Guilt of the Brass Thieves - Mildred Augustine Wirt (most popular novels TXT) 📗

recognizing it by the pattern its lights made above the water. The ferry had finished its passenger run, and now apparently was coming upstream to anchor for the night.

As Penny watched the boat, she took new hope. If only she could signal Captain Barker or Sally! Unless the ferry changed course, it was almost certain to pass the grass patch. However, with the water shallow there, it would give the area a wide berth.

“Even if I shouted for help, no one aboard would hear me,” she reasoned. “But I’ll have to try something! I’m finished if I stay here.”

Straight up the river came the Queen. Penny could see a man in the lighted pilot house, but no one was visible on the decks. The ferry was traveling at a rapid speed.

Penny decided to wait no longer. Creeping to the very edge of the grass, she ducked under water, and started to swim. Her strength had gone even more than she realized. Arms and legs were so stiff they barely could press against the water as she stroked. A few feet and she was forced to come to the surface.

“There she is!” shouted Sweeper Joe. Bringing the boat around, he started directly for her.

Penny swam with all the power at her command, stroking deep and fast. Not daring to look back, she could hear the dip of Sweeper Joe’s oars.

Straight toward the deepest part of the channel, she propelled herself. Her crawl strokes were jerky, but they carried her along. And she had calculated well. Aided by the current, she would intercept the path of the oncoming River Queen.

From the water, the ferryboat looked like an immense monster as it steamed majestically up the river. Not wishing to attract attention to himself or his companions, Joe shipped his oars and temporarily gave up the chase. But he remained close by, watching alertly. Should the ferryboat fail to see or pick up Penny, he would be after her upon the instant.

Treading water, the girl shouted for help and waved an arm. Her voice was weak even to her own ears, and could not possibly carry to the pilot house of the Queen. Would her frantic signals be seen? The night was dark, and she was not yet in the arc of the vessel’s lights.

Penny swam a few more strokes, then treaded water again, and signaled frantically. The River Queen did not slacken speed.

“They haven’t seen me!” she thought desperately. “It’s useless.”

Now a new danger presented itself. The Queen had swerved slightly so that Penny was directly in its path. Still she had not been seen. Looming up in gigantic proportions above her, the ferry threatened to run her down.

CHAPTER
21
RESCUE

Fearful that she would be killed, Penny screamed and waved. Straight on steamed the River Queen, so close now that she could see Sally Barker on the starboard deck. But the girl was gazing away from her, toward Sweeper Joe and the other drifting boat.

“Help! Help!” screamed Penny in one last desperate attempt to save herself.

Her cry carried, for she saw Sally whirl around and stare intently at the dark water ahead. Then she shouted an order to her father. There came a clanging of bells, and the Queen swerved to port, missing Penny by a scant ten feet.

Great waves engulfed her, and she fought to keep above the surface. Her strength was practically gone. She rolled over on her back, gasping for breath.

Then she saw that the Queen had greatly reduced speed and was turning back on her course. A lifeboat also was being lowered.

“They’re going to pick me up!” Penny thought, nearly overcome by relief.

The next minute Sally and a sailor were pulling her into the boat.

“Why, it’s Penny! And she’s half drowned!” she heard her friend exclaim.

Then she knew no more.

When she opened her eyes, Penny found herself in a warm, comfortable bed. Sally stood beside her with a cup of steaming hot soup.

“You’re coming around fine,” she praised. “Drink this! Then you’ll feel better.”

Penny pulled herself up on an elbow and took a swallow of the soup. It was good and warmed her chilled body. She gulped the cupful down.

“Sally—”

“Better not try to talk too much now,” Sally advised kindly. “How did you get into the water?”

The question aroused Penny, bringing back a flood of memories. She suddenly realized that she was in Sally’s cabin on the River Queen and the ferry was moving.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“You’re safe,” Sally said soothingly. “You were swimming in the river. We nearly ran you down. Lucky I saw you just in time and we picked you up.”

“Yes, I know,” Penny agreed. “But where are we? Near the Harpers?”

“Oh, no, we passed their place long ago. We’re far upriver.”

Penny struggled up, swinging her feet out of the bunk. She saw then that she was wearing a pair of Sally’s pajamas, and that her own wet garments hung over a chair.

“We must turn back!” she cried. “Tell Captain Barker, please! Oh, it’s vitally important, Sally!”

Sally was maddeningly deliberate.

“Now don’t get excited, Penny,” she advised. “Everything will be all right.”

Penny resisted as Sally tried to push her back into bed. “You don’t understand!” she protested. “Sweeper Joe, Claude Harper, and Clark Clayton are expecting to make their get-away tonight. They’re the ones who have been stealing brass from the Gandiss factory. It’s all cached in the basement of the Harper house—or was unless they’ve dumped it.”

“Penny, are you straight in your head? You know what you’re saying?”

“I certainly do! I went there this afternoon. When I learned too much, they tried to hold me prisoner. I escaped by the river—hid in the grass patch. But they followed me there, and were about to get me, when the River Queen steamed by.”

“I did see two small boats there. Just before you shouted I wondered what they would be doing at this time of night.”

