Henry
The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code
CHAPTER I.
VACATION DAYS
"Up with your helm there, Noddy! Luff her up or you'll have the Curlew on the rocks!"
"That's right, luff!" cried Billy Raynor, adding his voice to Jack Ready's command.
"That's what I luff to do," grinned the red-headed, former Bowery waif, Noddy Nipper, as, with a dexterous motion, he jerked over the tiller of the fine, speedy sloop in which the boys were enjoying a sail on Alexandria Bay, above the Thousand Islands.
The mainsail and jib shivered, and the Curlew spun round like a top just as it seemed inevitable that she must end her career on some jagged rocks that had suddenly loomed up ahead.
"Neatly done, Noddy," applauded Jack. "We'll forgive you even that awful pun for that skillful bit of boat-handling."
The freckled lad grinned in appreciation of the compliment paid him by the Wireless Boy.
"Much obliged," he said. "Of course I haven't got sailing down as fine as you yet. How far do you reckon we are from home?"
"From the Pine Island hotel, you mean?" rejoined Billy Raynor. "Oh, not more than ten miles."
"Just about that," chimed in Jack. "If this wind holds we'll be home in time for supper."
"Supper!" exclaimed Bill; "I could eat an octogenarian doughnut, I'm so hungry."
A groan came from Noddy. Although the Bowery lad had polished up on his grammar and vocabulary considerably since Jack Ready first encountered him as second cook on the seal-poaching schooner Polly Ann, Captain "Terror" Carson commanding, still, a word like "Octogenarian" stumped him, as the saying is.
"What's an octo-octo – what-you-may-call-'um doughnut, anyhow?" he demanded, for Noddy always liked to acquire a new word, and not infrequently astonished his friends by coming out with a "whopper" culled out of the dictionary. "Is it a doughnut with legs on it?"
Jack and Billy broke into a roar of laughter.
"A doughnut with legs on?" sputtered Billy. "Whatever put that idea into your head, Noddy?"
"Well, don't octo-octo-thing-a-my-jigs have legs?" inquired Noddy.
"Oh, you mean octopuses," cried Jack, with another laugh. "Billy meant an eighty-year-old doughnut."
"I'll look it up when we get back," remarked Noddy gravely; "it's a good word."
"Say, fellows, we are sure having a fine time out of this holiday," remarked Billy presently, after an interval of silence.
"Yes, but just the same I shan't be sorry when Mr. Juke's new liner is completed and we can go to sea again," said Jack, "but after our experiences up north, among the ice, I think we had a holiday coming to us."
"That we did," agreed Noddy. "Some difference between skimming around here in a fine yacht and being cast away on that wretched island with nothing to eat and not much prospect of getting any."
"Yes, but if it hadn't been for that experience, and the ancient treasure we found, we couldn't have taken such a jolly vacation," argued Jack. "It's made Uncle Toby a rich man and put all of us on Easy Street."
"Yes, it was certainly worth all the hardships we went through," agreed Noddy.
"I guess we are in for a long spell of quiet now, though," remarked Jack, after a pause, during which each boy thought of their recent adventures.
"Not so sure of that," replied Noddy. "You're the sort of fellow, judging from what you've told us, who is always tumbling up against something exciting."
"Yes, I feel it in my bones that we are not destined to lead an absolutely uneventful time – " began Billy Raynor. "I – hold hard there, Noddy; watch yourself. Here comes another yacht bearing down on us!"
Jack and Billy leaped to their feet, steadying themselves by clutching a stay. Billy was right. Another yacht, a good deal larger than their own, was heading straight for them.
"Hi! put your helm over! We've got the right of way!" shouted Jack, cupping his hands.
"Look out where you're going!" cried Billy.
But whoever was steering the other yacht made no motion to carry out the suggestions. Instead, under a press of canvas, she kept directly on her course.
"She'll run us down," cried Noddy. "What'll I do, Jack?"
"Throw her over to port lively now," sang out Jack Ready. "Hurry up or we'll have a bad smash-up!"
He leaped toward the stern to Noddy's assistance, while Billy Raynor, the young engineer, did the same.
In former volumes of this series the previous adventures of the lads have been described. In the first book, devoted to their doings and to describing the fascinating workings of sea-wireless aboard ocean-going craft, which was called "The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Atlantic," we learned how Jack became a prime favorite with the irascible Jacob Jukes, head of the great Transatlantic and Pacific shipping combine. Jack's daring rescue of Millionaire Jukes' little girl resulted in the lad's obtaining the position of wireless man on board a fine ship, after he had looked for such a job for months in vain. But because Jack would not become the well-paid companion of Mr. Jukes' son Tom, a rather sickly youth, the millionaire became angry with the young wireless man. However, Jack was able, subsequently, to rescue Mr. Jukes from a drifting boat after the magnate's yacht had burned in mid-ocean and, following that, to reunite the almost frantic millionaire with his missing son.
Other exciting incidents were described, and Jack gained rapidly in his chosen profession, as did his chum, Billy Raynor, who was third assistant engineer of the big vessel. The next volume, which was called "The Ocean Wireless Boys and the Lost Liner," told of the loss of the splendid ship "Tropic Queen," on a volcanic island after she had become disabled and had drifted helplessly for days. By wireless Jack managed to secure aid from U. S. vessels, and it came in the nick of time, for the island was destroyed by an eruption just after the last of the rescued passengers had been taken off. Wireless, too, secured, as described in that book, the capture of a criminal much wanted by the government.
The third volume related more of Jack's doings and was called "The Ocean Wireless Boys of the Ice-berg Patrol." This book told how Jack, while serving aboard one of the revenue cutters that send out wireless warnings of ice-bergs to transatlantic liners, fell into the hands of a band of seal poachers. Things looked black for the lad for a time, but he found two good friends among the rough crew in the persons of Noddy Nipper and Pompey, an eccentric old colored cook, full of superstitions about ghosts. The Polly Ann, as the schooner was called, was wrecked and Jack and his two friends cast away on a lonesome spot of land called Skull Island. They were rescued from this place by Jack's eccentric, wooden-legged Uncle, Captain Toby Ready, who, when at home, lived on a stranded wooden schooner where he made patent medicines out of herbs for sailors. Captain Toby had got wind of an ancient treasure hidden by a forgotten race on an Arctic island. After the strange reunion they all sailed north. But an unscrupulous financier (also on a hunt for the treasure) found a way to steal their schooner and left them destitute. For a time it appeared that they would leave their bones in the bleak northland. But the skillful resource and pluck of Jack and Noddy won the day. We now find them enjoying a holiday, with Captain Toby as host, at a fashionable hotel among the beautiful Thousand Islands. Having made this necessary digression, let us again turn our attention to the situation which had suddenly confronted the happy three, and which appeared to be fraught with imminent danger.
Like their own craft, the other boat carried a single mast and was sloop-rigged. But the boat was larger in every respect than the Curlew. She carried a great spread of snowy canvas and heeled over under its press till the white water raced along her gunwale.
As she drew nearer the boys saw that there were two occupants on board her. One was a tall, well-dressed lad in yachting clothes, whose face, rather handsome otherwise, was marred by a supercilious sneer, as if he considered himself a great deal better than anyone else. The other was a somewhat elderly man whose hair appeared to be tinged with gray. His features were coarse, but