Читать книгу Don Sturdy on the Ocean Bottom or The Strange Cruise of the Phantom - Stratemeyer Edward - Страница 4

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There was a scream from Ruth and angry shouts from the others as the force of the impact almost made the Sturdy car turn turtle.

“Are you hurt, Ruth?” asked Don anxiously.

“No,” replied Ruth tremulously, “but dreadfully scared. I thought we were all going to be killed.”

“No credit to that driver that we weren’t,” stormed Captain Sturdy, bristling with indignation. “I’d like to have hold of him for just one minute.”

“Swell chance of that!” exclaimed Don. “He hasn’t even looked around. He’s streaking it for all he’s worth.”

“One of those hit and run skunks,” growled Teddy. “See what he’s done to my bags. Scattered my things all over the road.”

“I’ll help you gather them up,” said Don. “By the way, did any of you folks see the number of that car?”

None had, it developed, except Dan, the chauffeur.

“I didn’t see the whole of it,” he explained. “But it had ‘83’ as the last figures.”

“Was it a New York license plate?” the captain asked.

“No,” replied Dan, “it commenced with a ‘C.’ Looked to me like ‘Cal.’ or maybe ‘Col.’ I can’t be certain.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter much,” observed the captain. “We’ll probably never see the driver again, as he’s putting on speed to get as far away from us as possible. If I had him, I’d do my best to have his license taken away from him. Fellows like him are a menace to all decent people.”

“Has he hurt the car much?” asked Ruth, who was still trembling from the shock of the experience.

“Crumpled up the mudguard and scraped the paint,” reported Dan, who had been sizing up the damage, “but as far as I can see, he hasn’t hurt the running qualities of the car. Can’t tell for sure, however, till I look it over carefully after we get home.”

In the meantime, Don and Teddy had been gathering up the contents of the broken bags and stowing them in the tonneau.

“The valises themselves are done for,” stormed Teddy, whose temper was as fiery as his hair. “Here’s a pair of field glasses that has been knocked flooey and a part of my best collapsible fishing rod broken. Gee, I’d like to take it out of that fellow’s hide!”

“Hard luck, old man,” sympathized Don. “Still, it might have been worse. One of us or all of us might be on our way to the hospital by this time.”

“Or to the undertaker’s,” added Captain Sturdy. “But climb in now, if you boys have gathered up everything, and we’ll get going.”

Don and Teddy resumed their seats, Dan threw in the clutch, and the party proceeded on its way.

In a little while they had reached the Sturdy home. They passed through the gate and were halfway up the drive, when, as they turned a curve, Ruth gave vent to an exclamation.

“We have visitors, I guess,” she remarked, as she pointed to a car standing in front of the main door. “I wonder who it can be. I don’t think Mother was expecting anybody.”

Teddy leaned out with sudden interest.

“Geewhillikens!” he exclaimed. “I’ll bet a dollar to a plugged nickel that it’s the same car that ran into us a few minutes ago. Yes, it is,” he went on, his excitement growing. “See, there are the figures ‘83’ at the end of the plate and there’s ‘Cal.’”

They were near enough now to the rear of the car to see that Teddy was correct. The legend on the plate was “Cal. 24,683.”

The occupants of the car stared at each other in surprise.

“What in the mischief is the fellow doing here?” asked Don blankly.

“We’ll soon find out,” declared Captain Sturdy, as he jumped out of the car with an agility surprising in so large a man. “Come right along with me.”

They followed him into the house and proceeded in the direction of the library, from which came the sound of voices.

One of them they knew for that of Professor Bruce, quiet, cultured, restrained.

The other was unfamiliar to them, and there was something about it that aroused instinctively dislike and distrust. It was loud, arrogant and full of self-complacency and conceit.

“As I was sayin’, purfessor,” the voice boomed, “they ain’t any question of money in this. We’re willin’ to shell out all the coin that may be necessary. We know that you’re the real cheese when it comes to this science stuff an’ we want to get our hooks into you before you come to a showdown with the other guys. We want to knock them fellers for a goal.”

There was a moment’s pause before the professor replied.

“I do not care to be drawn into any controversy,” Professor Bruce observed. “Strife of that kind is distasteful to me. Until your visit today I had no idea there was any thought of a rival expedition.”

“Well, you know it now, since I’ve given you the lowdown,” interrupted the visitor.

“I had been inclined to accept the first proposition,” went on the professor. “In the first place, it came from the Governor of the State. That gave it an official touch that is always of value in an expedition of that kind. Then, too, it gave me a free hand in the selection of my assistants. In the third place, it provided ample funds for the carrying out of the project.”