“Sweeper Joe and Clark Clayton have been dumping the stolen brass! Unless police stop them before they dispose of it all, not a scrap of evidence will be left! All those men expect to leave town tonight!”

“Thank heavens, we have a ship-to-shore radio telephone!” Sally cried, thoroughly aroused. “I’ll have Pop call the police right away!”

She bolted out the cabin door.

Every muscle and joint in Penny’s body ached, but there was no time to think of her misery. Her own clothes could not be put on. Searching in Sally’s wardrobe, she found a sweater and a skirt, and undergarments she needed. By the time her friend returned, she was dressed.

“Penny, you shouldn’t have gotten up!” Sally protested quickly.

“I can’t afford to miss the excitement,” Penny grinned. “Hope you don’t mind lending me some of your clothes.”

“Of course not, and if you must stay up, you’ll need a pair of shoes.” Sally found a pair of sandals, which although too large, would serve. After Penny had put them on, she said: “Let’s go to the pilot house, because I want you to tell Pop exactly what happened.”

“Did you notify police?”

“Pop sent the message. It may take a little while, but police should be at the Harpers’ almost anytime now.”

“Those men saw me taken aboard this boat,” Penny worried. “I’m afraid they’ll get away before the police arrive.”

The girls climbed to the pilot house where Captain Barker had just turned the wheel over to a helmsman. All members of the crew remained aboard, for with the Queen late on her run, there had been no opportunity as yet to put the men ashore.

“We may need all our hands tonight,” Captain Barker predicted. “No telling what may develop. I have one of those feelings.”

“Now Pop!” reproved Sally. “The last time you made a remark like that, we smashed a rudder. Remember?”

“Aye, I remember all too well,” he rejoined grimly.

Urged by Sally, Penny related everything that had happened at the Harpers’, and told of her endurance contest in the grass patch.

“We’ll head back that direction and see what’s doing,” Captain Barker offered to satisfy her. “Maybe we’ll catch sight of those rascals in their boats.”

Although the Queen cruised slowly near the shoal area where Penny had encountered adventure, there was no sign of any small boat. The ferry crept dangerously close to the grass patch.

“Watch ’er like a cat!” Captain Barker warned the helmsman. “Cramp her! Cramp her!”

When the man did not react speedily enough, he seized the wheel and helped spin it hard down. The Queen responded readily, moving into deeper waters.

Satisfied that there were no small boats in the vicinity, Captain Barker, headed upstream toward the Harpers’. Across the water, lights were to be seen on both floors of the two-story river house, but so far as could be discerned, no boats were tied up at the pier or docks.

“The place isn’t deserted, that’s certain,” Penny declared, peering into the wall of darkness. “How long should it take the police to get there?”

“If the radio message we sent was properly transmitted, they should be on their way now,” the captain replied.

Sally, impatient for action, was all for taking a crew and descending upon the house and its occupants. Puffing thoughtfully at his pipe, her father considered the proposal, but shook his head.

“We have no authority to make a search,” he pointed out. “Any such action would make us liable for court action. Just be patient and you’ll see fireworks.”

Knowing that to stand by near the Harpers’ pier would warn the house occupants they were being watched, Captain Barker ordered the Queen to turn downriver toward the main freight and passenger docks.

An excursion boat, the Florence, passed them, her railings lined with women and children who had enjoyed an all-day outing and were returning home. The steamer tied up at the Ninth Street dock and began to disgorge passengers.

Then it happened. Penny saw a sudden flash of flame which seemed to come from the hold of the excursion ship. The next instant fire shot from the portholes and began to spread.

Captain Barker gave a hoarse shout which sent a chill down her spine.

“The Florence!” he exclaimed huskily. “Her oil tanks must have exploded! She’ll go up like matchwood, and with all those women and children aboard!”

CHAPTER
22
CAPTAIN BARKER’S COURAGE

Never did a fire seem to spread so rapidly. In less than three minutes, as those aboard the River Queen watched in helpless horror, the Florence became a mass of flames from stem to stern. Terrified passengers jammed the gangplank as they tried to crowd ashore. Some of them leaped from the excursion boat’s high railings to the dock below.

“Her mooring lines are ablaze!” Captain Barker shouted a moment later.

“And the freight sheds are catching afire,” Penny added, observing a telltale line of flame starting from the flimsy wooden buildings along the wharf, directly back of the dock where the Florence had moored.

The blazing sheds worried Captain Barker far less than the fact that the mooring lines had caught fire. If the Florence should be cut loose from the dock, helpless women and children would be carried out onto the river in a flaming inferno.

“Why don’t the fire boats get here!” Sally murmured nervously. “Oh, this is going to be a dreadful disaster if something isn’t done to save those helpless people!”

At the bridge leading to the pilot house, Captain Barker stood tensely watching, his hand on the signal ropes.

“There go the mooring lines!” he shouted. “The current should bring her this way!”

As the Florence slowly drifted away from the blazing wharf, men and women began to leap over the railings into the dark waters.

“Man the lifeboats!” Captain Barker ordered his crew tersely. “I’m going to try to get a tow line on ’er!” He signaled the engine room, and the River Queen began to back rapidly toward the flaming excursion boat.

Penny and Sally ran to help