Читать книгу Don Sturdy on the Ocean Bottom or The Strange Cruise of the Phantom - Stratemeyer Edward - Страница 3
ОглавлениеCHAPTER I
Reckless Driving
“Say, Uncle Frank, did Uncle Amos tell you of the letter he received last week from California?” asked Don Sturdy of Captain Frank Sturdy, as the two, together with Don’s sister Ruth, sat in the family automobile at the Hillville station. They had driven there to meet an expected visitor.
“You mean the one that invited him to take part in an expedition to explore the bottom of the sea off the California coast and to gather specimens for the new marine museum of that State?” returned the captain. “Yes, Amos spoke of the matter to me, but we haven’t had time yet to discuss the matter thoroughly.”
“You don’t know then whether he intends to accept or not?” went on Don.
“No,” replied his uncle, “though I think he’s rather favorably inclined toward the proposition. It’s a big thing and needs to be looked at from every angle before one decides either for or against.”
“The bottom of the sea!” exclaimed Ruth with a little shudder. “Sounds awfully creepy and crawly to me. Water snakes and sharks and those things with waving tentacles—ugh! They’re enough to give one the horrors. I do hope that Uncle Amos won’t go.”
“There’s the girl of it,” remarked Don. “Getting cold feet at the first hint of danger! Wanting to wrap the men of the family in cotton wool so that they shan’t be hurt! Where would science and discovery be today, if the men had listened to their women and stayed snug and safe at home?”
Ruth made a face at him.
“They might do a great deal worse than listen to their women,” she declared with spirit, “and when you talk of science and discovery, you make me laugh. What you’re really after is change and thrill and danger and excitement.”
“Now, now, Sis,” protested her brother.
“It’s so, just the same,” persisted Ruth. “A lot you cared about science and discovery when you risked your life among the gorillas and the head-hunters! You were just aching for adventure.”
Don looked a little disconcerted, and his discomfiture was increased by the quizzical glance that his uncle shot at him.
“Did she hit the bullseye, Don?” the latter asked teasingly.
“I wouldn’t go as far as that, though I’ll admit she grazed the target,” returned Don. “Of course, I’m fond of adventure——”
“Of course,” mocked Ruth.
“But all the same,” Don went on, “I—ah, there’s the train at last!” as a long whistle came from up the track.
“It’ll be too bad, if Teddy isn’t on it after all this waiting,” remarked Ruth.
“Oh, he’s on it, all right,” asserted Don. “Gee, maybe I won’t be glad to see the old rascal!”
He jumped out of the car and ran through the waiting room of the station and out on the platform, where the train from New York was coming to a stop with a great grinding of brakes.
It was a long train and Don hurried along the platform, his eyes running hastily over the passengers that came from each car, in the hope of discovering the one he sought.
He had begun to fear that his friend, Teddy Allison, had missed the train, when he caught sight of a youth with flaming red hair coming down the steps of a car carrying a couple of valises, while a porter behind him bore as many more.
Teddy caught sight of Don at the same moment that Don perceived him, and threw up his hand to wave to him.
As he had forgotten for the instant that that hand held a heavy bag, Teddy’s gesture was an unfortunate one, especially as he was just in the act of taking the last step from car to platform.
He staggered, sought to save himself by dropping a bag and clutching the rail, stumbled over the dropped bag and did a bit of ground and lofty tumbling that would have done credit to an acrobat, sprawling finally at full length on the platform.
Don rushed forward to pick him up.
“Hurt anywhere, Brick?” he asked, using the nickname applied to Teddy because of his red mop of hair.
“Only in my dignity,” replied Teddy with a sort of shamefaced grin, as he looked around to see if many had witnessed his mishap.
“Oh well, if that’s all, it doesn’t matter,” laughed Don. “You never had enough of that to count, anyway.”
Teddy made a pass at him which Don adroitly ducked.
“Give me one of those bags,” said Don, grabbing the one that Teddy had dropped. “For the love of Pete!” he exclaimed, as he noticed the porter’s load. “How much baggage have you, anyway? What are you going to do with it all? Open a general store? Or set up housekeeping?”
“I oughtn’t to satisfy such vulgar curiosity,” replied Teddy, “but I’m too big-hearted to let anyone suffer, no matter how low or ignorant he may be. So let me whisper into your shell-like ear that I’m bringing this stuff along so as to be ready for any emergency. If any of you globe trotters should start off in the middle of the night, Teddy Allison is going to be Johnny-on-the-spot, all ready to the last shoestring and belt buckle.”
“From all of which I gather,” said Don, “that the trip you were thinking of taking to Mongolia with your father has petered out.”
“The trip hasn’t, but I have,” returned Teddy regretfully. “I certainly talked plenty to be permitted to go along and bring you with me. If Dad had had the say, I’d have carried my point, too. But, you see, he himself made connection with the expedition only at the last moment because one of the party fell sick, so he didn’t feel free to press the matter of taking us along.”
