CHAPTER XXVII

A STRANGE DISCOVERY

“Let go of me!”

“Do you want me to be drowned?”

“Brrr! how cold this water is!”

Such were some of the cries that arose as Si and Ike came down in the water, almost on top of Harry. For a full minute there was a grand scrambling all around, and then the younger Westmore youth crawled out on one rock, Si on another, and Ike on a third. All stood up and glared angrily at each other.

“What do you mean by pulling me into the water?” bawled Si, shaking his fist at Harry.

“And pulling me down, too?” added Ike.

“I’d like to know what you meant by shoving me down in the first place,” blazed back Harry.

“We didn’t!” came from the pair.

“You did.”

“You had plenty of room,” grumbled Si. He gave a shiver. “I’ll catch my death of cold from this.”

“So will I,” added his toady.

“If you do, maybe it will serve you right,” answered Harry. “It was a mean trick, and both of you know it. You didn’t get any more than you deserved.”

“Bah! you make me tired, Harry Westmore!” growled Si. “Just you wait--I’ll fix you for this, see if I don’t!”

“And I’ll get square too,” came from the shivering Ike. “I’m wet to the skin!”

“Both of you are no more wet than I am,” answered Harry. “And it is your fault, not mine.” And so speaking he leaped for the nearest sandbar and waded ashore and up to where he had left his bicycle. Close at hand were the two bicycles Si and Ike had used in coming to the spot.

“Hi! you leave our wheels alone!” shouted the rich bully, as he saw Harry start towards them.

But Harry paid no attention to the words. He was angry through and through and in a mood to do almost anything. At first he thought to fling the bicycles into the river, where his enemies might go fishing for them, but then another thought came to him--a thought that almost made him grin.

On the opposite side of the roadway to that lining the stream was a row of thorn trees, low and thick. Seizing one of the bicycles, Harry gave it a swing and sent it up into the branches of one of the trees. Then he caught up the second wheel and sent that up into the branches of another thorn tree.

“Now you can climb for your wheels when you want them!” he sang out, as he leaped on his own bicycle and started to pedal away.

“Come back here! Get those bicycles down!” roared Si, as he made for the roadway.

“Great Cæsar, look at that!” groaned Ike. “They are both right in the middle of those thorny trees! How are we to get them out? We’ll be scratched to pieces!”

“He was bound to get square, I suppose,” muttered the rich bully. “Hang the luck anyway! Here we are wet to the skin, the wheels in those stickery trees, and the motor boat stuck in the sand. Say, Ike, what are we to do anyway?”

“I know what I am going to do first! Try to get myself dry! My, but it is cold!”

“Don’t say a word! I’m shivering so I can scarcely walk! I--er--I wish we hadn’t shoved him in, now.”

“Same here. But I didn’t think he’d catch us by the legs.” And thus speaking the unworthy pair waded ashore and then proceeded to look for some spot sheltered from observation, where they might dry themselves in the sun and try to get warm.

In the meantime, Harry lost no time in wheeling up the river road until he was well out of sight and hearing. Then he, too, sought a sunny spot, and there proceeded to dry himself and his clothing as best he could. Fortunately on the back of the bicycle he carried a sweater, and this he put on next to the skin, which did a great deal towards warming him up. But he was not as comfortable as he might have been, and his feelings toward Si and Ike remained anything but pleasant.

“Well, one satisfaction, they are as wet as I am!” he murmured.

It took him the best part of an hour to get even partly dry, and then he went on along the river road, making numerous turns, until he at last came to a spot opposite Shag’s Island. Here the stream was very broad and both shores were lined with trees and bushes. Shag’s Island lay out in the middle of the watercourse, with several smaller islands scattered above and below.

Not to be noticed should the men for whom he was seeking be at hand, Harry secreted his bicycle in the bushes and crept down between the greenery to the water’s edge. He looked out on the river and towards the island. Not a soul was in sight and apparently the locality was deserted.

At this point the sandbars and rocks were even more numerous than where the motor boat lay stranded, and the Westmore youth saw that by taking off his shoes and socks, and rolling up his trousers, he could easily wade to the island.

“I’ll do that,” he told himself. “I don’t think they’ll see me--if they are around.”

Soon he was out on the rocks, his shoes over his shoulder. As he did not wish to slip and hurt himself, he advanced with caution, leaping from rock to rock where he could and otherwise wading along the sandbars. Once he went down in a small hole and got something of a splash, but this he did not mind. Then came a long, smooth sandbar, leading directly to the end of the island, and along this he walked with ease, and soon found himself ashore.

