CHAPTER IV
JACK'S QUEER LOT OF LOOT
"Stop, thief!"
Jack Benson only sped onward the faster.
"Halt, you young rascal!" roared the long-legged one, in pursuit.
"The fellow who can call names like that, under the circumstances, has no sense of humor!" chuckled the submarine boy, inwardly.
"Drop that chart and book!" panted the one in chase. "You're stealing government property!"
"Yes, but which government?" Jack shot back at his pursuer.
"Are you going to stop?"
Jack's answer was to increase his burst of speed slightly.
"Then I'm going to fire!" came the warning. Glancing over his shoulder the submarine boy saw the long-legged one still running after him. At the same time the pursuer was raising his revolver, sighting.
Jack felt a little shiver. He had never been suspected of being a coward, yet he was willing to admit that he didn't want to feel a chunk of lead plowing its way through him.
"Last word to halt!" yelled the pursuer, in an ugly tone.
"Fire, then!" dared Jack Benson.
Crack! Whizz-zz! Chug! The weapon was discharged promptly. Jack, still in flight, heard the bullet whistle by him. Then it struck the sand, fifty feet ahead, throwing up a spurt of the fine particles.
"That was for a caution. The next shot will be to hit!" panted the pursuer.
"I wonder if you can do it?" Jack taunted backward over his shoulder.
There was method in the submarine boy's tactics. He hoped, by making the stranger angry, to spoil his aim.
Crack! The bullet sped by, fanning the fugitive's face. The close aim, however, had the reverse of the effect expected by the marksman. It roused all the submarine boy's anger. He might be hit, but he would stop, now, only if a bullet laid him low.
Two more shots sped after the fugitive. Their aim was too close for comfort, though not true enough to score a hit. Each of the shots sounded a bit further back, too.
"He's getting winded," gritted the running submarine boy. "With his long legs that chap ought to get over ground faster than I. The difference is that that fellow is out of condition, and my hard work keeps me about up to the mark of condition all the time. He—"
Crack! Jack happened to turn, just as the fellow fired, and the boy was able to see that the bullet struck the ground behind him.
"Out of range!" clicked Benson. "What's the good of carrying a pocket revolver for service work? Now, if he had a dozen shots more left he would be wasting his cartridges to fire at me."
In fact, it was plain enough that the pursuer had given up the chase for the time being. Not only was he out of range of his quarry, but the long-legged one lacked the wind to keep on on foot.
"Say, what a fool I'd have been, to give up this plunder!" cried Jack, mockingly. "That chap couldn't catch me; he couldn't hit me. So I've gotten away with the stuff he was so anxious to have—and which the Army, I'll bet, would a thousand times rather he didn't have!"
"Now, how am I going to get back to the Army people?" wondered young Benson, slowing down to a walk, though keeping a vigilant lookout to the rear. "I don't want to walk something like a million miles to find a place from which I can get across the bay."
It was desolate country, over here. Jack and the long-legged one, well to his rear, now, might be the only human beings within some miles. The outlook was not an encouraging one.
"Say! Wow! Whoop! Blazes!" uttered Captain Jack, suddenly. "Now, I remember Long-legs! Millard was the name he gave when he came to us, at Dunhaven, last Fall. He was the chap who wanted to work on the submarine construction. Said he'd do any kind of work, but Grant Andrews put him in a separate shed, sorting and counting steel rivets, and never let him get near a submarine boat. That's the same fellow—Millard. Or, at least, that was the name he gave them. But, when Millard found he wasn't going to do anything but take care of rivets, he threw up the job four days after. He had pretended to be mighty hard up, too, and wanted work at any sort of wages."
Jack's face began to glow as he remembered more and more of the brief career of Millard at Dunhaven.
"And Dave Pollard, when he was over in Washington later, said he ran across Millard living at the swell Arlington Hotel! Millard had a different name in Washington, and refused to recognize Mr. Pollard—said there was some mistake. By hookey! There isn't any mistake. Millard was trying to steal submarine secrets at Dunhaven, and now he's trying to map out harbor defenses in Craven Bay!"
Again Captain Jack glanced backward over his shoulder, but Millard was no longer in sight.
"He knew me, probably, in a flash," muttered the submarine boy. "I'm sorry I didn't recognize him sooner."
Having gotten his wind back, Jack broke into a run again. Just because Millard had dropped out of sight was no reason for taking chances of a sudden swoop from the stranger.
