"Call him off! Call him off!" Freddy pleaded.
"Give me the sandwich first!"
"Okay! Okay! Come and get it. Quick!"
Dinky stepped between the two and took the remains of the sandwich from Freddy's hand. Kaiser Bill relaxed and trotted after Dinky, wagging his tail, as Dinky ran to retrieve the wax paper Freddy had tossed into the water.
"Now, let me have your shoelaces," Dinky said, as he started unlacing his own.
"What for?" Freddy wailed.
"So I can tie this sandwich around Kaiser's neck."
"What about that fishline you got in your pocket? Use that!"
"We might need that to catch fish with," Dinky said. "Now, give me your shoelaces."
"Go fish for 'em!" Freddy taunted.
Dinky snapped his fingers twice and Kaiser Bill trotted over to stand straddle-legged in front of Freddy.
"Okay! Okay!" Freddy grunted. "Call off your man-eater." And he started unlacing his shoes.
Dinky wrapped the remains of the bologna sandwich carefully, threaded the laces twice through the wax paper, and tied it securely around Kaiser Bill's neck.
"Go home, boy! Go!" Dinky commanded, with a firm pat on the dog's saddle. Kaiser Bill took a step toward the water, then looked back with a questioning frown. "Go, boy! Go!" Dinky shouted, with a clap of his hands. "Go home!" Kaiser Bill bolted for the water and plunged into it, cutting a wake that pointed straight for the mainland shore. Nothing was visible from the island but a black snout, two ears folded to the rear, and a bologna sandwich. "Go, boy, go!" Dinky shouted, clapping his hands again.
"Yeah! Go, boy, go!" shouted Freddy, as he threw a stick that plopped into the water about ten feet from shore. Then he pulled another bologna sandwich from his shirt and sat down to eat it.
Back at the clubhouse in Jeff Crocker's barn, the rest of us were gathered around the big map of the county that hangs on one wall. Jeff and Henry were trying to lay out a search pattern for us that would cover the most likely places that Harmon's gang might be holding Freddy and Dinky. We had already been through a lot of arguments about how to proceed with the search; and Mortimer Dalrymple's suggestion that we simply make a frontal assault on Harmon's clubhouse in Egan's Alley had been voted down by a count of three to two. I was in favor of Mortimer's proposal; but Homer Snodgrass had sided with Jeff and Henry, who figured the clubhouse was too obvious a hiding place. Mortimer is always in favor of action, and Homer is always in favor of thinking things over a little longer.
"Maybe one of them has a transceiver with him," I suggested. "We ought to be monitoring the radio."
Jeff shook his head. "I'm sure Harmon would be smart enough to take it away from them," he observed.
Just then the buzzer on our intercom sounded. It was Zeke Boniface calling. "Let me talk to Freddy," he asked, when Henry answered the box.
"Freddy isn't here, and we don't know where he is," Henry explained. "Have you seen him?"
"Nope! But I think Kaiser Bill has."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, this big baboon took off cross-country about an hour ago, and I couldn't stop him. He just came back, soaking wet, and he's got a bologna sandwich tied around his neck. I figured it might belong to Freddy. You know how he likes bologna."
"What kind of bread is it?"
"It's rye bread, with a lot of them black seeds in it."
"That's Freddy's all right! Boy, Zeke, you might have saved the day. We'll be down there in ten minutes."
"Okay! But is something wrong with Freddy?"
Henry ignored the question. "Hey, Zeke! You say this was tied around Kaiser Bill's neck?"
"Yeah!"
"What was it tied with?"
"Some old shoelaces, looks like."
"Hold onto them! We'll be at your place as quick as we can get there."
Ten minutes later we were all at Zeke's junkyard where everything looked like "business as usual," except for Kaiser Bill. Instead of lying quietly in the sun, he was pacing restlessly up and down, now and then nuzzling the seat of Zeke's pants as he passed him. We looked at the bologna sandwich, and it was Freddy's all right.
"Let me see the shoelaces," said Henry. Zeke pulled them out of his pocket, and Henry examined them carefully.
"Looks like you were right," said Jeff Crocker, looking over Henry's shoulder. "They sent us a message."
