Chapter 5. Tom Matches One Trick With Another

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_ CHAPTER V. TOM MATCHES ONE TRICK WITH ANOTHER

At the outset Joe swam at the rear, frequently giving a light push to send the log riding ahead. Tom and Hank swam on either side, half-towing the timber that was to be their buoy when needed.

All three, reared at the edge of salt water, as they had been, were strong, splendid swimmers. This night, however, with the rough waves, the feat was especially dangerous.

"Swim the way a fellow does when he knows he's really _got_ to," was the young skipper's terse advice as they started.

It became a contest of endurance. Tom and Joe, the two Maine boys, were doggedly determined to reach their boat or perish in the attempt. Hank Butts, the Long Island boy, though perhaps possessing less fine courage than either of his comrades, had a rough way of treating danger as a joke. This may have been a pretense, yet in times of peril it passed well enough for grit.

Any one of the three could have swum a mile readily on a lightly rolling sea, but to-night the feat was a vastly sterner one. Hank was the first to give out, after going a little more than an eighth of the distance. He swam to the log, throwing his right arm over it and holding on while the two Maine boys pushed and towed it. Finally, when young Butts had broken away to swim, Joe closed in, holding to the log for a while. At last it came even doughty Tom Halstead's turn to seek this aid to buoyancy.

Nor had they covered half the distance, in all, when all three found themselves obliged to hold to the log, as it rolled and plunged, riding the waves. Worst of all, despite their exertions, all three now found their teeth chattering.

"Say, it begins to look like a crazy undertaking," declared Hank, with blunt candor. "Can we possibly make it?"

"We've got to," retorted Tom Halstead, his will power unshaken.

"I don't see the light over there any more," observed Hank, speaking the words in jerks of one syllable, so intense was the shaking of his jaws.

"Maybe the boat isn't over yonder any longer," admitted Captain Tom, "but we've got to chance it. And say, we'd better shove off and try to swim again, to warm ourselves up. We're in danger of shaking ourselves plum to pieces."

There was another great peril, on which none of them had calculated well enough before starting. When they were clear of the log, swimming, it pitched so on the tops of the waves that it was likely, at any instant, to drive against the head of one of the swimmers and crack his skull.

"If we had known all this before we started----" began Hank, the next time the three swimmers were driven to cling, briefly, to their movable buoy.

"We'd have started just the same," retorted Tom, as stiffly as his chattering teeth would let him speak.

"Humph!" muttered Hank, unbelievingly. "It's a fool's dream, this kind of a swim."

"It's less work to go ahead than to turn back, now," broke in Joe, his teeth accompanying his words with the clatter of castanets.

"No; the wind and tide would be with us going back," objected Butts. "We could almost drift back."

"And die of chills on the way," contended Tom, doggedly. "No, sir! We've got to go ahead. I'm swimming to the tune of thoughts of the galley fire aboard the 'Restless'!"

"Br-r-r!" shook Hank, as the three cast loose from the log once more and struck out, panting, yet too cold to stay idle any longer.

It was tantalizing enough. The longer they swam, the more the boys began to believe that the island they sought was retreating from before them. Hank was almost certain they were moving in a circle, but Halstead, with a keen sense of location, insisted that they were going straight, even if very slowly, to the nameless island.

"I see it," breathed the young skipper, exultantly, at last.

"What--the island?" bellowed Hank Butts.

"No; but I'd swear I saw the 'Restless' the last time we rode a high wave," Halstead shouted back.

Ten minutes afterwards all three of the Motor Boat Club boys caught occasional glimpses of something dark and vague that they believed to be the hull of their yacht. The belief gave them renewed courage. Even Hank no longer had any desire to turn back. His whole thought centered on the lively times that were likely to begin when they tried to regain control of their boat from whomever had stolen it.

Then, bit by bit the trio worked their log buoy into the cove. Once they were inside, the water was very much smoother. Resting a few moments for breath, they then made a last dash forward, to get alongside.

In this smoother, more shallow water, the "Restless" rode securely at anchor. As they swam closer, the boys found that they could discover no human presence on the decks. Had the boat-stealers gone ashore on the nameless island? If so, it would be a comparatively easy matter to get aboard and cut out of the cove with their own craft.

Close up alongside they went. Tom Halstead was the first to be able to reach up at the hull and draw himself up over the side. Then, with his pocket-knife, as he lay at the rail of the "Restless," the young skipper slashed the cord that still held him bound to the log. Reaching over, he passed the knife to Hank. In utter silence the Long Island boy cut the clubs free, and passed them up. Next Hank drew himself aboard, after passing the jackknife to Joe Dawson.