For some five minutes Jack Benson jogged along. Then he came in sight of a little semicove. Here lay a small motor launch, whose skipper, somewhat of the fisherman type, was busily engaged with the engine.
"Say," hailed young Benson, running down to the water's edge, "can you start your engine at once?"
"I reckon," nodded the fisherman, looking up.
"Run your bow in, so I can get aboard, then," directed Captain Jack, briskly. "I want to get over to where the Army tug is at work. Do you know where that is—over to the southeast ward?"
"Yep," nodded the fisherman.
"I'll give you three dollars to take me over there in a hustle," proposed
Jack.
"You're easy enough," grinned the man in the boat, starting the engine, then lightly driving the bow of the boat upon the sand. "But you'll pay me in advance."
"Certainly," nodded the submarine boy, taking out the money, as he stepped into the boat, and handing it over.
"Now, pick up that boathook, and shove off, and we'll start," added the master of the little launch.
As Jack snatched up the boathook he caught, sight of Millard, three hundred yards away, just coming in sight on a run.
"You'd better get your engine going fast," warned Jack, "or that fellow headed this way will make trouble for us both. He's carrying a gun."
The skipper took just one look at Millard, who was racing along, pistol in hand, and was prepared to believe his present passenger. That little launch stole out of the cover under its reverse gear until the master of the craft thought himself far enough from shore for him to be out of range of Millard's weapon.
"Who is that feller?" asked the fisherman, when satisfied that he was at a safe distance and increasing it every instant.
"From the way he's dancing up and down, it looks as if he were crazy," laughed Jack, coolly.
"What's his particular specialty in craziness?" asked the master of the launch, looking shrewdly at the submarine boy.
"Now, see here," protested Benson, good humoredly, "as I understand it, you're paid to take me over to the Army tug—not to ask questions. Am I right?"
"You're right," nodded the fisherman, then surveyed the boy's uniform curiously.
"Your uniform looks like you was in the Navy?" suggested the man at the stern of the boat.
"Does it?" queried Jack.
"Are you in the Navy?" persisted the boat man.
"Just now, I'm serving with the Army," Captain Jack replied, evasively.
"Are you—" started in the human interrogation point, anew.
"See here," broke in the submarine boy, "I thought we agreed you had just one job to do for me, and that questions formed no part of it."
"That's right," agreed the fisherman. "But say, there's just one question I wish you'd answer me. Are you—"
"No!" interrupted Benson, decisively. "I am not. I never was."
"You didn't let me finish," complained the man.
"Wait until I'm out of the boat," proposed the submarine boy. "Then ask all the questions you like. Maybe you're paid to ask questions, but I'm paid to hold my mouth shut."
It went a good deal against the submarine boy's grain to be so brusque with an inquisitive stranger, but there seemed to be no other defense.
"Oh, well, if you're ashamed of your business—" retorted the fisherman, falling into a sullen silence.
This turn of affairs just suited Benson. He compressed his lips and sat back, looking out across the bay at the tug, which was at work some three miles away.
"Can you put on a little more speed?" inquired Jack.
"No," answered the fisherman, sulkily. "Doin' all the gait she'll kick now."
So Jack possessed his soul in patience until the wheezy little launch had covered the whole distance.
While still some two hundred yards off Jack caught sight of Major
Woodruff coming out of the after cabin of the tug.
"Ahoy, Major!" yelled the submarine boy, holding his hands to his lips.
"Perhaps you'd better stop work until I've reported."
Then the launch ran in alongside, and Jack stepped up to the deck of the tug, holding tightly to the loot he had taken from Millard.
The master of the launch manifested a disposition to hang about in the near vicinity, until curtly ordered away by Major Woodruff.
"I suppose you thought, Major, that I took a good deal upon myself in advising you to suspend work," Jack hinted. "Yet I've something to show you, and much to tell you. And I'm wagering an anchor to a fish-hook that you'll be glad you stationed me over on that neck of sand."
Major Woodruff led the way back into the cabin. There he examined the chart, with a start of astonishment.
"The fellow was marking down all our mine positions," came savagely from between the Army officer's teeth.
Then he picked up the book.
"A nice little assortment of notes on matters of military interest along this coast," muttered the soldier. "Your long-legged fellow has been busy at other points than Craven's Bay."
Then, closing the book with a snap, Major Woodruff looked keenly at the submarine boy as he remarked:
"Mr. Benson, I think our present submarine tests can be well suspended. We have a much more important task ahead of us—to catch this impudent thief of military secrets! And, in this undertaking, Benson, you can be of the greatest sort of help!"