Sure enough, the shoelaces had been tied together in a series of knots, some double knots and some single. Henry stretched the string of knots out on the ground while he and Jeff decoded the message, scratching the letters in the dirt.
"This is Morse code," Henry explained to Zeke. "The double knots are dashes and the single ones are dots."
Jeff had scratched the letters I-S-L in the dirt. "You sure that's Freddy's handwriting?" quipped Mortimer.
"No! It looks more like Dinky's," Jeff shot right back. "Freddy makes fatter knots." After Henry had called out the last letter the word I-S-L-A-N-D appeared on the ground.
"They must be on an island somewhere," said Homer.
"Great deduction, Snodgrass! Great deduction!" said Mortimer caustically.
"The only question is where," Jeff observed. "What island are they on?"
"Probably Strawberry Lake," I ventured.
"But there's plenty of islands in the river too. How we gonna search them all?" said Homer.
"We don't have to search them all," said Henry, in his usual matter-of-fact manner. "We have the answer right here."
"Oh, oh!" said Mortimer. "The great Mulligan has the magic answer, as usual."
"There's no magic to it at all," said Henry, pointing at Kaiser Bill. "Kaiser knows which island they're on. All we have to do is follow him."
And follow him we did. Zeke waved the bologna sandwich in front of Kaiser's nose and said, "Go, boy, go!" and off he went. Jeff and I had the job of following him cross-country, because we're both pretty good runners, and the rest of them piled into Zeke's old junk truck, Richard the Deep Breather. My job was to run like blazes and keep Kaiser Bill in sight so he wouldn't outdistance us. Jeff is bigger than I am, and can't run quite as fast; so it was up to him to keep up as best he could, and act as a radio relay to the truck so Henry could know where we were heading. Our two-way radios are pretty good; but you never can tell when a hill or some dense woods or a freak atmospheric disturbance is going to mask your transmission. So it's best to use a relay whenever you can to make sure your messages get through.
We needed it all right, because Kaiser Bill led me through everything you can imagine as he raced through swamps, woods, gullies, and over the crests of hills on a beeline toward the point on the lakeshore opposite the island where he had left Freddy and Dinky. Every time we'd pass some prominent landmark like a hill, or a big tree, or a rockpile, or an old tumbledown sheep shelter, I'd stop for a few seconds and pant out directions to Jeff on the radio. Sometimes he'd make me repeat them three or four times because I was so out of breath he couldn't understand me, and I'd get mad and shout things I shouldn't say on the air. But, somehow we managed to keep in communication, and Jeff scrambled on after me, and Zeke kept maneuvering Richard the Deep Breather through a network of back roads and old logging trails, trying to keep close to us.
At the lakeshore, Kaiser Bill scampered over pile after pile of huge boulders and fallen tree trunks lining the water's edge, and came to a stop in the middle of a small stretch of sandy beach. He stood poised like a pointer for a moment, with one foreleg crooked under his chest, and the black button of his nose sniffing the air in the direction of a rocky island. Then he pranced up the beach and back again, in a sort of stiff-legged canter, looking out toward the island, and then back at me. Then he planted both forepaws in the water and started lapping up huge gulps of the stuff. Then he went through the prancing act again.
I got the message, all right. He wanted me to swim out to the island with him, but I was too out of breath to move another inch. I slapped my thigh and called him over to me, a
nd I petted him and ruffled the scruff of his neck. Then I flopped down in the sand and called Jeff on the radio.
"Hey, Jeff, I think we found the island," I gasped, without bothering about all that corny radio procedure you're supposed to use. "Roger! I read you. Stand by, Green One," Jeff answered. He can be so formal sometimes, it makes you sick.
In a few minutes Jeff was back on the air again, after checking with Henry. "Red One says to pull back off that beach and keep out of sight!" he told me.
"Keep out of sight? What's going on? Aren't we going to rescue Dinky and Freddy?"
"This is Red One. You have your orders, Green One! Do as you're told, and keep the messenger with you. And you better brush up on your radio procedure too! You're giving away vital information. This is not a secure net. Over and out."
After all the running I had done, this hit me in the face like a wet towel. I pressed the "talk" button on my handset and cut loose with a big fat raspberry: "Pfffffrrrrrttttt! How do you like that information, oh Big Red Raspberry!" I shouted. "This is Green Apples signing off!" And I shut my radio off.
