CHAPTER XII

--"SUN, MOON AND STARS"

"The Mercedes in the lead," announced Ben Dixon.

"All right," returned Tom Barnes.

The buzzer was going merrily; Tom was on his professional mettle and thoroughly enjoying himself. He was tallying off the information shouted down in sections through the tower skylight by his faithful assistant.

Ben, astride a cross arm beam of the old windmill, balanced an elongated telescope seaward focussed on several yachts engaged in a race.

It had been part of the day's instructions received that morning from headquarters for the operators at Station Z to watch out and announce the order in which the yachts passed Rockley Cove. The information was wanted for newspapers and persons interested at the starting point of the race. The names and pennant colors of the various craft had been furnished to Tom, and Ben was able, with this basis to work from, to report like an expert.

"_Druid_ second," he announced sharply two minutes later.

The entire flotilla had passed within half an hour, and Ben descended into the operating room.

"That was easy and pleasant," he observed.

"Say, Tom, we've got a dandy plant here, and no mistake."

Tom replied by nodding in a gratified way, and glancing with pride and approval at the well-ordered equipment about him.

Tom was now a duly authorized operator in the service of the International Wireless Company. Mr. Mason had carried out the plans outlined during his original talk with Tom, and that rising young wireless operator was now working on instructions and a liberal salary, and had over five hundred dollars in the bank.

Mr. Morgan had insisted on Tom accepting a check for two hundred dollars as a slight recognition of his service in respect to the United Calcium securities.

What pleased Tom most of all, however, was that he was given the privilege of employing extra help when in his judgment the same was required, and Ben was put in a way to earn many a welcome dollar.

Station Z was not in the regular service. It was maintained by the International Wireless Company as a sort of demonstration station. The object was to do little commercial business, but to pick up important messages sent in cases of emergency. The purpose of the company was to demonstrate to the general public the chance utility of an isolated station.

Tom had paid Mr. Edson the hundred dollars, he had secured the lease of the station site, had returned to Harry Ashley the money borrowed from him, and was a happy, hopeful enthusiast, every day learning more and more concerning the wonderful wireless.

He sat back in his chair now, comfortable and at ease, with the satisfaction of a person understanding his business and doing his duty. Ben swung back luxuriously in a hammock they had rigged up in one corner of the room. The sunshine was bright, the air balmy, the sea refreshingly blue and cool looking, and both boys enjoyed the acme of comfort and satisfaction.

"I say, Tom," began Ben lazily, after a spell of indolent rest, "what about that letter? Did you bring it?"

"Oh yes," answered Tom, feeling in the pocket of his coat. "Here it is."

Ben took a mussed-up envelope from the hand of his chum. It was directed in crooked, printed letters: "mister tom barns."

"I found it stuck under our front door last night, as I told you," recounted Tom, and Ben perused the enclosed sheet covered with straggling words and sentences, and read it aloud:

"Warnin to tom barns, keep yure own turtory, or it'l be the worst fer you and yer frens. sined: the Black Kaps."

"Sort of blood-curdling, eh, Ben?" mused Tom.

"It don't scare you one little bit?"

"Not a particle."

"What does it mean?"

"Why, Ben, the only way I can figure out, is that the so-called Black Caps are in active operation again."

"Phew!" observed Ben, and fell into a prolonged fit of musing. Both he and Tom were quite familiar with the past operations of that sinister concern. Like all country communities, Rockley Cove had some undesirables. Over the village line, in fact, between it and the residence of the Morgans, was a little community of fishermen whose social condition was not very high.

One particular family with numerous branches was quite notorious. The name was Barber, and the younger members of the family constituted an uncouth and troublesome set. They and some neighboring lads formed what they called a secret society called the "Black Caps." They soon became the terror of adjoining communities.

Out of pure perversity they stole fishing nets and tackle, robbed farmers' hen roosts, and dismantled yachts and yawls. When these pilferings were brought home to them, they destroyed fishing outfits, scuttled boats, and burned down several haystacks. Six of them were finally arrested, and among the witnesses against them were Tom and Ben. The young desperadoes, who had established a dead line over which few Rockley Cove boys dared to venture, were locked up in the county jail for thirty days and in addition their parents had to pay fines for them.

