# The Steel Horse/Chapter 17

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CHAPTER XVII.
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.
FROM the morning Joe Wayring and his friends left Ogden up to the time they wheeled over the old familiar road that led into Mount Airy, not a single thing happened to mar the pleasure of their trip. I do not mean to say that the roads were always good, or that they were never weather-bound; for those petty annoyances fall to the lot of every tourist, he expects them, and knows how to make the best of them. But they found no more train-wreckers along the route, nor were there any Buster bands or Matt Coyles to be afraid of. They spent many a night in camp; their pocket rifles brought them all the young squirrels they cared to eat; they encountered tramps on nearly every mile of the way, and although they never had the least trouble with these social outcasts, they listened to a story from the lips of two of them that interested ​them exceedingly, and proved to Roy Sheldon's entire satisfaction that the clear-sighted Joe Wayring had hit pretty close to the mark when he declared that Roy's presence aboard the White Squall had not been brought about by accident.
Their destination was Plymouth, a little seaport town situated on a bay of the same name. They spent a day roaming about the wharves, looking at everything there was to be seen, especially the ships, which would hardly have attracted more than a passing notice from them, had it not been for Roy's experience in New London harbor. They went aboard of one, looked all over it, marveled at its strength and more at the power of the winds and waves which could so easily make a wreck of man's best handiwork. They turned up their noses at the dingy forecastle, smelling of tar and bilgewater, and wondered how any one could bring himself to bunk in it during a long voyage.
"I would much rather sleep on a bed of hemlock boughs," said Joe, "and go out in the morning and catch my own breakfast from the ​sparkling waters of a lake or brook, and serve it up on a piece of clean bark. If I had been in love with the sea when I came here, I would be all over it now."
"It's rough, isn't it?" said Roy, as he and his companions went down the gangplank to the wharf; and he trembled all over when he thought how near he had come to being carried to distant countries against his will. "The little I saw of a sailor's life while I was on the White Squall convinced me that the officers are more to be dreaded than the forecastle. They can be as brutal as they please when they are out of sight of land, and there's no law to touch them."
"There's law enough," answered Joe, "but the trouble is, a sailor man can't use it. Suppose he has the officers of his vessel arrested for cruelty while he has the rest of the crew at hand to prove it against them. They are put under bonds, but the case is postponed on one pretext or another, and while that is being done, how is Jack going to live? Of course the minute he gets ashore he makes haste to spend his wages, and when his last dollar is ​gone what recourse has he but to ship for another voyage? Then the case is called, and there being no one to prosecute, the captain and his mates are discharged and go aboard their vessel to play the same game over again."
"That's about the way those lightship men put it when I threatened to have Captain Jack punished for kidnapping me," said Roy. "That may be law, but it isn't justice. I wonder where the White Squall and Tony and Bob are now."
"I shouldn't think you would care," replied Arthur. "I know I shouldn't if I had been treated as you have."
"I don't much care what becomes of the ship and her officers, but I am sorry for the crew. I tell you that Tony and Bob were shanghaied the same as I was,"
Becoming weary of Plymouth and its surroundings at last, the boys took the road again, this time with their faces turned toward Mount Airy. They went back by a different route, as they intended to do when they set out; but they had another reason for it now. Money ​would not have hired them to return across the mountains and take their chances of capture by Matt Coyle and the Buster band. Now that they could think over their adventures with calmness, they were surprised at the ease with which they had slipped through those ruffians' fingers. They knew they couldn't do it again, and they would have gone home by rail rather than try the mountain route a second time. There was one thing about it, Arthur repeatedly declared: The man who wrote their guide-book must be posted so that he could warn wheelmen to keep away from Glen's Falls until the mischief-making squatter and his new allies had been arrested and lodged in jail.
