Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island

by Gordon Stuart

  CHAPTER XII

  AN EMPTY RIFLE SHELL

  In that few steps till they reached the smoking mass of wreckage, manythings became clear to Jerry. He realized that Lost Island had beenmerely a building ground for Mr. Fulton's experiments in aeronautics,that this sorry looking ruin was his invention. He remembered the long,low shed on the island--that was the workshop.

  Then they were at the verge of the twisted and wrecked machine,frantically tugging at rods and splintered wood in an effort to get atthe unconscious form covered by the debris. Fortunately there was nogreat weight to lift, and there was really no fire once the smoke ofthe explosion had cleared away. In a very few seconds they had draggedthe man clear and laid him out flat on his back in a grassy spot, whereTod remained to fan the man's face while Jerry hurried toward camp forwater. Blackened and bleeding as the man was, Jerry readily recognizedhim as Billings.

  He found Budge startled by the explosion and hesitating about leavingthe camp unguarded to go to the rescue. Jerry's shouted command broughthim galloping across the field with a pail of water, and the two boysmade good speed on the way back. They found the man still unconsciousbut beginning to writhe about in pain.

  "I think his leg's broken," cried Tod, his face white with the strainof helpless waiting. "From the way he doubles up every little bit Ithink he must be hurt inside. The cuts that are bleeding don't seem tobe very bad. Let me have the water."

  "Do you suppose we really ought to----" began Jerry, but paused, forBudge had answered his question effectually.

  Without a word he stooped over the moaning man. Outer clothes weretaken off in a trice. Without jarring the man about, almost withoutmoving him, garment by garment Budge gradually removed, replaced,examined, until every part of the man's anatomy had been looked over.Finally he straightened up, and for the first time the other two, whohad stood helplessly by, saw how set and white the young Scout's facewas.

  "Leg's broken all right," he said slowly. "So's his arm--and at leasttwo ribs. Maybe more. Side's pretty badly torn and I think he'sbleeding internally. We've got to get a doctor without a second's lossof time. Tod, you chase along like a good fellow and see how quick youcan get to a telephone. Jerry, lend a hand here and we'll fix a splintfor his leg--lucky it's fractured below the knee or we'd have a time. Idon't know whether I can do anything for his ribs or not. Hustle up,Tod--what you standing there gaping for?"

  "Where--where'd you learn to do things like that?" blurted Tod, as hestarted away.

  "What? This?" in surprise. "Every Scout knows how to do simple thingslike this." And he turned back to his bandaging, for he had broughtalong the camp kit, with its gauze and cotton. Out came his bigjackknife and he cut a thumb-sized willow wand, which he split andtrimmed. In less than no time he had snapped the bone back into placeand wound a professional looking bandage about the home-made splint. Hewas just about to turn his attention to the injured side when a greatcrackling in the brush caused both boys to turn.

  Three men came bounding across the open space, the foremost, Mr. Fulton.

  "Is he alive?" he exclaimed before he recognized the two boys.

  "Yes," answered Jerry, "but he's hurt pretty bad--inside, Budge says.Tod just----"

  "Tod! He here? Did he go after a doctor?"

  "Here he comes now. Did you get the doctor?" shouted Budge and Jerrytogether.

  "I got his office. It's our own Doctor Burgess. I got Mrs. Burgess andshe says the doctor is out this way, and she'll get him bytelephone--she can locate him better than I could. He ought to be heremost any minute. I'm to watch for him along the road." Tod darted backtoward the line of bushes that marked the highway.

  But it was a good half hour before a shout proclaimed the coming of thedoctor, and in that time Budge had had a chance to show more evidencesof his Scout training. After a hurried trip back to camp he fashionedbandages that held the broken ribs in place; he bound the scalp woundneatly, and stopped the flow of blood from an ugly scratch on the man'sthigh. The others stood about, helping only as he directed. It was witha wholesome respect that they eyed him when the job was finished.

  But it took the doctor to sum their admiration up in one crisp"Bully--couldn't have done it better myself."

  He felt about gently and at last straightened up and remarked:

  "He's good enough to move, but not very far. Where's the nearestfarmhouse?"

  "Half a mile, nearly," answered Tod.

  "I think he'd want to be taken--home," Mr. Fulton said hesitatingly."If we could move him to the river bank I guess we could get him acrossall right--to Lost Island, you know. His daughter's there to nurse him."

  "Lost Island?" questioned the doctor, raising his eyebrows."We-l-l--Son, can you make a stretcher?" turning to Budge.

