XXI
A Cry for Help
When the Hardy boys and their chums awakened that morning they found that the storm of the night before had increased in fury to such an extent that the mainland was no longer visible.
The island was completely isolated. As far as the eye could reach, the boys could see nothing but swirling sheets of snow.
“Looks as if we’ll have to stay indoors today,” said Frank, as he lit the fire.
“A nuisance!” Chet grumbled. “I thought we could go out in the iceboat this morning.”
“We’d probably get lost out in that storm. It certainly is blowing up a fine blizzard!” Biff remarked.
Joe looked out the window.
“I wonder how our boats are faring,” he said. “With a wind like that, they’re liable to be damaged.”
“I was thinking of that,” Frank replied. “After breakfast we had better go down and see that they’re all right.”
The meal over, the boys donned their outdoor clothes and set out from the cabin. The snow had drifted over the path and they were obliged to break a new trail down the slope toward the little cove in which the iceboats were left.
“What a dirty day!” exclaimed Chet. “I think we’re just as well off indoors in weather like this.”
“I should say so,” agreed the others.
They found that the iceboats were weathering the gale well. No damage had been done, but the boys took all possible precautions in making the boats secure. While they were doing this, Joe gazed out into the storm.
“I must be dreaming,” he said at last.
“Why?” asked Frank.
“It hardly seems possible, but I’m sure I saw an iceboat go speeding past, out in the bay. It was just a shadow in the snow.”
“What would an iceboat be doing out here on a day like this?” scoffed Chet. “You certainly must have been dreaming.”
The boys gazed out into the blinding wall of snow. They saw nothing, and they were just about to turn away, branding Joe’s statement as a false alarm, when they heard a loud crash.
“What’s that?”
The noise came from somewhere out in the storm, but it was so loud that the lads knew it had been caused by something not far from shore.
“There is something out there!” cried Joe.
“If it was an iceboat it must have been wrecked,” Frank declared. “I guess we had better investigate.”
They went on down the shore a short distance, still gazing out into the driving snow, but there was no solution to the mystery. They could see nothing, and they heard nothing but the howl of the wind. Frank turned up his coat collar.
“I don’t care to venture very far away from the island,” he said doubtfully. “It would be mighty easy to get lost out there.”
“I wonder what caused that crash!”
They were just about to give up the search when they heard a faint cry.
“Help! Help!”
It was a man’s voice.
“That settles it,” declared Frank. “There has been an accident out there and someone is hurt. He’ll freeze to death if we leave him out there.”
“We’ll get him. Listen again, fellows, and see where the sound is coming from.”
The cry was repeated. They judged that the man, whoever he was, was out in the blizzard, almost immediately in front of the place where they were now standing.
“Let’s go,” said Frank.
He took the lead, left the island, and plunged out into the snowy waste. The others followed. Once beyond shelter of the island they caught the full force of the wind. It came howling down on them, flinging snow about them in clouds. They could scarcely see one another, so furious was the blizzard.
“Help!”
“We’re coming!” shouted Frank.
In a few moments they could see a dark mass ahead.
“Iceboat,” grunted Joe. “I told you so. All smashed up.”
The iceboat lay on its side, its mast broken in two, its sails torn to ribbons, its understructure smashed. It had evidently been going at a good rate of speed and had overturned when it swung too far over in the wind. They could see the figure of a man pinned beneath the wreckage.
Hastily, the boys knelt down to extricate the victim. When Frank saw who the man was, he gave a shout of surprise.
“Hanleigh!”
“Get me out of here,” snarled Hanleigh. “My leg is broken.”
The lads wasted no time in dragging their enemy from beneath the wreckage of the iceboat. He was groaning with pain.
“I can’t walk!” he moaned. “You’ll have to carry me. My leg is broken.”
The boys raised Hanleigh on their shoulders. There was no use trying to save the iceboat. It was wrecked beyond all chance of repair.
“How did you come to be out here on a day like this?” demanded Frank, as they started the journey back to Cabin Island.
Hanleigh made no reply. He was moaning with pain. His right leg hung limply, but Frank’s practiced eye saw at a glance that it was not broken.
