The Boy Scouts Under Fire in Mexico

CHAPTER I.

FOUR SCOUTS AFLOAT

"Luff a little, Merritt!"

"Luff it is, Rob. And let me tell you right now that if this head wind keeps on growing stronger, we're going to have it nip and tuck to get home before dark sets in. These November, days have a quick end, you know. Steady now, everybody; we'll have to come about."

"On the next leg, Merritt, run in as close to the shore as you can," continued the boy who was handling the sheet of the sailboat, and who seemed to be in command, though he had given up his place at the helm to a comrade.

"Just what I'll do, Skipper Rob. Here, Andy, and you, Tubby, swing over to the la'board in a hurry, now, and help hold her down. You're the best ballast we've got aboard, Tubby."

The stout boy who seemed so well named, for he was built on the order of a tub of butter, hastened to change his position as the boom of the sailboat swung over, and the little craft with a jump started on a new tack, this time heading for the mainland.

"Say, you want to make sure and clear that point over there!" he sang out as he sprawled along the upper port side of the craft like a great crab, owing to a sudden lurch of the boat.

"Going to do it as easy as to turn your hand over," replied the boy at the rudder; "but what makes you say that, Tubby?"

"Oh! I reckon now there might be some fellers got a duck blind on that point, which is said to be the best along the bay," replied the other. "Leastways I noticed a whole raft of stools dancing up and down on the waves the last time we ran in close to the shore."

"Good for you, Tubby," remarked the boy called Rob, who was clinging steadily to the sheet, with the strain mostly relieved by the fact that it passed through a hole in the stout cleat; "it's plain that you've got your eyes with you this trip, and don't mean to be caught napping. There are two fellows in a blind over on the point; I saw them watching us the last time we ran in; and they acted as though they were afraid we'd anchor and spoil all their evening shoot when the ducks are moving again. But never fear, we're going to clear the point by a wide margin this time."

"It was a good thing school let out so early to-day, boys," remarked the lad who up to now had not spoken, and who seemed to answer to the name of Andy; "and that Rob invited the rest of us to go with him after that half bushel of big oysters his folks want for dinner to-morrow."

"What makes you talk that way, Andy?" asked Rob, wondering if the other had also been keeping his eyes about him and noticing things. "This is Friday afternoon, and if we hadn't gone to-day what do you think would hinder our taking a little spin up the bay in the morning?"

"Oh! you never can count on the wind around Hampton," replied the other; "chances are, when you want it most of all, it gives you the go-by. And besides, Rob, I've been watching that sky up there. Look how it's mottled, will you? I've always heard that that sort of clouds meant a storm."

Rob laughed as though rather pleased.

"Well, that's just one good reason why I hurried off this afternoon instead of waiting for morning," he observed; "but then, I had a better warning than the looks of the sky to give me notice. You see, I chanced to drop around by the post office on the way to school after lunch, and stepped in to read what the weather report man in Washington had sent along. There's a whopper of a storm coming up the coast from the West Indies, and headed right this way; a sort of left-over hurricane, it says; and storm warnings are ordered up from Jacksonville to Nantucket!"

"Whee!" exclaimed Tubby, "that means winter will like as not set in right after that storm passes along, and we'll get no more sails on the bay. I hate winter for all the fun with skates and bobsleds. Don't I wish now my Uncle Mark would make up his mind to send me down there to a warm country like Mexico to look after his tangled business affairs? Honest Injun, fellers, he did say he might think of something like that if he didn't get some better soon. He's terribly bothered for fear he's going to lose all his cattle and everything, with those rebels and regulars cavorting all over that section. Hello! that was a gun spoke then; and there goes another! Yes, and he got one duck, anyhow, because I saw it drop like a stone. And we're already past the point, boys!"

While the little sailboat is beating up against a head wind and sea, bent on making Hampton, several miles away along the Long Island shore of the bay, it might be a good time for us to renew acquaintance with the four lads on board, and glance back over their past career.

