CHAPTER IV—SIGHTING THE “PIRATE”
“How much speed do you want for this trip?” asked Joe, poking his head up through the hatchway as soon as the “Meteor” was running smoothly northward.
“On a hunt like this I think Mr. Dunstan will want us to burn gasoline,” Tom answered. “Give her about all the speed she can make.”
“That means twenty-five miles—or more?” insisted Dawson.
“Twenty-five will be close enough to going fast,” Tom replied.
Almost immediately the fast motor boat began to leap through the water. Though the boat minded her helm sensitively, Halstead rested both hands upon the wheel, watching intently ahead.
“Hey! What you trying to do? Swamp us, with your wake?” demanded an irate fisherman in a dory, as they raced past him.
But they had gone only close enough to enable big Michael, standing on the deck house, to peer at the inside of the dory.
Several other small craft without cabins they ran close to in the same manner, making sure that no stolen boy was on any of them.
Up near Great Point they encountered a cabin sloop. Michael, however, recognized a clergyman friend as one of this party, so Halstead passed them with only a friendly toot from the auto whistle.
Then down around the east coast of Nantucket they sped, further out to sea now, since inshore no craft were observed. They kept on until the south coast, too, had been passed, but there was no sign to gladden their eyes nor arouse their suspicions. Next along the south shore of the island the “Meteor” raced, and on out to Muskeget Island. From this point they had only to round the latter island and steer straight back for the inlet where Mr. Dunstan’s pier lay.
“Sure, I don’t like to go back stumped like this,” growled Michael.
“No more do I,” rejoined Tom. “Say, we’ve got daylight enough; I’m going to retrace our whole course and keep in closer to shore.”
Joe, who for some time had been on deck, nodded his approval. Cutting a wide sweep, Tom headed back, going now within a quarter of a mile of the shore.
“It begins to look,” hinted Joe, “as though whoever is leading the young Dunstan heir astray hasn’t taken him off the island of Nantucket at all.”
“There are plenty of hiding places on Nantucket, aren’t there?” inquired Tom, turning to the big coachman.
“Plenty,” nodded Michael, “if the rapscallions knew their way about the old island. But, by the same token, the rascals would be in plenty of danger of being found by the constables.”
“Of course Mr. Dunstan is having the local officers search,” pondered Tom aloud. “He said he would. He can telegraph the mainland from the island, too, can’t he, Michael?”
“Sure,” nodded the coachman.
“Then Mr. Dunstan must have waked up some pretty big searching parties by this time, both on the island and on the mainland,” Halstead concluded. “But see here, Michael, why wouldn’t it be a good plan to put you ashore? You can telephone Mr. Dunstan and see if there’s any news.”
“And if there ain’t any,” suggested the Irishman, “I might as well be going home across the island on foot, and keeping me eyes open. I can ask questions as I go along, and maybe be the first of all to find out any rale news.”
“That’ll be the best plan of any,” approved Halstead. “It begins to look more sure, every minute, that we’re not going to need your fine lot of muscle.”
At the lower end of the east coast of the island Tom remembered having seen a pier that would serve them for landing the Irishman. They made for that pier accordingly and Michael leaped ashore.
“I’ll telephone and then come back within sight,” the coachman called back to them, as he started. “If ’tis good news I’m hearing, I’ll throw up me hat two or three times. If ’tis no news, I’ll wave a hand.”
The “Meteor” then fell off, but kept to her bearings while ten minutes passed. Then Michael appeared in sight from the shore. He waved one hand and signed to the boys to keep on their course.
“Too bad!” sighed Tom. “But it makes it more certain than ever now, doesn’t it, Joe, that some real disaster has happened to young Ted Dunstan? It’s past the lad’s dinner time now. No healthy boy goes without either luncheon or dinner, unless there’s a big reason for it.”
“Unless Ted has merely gone to some friend’s home and has forgotten to notify his parents,” suggested Dawson.
“But Ted doesn’t strike me as the boy who’s likely to do that. He’s a fine little fellow, and I don’t believe he’d be guilty of being so inconsiderate as to leave home for hours without telling some one.”
They had the “Meteor” under full headway now. Tom, with one hand on the wheel, kept a keen lookout. They had run along some miles when Halstead gave a sudden gasp, made a dive for the rack beside the wheel that held the binoculars and called sharply:
“Take the wheel, Joe!”
With that Tom Halstead bounded down into the engine room. Over at one of the open portholes he raised the marine glasses to his eyes.
“What’s the matter?” called down Joe, filled with the liveliest curiosity.
“Matter enough!” came his chum’s excited rejoinder. “Don’t look when I tell you. Keep your eyes on your course ahead. But you saw that little pier over at port?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe you noticed a man sitting there?”
“I did,” Joe admitted.
“When I first saw him,” Tom went on, showing his animated face at the hatchway, “I didn’t think much about him. But the second time I looked I thought I saw something that brought back recollections. That was why I came down here for a near-sighted peep through the glasses. The fellow couldn’t see me down here and so ought not to suspect that we have noticed him particularly.”
“But who is he?” cried Joe eagerly.
“Oh, he’s the right man, all right,” Tom retorted perhaps vaguely. “He’s got on either the same pair or another pair just like ’em.”
“Pair? Of what?” demanded Joe.
“Trousers, of course, you dull old simpleton!” whipped out Halstead. “Joe, it’s the same old pattern of brown, striped——”
“The Span——”
“The pirate, I call him,” growled Halstead, stepping up on deck and replacing the binoculars in their rack without another look ashore. They were rapidly leaving astern the solitary one seated against the pier rail.
“Do you think——” began Joe, but Tom gave him no chance to finish.
“I don’t think anything,” broke in Halstead, alive with energy. “I am going to know—that’s what.”
Tom took the wheel himself, swinging the craft around a point of land just ahead.
“Look back, Joe. This shuts us out from the sight of that striped pirate, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” nodded Dawson.
Tom shut off the speed, adding:
“Stand ready, Joe, to use speed or wheel, and keep her about so-so. I’m going to lower the dingey into the water and row ashore. I’ll rig a line to her stern, so you can haul her back. Don’t bother to get the small boat up at the davits. Just make her fast astern. And then——”
“Wait here for you,” guessed Joe.
“No, as soon as you get the dingey made fast, put on headway and run the boat back to Mr. Dunstan’s pier. Report to him, telling him just what I’m doing and assure him I won’t be afraid to telephone if I learn anything worth while. I’ll get over to his place as soon as I can, later in the evening.”
Tom got the small boat into the water, left one end of a small rope in Joe’s hands and rowed somewhat more than a hundred feet to the beach. From there he waved his hand. Joe began to haul in on the line. Within thirty feet of the beach the woods began; Halstead was quickly lost to his chum’s sight.
Full darkness came on while Tom was still in the woods heading cautiously south. As he hastened along, making little or no noise, Halstead wondered what he would do with the man in case he discovered him to be really one of the pair who had sat in the seat ahead on the train.
“I suppose I’d better wait and make up my mind after I’m sure it is the same fellow,” Tom concluded.
The young skipper did not, at any time on this swift walk, move far from the shore line. At last he came to the edge of the woods, a very short distance from the pier he was seeking. There was still a man there, seated on the rail of the pier. There were some bushes, too, to aid in shielding the boy’s forward progress if he used care. Tom went down, almost flat, then crept forward, moving swiftly, silently, between bushes.
At last he was near enough to be sure of his man, trousers and all. It was the same man Halstead had seen on the train. The “pirate” was at this moment engaged in rolling a cigarette.