CHAPTER 17 A STOLEN BOAT
The mists were lifting as Penny and Louise sailed slowly past the Ottman Dock toward their own snug berth. Sara, in blue slacks, a red bandana handkerchief over her head, was trying to start a stubborn outboard motor. Glancing up, she called a greeting, and then asked abruptly:
“Say, what’s that barge doing out on the river? It looks to me as if it’s adrift, but I can’t see well enough to tell.”
Penny and Louise, eager to impart information, brought the dinghy to a mooring at the floating platform. Sara listened with interest as they revealed how they had boarded the barge, released Carl Oaks, and then notified the Coast Guard.
“Neat work!” she praised. “That Carl Oaks! He’s one of the most shiftless men I ever knew. He doesn’t deserve to hold a job.”
Penny glanced about the dock, searching for Burt Ottman.
“Your brother isn’t here?” she remarked absently.
“No, he isn’t,” Sara replied, rather defiantly. “If you think he had anything to do with that barge—”
“Why, it never entered my mind!” Penny exclaimed.
“I’m sorry,” the older girl apologized. “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know why I’m so jumpy lately.”
“You have a great deal to worry you,” said Louise sympathetically. “And you work too hard.”
“I’ll be all right as soon as Burt’s trial is over. He’s not here this morning—” Sara’s voice broke. “In fact, I don’t know where he is.”
Louise and Penny said nothing, though the remark astonished them.
“Burt was out all last night,” Sara spoke and then seemed to realize that her words easily could be misinterpreted. She added hastily: “He’s been trying to gain evidence which will prove his innocence.”
“You mean your brother went away yesterday and failed to return?” Penny asked after a moment.
Sara nodded. “He’s on the trail of the real saboteurs, and it’s dangerous business. That’s why I’m so worried. I’m afraid he’s in trouble.”
“Have you talked to the police?” Penny inquired.
“Indeed, I haven’t.”
“Didn’t your brother tell you where he was going when he left home?”
“No, he didn’t. He keeps things from me because he says I worry too much now.”
“I suppose he never explained what happened at The Green Parrot?”
“He said he couldn’t remember. Oh, everything’s so mixed up. I try not to think about it, because when I do my head simply buzzes.”
Once more Sara tried to start the balky engine, and this time her efforts brought success.
“Thank goodness for small favors!” she muttered. “Now I’ve got to go out on the river and look for our stolen boat. Hope no one runs off with this place while I’m gone.”
“You’ve not had another boat stolen?” Louise asked in surprise.
“I figure that’s what happened to it. Late yesterday afternoon a man came here and rented our fastest motorboat. That’s the last I’ve seen of him or it.”
“Didn’t you report your loss to the Coast Guards?” inquired Penny.
Sara answered with a trace of impatience. “Of course, I did. They searched the river last night. No accident reported, and no trace of the boat.”
“The man might have drowned,” Louise offered anxiously.
“It’s not likely. If he had gone overboard, the boat would have been found by this time. No, it’s been pulled up somewhere in the bushes and hidden. Last year one of our canoes was taken. Burt found it a month later, painted a different color!”
“Didn’t you know the man who rented the boat?” questioned Penny.
“Never saw him before. He was tall and thin and dark. Wore a brown felt hat and overcoat. I noticed his hands in particular. They were soft and well manicured. I said to myself, ‘This fellow doesn’t know a thing about boats,’ but I was wrong. He handled that motor like a veteran.”
“The man didn’t look like a waiter, did he?” Penny asked quickly.
“You couldn’t prove it by me.”
Penny groped in her mind to recall a characteristic which definitely would describe the head waiter of The Green Parrot. To her chagrin, she could think of only one unusual facial characteristic, a tiny scar on his cheek. She did remember that the man had worn a large, old fashioned gold watch which might have been of foreign make.
“Why, the fellow who rented the boat did have such a watch!” Sara cried when Penny mentioned the timepiece. “I didn’t notice the scar. What is his name?”
“Louise and I never were able to learn,” Penny replied with regret. “The Green Parrot has closed its doors, so I don’t know how you can get in touch with him.”
Sara sighed. Placing an oar, a bailer, and a can of gasoline in the boat, she prepared to leave the dock.
“I’ll be lucky if I ever see the fellow again,” she commented. Hesitating a moment, she asked diffidently: “Don’t suppose you girls would like to go along?”
Penny and Louise wondered if their ears had betrayed them. It seemed beyond belief that Sara actually would invite them to accompany her.
“Why, of course, we’d like to go,” Penny accepted, before her chum could find her voice.
Scrambling out of the dinghy, the girls made it fast to the dock and transferred to the other boat. Sara opened the throttle, and they shot away, leaving behind a trail of churning foam. Out through the slip they raced, rounding a channel buoy at breakneck speed.
“You can certainly handle a boat,” Penny said admiringly.
“Been at it since I was a kid,” Sara grinned. “I could cruise this river blindfolded.”
They passed the floating barge, observing that a Coast Guard cutter was proceeding up river to take it in tow. Turning upstream, Sara swung the boat toward shore.
“Keep close watch of the bushes,” she directed the girls. “If you see anything that looks like a hidden boat, sing out.”
At low speed they crept along the river, watching for marks in the sand which might reveal where a craft had been pulled out of water. Once, venturing too close in, Sara went aground and had to push off with the oars.
“It doesn’t look as if we’ll have any luck,” she remarked gloomily. “The boat’s probably so well hidden, it would take a ferret to find it.”
They kept on upstream toward the Seventh Street Bridge, a structure much in use since the more modern Thompson’s Bridge had been closed to auto traffic. Penny, watching the stream of vehicles passing above, remarked that Riverview commerce would be paralyzed should anything occur to damage it.
