CHAPTER V—A JOKE ON THE ENEMY
The slight, swarthy stranger rolled his cigarette up nicely, moistening the edge of the paper, stuck the thing between his lips, lighted the tobacco and began to smoke in evident enjoyment.
“That’s my party, all right,” quivered Tom. “And now I’ve found him what on earth am I going to do with him?”
That was a new poser. Halstead had been so intent on identifying his suspect that, now he recognized him, he must figure out what was to be done.
“If the fellow is all right he ought to have no objections to going along with me and answering questions. If he won’t do that”—here Tom’s eyes began to flash—“I believe I’ll make him. This is a business that calls for stern measures. This fellow belongs to the crowd that must know all about Ted Dunstan’s disappearance.”
Yet, to look at him, one would hardly suspect the swarthy man leaning against the pier rail of being a conspirator. As he smoked he appeared to be wholly at peace with himself and with the world. He did not seem to have a care on earth.
As he still crouched behind a bush, watching the nearby fellow in the dark, an impulse of mischief came to Tom Halstead. He remembered that night prowling about the “Meteor” over at Wood’s Hole, and he remembered how Bouncer had frightened this same man.
“Gr-r-r-r!” sounded Tom suddenly from behind the bush. “Gr-r-r-r! Woof! Woof!”
It was a splendid imitation of the growl and bark of a bulldog. At the same instant Tom made a semi-spring through the bush.
The “pirate” uttered a wordless howl of fright. He lurched, attempted to recover himself and leap at the same instant, and——
Splash! There was another howl of terror as the man slipped over backward, then, head-first, struck the water at the side of the pier.
“Help! I drown!” came in a muffled voice, and a new note of terror sounded on the night.
Now drowning anyone was as far from Tom Halstead’s mind as could be. With an upward bound he sprinted out onto the pier, bending under the rail close to where the frightened one was making huge rings on the water in his struggle to keep up.
In his efforts the fellow reached one of the piles of the pier, hanging to it in mortal terror.
“Help, help, kind sir!” he pleaded hoarsely. “Not a stroke do I swim. Pull me out before I drown.”
Throwing himself upon the pier, Tom bent down with both hands.
“Here, catch hold,” he hailed. “You’re in no danger. I’ll pull you out all right.”
It was some moments before Tom could persuade his “pirate” to let go that frantic clutch at the pile. But at length Halstead drew his dripping suspect up onto the boards of the pier.
“Where is that terrible, that miser-r-rable dog!” panted the swarthy one, glaring about him.
“That’s all right,” Tom answered composedly. “There isn’t any dog.”
“But—but I heard him,” protested the other, still nervous, as he stared suspiciously around him. “The wr-r-retched animal sprang for me. His teeth almost grazed my leg.”
Such was the power of imagination—a fine tribute to Tom’s skill as a mimic.
“Aren’t you thinking of the other night, over at Wood’s Hole, when you tried to get aboard the ‘Meteor’ to wreck the engine?”
Halstead shot this question out with disconcerting suddenness. The young skipper looked straight, keenly, into the other’s eyes, standing so that he could prevent the stranger’s sudden bolt from the pier.
“I? What do you talk about?” demanded the foreigner, pretending astonishment.
“Oh, I know all about you,” nodded Tom. “You’re the party.”
“Be careful, boy! You insult me!” cried the other angrily.
“That’s all right, then,” Tom went on coolly. “Now maybe I’m going to insult you a little more. The trouble is, I need information, and you’re the best one to give it to me. Where’s Ted Dunstan?”
“I—I—you——” stammered the foreigner. “What do I know about Ted Dunstan? No, no, no! You are wrong. I have not seen the boy—do not know him.”
“Yet you appear to know that he is a boy,” insisted Tom sternly. “Come, now, if you won’t talk with me you’d better walk along with me, and we’ll find some one you’ll be more willing to answer.”
“How? I walk with you? Boy, do not be a fool,” retorted the swarthy one angrily. “I shall not walk with you. I do not like your company.”
“I’m not sure that I like yours, either,” retorted the boy. “But there are times when I cannot afford to be particular. Come, why should you object to walking along with me? All I propose is that we find the nearest constable and that you answer his questions. The constable will decide whether to hold you or not.”
“Step aside,” commanded the swarthy man imperiously. Full of outraged dignity he attempted to brush past the young skipper. But Tom Halstead, both firm and cool, now that his mind was made up, took a grip on the fellow’s left arm.
“Take your hand off! Let me go!” screamed the fellow, his eyes ablaze with passion. “Out of my way, idiot, and take yourself off!”
As the swarthy one struggled to free himself Tom only tightened his grip, much as the bull pup would have done.
“Don’t be disagreeable,” urged Tom. “Come, my request is a very proper one. I’m only asking you to go before one of the officers of the law. No honest man can really object to that.”
“You——” screamed the foreigner.
He shot his right hand suddenly into a jacket pocket. But Tom, watching every movement alertly, let go of the fellow’s left arm, making a bound and seizing his right arm with both strong hands. There was a fierce struggle, but Halstead’s muscles had been toughened by exercise and by many days of hard work at a steering wheel in rough weather. This slight man from another country was no match for the American boy.
