Frank Merriwell's Cruise Part 51

"I should think it would, you talk so much."

"He! he! Ho! ho! Wait a minute. Ha! ha!--knew there was another way to laugh if I could think of it. Jaw get tired? My dear young gentleman, if you had a wife like mine, you would consider it a privilege to talk occasionally. I do not get an opportunity when I am at home. When I get away from home, I make up for lost time. Haw! haw!--came near forgetting that method of laughing. Don't mind me. I know I am something of a chinning machine, but I am harmless. Why, I wouldn't harm a--a--a lion."

He lighted the pipe and puffed away a few moments, talking a streak while he smoked. Frank was considering the advisability of pinning him down and demanding to know his real reason for being there, when, of a sudden, the little fellow jumped up spryly as a boy, exclaiming:

"This won't do. I must complete my tour of investigation. I must attend to business. I must look the entire island over and be ready to leave when that man comes back for me. Young gentlemen, I thank you for your hospitality. I wish I might stop longer, but, unfortunately, I cannot.

So long, so ling, so lung."

Browning made a move, as if to stop the man, but Frank gave a sign to let him go. Mr. Cooler scrambled nimbly up the bank, turned and waved his hand with a flirting motion, and then vanished into the bushes.

"Fellows," spoke Frank, quickly, "I'm going to follow him. I must do it alone. I'm armed. I can take care of myself. But if I do not return in an hour, look for me."

Then he sprang up the bank after the mysterious man in gray.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE WHISPERING GLADE.

Frank had learned the art of trailing from Indian guides in the West, and, for a white person, he was an expert. As a shadower, he had the skill of one who had been all his life in the business.

He did not let the man in gray get far away before approaching near enough so Mr. Cooler could be seen occasionally as he slipped through the bushes.

But it was not difficult to follow the queer old man, for Cooler did not seem to imagine for a moment that he was shadowed. He walked swiftly, puffing away at his pipe, and the smell of burning tobacco came back to the nostrils of the pursuing lad.

After a little time the man struck the path that runs round the island and through the old granite quarry. Then he walked still more swiftly, but Frank also found less trouble in following.

Soon the quarry was reached. Cooler pa.s.sed straight through this and struck the track which led down the incline to the sheds near the wharf.

Now Frank was not able to pursue him so closely; he was forced to linger far behind, for to keep close meant certain discovery should the man look back.

Still he followed. The track ran through a cut and wound slowly along a bank, to one side of which lay the water.

Frank reached the cut and saw the man in gray disappear beyond some bowlders. A moment later Merry was at the bowlders, peering down the track toward the still retreating form of the little man, over whose shoulders at regular intervals curled blue puffs of smoke.

Frank had expected that the man would be suspicious and would look round frequently. He was astonished when the man did not look round at all.

"He doesn't act like a criminal," Frank decided. "He hasn't the air of a criminal. He walks along as if he had not a care in all the wide world and did not fear to have all his actions watched. It is strange--very strange."

Already Merry had learned that men who commit crimes betray themselves by certain peculiar movements. The thief unconsciously a.s.sumes the pose of a man picking a pocket, or taking what does not belong to him. The burglar crouches in his walk and steals along catlike. The guilty man often casts sly backward glances over his shoulder. It is rare for him to have the air and manner of innocence.

But this little man in gray, when, without doubt, he believed himself to be alone, was still the same care-free, careless old fellow.

He disappeared into one of the sheds at the end of the railroad. Frank had slipped yet a little nearer and watched from a place of hiding.

Five minutes pa.s.sed, and then the man in gray and another man came out of that shed and took the path that led toward the old boarding house.

Frank uttered a low exclamation.

"Is it possible?" he muttered. "I believe I know that fellow with him."

He watched the companion of the man in gray. As they pa.s.sed from view, he again muttered:

"I do know him! He is Dan Hicks, the c.o.c.k-eyed man! That settles it! Mr.

Caleb Cooler is just what I thought--he is one of the gang, and he came here to spy upon us!"

Frank ran lightly down the track, hidden by the bank beyond which the men had disappeared. He stooped as he ran. Ahead of him he saw the point where Browning had pried up the rails and sent a flat car, loaded with granite, into the water, thus saving Frank's life. He shuddered as he thought of his sensations during those terrible moments of peril while he was bound to the track and could hear the car rumbling toward him.

The bank grew lower till at last he could not keep hidden behind it if he ran farther down the track. Then he flung himself flat on the bank and crawled up till he could peer over.

The two men were walking toward the distant boarding house. Hicks was talking excitedly, while Cooler still smoked. Hicks looked back suspiciously, but the man in gray did not turn his head.

They pa.s.sed the house where the overseer had lived when he was on the island with the crew of men who worked in the quarry--they were again hidden from view.

Over the bank scrambled Frank. Keeping the house between him and the men, he ran swiftly forward.

In a short time he reached the house. He paused to listen, his heart thumping loudly.

He could hear nothing.

Then he slipped round the house. He carefully peered round each corner before advancing. At the second corner he halted, for again he could see the men he was shadowing.

They were near the old building in which Frank had been struck down. The man in gray seemed to be asking questions. He was surveying the surroundings as if he had never inspected them before.

For fifteen minutes they stood there talking, and then they went into the building.

Frank decided to return to his friends. He quickly darted up an incline toward some cedars, which he saw grew thicker and thicker higher up the slope. Soon he was hidden by the bushes.

Then Frank went forward more slowly, taking pains to keep in the bushes.

Up above was a ledgy height. He came to it after a time. He found a position where he could look down into the old quarry. From that position he could see the overturned car and the granite which lay in the water at the foot of the bank down which it had jumped. He could also look far out over the island-dotted bay. He could see small boats in the distance, he could see white sails, he could see the suns.h.i.+ne reflected on the blue water. In the midst of this ma.s.s of water and islands lay Devil Island, shrouded by mystery, lonely and desolate, shunned by man.

Once before he had strongly felt the air of desolation that seemed to hang about the place, and now the same uncanny sensation was creeping over him again. Somehow it seemed that he was far from men, far from life, lost in a lonely waste of water, cast on an uncanny island.

He shook himself, trying to throw off the feeling. He wondered why it should come upon him at that time, and then he began to remember how he had first felt it once before when near that very spot.

"The glade--the grave in the woods!"

He muttered the words, realizing that the woods were close at hand. They lay there dark and gloomy. He must pa.s.s through them in order to reach the _White Wings_, or he must retrace his steps and take the path. To do the latter would be sure to expose him to the men he had watched.

But Frank did not wish to turn back. There was something fascinating as well as repellent about the woods. Down there was a grave. At the head of the grave was a stone. On that stone was chiseled:

"Sacred to the Memory of Rawson Denning."

Denning, like Frank Merriwell, had been inquisitive. He had attempted to solve the mystery of the island, and he had disappeared. Afterward the grave had been found on the island. No one had dared open that grave to see if the body of the missing man from Boston lay within.

Frank felt a desire to look at that grave again. He went down toward it, entering the thick woods. Every step that he advanced seemed to cause the feeling to grow stronger upon him. The woods were silent and deserted. It did not seem possible that there could be a thing of life other than Frank anywhere within them.