Read Ebook: The G-man's son at Porpoise Island by Robinson Warren F

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Ebook has 1076 lines and 44989 words, and 22 pages

I AT BLACK COVE 11

II THE NIGHT IN BLACK COVE 24

V FIGHTING FOR LIFE 70

VI CONFERENCE WITH A G-MAN 83

X NEVADA'S BIGGEST PLOT 144

At Black Cove

"Look at that fellow come!" said Stanley. "He's doing closer to fifty than forty knots and notice how low he is!"

"Sailing bluebirds, and slices of pickled onion!" cried John Tallman, exploding into one of his characteristic odd remarks. "You can hardly see him for spray!"

"And gray is an odd color for a yacht!" commented Stanley, pushing his mop of sandy hair back from his eyes, the better to study the form and speed of the racing boat which was now sweeping across the bows of the smoothly sailing sloop.

"More than one thing odd about that boat, John!" Stan remarked. "Extra speed, gray paint, and an underwater exhaust! If this were prohibition times I'd say--rum-runner!"

"Me too. Dunk me in the briny deep and hang me up to dry! Slide over the hamburgers, mates, but I've a hunch we haven't seen the last of that craft!"

"Funny, John," the G-man's son said, half aloud, half to himself, "I'm thinking the same thing."

John Tallman shrugged his shoulders, then laughed as cheerfully as he could.

"Trouble with us, Stan," he said, "is that we've seen so much of speeding boats and water fights that we just jump to conclusions! Because we just spent the last week or so helping capture Dapper Dan Hogan and his gang and those other mobsters, we've got detecting and suspicion on the brain! Bluebottle flies and anthill creepers--let's drop the subject! Me for coffee and doughnuts!"

"Attaboy, John," laughed Stan. "Stir up some eats. We ought to be close to Porpoise Island by sunset!"

John watched the last white spray of the speedboat disappearing towards that very spot of the barely visible humps of the Off Shore Islands, a perplexed frown upon his lean features, then he ducked down into the cozy cabin of the sloop to dig up a snack of food for the famished boys, for they had been under way for hours now and were very hungry.

They were particularly anxious to visit Black Cove, a little known and very snug small harbor which Mr. Sandborn, Stan's father, had noticed on a chart while the boys and the G-man were poring over the marine maps of the bay and waters around the islands a few nights ago.

"There," Mr. Sandborn had remarked, "is something to look into. I bet I've studied this chart dozens of times in the last ten years, boys, and cruised some about the islands, and I never happened to notice what a perfect little harbor Black Cove should be for a small boat like yours."

He had pointed to the spot on the chart and shown the boys that the cove had a narrow but comparatively deep channel and that the center of the land-locked little harbor was a good twenty feet deep and had a dark loam bottom. Because of the dark mud and loam under the water there the water itself would seem almost black even on clear days, thus giving the cove its name, no doubt. This Mr. Sandborn surmised from past experiences with small anchorages and different types of sea bottom.

"Sounds mysterious, too," John had interrupted, excitedly, that evening. "Rally round the saucepan, boys; the cook's serving soup!"

The sun was dipping lower and lower as the boat covered the last long mile across the bay in the dying breeze. The aroma of delicious hot coffee came drifting back from the galley and John could be heard mumbling and humming an off-key tune. But for snitches of doughnuts as he was preparing the meal, the cook would have been able to sing right out!

At last came the welcome news to the helmsman that dinner, or supper, was ready.

"Call it anything you like, but serve it, Cookie!" Stan rejoined. "I'm about ready to gnaw a chunk out of this wheel!"

"Here you are! Why not lash the wheel, Skipper, and come below for eats?" queried John.

"O.k., be right down!"

"Help!" cried John. "Bluebirds and fireflies--and bushels of grape-juice-biscuits! We're wrecked, Skipper!"

Nothing greeted their startled eyes save the unruffled water of the bay, for the last of the breeze had died with the fast setting sun and only an occasional "cat's-paw" disturbed the surface here and there. The sloop heeled slowly, creaking just a little, to one of these soft puffs of wind now.