“Sprained his ankle, most likely,” he said to Joe.
“Lucky I wasn’t killed,” groaned Hanleigh. “I was going at terrific speed, and I couldn’t get the boat stopped. I tried to lower sail and the wind turned the whole boat over on top of me.”
“Anybody who goes iceboating in a storm like this deserves whatever happens to him,” observed Chet unsympathetically.
Hanleigh was a heavy man, and by the time the boys reached the island they were forced to stop and rest. Then, puffing from their labors, they raised the injured man to their shoulders again and began to climb up the slope.
“I’m glad you heard me shouting,” muttered Hanleigh. “I would have frozen to death out there.”
“A lucky chance for you that we heard you at all,” Joe said. “If we had been up in the cabin we would never have heard a whisper.”
Frank nudged his brother.
“Lucky for us, too,” he said. “Now we’ll be able to make him talk.”
At last they reached the cabin. They put Hanleigh on one of the beds, and then Frank examined the injured leg. As he had suspected, it was not broken, although the ankle was badly sprained. Having bathed it and put liniment and a bandage on the injured limb, Frank looked down at Hanleigh.
“You’re all right. Don’t make such a fuss. It’s only a sprain.”
“Lucky it wasn’t worse. My, I’m glad you boys heard me calling.”
“Pretty nice to have friends near at hand, isn’t it?” said Frank. “Now that you’re here, Hanleigh, I think you’d better tell us why you were snooping around the island in the first place.”
“I wasn’t coming to the island,” returned Hanleigh lamely.
“As if we’ll believe that!”
“Now, boys,” said Hanleigh placatingly, “let’s forget all our little differences and let bygones be bygones. You have saved my life and I’m very grateful to you. I didn’t mean you any harm.”
“Why were you coming here today?” insisted Frank.
“I’ll tell you. After what happened the other day, I worried a lot. I was afraid you lads might think I was up to something crooked, and I wanted to make things square with you. So I decided to come here and make friends with you. And then I was going to look for that pocketbook I lost.”
“Was that the only reason?”
“Absolutely the only reason.”
“What interests you here so much?” asked Joe.
“I’m interested in the island because I want to buy it. There is no other reason beyond that.”
“Why did you steal our supplies, then?”
“Now, boys,” said Hanleigh, “what’s the use of going into all that? I didn’t take your supplies. I had nothing to do with it. I don’t see why you should accuse me of a thing like that.”
“Bluff!” said Frank. “Nothing but bluff! Your pocketbook story is a fairy tale. Well, Mr. Hanleigh, you’re in a bad fix, you know. You won’t be able to get back to town unless we take you there, and I’m warning you that unless you tell us the reason for your visits here, we intend to bring you in and turn you over to the police on a charge of trespass.”
Hanleigh’s eyes narrowed.
“You wouldn’t do that?”
“Wouldn’t we? You’d better tell us what you know.”
“I don’t know anything. You’re just persecuting me. I merely came out here to make friends with you this morning and you won’t give me a chance.”
“We know you too well. What’s it to be, Mr. Hanleigh—are you going to talk or are you going to jail?”
The victim groaned miserably.
“I don’t see why you try to make everything so unpleasant for me,” he complained. “You have me at your mercy and you’re just taking an unfair advantage.” He rubbed his sprained ankle tenderly. “I’m tired. I want to go to sleep.”
“Perhaps after you’ve had a sleep, you’ll think better of it.”
Hanleigh shrugged. He removed his coat, folded it very carefully and placed it under his head.
“Do you want a pillow?” asked Chet.
“Hang your coat up on the wall,” Frank suggested.
“No. No. I’m quite all right,” returned Hanleigh hastily. “I’m quite comfortable as I am. I wish you boys would leave me alone. I want to sleep.”
He placed his head on the folded coat.
The boys moved away.
“We can’t pump him,” whispered Frank. “Better leave him alone for a while.”
With a great deal of groaning and muttering, Hanleigh composed himself for slumber. In a short while his heavy breathing told the boys that he was asleep.