On the afternoon of the second day after leaving Plymouth, the boys came suddenly upon a couple of tramps who had halted under the shade of a tree by the roadside to eat the bread and meat they had begged at the nearest farmhouse. But these men were not like the other tramps they had seen. They were sailors on the face of them, and looked out of place there in the country so far from salt water. Roy Sheldon was sure there was something ​familiar about them, and hardly knowing why he did so, he called out, as he moved past them, "Bob, Tony," whereupon the men jumped to their feet and stared hard at him without saying a word. They were evidently frightened, and would have taken to their heels if they had seen the least chance for escape.
"I declare, I believe they are Tony and Bob," said Roy, who was utterly amazed at the effect his words had produced upon the tramps; and turning about, he rode back to the tree under which they stood. "How in the name of all that's wonderful did you get stranded here?"
"Is—is it Rowe Shelly?" one of the men managed to ask.
"Yes, sir, they are Tony and Bob," exclaimed Roy, getting off his wheel and nodding at his companions. "Dusty as they are, I know them. What's the matter?" he added, as the men began backing away as if they did not want him to come any nearer. "You are not afraid of me, are you? I am not a ghost, and neither am I Rowe Shelly, although my name sounds somewhat like his, and I have ​been told that I look like him. I am a different boy altogether. Now let's have the straight of this thing before we go any farther. I saw you carried to sea on the White Squall. How did you escape from her, and where is she now?"
"At the bottom of the ocean," replied one of the men; and the boys thought from the way he spoke he was glad to be able to say it.
"At the bottom of—" began Roy, incredulously. "Serves her just right. She had no business to—but everything goes to show that you took me aboard of her on purpose to have me kidnapped. What have you to say about it? Sit down and eat your dinner. You can talk just as well, and you act as though you were very hungry."
"So we are, sir," said the one whom Roy had picked out, and who he afterward addressed as Tony. "We never done such a thing before, sir, but we had to come to it. It's no use trying to hide the truth any longer, for it has come out on us. Yes, sir; me and Bob did take you aboard that ship on purpose."
​"There, now," cried Joe, indignantly, while Arthur Hastings looked and acted as though he wanted to fight.
"But what object did you have in doing it?" continued Roy. "Who put you up to it—Willis?"
"He's the very chap, sir: but we've been punished for it, and we hope—"
"You've nothing whatever to fear from me, if that is what you want to say," interposed Roy, who was impatient to get at the bottom of what was to him a deep mystery. "You know how I got away, and here I am, safe and sound. Your actions proved that you did not think you were going to be shanghaied yourselves—what are you looking for?"
"You're right we didn't know it, sir," answered Tony, who pulled out his ditty-bag, and after a little fumbling in it drew forth a piece of soiled paper which he handed to Roy. "That, sir, is the letter I took to Cap'n Jack that night. If I had only known what was writ onto it, me and Bob would have kept clear of that ship, you may be sare. The cap'n dropped it on deck shortly after you went ​overboard, and I made bold to pick it up without saying a word to him about it. I thought it would come handy some day. Read it for yourself, sir, and you will see that me and Bob was innocent of any intention of doing the least harm to you, sir."
"Didn't you know that I was going to be kidnapped?" exclaimed Roy, almost fiercely. "You did. Everything goes to prove it; but you thought you could get me into trouble and slip off the ship without getting into trouble yourselves."
"Not a bit of it, sir," said Tony, with so much earnestness that Roy was almost ready to believe him. "Read that paper, and then I will tell you just what was said and done in my house on the beach while you was fast asleep upstairs."
The letter, which bore neither date nor signature, ran as follows:
"Captain Jack Rowan:—Knowing that you have been delayed nearly three weeks waiting for a crew, I send you three men who, I think, will be of use to you. Two of them used to be sailors, but the other is green and will have to be broken in. Ask no questions, but take them along. A Friend."
"Seems to me that there letter clears me and Bob of everything except taking you aboard the White Squall when we didn't want to do it," said Tony, after a pause. "We was as innocent as babbies of what happened afterwards."
"If you didn't want to do it what made you?" demanded Joe.
This brought Tony to the story he had to tell; and as I believe I can make it clearer to you than he did to Joe and his friends, I will tell it in my own language.
