Dave Fearless and the Cave of Mystery: or, Adrift on the Pacific

DOCTOR BARRELL'S "ACCIDENT"

"Begorra!"

That was the first expressive word that Dave Fearless heard as he realized that he had been suddenly saved from death by suffocation.

His eyes, mouth, ears, and nostrils were oozing with the sticky stuff in which he had taken so dangerous a bath. The top of his head seemed coming off. Dave felt as if he had been scalped.

Dave was lying on the grass and Stoodles was working over him, digging and dabbling with a handkerchief to get the youth's eyes and mouth clear of the glutinous "frew-frew."

"Sorra a bit too soon was I," said Pat, as Dave blinked and groaned. "I've a lock of your hair for a keepsake, lad! I saw you go into that threacherous pit, I threw a plank across, I grasped your topknot. It was loike taking a drowned cat out of glue. Sit up, if you can't stand up. If you let that stuff harden once, you'll be stiff as a statoo."

Dave tried to arise. He dragged grass, dirt, vines, and weeds up with him. By this time he could breathe and see. Stoodles got a stick and scraped off from his clothes as much as he could of the adhesive mass that coated Dave.

"Come on, lad," directed Stoodles, grasping an arm of his tottering companion. "It's a brickdust bath in soft soap you'll be needing. Acushla! but I stick to you like a brother."

Dave's feet gathered up everything they came in contact with. Then, every time he brushed a bit of foliage, the frew-frew took off leaves, and he began to look green and picturesque.

"Where is Bob Vilett?" he asked.

"I dunno," answered Stoodles. "I do know it was lucky I saw you thrailing the pilot and that rascally pawnbroker. If I hadn't you'd have been a goner, Dave Fearless."

"I guess I should," responded Dave, with a shudder, and then a grateful look at this eccentric but loyal friend. "Where have those two gone-did you notice, Mr. Stoodles?"

"Only that they set off seaward in a little launch."

"Get me to the Swallow, I have a lot to tell Captain Broadbeam now."

They lined the beach. A good many craft of various kinds were visible in the opening. All of them were too far distant to enable Dave to make out which one might contain the pilot and Schmitt-Schmitt.

When they got to the place of rendezvous where they had left the ship's yawl, Bob Vilett was discovered lying on the sand.

"Wandered off on a wrong trail," he reported; "wasted time and thought I was due here. Dave, what have you been into!"

"Frew-frew, I believe they call it, Bob."

"Phew-phew I'd call it," remarked Pat. "Up with the jibboom and across the briny, Bob. If we don't get our friend Fearless into hot water and soap soon, we'll have to chip off his coat of mail with chisels."

When they reached the Swallow they found the steamer the center of vast bustle and industry. Captain Broadbeam had keeled the craft and gangs of men were working inside and outside to repair the breaks in the hull.

The cabins and forecastle were accessible, but Mike Conners had temporarily removed cooking headquarters to a tent at the side of the creek. Stoodles sought out Mr. Drake, the boatswain, and explained Dave's dilemma. They rigged up a canvas bathroom on shore and supplied it with brushes, two tubs of boiling suds, and plenty of soap.

It took Dave over an hour to get off the worst of the villainous frew-frew. His hair was the hardest to clean. Finally he emerged, fresh and tingling in every nerve from the vigorous bath.

They had supper ashore and hammocks were rigged up under the trees. Captain Broadbeam set a guard about camp and ship. About half the crew decided to quit and he paid them off. They and curious visitors from the town were warned to keep away from the Swallow.

About dusk Captain Broadbeam had given out all necessary orders for the night.

"Well, lad," he said, coming up to Dave and placing his hand on the youth's shoulder in his usually friendly way, "I understand you have something important to tell me."

"Yes, considerable," answered Dave.

"All right. The others interested must hear it, too. We'll hold a council of war in my cabin."

Dave's father, Doctor Barrell, Stoodles, and Bob Vilett were invited to accompany the captain and Dave to the Swallow. The six of them soon found themselves seated in the captain's cabin. It slanted slightly from the present awkward position of the ship, but they managed to adjust the stools and settees comfortably.

"Now then, lad," spoke Captain Broadbeam to Dave, "my old friend here, your father, has intimated to me that you have discovered some things of general interest to all of us."

"I think I have," said Dave.

"Then fire away, my hearty."

Dave began his story with a narration of the visit to the Swallow of the young artist Adair. He followed this up with his discovery of Schmitt-Schmitt, and his overhearing of the conversation between that worthy and the treacherous native pilot.

Captain Broadbeam was interested from the first; when it became apparent from Dave's clear, logical story that the stolen treasure was still somewhere in the vicinity of the Windjammers' Island, the old tar's eyes glistened and he looked eager and excited. Then, as Dave told of the evident existence of a plot to delay, possibly destroy, the Swallow, Captain Broadbeam sprang to his feet.

"Delay me, will they?" he shouted, growing red of face and blazing with anger. "Why, the miserable scum! if they so much as hang around here I'll fill them with a charge of pepper and salt. If I catch them up to any tricks aboard, I'll swing them from the yardarm."

The doughty old mariner paced the cabin in a fine rage. When he had subsided Dave approached the subject nearest his thoughts.

"Captain," he began, "from what I have told don't you really think my theories are right as to the treasure being hidden?"

"I do, lad, I'll admit that," growled the captain.

"And that this fellow Schmitt-Schmitt is an emissary of the Hankers and the Raven, looking for a ship to go after the treasure?"

"Mebbe, lad, mebbe."

"Then what is the matter with hurrying up your repairs and getting back to the Windjammers' Island before Schmitt-Schmitt? Don't you see, captain, we are bound to locate the Raven crew, if they are there?"

Captain Broadbeam sank to a stool, bent his head, and groaned.

"Lad," he said, "I know what you want to do and what I'd like to do. It can't be done-no, no."

"Captain," interrupted Amos Fearless, in an eager, quivering tone, "we are old friends-"

"Belay there!" roared the veteran tar, springing to his feet and waving his ponderous arms like windmills. "Would ye tempt a man from his duty who has never yet over-stepped discipline? That duty is plain, Amos Fearless. This here Swallow was sent out to collect curiosities for the United States Government. Those curiosities are duly collected. Incidentally I helped you fellows all I could on the side. Now it's San Francisco. Them's my sailing orders. There's my duty."

"Ochone!" groaned Pat Stoodles, "and phwat of the foine treasure?"

"I'm out of this hornets' nest here the minute the Swallow is seaworthy," announced Broadbeam. "The minute I land at San Francisco and get my clearance, I'll hark back to the Windjammers with you if I have to put all my savings into chartering a ship specially."

"It will be too late then, captain," murmured Dave, in a dejected tone.

"Sorry," said the commander of the Swallow. "I am responsible to the owners. Why, friends, if I should step outside of my duty I am personally liable to a fine that would make me a ruined man and a pauper."

Dave gave a queer start at this, a quick color came into his cheek, a quick flicker into his eyes. He gazed at Stoodles in an eager, speculative way.

"One moment, captain, please," he said, arising and beckoning Stoodles to follow him from the cabin, "I have just thought of something important. I hope you will not decide finally on this matter until I have had a word in private with Mr. Stoodles."