CHAPTER IV.—“THE PHANTOM BOARDER”
When Alex climbed over the top of the motor boat’s cabin for the purpose of investigating the mystery of the disappearance of the cakes and honey, he saw a dripping lad much smaller than himself sitting close under the open window composedly devouring the pancakes and honey! So great was the haste, or so imperious the hunger, of the boy that he was cramming the cakes into his mouth as if stuffing them into a bag!
In the sheltered position in which he sat he could not be seen from the inside of the cabin, even by one glancing through the open window, unless the person so investigating should thrust his head far out of the opening. He was crowded up against the rear wall of the cabin, in a small pool of water which had trinkled out of his soaked garments. It was evident that he had not long been out of the river.
Alex, lying flat on his stomach on the roof of the cabin, reached down a hand in an attempt to seize the intruder by the hair of the head. Now that he had discovered the purloiner of the breakfast, he was bent on dragging him, a captive, before his chums—with what was left of the cakes in sight!
But the boy did not reach down far enough. Instead of grasping the rusty red hair of the visitor, he merely seized a flat, postage-stamp cap which illy protected his head from the rays of the sun. The lad felt his cap lifting and, thrusting the cakes, covered with honey as they were, into a pocket of his trousers, looked up to see Alex grinning down at him.
To this day Alex insists that he then saw the quickest human movement of his life. One instant the intruder was sitting on the narrow aft deck stuffing pancakes into his mouth. The next he was under water, swimming swiftly down with the current! Alex saw only a twinkle of wet shoes and dripping stockings and the lad was gone!
The boy watched the thief for only a second. Without stopping to warn his chums, without considering the risks he was running, he foolishly sprang down on the aft deck and dove headfirst into the river. It was little wonder that the unusual proceedings at the stern of the boat failed to arouse Captain Joe, for in a minute the boys were under water and far down stream.
About the time Clay and Case were looking for their chum, Alex was, in close pursuit of the pancake thief, crawling out of the river some distance below at a point, in fact, where a sprawling island of sand was almost connected with the shore by a long spit! Before the searchers climbed over on the aft deck, the hot sun had completely evaporated the water the intruder had brought there in his garments, so there were no traces of his ever having been there at all!
Reaching the shore, the fugitive dashed across the tide-leveled beach and sprang lightly over the levee. Alex came, panting, after him, for the swim had been a long one, to meet with the surprise of his life when he half climbed, half tumbled, over the shifting elevation.
The fugitive seized him as he dropped, turned him over by a deft and powerful movement of hands, arms and body, and promptly sat down on him, holding his arms down on his breast! Alex was practically helpless, although his assailant was much smaller than himself, and panting, too, from the same long swim—mostly under the reddish brown waters of the river. He was not long, however, in realizing the humor of the situation, for he looked up into the freckled face above him with a grin.
Now, Alex’s grin was an alluring thing! He had conquered enemies with it, and secured more than his share of Christmas presents at free distributions in Chicago, when he was still a little tot. The victorious thief “fell for it,” as he would have expressed it, and gave back one that was very much like it!
“What’s doing?” Alex demanded, in a moment.
“What do you mean by spoiling my breakfast?” demanded the other.
Alex roared as heartily as was possible, considering the restrained position in which he found himself. It was too funny!
“Your breakfast!” Alex exclaimed. “You’ve got your nerve! My breakfast! You’ve got your appetite with you, too, if you ate all you stole through the cabin window! You must have been hungry!”
The stranger bounded off Alex and sat down on the sand, keeping a watchful eye on his late prisoner, however. Alex rose to a sitting position and grinned again. The other took a pancake from his pocket and began eating. Alex looked on and wondered at the appetite!
“Does it taste as mussy as it looks?” he asked, referring to the pancake, which looked like a mass of brown dough dripping with honey and crushed into odd shapes by soiled fingers.
“It tastes like something to eat!” was the reply. “Say, but I was about starved to death when I smelt the pancakes. If I’ll go back on board, will you cook me some more? I’m still hungry!”
