CHAPTER V

SEARCHING

“Now I think we’d better go into a committee of the whole and take a look at that map again,” Rogers told them when they were finished.

“We’re a committee in a hole all right,” Gordon laughed.

“But it isn’t a very deep one just at present,” Bill added.

By this time Rogers had the old map spread out on a flat rock and the two boys looked over his shoulders as he proceeded to explain it more thoroughly to them.

“Now, as near as I can estimate it, we’re right here,” he began placing the point of his pencil on the map. “And right off here it looks to me as though he had tried to represent a cliff or a hill only a short distance from the shore. Unfortunately there’s no scale to the map so we can’t tell how far from here it is, but right here’s where he hid the stuff and it’s evidently in a cave in the side of the cliff.”

“And it’s up to us to find the cliff,” Gordon suggested.

“Exactly, and it ought not to be a very difficult task,” Rogers told them. “The island isn’t large and it’s somewhere on this end of it, that’s certain.”

“Was, you mean, don’t you?” Bill asked.

“What do you mean, was? Caves don’t run around you know.”

“No, but you want to remember that they have earthquakes out here and that cave may have vanished a long time ago. That’s what I’m most afraid of,” Bill explained.

“Of course that’s a chance we’ve got to take. If it’s gone we’re out of luck, that’s all.”

“So far as finding the platinum is concerned you mean?” Gordon asked.

“Certainly that’s what I mean. We’re having the trip in any case.”

“Well, are we going to start to-day or wait till to-morrow?” Bill asked.

“I guess it’s too late to do much to-day,” Rogers said, “but we might take a walk down to the shore and see what it looks like.”

“Wait a minute till we hide those cells,” Bill suggested. “We’ve got to put them where no one will find them and I don’t mean maybe.”

A good hiding place was soon located behind one of the rocks which formed the rim of their bowl, as Gordon called it, and they were soon on their way to the shore only a short distance away.

“There are your cliffs all right,” Gordon said as they stood on the sand close to the water’s edge and looked at the rocky formation.

They had reached the shore by means of a defile which led between two jutting masses of rock and was hardly wide enough to allow them to pass in single file.

“It’s low tide now,” Rogers declared.

“And at high tide the water must reach to the foot of the cliff,” Bill added. “We’ll have to watch our step and not get caught by the tide.”

“Yep, that wouldn’t be so good,” Gordon agreed.

“Well, it shouldn’t take us very long to go over the ground,” Bill mused as he glanced both ways. “There can’t be more than a mile either side of where we are to this end of the island and if we don’t find it at this end we’re——”

“Out of the game,” Gordon finished for him.

They walked slowly back and, as it was nearly five o’clock when they reached the bowl, they at once set about preparing supper.

“You must have thought we were going to stay here a long time,” Bill said as he began taking their cooking utensils from the plane.

“Well, I thought I might as well get plenty while I was at it,” Rogers told him.

“A man after my own heart,” Gordon declared slapping him on the back.

“Feed him and you’ve a friend for life,” Bill laughed.

There was plenty of dry bits of wood lying about and in a very few minutes Gordon had a fire going between two rocks just over the edge of the bowl.

“What’s the bill of fare?” he asked.

“Sirloin steak two inches thick,” Rogers told him.

“My, but I think you’re a very nice man,” Gordon chuckled.

“I told you,” Bill chimed in.

“Say, fellows, I’ve been thinking,” Gordon suddenly said as they were sitting around the fire a couple of hours later.

“Impossible,” Bill declared.

“Why is it impossible?” Gordon demanded.

“Well, the act of thinking implies the possession of something with which to do the thinking and——”

“Oh, you mean brains,” Gordon interrupted.

“I believe that’s what one thinks with,” Bill told him.

“Well, I’ve got ’em and as I was about to say, when I was so rudely interrupted, I’ve been thinking——”

“You said that before,” Bill again broke in.

“I’ve been thinking about that noise we heard last night.”

“Well, what about it?” Bill demanded as he paused.

“I’ve got to know what it was.”

“Well, I sure hope you find out.”

“I’m not going back home till I do,” Gordon assured him.

“I’m with you there,” Rogers told him. “As soon as we find the platinum we’ll go back and investigate.”

“I don’t believe in spooks but if there are any such animals, believe me, they live on that island,” Bill declared.

“I wonder how far away we are from anyone here,” Gordon said a few minutes later.

“I don’t suppose there’s a soul within twenty miles of us,” Rogers told him.

“You getting scared?” Bill laughed.