  "Come on, Jerry. Back in a minute," called Budge over his shoulder tothe doctor.

  Jerry followed to the Scout camp, where Budge caught up a pair of stoutsaplings that had been cut for tent poles but had not been needed.

  "Grab up a couple blankets," he directed, setting off again through thebrush on a run. Jerry was well out of breath, having contrived to triphimself twice over the trailing blankets, when he finally rejoined thegroup. Budge reached out for the blankets and soon had a practicalstretcher made, onto which the injured man was gently lifted. Mr.Fulton and one of the strangers took hold each of an end and they setout directly for the bank of Plum Run.

  For the first time Jerry had a chance to observe the two who had comewith Tod's father. Heavy-set, rather stolid chaps they were, justbeginning to show a paunch, and gray about the temples. They lookedgood-natured enough but gave the impression of being set in their ways,a judgment Jerry had no occasion to change later. They spoke with anodd sort of accent but were evidently used to conversing in English,although the first glance told that they were not Americans.

  They were plainly but expensively dressed; they looked like men ofwealth rather than like business men. They had come to see Mr. Fulton'sinvention tried out, Jerry surmised, and, if it proved successful,perhaps to buy it. Those two men he had seen with the rifles wereforeigners too, but of a different station in life and, Jerry was sure,belonging under a different flag.

  They were soon down to the water's edge, where was moored the launchJerry had heard chugging over to the island not long before. Blanketswere brought from the Scout camp and piled on the launch floor to makea comfortable bed, and poor Billings was carefully lifted from thestretcher and laid in the boat. The doctor and Mr. Fulton got in. Thetwo men remained on the bank. Mr. Fulton looked at them questioningly,but their heavy faces gave no sign. So he asked:

  "You will wait for me, I trust! I don't want you to feel thatthis--accident----" he hesitated over the word--"makes the scheme afailure. There is something about it all that I can't understand, but aclose examination may reveal----"

  "Ah, yes," answered the shorter of the two, "we will want to be just assure of the failure as we insisted on being of the success. But youunderstand of course that we feel--ah--feelconsiderably--ah--disappointed in the trial flight. Oh, yes, we willwait for you. You will not be long?"

  "Just long enough for the doctor to find out what needs to be done.That slim youngster there is my son Tod. He knows almost as much aboutmy--about _it_ as I do. Tod, you take care of Mr. Lewis and Mr. Harristill I come back. You'd best stay close to the _Skyrocket_; we don'twant to take any chances, you know."

  All the time he had been talking he had been tinkering with the motor,which was having a little balky spell. At his last words Jerry spoke uphastily:

  "I'll chase over and keep an eye on the _Skyrocket_ while the rest ofyou take your time," and he hurried off, adding to himself:"_Skyrocket's_ a good name, 'cause it sure went up in a blaze of glory,and came down like the burnt stick." But he had other things in mindbesides the mere watching of the wreck. At Mr. Fulton's hesitation overthe word "accident" a picture had popped into his mind--two mencarrying rifles and peering up over the tree-tops.

  He was destined
to see them again, for as he crossed the road he hearda crackling in the underbrush of someone in hasty retreat. He blamedhis thoughtlessness in whistling as he ran along; perhaps he might havecaught them red-handed if he had been careful. As it was, he saw thetwo scurrying toward the south, whereas before they had been goingnorthward.

  He did not go directly to the fallen aeroplane. Instead he picked hisway carefully over the route the men had followed just after theexplosion, stooping low and examining every spear of grass. His searchwas quickly rewarded. Just where the trampled turf showed that the twomen had stood for some time he pounced upon a powder-blackenedcartridge, bigger than any rifle shell he had ever seen before, even inhis uncle's old Springfield. That was all, but it was enough to confirmhis suspicions.

  He walked over to the charred and twisted remains of the _Skyrocket_,fighting down his strong impulse to pry into the thing and see if hecould discover the secret of its astounding exploits before the crashcame. It did not take more than the most fleeting glance to see, evenwith his limited knowledge of flying machines, that this one was verymuch different from the others. He was glad when the others came up tosave him from yielding to his curiosity.

  Tod and the two men were deep in a discussion of Mr. Fulton'sinvention, but Jerry gained little by that, as most of the technicalterms were so much Greek to him. Tod talked like a young mechanicalgenius--or a first-class parrot. The two men listened to his glowingpraises in no little amusement, venturing a word now and then just toegg the boy on--though he needed none.

