the Manhattan," Jack continued. "I'm the only one in the party that can operate it, and I'll be tied down like a galley slave!"
"Go it!" laughed Frank. "Growl your head off, if you want to, Mr. Black Bear! Instead of snarling, why don't you tell me what makes the boat go when you do something to the wheel and that switch?"
"I thought you owned a launch?" said Jack.
"Father bought me one," was the reply, "but I've never learned how to run it. I'm too fat to bother my head about such things!"
"Then what are you asking me about the mechanism of the thing for?" asked Jack. "If you don't want to know, what's the use of my telling you how to run a motor boat? You make me weary!"
"If I had a nice little temper like yours," Frank grinned, "I'd go and bump my head against a tree! Come, old man, tell me about the boat. I may want to run it some time, after you get caught by a cat or filled full of poisoned arrows! Come! honest! What makes it go?"
"And you don't even know the action of a gasoline engine?" exclaimed Jack, in better humor. "Well, I'll tell you. A jet of gasoline, which is thinner than water, is sprayed, as one would spray any liquid from an atomizer, into the chamber of the engine cylinder-head, which it reaches in the form of vapor, having been mixed with air."
"That's all simple!"
"Here the vapor is compressed by the rising piston, and when it is squeezed up as close as it can be an electric spark is introduced into the chamber. That is what the electric battery and gear are for."
"I was wondering why one had to have electricity and gasoline both," said Frank, very much interested in the simple recital.
"The result of the introduction of the spark is the explosion of the compressed vapor, which sends the piston downward. The motion turns the shaft, and that turns the boat's propeller."
"Easy as pie."
"This operation is repeated from two to six hundred times a minute," Jack went on, "and that causes the continuous action of the machinery which sends the boat along."
"What is there about that so complicated?" demanded Frank. "Everybody you hear talking of an engine seems to speak as if it were one of the mysteries of the universe."
"It is usually the electric system which gets out of order," was the reply, "but sometimes the gasoline section balks. A man often has to try so many different things when his engine stops that he actually does not know which one remedies the evil and sets the thing in motion."
"All right!" Frank said. "Now show me how to start the thing."
"That's easy. First turn on your gasoline, as you would turn water from a faucet into a kitchen sink. The gasoline fills the carbureter, which is the thing which feeds the engine automatically. Then you turn on your electricity by shifting a switch. That is to supply the spark. Then turn the fly-wheel two or three times so as to get the vapor into the cylinder and secure the first explosion. That is all there is to it. I hope you do learn to run this boat, so I can get away now and then!"
"You may get away farther than you want to!" cautioned Frank.
The Manhattan was a plain, usable boat, twenty-five feet long and ten feet wide, with bow and stern rather square in order to make more room inside. The cabin was ten feet long, with strong oak sides and brass-rimmed ports for light and ventilation. The cockpit, or outdoor sitting room, was of the same length as the cabin.
The engine was a plain, solidly built machine, with two cylinders, and rated at ten horsepower, with a speed of fifteen miles an hour. It was installed under a short bridge-deck in front of the cabin, while the gasoline tanks, holding fifty gallons, were hidden under the cockpit seats.
The cabin had two wide slatted berths, supplied with hair mattresses, a movable table, an ice chest, a small coal range—the boat was not designed especially for tropical use—an ice-chest and an alcohol stove for cooking. The storage lockers and water tanks had a capacity of a week's supply of stores for four persons. It was a government boat, and was in good repute as a racer in and about Manila, in spite of its blunt bow and wide beam.
Frank pottered away at the machinery until he announced that it was like taking candy away from the children to run it, and then the two retired to the cabin to get rid of their wet garments.
"Ned and Jimmie are having a good soaking," Jack said, his ill humor all gone, as he soused his wet underclothing in a tub of sea water. "I wish they'd come home."
A dull thump, as of a canoe striking the motor boat, and a quick step on the prow caused both boys to spring to their feet.
