CHAPTER XIV
GATHERING TROUBLE
The telephone tinkled in the kitchen just after Dan had pulled off his boots. He and Billy were the last to go to bed on this evening, for it was so cold that they had gone out to the milk room to blanket all the bottled milk for fear the bottles would freeze and burst their caps.
Billy, still having his boots on, went down the back stairway and Dan heard him speaking into the instrument. It was several moments before the older boy realized that Billy was growing excited.
And no wonder! Billy was listening to something over the ’phone that quite amazed him. In the first place he was surprised to hear old John Bromley’s voice.
Bromley seldom if ever called them up, although the boys had paid for having him put on the party wire. It was handy for them to be in communication with Old John, summer and winter.
“You and Dan had better come down here,” said the boatman, his voice very low. “There’s something——”
It died out there and Billy asked him to repeat it. Old John seemed to keep right on whispering:
“I’ve chased ’em off, but they come back.”
“Who has come back? What d’ye mean?” gasped Billy.
“And so you better come. Don’t want ’em ... hear me talkin’——”
“What under the sun are you getting at, John?” exclaimed Billy. “Let’s have the details.”
Bromley’s voice on the wire was strong for a moment. “Now, you wait——”
And that was all—every last word Billy heard! He rattled the hook, and shouted into the mouthpiece, and tried to call Central. He got her after a while and demanded that Bromley be called again.
“Doesn’t answer!” snapped the girl, after a fruitless minute.
Dan, hearing Billy’s voice rising to crescendo, pulled on his boots again and ran down to the kitchen. “You’ll wake the whole house up,” he exclaimed, admonishingly.
“Well, what do you know about this?” Billy demanded.
“About what?”
“Something has happened down to Old John’s——”
He turned and made frantic efforts to get Central again. She said finally: “Don’t answer. I think he’s got the receiver off the hook.”
Billy, at this, repeated as near as he could remember the broken sentences he had heard over the wire.
“Sure it was Bromley?” asked Dan.
“I hope I know his voice, even when he whispers,” replied Billy, with scorn.
“We’d better go down there,” said Dan, slowly. “John is old; something might have happened.”
“I reckon something has happened, all right, all right!” growled Billy, beginning to struggle into his coat.
“Wait till I speak to father. We mustn’t go without telling him. Get out the motorcycles, Billy.”
“Betcher!” responded his brother, unlocking the kitchen door.
Five minutes later they were astride their machines and were wheeling for the crossroad that led down to Bromley’s dock. The wind cut like a knife and it was pitch dark. Without their headlights they would not have dared venture along the black road. Now and then—it seemed to Dan—a flake of snow stung his cheek. The long-gathering storm was about due.
They shut off the noisy engines as they slid down the hill to the river’s brink. The Flying Feathers rattled a little over the ruts; but they approached the dock rather quietly, after all.
There wasn’t a light anywhere about the premises—not even in Old John’s little green painted shack where he had lived alone so many years.
“Let’s go easy, Billy,” advised Dan.
They hopped off their wheels and stood them carefully under the trees by the roadside. They quenched the light of their lamps, too; but Dan removed his lamp and carried it in his hand against emergencies.
“Don’t see a soul around,” breathed Billy. “Shall we hail the old man?”
“Not yet,” returned Dan, quite as disturbed now as was his brother.
They were almost at the door of the cabin when Billy suddenly clutched Dan’s arm. He pointed toward the outer end of the dock.
“Where—where’s that other mast?” he demanded.
“What—you can’t see it in this black night, Billy,” Dan declared.
He, too, recognized the lofty mast of the Fly-up-the-Creek. The mast of the motor iceboat should have stood beyond it; but——
“It’s gone!” gasped Billy, and started on the run down the dock.
“Wait!” called Dan, softly.
He raised his hand to knock upon the door of Bromley’s hut, but halted in a panic. Out on the ice—seemingly from a great distance—sounded the explosions of a motor exhaust!
“They’ve robbed us!” shrieked Billy, from the end of the dock. “Look, the Follow Me is gone!”
Dan did not wait to rap on Old John’s door. He lifted the latch and found it unbolted. As he stumbled into the place he fell over a body lying on the floor. Opening his lamp, he turned the ray upon the obstruction. It was Bromley, bound hand and foot, and gagged, lying helpless on the floor, but very much awake!
The old man’s eyes glared like a mad cat’s in the dark; and when Dan jerked away the bandage that had smothered his speech, the old boatman “let go” some deep-sea language that—at another time—would have quite startled the Speedwells.
“Those sculpins jumped on me—three of ’em. I knowed they was sneakin’ erbout, an’ I was tryin’ ter warn ye over the ’phone. But while I was talkin’ ter Master Billy they rushed me—broke right inter the house here an’ grabbed me.
“Ye kin see I did some fightin’,” said Bromley, who was now sitting down and holding his head, on one side of which a big lump had come into sudden being. “There’s my butter crock smashed—I heaved it at one of the villings—I did so!
“But three ter one is big odds for an old feller like me. Ye see what they done to me? And they went off with your new boat, Master Dan. That’s what they was after.”
“What did they look like?” queried Dan, sharply.
“They was masked—every one o’ them,” replied Bromley.
“They went up the river, Dan,” said Billy, eagerly. “Didn’t you hear the exhaust of their engine?”
“I couldn’t place it.”
“I could,” declared Billy, earnestly. “I was out on the end of the dock, and I marked it well. ’Twas up-stream——”
“Ye’d better telephone to the constable,” said Old John.
“To Josiah Somes?” laughed Billy. “A fat lot of good that would do us.”
“You ’phone to the sheriff, John,” commanded Dan, suddenly deciding the matter. “And tell father about it, if he asks. But Billy and I will follow the robbers.”
“Say! them three villings was powerful mean to me,” objected the boatman. “What they’d do to a couple of boys——”
“We needn’t get into a tussle with them,” said Dan, quickly. “We’ll just get on their trail—if we can.”
“We can,” cried Billy, confidently, and ran out of the cabin at once.
His brother was soon after him. They unleashed the bigger iceboat and pushed her off from the dock. There was a strong gale blowing, but they had been out in some pretty keen blows with the Fly-up-the-Creek, and knew well how to manage her.
“Sure they went up stream?” asked Dan, as he helped Billy raise the big sail.
“Pos-i-tive!”
“Then——We’re off! Look out for yourself, Billy, when the boom swings over.”
Dan barely caught the stern of the craft and scrambled in. The wind had filled the canvas suddenly, and she shot out from the dock. He had her in hand in a minute, however, and sent the boom creaking over and they got upon the right tack.
Almost at once the iceboat set a pace that made the boys cower and cling as they could to the rocking, wrenching timbers of the craft. The gale did not show its fury until they were well out of the lee of the land.
Then the boys discovered that it was snowing, too. The few flakes that had whistled past them while they were riding down to the dock had gathered in infinite numbers now. The gale whipped them along so speedily that they did not seem to touch the ice at all; yet the air was soon filled with hurrying, stinging ice particles which blinded them.
Somewhere ahead they believed three robbers were flying up the river in the stolen motor iceboat. Of course, they would carry no lamps, and it would be difficult to see the runaway until they were right upon it.
But if they continued to use the motor Dan and Billy knew they would soon be able to place the Follow Me. They strained their ears to distinguish the put-put-put of the exhaust.