Rob ate his meal with small appet.i.te, but the captain, urging on his young companion the necessity of "filling his hold," devoured prodigious quant.i.ties of food, and then, arising, suggested that the time had come to "pipe all hands aft and read orders."

The boys had been so busy about their morning tasks that fortunately none of them, except Tubby, whom Merritt had told of the disappearance, had found time to notice Rob's return or ask questions; so that when he announced to them that Joe Digby was missing it came as a stunning shock.

"Now, boys," said Rob, after he had communicated the full details, so far as he knew them, of the circ.u.mstances of the disappearance, "there is only one thing to do, and that is turn this island inside out. It won't take long, but I want it done thoroughly. Don't leave a stone unturned. If after a painstaking search we find nothing on the island, we'll know we have to look elsewhere. You are all fairly good woodsmen by this time, and can trail by signs as effectively as first-cla.s.s scouts. Use your eyes, and good luck."

Merritt at once a.s.signed searching parties, he and Rob and Tubby taking the center of the island and the others being detailed to search along the sh.o.r.es in two separate squads for any trace of their missing comrade.

"Call me a lubber if this ain't the most mystifyin' thing I've run my bow into since the Two Janes, uv Boston, brig, lost her bearings in a fog and fetched up off Iceland," declared the captain, who had elected to accompany the three leaders of the Patrol. "But drown or swim, sail or sink, we'll find that kid if he's on deck."

The searching parties construed this speech as a sort of valedictory to them as, indeed, the captain intended it--and greeted it with a cheer.

"The first scout that finds a trace of Joe is to light the four 'smokes', meaning come to council," was Rob's last order. "Light them on as prominent a place as you can find and we will all meet in camp to hear the news."

The searching parties at once separated, one striking off to the right, the other to the left and the three young leaders and their grizzled friend making a dead set for the center of the island.

If Joe Digby was to be found, the look of determination on the face of each scout showed that it would not be the fault of his young comrades if he were not.

CHAPTER XIX

SAM REBELS

In the meantime on a small island in the Upper Inlet a strange conference was taking place. Three youths whom our readers will recognize as Jack Curtiss, Bill Bender and Sam Redding; were in earnest consultation with the unkempt and unsavory individual whom we know as Hank Handcraft, the beach-comber.

"Well, the job's put through, all right," Hank was saying, as the three sat outside a small tent in front of which was a smoldering fire, about which the remnants of a meal were scattered.

"Yes, but now we've got to tackle the hardest part of it," said Jack, knitting his brows. "I've got the letter written and here it is." As he spoke he drew from his pocket a sheet of paper. "The question is who to send for the money when the time comes."

"Oh, Hank is the man," said Ben, without an instant's hesitation. "We must not appear in this at all."

"Oh, I am the man, am?" put in Hank, with no very gratified inflexion in his voice; "and what if I am caught? I'm to go to prison, I suppose, while you fellows get off scot-free."

"As for me," said Sam Redding, who was pale and looked scared, and whose eyes, too, were red-rimmed and heavy as if from lack of sleep, "you can count me out. I want nothing to do with it. You've gone too far, Jack, in your schemes against the boys. I'm through with the whole thing."

"Well, if you're that chicken-hearted, we don't want you in it at all,"

sneered Jack, although he looked somewhat troubled at his follower's defection. "All we want you to promise is not to split on us."

"Oh, I won't peach," promised Sam readily.

"It will be better for you not to," warned Bill Bender; "and now let's figure this thing out, and quickly, too. We haven't got any too much time. They'll have discovered the kid has gone by this time and the alarm will be spread broadcast."

"I thought, when he yelled like that last night, we were goners sure,"

remarked Jack, scowling at the recollection. "It's a good thing those kids sleep as hard as they do, or we'd have been in a tight fix."

"Oh, well, no good going back to that now," dissented Bill. "How was the young cub when you left him, Hank?" he asked abruptly.

"Oh, he'd got through crying, and was lying nice and quiet on his bunk," remarked Hank, with an amiable chuckle, as though he had just performed some praiseworthy act, instead of having left little Joe Digby locked in a deserted bungalow on an island some little distance from the one on which the conversation related above was taking place.

"Well, that's good," said Bill; "although crying, or yelling, either, won't do him much good on that island. He could yell for a week and no one would hear him."

"No; the water's too shallow for any motor boats to get up there,"

agreed Hank. "I had a hard job getting through the channel in the rowboat, even at high water."

"Is the house good and tight?" was Jack's next question.

"Tight--tight as the Tombs," was Hank's answer, the simile being an apt one for him to use. "The door has that big bolt on the outside that I put on, besides the lock, of which I carried away the key, and the shutters are all nailed up. No danger of his getting away till we want him to!"

"Couldn't be better," grinned Jack approvingly. "Now, here's the letter. Tell me what you think of it?"

Opening the sheet of paper, the bully read aloud as follows:

"MR. AND MRS. DIGBY:

"Your son is safe and in good hands. I alone know where the men who stole him have taken him. But I am a poor man, and think that the information should be worth something to you. Suppose you place two hundred dollars under the signpost at the Montauk crossroads to-night.

I will call and get it if you will mark the spot at which you place it with a rock. Look under the same rock in the morning and you will find directions how to get your boy back.

CAPTAIN NEMO."

"What do you think of that?" inquired Jack complacently, as he concluded the reading of his epistle.

"A bee-yoo-tiful piece of composition," said Hank approvingly, with one of his throaty chuckles; "the only thing is--who is Captain Nemo?"

"Why, so far as delivering the letter and getting the money is concerned, you are," said Jack decisively. "Eh, Bill?"

"Oh, by all means," a.s.sented Bill.

Sam was not included in the conversation, and gazed sullenly straight in front of him as he lay where he had thrown himself on the fine white sand.

"Oh, by no means," echoed Hank derisively. "Say, what do you fellows take me for, the late lamented Mr. Easy Mark? If you do you have another think coming."

"Now look here, Hank," argued Jack, "what's the objection? All you've got to do is to take this note ash.o.r.e, give it to some boy to deliver, and then go to the crossroads at whatever time to-night you see fit and get the money."

"Of course," Bill hastened to put in, "you've got to bring it to us for proper division."

"Oh, I have, have I?" chuckled Hank. "Well, what do you think of that?

I'm to do all the work and you fellows are to get the bacon! That's a fine idea--not! Four into two hundred doesn't go very many times, you know."

"Not four," corrected Jack, "three. Sam is out of this. He's too much of a coward to have anything to do with it," he added, mimicking Sam's tone.

The boat-builder's son reddened, but said nothing in reply to the bully's taunt.

"Well, three, then," went on Hank; "that's not percentage enough for me. If I'm to have anything to do with this here job, I want half the money. You fellows can split the rest between you!"

Jack and Bill exchanged blank looks.

"Now, look here, Hank, be reasonable," began Jack in a tone meant to be conciliatory.