“The Seventh Street Bridge now is the only artery open to the Riverview Munitions Plant,” Sara added. “I understand it’s being guarded day and night. By a better watchman than Carl Oaks, I hope.”
Without passing the bridge, the girls turned downstream, searching the opposite shore. Before they had gone far, Sara beached the boat on a stretch of sand.
“It was along here that Burt found our canoe last year,” she explained. “If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll get out and prowl around a bit.”
“Aren’t we near Bug Run?” Penny inquired.
Sara pointed out the mouth of the stream which was hidden from view by a clump of willows.
“If you expect to be here a few minutes, Louise and I might pay Old Noah a flying visit,” Penny said eagerly. “We’re curious to learn what has happened to him.”
“I’ll be around for at least half an hour,” Sara replied. “Take your time.”
Penny and Louise set off along the twisting bank of Bug Run. Approaching the vicinity of the ark, they noticed many corked blue bottles caught amid the debris of the sluggish stream.
“I’ll bet a cent and a half that Old Noah still is on the old stamping grounds!” Penny remarked. “Sheriff Anderson probably hasn’t found a way to get rid of him. Why, unless a regular deluge floods this stream, the ark never could be floated out to the main river.”
“The sheriff could put Old Noah in jail.”
“True, but a great many people would criticize him if he did.”
A moment later the girls rounded a bend and saw the ark in its usual setting. A long clothes line had been stretched from bow to stern, and wet garments fresh from the wash tub, flapped in the breeze.
“Well, Noah is still here,” chuckled Penny. “He’s run up the white flag though! Or should we say the white flags!”
On the deck of the ark, Old Noah was so busy that he failed to note the approach of the two girls. He stood in the center of a ring of soiled clothes, laboring diligently over a tub of steaming suds.
As the girls reached the gangplank, a dog from inside the ark began an excited barking. Startled, Old Noah glanced up. Unnoticed by him, his long white beard slipped into the soapy water and he rubbed it vigorously on the washboard.
Scarcely able to control a giggle, Penny followed her chum aboard the ark. As Old Noah kept on scrubbing his beard she could not resist asking: “Excuse me, but aren’t you washing your whiskers by mistake?”
Surprised, the old man straightened to his full height. Squeezing the dripping beard, he carefully wrung it out. Next he produced a comb from his loose fitting brown pantaloons, and painstakingly unsnarled the tangles. Then turning to the girls, he greeted them with his usual dignity.
“Good morning, my daughters. I am glad you kept your promise to visit me again.”
“Good morning, Noah,” responded Penny, trying not to laugh. “We thought we would drop by and see if you were still here. I remember Sheriff Anderson said he was going to call on you again.”
The old man’s weather beaten face crinkled into deep wrinkles. “Ho, ho! So he did, but he reckoned without the Might of the Righteous. I was watching for him when he came.”
“I hope you didn’t mistreat him,” Penny said uneasily.
“When I observed his approach I untied my two hounds, Nip and Tuck, and hid myself in the forest. He was gone when I returned to the ark.”
“Likewise, part of his anatomy, I suppose,” commented Penny.
“Nip and Tuck did cause a commotion,” Old Noah acknowledged, “but they did him no harm. When he went away the sheriff left a cowardly note tacked to a tree. It said he would return to dispossess me. Before that happens, I will blow this ark to Kingdom Come!”
“How will you do that?” inquired Penny, rather amused.
“With dynamite.”
“Do you have any aboard the ark?”
Old Noah smiled mysteriously. “I know where I can lay my hands on all I’ll need. When I was hiding in the woods yesterday, I saw where they keep it.”
Penny and Louise glanced quickly at each other. While it was possible that Old Noah was talking wildly, the mention of dynamite made them uneasy. If it were true that he had come into possession of such a cache, then obviously it was their duty to report to the authorities.
“Who hid the dynamite?” Penny asked.
“I do not rightly know,” replied Old Noah. “It may have been those strangers who were pestering me last night. They came to my ark and were very nosey, asking me about this and that.”
“Not officers?”
“They had no connection with the Law, speaking of it with great contempt.”
“How many men were there, Noah?”
“Two.”
“And they came by car?”
“Bless you, no,” replied Noah wearily. “They arrived in a motorboat. Of all the pop-poppin’ you ever heard! It almost drove my animals crazy.”
“After they talked to you, the men went away again in their boat?”
“They started off, but as soon as they had turned the bend they switched out the motor. I wondered what they were up to, so I sneaked through the bushes and watched.”
“Yes, go on!” Penny urged eagerly as Old Noah interrupted the narrative to wash another shirt. “What did the men do?”
“Why, nothing,” answered the old man. “They just pulled the boat up into the bushes and went off and left it.”
“The boat is still there?” Penny demanded.
“So far as I know, my daughter.”
“Will you show us where the boat is hidden?” pleaded Penny. “And the dynamite cache too!”
“I am very busy now,” Old Noah said, shaking his flowing locks. “I have this pesky washing to do, and then, there’s all the animals to feed.”
“Can’t we help you?” offered Louise.
“I thank you kindly, but it would not be fit work for young ladies. If you will return tomorrow, I gladly will guide you to the place.”
Penny and Louise tried their powers of persuasion, but the old man was not to be moved. In the end they had to be satisfied with a description of the site where the motorboat had been hidden. Old Noah stubbornly refused to tell them more about the cache of dynamite.
Finally, the girls said goodbye to the master of the ark, and hastened toward the river to join Sara. They were greatly excited by the information they had obtained.
“Old Noah may have talked for the fun of it,” Penny declared as they struggled through the underbrush. “If not, I think we’ve stumbled into an important clue—one which may have a bearing on the bridge dynamiting case!”