All this had happened about a year before Station Z was started. The Black Caps had been disrupted, it seemed, and Tom had heard little of the Barbers for some time. If they continued their former marauding course, it was in some new territory, for they neither noticed nor molested any more Rockley Cove boys or property.

Now, however, the old-time tactics so common in the past had been revived, it seemed, as witness the warning note Tom had received. It was over this that Ben was cogitating. Finally Tom expressed an opinion.

"I can't account for any fresh antipathy on the part of the Barbers," he said, "unless it is because they see me going down to Mr. Morgan's once or twice a week."

"I'll bet that's it," exclaimed Ben. "You generally take the cut inland near the settlement, don't you, Tom?"

"Nearly always."

"That must be it, then. They think you are sort of watching them--invading their territory, as they call it. I don't think, though, they would cut up very rough with you."

"Why not?"

"Well, Bill Barber said before he got out of jail you had made up for telling what you had to tell against him, by pleading with the judge to let them off light for a first offence."

"I shall not lose any sleep over the terrible warning," laughed Tom lightly.

"I'd take the beach road when I went up to see Grace Morgan, though, if I were you," suggested Ben. "Talking of something else, Tom, have you said anything to Harry along the 'Donner' line?"

"Not a word. Our mysterious spook seems to have given up his erratic messages."

"That name, 'Donner,' struck Harry all of a heap, just the same."

"Well, he's a fine fellow, and I'm not going to pry into his secrets."

"I wonder what old 'Donner' was after, anyhow?" observed Ben, "with his mysterious 'messages,' and his 'thousand dollars.'"

"And the boy with the sun, moon and stars on his left shoulder," smiled Tom.

No orders had come to Station Z for work that night, and at five o'clock the boys locked up the tower. They parted when they reached the village, Ben taking the road south and Tom proceeding homeward alone.

He was up in his room changing his working clothes, when his mother appeared at the bottom of the stairs to tell him that Ben Dixon was on the telephone.

"Ben wants you to call him up before you go out to-night," advised Mrs. Barnes.

"All right," sang down Tom.

He forgot all about Ben when he came downstairs, full of his plans for the evening. Grace Morgan had invited him down to Fernwood, so Tom had asked his mother to give him an early supper. Then, in the bustle of getting a lift as far as the crossroads in a passing rig, he left the house in a great hurry, and never thought of his chum again until he left the wagon.

"I won't go back," decided Tom. "It can't be anything very particular Ben wants to see me about. I've got plenty of time, too, and can stroll around his way before I go to see Grace."

Tom passed down the winding road, but on the way ringing boyish shouts beyond a thicket caused him to deviate from his course. As he came to where a fringe of shrubbery lined the banks of Silver Brook, he nearly ran into a man who stood peering past them at a merry group of boys sporting in the sparkling waters of the stream.

There was so much that was ill-favored in the face of the man, something so sinister in his pose, that it suggested to Tom the lurker with a purpose. Tom halted and regarded the man closely. Then he peered past him at the group sporting in the water.

Their leader was Harry Ashley, and he was in great evidence. At just that moment he was giving them a specimen of rapid hand over hand water climbing. His admiring friends cheered as Harry made a marvelous dash of some fifty yards, described a disappearing dive with wonderful dexterity, and, coming to the surface, landed on a rock not twenty feet away from the observing stranger and Tom, and stood shaking the water from hair and face.

"Ah-h!" suddenly exclaimed the strange man, craning his neck, losing his balance, falling flat; and then, discovering Tom, he scowled at him, and suddenly disappeared in the underbrush.

"The mischief!" ejaculated Tom, as he too glanced at Harry.

The back of the latter was towards him. Tom experienced a queer thrill as he saw what the stranger had also seen.

Upon Harry Ashley's left shoulder, plainly tattooed, was a sun, a moon and some stars!

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