CHAPTER VII
RUN DOWN
Something must be done. In another moment the frail boat would be drawn by the current right down on the bow of the River Swallow and cut in two. But there was no room to turn out or avoid them!
Ralph was the first to gain possession of his senses. He sounded the gong impatiently for Persimmons. Then in the same breath he ordered Hardware to hand him one of the life belts.
“Now then, you take a rope and when we strike them, for it can’t be helped,” he breathed, “lower it over and try to catch one of the men. I’ll get the other.”
Young Ware with compressed lips nodded. At the same moment Persimmons came on deck.
“Take the wheel, Perce,” exclaimed Ralph in a low tense voice, “and keep going upstream whatever happens.”
“What’s going to happen?” asked the alarmed boy.
“In another second we are going to hit an Indian canoe. If we can we are going to save their lives. Hold fast!”
There was a grating bump and a jar, and a cry of alarm came out of the night. Hardware cast his rope, while Persimmons, with a white face and strained muscles, kept the River Swallow on her course. Ralph had taken off his boots; now he ran to the other side of the bridge.
For a flash he saw below him an upturned face, borne past with the rapidity of lightning on the swift current. He cast the life preserver, which had a rope attached to it. To his joy he felt the life-saving device caught and the rope grow taut. But the next moment, under the sudden strain of his weight, a line, stretched across an opening in the bridge against which he had been leaning, parted.
While the other lads set up a yell of alarm, they saw Ralph jerked from the bridge into the tempestuous current. Ralph struck the water and went under.
When he came to the surface, he felt as if a hundred hands had hold of him drawing him under again. Weighted by his clothes, he was sadly handicapped. But he made a valiant fight for it. He still held the rope, but he was unable to reach the life preserver, because it was borne down stream with the Indian clinging to it, as fast as he was.
For what appeared an eternity the battle kept up, and then Ralph felt himself suddenly hurled upon some rocks. Gripping them with the grasp of desperation he hauled himself out of the water and laid hold of the rope with both hands.
It pulled taut. It was plain, then, that the Indian still clung to the life preserver. Conserving his strength for a few minutes, Ralph began to draw steadily in on the line. To aid him he took a turn of it around a small tree. The slender trunk bent like a whip under the strain, but it held without snapping.
Inch by inch Ralph hauled in, and after what seemed an interminable struggle, he pulled up on the bank a dripping, half-dead figure. It was that of the Indian who had grasped the life preserver. The man cast himself down on the beach for a short time, but soon recovered with the vitality of his race.
He gazed at Ralph as if the boy had been a being from another world. Then he appeared to realize what had occurred and broke out angrily into a tirade. Ralph held up a roll of dripping bills to appease his wrath.
“All right. No could help. Me pay,” he said, trying to placate the angry Indian.
The man nodded, but still sullenly.
“Where my friend? You drown him, you pay lot more!” he said.
“So that’s the way they rate friendship, is it?” reflected Ralph. “I guess ‘Lo, the poor Indian,’ has been a lot overestimated, or else this is an exceptional specimen.”
“I hope your friend is all right,” he said aloud, “but anyhow, we’ll soon see. Look!”
From up the river came a sudden glare of blue light. It was a Coston signal from the River Swallow.
“There they are now,” cried Ralph. “They are lying to for us. Lucky thing I have along my water-proof box of matches.”
He fumbled for the metal cylinder which had been of so much use to him in many tight places. Then, followed by the Indian, he set off across the little island to the side on which, judging by the light, the River Swallow was lying to. It did not take long to collect dry sticks and leaves and make a bright glare.
Through the night came a hail from the River Swallow’s megaphone.
“Are you all right, Ralph?”
Ralph cupped his hands. “Fine; but mighty wet! You’d better send ashore. I’ve got the Indian.”
“Good! We got the other,” came back another hail.
“Your friend all right,” said Ralph turning to the Indian. “Pretty soon they send small boat ashore for us.”
“Huh,” muttered the Indian, leaving a doubt to be inferred as to whether he would not just as soon have had the extra money as learn that his friend was safe. Not long afterward the small boat carried by the River Swallow came ashore, and they were rowed off by Hardware.
Full speed was made to the island, where the Indians were accommodated for the night. The next day they were sent on their way rejoicing with a skiff which had been lying idle in the boat house and a substantial recompense for their misfortune.