Rowe Shelly's guardian, who was fond of the water, kept a swift sailing-vessel as well as a steam yacht, and Tony and Bob Bradley belonged to it. The colonel furnished them a house, gave them regular employment during the yachting season, and in the winter time permitted them to make what money they could by shooting water-fowl at the lower end of the ​island for the New London markets. They knew nothing whatever of the colonel's private affairs. They had heard a good many rumors.
"I want to say a word right there," interrupted Roy. "Where did those rumors come from?"
The boys had seated themselves on the ground on each side of the sailors, who ate their dinner as they talked. Tony acted as spokesman, but his brother jogged his memory with a word now and then. The former could not say where the rumors came from, but the mischief was all done by an old sailor, who settled on one of the uninhabited islands in the harbor and went to fishing for a livelihood. Rowe Shelly chanced to run athwart his hawse one day while sailing about in his boat. He talked with the old fellow for more than two hours, and when he came home he exploded a bomb-shell in his guardian's ear. In other words, he told the colonel that there was no relationship between them; that he had no business with the money he was squandering; that his father had not been lost at sea, as the colonel affirmed; that he was still alive, and ​so was his mother; that they lived in Chelsea, Maryland; and that he was going to them as soon as he could get off the island.
"I know that was a sassy way for him to talk to the man who had always been so good to him, seeing that he hadn't no better evidence than an old sailor-man's unsupported word to back him up," said Tony, "but the way the colonel acted satisfied Rowe at onct that there was more'n a grain of truth in what he had heard. The first thing he done was to take away the boy's boat, and shut him up on the island as close as if it had been a jail, and his second, to get rid of the fisherman. How he done it nobody seems to know; but he wasn't never seen again, nuther by Rowe Shelly nor nobody else. But the mischief had been done, and the first thing we knowed, Rowe Shelly couldn't be found. How he got off the island nobody couldn't tell, but he and his bisickle was gone. They was gone for more'n two weeks; but Willis, who acts like he was as big a man on the island as the colonel himself, follered him up and ketched him with the help of detectives."
​"How did this fisherman happen to know so much about Rowe's father and mother?" inquired Arthur.
"He was shipmates with 'em; lived next door to them in some town down South," replied Tony. "He knowed the little boy, Rowe Shelly, and used to trot him on his knee and tell him stories of furrin parts, and he knowed well enough that there was some sort o' hocus-pocus about it, or the colonel wouldn't never had that money the old grandfather left. You see it sorter hurt the old feller when Cap'n Shelly, who was his only child, married a widder with a growed-up son against his will, and it hurt him, too, to have the cap'n keep on going to sea when he didn't want him to; and so he said that the cap'n shouldn't never have a red cent of his money. But when Grandfather Shelly found that he'd got to pass in his checks, and that the dark river was waiting for him, he gives in and willed all the money to the cap'n, provided he would settle down on shore."
When this happened, as you have already heard, Captain Shelly was at sea. His ship, ​the Mary Ann Tolliver, was lost, and as nothing was heard from him or any of the crew everybody supposed that all hands had been lost with her. This was the opportunity for the rascally step-son, and straightway he was up and doing. With his mother's full and free consent he was appointed Rowe's guardian and administrator of the property that had fallen to him, and then he was in clover. Finding that the boy's mother was in his way, and that she was strenuously opposed to any squandering of Rowe's money, he proceeded to rid himself of her presence. He did not exactly turn her out of doors, as Rowe thought he did, but he lost her—sent her away on a visit, and when she returned he wasn't to be found. He and Rowe were in Europe, and there they stayed until the guardian thought she had had ample time to die or forget him. Then he came back, bought an island in New London harbor, so that he could not readily be intruded upon and Rowe could not easily slip out of his grasp if he wanted to, and set himself up for a gentleman of wealth and leisure.
