Chapter 2. Some Of The Mystery Unraveled

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_ CHAPTER II. SOME OF THE MYSTERY UNRAVELED

"IF we can come alongside safely," echoed Hank, disgustedly. "I'll show 'em--and in a smooth swell of sea like this, too!"

As the big steamship lay to, Hank steered in until Captain Tom, boathook in hand, made fast temporarily. Then Hank hurried up with a line with which he took a fast hitch.

"Hey, there, you'll pull away our side gangway," roared down a mate, whose head and uniform cap showed over the rail above.

"You don't know us," grinned Joe Dawson, quietly.

By this time Tom Halstead was running lightly up the steps of the gangway. He reached the small platform above, then passed to the deck.

He was met by Captain Hampton, who inquired:

"Where's your sailing master, young man?"

"Right before you, Captain."

"You?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who are your owners?" demanded Captain Hampton, much astonished by Tom's quiet assurance.

"I'm captain and half-owner of the 'Restless,' sir," Halstead continued, still smiling at the other captain's very evident astonishment. "The other owner is the engineer, Joe Dawson, my chum."

Captain Hampton swallowed something very hard. Several of the passengers were smiling. A man who has followed the sea for years knows the capacity and efficiency that boys often display on shipboard, but it is unusual to find a boy acting as master of a yacht.

However, there was the "Restless," and there was Tom Halstead in the captain's uniform. These were facts that could not be disputed.

"You have a passenger, a Mr. Clodis, that you want to have me take off?" resumed Tom.

"Yes; you have come for him, then?"

"Not only that, but Mr. Seaton, the gentleman who has our boat in charter, has very urgently ordered us to bring Mr. Clodis ashore; also his baggage complete, and any and all papers that he may have brought aboard."

"You have a comfortable berth on your boat?"

"Several of them," Tom answered.

"Then I'll have some of my men make the transfer at once. Our ship's surgeon, Dr. Burke, will also go over the side and see that Mr. Clodis is made as comfortable as possible for his trip ashore."

"Steward Butts will show your men to the port stateroom, aft, sir."

A mate hurried away to give the order to Dr. Burke. A boatswain was directed to attend to having all of Mr. Clodis's baggage go over the side.

"Come to my stateroom, sir, if you please," requested Captain Hampton, and Tom followed.

"When you take a man with a fractured skull ashore, the authorities may want some explanation," declared the 'Constant's' sailing master, opening his desk. "Here is a statement, therefore, that I have prepared and signed. Take it with you, Captain----"

"Halstead," supplied Tom.

The motor boat boy glanced hurriedly through the document.

"I see you state it was an accident, Captain Hampton," went on Halstead, lowering his voice. "Our charter-man, Mr. Seaton, intimated that he believed it might have been a deliberate assault. Have you anything that you wish to say on this point, sir?"

"I don't believe it was an assault," replied the ship's master, musingly. Halstead's quick eye noted that Hampton appeared to be a sturdy, honest sea-dog. "Still, Captain Halstead, if you would like to question the steward who found Mr. Clodis at the foot of the main saloon companionway----"

"Have you made the investigation thoroughly, sir?"

"I think so--yes."

"Then nothing is likely to be gained, Captain, by my asking any questions of a steward you have already questioned."

The mate came back to report that Mr. Clodis had been carried over the side, and that his baggage had been taken aboard the "Restless."

"I know you don't want a liner held up," Tom went on, slipping Captain Hampton's report of the accident into his pocket. "I'll go over the side, sir, as soon as you can ascertain whether Mr. Clodis had any papers that ought to be sent ashore with him."

"There are none in the injured man's pockets," replied the steamship's sailing master, "and none were deposited with the purser. So, if there are any papers, they must be in Mr. Clodis's trunk or bag."

"Thank you, sir. Then I'll bid you good-bye and hurry over the side," said Halstead, energetically.

As they stepped out of the stateroom a passenger who had been lingering near stepped up.

"Oh, one moment," said Captain Hampton, suddenly. "Captain Halstead, this gentleman is Mr. Arthur Hilton. Since leaving New York he has received some wireless news that makes him anxious to return. He wants to go ashore with you."

Arthur Hilton had stepped forward, holding out his hand, which Tom took in his own. Mr. Hilton was a man of about thirty, smooth-faced, with firm set jaws. Though evidently not a Spaniard, he had the complexion usual to that race. His dark eyes were keen and sharp, though they had a rather pleasant look in them. He was slender, perhaps five feet eight inches tall, and, although his waist and legs were thin, he had broad, rather powerful looking shoulders.

