CHAPTER VI

THE CELLS RECOVERED

When the Japanese, for that was the nationality of the man, caught sight of the plane, only a few feet over his head, he gave vent to a startled grunt of mingled surprise and fear and stopped in his tracks. The ground, where he was standing, was not so rough as they had so far encountered and Bill had no trouble in selecting a good landing place only a few feet away. Hardly had the plane struck the earth when Gordon was over the side of the cockpit and after the Jap.

“Easy, Gordon,” Rogers called.

But Gordon was mad and paid no attention to the warning as he came in front of the man who was standing with a look of incredulity on his face.

“Hand ’em over,” Gordon demanded.

The Jap held out his hands. “Me no unstand,” he said.

“Well, I reckon you’ll understand this,” Gordon snapped as he leaped for the man.

But in that he showed poor judgment as he afterward acknowledged. He never did understand just what happened but he did know that hardly had he touched the Jap when he was flying through the air to land on his head and shoulders fully six feet away. Fortunately he struck in a soft spot or he would undoubtedly have been severely injured if not killed outright. As it was he was severely shaken up and for a moment was too dazed to move.

“Are you killed, Gordon?” Bill demanded, as he rushed to him.

“I——I don’t know,” he stammered. “What was it?”

Bill pulled him to his feet and a sigh of relief escaped him as he saw that he could stand. “All right?” he asked.

“I——I guess so, but what was it?” Gordon again asked. “Something hit me.”

“I’ll say it did,” Bill chuckled as he pointed to the Jap who was now standing with both hands held high above his head, his eyes fixed on an automatic in the hands of Rogers.

“I told you to go easy,” the latter grinned as the boys stepped to his side.

“I——I didn’t think he——”

“Well, you know now,” Rogers interrupted. “One of you see if he’s got them while I keep him covered. No monkey business, now,” he ordered as Bill stepped forward.

He had no trouble in finding the six cells in the voluminous pocket of the Jap’s blouse, and as he drew them out one by one he chuckled with satisfaction.

“W-what we going to——to do with him?” Gordon asked. His head was still a bit dizzy and his shoulders ached.

“Me no——” the Jap began, but Rogers interrupted:

“Shut up.”

“But——”

“I told you to shut up,” Rogers again snapped. “We’re running the show just now.”

“Guess we’ll have to let him go,” Bill suggested.

“How about shooting him?” Rogers asked and the Jap’s face took on an ashen hue.

“Well, I don’t know but it would be a good plan,” Bill said, catching on to Rogers’ plan.

“Me no want to be shooted,” the Jap pleaded.

“What do you mean by stealing those things?” Rogers demanded.

“Me no steal ’em.”

“Cut out the lying. I suppose you just borrowed them, eh?”

“Yes——yes, me borrow ’em.”

“What were you going to do with them,” Bill asked him.

“Me goin’ bring ’em right back.”

“I suppose so,” Bill laughed. “Now see here if we let you go you going to keep away from us?”

“Yes——yes, me no come again, never.”

“Well, you’d better not. You won’t get off so easily the next time. Now get,” Rogers ordered.

And he got, as Gordon laughingly declared a moment later.

“Say,” he grinned as the Jap, running for dear life, disappeared, “that fellow certainly knows how to defend himself. Did you see him toss me?”

“We saw him all right,” Bill laughed. “And let me tell you one thing, you’re mighty lucky you didn’t get hurt. If your head had struck a stone——but I don’t know though,” he hesitated. “I guess it would have taken a pretty hard stone to make a dent in that skull of yours. But seriously, Gordon, you should have used better judgment. Those fellows are past masters when it comes to rough and tumble stuff.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything about it,” Gordon grinned. “I know it. But I was a fool, there’s no doubt about that part of it, but you see, I was so anxious to get those cells back that I didn’t stop to think. Anyhow, I guess we’ve seen the last of that guy.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” Rogers mused. “Some of those Japs are the very dickens when it comes to pertinacity. But one thing I can’t understand and that is why he took the cells and passed up our grub and other things.”

“If he saw us hide them, and of course he must have, he probably got the idea that they were valuable,” Bill suggested.