  Jerry waited for a chance to break in forcibly. "I say, Tod." heinterrupted a wild explanation of the theory of the differential, "Iexpect I'd better chase along back home. I can just catch theinterurban if I cut loose now. I--I want to hike back and spread thegood news that you aren't decorating a watery grave."

  "I s'pose I'll have to stay here and help the Scouts mount guard overthe relics here--when will you be back?"

  "To-morrow, maybe."

  "You can come back with dad. He'll probably come back to Watertownto-night, after he takes these two gentlemen to Chester in the launch.He'll probably want you to help him bring down some repairs."

  "You think he'll try to patch up the _Skyrocket?_" asked Jerry."Doesn't look hardly worth while."

  "Worth while!" exploded Tod. "Is a half million dollars worth while?"Then he repented having spoken out so freely, reminded by the sharpglances of the two men. "Oh, Jerry's all right," he apologized. "Dadthinks as much of him as he does of me."

  "Well, I'll be off," said Jerry hurriedly. "Tell your father I'll seehim either to-night or early in the morning--and that I've gotsomething important to tell him."

  "About the _Skyrocket?_" demanded Tod eagerly, but Jerry only shook hishead teasingly and began to hurry across the fields and woods to theinterurban tracks.

  He was lucky, for hardly had he reached the road crossing before thefamiliar whistle sounded down the track. The motorman toot-tooted forhim to get off the rails, as this was not a regular stop, but Jerrystood his ground and finally the man relented at the last minute andthrew on the brakes.

  Watertown reached, Jerry could not hold his good news till he got home,but to every one he met he shouted the glad word that Tod Fulton hadbeen found, alive and uninjured. The open disbelief with which hisannouncement was met gave him a lot of secret satisfaction. In fact, hecould hardly restrain an occasional, "I told you so." His mother wasthe only one to whom he allowed himself to use that phrase, but then,he _had_ told her.

  He could hardly wait until Mr. Fulton should return from Chester, soeager was he to tell of his discovery there in the woods, but the slowday passed, and bedtime came without any sign of a light in the bighouse down the street. Reluctantly he finally went up to his room, butfor a long time he sat with his nose flattened out on the window pane,watching patiently.

  At last he was rewarded. Out of the gloom of the Fulton house he saw atiny point of light spring, followed by a flood of radiance across thelawn.

  "What are you doing, son?" came a deep masculine voice from the sittingroom. "Thought you had gone to bed hours ago."

  "Mr. Fulton just came home, pa, and Tod told me to tell him----"

  "Guess it'll keep till morning, won't it? Besides, I expect Tod saw hisfather later than you did."

  "I'll be right back, dad----" this from just outside the kitchen door."It's just awfully important----"

  The door banged to just then. Mr. Ring chuckled. He believed in lettingboys alone.

  Jerry sped down the dark walk and jabbed vigorously at the specialdoorbell, hurried a little bit by the fact that as he came through thewide gate he had a feeling that the big gateposts did not cause all theshadow he passed through. "I'm getting nervous since I saw those twomen to-day," he reminded himself. "I'll soon be afraid of my ownshadow--but I hope it doesn't take to whispering too."

  Mr. Fulton came hurrying to the door, a big look of relief on his facewhen he saw who it was.

  "I couldn't wait till morning, Mr. Fulton. I just had to tell you Iknew the _Skyrocket_ didn't fall of its own free will. I saw two menskulking in the woods. They both carried big rifles. I was sure I heardone of them go off just before the explosion came, and on the groundwhere they stood I found _this!_"

  He handed Mr. Fulton the rifle shell.

  "Good boy!" exclaimed the man, almost as excited as the youngster. "I'mbeginning to see daylight. You keep all this under your hat, sonny, andcome over as early in the morning as you can. We'll talk it over then,after I've had a chance to sleep on _this_." He indicated thecartridge. "Tell me, though--was one of the men a tall, lean chap witha sabre scar on his jaw----"

  "They were both heavy-set, scowly looking----" "Hm. That makes it alltangled again. Well, it may look clearer in the morning. Chase along,Jerry; I've got a busy night's work ahead of me. No," he added as Jerrybegan to speak, "you couldn't help me any. Not to-night. To-morrow youcan."

  Jerry wanted to tell him about the whispering shadows, but hesitatedbecause it sounded so foolish. His heart skipped a beat or two as hedrew near the tall posts, but this time the gateway was as silent asthe night about him.

  "Some little imaginer I am," he laughed to himself as he skipped backinto the house.