CHAPTER XXV
Captured!
"this is a fine predicamentl" cried Joe in disgust, hammering on the door of their prison.
"Won't do you any good," said Frank, and added, "If what Crowfeet says is really true, this repeller of his is one of the most remarkable discoveries of all time."
"Sure is," agreed Sparks. "If that villain has learned how to make a repelling force strong enough to hold off a near-by ship or plane, and maybe actually push it away, he's got something!"
"I'll bet he stole it," said Joe. "Otherwise he'd put the repeller to good use, like installing it on automobiles, or ships or planes to keep them from colliding."
"He'd stop at nothing to get rid of people like us who might upset his plans," groaned Sparks nervously.
"I'm afraid you're right," said Frank. "Maybe
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our best bet is to play ball with Crowfeet for a while. We can pretend we're licked, and offer to throw in with him. Then we can look around and maybe figure something out."
Sparks was doubtful whether Crowfeet could be deceived, but agreed to try the plan. "He'll keep the Father Neptune away with his repeller, I suppose, so we can't hope for rescue there."
"Or help from Dad, either," added Frank.
It was not until the next morning that they heard the bolt slide back on the hatch. As Crowfeet entered, Frank said bitterly:
"A lot of help Captain Gramwell was to us! Ran away and left us, I suppose. You're very smart, Captain. We were crazy even to try to catch you."
"Now you're talking sense, boy. I'm smarter than most people," said the smuggler, grinning. "People call my ship the phantom freighter. Good name for it."
"You said last night that we'd get along all right if we behaved ourselves," Frank went on. "You mean you'll let us join up with your crew?" he asked with pretended eagerness.
"I can always use good men," grunted Crowfeet. "You're smart. You caught on to my code, though that was how I got you here in the end." He laughed uproariously.
Frank asked if the various parts of the code stood
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for ships or places and was told they did. "A23" meant the phantom freighter, and in combination with some other number meant a certain ship was to meet the freighter at a designated time and place.
The smuggler gave orders that they were to be given breakfast, and later they were allowed to go on deck. The boys scanned the ocean but saw no plume of smoke or other sign of a ship. Crowfeet came over and said leeringly:
"Not looking for the Father Neptune by any chance, are you? 'Cause we're far away from her. She doesn't know where we are."
The wily smuggler pointed over the side of his ship. Around the hull were bands of metal.
"There's the repeller," he said. "The only time it won't work is when another ship's engines are turned off."
Both boys, on hearing his disclosure, realized that this was the reason why their fishing boat, out of gas, had been able to get so close to the phantom freighter when it was off Barmet Shoals.
Crowfeet next showed them why his ship had been so hard to identify. On a staging lowered over the side, two men armed with giant spray guns were directing great clouds of gray paint at the dark hull of the Black Gull.
"Sometimes we hardly have time to let one coat dry before we have to change the color and the
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name," the man chuckled. "But we have always escaped from the people who suspected us. Got our supplies from other ships and never came into port."
"You called your ship the Falcon once, didn't you?" asked Frank.
Crowfeet nodded. "You almost found me out while I was using that name 'cause your motor went dead. But during the night I let my ship drift until she got far enough away so you didn't hear me start up the engines."
Just then a seaman slid up beside the boys. He was a dispirited-looking, elderly fellow in faded blue sweater and dungarees. Unlike the others on the ship, he had a fine, intelligent face. The Hardys wondered how the man happened to be part of a smuggler's crew.
"You haven't got a chance here," he said to them wearily. "Better join up and be done with it, if you don't want to starve to death . . ."
"All right, Mitchell," roared Crowfeet. "Stow the gab and get to work!"
Mitchell cast a sullen look at the captain. "I came to tell you the radioman's sick," he said and turned away. Crowfeet followed him.
Five minutes later, while Frank and Joe were talking to Sparks, the captain came back to them. "Any
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of you know anything about wireless?" he asked.
His eyes were crafty and the three wondered if this was a trap of some sort.
"I know a little about it," said Sparks after a moment's hesitation.
"You know enough to send a message?"
"I can try," Sparks replied.
The boys could hardly conceal their elation as Crowfeet led them to the wireless cabin. But their hearts sank when the smuggler said roughly:
"Don't try any funny business. I can't run this outfit myself, but I can understand the signals."
He stood over Sparks as the operator sat at the key, and slowly dictated a message. It was in code and Sparks dared not take a chance on altering it.
While Crowfeet was thus occupied, Joe quickly figured out in Fenton Hardy's code the ship's position, which he noticed was scribbled on a wall chart.
"I know a little about wireless myself," said Joe. "Maybe I could help you out if I practiced up a little."
"Yeah?" jeered Crowfeet. "And send out a message for help, huh?"
"I wouldn't be stupid enough to try that," laughed Joe. "Just practice. . . ."
He started singing and tapping the keys slowly in an offhand manner.
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Little boy blue, come blow your horn, your horn. Blow, blow.
Crowfeet snorted but let the boy continue to tap out the apparently innocent words, which, in reality, would tell the ship's position to Mr. Hardy or to any of his men who might be listening.
As Joe sent out the message, Frank's mind was racing, for he knew that the secret repeller would slow down the engines of even the fastest boat that might be sent to their rescue. How in the world could they transmit this information to their father?
Suddenly he got the answer!
"Hey, give me a turn," he said, shoving his brother away and starting to chant. "Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main ..."
He sat down at the key and laboriously tapped out:
Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main,
For many a sailing ship can go faster than . . .
"Okay, that's enough," interrupted Crowfeet, roughly pulling Frank away from the set.
He pushed them out and locked the door. When the boys were alone, Joe asked whether Frank's tapping had sent a message of some kind.
