The Motor Boat Club off Long Island; or, A Daring Marine Game at Racing Speed

by H. Irving Hancock

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE MOTOR THAT WOULDN’T “MOTE”

  IT was Eben Moddridge who, marine glass in hand, now devoted the mostattention to the schooner, which was once more in full chase.

  Francis Delavan was now doing so well that there was no doubt inanyone’s mind of his full recovery.

  “How—how’s the stock market?” he ventured at last to ask.

  “Don’t know, sir,” retorted Butts. “Neither does anyone else. We’ve gotyou and the engine to fix. When you’re both going fine, then we’ll tryto find more time to talk.”

  Mr. Delavan smiled, good-humoredly, but next inquired:

  “How do you happen—to be aboard the ‘Rocket!’”

  “Walked aboard,” admitted Hank. “Had to sir. Nobody ever took thetrouble to shanghai me.”

  Joe, in the meantime, made two or three frantic efforts to make themotor “mote,” though without success.

  “It’s all on account of this valve,” Dawson explained to his chum,pointing. “I knew it wouldn’t last forever, but the last time Iinspected it, it looked all right.”

  “You’ve another valve in the repair chest that will fit,” replied Tom.“And, in goodness’ name, hurry up. I’ll help you.”

  “One more try at this old valve, for a few miles anyway,” cried Dawson,desperately. “Tom, the new valve is just a shade too large at thescrew-thread end. It’ll take a few desperate minutes to make it fit.”

  By the time he had finished speaking the young engineer wasindustriously engaged in forcing in packing around the worn old valve.

  “Hank,” Captain Tom roared from the companionway, “shake out thatsolitary sail and hoist it. Get all the speed you can out of it.”

  No one had thought of the sail up to this moment. It wasn’t much ofa sail. Rigged to the single signal mast of the “Rocket,” the sailwas intended only to enable the boat to reach port if ever the engineshould give out.

  Butts, with an exclamation of disgust at not having thought of thecanvas before, ran forward. Almost before he stopped running, hisfingers were at work on the knots that held the canvas furled. Insurprisingly quick time this Long Island boy had the sail hoisted, set,and was back at the wheel.

  Eben Moddridge, without waiting to be called, had taken his place asattendant by the side of his friend’s chair.

  What Hank Butts didn’t know about motors he made up by his knowledge ofsailing craft He handled the “Rocket” now as though she were a catboat,watching the fill of her canvas and making the most out of the steadylight breeze that was blowing.

  As he steered, Hank looked back often at the schooner. That craft, withall canvas hung out, was coming along at something like seven knots.The “Rocket” was making barely four under her small spread.

  The answer? Hank Butts knew it well enough, and groaned as he watchedhis own tiny sail.

  Down below Joe Dawson, the perspiration standing out in great, colddrops, was working against time. After another trial he had abandonedthe idea of making the old valve work even for a few miles. He hadopened the repair chest and had taken out the substitute valve that hadto be fitted over. The young engineer was now bending over the repairbench, rapidly turning the shank of a thread-cutter. Captain Tom stoodby, anxious, useless for the present, yet ready to lend an instant pairof hands as soon as he could help.

  “Thread still a bit too large,” reported Dawson, after the secondattempt to make it fit.

  Back to the work-bench he sprang, while Halstead bounded up into theopen so that he could take a brief look astern.

  Behind them trailed the schooner, now a bare third of a mile astern,and gaining visibly.

  “I’m not going to say a word to hurry you, Joe,” he remarked, droppingbelow again. “I know you’re working to save even seconds.”

  “Ain’t I just, though!” gritted Dawson, as he turned.

  “Eb,” demanded Delavan, of his friend, “you’ve simply got to tell mehow the stock market is going.”

  “I—I—er—haven’t had the least idea for more than forty hours,” repliedMr. Moddridge, embarrassed.

  “Hey, there,” called Hank, officiously, from the wheel, “just at thepresent moment I’m skipper here, and boss. My orders are that no WallStreet slang be talked on board until after the steward has found achance to serve something to eat. Mr. Delavan, be glad, sir, that youare able to get some of your breath.”