But I knew better than to disregard Henry's instructions. Henry sometimes moves in mysterious ways, but he almost always knows what he's doing. So I called Kaiser Bill back from the water's edge, and the two of us climbed a little way up the steep slope of the hill behind the beach and hid among the trees. It seemed like an hour, but it was probably only about fifteen minutes before I heard A rock crash through the trees and plop into the water about a hundred feet to our left. Kaiser Bill sprang to his feet and an explosive growl burst from his throat. I threw my arms around his neck and held him, and whispered in his ear to calm him down. Every muscle in his body was tensed, and I could feel him trembling under my grip. Suddenly he relaxed and I saw the figures of Henry and Jeff scrambling over the pile of boulders at one end of the little beach. They kept close to the tree line, and once they had gotten past the barrier of the rocks they darted into the cover of overhanging branches and ran toward Kaiser and me in a crouch, as though somebody was looking down the backs of their necks.
"Have you guys gone nuts?" I asked. "What's with all the Commando stuff?"
"Henry figures if Freddy and Dinky are on that island, Harmon's gang must have it under surveillance," Jeff explained. "We don't want them to know that we've found out where they are."
"Why not? Is this a war, or somethin'?"
"You might call it that," said Henry, when he had caught his breath, "and we've got to teach Harmon and his gang a lesson."
I just sat there and watched as Henry and Jeff tied a plastic bag around Kaiser Bill's neck. It contained one of our two-way radios, a tiny signal transmitter like the ones used to track birds and small animals, a roll of tape, a knife, matches, and a note. The note told Dinky to tape the little transmitter somewhere in his huge mop of hair, so we would always know where they were if Harmon's gang took them off the island. If Harmon's gang did come back, they were to hide the radio somewhere on the island. Meanwhile, they were to stay where they were, and if they had to stay on the island all night we would send food and blankets to them after it got dark.
"I betcha Freddy will swim to shore before he waits that long for something to eat," I said.
"You might be right," Henry answered, "but it ought to be interesting to find out how much the love of food dominates his psychology." Henry is always the complete scientist. He looks at everything in life as just another experiment.
When the bag had been tied securely, I pointed to the island and said, "Go!" to Kaiser Bill. That was all he needed. He shot down the slope of the hill and plunged into the water. All you could see of him was the smooth brown part of his head between his folded ears, and his black snout sticking out of the water as he paddled toward the island.
But Henry had been right. Kaiser Bill was no more than halfway to the island when we saw two figures in a small rowboat putting out from a small cove some distance to the south of us. Jeff trained his binoculars on the boat.
"That's Buzzy McCauliffe and Joe Turner," he said. "I guess they're going out to investigate."
They were heading for the island all right, but Kaiser Bill was there far ahead of them. We decided to wait where we were and see what happened; but we couldn't see too much, because the boat went around to the far side of the island where Kaiser Bill had gone. In a few minutes we saw it come back into view, however, and Jeff trained the glasses on it again.
"Well, I wonder what all that was about?" he mused. "There's still two guys in the boat, but Kaiser Bill is sitting up in the bow! Hey! It's Freddy and Dinky! What gives?"
We found out in a few minutes. Freddy and Dinky pulled the boat in among the rocks below us, laughing their heads off. When Buzzy and Joe Turner had nosed up to the beach where Freddy and Dinky were sitting in the shade of a tree reading Henry's note, Kaiser Bill had dashed to the water's edge with his hair standing on end and bared his teeth.
"What's that dog doing here?" Buzzy shouted.
"He lives here!" Dinky shouted back.
"Will he bite?"
"Why don't you come on in and find out."
Joe Turner pulled the boat a little closer in, and Buzzy stood up in the bow as if to jump onto the beach. Fortunately he only pretended to, because Kaiser Bill let the boat get within about ten feet of shore, then lunged through the air straight at Buzzy. Buzzy toppled over backwards and splashed into the water with his arms flailing. Kaiser Bill's momentum carried him right into the boat, where he ended up with his wet nose sliding right up the back of Joe Turner's neck. Joe didn't even turn around to find out what had happened. He just dove over the stern of the boat and swam for dear life. His dive propelled the boat into shore with Kaiser Bill in complete command, a piece of Joe's shirt dangling from his jaws.