All of them were dressed in the well known khaki suits that, the world over, have become a recognized sign manual of Boy Scouts. These lads belonged to Hampton Troop, and were instrumental in starting the organization in the shore town. For some time it had consisted of but a single patrol, the Eagles; but as success followed their efforts, and more boys became enthused and enlisted, other patrols known as the Owl, the Black Fox, and the Badger were formed; so that at the time we meet Rob and his chums in the sailboat there was a very strong troop in Hampton, with even a rival organization under way.

Rob Blake was the leader of the Eagle Patrol, and Merritt Crawford held the post of second in command, or corporal; while Andy Bowles filled the position of bugler. Tubby as yet had not aspired to fill anything, unless it was his stomach; and his chums were forever joking him with regard to his fondness for eating.

In the first volume of this series, "The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol," the reader was made acquainted with Rob and his friends, and followed their exciting fortunes after they had formed the patrol. Rob was the son of the president of the local bank, while Merritt's father had been known as the finest blacksmith and wheelwright in that section of Long Island; Andy's folks ran the big livery stable; and Tubby's only parent, his mother, was said to be fairly well off in property and stocks.

A happy chance allowed some of the scouts to visit the far Southwest, and in the second story many of the strange adventures that befell them there were narrated. Though "The Boy Scouts on the Range" teems with thrilling happenings, those who read it from cover to cover will admit that the Eagles bore themselves manfully under all conditions, and always acted according to scout law.

Later on some of the boys became interested in the subject of aviation; and about this time chance allowed them to be of considerable assistance to certain parties in the employ of the Government, who were conducting experiments not far from their home town; all of which was told in the pages of "The Boy Scouts and the Army Airship."

A fourth volume was given up to what occurred while the Eagles were encamped in the wilderness; where circumstances arose that called for all their knowledge of woodcraft and scout lore; but those who have read "The Boy Scouts' Mountain Camp" will surely unite in saying that Rob and his chums met the situation as became true scouts, and came out of the affair with great credit.

In the succeeding story, "The Boy Scouts for Uncle Sam," the boys found themselves involved in a succession of thrilling events. An opportunity arose whereby their services were in demand in order to save the design of a wonderful submarine craft, intended for the use of the United States Government, from being stolen by the clever agents of a foreign power. It was largely through the efforts of the scout patrol that this treacherous design was finally foiled.

A sixth volume, just preceding the present story, "The Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal," contained the history of events that befell Rob and his particular chums at a time when they were given a splendid chance to visit the great ditch which Uncle Sam was then digging down on the Isthmus. Once again they managed to bring into play the resourcefulness which, as members of the Eagle Patrol, had been developed in them; and it was principally through the agency of scoutcraft that the evil designs which certain envious nations had upon the locks of the canal were blocked.

Which short but necessary explanation once more brings us to the four chums as they tacked back and forth while trying to make the home port before dusk set in. Now that they were headed toward the mainland they made rapid progress, for the wind was certainly increasing in force right along. It came from a point that enabled them to make this the long leg, gaining quite a considerable distance. Once again they tacked, and the best they could expect to do was to hold their own in a beat toward the sandy outer shore of the bay, which helped to make the inlet all but landlocked.

"This is sure going some!" Tubby called out, as he began to get himself into readiness for another quick slide across when they should come about again; the spray was flying in their faces, more or less, and the waves that raced past seemed tipped with white.

"Look out for your heads when we swing around!" called Merritt. "That boom is heavy enough to sweep you overboard, I guess!"

"Excuse me from taking a bath right here and now!" exclaimed Tubby, who was not much of a swimmer at the best. "But see here, what does all this mean, fellers? Why, look at the water in the bottom of the boat, will you? Tell you what, she's gone and sprung a leak as sure as anything! Rob, you won't head out in the bay again, will you, with all this chance of our foundering? Gingersnaps! it keeps on getting worse and worse, I tell you! We'll sink inside of ten minutes!"

