Chapter 2 A TREACHEROUS GUEST

"Do you suppose that is the fellow Captain Joe caught prowling around the stem of the boat?" asked Jule as the canoe disappeared down the river.

Captain Joe answered the question by trotting up to the prow and snarling at the disappearing canoe.

"Now, what do you think he wanted here, anyway?" asked Alex.

"Possibly he just dropped down to see if we were ready to start north," Case observed with a yawn.

"It looks to me," Alex said, "that we have struck a storm center of some kind, and I'm going to bed and think it over.

"I'm glad you're going to bed," Clay laughed, "for you get lost whenever we leave you on watch."

"But I always find myself!" answered Alex, with a provoking grin.

It was finally arranged that Case should stand guard that night, and the others prepared for sleep. The bunks were let down in the cabin, the prow light was switched off, and directly all was dark, save when the moon broke out from a bank of wandering clouds.

Sitting well wrapped at the door of the cabin, shortly before midnight, Clay once more heard the sweep of a paddle or an oar. He arose and went to the prow.

Off to the right, on a point of land below St. Luce, a column of flame was beckoning in the gale from the gulf. Only the flame was to be seen. There was neither habitation nor human figure in sight under its light. While the boy watched, a signal shot came from the east.

Then an answering light came from the north, and a ship's boat, four-oared and sturdy, passed for an instant under the light of the moon and was lost in the darkness.

The rowboat had passed so close to the Rambler that the watching boy could have seen the faces of the occupants if they had not been turned away. For a moment he had feared that it was the intention of the rowers to board the Rambler, but they had passed on apparently without noticing the boat at all.

After following the boat with his eyes for an instant, he switched on the prow light and turned to the cabin to awaken his chums. Here was a new feature of the night which must be considered.

As he turned toward the cabin, a white package lying upon the deck caught his eye. It had not been there a moment before, so the boy naturally concluded that it had been thrown from the row boat. He lifted it and, going back under the prow light, opened the envelope and read.

"Don't interfere with what doesn't concern you. Go on about your business, if you have any. Life is sweet to the young. Do you understand? Be warned. Others have tried and lost."

The puzzled boy dashed into the cabin with the paper in his hand.

"Look here, fellows!" he shouted, pulling away at the first sleeping figure he came upon, "R. F. D. postman number two has arrived. Here's the letter he brought."

He read the message aloud to the three wondering boys, sitting wide-eyed on their bunks, and handed the paper to Clay.

"What about it?" he asked.

"I reckon," Alex observed with a grin, "that we're going to be arrested for opening some one else's mail."

"Don't you ever think this letter wasn't intended for us," Jule declared.

"And now," Case said, "I suppose we'll have to give up following the orders given in the first letter. We're ordered off the premises. See?"

"Not for mine," Alex cried. "You can't win me on any sawed-off mystery! I want to know what this means."

After a time the boys switched off the prow light, turned on the small lamp in the cabin, and sat down to consider seriously the events of the night. While they talked, the clouds drifted away, and the whole surface of the river was flooded with moonlight. The flame on the south bank was seen no more. It had evidently been built as a beacon for the men in the ship's boat.

After a time, Captain Joe, who had been sitting in the middle of the deliberative circle in the cabin, raced out to the deck. The boys heard him growling, heard a conciliatory human voice, and then a quick fall.

When the boys switched on the prow light and gained the deck, they found Captain Joe standing guard over a slender youth who had evidently fallen to the deck to escape being tumbled down by the dog. They gathered about waiting for him to speak-waiting for some explanation of his sudden appearance on the motor boat. Captain Joe seemed proud of his capture, and remained with threatening teeth within an inch of the boy's throat.

"Say, you!" shouted Alex. "Did you come by parcel post? We've been getting letters all right, but no such packages as this."

"Looks to me like he must have come in a parachute," Jule suggested. "Where's your boat, kid?" he added.

The visitor smiled brightly and sprang alertly to his feet. He looked from face to face for a moment, smiling at each in turn, and then pointed to a light canoe bumping against the hull of the Rambler.

He was a lad of, perhaps, eighteen, slender, lithe, dark. His clothing was rough and not too clean. His manner was intended to be ingratiating, but was only insincere.

"What about you?" demanded Alex. "Do you think this is a passenger boat?"

"A long time ago," replied the visitor, speaking excellent English, "I read of the Rambler and her boy crew in the Quebec newspapers. When I saw the boat here to-night, I ran away from my employer and came out to you. I want to go with you wherever you are going."

"You've got your nerve!" Alex cried.

"Oh, let him alone," Case interposed. "We've had a stranger with us on every trip, so why not take him along?"

Alex took the speaker by the arm and walked with him back to the cabin.

"Say," he said then, "this fellow may be all right, but I don't like the looks of his map."

"You'll wash dishes a week for that," Case announced. "You're getting so you talk too much slang. Anyway, you shouldn't say 'map'-that's common. Say you don't like his dial."