It was two nights later, after the boys had made a flying trip to the Thousand Islands with some guests of Ralph’s father, leaving them there, that, on the return voyage, they once more encountered “the mystery of the river,” as they had come to call it.
Malvin and Hansen were both on board, but neither was on deck, when suddenly out of the darkness the form of the gray, ghost-like motor craft emerged once more, like a figure in a fog, lightless and suddenly vanishing, as if swept from sight by an invisible hand.
Ralph had the wheel. He gave a sudden gasp as the apparition appeared before his eyes, then faded, vapor-like.
“The search-light, quick!” he ordered Hardware in low breathless tones. A bright spear of light cut the night. Here and there it swung, like a radiant, pointing finger. But it settled on no gray, swiftly sneaking craft.
The momentary reverie into which Ralph had been plunged by the mysterious appearance of the “ghost craft,” already encountered upon other night trips in the River Swallow, lasted but a brief time.
“You can’t find her with the search-light, eh, Harry?” he asked.
“Not a hide nor hair of her, as Mountain Jim would have said,” was the reply; “she’s certainly a big mystery, Ralph.”
“And one which it is going to be up to us to solve,” was the rejoinder. “You remember the last time we saw her, she was sneaking away from Dexter Island. This is the first time we have noticed her since, and she is coming from the same direction. From the fact that she carries no lights and altogether acts in a highly suspicious way, it is fair to assume that she is after no good. In some way that I can’t just explain I’m pretty sure that whatever tricks she is up to are in some manner connected with Dexter Island.”
“Just the way I feel about it, old fellow,” was his chum’s rejoinder. “I’d give a lot to unravel the mystery and – hello! Look there!”
Right ahead of them seemingly a light had suddenly flashed up out of the darkness. It was out of the path of the search-light and shone quite brilliantly. The light was in about the location where they had last sighted the gray night rover.
“Out with that search-light instantly,” ordered Captain Ralph snappily.
Instantly the bright rays of the big electric night-piercer were cut off.
“Now switch off the other lights, the running lamps and the stern one.”
Harry Ware hesitated an instant.
“You are going to run without lights?”
“For a time, yes.”
Snap!
Out went every light on board the River Swallow that might betray her whereabouts to any other craft.
“We’re taking a big chance, Ralph,” said Harry Ware curiously. “What’s the game?”
“Why, that light ahead belongs to the ‘ghost craft’; I’m sure of it. At any rate, it’s a clew worth following.”
“You’re going to chase her?”
A thrill of excitement vibrated in Harry’s voice.
Ralph’s jaws came together with a click. It was characteristic of his father, the “railroad king,” to do this when he had reached an important determination.
“Yes, Harry, I’m going to follow that light up for a while. See, it’s moving pretty quickly. Ring for more speed.”
“Well, that old spook of the St. Lawrence will have to go some to dodge the River Swallow,” ejaculated Harry, as he obeyed Ralph’s order; and almost simultaneously the swift craft leaped forward in pursuit of the Will o’ the Wisp ahead of her.
The chase was on. It was destined to be the beginning of a strange series of adventures.
CHAPTER VIII
A MISLEADING LIGHT
“Can you make out anything of that craft yet, Harry?”
The chase had been on for half an hour, and still the elusive light bobbed along ahead of them.
Percy Simmons, down in the engine room, had been fully informed by young Ware of what was going on, and he was coaxing his fine machines to their top notch of effort.
“I can’t see anything of her outlines yet, Ralph,” was Harry’s response to Ralph’s interrogation. “She must be a flyer.”
“She’ll have to be to get away from us.”
“Anyhow, it looks like a stern chase.”
“But not necessarily a long one. I haven’t heard of a craft yet that could get away from the River Swallow, at least, in these parts.”
“You mean an earthly craft,” rejoined young Ware, in rather quavery tones.
“Good gracious! What’s got into you? You surely don’t think that the boat we are after is anything but a motor boat like this one, run by men who have a good reason for not wanting us to catch up with them?”
“Um-er, I just had a shiver. A ‘goose walked over my grave.’ My grandmother says that that means that some sort of spirits are about.”
“Rubbish! I thought you were a different sort of a fellow from that, Harry. We’ll have to quit calling you ‘Hardware’ if you are going to be so soft as to think there is anything supernatural about that elusive boat.”
“Just the same, there’s something queer about her.”