Rob, who owned the sailboat, took one look at the water that was already washing about in the bottom of the uptilted craft. He must have realized that something strange had happened to cause so staunch a boat to spring a leak, and also that the situation was serious; for no sooner had he taken in the suspicious way in which the water was rising in the cockpit, than he shouted:

"Keep her headed straight for the shore, Merritt! We've got to beach her one way or another. Tubby, help me with the halliards so we can drop the sail. You pull up the centerboard, Andy! Hurry now, everybody!"

There was a scene of activity on board the little pleasure craft just then, with three of those lively scouts springing about their duty. And as the sail came rattling down on top of the cabin, with Tubby sprawled under its folds, and as Andy fastened the heavy centerboard which he had drawn full height in the well, the boat ran up on the sandy beach of a little cove that had chanced to lie directly ahead at the time the skipper gave his hurried orders!

CHAPTER II.

THE STRANGE LEAK

"Gee whiz! but this is a bad job!" Merritt remarked, after the four of them had clambered over the bow of the stranded sailboat. "Here we are as much as three miles away from home, with night coming on and not much chance of getting the boat fixed so we can go on again in her."

"She never played you such a mean trick before, did she, Rob?" asked Andy, who had managed to get his feet wet in making a jump for the sandy beach, but, boylike, seemed to care very little about such a small thing.

"No, and I'm wondering right now what could have happened to make her spring a big leak like that all of a sudden," replied the other.

As though impelled by curiosity, Rob once more climbed aboard the boat and started to look around. One of the first things he did was to fling ashore a sack that seemed to be pretty heavy, – as might be expected, since it contained the half bushel of extra large oysters for which he had been sent to the beds near the ocean side of the bay, a long way from Hampton town.

"I'm bound to get that sack home with me if I have to carry it on my back," he called out; at which the other boys, of course, declared that they would willingly "spell" him, though the prospect could not have seemed very inviting.

"But see here, will it be safe to leave the boat in this little cove all night with a big storm heading along up the coast?" Merritt asked next.

"Safe or not," came from the one aboard the stranded boat, "there's nothing else we can do, is there? Besides, if that storm holds off till noon, I'll be up here on my wheel the first thing to-morrow, bale her out, fix the leak, and work her back home by hook or crook. Hello! what in the wide world does this mean, now?"

"Found the place where the water came in, have you, Rob?" called Tubby, who was hefting the sack of bivalves, and perhaps secretly wondering whether it might not make their labor of transporting the same to the Blake house easier if they proceeded to discard a few of the shells and partake of the juicy contents.

"Why, it's a round hole, I tell you!" shouted Rob.

"What's that you're giving us?" demanded Andy. "I've seen some queer things happen to boats, but that's the first time I ever knew one to spring a leak with a round hole. Are you joshing us, Rob?"

"I tell you it's as round as a quarter, and about as big into the bargain!" continued the other vigorously. "And what's more, this boat never sprung a leak!"

"Oh! say, p'raps now a sword fish rammed his beak through her planks!" ejaculated Tubby, who could always be depended on to think up the most extraordinary explanation possible when anything out of the ordinary happened.

All of the other scouts had now crawled back on the boat, their curiosity having been fully aroused by the strange announcement made by Rob. Merritt even insisted on feeling down in the water, and thrusting his forefinger through the said hole.

"Jiggered if what Rob says isn't so, boys," he called out; "because I've got my finger all the way through the hole right now! Why, it's as smooth as if it had been made with an inch bit. Take my word for it, that's the truth!"

"And I've got a good notion that was what did make it!" Rob observed solemnly; at which Tubby gasped, opening his mouth in the queer way he had of doing when greatly astonished.

"You mean somebody went and bored a hole right through the planks of your boat, do you, Rob?" he asked excitedly. "But why didn't the water rush in before, when we've been more than a whole hour sailing?"

"Why, you silly," cried Andy, "of course it must have had a plug in the hole! It was probably fixed so that sooner or later it just had to be jarred loose, and the pressure of the water outside would push the same in. That was what happened when we made our last turn. And this same old plug must have been hidden under the false bottom, which none of us thought to pull up till she floated loose!"