  “Are the rascals gaining on us?” was the owner’s next question, as heendeavored to turn himself around in the chair for a look astern.

  “Not much,” replied Mr. Moddridge. “Besides, in a moment or two morethe boat’s engine will be doing its duty again. The engineer has hisrepair work almost finished.”

  Francis Delavan smiled good-humoredly, though he did not by any meansbelieve this reassuring information.

  The schooner was less than an eighth of a mile away when Joe Dawsonmade one more effort to adjust the substitute valve.

  “I think it’s going to fit,” he murmured, a world of hope in hisvoice, though he squinted vigilantly, watchfully, as he continued thetwisting. “By Jove, Tom, I believe it’s O. K. It seems fast and tight.I’ll let a little oil in; give the wheel a few turns.”

  A few breathless seconds passed. Then the pistons began to move upand down, slowly, all but noiselessly. Seized with a kind of fearfulfascination, both motor boat boys watched the engine, almost afraid tobreathe lest the driving cease.

  Then Captain Halstead, still looking backward, while Joe’s chest heavedat last, yanked himself up into the hatchway, glancing out over thewater.

  The schooner was now almost upon the “Rocket,” though hauling off a bitto windward as though intending to make a sudden swoop and bear downcrushingly against the motor boat.

  “Safe?” Halstead almost whispered down into the engine room.

  “Try it, awfully easy,” replied Joe.

  “Hank, give the speed-ahead control just a bare turn,” called Halstead.“Easy, now!”

  The propeller shaft began to revolve. At that same instant the schoonercame around on a starboard tack, so steered as to intercept the shortercraft.

  Captain Tom himself sprang to the speed control, letting out just anotch more, praying under his breath that the motor might stand by themin this moment of greatest crisis.

  At them, heeling well over, her crew at the rail ready to board the“Rocket,” came the schooner. Her first manœuvre had been to boardby the bows. Now it looked as though the sailing vessel must strikeamidships. Halstead gave a quick turn to the speed-ahead control.Answering, the motor boat took a jump ahead, then settled down tosteady going. The schooner, left astern, jibed with a noisy flapping ofsails.

  “I think we can make it,” called up Dawson.

  “We _have_ made it,” called back Captain Halstead, joy ringing in hisvoice. “The only question is whether we can keep it up.”

  “Let her out a bit more,” called Joe.

  One hand on the wheel, the other on the speed control, the youngskipper increased the speed by slow degrees until the “Rocket” hadsettled down to a steady twelve-mile speed.

  Hank, relieved of the helm, ran aft. Standing on the stern rail, onearm wrapped around the flag-pole, young Butts made a lot of gestures atthe crew of the schooner. Those gestures were eloquent of derision andcontempt.

  Five minutes later the schooner had given up the chase, heading off tothe southward.

  “Ev—everything is all safe now, isn’t it?” asked Eben Moddridge,shakily.

  “Trouble seems to be all behind us,” replied Halstead.

  “Then—er—I’m—I’m going below and lie down,” quaked Mr. Moddridge. “Inever felt more nervous in my life!”

  “Go below and enjoy yourself, sir,” laughed Tom, without malice, butwithout thinking. “You’ve done yourself proud, Mr. Moddridge, andyou’re entitled to the best attack of nerves you can find.”

  Hank sprang quickly to aid Mr. Moddridge, for the latter was reallyshaking and tottering as
he started aft.

  “Still no one seems able to tell me about the thing I want most ofall to know about—the condition of the market, and of securities inparticular,” complained Francis Delavan, in a much stronger voice.

  “No one knows well enough how to tell you,” laughed Skipper Tom,“except Mr. Moddridge. If you only knew, sir, what a trump he’s beenlately, you wouldn’t begrudge him one first-class nervous fit now.”

  Mr. Delavan laughed, though he added, with a comical sigh:

  “I don’t see but I shall have to wait.”

  “Something to eat, did you say, sir?” asked Hank, suddenly appearing atthe owner’s elbow. “Yes, sir; as fast as possible for all hands. Why,we’ve been so rattled this morning we didn’t even think about food. Andnow my stomach is reading the riot act to my teeth. O-o-oh!”