“Nothing but what will admit of an explanation,” was the reply. “As for the way they are dodging us, it’s just what I expected. Honest men would not run away from us any more than they would go sneaking about in such a mysterious way at night.”
“Maybe they are only fish dynamiters,” suggested Harry Ware. “You know how strictly the law is dealt out to those rascals, and there have been several Canadian fish destroyers caught on the American side lately, and stiff terms dealt out to them.”
“Pshaw! Fish dynamiters are poor, poverty-stricken fellows who are too lazy to get fish in a proper, lawful manner, and crawl out at night to ply their trade in wretched, patched-up boats! No mere fish dynamiters could afford a swift, powerful craft such as the one ahead surely is.”
“That’s so,” agreed Harry, “but that craft ahead is surely a riddle just the same. I think – ”
He broke off with what might be fairly termed a yell.
“Ow! – oo! Look there! Now do you say that there isn’t something more than natural about that boat?”
In spite of himself, Ralph felt his scalp stiffen as he beheld the extraordinary sight to which Harry’s alarmed exclamation had attracted his attention.
Outlined against the night in a vivid green glare was what appeared to be a boat of living flame!
The water around her burned lambently as the apparently flaming boat plunged along through it.
“Gracious!” gasped Ralph, as he looked at the strange spectacle. There was a touch on his arm. He started in spite of himself and turned quickly.
Malvin was at his elbow. He was pointing at the green, blazing craft ahead of them.
“It’s – it’s the Lost Voyageur!” he exclaimed, in trembling tones. “Don’t chase it any more, sir! The legend is, that it means death to those who see that boat and pursue it.”
By this time Ralph had recovered his equanimity. His sturdy common sense asserted itself. He listened impatiently while Harry exclaimed triumphantly:
“There; what did I tell you! That’s the boat I heard about! The boat in which a party of the old voyageurs committed all sorts of outrages on the St. Lawrence Indians. In revenge for their cruelties the Indians attacked the boat one night and massacred the whole party. Ever since, at times, the ghost craft has been seen on the river, and death has followed every one who has tried to chase it or inquire into its mystery.”
“Oh, dry up!” snapped Ralph. “Malvin, get forward where you belong instantly.”
“But, sir – ”
The man appeared genuinely frightened, but somehow Ralph had an idea that he was not so scared as he seemed.
“See here, Malvin, obey my orders. I am in command of the River Swallow. Get forward at once and keep a bright lookout. As for you, Harry, I’m more than astonished at your being foolish enough to believe such a pack of children’s stories.”
As Malvin left the bridge, seemingly with reluctance, Harry spoke up:
“But, Ralph, look at that green fire! Ugh! it makes me shudder.”
“Heard of phosphorus, haven’t you?”
“Y-y-y-yes, but – ”
“No ‘buts’ about it. Those fellows think that we are just a pack of kids that they can scare by a foolish ghost trick. See, the light is dying out. Well, they’ll find out in a few minutes that their trick didn’t scare us. I’m more convinced than ever now that we have tumbled headlong into a big game of some kind. What it is I can’t imagine, but that fellow Malvin knows more about that boat than we do.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Why did he come butting in up here on the bridge and try to get us to stop chasing that craft?”
“Scared, I guess. I know I was.”
“Scared! Nonsense. If I read Malvin rightly, he’s not the sort of fellow to shy at a child’s trick like the one those fellows played. No, Harry, there’s something back of all this, and I for one mean to find out what it is before I’m many hours older.”
“Go ahead,” was all young Ware had to say, but to himself he muttered:
“We’ll never overtake that craft, and – I hope we don’t!”
The night shut down blacker than ever as the green glare that had outlined the fleeing craft in such startling fashion died out.
But right ahead the light still shone, the light that Ralph knew was the stern lamp of the craft they were pursuing. It had apparently been hoisted in defiance, and this made the young captain all the more determined to find out more about the gray stranger.
“What are you going to do if you do overtake her?” asked Harry.
This question was a poser. Ralph, in the excitement of the chase, had not considered this. He had no right to board the stranger or even to question those on board, for legally he had nothing upon which to proceed.
“It may prove to be a foolish chase, after all,” he admitted. “It may all come to nothing, but I couldn’t sleep unless I did what I could toward unraveling the mystery that I am sure envelops that craft. No men would go to the pains to rig up a ghost scare and all that unless they had a mighty good reason for doing so. I’m going to keep after her till I get close enough to hail her.”