“Funny what he was doing away out there anyhow,” Gordon said. “He must have been pretty near us when we landed as we hid them soon after.”

“That’s very true,” Rogers told him. “He was there all right, but it’s pretty hard to guess what for. Maybe we’ll find out later.”

“You really think we’ll see him again?” Bill asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess we gave him a pretty good scare,” Rogers replied. “But a bad Jap is a mighty bad hombre. I know because I’ve had dealings with them before. Once one of them sets his mind on a thing it’s mighty hard to persuade him that he’d better give it up.”

“Anyhow it means that we’ll have to be on our guard from now on,” Gordon suggested.

“Every minute,” Rogers told him.

“Well, if he gets us again it’ll be our own fault,” Bill added.

“Forewarned is forearmed,” Rogers told them.

“Sure is, but I guess we might as well get back. I’m getting——”

“Hungry,” Bill finished the statement.

“And I don’t mean maybe,” Gordon laughed.

“Now,” Rogers began as soon as they were back in camp, “the first thing to do is to find a new hiding place for those cells.”

“How about hiding them in different places?” Gordon suggested.

“That’s an excellent idea,” Rogers agreed.

It took the better part of an hour to find three satisfactory hiding places but it was finally accomplished to their satisfaction and then Gordon suggested that it was time to get dinner.

“You know that blow on the head has made me hungry,” he told them.

“As if you were ever anything else but,” Bill laughed.

“But I mean more than usual,” Gordon grinned.

“Then you must be hungry,” Bill told him.

“Now you’re talking.”

“I don’t believe anyone will find those cells again,” Rogers declared an hour later as they started eating.

“Unless he was watching us hide them,” Bill said.

“Well, that Jap wasn’t, that’s certain,” Gordon told them. “He never could have got back in time.”

“No, I don’t think he could have,” Rogers agreed. “But he isn’t the only Jap on the island, you know.”

“You mean you’ve got a hunch?”

“No, I don’t think so, only I wish that fellow hadn’t been here.”

“I’d feel a bit easier myself if he hadn’t,” Bill said soberly.

“I believe you two fellows are getting the heebie jeebies,” Gordon chuckled. “Just because that guy happened to be out here when we landed you conjure up a deep laid plot against us. I’m here to tell you that we scared the life out of him and he won’t bother us again.”

“Well, I sure hope you’re right,” Rogers told him.

“Of course I’m right,” Gordon declared. “But we’ll not be caught napping just the same.”

“Which means that one of us will have to stay right here all the time,” Rogers said.

“I suppose that’s the best thing to do,” Bill agreed.

“It’s the only thing,” Rogers told him.

After the meal they drew lots to see who would stay behind while the others continued the search along the cliffs. The lot fell to Bill and he told them that he would do the dishes and for them to start at once as the tide would be out far enough to allow them to go on. “And mind you keep an eye on the kid and don’t let him do anything foolish,” he added.

“I’ll look out for him,” Rogers promised.

“Guess I’m old enough to look out for myself,” Gordon grumbled.

“Didn’t look like it this forenoon,” Bill reminded him.

“You’d be surprised,” Gordon laughed.

“Keep your gun handy,” Rogers advised as they started off.

“You bet,” Bill called after them.

Rogers and Gordon found that the tide had receded enough so that they could walk along close to the bottom of the cliffs and hurried along at a smart pace until they had reached the place where they had turned back that morning.

“Now we’ll have to take it slowly,” Rogers said as he stopped and mopped his face as it was very hot.

The face of the cliff reflected the rays of the sun and, as Gordon declared, made the place feel like a furnace.

“The sun will be over it in a short time and then I guess it will be cooler,” Rogers told him.

“Well, it doesn’t seem as though it could get much hotter,” Gordon sighed.

Here the cliff was a little higher than it had been up to this point and they were determined not to miss anything. So they walked slowly along keeping their eyes fixed on the rocks. They had gone about an eighth of a mile from where they had stopped when they reached a rift in the cliff. The opening was not more than three feet wide but reached from the bottom to the top.

“This isn’t a cave,” Rogers said, “but it’s possible that it’s the place.”

“It doesn’t go back more than about fifty feet,” Gordon said as he stood in the entrance.

