The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast - Victor Appleton (ready to read books TXT) 📗

illumination.

They adjusted the machine, and set the mechanism to go off about an hour after they had left the room. Then they went to find the shipping agent, to see if they could get any news of Joe's father.

But, to their disappointment, he was out, and none of the clerks could tell them what they wanted to know. They were directed to return the next day.

"More disappointment!" exclaimed Joe. "It does seem as if I was up against it, Blake."

"Oh, don't worry. To-morrow will do just as well as to-day. And you don't want to get in C. C.'s habit, you know."

"No, that's right. Well, what shall we do?"

"Let's look around a bit, and then go see how the camera is working."

They found so much to interest them in the streets of San Francisco that they did not go back to the hotel as soon as they had intended. When they did reach the street on which it stood they saw a crowd gathered.

"Look at that!" cried Blake.

"Yes! Maybe it's a fire!" exclaimed Joe. "Our camera----"

"There's no fire, or else we'd see some smoke," answered his chum. "But we'll see what it is. There's been some sort of an accident, that's sure."

They broke into a run, pushing their way through the throng about the front doors of the hotel. As they entered the lobby, they were surprised to see the clerk point his finger at them, and exclaim:

"There are the two lads now!"

Everyone turned to look at Joe and Blake, and a man, dressed in some sort of uniform, approached them.

"Are you the lads that have rooms sixty-six and sixty-seven?" he asked, sharply.

"Yes," replied Blake.

"Why, has anything happened there?" asked Joe.

"Well, yes, there has, and we thought perhaps you could explain."

"Have we been robbed?" burst out Blake.

"Robbed? No," answered the clerk. "But----"

"Perhaps I had better explain," put in the uniformed man. "I think I shall have to ask you boys to come with me," he went on.

"Come where?" Joe wanted to know.

"To police headquarters."

"What for?" burst out Blake. "We haven't done anything! We only came here to----"

"Be careful," warned the man in uniform. "Whatever you say may be used against you."

"Why--why?" stammered Joe. "What's it all about?"

"An infernal machine!" exclaimed the hotel clerk. "How dare you poke one out of the window, right toward one of our largest banks, and go out, leaving the mechanism clicking? How dare you?"

Joe and Blake staggered back, half amused and half alarmed at the strange charge.

CHAPTER XII (ON A LONG VOYAGE)

 

"This is a serious charge," went on the man in uniform, who was evidently from the police department. "We have had some dynamiting outrages here, and we don't want any more."

"Dynamite!" exclaimed the hotel clerk; "do you think it could be that, officer?"

"That's what it seems like to me," said the other. "I have investigated a number of infernal machines, and they all make the same sort of sound before they go off."

"Go off!" cried the clerk, while Joe and Blake were vainly endeavoring to get in a word that would explain matters. "If it's dynamite, and goes off here, it will blow up the hotel. Get it away! Porter, go up and get that infernal machine, and dump it in a pail of water."

"'Scuse me!" exclaimed the colored porter, as he made a break for the door. "I--I guess as how it's time fo' me to sweep off de sidewalk. It hain't been swept dish yeah day, as yit. I'se gwine outside."

"But we've got to get rid of that infernal machine!" insisted the clerk. "It's been clicking away now for some time, and there's no telling when it may go off. Get it, somebody--throw it out of the window."

"No! Don't do that!" cried the officer. "That will only make it go off the sooner. I'll get some one from the bureau of combustibles and----"

"Say, you're giving yourselves a needless lot of alarm!" interrupted Blake. "That's no infernal machine!"

"No more than that ink bottle is!" added Joe, pointing to one on the clerk's desk.

"But it clicks," insisted the clerk. "It sounds just like a clock ticking inside that box."

"And it's pointing right at the bank," went on the officer. "That bank was once partly wrecked because it was built by non-union labor, and we don't want it to happen again."

"There's no danger--not the slightest," cried Blake, while the crowd in the hotel lobby pressed around him. "That's only an automatic moving picture camera, that we set this morning, and pointed out of the window to take street scenes. It works by compressed air, and the clicking you hear is the motor. Come, I'll show you," and he started toward his room, followed by Joe.

"Is--is that right?" asked the hotel clerk, doubtfully.

"Are you sure it isn't dynamite?" inquired the officer.

"Well, if we're not afraid to take a chance in going in the same room with what you call an infernal machine, you ought not to be," said Joe, with a smile.

This was logic that could not be refuted, and they followed the boys to the room. There, just where they had left it, was the camera, the motor clicking away industriously. It worked intermittently, running for five minutes, and then ceasing for half an hour, so as not to use up the reel of film too quickly. Also, it made a diversity of street scenes, an automatic arrangement swinging the lens slightly after each series of views, so as to get the new ones at a different angle.