Just a little later all three of the Motor Boat Club boys found themselves standing on the deck, each grasping his own firewood weapon. They made no noise, for they knew not who, or how many others might be on board below. If they had a desperate gang of thieves to contend with, then their troubles had not yet even begun!

Joe and Hank stood where they were, shaking as though in the last ditch of ague, while Halstead went forward, with the soft tread of a cat, to peer down into the motor room, the hatchway of which stood open.

"Wonder if there's anyone down there, asleep, or playing possum?" thought the young skipper as he peered into the blackness and listened. No sound of any kind came up to him. At last, a short step at a time, Halstead descended into the motor room, groping cautiously about. Finally, he became confident enough to feel in the galley match-box, extract a match and light it. The tiny flame showed him that the motor room was empty of human presence other than his own.

"No one down forward," he reported, in a shaking whisper, when he rejoined his chilled companions on deck.

"I believe there are plenty of folks in the cabin, though," reported Joe. "They've drawn the port-hole and transom curtains, but they've got a hidden light down there, and I can hear voices."

"Wait a moment, then," said Captain Tom, apprehensively. "I've an idea."

He crept back into the motor room, again striking a match. By the aid of this feeble light he found his way to the passageway that connected the motor room and the cabin under the bridge deck. After a brief inspection he hurried back to his comrades.

"The passage door is padlocked on the motor room side," he whispered. "Our pirates had no key to unlock that with. Now, can you walk the deck as though your shoes were soled with loose cotton?"

"Yes," grumbled Hank, disjointedly, "but the snare-drum solo my teeth are doing may make noise enough to give me away."

"Cram your handkerchief between your teeth," retorted Captain Tom, practically. "Come along, fellows. But hold your clubs ready in case your feet betray you."

Stealing along, each holding to the edge of the deck house with one hand, the motor boat boys approached the after hatchway. This, evidently for purposes of ventilation, had been left partly open.

Nudging his comrades to pause, Joe, bending so low as to be almost flat on the deck, prowled further aft.

There, in the darkness, he used his eyes to find out what might be down in the cabin. Then he came back.

"Eight tough-looking men in the cabin," he whispered, in Tom Halstead's ear.

"Is Anson Dalton one of them?"

"Yep."

"Hurrah! Then we've bagged him, at last!"

"Have we, though?" muttered Joe Dawson, dubiously.

"Well, we're going to," declared Tom, radiantly. "My boy, we're going to cut out of this cove with, the whole crew held in down there."

"Hope so," assented Joe, not very enthusiastically.

"Why, we've got to," argued Halstead. "If we don't, then that crew would have the upper hand, instead, and make penny jumping-jacks of us until they saw fit to let us go. But wait a moment. I must get back and have a look at them."

This time it was the young skipper who crawled aft. Joe and Hank followed part of the way, holding their sticks in readiness in case Dalton and his men discovered their presence.

"I reckon, Cap, you'll find you've got the right crowd for to-night's work," a rough voice was declaring, as Halstead came within ear range.

"Now, don't you men misunderstand me," replied Anson Dalton in a smooth yet firm voice. "I'm not paying you for any piratical acts. I have to give a little heed to the laws of the land, even if you fellows don't. What I want is this: At about two in the morning, when, most likely, everyone will be asleep except the one who is nursing the fellow Clodis, it is my plan to run in at Lonely Island's dock. We'll get quietly up to the house, suddenly force the door, and rush in. But, mind you all, there's to be no riot. Your numbers, and your rough appearance, will be enough to scare the folks of the bungalow. The two of you that I've already picked out will rush in with a stateroom door and one of the stateroom mattresses. With this for a stretcher, you two will get Clodis carefully and gently down to this boat. Then we'll sail away, and I'll tell you what to do next. But remember, no violent assault on anyone--no lawlessness, no hurting anyone badly. Trust to your numbers and suddenness. There's some baggage, too, in the bungalow, that I mean to bring away with me. I'll make off with it in the confusion."

"Oh, will you?" wondered Captain Tom Halstead, his jaw settling squarely.

Then, tiptoeing softly over to where Hank waited, the young skipper whispered something in that youth's ear. Hank fled quietly forward, but returned with a snap-padlock, the ring of which was open. With this in his hands Tom stole back aft, this time going close, indeed, to the hatchway.

"Hey! Someone on deck," roared an excited voice below.

There was an instant babel of voices, a rushing of feet and a general rumpus below. Two men in the van raced for the hatchway.

Slam! snap! click! Tom Halstead swung the hatchway door shut, forced the stout hasp over the staple and fastened the padlock in place! _

Read next: Chapter 6. Carrying Dangerous Live "Freight"

Read previous: Chapter 4. Taking A Great Chance

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