“Sure I will,” replied Alex. “What did you run away for?”
“You haven’t heard?” demanded the other, suspiciously.
“Haven’t heard what?” asked Alex.
The other looked out to the foothills and back to the levee, which concealed the river from view. Then he searched his pocket for another pancake, failed to find it, and rolled along on the sand.
“Haven’t heard what?” asked Alex, determined to know what the other was driving at. “What haven’t I heard? What you mean by that?”
“What’s your name?” the stranger asked, abruptly.
“Alex Smithwick,” was the quick reply.
“I’ve heard of you,” the other went on. “Some Chicago newspaper printed a picture of the Rambler and you three boys. That’s how I found the nerve to visit you last night. I’m from Chicago. I was looking for you!”
“Tell me what it is I haven’t heard,” Alex insisted, “and tell me your name! I’ve told you mine.”
“I’m Don Durand,” was the quick reply. “I guess that will tell all there is to tell. Guess you’ve heard that name before!”
“You ain’t ever been president of the United States, or lightweight champion, or the jockey that won the derby, or anything like that, have you?” Alex asked, whimsically. “If you have, I’ve overlooked a big one, for I never heard that name until just now! Unravel your crime, me son!” he added, with a grin which brought out all the freckles in his friendly face.
“It is a crime, all right!” Don admitted, hanging his head.
“I didn’t know it!” Alex cried, distressed at the other’s humiliation. “If I had, I wouldn’t have said the word. If you don’t want to talk about it, you needn’t.”
“I want you to know,” Don answered. “I’ve just got to tell some one, or I’ll bust! I’m a thief!”
“Pancakes and honey?” asked Alex. “I knew that before!”
“No; money,” the other went on. “A whole lot of money!”
“Huh!” Alex observed, looking over the hot sand, the hotter hills, the brazen sky, and the starved landscape, “did you come down here to serve out your sentence? Strikes me that you’d better be in some nice cool jail, where there is plenty of pancakes and honey!”
“I’ve stolen about all the money there is in the world!” Don said, in a moment, a troubled look coming over his face.
“Have you got it yet?” asked Alex.
“Every cent of it!” was the reply. “Every last cent of it!”
Don threw off his wet jacket, loosened his waistband, and, after working both hands in the vicinity of his hips for a moment, making wry faces every second of the time, drew forth a waterproof belt the bulging sides of which proclaimed crowded contents. After shaking it to remove any chance drop of water, Don unfastened the buckles and began unwinding the oiled silk which enclosed the contents of the belt.
Directly the long wrapping lay on the sand at the boy’s side, and the burden of the belt lay revealed. Alex’s eyes bulged out so they ached.
The waterproof belt had been stuffed with money—gold treasury notes of the denomination of $1,000!
“Wow!” Alex exclaimed, almost involuntarily. “Talk about wealth! There it is! How many of those picture cards are there?”
“Fifty!” was the quiet reply. “I stole $50,000.”
“That’s nice!” grinned Alex. “Are you going abroad to buy a little kingdom with it? Standard Oil hasn’t anything on you!”
“I’m going to give it to the owner,” was the unexpected reply.
“Well, why don’t you, then?” asked the boy.
“Because I don’t know where he is. He’s lost!”
“You knew where he was when you stole it from him, didn’t you?” asked Alex. “Why can’t you go find him?”
“I didn’t steal it from the owner,” was the reply. “I stole it from the man that stole it from the owner.”
Don, exploring the belt, brought out two slips of paper, read them over hastily, and crushed them back into the secure cavity again.
Alex did not ask what the quick action meant, for he was busy with the gold notes. He had never before seen so much money at one time in his life. It seemed to him that all the wealth of the world lay exposed on the hot sand at his feet. Don regarded it carelessly.
Presently Alex took the notes into his hands and began counting them. He placed them in little heaps, then he laid them along the sand, end to end. He was interrupted in the midst of this fascinating employment by a low cry from Don.