"There they come now!" Jack cried, glancing out into the slanting rain, "and it's good and wet they are."
The boy was about to step forward and open the cabin door when Frank caught him by the shoulder.
"Wait!" he said. "Look there!"
Jack followed the pointing finger with his eyes and saw half a dozen Filipinos clambering into the cockpit, and also saw the muzzles of American-built rifles covering the cabin door.
"Get your gun!" Jack whispered.
"We've got to do something besides shoot," Frank said. "They have the drop on us. We should have been looking out for an attempt at surprise."
There was a moment's silence, and then a man enveloped from neck to heels in a heavy raincoat and sweating tremendously in consequence, advanced to the cabin door.
"Never mind the guns!" he said, through the glass. "My men have you covered, and it would be a pity to shoot two likely boys!"
"What do you want?" demanded Frank.
"We want this boat," was the reply.
"Well, you've got it!" Jack said, angrily.
"Of course we have," was the reply. "We seem to be getting about everything we want in this corner of the world! Where are the others?"
"Gone after a battleship!" declared Jack.
The man grinned and, opening the cabin door, stepped inside. He was tall, rather slender, with clean-cut features and bright gray eyes. His bearing was that of a gentleman, and Frank began to have an indefinable idea that he had met him before somewhere, just where he could not decide. The fellow evidently was an American, though his followers seemed to be Chinese and Filipinos.
"So he's gone after a battleship, has he?" the intruder said, shutting the cabin door behind him, after making sure that his men were standing at attention with their guns. "Do they pick battleships off trees up on the hill?"
"I don't see anything funny about it," Jack said, sourly. "Who do you mean by 'he'? What do you know about the crew of the boat?"
"I've heard of Mr. Ned Nestor," was the calm reply, "and was hoping to meet him here. However, you seem to be cheerful young fellows, and a cruise with you may not result in lost time. You are Jack Bosworth and Frank Shaw. Which one is Shaw, and which one is Bosworth?"
"I'm Shaw," answered Frank, somewhat amused at the cool impudence of the man. "What is your name?"
"I'm French," was the reply. "Not French tribally but just French. One of the sort of Frenchmen who are born of Irish parents in the city of Chicago! Anyway, you may call me French. That is near enough."
"You seem to be an amusing sort of a character," observed Frank. "What are you going to do with the Manhattan?"
"Why," was the smiling reply, "there is a sort of a political convention called for that hill over there, and some of the delegates are slow in coming. So I thought I'd borrow your boat and go and fetch them. They are not far away. Some of them, in fact, live on islands, not more than four or five hundred miles off."
"That will be nice!" Frank said, falling into the mood of the other. "Only you can't carry many native chiefs in this boat, not if they insist on bringing their wives and attendants along. Suppose one should insist on appearing before the convention riding in state on the back of a white elephant?"
"Never thought of that," replied the other with a grin, "but how did you learn that the delegates were to be native chiefs?"
"I guess most everybody knows what kind of a game you're playing," Frank said with a grin which he intended to be provoking. "When you get your delegates assembled, Uncle Sam will give you an imitation of a man shooting up traitors."
"We'll have to take our chances on that," replied French, with apparent good nature. "In the meantime, we'll have to ask you to vacate the boat while we make our collection of delegates. I presume that you can get along very well on shore. Only be careful that the little brown men don't pot you with their funny little guns."
"Oh, we'll get along with the little brown men, all right," growled Jack. "When are you going to put us ashore?"
"Well," was the cool reply, "I want to wait here until I form the acquaintance of Mr. Ned Nestor and Mr. James McGraw. I have long felt a desire to meet them!"
"They'll feel proud, I know!" Jack said, provokingly. "Pirates and traitors are not so thick that it is not a pleasure to meet them. We'll all remember, after you are all hanged, that we met you here."
"Thank you!" replied French, not at all indignant at the remark, "and now if you'll hand over the guns you have, and tell me where the others are hidden, you can walk about the boat in comparative freedom while we get supper. You see it is beginning to get dark, and I'm hungry."
