The Cruise Of The O Moo Part 25

"Like a dream picture on the movie screen," whispered Marian.

Lucile pinched her arm.

"A face," came from Mark.

Suddenly Lucile gasped, wavered, and all but sank down upon the ice.

"The face!" she cried in a m.u.f.fled scream. "The horrible blue face."

"I thought it might be." Florence's voice was tense with emotion.

She poured the second kettle of water into the hole.

The pool of water was blue, but through it there appeared the dim outlines of an unspeakably ugly face.

With trembling fingers Florence tested the water. Twice she found it too hot. The third time she plunged in her hand. There followed a sound of water being sucked up by some object. The next instant she placed on the ice, within the circle of light, a strange affair of blue stone.

Covering her eyes Lucile sprang back shuddering. "The blue face! The terrible blue face."

Marian and Mark stared curiously.

Florence straightened up. "That," she said with an air of great satisfaction, "is the marvelous and much-sought blue G.o.d."

"Oh! Ah!" came from Marian and Mark. Lucile uncovered her eyes to look.

"Perfectly harmless; merely a blue jade carving. Nevertheless a thing of some importance, unless I miss my guess," said Florence. "I suggest that we take it to the police station."

"To-night?" exclaimed Marian.

"Oh, yes! Right now!" demanded Lucile through chattering teeth. "I could never sleep with that thing on board the O Moo."

Arrived at police headquarters, they asked for their friend, the sergeant. When he came out, his eyes appeared heavy with sleep, but once they fell upon the thing of blue jade it seemed that they would pop out of his head.

"It ain't!" he exclaimed. "It is! No, it can't be."

Taking it in his hands he turned it over and over, muttering to himself.

Then, "Wait a minute," he said. Handing the blue face to Florence, he dashed to the telephone.

There for a moment he quarreled with an operator, then talked to someone for an instant.

"That," he said as he returned, "was your friend, Mr. Cole, from down in the new museum. He lives near here. He's coming over. He'll tell us for sure. He knows everything. Sit down."

For ten minutes nothing was heard in the room save the tick-tock of a prodigious clock hung against the wall. From Florence's lap the blue G.o.d leered defiance to the world.

Suddenly a man without hat or collar dashed into the room. It was Cole.

"Where is it?" he demanded breathlessly.

"Here." Florence held out the blue face.

For a full five minutes the great curator studied the face in silence.

Turning it over and over, he now and again uttered a little cry of delight.

Florence, as she watched him, thought he could not have been more pleased had a long-lost son been returned to him.

"It is!" he murmured at last. "It is the blue G.o.d of the Negontisks."

"See that!" exclaimed the sergeant, springing to his feet. "I told you he'd know. And that's the end of that business. The whole gang of 'em was caught in Sioux City, Iowa, last night, but they didn't have the blue G.o.d. They'll be deported."

"Will--will you give it back to them now?" faltered Lucile.

"Give it back?" he roared. "I'd say not! You don't know what crimes have been committed in the name of the blue G.o.d. No! No! We'll not give it back. If they must have one when they get to where they're going they'll have to find a new one."

"Sergeant," said Cole, "I'd like to speak with you, privately."

"Oh! All right."

The two adjourned to a corner, where for some time they conversed earnestly. The sergeant might be seen to shake his head emphatically from time to time.

At last they returned to the group.

"I have been trying," said Cole thoughtfully, "to persuade the sergeant to allow you to sell the blue G.o.d to our museum. It is worth considerable money merely as a specimen, but he won't hear to it; says it's sort of contraband and must be held by the police. I'm sorry. I'm sure you could have used the money to good advantage."

"Oh, that's all right--" The words stuck in Florence's throat.

"Hold on now! Hold on!" exclaimed the sergeant, growing very red in the face. "I'm not so hard-hearted as I might seem. There's a reward of five hundred dollars offered for the arrest and conviction--or words to that effect--of this here blue G.o.d. Now you girls have arrested him and before Mr. Cole he's been convicted. All's left is to make out the claims and I'll do that free gratis and for nothing."

"Five hun--five hundred dollars!" the girls exclaimed.

The sergeant stepped back a pace. It was evident that he was in fear of the embarra.s.sment which might come to him by being embraced by three young ladies in a police station.

"I--I'll lock him up for the night," he muttered huskily and promptly disappeared into a vault.

"Well, I guess that's all of that," breathed Florence. "Quite a thrilling night for our last on the O Moo."

"Not quite all," said Cole. "There's still the blue candlestick. The state makes no claims upon that. In the name of the museum I offer you two hundred dollars for it. How about it?"

"Splendid! Wonderful!" came from the girls.

"All right. Come round in the morning for the check. Good-night." He disappeared into the darkness.

"We--we're rich," sighed Lucile as they walked toward the O Moo, "but you know I have a private fortune."

She drew a letter from her pocket and waved it in air. "One hundred dollars for my story. Hooray!"

"Hooray!" came from the rest.

"Of course," sighed Lucile, "the editor said the check would spoil me for life, but since the story was worth it he was bound to buy it. Regular fatherly letter, but he's a dear and the check is real money."