Chapter IX: Matt and His Chums Go It Alone

"Hunters are taking shots at us," cried Matt, "and we've got to get away from them. Where are we, Dick?"

"I had just studied one of the maps with the aid of the electric torch," replied Dick, "and had made up my mind that we were close to the line separating South Carolina from Georgia. Just as I had decided that point, bang came the first shot. Sink me, but that second shot came close to the motor! Lucky it was turned by the framework of the car."

"We'd better fly a little higher while we're going over this country," said Matt. "It won't do to have a bullet ripping its way through the bag, or putting the machinery out of commission, or doing any damage to you, or me, or Carl, or Townsend."

Matt picked up the torch, snapped on the light and focussed the glow on the face of his watch.

"It's nearly eleven, Dick," he went on, "and time for you to take a snooze. Carl and I will take over the ship, while you lie down and get a little rest."

During the balance of the night nothing went wrong. The wind had gone down with the sun, and through the cool quiet of the night the Hawk reeled off her customary thirty miles an hour. At three in the morning Carl awoke Dick, and from that on till seven o'clock the Dutch boy's snores were steady and continuous.

Morning brought no improvement in Townsend's condition. His face was flushed and his eyes were bright and feverish. He ate some of the breakfast which Carl dug out of the ration bag, but it was plain that he forced himself to do it.

"Where are we, Matt?" he asked.

"Below Jacksonville," Matt answered, "and traveling down the Florida coast."

"How's the wind?"

"It's abeam, Mr. Townsend," spoke up Ferral, "and we're slanted against it."

"That interferes with our speed, I suppose?"

"We're making barely twenty miles an hour, as I figure it," said Matt.

"Well, that will drop us into Palm Beach this evening--and that's where I'll have to give up. I must have broken a bone in my ankle, and the thing for me to do is to stay at Palm Beach and have it attended to. I thought, yesterday, that I might get over it, and so make myself of some use, but I see now that that's impossible. I'm only a hindrance and a drag, and it's necessary, if I want to avoid serious consequences, to have that foot attended to. My leg is of more importance than the _Grampus_, so I'll give up, right here, and you can drop me at Palm Beach and go back to Atlantic City. Will the twenty-five hundred I have paid you be enough for your time and trouble?"

"More than enough," answered Matt, "if that is the way you want it, Mr. Townsend."

"It isn't the way I want it--not by a long chalk!" declared Townsend, vehemently, "but it seems to be the way I've got to have it. I've not only lost the _Grampus_, but I have also proven false to the promise I made the Man from Cape Town. If I felt that I could go on, with the least show of success, I'd not hang back; but I'm crippled, and I feel that, owing to the lack of proper medical attention, I'm getting weaker and weaker all the time!"

Heartfelt regret mingled in the words with the pain Townsend was suffering.

"How far is it from Palm Beach to Turtle Key, Mr. Townsend?" asked Matt.

"Less than a hundred miles, straight across the Florida Straits."

"If this landward breeze holds," went on Matt, musingly, "we could reach Turtle Key in three hours after we left the mainland."

Townsend shifted his position a little and fastened his gleaming black eyes speculatively on the young motorist's face.

"What do you mean by that?" he demanded.

"If you can't go to Turtle Key," said Matt, quietly, "why can't the rest of us go? We may not stand so good a chance of recovering the _Grampus_ as though you were along and able to help, but we might be able to find whether or not there's an iron chest on the island; and, if we had the opportunity, we might do what we could to recapture the submarine."

"I can't order you to do anything like that, Matt, but I had decided, in my own mind, that you would say something like you have just said. That's your style, my boy. If you want to go and look for the island and the iron chest, well and good. It will be worth twenty-five hundred more to me to know that I tried to carry out my promise to the Man from Cape Town, and that I couldn't do it because the iron chest was only a figment of his disordered imagination. Go and look for the chest, but it won't do for you to attempt to cope with Jurgens and the ruffians with him in the _Grampus_. Yesterday, when it began to grow upon me that I could not see this expedition through to the end, I drew up a copy of that stolen chart as nearly as I can remember it. I believe the copy is fairly accurate."

Townsend took the folded letter from his pocket and gave it to Carl, who passed it along to Matt.