Keeping his voice low, Frank explained. "Crowfeet said the repeller wouldn't work against a ship
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which had its engine cut off. I couldn't think of any way to tell Dad that. But I did think of the old sailing song. Why couldn't they come in a big sloop that could make twenty knots in a good wind-without using its auxiliary motor?"
"You're a genius," said Joe, grinning. "This tub can't make over thirteen."
The boys told Sparks but warned him not to show any elation. As the hours dragged by and no help came, they began to lose hope. Then suddenly, in midafternoon, they noticed a white spot on the horizon. Their hearts leaped wildly. The spot soon enlarged into a snowy canvas. Closer and closer it came, until they recognized a racing sloop, under full sail!
Suddenly there was a shout from Crowfeet. "What's that yacht doin' out there? I don't like it. Full speed ahead!"
The phantom freighter, its name now the Red Bird, rattled and groaned as its speed increased.
"Say, it looks like they're chasin' us!" cried Crowfeet wildly. "My repeller! My repeller! It's turned on, but it can't work against a sailing ship!"
Frenzied, he bellowed orders to the engine room. But it was no use. The big sloop soon overtook the Red Bird. Over the water blared crisp words from a loud-speaker:
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"Stop your engines and lower a ladder! We're boarding you for inspection."
"Coast Guard!" screamed Crowfeet.
He obeyed, and in a few minutes an officer came over the side, followed by Fenton Hardy.
In the joyous reunion between the detective and his sons, Crowfeet learned how he had been outsmarted. Realizing the game was up, the crook threw himself on the mercy of the authorities and made a full confession.
Vain, headstrong and unscrupulous, the smuggler had preyed on people in many walks of life. He had even stolen inventions and kidnaped their inventors. On board was a chemist, who had perfected a method of aging wood and paper in a few minutes. Crowfeet had forced him to counterfeit old documents and letters which were then sold as collectors' items.
"I figured out how to hide the papers in certain boxes of compressed wool, and ship them to houses where people were away," Crowfeet boasted. "And if I hadn't had such stupid fools working for me, you'd never have caught me!"
"Like the two who got in a fight in a motorboat on Barmet Bay and threw a carton of stolen wool overboard?" remarked Joe.
Crowfeet eyed the boy. "You're too smart," he grunted. "Yes, if my men had obeyed me instead of
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trying to get something for themselves on the side, they'd have been better off."
"And you stole electric motors," Frank reminded him. ,
The captain admitted he had. He even bragged of how he had outwitted the customs in smuggling thousands of dollars worth of goods in and out of the country, including the South American hides which the boys had discovered in the old barn. The Hardys also learned that one of the gang had tinkered with the gas gauge on Captain Harkness' boat, fearful the boys were going to search for the phantom freighter.
"How you kids got passage on the Father Neptune I'll never know," growled Crowfeet. "But when I heard you had, I sneaked men aboard to reload the cargo so it would shift."
Klack was found hiding below. The FBI would have one less crook to worry about!
Mr. Hardy revealed that the captains of the Hawk and the Wasp, and several others in the gang had been captured already. "Johnson" had finally confessed his part in the scheme, saying if he had not been greedy and kept Aunt Gertrude's carton and, with "Mrs. Harrison's" help, sold the contents, the Hardys probably never would have caught the gang. The thief admitted that he had been in the burned barn, where he lost his good-luck medal, but had
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locked the door behind him and knew nothing about the fire, which remained a mystery.
"Mrs. Harrison," forced by threats to work for the smugglers, had tried to keep Frank and Joe from injury and probably would get a lighter sentence than they, as well as the man who had telephoned the Hardys they would find Frank on the bungalow porch.
Contact was made with the Father Neptune. The frantic passengers cheered when they heard the news of the smugglers' capture. As the phantom freighter went toward it, Crowfeet, who owned up to his real name, Harry Piper, came forth with a still more startling announcement.
"As for my seaman Mitchell, he's not a smuggler. He's the guy who invented the repeller. I kidnaped him and made him put his invention on my ship."
The elderly man who had spoken to the boys before came forward and told his story to Fenton Hardy.
"You don't know what this means to me," he sighed. "I had given up all hope of rescue, and the worst of it was that my own invention was helping these . . . these scoundrels. Now if I could only find my old partner Thaddeus McClintock . . ."
"Thaddeus McClintock!" shouted the two boys in unison.
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"Why, yes!" exclaimed Mr. Mitchell. "Do you know him?"
"Know him!" answered the boys. "He's aboard the Father Neptune!"
"I'm sure he thought I stole the plans. But now . . ."
When the boys witnessed the happy reunion of McClintock and his partner, they felt well rewarded for all their work on the mystery. Mr. McClintock told them this was the mystery he had been planning to ask them to solve when the trip was over!
He was a new man. Gone was his grouchiness and bitterness. His whole body was erect and strong-looking. He did not forget his promise to the boys of a reward "better than money."
"My reward to you was to be my part of the re-peller plans, of which I had a duplicate set," he said. "I had lost interest and thought that maybe someday you might be able to work on it yourselves. Now I think we'd better turn our discovery over to Uncle Sam as originally planned. But how about a new car or a . . ."
The Hardy boys stopped him short. "Please, sir," said Frank as spokesman, "just being able to help round up this gang, and have a trip is reward enough."
When the excitement was over, and the Father Neptune was plowing steadily southward, the Hardy boys began to look forward to more mystery, either in the Caribbean or back in Bayport. They were to find it in "The Secret of Skull Mountain."
Suddenly Chet, listening to them, gave a tremendous sigh. "Let's eat," he said.
"How about a phantom lunch?" grinned Biff.
"No! A freighterful of food!"
THE END
THE PHANTOM FREIGHTER
By FRANKLIN W. DIXON
No. 26 in the Hardy Boys series.
This is the 1947 original text.