"How about that hole? I don't reckon you'll spend much time fixing that now?" Merritt went on to say.

"I should guess not," laughed Rob. "If a plug that wasn't pounded in any too well in the first place held out all that time before working loose, I can fill up the hole with a fresh piece of wood that will never drop out. Besides, we can keep an eye on it. Any more coffee, Merritt?"

"I'm done, and ready to take that little spin right away. Got your sweater on, I see, Rob. You'll need it, and then some, on the boat, with this wind blowing. I've fetched along my heavy storm coat into the bargain."

"I was meaning to carry mine, you can understand," Rob rejoined, as he picked it up from the chair where he had tossed it.

As soon as both of them were mounted on their wheels, they sped away along the road in the direction of the place where the sailboat had been left. And, as there had been no unusually strong wind from a quarter that would bring the seas into the little sheltered cove, Rob had no fear that his property could have been damaged since they abandoned it on the preceding evening.

Of course they covered the same stretch of road over which they had come while in the wagon drawn by the white nag; and, as they swung past the identical birch tree that marked the spot where the fugitives had turned into the thick undergrowth, Merritt drew the fact to his chum's attention.

"I'll never see a white birch again as long as I live," he said earnestly, "but I'll remember that one and all that happened to us around here. But that cove can't be much more than half a mile away now, Rob. Do you say the same?"

"We're bearing down on the place right now, and you'll find that it lies where that bush stands that holds its red leaves, while others are bare or brown."

"If you say so, I know it's going to be that way," returned the corporal, "because you always look out to mark things down so in your mind. Now, it never occurred to me to take any notice of what the side of the road looked like when we came out on it. I seemed to think that, because I knew that cove so well, I could find it again as easy as falling off a log; but chances are I'd have run away over the mark, if left to myself, because I thought it was further along."

"I've found it pays always to notice things as you go," said Rob, as they jumped from their saddles and pushed the wheels ahead of them while pa.s.sing along what seemed to be a trail leading toward the sh.o.r.e; "it saves lots of time, and you have a sort of satisfied feeling, just as if you were ready for anything."

They came directly on the cove, and found the boat just as they had left it. Of course the first thing to be done was to lower the water that was in the stern of the boat. This Merritt proceeded to do with a small pail Rob had brought along, while the other boy whittled a stick of white pine until it suited his idea of what a proper plug should be, after which he proceeded to pound it into the round hole in the bottom of the sailboat's hull.

After that they finished the job of clearing the water out, and then the boat was launched. Pushing out into deeper water, they soon had the sail up, and were buffeting the waves. Of course they lost ground until the centerboard could be used, after which they were able to make a course that would take them considerably nearer Hampton.

It was quite a wild dash, and both scouts enjoyed fighting wind and wave until, some two hours after starting, they managed to run into sheltered water, and could feel that the victory had been won.

"And none too soon, let me tell you, my boy," said Rob, as he pointed out to where the white-caps were rushing furiously along before a wind that was rapidly a.s.suming the proportions of a storm.

"Gee whiz! but were we out in that sea?" exclaimed Merritt, as though hardly able to believe his eyes. "Why, I didn't dream it was half that rough while we were booming along. But then we had our hands full managing things, and couldn't do much looking around, could we? I'm glad it's all over. Listen to the wind howl as it cuts around the corners of the yacht club building! Looks as though we might get all the hurricane Hampton can stand before another night comes."

They did.

The weather sharps at Washington had not sent out those storm warnings without good cause, for there had never been such a wicked gale along the south sh.o.r.e of Long Island at that late season of the year as this one.

Although it was Sat.u.r.day and a holiday, few boys dared venture out, and then only to run from one house to another, clad in waterproofs, their heads covered with rubber capes such as duck shooters sport in rainy weather, when holding forth in their "point" blinds.

The storm raged all that night, and the following day also, doing all manner of serious damage along the South Sh.o.r.e, where boats were sunk, piers swept away, and even houses demolished.

On Monday morning it showed signs of abating, so that Merritt managed to get over to the Blake home. He was just in time to catch up with Tubby and Andy, who, unable to stay indoors any longer, had determined to seek company.

"Whee! isn't this the limit, though?" called out Tubby as the corporal of the Eagles came up, after being compelled to duck his head and fight against the fury of the still stiff wind.

"I hear it's done all manner of things around here," Andy remarked earnestly. "I hope, Merritt, you and Rob managed to get that boat home; because if she's up in that cove still there won't be two sticks of her left fastened together. Why, the seas rose higher than they ever did before, so I heard, and they must have pounded in along that sh.o.r.e like hot cakes!"

"Oh! we managed to work her down, never fear," Merritt a.s.sured him; "and chances are she's O. K. now. h.e.l.lo! Rob, we thought we'd step in and see how you all managed to hold out through the storm!"

"No damage done at our house; but I heard that the poor old Academy got caught again," the patrol leader remarked.

At which Andy threw up his hands, exclaiming,

"Don't tell me it was burned again, after the other bad blaze that let us out of school long enough for some of you fellows to run down to Panama, and have all kinds of fun!"

"No fire this time, but wind and rain," Rob said soberly. "Why, they say the whole roof was carried two hundred yards away, so that the rain beat in, and played hob with everything! The Academy is next door to a ruin right now. It begins to look as if we might have to be given another long vacation till they get a new roof on; and that may be a month, perhaps two!"