There was nothing to do but to comply with the polite request, and soon the intruders were making themselves at home all over the boat. French brought one of the Filipinos into the cabin, where he sat with his gun pointing ominously at the boys whenever they moved toward the door, while the others were stationed on the prow, where they sat stolidly in the rain, with their guns under their coarse coats to keep them dry.
"Rather a scanty supply of provisions!" French said, as he investigated the lockers. "I really think I'll have to send one of my men ashore for dinner. Two men with perfectly good guns and eyesight ought to be able to keep us on friendly terms here. Besides, it seems a waste of good material to feed those fellows from this choice stock when they prefer boiled dog."
"Say, French," Jack said, "if you weren't crooked enough to make a corkscrew look like a straight-edge, you'd be a pretty good sort of a chap to go on a cruise with."
"Oh, I'm all right when I'm not abused," French replied. "If Dad had presented me with a million instead of a thirst for other people's property, I'd have had my name in the society columns every day! Isn't it about time for Ned and Jimmie to come home?" he added. "If you don't mind, I'll run the boat out a little farther, so they'll have to call and signal when they do come."
"They should have been here long ago," was the reply.
"I must insist that you remain perfectly quiet when they do come," French said, after the boat had changed position, in a moment. "I don't want to spoil this pretty boat with dark stains. Perhaps, however, they have been captured."
"You would know if they had, wouldn't you?" asked Jack.
"Why, no, I think not. You see I have just arrived, coming in the second launch, now over there in the bay. I did not go to the camp, but edged around the hill with half a dozen men in order to see if all was safe. We've got some pretty high-up men in this game with us, and I'm afraid Wall street would stand up on its hind legs and howl if their names were known. Hence this caution."
French seemed to be a college educated man and a gentleman by instinct. While they were preparing supper he amused them with stories of his travels and adventures, and both boys heartily wished he was with them as a friend instead of an enemy. When it grew dark he sent all the Filipinos away but two, and they sat down to a good meal.
Frank questioned French, cautiously of course, but could gain little information from him. The fellow seemed fully aware of the purpose of the boy, and replied to his questions with the most extravagant stories of the empire that was to be raised in the Philippines after the United States protectorate had ceased.
"You're a queer chap," Frank said, at the conclusion of one of French's stories of the grandeur of the coming empire, "and I'd like to hear you spin yarns all night, but, if you don't mind, I'll go to bed."
"Just as you like," was the amiable reply. "I'll sit here and smoke a few more cigarettes and then follow your example. It is such a wild night that your friends may have stopped at a down-town hotel!"
"Perhaps they've stepped over to the Waldorf!" Jack replied.
The lads occupied the same bunk, and talked in whispers all through the night. They had no idea what had become of Ned and Jimmie except the supposition that they had been captured by their enemies. French retired about midnight, as calmly as if he were in his own rooms, leaving the two Filipinos on guard in the cabin.
Once Frank arose and tried to slip out, his idea being to reach the shore and look for his chums, but the brown men lifted their guns automatically as he looked out on them. All through the night they sat unblinkingly, looking out in the dim light much as glass eyes might have looked out of the head of a wooden image.
"We're sure in a bad box," Jack whispered, after this attempt at escape. "I don't believe they'll turn us loose on the island, knowing what we know. They won't take any chance of our getting away! If Ned was free, he'd have been here before this, so we may as well make up our minds that he's in trouble also."
With daylight came a cessation of the storm, and soon the sun was shining smotheringly down on the little bay. Sweltering in the cabin, Frank looked out of a port and saw a pole lifted above a clump of low bushes just back from the distant beach. As he looked the pole moved forward and back, then to the right, ducking three times and coming back to a vertical position. The pole wavered to right and left and to the front for a time, and the boy waved his hand from the open port.
"Wigwag!" he whispered. "It says: 'Brace up!' That's Jimmie!"