“Scared nothing,” Gordon snapped. “I was just curious, that’s all.”

“That’s what killed a cat,” Bill told him.

It was getting dark by this time and Rogers suggested that they turn in and get up early, reminding them that it would be high tide about nine o’clock and that if they were to do any searching in the forenoon they would have to get an early start. So half an hour later they were all asleep in the pup tents. Gordon had fallen asleep more than half expecting to be awakened by that same weird cry that had disturbed him the night before. But there was no disturbance and it was light when Bill called him.

“Going to sleep all day?” he asked him as he grabbed hold of his feet and pulled him from the tent.

“What time is it?”

“Almost four o’clock.”

“Gee, I must have overslept,” Gordon groaned sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “Is Steve up yet?”

“Sure he is.”

“But I don’t see him.”

“He’s gone for some water. There’s a little brook about fifty rods back that he discovered yesterday while we were getting supper. I’ve got the fire going.”

“Here he comes now.”

“Breakfast will be ready in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” Bill told him.

Bill was almost as good as his word and by five o’clock they were ready to start exploring. The tide was coming in but there was a strip of sand some forty feet wide between the sea and the cliffs.

“I reckon it’ll be a couple of hours before the water gets up to the rocks,” Rogers told them as they started along toward the north. “Now we want to keep our eyes peeled and not miss a single bet,” he cautioned them.

“I guess there’s only one to miss and that’s the cave,” Gordon chuckled.

For the greater part of the way so far as they could see the wall of rocks was about twelve feet high and very rugged. As they walked slowly along they scanned every inch closely.

“Looks like a hole up there,” Gordon suddenly cried after they had gone about a hundred feet.

“Where do you mean?” Bill asked eagerly.

“Right up there above that bit of rock that’s sticking out. Can’t you see it?”

“I can see the rock sticking out but I can’t see any hole,” Bill declared.

“Neither can I,” Rogers backed him up.

“You must both be blind,” Gordon asserted. “I believe I can climb up there.”

“But I tell you there’s nothing there,” Bill insisted.

“I’m going to take a look anyhow,” Gordon insisted as he started for the foot of the cliff.

But when he got close up to it it did not look so easy. The wall at that point was almost perpendicular and there seemed to be but few toeholds.

“Give me a boost up so I can reach that crack and I believe I can make it,” he said.

“Look out you don’t slip now,” Bill cautioned as he bent his knee.

Standing on Bill’s shoulders Gordon found that he could reach the crack and by drawing himself up he was able to get his feet on an out jutting rock, but it was a very precarious hold.

“Better spit on your hands,” Bill called up to him.

“My hands are all right but I don’t know what to do with my feet,” he called back.

But he managed a moment later to get his fingers in another crack a little higher up and to bring his feet up to a more secure footing on a bit of ledge. From this position he was able to peep over the rock behind which he was convinced was a hole into the cliff. But the brief glance he caught, while almost hanging by his finger tips, showed him that he had been mistaken. There was no opening there and a second later he dropped to the sand with a sheepish look on his face.

“Satisfied?” Bill demanded.

“Sure, but I wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t looked,” he replied.

“Then I guess it’s a good thing you looked,” Bill told him.

“Well, there might have been a hole there,” Gordon insisted.

“Sure, but I told you there wasn’t, didn’t I?”

“Believe you did say something to that effect.”

“Well, now that it’s settled, suppose we continue,” Rogers suggested.

They went on for perhaps a quarter of a mile without seeing anything which even suggested a cave in the rocks and finally Rogers gave it as his opinion that they’d better turn back. “We’ve got to hurry now if we don’t want to get our feet wet,” he declared.

But they got back without having to run and Gordon grumbled over the fact that they would have to wait six hours before they could do any more exploring.

“That’s the worst of a tide,” he told them. “Up in God’s country you don’t have to wait for them. The water always stays put and you know where it is any time of the day or night.”

“Some people would grumble if they were going to be hanged,” Bill remarked.

“Who wouldn’t,” Gordon retorted.

“I suppose we could take the plane and fly along by the cliff and see what we could find,” Bill suggested as they reached camp.

“Say, that wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Gordon declared. “It’ll kill time anyhow.”

“I’m voting for it,” Rogers added.

“All right, then. Wait a minute till I get a couple of cells,” Bill said as he pulled out the stone which hid the hiding place.

He reached his hand in and a look first of amazement and then of incredulity spread over his face. “Say,” he called, “Isn’t this the place where we hid them?”