"You can set me ashore, can't you, young man, for a ten-dollar bill?" inquired Hilton.

"Certainly, if Captain Hampton knows no reason why you shouldn't leave the vessel," Tom answered.

"Mr. Hilton has surrendered his passage ticket, and there is nothing to detain him aboard," replied the steamship's master.

"Your baggage ready, sir?" asked Tom.

"Nothing but this bag," laughed Hilton, stepping back and picking up his hand luggage.

"Come along, then, sir."

As Tom Halstead pressed his way through the throng of passengers gathered on deck, he heard several wondering, and some admiring, remarks relative to the youthfulness of the skipper of so handsome and trim a yacht.

Hilton followed the young skipper down over the side. Tom turned to help him to the deck of the "Restless," but Hilton lightly leaped across, holding his bag before him. Tom Halstead, as he turned, got a good look at that bag. It was one that he was likely to remember for many a day. The article was of dark red leather, and on one side the surface for a space as large as a man's hand had been torn away, probably in some accident.

"Here's the passage money, Captain," said Hilton, passing over a ten-dollar bill. Murmuring his thanks, the young skipper crumpled up the bill, shoving it into a trousers pocket, then hurried aft.

Clodis was a short, almost undersized man of perhaps forty-five, stout and well dressed. His head was so bandaged, as he lay in the lower berth of the port stateroom, that not much of his face was visible.

"He's unconscious, and probably will be for hours," stated Dr. Burke, as Captain Tom appeared in the doorway. "If he comes to, I've left some medicine with your steward, to be given the patient. Of course you'll get him ashore and under medical care as promptly as possible, Captain."

"Surgeons are on the way from Beaufort to meet us," the young skipper nodded.

"Then I'll return to my ship," declared Dr. Burke, rising. "But I'm glad to know that Mr. Clodis is going to be met by a friend."

As the doctor hurried over the side, Hilton turned to walk aft.

"Stay forward, if you please, sir," interposed Captain Tom. "No one is to go into the cabin until the patient has been removed under a doctor's orders."

There was a frown on Hilton's face, which, however, almost instantly vanished. Joe brought a deck arm chair and placed it for Mr. Hilton on the bridge deck.

"Good luck for you and your patient, sir," called down Captain Hampton over the rail, as he prepared to get under headway.

"Thank you, sir," Tom acknowledged. "We'll take the best care of Mr. Clodis that we know how."

With Hank on duty in the cabin, Tom Halstead had to cast off and make his own start as best he could. He managed the double task neatly, however, and, as he fell away the "Constant's" engine-room bell could be heard for half-speed-ahead.

The little auto-whistle of the "Restless" sounded shrilly, to be answered with a long, deep-throated blast from the liner's steam whistle. With this brief interchange of sea courtesies the two craft fell apart, going on their respective ways.

"Full speed on the return?" called Joe, from the doorway of the motor room.

"Yes," nodded Captain Tom. "But look out for vibration. Our sick man has had his skull cracked."

By the time the yacht had gone scooting for more than a mile over the waves, Captain Halstead, left hand on the wheel, turned to Hilton.

"Did you hear how our sick man came to be hurt, sir?"

"I didn't hear of it until a couple of hours after it happened," replied Hilton. "I understand that Mr. Clodis fell down the stairs leading to the main saloon, and was picked up unconscious. That was about all the word that was given out on board."

Captain Tom nodded, then gave his whole attention to making Lonely Island as speedily as possible. There was no land in sight, and the trip back was a long one. Yet the young skipper had his bearings perfectly.

They were still some eight miles off Lonely Island when Hilton roused himself at sight of a low-hulled, black schooner scudding north under a big spread of canvas.

"You're going to pass close to that boat, aren't you, Captain?" asked the bridge deck passenger.

"Yes, sir; pretty close."

"As I understand it, you're going to land at an island some miles off the coast, whereas I wish to reach the mainland at the earliest possible moment, and catch a railway train. So, Captain, if you'll signal that schooner and put me aboard, I shall feel under sufficient obligation to hand you another ten-dollar bill."

That looked so much like earning money rapidly that Halstead called Joe up from the motor room to set the signal. The schooner lay to until overtaken. Hilton discovered that the schooner was bound for Beaufort, and the bargain was quickly completed. A small boat put off from the sailing vessel and the bridge deck passenger, his noticeable bag included, was transferred.