"You can study that," said Townsend, "and it will tell you all I know. Do what you can, and, no matter what the result is, come back and report to me at Palm Beach."

Townsend did no more talking. The pain he was suffering made talking an effort, and he sank back and closed his eyes.

"Can we do it, matey?" asked Dick. "Can we cross a hundred miles of ocean and nose out a little turtle-back in all that raft of islands and keys?"

"Do you know anything about navigation, Dick? Can you take a chronometer and a sextant and figure out latitude and longitude?"

"I'd be a juggings if I couldn't. Why, mate, it's one of the first things they teach you on the training ship."

"Get in here and manage the Hawk, Dick, while I look over this chart."

Ferral dropped in among the levers and Matt went forward and sat down on the floor of the car.

The chart embraced part of the eastern shore line of Florida and took in some of the westernmost islands of the Bahama group. From Palm Beach a straight line was drawn, east by south to a dot below the western point of Great Bahama Island. The dot was marked Turtle Key, and its latitude and longitude were given.

Below this diagram, in the left-hand corner of the sheet, Turtle Key was shown in amplified form, an irregular circle of sand with a black cross on its western side. The cross was labeled, "Cavern; can be entered from the shore, or by boat at high tide. Iron chest in the cavern."

"I believe we can find it, pards," Matt finally announced. "Anyhow, I'm for trying. If we can do anything to help Townsend, I think it's our duty. When we started from Atlantic City, this had the look of a wild-goose chase. It may still be no more than that--the only way we can tell is by running out the trail."

"I vouldn't like to haf anyt'ing habben so dot ve come down in der ocean," observed Carl, "aber you bed you I vould like to haf some looks indo dot cave for der iron chest. I haf readt aboudt birates on der Spanish Main, und I vould be so habby as I can't dell to get my handts on some oof deir plunder."

"One for all, and all for one, old ship!" cried Ferral. "Sink or swim, Carl and I are with you."

Getting down the Florida coast, battling with a side wind every foot of the way, was slow work. It was five o'clock in the evening before the place was reached, a landing made, and Townsend removed to a hotel and placed in the care of a doctor.

The doctor, after a short examination, declared that Townsend had sustained a fracture of one of the smaller bones in the ankle, and that he would have to keep to his bed and remain under constant treatment for at least a week. So far as any serious results were concerned, however, there would be none. The trouble had been aggravated by the delay in receiving proper attention, but that was something which would now be remedied.

"I wouldn't start before morning, Matt," were Townsend's last words to the young motorist. "The wind, which just now is favorable, will go down with the sun, so you wouldn't gain much by going on to-night. Besides, it will be better if you are somewhere near the place by noon, to-morrow, so Ferral can 'shoot' the sun and find out where you are. Watch the barometer, and if it promises good weather to-morrow, make the attempt. Don't fail to come back and report to me. Good-by, and good luck."

"It looks like a whale of a job, messmate," remarked Dick, as he and Matt walked away from the hotel. "I suppose it looks so big because it's so much of a novelty. I guess this is about the first time any one ever went gunning for treasure in an air ship!"

"Well," said Matt, decisively, "it's up to us to go it alone and find out just what there is on Turtle Key. There are so many of those little islets scattered through the Bahamas that we'll have to 'shoot' the sun, as Townsend calls it, in order to find whether or not we're on the right spot."

"If we can find the cave that ought to settle it."

"All the islands have caves. If we're going at this thing we've got to do it right; we've got to find the _right_ key, and the _right_ cave, and then there can be no possible doubt when we return and report to Townsend that there's no iron chest."

"You think that's all a yarn for the marines, eh?"

"Nothing else; but Townsend is bound by a promise, and he's the sort of man who doesn't make a promise lightly."

The three chums slept out the night in the car of the air ship. When morning dawned, the barometer indicated fair weather. The wind was north by east, quartering offshore, but it was so light as not to cause Matt much concern.

Matt was the first of the three to be astir. After he had looked at the barometer and taken note of the wind, he awoke Dick and Carl.

"We're off for Turtle Key, pards," cried Matt, "and we're going it alone. Up with you, and let's put to sea."