"Here's the proof of it, fellows!" said Rob just then; and he held up something he had discovered floating on the surface of the water, that already partly filled the cockpit toward the stern of the stranded boat.

"It is a plug, as sure as you live!" ejaculated Merritt. "Let's look at it, Rob!"

One after another they examined the round piece of wood, which had undoubtedly been shaped just to fit the hole bored in the bottom plank.

"That was about the meanest trick I ever heard tell of!" grumbled Tubby, his round face redder than ever with indignation. "If ever I could find out who did it, I'd feel like showing him up to all Hampton, that's what. Here, what's this on the water, fellers? Looks to me like a curled chip, such as would come out when an auger or a brace and bit was used."

"Just what it is, Tubby," added Merritt; "which shows that this measly hole was bored since the last time Rob went sailing. Otherwise, he must have seen the plug when he took out the false flooring to clean the boat."

"It's a queer shaving, boys," continued Tubby, with his head bent low over the object he held in his hand. "See, here, where there's a break all the way along, and right in the middle, too! What would you make of that, Rob?"

"I might be away off in my guess," the other went on to say, after he, too, had closely examined the shaving; "but it seems to me as though that bit must have had a good-sized nick in each half of the biting edge, queer as that would be. As it kept on turning, it left this raised ridge, you see."

"Just what I had in my mind, Rob, give you my word for it," Tubby continued excitedly. "And I'm thinking right now that this ought to be a pretty good clew to prove who made that hole in your boat. All we've got to do is to find a bit with a nick in both tongues that fits this shaving; and the thing is as plain as the nose on Andy's face, here."

"Suppose you leave me out when you're making comparisons, Tubby; but then you're only saying that because you're envious; your own nose doesn't count for much, with such fat cheeks alongside!" Andy burst out.

But Rob considered that what Tubby had said was worth noticing, for he immediately started to congratulate him, – as a patrol leader always should do when one of his comrades has given positive evidences of waking up and noticing things.

"Tubby, that's a smart dodge of yours, let me tell you," he went on to say, as he turned on the fat scout; "and if you keep that chip so it won't break, and can find a bit that fits the marks to a dot, the chances are you'll know who played this dirty trick on me. And because you thought of it first I'm going to hand that job over to you, see? Here's the plug and the chip for you to keep. And some fine day I'll expect to have a report from you."

"Well, what's the next word, Rob?" asked Merritt, as they all made the flying leap ashore again. This time it was Tubby who made a miscalculation and landed in six inches of water. He hastily scrambled up on the beach to the accompaniment of rude laughter from Andy, who felt better now that there were a pair of them with wet feet; for misery always likes company.

"Oh! we'll make the cable fast to this stunted tree here, and leave the old boat to take her chances to-night," replied the other, as he started to carry his words into action. "Doubtless I'll find her safe in the morning, and be able to get her home if the storm holds off."

"You don't come up here without having me along, remember," warned Merritt; at which Rob stopped long enough in his labor of securing the end of the rope to the tree to give the other a nod and a smile; for they were chums in everything, and almost inseparable.

"And the rest of you just keep mum about this nasty little business, so that I c'n have the whole field to myself," Tubby warned them, as though feeling of considerable importance since the patrol leader had handed the mysterious case over into his charge. "I'm going to learn who bored that hole, or know the reason why, if I have to visit every workshop in Hampton by degrees, and find some excuse for examining every blessed bit there is. But right now I want to say I've got a hunch I c'n lay my finger on the guilty one, even if I dassent say so till I get the proof fixed on him good and hard. Then look out for explosions, that's all!"

Having fastened his boat as well as circumstances allowed, Rob picked up the sack containing the selected oysters, threw it over his shoulder, and announced himself ready for the three mile walk along the road that skirted the shore side of the bay.

The four scouts soon found themselves trudging along the highway which led from the direction of Montauk Point. It was in fair condition, as they well knew, having been over it many times on their wheels, or in vehicles of various types from a car to a hay wagon.

"If we had any sort of luck, now," remarked Merritt, after they had been walking for some little while, and he made ready to relieve Rob of his load, "we'd hear some sort of wagon coming up behind, and get a ride home."

