Chapter VI: Foul Play

Matt was greatly worried over the way that experience with the boat and the chest had worked out. Dick knew enough about handling the air ship to be able to look after her in ordinary weather, but those shifting air currents had bothered even Matt. It was so easy for some little thing to go wrong and either wreck or cause irreparable damage to an air ship. In that respect, an air ship was totally unlike any other craft.

But there had been no other way out of the dilemma and Matt, facing the situation with all the grace he could muster, dropped on the midship thwart, seized the oars, and headed the skiff upstream.

Fortune favored him a little, for a lugger from the oyster beds came lurching up the river, all sails set and bound for the landing. Matt hailed the lugger and the oysterman took him aboard.

He said nothing to the lugger's crew as to how he had happened to be in the skiff. Had he done that, one explanation would have led to another and it would have been necessary to speak of the iron chest--a subject which it was well enough to keep in the background.

When the lugger tied up at the landing, Matt left the skiff with her crew and went ashore. His object now was to find Carl, Dick, and the _Hawk_, and he made his way along the river front in the direction of Canal Street. He could see nothing of the _Hawk_ in the air, but along the wharves he encountered several groups of roustabouts who were talking excitedly about the "flying machine" that had recently passed over the town.

By making inquiries, he learned that the _Hawk_ had settled earthward in the vicinity of the Stuyvesant Docks. Instructions were given him as to the best way for finding the docks, and he hurried on.

Fully three hours had passed since the chest had been recovered and the _Hawk_ and Matt had parted company. A good many things could happen in three hours, and Matt continued to feel worried.

As he was passing the Morgan Line Docks he saw Dick bearing down on him. The look of elation in Dick's face was indirect evidence that all was right with the _Hawk_.

"Hooray!" shouted the Canadian. "You were so long turning up, matey, that I was afraid something had happened to you. I hope we won't ever again part company like we did down there on the river. Confound this Louisiana wind, anyhow! It never blows twice from the same direction, seems like. You didn't row all the way to town against the current?"

"If I had, Dick," answered Matt, "I couldn't have got here before night. A lugger picked me up. Where's the _Hawk_?"

"Safely berthed on the big dock. I gave the dock watchman a five-dollar note to look after her and keep curious people away. We've stretched a rope around the air ship and no one can get within a dozen feet of her. She's as snug as possible, and there couldn't be a better place for her. Why, the dock's better than that old balloon house in South Chicago!"

"Where's Carl?"

"He went away with Bangs, and----"

"Bangs? Who's Bangs?"

"Why, he introduced himself to Carl and me as soon as we got the _Hawk_ moored. He's a friend of Townsend's and has been hanging out on the levee looking for us ever since Townsend sent that telegram asking us to come. He was there by Townsend's orders, and was to tell us where to berth the _Hawk_ and where to go our selves."

"I should think Townsend would have been there to meet us," observed Matt.

"Oh, that's all right--Bangs explained that point. Townsend is full of business, these days, and asked Bangs as a favor to watch for us."

"What did you do with the iron chest?"

"Bangs and Carl took it away in an express wagon. As soon as Carl delivers the chest to Townsend, he's coming back to the docks. I told him that, by that time, you'd probably be there, and that we could all go up to see Townsend. Bangs said that Carl would surely get back to the docks by noon."

As Dick finished speaking, the noon whistles took up their clamor.

"Did Bangs identify himself in any way?" asked Matt.

"Why, no," answered Dick, puzzled. "It was identification enough, I thought, to have him meet us, tell us all about Townsend, and say Townsend had sent him to watch for us."

"That might be a yarn, Dick, with not a particle of truth in it."

"But he was on the levee----"

"Everybody up and down the river front could see the _Hawk_, so you were known to be coming. Well, maybe everything is all right. Carl went with Bangs and the chest, anyhow. He'll see that the chest is properly delivered."

"Bangs insisted on either Carl or me going with him to see Townsend," pursued Dick, "and that gives the whole business a straight look. If there was anything crooked about Bangs he wouldn't have wanted any one to go with the chest, see?"

Dick was so honest himself that he was rarely looking for treachery in others. Matt made no response to what he had just said, but turned the subject, as they walked together in the direction of the Stuyvesant Docks.