"Well, tender chunks of jellybeans--what happened?" John wanted to know, scratching his head and running lean fingers through the dark hair, while his dark eyes pondered and stared.

"John, in the first place, we struck something that was submerged. Might have been a water-soaked log, or almost anything. Let's take a bearing and see what the chart says. Should have five fathoms along here if my memory serves me!"

"Maybe the upper structure of some sunken ship, John!" Stan interrupted.

"Upper structure or keel, I don't know, Stan, but--I do know that the last of my coffee soaked my pants!"

John went below to change into something dry and while he was there he quietly inspected the forepeak of the craft where the anchor cable was stored, and the spare sails and lines, and then peered under the cabin floor boards but found no signs of extra water. Evidently the ship had not been damaged by contact with whatever the object had been. In dry attire, John went back on deck and relieved his friend at the wheel.

Stan now went below and studied the charts for some minutes, coming back on deck after a short time and indicating the eastern tip of Porpoise Island. The long low island bore a faint resemblance, when seen from a distance, to the back of a sporting porpoise, hence its name, and the eastern tip was the "snout."

"Keep clear of the snout there, John, by at least a hundred yards, because of low water and rocks, now that we're getting in close, and put her on the other tack after we round the point."

"Righto, Skipper. Blow me down, my hearties, and smack the main brace!"

Both boys peered curiously at the bushes and clusters of cedar trees and the few oaks covering the slopes of the island as the boat sailed slowly, half-drifting, past the snout and they were able to see the seaward or southern side of the island. Black Cove should be about a half mile down that side and the angle of entrance was so sharp that the boys actually sailed past without spotting the opening! It was Stan who first detected their mistake.

"John, we've gone past the entrance to Black Cove, I'm sure. It's getting so dark I can hardly see a thing, anyhow and we've sure missed it!"

Suddenly Stan cried out and pointed!

A bright light had flickered for an instant or two somewhere on the island and the way in which it had disappeared caused Stan to say, "That light was on the far side of the cove, John, I'm sure, and it was the eastern edge or hill at the entrance that cut it off! Ease off the sheet and head for there!"

The light, which had been the cause of their success in finding the entrance, had gone and there was neither sight nor sound in the darkness. The hills seemed to surround the spot and the lighter blue of the sky overhead, now starlit, seemed to rest upon the edges of the hills.

"Pheww!" breathed John, deeply, from the wheel, as the sloop rounded to and the anchor was dropped with a low splash into the deep waters. "This place gives me the honorable creeps! Creeping skeletons, and bleached bones--I'd rather go to live with Blackbeard the Pirate than spend the night in Black Cove!"

"I'm afraid," said Stan, and his voice was not too steady, "that we're here to stay for the night--for I can't even guess where the entrance is now!"

The Night in Black Cove

As John was afterwards to remark, that night in Black Cove turned out to be "A night as was a night!" The anchor had barely hit bottom when a flickering light, as from a half-covered flashlight appeared in the bushes of the Island. Stan gripped John's arm suddenly.

"Nix, Stan," John whispered tersely. "I've a hunch this is a poor spot for innocent sailor men to be! Just keep mum."

"Me too, now that I think about it! Look! The light is going up in the darkness!"

Both boys listened, but Stan heard nothing save the water lapping the edges of the cove, which was about a quarter of a mile across, the sound carrying clearly on the night breeze which curved down over the bowl of hills and dipped cat's-paws at the dark water. The same breeze made the trees sigh a little, and outside of that there was no other noise.

The boys saw a shimmer of broken water as they turned about, attracted by a low humming!

"A boat, Stan, and crossing the cove at good speed, too! See, there he goes!"

A single blink of light came from the flashlight on the hill and Stan saw an answering blink from the boat. Then darkness enveloped all again and the hum was heard no more!

"This calls for a council and some thinking, John," Stan said. "Come on below with me."

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