"Seems to me," remarked Herb, "there"s a heap of engines getting into trouble about now; George has his spell; then Jenks had to work on the one in their boat; and now we suspect that these runaway robbers had a breakdown of their own."
"That shows you that I ain"t the only one that gets into a mess with motor trouble," George hastened to tell them.
"But arrah, now, phat arre we goin" to do about this same broth of a bye comin" back till the island for frind?" Andy wanted to know just then.
"Sensible of you to ask that, Andy," remarked Jack, "because it might be possible for us to surprise the pair, if only we could guess about where he meant to land along the sh.o.r.e."
"Whee! is that what"s on the bill, Jack?" exclaimed Buster, "then how glad I am that you"ve got that splendid little Marlin gun of yours handy. If there"s going to be a sc.r.a.p, every one of us ought to pick up some sort of club, so"s to make a respectable showing. And right here I see one I"m going to cabbage on the spot."
"Which spot?" queried Josh; but no one paid the slightest attention to jokes at such a critical moment.
"Listen again, boys," ordered Jack, "and see if you can tell whether he"s coming down this side of the island, or the other one; because that would mean a whole lot for us."
For a minute no one uttered a sound. The quick pulsations of the exhaust belonging to the stolen motor boat could be plainly heard, for the night was as still as death, all but that murmur of the breeze among the treetops on the island, and perhaps the gentle lapping of the river on the rocks along the sh.o.r.e.
"I think he"s started down the other side, Jack," said George.
"Same here," echoed Josh.
"I don"t seem to be able to guess," complained Buster, "one time I think it is the other side of the island and then again seems to me he"s heading right back the way he went."
"Other side of me," Herb went on to say, wishing to be counted.
"Sure, that"s me ijee to a dot, so "tis," declared the Irish lad, vehemently.
"Other side have it, five to one," Jack went on, somehow forgetting that there were others present, though for that matter Algernon was so bewildered by all the strange things that were happening, he did not seem able to gather his wits together, and Jenks was apparently quite satisfied to leave the whole matter of the attempted recovery of the motor boat to the charge of these six wide-awake young chaps who had shown themselves to be so clever; though if it ever came to a crisis, doubtless the st.u.r.dy machinist would be only too willing to throw himself into the fight, and do his full duty.
"There, it"s stopped now, boys!" cried George suddenly.
"You"re right," declared Jack, "and as near as I can place it, seems as if the last sound came from across the island, too, perhaps a little further up. Come on, everybody, and let"s see if we can push right through the place. The trees are scattered, and the moon shows bright enough to give us some light."
"We"re off!" exclaimed Josh, exultantly, for he liked to be in action.
"Who"s afraid?" demanded Buster, waving the big billet of wood he had picked up, as though anxious to do some service with the same.
"Keep still, everybody, and look where you"re going," warned Jack, leading off.
CHAPTER XV
JUST A MINUTE TOO LATE
"Gee whiz!" exclaimed Buster, presently, and the others heard more or less of a loud crashing, which would seem to indicate that the fat boy, who was always rather clumsy in his movements, had stumbled and fallen amidst the impediments that sprinkled their course.
"Hurt, Buster?" questioned Herb, who was close behind.
"Naw, only knocked a little skin off my knees, I guess. Better luck next time," was the cheerful reply, as the unfortunate one scrambled to his feet, and again resumed his forward progress.
When Jack and his five mates started off, the man Jenks, and his employer, Algernon Lorrimer, apparently did not mean to be left entirely in the lurch. They were in the group now pushing through the wooded part of the island, and trying to surmount the many difficulties that beset their course.
Algernon had about as much trouble as Buster to navigate safely; now it was some unnoticed log that threatened to trip him up, and again a hanging vine tried to choke him outright. Jenks hovered near by, ready to come to the rescue of his employer should the latter succeed in getting into a severe pinch. As Josh afterward said in commenting on this solicitude on the part of the machinist, perhaps Jenks had not been paid his week"s wages as yet, and wanted to make sure he would have an employer to whom he could look for the expected cash.
One thing proved of considerable a.s.sistance, and this was the moon.