In the mean time Captain Shelly and some ​of his men, who had been picked up and carried to some distant port, returned, and the captain and his wife were reunited; but the former, being broken in health and spirits and ruined financially (every dollar he owned in the world went down with his ship), did not and could not make any very persevering effort to find out what had become of his scapegrace stepson and the little boy who was worse than orphaned. After a year or two spent in useless search he gave them up for lost; but others interested themselves in the matter, not for the purpose of aiding in restoring Captain Shelly to his rights, but simply to benefit their own pockets, and two of them, who succeeded in learning enough to keep Rowe's guardian in constant fear of exposure, were Willis and his son, Benny, who were given a home and paying situations on the island.
"If that isn't the biggest piece of villainy I ever heard of I wouldn't say so," exclaimed Joe, his face flushing with honest indignation. "Did you ever talk to Rowe Shelly about these things?"
"Who? Me?" cried Tony, in surprise. ​"Not by a great sight, sir. If I had, I would have been bundled off that there island so quick that I couldn't have told what my name was. I had a good home, and didn't want to lose it by meddling in things that didn't concern me."
"Well, your story agrees with the one Rowe told us on the night our friend was kidnapped and taken to the island, and I, for one, am inclined to believe it."
"I give it to you, sir, just as I got it," answered Tony. "You asked what them rumors was that we heard, and I have told you. If there wasn't no truth in 'em, what made the colonel act as he did—take the boy's boat away from him and keep him close about home, with orders to all of us from Willis to watch out for him?"
"That also confirms Rowe's story," said Arthur. "You know he told us he thought every one on the island was hired to keep an eye on him. We are all satisfied so far," he continued, turning to the old sailor. "Now, go ahead and tell us how you came to take Roy Sheldon over to that ship when you didn't want to?"
​"Me and Bob never served aboard that ship till we was shanghaied on her," answered Tony, "but we had heard enough about her to make our hair stand on end. She was so rotten in some places that you could jab a knife into her timbers the whole length of the blade, and the companies wouldn't put a cent of insurance on her, and nobody but such reckless men as Cap'n Jack and his mates would sail on her. They got good pay for doing it, and for shipping crews against their will and holding a still tongue about the vessel's condition. But she's gone now," said Tony, rubbing his horny hands together almost gleefully, "and nobody will ever be fooled with her again. She sprung a leak in less'n half a gale 'bout two hunderd miles off the Cape, and went down like a log spite of all we could do at the pumps. We kept her afloat for seventy-two hours, and just as we were nigh going down, the brig Sarah West took us off and brung us into Plymouth."
"Where are you going now?" asked Roy.
"Back to the island where our families is," replied Tony. "We ain't got no place else to ​go, but we ain't going to stay there. We'll take our dunnage and go somewheres else, for fear that the island may sink into the harbor with such men aboard of it. We dassent stay there no longer. If Rowe has got safe off, knowing what he does, he'll kick up a row there, and if they'll let me into court, I'd just like to shove this paper at the judge and ask him will he take a squint at it, if he wants to see what sort of a landshark that man Willis is. We are powerful glad to see you again," he added, extending his hand to Roy, who shook it cordially, "and to know you didn't come to no harm all along of our taking you aboard the White Squall."
After this Tony went on with his story, to which, in order to make it plain to you, I will add a few things that he did not know. They came out months afterward, but this is the place to speak of them.
Although the housekeeper and all the people who were on the jetty when the yacht arrived were willing to believe that Roy Sheldon was really Rowe Shelly, Willis himself was perfectly well satisfied that he and Babcock had ​made the biggest kind of a blunder. The question was: How should he get out of his difficulty? Willis looked everywhere for Benny, who was his right-hand man in all emergencies; but that worthy had gone over to the city that afternoon, and would probably return on a hired tug some time in the morning. You will remember that while Mrs. Moffatt was talking to Roy, and urging him to let her send up a lunch to that he might have a bite handy in case he became hungry before morning, the superintendent paced the room lost in thought. As he looked at the matter, it was absolutely necessary that Roy should be got rid of before daylight, and so effectually that no trace of him could be discovered. The superintendent's first thought was to drug him, put him into a boat, and shove him out into the harbor in time for the storm, which was already muttering in the distance, to blow him to sea. But that would involve too many risks of a rescue, and Willis at last decided to hold to his original plan and "take Tony into his confidence."