“Well, it won’t do any harm to take a look at it now that we’re here.”

“Of course we’ll look it over and thoroughly too.”

So they worked their way slowly along the narrow pass climbing over huge rocks and stopping every minute or two to examine the ground as well as the walls.

“Just as like as not this wasn’t here a hundred years ago,” Gordon grunted when they had covered about thirty feet.

“Perhaps not,” Rogers agreed.

“It’s cooler in here anyhow and that’s one thing to be thankful for.”

“Yes, the shade after that hot sun is very grateful.”

“I reckon the sun doesn’t get in here for a very long time each day,” Gordon said glancing up. “Great guns!”

“What is it?”

“Someone was watching us from up there,” Gordon whispered.

“Nonsense.”

“I tell you I saw him. He was right by that shrub there.”

“You’re sure?”

“Dead certain, although he dodged back mighty quick.”

“Jap?”

“I’m not so sure about that. I only had a glimpse of him, but I think it was.”

“Think it was the same one?”

“Don’t know.”

“Well, he’s had time to get back all right, but I didn’t expect him so soon.”

“Look out!”

Gordon jumped to one side and not an instant too soon for a rock about the size of a man’s head struck the ground where he had been standing. Roger’s face was as white as a sheet of paper when Gordon looked at him and he felt, as he afterward told him, rather weak in the knees.

“That was a bit too close for comfort,” he gasped.

“Follow me,” Rogers said as he turned and ran for the entrance of the rift, and Gordon needed no urging. “That rock came mighty near getting you,” he said as soon as they were safely out on the sand.

“But I don’t get his idea.”

“His idea was plain enough: he meant to kill us.”

“But why should he want to do a thing like that?”

“That’s not so plain. But we’d better get back and see if Bill is all right. There may be more than one of them after us.”

“There’s one anyhow all right,” Gordon said as he started after Rogers on the run.

Bill was cleaning the motor of the Albatross when they got back and looked up in surprise as he heard them.

“Found it all ready?” he asked.

“Seen anyone around here?” Rogers asked instead of replying to his question.

“Not a soul.”

“Well, we have,” Gordon told him.

“You have?”

“And he pretty near got one of us,” Gordon added.

“You mean——?”

“Yep, just that,” and Gordon told him what had happened.

“That’s serious,” Bill said when he had finished.

“I’ll say it is,” Rogers agreed.

“And it means that we’ve got to find out what’s up before we do any more searching after the lost treasure,” Bill told them.

“You hit the nail on the head that time,” Rogers declared.

“And the best way to do it is to take the plane and make a search all over this part of the island,” Bill advised.

Ten minutes later they were in the air and for two hours flew back and forth until they had covered the entire end of the island. But not a sign of human life did they see, and about six o’clock they returned to camp greatly disappointed.

“But there’s plenty of places where a fellow could hide so that we couldn’t see him from the plane,” Rogers told them as they climbed from the cockpit.

“And it doesn’t mean a thing that we didn’t see him,” Gordon added.

“Or them,” Bill amended.

“But we’ve got to find him or them,” Gordon insisted.

“Or else give up and beat it home,” Bill grinned.

“Not on your life,” Gordon snorted. “I’m not going to be run off by any little two by four like that fellow.”

“I thought not,” Rogers said. “But one thing’s certain. We must not go below those cliffs again till we know what’s up. We haven’t a chance against a fellow up on top with a good sized rock.”

“Not a chance in the world,” Gordon agreed. “How about some eats?”

Supper was rather a quiet meal. No one seemed to have much to say, each being busy with his own thoughts and, even when they were gathered around the fire after darkness had fallen conversation languished.

“I’ll take the first watch until one o’clock,” Bill finally said.

“Call me then,” Rogers told him.

“And when do I come in?” Gordon demanded.

“I’ll call you at four,” Rogers promised.

“After it gets light: nothing doing. It’s nine now and Bill will watch till twelve and you till three and then I’ll finish it out. Get me?”

“All right, have it your own way,” Rogers laughed.

“And you call us if you see or hear the least thing that seems suspicious,” Gordon added as he rolled himself in his blanket and crawled into his tent.

“I won’t take any chances,” Bill promised as he put some more wood on the fire.