"Oh, I guess I'll have plenty of help washing dishes," Alex grunted. "But what are we going to do with this boy?" he added.

Clay now joined the two boys in the cabin and asked the same question.

"It is my idea," he said, "that the appearance of this lad is in some way connected with the other events of the night."

"What did you find out about him?" asked Clay.

"He says his name is Max Michel, and that he lives at St. Luce," was the reply.

"Well," Clay decided, "we can't send him away to-night, so we'll give him a bunk and settle the matter to-morrow."

"I just believe," Alex interposed, "that this boy Max could tell us something about those two boats if he wanted to."

"I notice," Case put in, "that he's paying a good deal of attention to what is going on in the cabin just now. He may be all right, but he doesn't look good to me."

Clay beckoned to Jule, and the two boys entered the cabin together, closely followed by Captain Joe, who seemed determined to keep close watch on the strange visitor.

"How long ago did you leave St. Luce?" asked Clay of the boy.

"An hour ago," was the answer. "I rowed up the river near the shore where the current is not so strong and then drifted down to the motor boat. I called out to you before I landed, but I guess you did not hear."

Alex, standing at the boy's back and looking over his head, wrinkled a freckled nose at Clay and said by his expression that he did not believe what the boy was saying.

"Did you see a light on the point below St. Luce not long ago?" continued Clay.

The boy shook his head.

"There are often lights there at night," he said. "Wreckers and fishermen build them for signals. But I saw none there to-night."

"What about the four-oared boat that left St. Luce not long ago?" Clay asked. "Do you know the men who were in it?"

"I didn't see any such boat," was the reply.

"Well, crawl into a bunk here," Clay finally said, "and we'll tell you in the morning what we are going to do."

The boy did as instructed, and was, apparently, soon sound asleep. Then the boys went out to the deck again and sat in the brilliant moonlight watching the settlement on the right bank.

There is a railway station at St. Luce, and while they watched and talked, the shrill challenge of a locomotive came to their ears, followed by the low rumbling of a heavy train.

The prow light was out, and the cabin light was out, and the cabin was dark now, because when the boys had sought their bunks, a heavy curtain had been drawn across the glass panel of the door. From where the boys sat, therefore, they could see nothing of the interior of the cabin.

Five minutes after the door closed on the stranger, he left his bunk and moved toward the rear of the cabin. Against the back wall, stood a square wooden table, and upon this table stood an electric coil used for cooking. Above the table, was a small window opening on the after deck.

The catch which held the sash in place was on the inside and was easily released. The boy opened it, drew the swinging sash in, passed through the opening, and sprang down to the deck.

Reaching the deck, the visitor, as though familiar with the situation, ran his hand carefully about his feet feeling for a closed hatch. He found it at last and, lifting it, peered into the space set aside for the electric batteries and the extra gasoline tanks.

Reaching far under the planking, he found what he sought-the wire connecting the electric batteries with the motors. Listening for a moment to make sure that his motions were not being observed, he drew a pair of wire clippers from a pocket and cut the supply wire. Only for the fact that the lights on the boat were all out, this villainous act would at once have been discovered. As it was, the boys remained at the prow believing the visitor was still asleep in his bunk.

This act of vandalism accomplished, the boy dropped softly over the stern into his canoe, still trailing in the rear of the motor boat. Once in the canoe, he laid the paddle within easy reach and propelled the boat along the hull of the Rambler, toward the prow with his hands. Once or twice discovery seemed to the boy to be certain, for Captain Joe came to the gunwale of the boat and sniffed suspiciously over the rail.

Once, Clay left his place at the prow and looked over into the stream, but the moon was in the south and a heavy shadow lay over the water on the north side, so the dark object slipping like a snake to do an act of mischief reached the prow unseen.

At that moment the boys left the prow and moved toward the cabin door. In another instant they would have entered and noted the absence of their guest, but Alex paused and pointed to lights moving in the village of St. Luce.

"There's something going on over there," he said "and I believe it has something to do with what we've been bumping against. There's the letter from the canoe, and the warning from the boat, and the boy dropping out of the darkness on deck, and the signal lights, and now the stir in the village. Some one who wishes us ill is running the scenes to-night, all right."

While the boys stood watching the lights of St. Luce, Max caught the manila cable which held the motor boat and drew his canoe up to it. Cutting the cable, strand by strand, so as to cause no jar or sudden lurching of the boat, he left it slashed nearly through and, leaving the strain of the current to do the rest, worked back through the shadow and struck out up stream.

Standing in the door of the cabin, the boys felt the boat sway violently under their feet, then they knew from the shifting lights in the village that they were drifting swiftly down with the current. Clay sprang to the motors, but they refused to turn.

Case hastened to the prow and lifted the end of the cable. There was no doubt that it had been cut. Clay made a quick examination of the motors and saw that the electrical connection had been broken. Then Jule called out in alarm that they were drifting directly upon a rocky island.