When he went downstairs with Mrs. Moffatt ​he left the house and hurried to Tony's cabin on the beach.
"The minute he come into the door I knew there was something the matter of him," said the sailor, "for I had never seen him look so queer and wild before; but how he ever made out to pull the wool over my eyes and Bob's as he done by the ridikilis tale he told us, is something I can't now get through my head. Nuther can Bob, and we've talked about it a hunderd times or more. Seems now that we'd oughter known it wasn't so, but we didn't. 'Boys,' says he, mighty soft and palavering like, but all the while acting as though there wasn't nothing wrong, 'I want you to do something for me. Two weeks ago Cap'n Jack Rowan of the White Squall borrered five hundred dollars of the old man (that was Colonel Shelly, you know), and the old man told me to be sure and get it of him before he sailed. While I was in the city I got a letter from the cap'n stating that if I would send for the money to-night, I could have it; so I want you and Bob to take Howe and go and get it. I'll give him an order for it. Be lively, for ​there'll be a gale on in an hour or so.' That was what Willis said to me and Bob; and although we didn't much like the idee of going aboard the White Squall, knowing what sort of a chap Cap'n Jack was, we told him we'd go, like a couple of fools. 'All right,' says he. 'You get the boat ready, and I'll go and tell Rowe to hurry up. But mind, you mustn't say one word to him where you're going. If you do, he'll stay ashore and I won't get that money.' And then what does that old scamp do," exclaimed Tony, with rising indignation, "but run up to the house and write this here letter to Cap'n Jack, telling him that hero was three men for him, and he'd best take us along without asking no questions."
"Then he came into the room where I was and told me a funny story, too," said Roy, who was listening with all his ears. "I should like to know who came in with him, and what the pair of them would have done if I had not awakened just as I did."
"I guess it was Benny," said Bob; and he guessed right. "Them two is both tarred with the same stick."
​Benny was ashore, as I told you, and by the merest chance met the detective Babcock, who made a clean breast of the whole business; whereupon Benny hired a tug, and started for home. By the time he got there he was as frightened as was his father, whom he met setting out for Tony's house.
"You needn't waste words with me," said the dutiful son, the minute he saw that his sire was about to begin a lengthy explanation. "I saw Bab, and he told me all about it. You are a pretty pair, I must say. Who is this chap who looks so much like Rowe, and what are you going to do with him?"
"His name is Roy Sheldon, and he is a Mount Airy wheelman," replied Willis. "I am going to send him to sea on the White Squall."
"The very plan I had in my own head," saie Benny, approvingly. "Who's going to take him there?"
"I thought of asking Tony and Bob. I'll offer—"
"Don't offer them a cent," interrupted Benny. "Tell them to go and get five ​hundred dollars that Cap'n Jack borrowed of the old man, and send this wheelman along as Rowe Shelly, to get it. Understand?"
No; the superintendent did not quite grasp his son's meaning, and he was afraid Roy might not be willing to personate Rowe Shelly. It took Benny a long time to explain, but he succeeded at last, and then he asked his father if there was not some way in which he could get a glimpse of Roy so that he could satisfy himself that a mistake had been made. This was the way he came to be introduced into the presence of the young wheelman, who was fast asleep. The moment Benny's eyes rested upon the boy's face he knew he had never seen him before.
"You've done it as sure as the world," said he, in a savage whisper. "Get rid of him. Send him to the White Squall, and have Tony and Bob shanghaied at the same time, or they will get you into deeper trouble. Wake him up, tell him you have found out who he is, and say that you're going to send him back to his friends. In that way you can get him off without any fuss, and—"
​Just then Roy stirred in his sleep, and Benny took to his heels, barely having time to close the door behind him before the boy was wide-awake.