Frontier Boys in Frisco Part 27

Here they rowed slowly along, looking for some place to camp. At first the sh.o.r.e was high and rocky, but after rowing for nearly a mile they came to a small inlet where a tiny stream trickled down from a hidden spring above in the woods. There were pines and sycamore trees both, and altogether it was a delightful place for a camp. Jim's trained eye took it all in at a glance.

"Here's where we haul in, John," he said.

"It looks good to me," agreed Berwick.

Indeed, it was an excellent place, well sheltered, and with good water.

The rest they had with them.

"What time are you going to make your attack, Jim, my boy?" asked Berwick.

"I fancy any time between eleven and one would do," said Jim. "That will give us time to get in a couple of hours' sleep at least. It's just as well to store up a little rest. There is no telling what will happen; when we once get started it may be a week before we get another chance."

"Correct," said Berwick; "which watch shall I take, Captain?"

"The first," said Jim, "if you don't mind."

"But I do mind," said Berwick quickly, "when I'm told."

While Jim sat watching some hours later, with everything quiet except the gentle lapping of the water along the rocky sh.o.r.e, his mind reverted to the incidents of the past few hours, but quickly changed to the distant scene of his home.

"I wish I had Jo and Tom with me, and Juarez, too; it looks to me as though there was going to be a change of scene soon, and then we will need 'em by way of reenforcements." He brooded thus to himself over his home folks and the chances of the future until it was time for them to reconnoiter the enemy if nothing else was done. "I have given John three-quarters of an hour longer than he expected," he said as he looked at his watch. "It is now a quarter of twelve."

Berwick responded promptly to the call of time.

"Jove!" he said, "I don't see how you can pick up the _Sea Eagle_ or anything else in such thick weather."

"It would not be easy if we struck out direct from this inlet," replied Jim, "but I'm going to keep along the sh.o.r.e to a point that I made a note of coming in, and then row direct out; we can't lose her."

They did accordingly, but they had to row very slowly, so that Jim could be able to make out his landmark.

"There it is," he said. "See, here is a point of rock that juts out; there is no mistaking it."

"What is your plan?" asked the engineer.

"There is only one thing to do," replied Jim; "we are not taking this exercise for our health. We will drop along the _Sea Eagle_, board her, find where the senorita is, and row her ash.o.r.e."

"Are you sure she is on the yacht?" queried Berwick.

"Nowhere else," replied Jim stoutly. "You don't suppose that old Broome would leave her in the castle after the alarm we raised. The reason he didn't search for us around the premises was because he had gone off to hide on the _Sea Eagle_."

Nothing more was said, and they rowed slowly from the point of departure until they saw the faint loom of the _Sea Eagle_ through the night and fog. There was a light astern and two forward, one on the starboard and the other on the port, while a fourth shed a dim light from the masthead.

There was no sound, whatever, and no figure in sight, which was not remarkable, considering you could see no distance whatever on account of the thick fog, but Jim was seaman enough to know that there was sure to be someone on the bridge, and a watch forward. Berwick brought the boat gently along the side near the stern rail and Jim was aboard in a jiffy.

Then the engineer pushed off for a few feet where he and the black boat could not be seen, and waited in ambush for what might happen. He believed that Jim stood a good chance to rescue the senorita, a much better chance, in fact, than when she was held captive in the castle.

Once get her into the boat and they, too, would make sure of her safety.

Jim felt a thrill as he once more set foot on the well-known deck. He felt strong enough to take her back single-handed, and what would he not have given to be on the bridge again, with Jo and the rest of the old crew on deck, and the _Sea Eagle_ pus.h.i.+ng her nose out through the Golden Gate, heading for the enchanted regions of the tropic seas.

But Jim took only a moment for such romancing. There was grim and hard work ahead before he could ever be master of his own boat again. He knew the s.h.i.+p as a hand does a glove, and in this there was a great advantage. He cautiously tried the doors of the staterooms on the upper deck. In one he made out the lean figure of the second mate in his bunk, sound asleep. At that moment he saw the door of the captain's cabin open. Jim glided aft and crouched low near the capstan, where he was hard to be distinguished from a coil of rope.

