The Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
THE BIRD HAD FLOWN
Scarcely had Hardy, Turner, and Legs left the premises that eventful morning when Jimmy opened his eyes, blinked them in the sun's rays, and, sitting up between the sheets, looked about him. There lay Cat on his back, mouth open, still far away in dreamland. Legs's cot, on the other hand, displayed the narrow mould of his form, but nothing more substantial. Except for Miller's heavy breathing, an uncanny silence pervaded the house.
"Eh, Sleeping Beauty," yelled the tormentor, partly from that boy instinct for raising the roost when not asleep one's self. "You blue-eyed Catfish, wake up there, hear me?"
To lend force to his command he hurled his pillow with deliberate aim at the sleeper. Either the yell or the pillow or both had the effect. Cat's eyes popped open on the instant.
"Confound you, Jimmy Todd, what'd you wake me up for when I was right that second digging my fingers down in one of old Blackbeard's chests and raking out gold by the handful?" he demanded as soon as he took in the situation. "I'd been a millionaire in just 'bout two more minutes."
"Maybe that's what that slick Legs is up to, without dreaming," suggested the other. "Look! He's flew the coop."
Cat surveyed Legs's vacant bunk, bounced from his own bed, and rushed to take a look at the ocean from the window.
"Don't see him in," announced the observer. "But golly, Jimmy, Tom Hardy's sunball looks red and funny, and the sea's got some nifty jell to her today. I b'lieve old Buffum's barometer's working. We'll get some surf today, boy, sure!"
The aid was tepid and soft, with a brisk breeze blowing. The waves that the day before had washed the beach languidly and rolled back just as lazily, this morning were splashing away in hurly-burly fashion.
"We sure will," agreed Jimmy, planting himself by his companion. "But where you s'pose Legs is. Can't be more'n seven o'clock. Not near breakfast time yet. Let's raise the roof."
The speaker ran to the door and yelled "Legs!" at the top of his lungs. No answer.
Mystified, the two barefooted boys pattered along the hall, peeping into Hardy's room and into Turner's in succession. Both were empty.
"Hardy!" they both shouted together as loudly as they could bawl.
Dead silence.
"Turner, ah, Turner!" they shrilled. Same result.
"What you reckon's happened?" speculated Cat, inferring some pleasure jaunt of which he and Jimmy were being cheated. "Come on! Let's go down and see!"
Back to their rooms they darted, slipped on their shoes, and adding nothing else to their sleeping costume, bounded down the stairway.
"Not a soul in sight but that old one-eyed witch. Scat!" cried Jimmy, gazing about and then striding from one window to another. At the commotion, Luke cropped up from the pantry.
"Where in the mischief are the others?" demanded Cat.
"I dunno where they gone," returned the mulatto. "Heard Turner buzzin' 'round with that there wireless o' his'n jus' now, and then he come in and got Hardy and say sumpin', and then I see Hardy and Legs runnin' round like chicken with their heads cut off, and then they grab some cold vittles from the pantry, and bus' out the do', and, last I seed of 'em, all three was a-makin' tracks out to-wards that there airyplane gayraje. Look like they done gone crazy."
The information added fuel to the lads' burning curiosity. "Come on, come on, Jimmy, don't let 'em put one like that over on us," Cat exhorted, starting for the entrance.
"I'm with you," shouted Jimmy.
And the two scantily attired forms shot out of the door, sprang down the steps, rounded the house, and ploughed along at their best speed over the sandy pathway.
From the top of one of the dunes, the sight that greeted their eyes spurred them on to new exertion. There in the distance stood the Windjammer ready for a flight. Hardy and Legs were climbing to their seats while Turner appeared to be making ready to give them a send-off.
"Look, Jimmy, look!" sputtered Cat. "That's what I call a low-down, scurvy trick."
"Blamed if it ain't," panted Jimmy, who had used up all his wind in his effort to keep on the heels of the flying Cat.
The latter now made a still more strenuous spurt, but, despite the utmost exertion of both the lads, they struggled up, breathless and panting, to Turner's side, only to see the aircraft a hundred feet above their reach and mounting every second.
A wave of the hand from the triumphant passenger added to their cup of bitterness, as did also a playful grin with which the Tarheel greeted them.
"Grab 'em, boys, grab 'em," Turner joked grimly. "How 'bout some salt to sprinkle on the bird's tail?"
"What's this mean?" demanded Cat as soon as he could get his wind, keeping his eye glued fast on the ever-mounting flyer.
Along with a choice spice of kidding from the solemn-looking Turner, the reason for the abrupt departure came out bit by bit.
"I don't see what he took Legs for," snarled Jimmy. "Might have given us a show."
"Don't worry, he ain't goin' far," was the consolation. "Hardy's goin' to stick some stamps on him and send him back by parcel post. I think he took him because he's a math. shark."
"Oh, golly, Jimmy, why couldn't we squeeze Whiskers for a brainful?" said Cat ruefully. "First time I knew that stuff would get you where you could have some fun."