  Hands clutched over his abdomen, Hank made a swift disappearance intothe galley. There was an abundance of food in the “Rocket’s” larderthat could be prepared hastily. But as Mr. Moddridge was “enjoying”himself in his own especial way, and Mr. Delavan was still feeling theeffects of the chloroform too much to have any appetite, the crew fellin for the first chance at table.

  When that food had been disposed of, Joe cautiously worked the engineon until the boat was making twenty miles an hour. The new valve provedfully equal to the strain put upon it.

  Mr. Moddridge remained below more than two hours. When he came on deckagain he appeared to be in shape to tell Mr. Delavan the latest news hehad of the state of their affairs.

  The owner listened with a face that became graver every moment.

  “It looks black for us, Eben, and we may be wiped out by this time, or,anyway, by the time we can get back to the battle-field. But it wasgrand of you, Eb, to throw in the last dollars of your private fortuneto save us both. Whatever happens, I won’t forget your act. But, goodheavens, how we must hustle and move now! Captain Halstead, just whereare you heading?”

  “As straight as the crow flies, sir, for New York harbor. But I canchange the course if there’s any other point you’d rather make.”

  “No; keep straight on, captain. New York is our battle-field. And, byall that’s sure, we’ll win out yet if there’s a fighting spar leftstanding when we hit Wall Street!”

  With a vigorous bound this fighting Wall Street man was on his feetagain, pacing the deck, not a glimpse of fear in his strong face.

  Then, a little later, he and Moddridge found their appetites, and HankButts served them enthusiastically.

  As the afternoon passed, and all hands gathered near the wheel, thestories of all were told.

  Mr. Delavan, for his part, explained that, on that morning when he hadtaken the “Rocket’s” port boat and had gone out for a row, he had gonepast the inlet. While out beyond, he had been overtaken by the namelessracing launch. A hail from the deck of the other craft had followed,and then an invitation to take a look aboard. Thinking that he mightpossibly penetrate the mystery as to who was really running that craft,Mr. Delavan had rowed alongside, intending only to stand up in his ownlittle boat and look aboard the launch.

  But, while doing so, he had been seized by both the boat handlersand dragged aboard. There he became mixed in a fight with two otherswho, from their descriptions, must have been Rexford and Ellis. Whenthe fight stopped Francis Delavan was under the hood, his hands tiedbehind him. He remembered that, later on, the small port boat had beenoverturned and set adrift, and that his own hat and coat had been takenfrom him and cast into the water.

  “Later, that forenoon,” continued Mr. Delavan, “I saw my own ‘Rocket’following us. By stealth I had succeeded in freeing my hands. Now, Imade a dash for freedom, intending to leap overboard and try to swim toyou. But I was caught and held, just at the edge of the hood. I foundchance only to snatch my wallet from an inner vest pocket and hurlit out into the water. I was in hopes you’d see it, pick it up, andunderstand.”

  “We did,” nodded Mr. Moddridge.

  Mr. Delavan went on to explain how, after the throwing of the wallet,he had been more carefully bound, hand and foot, and gagged. When takenashore at Cookson’s Inlet he had also been blindfolded, his removalfrom the boat not taking place until a carriage had been brought.

  Then the story of the final chase was told, even how Hank Butts haddone so much to carry the day aboard the schooner by his artless trickof dropping the hitching weight where it would do the most harm to theenemy.

  “Say, Hank,” put in Joe Dawson, who had taken little part in the talk,“wherever did you learn the easy way that you drop that weight?”

  “A feller from New York taught us that last summer,” Butts replied.“Some of us fellows over in East Hampton practiced it until we couldn’tmiss.”

  “But how did you learn to land it on another fellow’s foot so easilythat it looks almost like an accident?”

  “I’ve been telling you,” Hank insisted. “We kept on dropping weightson each other’s toes until we got the trick down fine.”

  “What?” ejaculated Dawson, opening his eyes wider. “You practisedby dropping iron weights on each other’s feet? You fellows must bewonders, if you could stand that!”

  “Oh, no,” Hank confessed. “We practised with small sandbags.”