He saw the squat figure of Captain Broome with the long, swinging, gorilla-like arms revealed in the light which shone from the interior of the cabin, and then he slammed the door and strolled forward towards the bridge. Jim held his breath, hoping he would not come his way.

When the old pirate had disappeared, Jim completed his search of the deck staterooms, but the senorita was in none of them. The only thing that remained for Jim was to search the rooms leading from the main saloon below. He rather mistrusted going down there, and he had most sincerely hoped that the girl would be in one of the deck rooms, then his task would have been comparatively easy, but it seemed as if luck was breaking against him.

He went cautiously but quickly along the deck until he reached the stairway leading down into the cabin. There was the large lamp lit in the saloon, but turned very low. As he cautiously descended into the saloon his heart went into his throat at the sight of the gaunt woman with the red hair who had been the senorita's jailer in the castle. She was apparently asleep on one of the divans, but Jim would have much rather seen anyone else on guard than this redoubtable woman whose vigilance had been his undoing before. It might have been possible to have outwitted or defeated a man, but he really was in some awe of this Amazon.

The first thing for Jim to do was to determine which of the four cabins opening off the saloon was the prison of the senorita. He could not go from one to the other opening the doors, for the woman on guard would be sure to hear, nor could he say after the manner of children, "My mother told me to take this one."

It was like the suitor of Portia in the "Merchant of Venice," who was forced to choose his fate from one of three chests with misleading mottoes on them. But there was no time to lose. Should he take a chance?

There seemed no other way. However, Jim was an experienced scout, as the reader well knows, and his skill could be put to use inside of walls as well as out on the desert or in the pathless mountains, where he might be searching for some obscure trail.

He crawled over the heavily carpeted floor on his hands and knees to the first door, but he found no trace to guide him. The second seemed to reward his scrutiny, for the nap of the rug showed the imprint of feet and the bra.s.s k.n.o.b of the door was somewhat tarnished.

At that moment he heard the sound of heavy feet upon the stairway. He knew that tread; he had heard it before. There was no hiding-place except under the hanging of the heavy tablecloth, and with a quiet celerity, Jim slid under its protection just as the woman stirred from the divan, and then the captain's heavy, growling voice made itself heard as he came down into the saloon.

"I'm going to pull anchor out of here to-morrow, Ann," said the skipper; "it's jest about time."

"What hour, Brother?" asked the woman.

This startled Jim, who had not guessed that this woman was any relation of the redoubtable Bill Broome, and that so human a word as "Brother"

could be applied to the old pirate had never entered his head. This rawboned woman was quite the equal of her brother, and her life had brought out that hardness and cruelty that is latent only too often in the New England character.

To her question the captain replied, "Not later than four if we are to get clear. I'm going into Frisco on a little business first."

"Do we take the gal?" questioned the woman, following his thought in some obscure way.

"Then she is here," mused Jim.

"Part way, anyhow," he rumbled in his harsh voice. "Every day of bother getting rid of her brings up her price."

Jim felt the hot blood of rage warm the roots of his hair. The cold-blooded cruelty and calculation of it made him long to get hold of the old codger. Perhaps he would in a moment.

"Git me something to eat, Ann, old gal," he said. "I'd better begin to lay in ballast for to-morrow."

The captain took his seat at the table, and put his feet squarely on the unsuspected Jim. Then came the explosion.

"By tarnation thunder, there's somebody under thar," he exclaimed, rising to his feet.

Jim crawled from under as quick as he could, and with a sense of sullen fury he saw the game was up for a second time. If he had cared to escape without striking a blow he did not have a chance. As he emerged the captain was on his back with all the ferocity of a hyena.

"It's that blasted young beggar again," he yelled. "We'll do him good this time."

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE END, A NEW START