"Did you have any trouble making a landing, Dick?" he asked.

"There was a big freight boat alongside the docks and she blanketed us against the wind. If it hadn't been for the freighter, Carl and I might have had more than we could attend to. We just grazed the steamer's stacks, ducked under the dock roof, and rounded to as neat as you please. We were lucky rather than skillful, you see, for it would have been an easy matter to smash the _Hawk_ into smithereens."

The boys continued on along the levee, and on every hand the queer craft that had dropped out of the sky was the topic of conversation. Not many people were allowed on the dock where the _Hawk_ was moored, but there were a few curious ones clustered around the guard rope and surveying the craft.

Carl Pretzel, however, was not in evidence.

"He's probably been delayed," suggested Dick. "We'll just hang around and wait for him."

While they were waiting, the watchman came up to them.

"It's none o' my business," said he, "and I reckon you'll think I haven't any call buttin' in, but that feller that drove away with your friend, in the express wagon, hasn't got a very good character in this town."

"Is that straight?" queried Dick.

"Straight as a plumb-line. He's as crooked as a dog's hind leg. Proctor used to run a boat on the river, but he took to drinkin' an turned 'shady,' an' now he's not much better than a loafer. I'd have told you before, only I supposed you knew what you was doin' an' that you wouldn't thank me to interfere. I heard Proctor say, though, that your friend would sure be back here by noon. Well, it's noon, an' he ain't here. That's why I'm talkin' now."

"Proctor?" cried Dick. "Why, he said his name was Bangs."

"He's been known to change his name before now, so I ain't surprised at that. But his real name is Proctor."

The watchman went on about his business, and Matt and Dick withdrew by themselves in no very easy frame of mind.

"Dowse me!" growled Dick. "Can't Carl and I be away from you for a few hours, old ship, without making fools of ourselves? But Bangs told such a straight yarn----"

"If a trap was laid, Dick," interposed Matt, "it was a clever one and I don't see how you could avoid dropping into it. It's a pretty safe guess, I think, that there has been foul play. This fellow Proctor, or Bangs, wanted the iron chest and laid his plans to get it."

"But how could he lay his plans?" muttered Dick. "Sink me if I can understand that part of it. First off, he couldn't have known we had the iron chest, seeing that we fished it out of that skiff so recently."

Matt listened thoughtfully. He was trying to figure the matter out in his own mind, but it was a difficult problem.

"Then, again," continued Dick, "Bangs was here watching for us. If he wasn't a friend of Townsend's how could he have known we were coming?"

"From what we knew of Archibald Townsend," answered Matt, "we can bank on his being honest and square. If that's the case, he'd hardly have a friend like Bangs, would he? And certainly, if he knew Bangs, he'd hardly trust him to meet us, as Bangs told you he had done."

"I'm a swab," growled Dick, with profound self-reproach, "and Carl's a swab. We've dropped into a tangle of foul play, and it don't make it any brighter because we can't understand where Bangs got the information that enabled him to carry out his plot. I had an idea that I wouldn't let Bangs touch that iron chest until you got here, but he told such a straight story that I was argued out of my original intention. Oh, keelhaul me!"

Dick fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief. When he drew it out, a bit of crumpled newspaper came with it.

"Ah," muttered Dick, picking up the bit of paper, "maybe Carl will have some luck. He unwrapped that little parcel Yamousa gave you as we were leaving the bayou. What do you think we found in it?"

"A rabbit's foot?"

"No, a dried frog! Carl, before he started away in the express wagon, put the frog in his pocket. He said he'd try it out before he turned it over to you. If we're right in thinking that Bangs is playing a treacherous game, then Carl will have plenty of chance to find out what the charm is good for."

"We've got to be doing something, Dick," said Matt. "We can't hang around and wait for the dried frog to help Carl."

"We might slant away and look up that expressman," returned Dick. "He could probably tell us where he took Carl, and Bangs, and the box."

"A good tip!" exclaimed Matt. "We'll go on a still hunt for the expressman."

After reassuring himself that the _Hawk_ would be safely looked after by the watchman, Matt and Dick left the docks and began hunting for the man who had been hired by Bangs to take the iron chest into the town.