Battered though it might be, and with one side partly gone, still the faithful old sky lantern was able to give out a considerable amount of silvery light.
"Lucky we"ve got that moon, let me tell you," grunted Buster, as he continued to boom along, making enough noise, so Josh declared, to warn the whole neighborhood of their coming.
"Some people"d need three moons to get along half way decent," was what Josh declared from some point close by.
"Hush!" Jack remarked, and at that they all fell quiet again.
Indeed, it was no child"s play making their way through the dense growth that covered the main part of the island. Even in the daytime they would have had more or less trouble in accomplishing such a task; and when attempting it with only the deceptive moonlight as a source of illumination, the task became doubly difficult.
Once Jack called a brief halt.
It was his idea to try and ascertain whether there were any sounds ahead, such as might indicate the presence of busy workers, getting their belongings from the boat that was about to be abandoned to the one that had just fallen into their possession, through a stroke of luck, backed up by daring.
It might be in the shape of voices, a cough, or any sort of sound that would betray the presence of human beings; why, even a sneeze, such as that famous one of Buster, would do the business.
But somehow nothing of the sort seemed to come to their strained hearing; at any rate most of them failed to catch such a welcome sound.
Yet when Jack bade them start on again, lowering his voice to a thrilling whisper almost, it seemed as if he felt a new confidence, showing that he believed he had heard something or other.
Instead of getting better the nearer they drew to the other side of the little island that had such a bad name, it seemed as though conditions steadily became worse.
Buster and Algernon simply could not hold up to the pace set by such agile chaps as Jack, George, Andy and Josh, so that they were gradually but surely falling back, and being put out of the race.
Herb was not much better, for it was never a habit of the easy-going skipper of the solid old Comfort to hurry more than he could reasonably help.
But then probably it would not matter so much after all. There were still five in the front rank, for Jenks had now forged alongside the others, thinking he might best serve his master by trying to recover the boat, rather than standing by to pick him up in case he fell. And more than that, there was Jack handling that reliable Marlin of his in a fashion that seemed to speak volumes for his intentions, once he sighted the enemy.
When excitement rules the camp it is wonderful how many things can be crowded into a small s.p.a.ce of time. People seem to pa.s.s through a lifetime in a few minutes, providing events come tumbling over one another, helter-skelter like.
Now, when they came to figure upon it later on, the motor boat chums were of the opinion that even under such adverse conditions they could not have been more than six or seven minutes in pa.s.sing through the wooded center of the island. It was only a small affair at best, and by daylight could have been crossed in much less time. And yet there was Buster, for instance, who must have been laboring under the impression that fully half an hour had already pa.s.sed since they first started to break into the thick growth, and b.u.t.t up against all these crazy obstacles--the logs that would get under a fellow"s feet, the encircling loops of dangling wild grape-vines; the trees that bobbed up most unexpectedly, and tried to knock one"s brains out, and a lot of other things along the same line "too numerous to mention."
Of course none of them gave much heed to what their conduct would be when they managed to overtake the enemy.
That would have to be left pretty much to accident. Perhaps some of the boys, under the belief that they must present quite a hostile appearance, with all sorts of clubs and cudgels in evidence, not to speak of that gun Jack carried, fancied that the two burglars would take to flight at sight of the advancing legion. But Jack, and perhaps Herb also, did not delude themselves with this expectation; for they could remember just how that fellow aboard the stolen boat had warned Jenks off, and even wounded him in the arm when he refused to stop short.
They set him down as a dangerous character, which he undoubtedly must have been, to have carried out the bold programme connected with the looting of the up-river bank.
At any rate, they must be getting close to the other side of the island now, for there was a perceptible slope downward, and this must mean the crest had been left behind.
Yes, and sure enough, the trees were getting less dense, though the brush might be as thick as ever. Jack hoped for one thing that luck would favor them, and allow of their breaking out upon the little beach at just the exact spot where the two men were working.
At the same time he did not feel any too sanguine of success, for which there were numerous reasons. Surely the two thieves must be aware of the fact that the pack was pushing toward them, for there was plenty of noise accompanying their forward progress.