“It’s too bad,” observed Don. “I’d have liked nothing better than to have gone to the land of Chinese. Chopsticks, you know, and tom-toms and coolies and rickshaws and sampans and all sorts of queer things.”
“Maybe bandits and pirates,” put in Teddy wistfully. “There’d sure be no lack of thrills on that trip.”
“Never mind, old scout,” Don comforted him. “There’s something else in the wind right now that may develop into a bang-up proposition. But here we are,” he said, as he paused before the door of the automobile. “Look what I found on the station platform, Ruth,” he grinned, indicating Teddy. “I wish you could have seen him getting off the train.”
“I don’t care how he got off as long as he’s here,” smiled Ruth, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks dimpling as she extended her hand to Teddy. “Awfully glad to see you, Teddy. Seems an age since you were here last. Step right in.”
Captain Frank’s greeting was quite as cordial, for Teddy was a prime favorite of his, as he was of every member of the Sturdy household.
“Welcome to our city,” smiled the captain, as he opened the door of the car. “Just throw your bag in here, jump in yourself and we’ll get going.”
“Bag!” exclaimed Don. “That’s a good one. There are four bags at least in sight, and I don’t know but what he has a trunk or two in the baggage room.”
“Nary a trunk,” denied Teddy, “but it is an imposition to ask you to take all these bags in the car. I’ll arrange for an expressman to bring the lot of them up to the house.”
“Nothing of the kind,” declared the captain. “We can make room for one or two of them in the tonneau and strap the others on the running board. Lend a hand there, Dan,” he directed Dan Roscoe, the chauffeur and man of all work about the Sturdy place.
Dan complied, and in a few minutes the baggage was neatly stowed and secured.
Don mounted beside the driver, while Teddy ensconced himself between Ruth and her uncle in the tonneau.
To Captain Sturdy he related, as he had to Don, the reasons for his failure to connect with the Mongolian Expedition.
The captain listened intently.
“Just as well, perhaps,” he remarked, when Teddy had finished his tale of woe. “Things out that way are in bad condition just now. With civil war and famine threatening, Mongolia is a good place to keep away from. Once get in and it might not be so easy to get out.”
“There wouldn’t be any fun, if it were too easy,” observed Teddy with conviction.
Captain Sturdy laughed.
“A hopeless case!” he chuckled. “I wonder if you and Don will ever get your fill of adventure.”
“You needn’t talk, Uncle Frank,” pouted Ruth. “You’re just as keen for it as they are. You know you are.”
It was the boys’ turn to laugh, and the captain did not deny the impeachment.
“I guess it’s in the Sturdy blood, my dear,” he said, patting her hand. “We certainly feel the lure of the unknown and answer the call of the wild. The same is true of Teddy, too. His father is a daring explorer, always on the go, and Teddy is just a chip off the old block.”
“Don was telling me that there was something in the wind up here, something that might be a bang-up proposition,” said Teddy, looking at the captain hopefully.
“Something in the water rather than in the wind,” smiled the captain. “Yes, there is something more or less definite. Professor Bruce has received an offer to head a marine expedition—perhaps it would be more correct to say a submarine expedition—to secure specimens from the ocean’s bed for a California museum.”
“Gee, that would be swell!” exclaimed Teddy, his imagination catching fire at the prospect. “Davy Jones’s locker! The graveyard of ships! Sunken treasure! Sponges! Coral rocks! Mermaids——”
There was a general laugh.
“Don’t let your imagination run away with you,” remarked the captain. “All the mermaids you’ll see will probably be armed with terrible rows of teeth. You’ll make tracks when you see them coming.”
“Likely enough,” admitted Teddy. “But what about this offer? Has the professor accepted it?”
“Not yet,” replied the captain, “but he’ll probably reach a decision in a day or two.”
“And if he takes it up, will there be room for Don and me in the expedition?” queried Teddy.
“That’s more than I can say,” replied the captain. His eyes twinkled. “I don’t know exactly what your scientific acquirements are,” he drawled. “For instance, are you an ichthyologist?”
“No,” replied Teddy, “I’m an Episcopalian.”
He joined himself in the roar that followed.
“But really,” he went on, “there ought to be some place where Don and I would fit in. We won’t charge a cent for our services, which ought to count for something.”
“You’ll have to put it up to the professor,” said Captain Sturdy. “I imagine he’ll have a pretty free hand in choosing those who are to go with him. Perhaps he can squeeze you in somewhere, though for the life of me I don’t see how he can use anyone but a trained scientist. Still—hello, there! Look out! Sheer off!”
His shout was evoked by a car that was passing them at a reckless rate of speed and pressing so close that it threatened to drive them into a ditch at the side of the road.
The captain’s protests passed unheeded.
The oncoming auto scraped the side of the Sturdy car, crumpled a mudguard as though it had been so much paper, tore Teddy’s bags from the running board and scattered their contents in the road!