“What then?” demanded Harry.
“Why, I don’t just know,” admitted Captain Ralph, “but if I don’t get satisfactory answers to my questions I mean to follow her till she makes port and report the matter to the authorities, and then it will be up to them. I feel justified in doing this from the fact that she has been seen off our island, presumably on mischief bent.”
There came a sudden sharp outcry from the bow.
Ralph gazed ahead and his heart fairly jumped into his throat.
Dead ahead, right under the bows of the onrushing River Swallow, was the light they had been pursuing, the stern light of the other motor boat.
“Great Scott! We’ll be crushed like an eggshell when the collision comes!” was the thought that flashed through his brain as he rang, half automatically, for “full speed astern!”
“Back her!” roared the voice from the bows, the voice of Malvin.
Harry Ware stood speechless, gripping the rail. He was helpless for the moment in the face of the impending disaster. The River Swallow was making almost thirty miles an hour. To collide with a solid body such as the craft ahead at that speed meant disaster, swift and certain.
Then a yell of terror burst from his lips. A sharp cry was torn from Ralph’s throat simultaneously.
The next instant, at almost top speed, the River Swallow struck. Fairly head on, she had collided with the obstacle before her.
CHAPTER IX
ADRIFT AT NIGHT
There was a jarring bump. Something rasped and grated along the keel, sending a shudder through the light timbers of the high-speed River Swallow.
Then she raced on as fast as ever. And that was all. Where was the boat whose stern light they had struck? Was she indeed formed of ghostly vapor and had she no tangible fabric?
Ralph, sweating from every pore, and tremblingly grasping the wheel, was half inclined to believe so, as he felt the propellers at last take hold on the reverse motion and the River Swallow begin to back. So startled was he from his accustomed presence of mind, that for a moment or two he felt more as if he were passing through the phantasmagoria of a nightmare than participating in every-day life.
“Wha-wha-what was it?” palpitated Harry Ware, still clutching the rail and staring straight ahead as if he expected to see the form of the ghostly craft emerge once more in front of them.
“Are we going down? What’s up?” came from Percy Simmons below.
“We’re all right, Persimmons,” hailed Captain Ralph, in reply, as his faculties came back with a rush. “Just check your engines, will you? There’s something I want to find out. Malvin!”
“Aye! aye! sir! Narrow escape, sir. I was ’most frightened to death! I thought we were goners,” came back the man’s voice from the bow.
“Well, apparently we have suffered no harm. A trick of some sort has been played on us. I mean to try to find out what it is. You and Hansen attend to lowering the anchor at once. Then get the small boat overboard.”
“The boat, sir? What for, sir?”
“Obey my orders and ask no questions,” shouted Ralph. “Now, then, Harry, you go below. Search thoroughly for a leak. I don’t think there is one, but still I’ll take no chances.”
“But wha-wha-what was it?” persisted Harry. “It must have been a ghost, that craft. We hit it and went right through it as if it had been smoke. I – I’m scared, Ralph.”
“Well, work off your fears in attending to your duty below. We hit something, all right. It wasn’t the boat. I want to find out what it was.”
“Humph! this all comes of going chasing a ghost ship!” muttered Harry, none too graciously, as the anchor chain rattled out and he departed on his mission.
Left alone on the bridge, Ralph concentrated in deep thought for a few moments. Then he galvanized into action.
“Anchor down?”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“Lower away on the boat and place the portable search-light in it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Presently came the sound of the ropes running out through the davits which supported a small, light motor tender used by the River Swallow.
“All gone?” asked Ralph, as he heard the splash that announced that the tender had struck the water.
“Yes, sir. But if you’ll pardon my making a suggestion, there’s no use waiting round here, sir. The current’s bad, sir, and I doubt if the anchor will hold.”
“I’ll decide that, Malvin. Get the search-light into the tender as I told you.”
“Very well, sir.”
“It’s odd,” mused Ralph, “that that fellow Malvin wants to try to block every move we make to unravel the mystery of that gray motor boat. What can be his motive unless he is interested in her? I’ve got a suspicion that this is a big game we’ve blundered into, but I mean to see it through as far as I can. Dad hates a quitter – boy or man – and I know that when I tell him about to-night’s work he’ll agree with me that I acted for the best.”
But, had Ralph known it, it was to be many days before he would have an opportunity of seeing his father and telling him of the strange events of that night and those that were destined to succeed them.