Down they went to the flooring of the pier with a crash, but young Halstead was uppermost. In another twinkling he was bending the swarthy one’s right arm until that fellow was ready to sue for a truce.
Tom now held him helpless, kneeling on him.
“What were you trying to fish out of that jacket pocket?” demanded the young motor boat captain, thrusting his own hand in. He drew out something and held it up briefly—a clasp knife.
“A coward’s tool!” uttered Tom, his voice ringing scornfully. Then he threw the clasp knife far out so that it splashed in the water. “Why don’t you cultivate a man’s muscle and fight like a man, instead of toting around things like that? Come, get up on your feet.”
Bounding up, Halstead yanked the other upright. In a twinkling the swarthy man broke from him, sprinting off the pier.
“You haven’t learned to run right, either,” grinned Halstead, dashing after the “pirate” and gripping a hand in his collar.
That brought them facing each other again. How the swarthy one glared at his resolute young captor! They were about of a height, these two, and might have weighed about the same. But the man possessed nowhere near the strength of this sea-toughened boy.
“Now see here,” spoke Tom more pleasantly, “I’m doing what I think is right or I wouldn’t venture to be so rough. Walk along with me sensibly, until we can find out where a constable lives. I’ve got the best of you and you realize I can do it again. But I don’t want to be rough with you. It goes against the grain.”
The swarthy one’s only answer was to glare at the young skipper with a look full of hate.
Tom suddenly changed his tone.
“I know what you’re thinking of, my man,” he cried tauntingly. “You are just thinking to yourself what a fine time you’d have with me if you had me down in Honduras—where your friends do things in a different way!”
The taunt told, for the stranger’s eyes gleamed with malice.
“Ah, in good Honduras!” he hissed. “Yes, if I had you there, and——”
He stopped as suddenly as he had begun.
“That’s just what I wanted to know,” mocked Halstead. “Honduras is your country, and now I know to a dot why you’re interested in having Ted Dunstan vanish and stay vanished for a while. Come along, now. We’ll keep right on until we find that constable!”
Tom seized the stranger’s right arm in earnest now. The other held back, as though he would resist, but suddenly changed his mind.
“You are somewhat the stronger—with hands,” he said in an ugly tone. “So I shall go with you. But perhaps you will much regret what you are doing to-night.”
“Oh, I hope not,” Tom jeered cheerily. “At all events I’m doing the best I know how. And I’m glad you’re not going to make any fuss. I hate to be cranky with anyone.”
The place to which the pier belonged looked, from what Tom had been able to see of it, like a run-down coast farm. Away up on a hill to the left were a dilapidated old farm house and other buildings. Halstead feared, though, that the stranger might have friends up at that house and so decided to keep on through the woods at the right.
Before long they struck a fairly well defined road through the forest, a road that looked as though it might lead to somewhere in particular.
“We’ll keep right on along this road, if you don’t mind,” said the boy. He kept now only a fair hold of the other’s wrist. As the swarthy one offered no opposition, they made passably good speed over the road. But Tom, though he looked unconcerned, was wholly on the alert for any sudden move on the part of his captive.
“If I find I’m wholly in the wrong,” said Tom pleasantly, after they had gone at least a quarter of a mile in this fashion, “there isn’t anyone in the whole United States who’d be more glad to make a complete apology.”
“But that will not save you from trouble,” breathed the swarthy one angrily. “The laws of your country do not allow such high-handed deeds as you have been guilty of.”
“Down in Honduras the laws are a bit different, aren’t they?” asked Halstead very pleasantly.
“Down in Honduras, they——”
The swarthy one checked himself suddenly.
“That is the second time you have asked me about Honduras,” he went on presently. “Why do you say so much about Honduras?”
“I’ve trapped you into admitting that it’s your country,” laughed Halstead. “And that tells me, too, why you are so interested in having Ted Dunstan kept out of sight for the next few days.”
“What’s all this talk about Honduras?” demanded a gruff voice. The challenge made both jump. A stocky figure stepped alertly out from behind a tree. It was the solidly built, florid-faced man—the other of the pair Tom had first seen in the seat ahead.
“Oh, you, you, you!” cried the swarthy one delightedly, as he wrenched his captive wrist free from Halstead’s weakening clutch. “You have appeared in time, my friend!”
“So?” roared the florid-faced one, taking a business-like grip of Tom Halstead’s collar. “What was this young cub doing?”
“Doing?” cried the swarthy one, dancing in his wrath, his eyes gleaming like coals. “He had the impudence, this boy, to say he would take me to a constable. He insists that I know all about one Ted Dunstan.”
“Does, eh?” growled the powerful, florid-faced one, giving Tom a mighty shake. “Then we’ll take care of this young man! Oh, we’ll give him a pleasant time!”
“Yes, yes! Just as we would in Honduras!” laughed the swarthy one gleefully. “He has been asking much, just now, about the way they do things in Honduras.”
“Then he’ll be sure to be just the lad who’ll appreciate a little information at first hand!” jeered Tom’s captor.