The three boys who heard this interesting news somehow did not seem to feel particularly sorry. Indeed, as soon as he could find his voice, Tubby burst out into a regular cowboy yell.

"Hooray! that means we'll have a chance to take Uncle Mark at his word if so be he wants the lot of us to hike down there over the Rio Grande, and see what can be done with his cattle on that ranch in Mexico! Again I say, 'Hooray for everybody.' Oh! say, tell me about that, won't you?

It sounds too good to be true, Rob! Are you dead sure that that accommodating new roof went sailing away? And did it land two hundred yards off? Wouldn't I have liked to be around to see her go, though! And it will surely take the carpenters six weeks or two months to get a new one on and the rooms fixed over. Talk about luck, it never rains but it pours!"

"Yes," said Rob, laughing at the extravagant actions and words by means of which Tubby tried to express his joy; "we've just seen it pour the worst ever. If an inch fell on poor old Hampton, I'd say there was a foot solid came down; and without a roof on top, the inside of the Academy must look pretty tough."

"But about this queer old uncle of yours, Tubby, how is it we never met him?" inquired Merritt. "Tell us all about him, won't you? He must be some traveler; because I heard you say once he'd just been nearly a year in Africa exploring over the course Livingstone and Stanley took a long while back."

"Why," Tubby immediately started in to say, "Uncle Mark Matthews is a brother of my mother. He's always been a queer sort of fish, crazy about hunting orchids, and all that sort of stuff, you know. Spent years and years down in tropical South America, where no white man had ever been before; and has a whole raft of strange plants, birds, b.u.t.terflies and what-not named after him. He settled down in Mexico some years ago, and got together quite a respectable lot of prize cattle on a ranch that's in the northern part of the country. And that is where a lot of this fighting business has been going on between the rebels under Villa and the troops of Huerta, now playing his little part as president of the republic.

"About a year or more ago it seems that Uncle Mark got the old fever on him again; and this time it was Africa that called him. He wanted to do something big over there before he found himself too old, he says.

Anyway, he put his ranch in charge of a man he believed he could trust with things, even if he was a greaser; and away he cut for the heart of the Dark Continent.

"Well, he came near losing his life there, dying of the jungle fever, or some kind of thing like that; and when, after a hard fight, he managed to reach the coast, heading for America, first thing he heard was that there were hot times all around where his prize ranch was located; and also that if his bunch of cattle worth a fortune hadn't been confiscated yet, they'd soon be lost to him. It seems that Uncle Mark has lost a good part of the big pile he once owned, and if this ranch was sacked he'd be in a bad hole; and that is what is worrying him right now.

"If it is going to be saved at all, somebody has just got to go down there and do the business; and Uncle Mark is too sick a man to dream of trying it. That's why he's been talking to me as he has. You see, ordinarily he wouldn't think of entrusting such a risky job to a boy of my age; but ever since he's come to Hampton he's been hearing about what clever chaps the Boy Scouts are, and particularly you, Rob, and Merritt, here; and he told me again last night that if only it might be fixed so you could go along--yes, and you, too, Andy, don't think I'd leave you out of this deal--he'd hand the whole business over to me to handle. And let me tell you, it looks like things might be shaping that way right now, when you give me to understand, Rob, that the Academy is a wreck, and that there can't be any school for six or eight weeks. And that's why I'm tickled to death, and feel like throwing my hat over the church steeple with joy. Because, don't you see, fellers, it's going to mean a glorious trip for the whole four of us, a chance to see what Mexico looks like in war times, and perhaps even an opportunity to run across some of the natives who are doing all the fighting!"

But Rob looked serious, as though there were things that he wanted explained before he could consent to consider such a wild goose chase.

CHAPTER IX.

FIGURING IT ALL OUT.

"Just hold your horses a bit, Tubby; you're going so fast I'm afraid you'll break your neck," Rob told the fat boy. "Why, n.o.body ever saw you half so excited in all your life as you are now."

"Well, who wouldn't be, when everything is rooting for us to make that lovely trip down to the land of sunshine, where there is something doing every minute of the time right now?" Tubby declared. "And all I hope is, first, that this rumor about the school roof taking wings and blowing away doesn't turn out to be a fizzle; and, second, that you will make up your mind to go along with me, Rob. Because I'm banking on the rest falling all over themselves to sneeze if only you take snuff. That right, fellers?"

"You've got it down pretty pat, Tubby," chuckled Merritt.

"Yes," added Andy, "you know mighty well that if Rob and you say 'go,'

the rest of us couldn't be held back with wild horses. That is, always providing our folks give us permission, and I think they will when they know how much the trip means to your poor uncle."

"There, Rob, see that?" cried Tubby eagerly. "What's doing now?"

"Before I say a word one way or the other," Rob told him, "there are heaps of questions I want answered. Perhaps you can tell us a part of the story; but we'd have to see Uncle Mark, and hear the rest. Get that, Tubby?"

"Sure I do, Rob, and you'll find me only too willing to accommodate all I can. Fire away, now, and I'll try and put you wise to the facts," and the fat boy threw himself into Rob's easy-chair, elevating one leg over an arm, and a.s.suming the air of a witness in the box ready to be cross-questioned by the lawyer on the other side.

"Tell us something more about your uncle first of all," said Rob, just as if he might have a long list of questions on a slip of paper, which he meant to put to the other.

"About his life, do you mean, or just that part of it connected with Mexico?" demanded Tubby.