The River Swallow lay motionless. All about was a black void. Of the gray motor boat nothing was to be seen or heard. In fact, not from the start of the chase, nor on any of the previous occasions that the boys had sighted her, did the motor craft that had proved so elusive and tricky make any sound. From this Ralph argued that she was equipped with an under-water exhaust, a device which silences the otherwise noisy explosions of a gasoline engine.
Harry Ware came back on deck.
“Sound as a dollar,” he reported.
“Good! I thought so, but dared not fail to have an investigation made,” rejoined Ralph.
“But, Ralph, what became of the other craft? What was she, a ghost or a submarine?”
“Neither.”
“What, then?”
“A solid, speedy craft just like this one.”
“But we struck her.”
“We did not. We never touched her.”
Harry Ware gasped.
“Are we all crazy? We hit that stern light and went clean through it.”
“We didn’t even hit a stern light.”
“But we saw it. It was as plain as the nose on your face.”
“We saw a light. That doesn’t prove that it was the gray motor boat’s stern light.”
“What, then?”
“It simply goes to show that those fellows on board her were too smart for us.”
“They played us a trick?”
“That’s what.”
Percy Simmons, being needed no longer at the engines, had joined his companions on deck. He had been an interested listener. Now he spoke.
“They fooled us, eh?”
“Just what I’ve been saying,” rejoined Ralph. “But, see here, let’s get into the boat and go hunting.”
“Go hunting? Say, what’s the matter with you? What are we going hunting for?”
“We’re going a-gunning to find the heart of this mystery,” was Ralph’s rejoinder. “Come on, boys.”
He gave a brief order to Malvin to stay by the River Swallow with Hansen and await their return. Then, with Harry and Percy as companions, he rowed off into the night.
“Keep that search-light playing,” he ordered, referring to the small but powerful lamp on the bow of the tender. The motor was not used, as the tender was light and rowed quite easily. As he rowed, Ralph kept looking around over his shoulder. After some time, during which he had rowed in ever widening circles, with the River Swallow as a focal point, he gave a sharp cry of triumph.
“Ah-ha! There’s what I expected.”
Bobbing up and down on the waves, not many feet away, the search-light showed a strange object. It was apparently a round tub with a pole set upright in it. And such it proved to be on closer inspection, which also disclosed the fact that a lantern, extinguished, was swinging on top of the pole.
“And here’s the clever trick that fooled us into thinking we were overhauling that motor boat,” said Ralph, as he inspected it. “They simply towed this tub with the lantern on the pole for some distance till we thought it was their stern light. Then, when the chase grew too hot, they set it loose with an anchor on it and scudded off, while we ran down the light, foolishly thinking that we were colliding with the other craft. Simple, isn’t it?”
“But blessed effective,” declared Percy Simmons.
“That’s your ghost ship, Harry,” laughed Ralph.
“Don’t rub it in. I feel enough like a chump already,” groaned Harry.
“Well, anyhow, their little bit of deception has ended the chase for to-night,” said Ralph, after some more discussion. “Let’s get back to the River Swallow, boys, and then light out for home. We’ve spent a lot of time on this job. I was going to say ‘wasted,’ but I guess we’re destined to see more of that craft in the future, and it has done no harm to learn what cunning fellows are in charge of her. We’ll be harder to fool next time.”
“You bet we will,” came from both his companions, with a meaning emphasis.
“Now for the River Swallow,” said Ralph, as he took up the oars and prepared to row back to the craft.
“Where’s the light you told Malvin to put out?” asked Percy, in a puzzled voice, for the darkness shut them in all around and no light showed through it to guide them back.
“Why, I don’t see it. However, I know about where we left her,” responded Ralph.
But his knowledge was not as accurate as he surmised, for, after pulling about on the dark waters for more than an hour, and shouting at the top of their voices without eliciting any response, the lads were face to face with the fact that the chances of their finding the River Swallow that night were very remote.
“It’s that rascal Malvin at his tricks again,” declared Ralph angrily. “When we get back home I’ll get my father to discharge him. He’s sore at us because we’ve got full charge of the boat, and he’s trying to take it out in every mean, petty way he can think of.”
“It looks very much like it,” agreed Percy Simmons, “but in the meantime we are adrift on the St. Lawrence with only a mighty hazy notion of where we are. What are we going to do?”
This question was to prove a poser for some period of time.