"Say, boys, stop lookin' up there for starfish," drawled Turner, after the crestfallen pair had watched the bird dwindle and vanish in the distance. "It's an ill wind that doesn't blow somebody good. How would you two persimmon-mouths like to take a little skim over the briny in my hydro after breakfast!"
The dismal faces bloomed in a twinkling. The news was like a refreshing shower to two wilted strawberries.
"Oh, Jimmy," yelled Cat, dancing around with his companion in a frenzy of enthusiasm. "Old Legs can have his lift. We're the lucky guys, I'll say."
"And we'll anchor the flying ship over there by the fish-nets, and do a little angling," further promised the Tarheel.
A shout of approval greeted the suggestion.
"Might hook a reed bird or two," added Turner.
"Reed bird!" echoed Jimmy.
"Sure, that's what we call red herring down home."
The lads were all eyes, ears and expectation; and, with full-grown appetites, trudged on with their leader back towards Seagulls' Nest.
"Hope there's more game in the ocean than there is outside," remarked Jimmy, looking down the deserted beach when the three were crossing the sand hills. "Gosh! I'd like to hunt and fish up in the Arctic where the water and the shore swarms with polar bears and sea-birds and the seals and penguins. Remember those polar travelogues, Cat! What got my eye was the way those penguins flopped along just like this. Look! Darn if they didn't have the Charlie Chaplin shuffle to a finish."
At this point, Jimmy paused to give a piece of mimicry that drew a roar from Cat and a chuckle from Turner.
"He and you must have taught 'em," joked Cat, as the clown's legs sprang back to the perpendicular. "But, say, don't forget about whales when you are talking about big game. They tell me some little ones have been washed up on the beach down this far."
"Some winters they seem to get the wanderlust," drawled Turner. "One was washed up at Virginia Beach a couple of years ago, and I believe that wasn't the first they'd found."
Suddenly an idea, a bright one, occurred to Jimmy.
"Don't reckon they laid any eggs around here, do you? A whale's egg must be a whopper."
The Tarheel's face spread and he broke into a low cackle. Cat caught the cue on the instant.
"Don't you know, bonehead, that whales don't lay eggs," he struck in, looking wondrous wise.
"They don't!" exclaimed Jimmy, only half induced to believe the fact.
"They produce snarks," mildly observed Turner, breaking into a full-sized grin.
"I'll say, Jimmy," hooted Cat, "you just pulled a whale bone."
"That's right, grin your silly head off," retorted Jimmy, in no pleasant humor; "but talking of burying, that gibe needs a first class funeral, with mourners blubbering."
"Don't know so much about that," objected Cat, with his grinniest grin. "If I don't tell this on you when I get back, my name's not Cat Miller."
"I dare you," threatened Jimmy fiercely.
"Dare some more!"
"I double-dare you," shot back Jimmy, and, after these words, the speaker proceeded to cup his hands and whisper in Cat's ear.
Whatever it was, it had a magical effect.
"I resign," said Cat meekly, and added coaxingly, "Say, for Pete's sake, don't let that get out or I'm ruined. I'll can the whale's egg, swear I will."
The matter being thus adjusted, much to Turner's amusement, the lads shed their garments, dashed into the ocean for a dip, and were dressed and heavily engaged at breakfast fifteen minutes later.
"Needn't hurry so," admonished Turner. "I ain't goin' for an hour after grubbin', anyway."
And, in spite of all their urging, he wouldn't.
"To kill time, tell you what I will do, though," he conceded when all were standing on the porch after the meal was finished. "I'll try you with a little pistol practice, that's what I'll do."
This was reasonably consoling. So, fetching his automatic and a box of shells and adding to his equipment a dozen apples from the store-room, he issued out on the lawn, where the eager scouts were awaiting him.
Placing one of the smaller apples on a convenient post and taking his stand at fifty paces distance he squinted an eye, aimed, and in three shots had plugged the target into fragments.
Loud applause from the two spectators greeted this feat.
"How did you get to be such a crack shot?" Cat wanted to know.
"You see it was this way," confided the Tarheel. "Down home on the Pasquotank the musskeeters grow so almighty big and get so monstrous vicious I had to lay in bed of a night and have my fun wingin' 'em with a pistol. They were the size of Scuppernong grapes, and that's no fairy tale."
"Ha! ha!" said Cat and Jimmy echoed.
"Now, you, William Tell," said the joker, handing the pistol to the little chap, after a fresh apple had been placed in position. "Your shot!"
The short fellow cocked his eye, fired, missed his goal in all three attempts, but created considerable stir in a sand bank beyond. Miller followed, and, after two misses, nicked his apple. He beamed with satisfaction, swelled visibly and crowed over his companion.
Before an hour's practice was over, however, both the lads, though they had not quite attained the mosquito-winging stage, had improved tremendously, and their instructor, seemingly greatly gratified with his pupils, suggested getting the tackle together and making for the seaplane.