Dinky grabbed Kaiser Bill by the collar and held the boat. He and Freddy clambered into it, with Freddy at the oars and Dinky standing up in the prow with a growling Kaiser Bill under a firm grip.
"We just wanted to take you back to shore," Buzzy sputtered, standing waist-deep in the water.
"Tell it to the marines!" Freddy taunted.
"Thanks, but we can make it OK," Dinky added. They were still shouting wisecracks and laughing as Freddy pulled out of sight around the end of the island.
When Dinky had finished describing what had happened, we pulled the rowboat back in among the trees, slipped it in between two huge boulders, and covered it with brush. Then we took off to where Zeke was waiting with the truck.
We all went back to the clubhouse, where Henry spent fifteen minutes leaning back against the wall on his piano stool, gazing up into the roof rafters, while the rest of us played mumbletypeg on the barn floor. Kaiser Bill was stretched out on his stomach right in front of the door, gnawing on a huge bone from Mrs. Crocker's kitchen. Mortimer is usually the champ at mumbletypeg, but this time I won three games from him before the front legs of Henry's stool hit the floor and we all turned to find out what brilliant idea the great mind had come up with this time. But Henry didn't say anything for a while. He just sat there wiping the lenses of his horn-rimmed glasses clean. Finally he put them back on his nose and looked at all of us as though he hadn't realized we were there.
"What do we do now, O High Mogul?" I asked him.
"We've got to get a message to Harmon," he answered, "and you're going to take it, Charlie."
"We're gonna scare the pants off them," said Henry. "At last, I have Harmon right where I want him. He fell into this beautifully."
"Fell into what?" I asked.
"Never mind," said Henry, "but it wasn't any accident that Freddy and Dinky were here in the clubhouse this morning with the door unlocked."
Henry wrote out a note for me to take up to Memorial Point. It said:
IF FREDDY AND DINKY AREN'T BACK AT OUR CLUBHOUSE BY FOUR O'CLOCK THIS AFTERNOON, WE WILL REPORT THEIR DISAPPEARANCE TO THE POLICE. THANKS FOR LEAVING THE TAPE WITH YOUR VOICE ON IT.
MULLIGAN
&n
bsp; "Why didn't we tell the police in the first place?" Homer asked.
"You know I wouldn't do a thing like that," Henry replied. "It would spoil all the fun. But Harmon doesn't know that."
Then Henry pulled Dinky and Freddy aside and gave them some secret instructions, and sent them packing with Kaiser Bill trotting alongside. Homer and I got on our bicycles and pedaled out to Memorial Point, where we put Henry's note under a rock behind the old Civil War cannon. We rode back down the trail a bit, then hid our bicycles and circled back through the brush to hide in the bushes behind the clearing where the cannon and the statues stand. Pretty soon we saw Speedie Brown, one of the best tree climbers in Harmon's gang, come swinging down out of a big oak tree. He got the note from under the rock, read it, and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he pulled his bicycle out of the bushes and took off down the road.
"I'm sure he's heading for Harmon's clubhouse," Henry said, when we reported in on the radio. "We've got that covered. You go out to the lake and see if he shows up there, where Buzzy and Joe Turner were supposed to be watching the island."
Harmon was in for a hectic afternoon. Henry's note must have scared him, because he and Stony Martin did show up at the cove on the lakeshore about thirty minutes later. Harmon looked worried. He kept looking at his watch while he stumbled around through the trees and bushes hollering for Buzzy and Joe.
"Hey! Here's their radio and their lunches!" Stony cried. "They must be around here somewhere."
"I told those fatheads to keep that radio with them at all times," Harmon blustered. "No wonder we couldn't get any answer from them."
"You know what?" said Stony.
"What?" said Harmon.
"I don't see no boat!"
"Yeah! You know what?"
"What?"
"I don't see one neither!" said Harmon.
They both walked down to the water's edge with their hands on their hips and rubbernecked around the shoreline.
"I bet those lunkheads are out there on that island fat-cattin' with them other kids," said Harmon.
"If they are, we ought to cut their hair off!" said Stony.
New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club Page 13