“What is it he asked?” gathering the money up in one heap, preparatory to concealing it. “Some one coming?”
“Some one peered over that sand dune,” Don answered. “I saw eyes like a snake’s feasting on the money! I shouldn’t have taken it out in an exposed place like this. What shall I do with it?”
Alex’s resourceful mind was not long in finding a way.
“Grab it up,” he directed. “Make as if you were putting it back in the belt, but pass it to me, with the silk, and I’ll bury it in the sand. Here, put plenty of sand in the belt, so it will look like it was still full of money. Now, put it on! Turn so any one watching us will see you doing it. They’ll think you're hiding the money in the belt again, but we’ll fool ’em!”
Don did as directed by the quick-witted lad, and then Alex started away toward the river, walking as if he had no idea that there was any one in the world besides himself and friend. He smiled as he turned to his companion, whose eyes were fixed intently on the location of the silk covering which held the treasury notes.
“Think I’m going to cut and run with the mazuma?” he asked, following the other’s gaze back to his own wet clothing.
“Why—why—of course not,” faltered the other. “Why should you?”
“I’m going to hide it in the sand, and take bearings so that either of us can find it,” Alex went on. “This neat little bunch of spinach is not for the Greasers! It might be their ruin!” he added, with a grin. “It might drive them to drink!”
“But the tide and the current may wash that sand away, or shift it about, within the next twenty-four hours,” urged Don, with a sigh.
“That’s true!” Alex admitted, with a worried look. “That’s true. We are now up against the responsibilities of great wealth!” he continued, with another whimsical grin. “Do you see the Greasers watching us yet? They mustn’t suspect that the belt is empty of cash!”
“One of them peeped over a rise just as we started away,” was the reply. “They’re watching us, all right enough. They smell money?”
Alex threw himself down on the sand, in a position which overlooked the river, and rolled about in exaggerated ease. Don sat down close at his side, and the money was buried between them.
“See that bald old peak across the river?” asked Alex, when the job had been satisfactorily completed. “And that topknot to the west?”
“Sure I do!” Don replied, still watching the spot where the money had been placed, and looking as if he would like to dig it up again.
“Well, when you want this cash, just come to the top of this barrier and dig on a straight line between the two. Then you can’t miss it.”
“Unless the water gets here first!” Don grumbled.
“It is risky,” Alex admitted, “but if you keep it in the belt the Greasers stand a show of getting it, so where’s the odds? Just now they think you’ve got the money on your person, and so, considering it safe for the present, they won’t be in any hurry about attacking us. That gives us a chance for our lives, anyway, though they’re pretty sure to come after us before long.”
While the lads lay watching the river, and wishing themselves aboard the distant Rambler, three ferocious-looking fellows crept upon them, moving over the hot sand like snakes. So intently were the lads watching the motor boat that the first intimation of their peril they received was the harsh laugh of one of the Mexicans as the three closed up behind the unsuspecting youngsters. When Alex turned around he found himself looking into the steel-blue muzzle of an automatic.
“Welcome to our midst!” the boy said, trying to make a grin come easily.
One of the Mexicans seized Don by the shoulders and drew him back, as if about to strip the money belt off him, but another checked him with a coarse command. It was plain that they still believed the belt to hold the treasury notes, and plain, too, that the three were not trustful of each other. At least, for some reason, two of the three preferred leaving the money where it was for the time being.
The Mexicans were evidently waiting for some anticipated event to take place, for they sat down near the boys and kept close watch of the river and the shore opposite where the motor boat lay. The lads soon saw Case and Clay row down the river in search of Alex, saw King board the Rambler, saw the Mexicans desert him, and heard the shots fired across the levee.
They saw the dog spring overboard and swim down to them, but could not induce him to come to them. Captain Joe soon disappeared, and in a minute the Rambler dropped down to the point where he had left the water and Case landed on the island and made for the shore, almost exactly where the lads lay with their captors.
Alex tried to warn the boy, but dropped back in disgust when a gun was thrust into his face!