“Of course it is,” Gordon told him. “Don’t tell me they aren’t there.”

“I’ve got to,” Bill gasped turning about and facing them.

“Nonsense. Of course they’re there,” Gordon cried.

“Feel for yourself.”

Gordon felt and was obliged to acknowledge that the cells were gone.

“What do you know about that?” he cried as he straightened up.

“Someone must have been watching us when we hid them,” Rogers told them.

“See if there are any foot prints,” Bill ordered.

But the sand of the bowl was too thoroughly covered with their own marks to yield anything and outside there were too many rocks.

“See if any of the other stuff is gone,” Gordon suggested, and they all rushed to the place where they had cached their provisions. But nothing, so far as they could tell, had been disturbed and for a moment they stood and looked at each other speechless. “Can you beat it?” Gordon finally gasped.

“Looks as though——” Bill began and then broke off sharp. “Wait a minute,” he cried as he started for the plane.

They saw him jump into the cockpit and bend over the driver’s seat. For a moment he rummaged in the small compartment and then straightened up with a cry of triumph.

“Oh, baby,” Gordon shouted as he saw that Bill was holding up two of the precious cells. “How’d they happen to be in there?”

“They’re old ones,” Bill explained. “And I’d forgotten all about them till just that minute and even then I wasn’t sure they were there. I don’t know how much juice there is in them but I reckon there’s enough to last an hour or more. You know we’ve never used them till they’re dry.”

“But what are we going to do?” Gordon demanded.

“Why, go after that fellow of course. What did you think we were going to do, sit down and cry about it?”

“But——”

“He can’t be very far off unless he had a car and he didn’t have one, that’s sure.”

“I guess you’re right about that,” Rogers agreed. “He couldn’t get very near here in a car unless it had a caterpillar tread.”

“And if he had that he’d not be very far off yet,” Bill declared. “He can’t have more than a couple of hours start. But come on, we don’t want to give him any more.”

“Maybe there’s more than one of them,” Rogers suggested as they took their seats.

“Doesn’t make any difference if there’s an army,” Gordon told him. “We’ve got to get ’em back just the same. In the first place they don’t belong to us and in the second we need ’em.”

“I’ll tell the world we do,” Bill added, as he started the elevator. “Now use your eyes as you never used them before.”

“Or ever expect to again,” Gordon added.

They had two field glasses and he handed one pair to Rogers as the plane left the ground. Almost as soon as they were in the air Bill started the forward propeller and the plane headed inland. They had decided to fly at an altitude of about 100 feet which would give them a fairly wide vision and at the same time permit them to make a thorough search. The one thing to be feared more than any other, Bill had explained, was that the fugitive would see them before they saw him and find a hiding place. “And, believe me, that wouldn’t be a hard thing to do most anywhere around here,” he declared.

“Good thing the plane doesn’t make a noise,” Gordon said.

“We’d be helpless if it did,” Rogers told him.

Bill had headed the plane toward the north deeming it best to zig-zag across the island so as to cover the entire area. The character of the ground beneath them changed but little as they flew along. Very rocky and rough there was but little vegetation and but few trees except the fringe just back of the cliffs.

“No wonder they picked this island for a leper’s colony,” Gordon said a few minutes after they started. “No man would live here if he could help it, that is if he had any sense.”

They had flown across the island three times and were about half way across again before they sighted their quarry.

“There he goes,” Gordon suddenly cried pointing off to the right of the direction they were going. “See him Steve?”

“Not yet,” Rogers replied. “Where do you mean?”

“Right over there by that big tree there. Don’t you see that fellow running as though the old boy himself was after him?”

“Now I do.”

Bill had stopped the forward propeller and started the elevator at Gordon’s cry and now the plane had nearly lost its momentum.

“Think he’s seen us?” he asked.

“Don’t believe so,” Gordon told him. “He hasn’t looked this way.”

“Well, keep your eyes on him and don’t lose him,” Bill ordered as he again started the forward propeller.

Slowly the plane started forward and in a very few minutes was only a few yards behind the man who was running with the easy swing of the trained athlete. They could see now that he was either Chinese or Japanese and the loose blouse which he wore sagged heavily as if weighted at the bottom.

“He’s got the cells all right,” Gordon declared. “See how that blouse hangs.”

“No doubt of it,” Rogers agreed.

“And we’ve just the same as got him,” Gordon chuckled.

“But we want to be careful,” Rogers whispered, for they were now very close. “Some of those fellows are pretty slippery customers.”

Just then the man looked up and saw them.