As he put on his socks and shoes again he listened intently, but the only sounds that broke the stillness were the chirping of the birds and the croaking of some frogs in a swamp.

“I guess I’ll go along the shore and look for boat-prints and footprints,” he told himself. “If they landed in a boat I ought to locate the place with ease.”

Shag’s Island was nearly a quarter of a mile long and not quite half that in width. At either end was a rocky hill, with a flat, marshy place in the middle of the island. In the marsh grew huckleberry bushes of large size, and during the season the boys of Lakeport had often come there to fill their pails with the fruit.

Harry had passed down the shore almost to the marsh when he saw some marks in the sand between the rocks. A boat had been beached there, not once but several times, and many footprints were to be seen.

“Now to follow those marks,” thought the Westmore boy, and turned inland.

The footmarks led to the west of the marsh, and past a clump of low-growing bushes. Here there was something of a trail, and the same marks were to be seen in the soil.

It must be confessed that Harry’s heart beat loudly as he advanced along this trail. The spot seemed to be particularly lonely, and just then scarcely a sound broke the stillness. Once he imagined he heard voices and stopped to listen.

“I must have been mistaken,” he told himself. “Pshaw! I guess I’m getting nervous. I’m going ahead and see if I can find out anything. Perhaps I’m only on a wild-goose chase after all.”

Then he realized that he was unarmed, and he paused beside another clump of bushes, to cut himself a heavy stick. With this in hand he felt more confident, and on he went once more, around a bend of the trail.

He was now satisfied that he could hear voices and that they came from ahead of him. He slackened his pace and strained his ears, and soon located the sounds. They came from an old hut located beside the trail, a hut once used by an old hermit named Shag, after whom the island had been named.

As soon as Harry came in sight of the hut he resolved to change his course. He stepped from the trail and made a detour, coming up through the brushwood to a point close to one side of the old structure. Here there was a window about two feet square, with a sliding wooden shutter, and, as the shutter was open, the boy could look into the hut with ease and also hear what was being said.

Two men were talking, and Harry recognized the voices of Thomas Mason and Lamar Chase, he having seen those individuals several times since the disappearance of Andrew Akers. The men were talking over business matters in general,--a conversation that did not interest the youth.

“I wonder if Mr. Akers can be around?” thought the boy. “He must be, or otherwise what would those two men be doing in such an out-of-the-way spot as this?”

Watching his chance, he peered into the window of the hut and saw that the two men were seated on rude benches smoking. He also noted that a rough board partition divided the hut into two parts.

“Maybe Mr. Akers is in the other room,” reasoned Harry. “If it has a window I’ll soon find out.”

Cautiously he stepped back from the position he occupied and worked his way to the other end of the hut. Here was another window, but the shutter to this was tightly closed.

Harry listened, but if anybody was in the apartment behind the closed shutter, he made no sound. Then the youth heard Thomas Mason exclaim:

“Well, I’m going. You stay here till I get back.”

“You’ll return before four o’clock?” queried Lamar Chase.

“Yes, unless something detains me.”

“We want to get to see those men by seven, and we’ve got to have supper.”

“I’ll be here.”

“By the way, did you hear anything more from those two chaps who ran the motor boat?” questioned Lamar Chase, as he followed his companion out of doors.

“No.”

“I thought they might demand some money.”

“So did I. But I reckon they were pretty well scared.”

“It’s too bad they belong in Lakeport. Maybe they’ll tell some of those people of what happened.”

“I don’t think so--for if they do, it will get them into trouble. I am pretty sure they’ll lay low and say nothing. Besides, they don’t know the exact truth. They only helped to take care of an insane man, you know,” and Thomas Mason chuckled.

“That is true. Well, I’m off.”

The manager of the novelty manufacturing company turned and hurried away from the hut, moving towards the opposite shore of the island from where Harry had landed. Evidently he was going to row to the other side of the river.

Left to himself, Lamar Chase stood still for a moment. Then he took up a bucket that was handy and started off up the rocks.

“He is going for water!” thought Harry, and he remembered that the spring Shag had used was quite a distance from the hut. It would take the man all of five minutes to go for the water and get back.

As soon as Lamar Chase disappeared around the rocks the mind of the younger Westmore boy was made up. Without hesitation he ran around to the front of the hut and then inside.

A glance showed him a rude door, leading to the second apartment of the structure. This door was closed and propped fast by means of a stick of wood. Harry pulled the stick out of place and hauled the door open.

The inner apartment, because of the closed-up window, was almost dark, and for a moment the boy could see next to nothing. Then, as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he made out the form of a man on a bunk.

It was Andrew Akers.