The "Restless" was nearer Lonely Island, and the schooner was hull down, when Captain Tom suddenly started as Joe Dawson stepped upon deck.

"Blazes, Joe!" exclaimed the young skipper. "I'm afraid we've done it!"

"I'm afraid so, too," came quietly from the young engineer.

"That fellow Hilton, so anxious to get ashore, may be the very chap who struck down Mr. Clodis!"

"The thought had just come to me," admitted Joe.

"Yes! You know, Mr. Seaton hinted that the 'accident' might have been an attempt to kill."

Captain and engineer of the "Restless" stared disconcertedly at each other.

"Now, why did I have to go and make such a fearful stumble as that?" groaned Tom.

"You didn't, any more than I did," Joe tried to console him.

"We should, at least, have kept Hilton aboard until Mr. Seaton had had a chance to look him over."

"I could send a wireless to the Beaufort police to grab Hilton on landing," suggested Joe, doubtfully, but Tom Halstead shook his head energetically.

"No; the Beaufort police wouldn't do that on our say-so, Joe. And, even if they did, we might get ourselves into a lot of trouble."

The "Restless" kept smoothly, swiftly on her way, bounding over the low, gentle swell of the calm ocean. Tom shivered whenever he thought of the possibility of the motors becoming cranky. With such important human freight aboard any mishap to the machinery would be extremely serious.

"Joe," called Tom, at last, as the yacht came in sight of Lonely Island, "there's a tug at our dock."

Dawson came on deck, taking the marine glass from his chum's hand.

"I guess Mr. Seaton has been hustling, then. He couldn't have come from Beaufort on the tug, after all the trouble of rounding up doctors. He must have come down the shore in an automobile, and then engaged the tug near the island."

As the "Restless" went closer, the tug, with two short toots of its whistle, moved out from the dock. Powell Seaton, in broad-brimmed hat and blue serge, waved his hand vigorously at the boys. With him stood three men, presumably surgeons. Captain Tom Halstead sounded three short blasts of the auto-whistle to signal the success of his errand, while Joe swung his uniform cap over his head.

"Get down to your engines, Joe," called Captain Tom. "I'm going to make a swift landing that will be in keeping with Mr. Seaton's impatience."

Up to within nearly two hundred yards of the dock the "Restless" dashed in at full speed. Then signaling for half speed, next for the stop, and finally for the reverse, Captain Tom swung the yacht in almost a semi-circle, running up with bare headway so that the boat lay in gently against the string-piece. In that instant Tom, leaving the wheel, bounded up onto the dock, bow hawser in hand, and made the loop fast over the snubbing post. In the same instant Joe Dawson, cat-footed, raced aft, next leaping ashore with the stern hawser.

"Jove, but that was a beautiful bit of boat-handling--a superb piece of seamanship!" muttered one of the surgeons, admiringly.

Powell Seaton, however, stopped to hear none of this. He gripped Tom by the arm, demanding hoarsely:

"You brought Clodis ashore? How is he? Where?"

"Still unconscious, sir, and the ship's doctor offered no hope. You will find your friend in the port stateroom, sir."

Signing to the surgeons to accompany him, Mr. Seaton vanished aft, the medical men with him. Ten minutes passed before Hank came up, alone.

"What do the doctors say, Hank?" demanded Tom, instantly.

"One chance in about a million," replied Hank, in a very subdued voice--for him.

Five minutes later Mr. Seaton, hat in hand, also came up on deck.

"Mr. Seaton," murmured Tom, eagerly, "I've been waiting for you. I--we've something to tell you." Then the young skipper detailed the affair of taking Arthur Hilton from the "Constant" and transferring him to the Beaufort-bound schooner.

"Describe the fellow!" commanded Powell Seaton, suddenly, hoarsely.

Captain Tom did so.

"Arthur Hilton he called himself, did he?" cried Mr. Seaton, in a rage. "Anson Dalton is the scoundrel's real name!"

"Who is he, sir?" Tom asked, anxiously.

"Who is Anson Dalton?" cried Mr. Seaton, his voice sounding as though he were choking. "Who, but the scoundrel who has engineered this whole desperate plot against me! The dastard who struck down Allan Clodis! The knave who has striven for the badge of Cain!" _

Read next: Chapter 3. Invisible Hands At The Wireless

Read previous: Chapter 1. A Spark Puts Three Boys And A Boat On The Jump

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