Nomad,” cried Nat. “Hooray, boys! It’s good to have something come along to relieve the monotony.”
“Di-di-didn’t I ter-ter-tell you so!” puffed Ding-dong triumphantly, as the three lads set out at top speed for their hut to obtain some necessary clothing and a few provisions for their run to the vessel that had sent out the wireless appeal for help.
CHAPTER II.
A PASSENGER FOR THE SHORE
“All right below, Ding-dong?” hailed Nat, as he took his place on the little bridge of the Nomad with Joe by his side. The anchor was up, and astern towed the dinghy, which had been hastily shoved off the beach when the boys embarked.
Through the speaking tube came up the young engineer’s answer, “All ready when you are, captain.”
Nat jerked the engine room bell twice. A tremor ran through the sturdy sixty-foot craft. Her fifty-horse-power, eight-cylindered motor began to revolve, and with a “bone in her teeth” she ran swiftly out of the cove, headed around the southernmost point of the island and was steered by Nat due westward to intercept the steamer that had flashed the urgent wireless.
As the long Pacific swell was encountered, the Nomad rose to it like a race-horse that after long idleness feels the track under his hoofs once more. Her sharp bow cut the water like a knife, but from time to time, as an extra heavy roller was encountered, she flung the water back over her forward parts in a shower of glistening, prismatic spray. It was a day and an errand to thrill the most phlegmatic person that ever lived, and, as we know, the Motor Rangers were assuredly not in this category. Their blood glowed as their fast craft rushed onward on her errand of mercy at fifteen miles, or better, an hour.
Nat, his cheeks glowing and his eyes shining, held the wheel in a firm grip, his crisp black hair waved in the breeze and his very poise showed that he was in his element. Joe, clutching the rail beside him, was possessed of an equal fervor of excitement. The Motor Rangers all felt that they were on the threshold of an adventure; but into what devious paths and perils that wireless message for aid was to lead them, not one of them guessed. Yet even had they been able to see into the future and its dangers and difficulties, it is almost certain that they would have voted unanimously to “keep on going.”
“What a fine little craft she is,” declared Nat, as the Nomad sped along.
“She’s a beauty,” fervently agreed Joe, with equal enthusiasm; “and what we’ve been through on board her, Nat!”
“I should say so. Remember the Magnetic Islands, and the Boiling Sea, and the time you were lost overboard?”
Chatting thus of the many adventures and perils successfully met that their conversation recalled to their minds, the two young Motor Rangers on the bridge of the speeding motor craft kept a bright lookout for some sign of the vessel that had sent the wireless appeal into space.
Nat was the first to catch sight of a smudge of smoke on the horizon. “That must be the steamer! There, dead ahead!”
“Reckon you’re right, Nat,” agreed Joe. “The smoke seems stationary, too. That’s the Iroquois beyond a doubt.”
Nat sent a signal below, to apply every ounce of speed that the engines were capable of giving. The Nomad, going at a fast clip before, fairly began to rush ahead. In a few minutes they could see the masts of the steamer, and her black hull and yellow funnel rapidly arose above the horizon as they neared her.
At close range the Motor Rangers could see that the white upper works were lined with passengers, all gazing curiously at the speedy Nomad as she came on. As they ranged in alongside, the gangway was lowered and Nat was hailed from the bridge by a stalwart, bearded man in uniform.
“Motor boat, ahoy!” he cried, placing his hands funnel-wise to his mouth, “did you come off in response to our wireless?”
“We did, sir,” was Nat’s rejoinder. “What is the trouble?”
“A job with a good lot of money in it for you fellows,” was the response. “Range in alongside the gangway and Dr. Adams, the ship’s surgeon, will explain to you what has happened.”
Nat maneuvered the Nomad up to the lower platform of the gangway and Joe nimbly sprang off and made the little craft fast. She looked as tiny as a rowboat lying alongside the big black steamer, whose steel sides towered above her like the walls of a lofty building.
The vessel’s surgeon, a spectacled, solemn-looking young man, came down the gangway stairs.
“This is a matter requiring the utmost haste,” he said; “the man who has been injured must be taken to a shore hospital at once.”
“We’ll take the job. That’s what we came out here for,” rejoined Nat briskly. “Who is your man and how was he hurt?”
“His name is Jonas Jenkins of San Francisco. As I understand it, he is a wealthy man with big interests in Mexico. He booked passage for Mazatlan. Early to-day he was found at the foot of a stairway with what I fear is a fracture of the skull.”
“It was an accident?” asked Nat, for somehow there was something in the voice of the ship’s doctor which appeared to indicate that he was not altogether satisfied that Jonas Jenkins’ injury was unavoidable.
The doctor hesitated a minute before replying. Then he spoke in a low voice:
“I have no right to express any opinion about the matter,” he said, “but certain things about the case impressed me as being curious.”
“For instance?”
The question was Nat’s.
“The fact that Mr. Jenkins’ coat was cut and torn as if some one had ripped it up to obtain from it something of value or importance.”
“You mean that you think Mr. Jenkins was pushed down the flight of stairs and met his injury in that way?”
“That’s my theory, but I have nothing but the tear in the coat to base it on.”
The surgeon was interrupted at this point by the appearance at the top of the gangway of a singular-looking individual. He was tall, skinny as an ostrich and had a peculiar piercing expression of countenance. His rather swarthy features were obscured on the lower part of his face by a bristly black beard.
“Are these young men going to take Mr. Jenkins ashore?” he asked in a dictatorial sort of tone.
“That is our intention,” was Nat’s rejoinder.
“Where are you going to land him?”
The words were ripped out more like an order than a civil inquiry. Nat felt a vague resentment. Evidently the black-bearded man looked upon the Motor Rangers as boys who could be ordered about at will.
“We are going to run into Santa Barbara as fast as our boat will take us there,” was Nat’s reply.
“I want to go ashore with you,” declared the stranger. “I received word early to-day by wireless that makes it imperative that I should return to San Francisco at once. Land me at Santa Barbara and name your own price.”
“This isn’t a passenger boat,” shot out Joe.
“We only came out here as an accommodation and as an act of humanity,” supplemented Nat. His intuitive feeling of dislike for the dictatorial stranger was growing every minute.
Perhaps the other noticed this, for he descended the gangway and took his place beside the ship’s doctor on the lower platform of the gangway.
“You must pardon me if my tone was abrupt,” he said in conciliatory tones; “the fact of the matter is, that I must return as soon as possible to San Francisco for many reasons, and this ship does not stop till she reaches Mazatlan. It was my eagerness that made me sound abrupt.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” rejoined Nat, liking the cringing tone of the man even less than he had his former manner, “I guess we can put you ashore.”
The man reached into his pocket and produced