"Don't I wish it would happen, though?" sighed Tubby, who on account of his burden of flesh always found it much harder than the other Eagles to hike over the country. He was so stubborn, however, that he would persist in anything he undertook until he fairly dropped in his tracks, rather than give up.

"Well," remarked Rob, chuckling, "some good fairy must have heard that wish, Tubby, because right now I can get the thud of horses' hoofs on the road back yonder. And there goes the crack of a whip."

"You're right, Rob," observed Andy quickly; "queer how you get on to all these little wrinkles before the rest of us. Seems like you must always 'be prepared,' like every true scout is expected to keep himself."

"Hope it's an empty wagon, and not a loaded hay rig," grunted Tubby.

"According to the way the sounds hit me," continued Rob, "it's a wagon, all right; and it rumbles like an empty one, too. But we shall soon know, for it is overtaking us right fast now."

"Let's halt here, and line up, two on each side of the road," suggested Merritt. "The darkness has gathered so it's hard to see any distance; but there around the bend back of us comes a white horse on the trot! Rob, you hit the nail right on the head, for sure enough it's drawing an empty wagon, with two men sitting on the seat and using the whip."

"Looks like they might be in a hurry," suggested Andy. "Watch that one turning around to take another look along the road behind. Get ready to give 'em a hail, Eagles. Rob, you do the talking while the rest of us let out our Eagle cry."

Two minutes later and the vehicle had arrived almost opposite where the scouts stood half screened by the bushes. At a signal from Rob the four stepped out upon the road. Rob started to call to the men in the wagon, meaning to ask them for permission to ride, while Merritt and Tubby and Andy gave a united "K-r-e-e-e," that sounded very weird as heard under such conditions.

What followed astonished the four boys very much indeed. The men, seeing so many uniformed figures blocking the road, as it seemed, gave vent to exclamations of abject alarm. Jumping from their seat, they started to run back along the way they had just come. Then suddenly turning to one side they plunged into the brush, where their hasty progress was marked by all sorts of sounds that would indicate that they were stumbling blindly through the thick undergrowth, tumbling over logs and rocks, evidently on the verge of being panic-stricken!

CHAPTER III.

WHAT HAPPENED ON THE ROAD

The four boys stood there on the dusty road in the twilight of that windy November day, and for a full minute seemed unable to express the sense of bewilderment that had overwhelmed them all. Alongside was the white horse attached to the empty wagon; and from the docile manner in which the animal had come to a sudden halt and stood there, he was not at all averse to having a resting spell after having been whipped so steadily that he was in a sweat.

"Well, I'll be jiggered, if that don't beat the Dutch!" Merritt burst out, he being apparently the first to recover his breath.

"Why, they're gone!" ejaculated Tubby. "And say, they went and left their rig with us, don't you see? Well, I must say they are awfully polite. This is more'n we ever expected, isn't it, fellers?"

Rob was laughing, as though secretly amused at the hasty flight of the two men who had been in the wagon.

"Chances are, now, they took us for hoboes meaning to hold 'em up; and that's why they jumped for it!" Andy suggested.

"Well," remarked Rob, "I couldn't say that I'd blame them for thinking anything after hearing all that racket you three scouts made giving the Eagle cry. Most people would jump at the conclusion that a lot of lunatics had broken loose from that asylum down at Amityville. You should have let me say my little say without that heathen noise. It's all very well for a scout in the bush to let another know what patrol he belongs to when he sees another approaching; but ordinary people hardly understand what that racket means."

"But, Rob, do you believe they took us for desperate yeggmen wanting to hold 'em up on the road here, and rob 'em?" asked Andy.

"No, I don't," replied the patrol leader readily. "In the first place, even if it is getting dusk right now, it's still light enough for anybody with eyes to see that we don't happen to be a ragged lot like tramps are pretty much all of the time."

"Then why should they skoot like that, I want to know?" Tubby inquired.

"Like as not they saw our scout uniforms," suggested Merritt at a hazard.