"Now we'll show you," said Blake, as, having noted that all the film was run out, and was in the light-tight exposed box, he opened the camera and showed the harmless mechanism. Several of the hotel employees crowded into the room, once they learned there was no danger.

The boys explained the working of the apparatus, and this seemed to satisfy the officer.

"But we were surely suspicious of you at first," he said, with a smile.

"Yes," said the clerk. "A chambermaid called my attention to the clicking sound when she was making up the room. I investigated, and when I heard it, and saw the queer box, and remembered that we had had dynamiting here, I sent for the police."

"We're sorry to have given you a scare," said Blake, and then the incident was over, and the crowd in the street dispersed on learning there was to be no sensation.

"Say, I think there's some sort of hoodoo about us," remarked Joe, as he and Blake sat in their room.

"Why, you're not going to come any of that gloomy C. C. business on me; are you?" asked Blake.

"Not at all," went on his chum. "But what I mean by a hoodoo is that something always seems to happen when we start out anywhere. We've been on the jump, you might say, ever since we lost our places on the farms and got into this moving picture business."

"That's so. And the latest is being taken for dynamiters."

"Yes. But if things are going to keep on happening to us I wish they'd take a turn and help me find my father," went on Joe. "You don't know how it feels, Blake, to know you've got a parent somewhere and not be able to locate him. It's--why, it's almost as bad as if--as if he were dead," and Joe spoke the words with an obvious effort.

"That's right," agreed Blake, and then there came to him the memory of what the lighthouse keeper had said about Mr. Duncan being implicated in the wrecking. If this was true, it might be better for Joe not to find his father.

"But he may not be guilty," thought Blake, and he mused on this possibility, while Joe looked curiously at his chum.

"Say, Blake," suddenly asked Joe. "What's the matter?"

"Matter? Why, what do you mean?" asked Blake, with a start.

"Oh, I don't know, but something seems to be the matter with you. You've acted strangely of late, ever since--yes, ever since we were at the lighthouse. Is anything troubling you?"

"No--no--not at all; that is, not exactly."

"You don't speak as if you meant it."

"But I do, Joe. There's nothing the matter with me--really there isn't."

"Well, I'm glad of it. If there is, and you need help, don't forget to come to me. Remember we're pards, and chums, not only in the moving picture business, but in everything else, Blake. Anything I've got is yours for the asking."

"That's good of you, Joe, and if you can help me I'll let you know. I didn't realize that I was acting any way strange. I must brighten up a bit. I guess we've both been working too hard. We need some amusement. Let's go to a moving picture show to-night, and see how they run things here, and what sort of films they have. We may even see one of our own."

"All right. I'll go you. We can't see that shipping agent until to-morrow. A moving picture show for ours to-night, then. Though, being in the business, as we are, it's rather like a fireman going around to the engine-house on his day off, and staying there--a queer sort of a day's vacation."

But, nevertheless, they thoroughly enjoyed the moving picture play, interspersed, as it was, with vaudeville acts. Among the films were several that Mr. Ringold's company had posed for, and several that the boys themselves had taken. The reels were good ones, too, the pictures standing out clear and bright as evidence of good work on the part of the boys and Mr. Hadley.

"Had enough?" asked Joe, after about an hour spent in the theatre.

"Yes, let's go out and take a walk."

"Feel any brighter?" went on Joe.

"Yes, I think I do," and Blake linked his arm in that of Joe, wondering the while, as they tramped on, how he should ever break the news to his chum, in case Joe himself did not find it out. "The only hope is that he isn't guilty," mused Blake, "and yet running away just before the accusation was made public looks bad, just as Mr. Stanton said. However, I'm not going to think about it." As long as it had gone thus far without any outsider giving away the secret to Joe, his chum began to feel that there was little danger.

"Well, you haven't any more infernal machines; have you, boys?" the hotel clerk asked them when they came in to get their keys. "Because, if you have, just keep quiet about 'em. I don't want to be awakened in the middle of the night with some one from the bureau of combustibles coming down here," and he laughed.

"No, we're all out of dynamite," responded Blake, in the same spirit.

He and Joe were early at the office of the sailing master, who made a specialty of fitting out vessels with crews. With a rather trembling voice Joe asked for information about Mr. Duncan.

"Duncan--Duncan," mused the agent, as he looked over his books. "Seems to me I remember the name. Was he the Duncan from somewhere down the coast?"

"The Rockypoint light," supplied Joe.

"Oh, yes, now I know. But why are you asking?" and the agent turned a rather suspicious look on Joe. "Is there anything wrong--is Mr. Duncan wanted for anything? I always try to protect my clients, you know, and