“Ample funds!” snorted the visitor. “Where is the money to come from? From the treasury of the State. It’s always easy to be generous with other people’s money.”

“I understood that the legislature had put the money at the Governor’s disposition,” interposed Professor Bruce mildly.

“Yeah?” sneered the man. “He’s got them birds eatin’ out of his hand. They’re just rubber stamps. Whatever he wants they say ‘yes’ to.”

“I take it that you’re no friend to the Governor,” observed the professor. “I suppose you belong to the opposite political party.”

“You’re just shoutin’ I do,” bellowed the visitor. “Why, I wouldn’t be found dead with the bunch that bozo trains with. But that ain’t neither here nor there. This ain’t politics. It’s business. We’ve got the kale an’ money talks. I’m makin’ you a straight up an’ down proposition.”

With a premonitory cough to announce his coming, Captain Sturdy entered the room, followed by Don and Teddy.

Professor Bruce looked up and greeted the captain with an expression of relief.

“Not intruding, I hope,” remarked the captain, looking from the professor to the visitor.

In the latter he saw a burly, thick-jowled man, loudly dressed, wearing much jewelry. He had shaggy brows, jutting jaw and a domineering manner. He glowered at the newcomers as though he did not greatly relish the interruption.

“Not at all,” declared the professor in answer to the captain’s question. “I was wishing that you were here. This is Mr.—Mr.—” he looked at the visitor inquiringly.

“My moniker is Rufus Gold,” the latter said curtly. “I told you that when I first came in.”

“True,” murmured Professor Bruce. “I had forgotten. Pardon me. Frank, this is Mr. Gold. Mr. Gold, this is Captain Sturdy, a relative of mine by marriage.”

There was no warmth on either side in the acknowledgment of the introduction. The captain ached to bring up the matter of the automobile collision, but refrained for the moment out of courtesy to the professor.

“Take a seat, Frank, and you too, boys,” invited Professor Bruce. “I think you will be interested in the matter that Mr. Gold and I were discussing.”

“I didn’t know that this was to be a mass meetin’,” remarked Gold ungraciously.

The professor flushed, but retained his temper.

“Hardly that,” he said. “I have no secrets from Captain Sturdy. We seldom embark on any enterprise without talking it over with each other.”

He then turned to the captain.

“Mr. Gold has called with an unusual proposition, Frank,” he said. “Perhaps he will be willing to re-state it for your benefit.”

The visitor scowled and hesitated.

“I ain’t keen about sellin’ my cabbages twice,” he said surlily, “but here’s the long an’ short of it. I’m here to make an offer to the purfessor to do some scoutin’ on the ocean bed—collectin’ specimens and things like that for a museum. We got to have a highbrow with a big reputation, an’ that’s why we hit on the purfessor.”

“Very interesting,” remarked the captain. “It’s rather a singular coincidence that the offer should come so closely on the heels of the other—the one that came from the Governor of California.”

“My offer’s a mighty sight better than that guy’s,” declared Gold, “an’ if it ain’t, I’ll make it so. Whatever the Governor’s offer is, I’ll top it. The sky’s the limit.”

“I don’t think the professor would care to put himself up at auction,” observed the captain icily. “There are other things than money that would determine his course of action. You speak of this as ‘my offer.’ Is it your own personal proposition, or are you acting for another?”

“I’m actin’ for Mr. Erasmus Rust,” Gold said impressively. “Mr. E-ras-mus Rust!”

He spoke the name almost with awe, and looked about him to see the effect produced upon others by the mention of it.

No one, however, was apparently impressed.

“Yes?” said the captain politely, “and who is Mr. Erasmus Rust?”

Gold looked not only pained but shocked.

“Ain’t that the limit?” he mourned. “‘Who is Mr. Erasmus Rust?’ Why, man alive, Erasmus Rust is the biggest wheeze in the State of California. Got more money than he can count. Dollars ain’t no more to him than pennies is to most folks.”

“I see,” said the captain. “A very rich man. What else is he?”

Gold looked nonplussed for a moment. Evidently to be a rich man was, in his judgment, enough for anybody.

“He’s—he’s a public benefactor, that’s what he is,” averred the visitor. “He’s always willin’ to spend his money for the good of the people——” Here his tone became positively unctuous. “You wouldn’t believe what he’s willin’ to do for the people of California. He’s figgerin’ now on buildin’ the finest marine museum there is in the United States, fillin’ it with specimens of all kinds of sea plants an’ fish an’ corals an’ the like an’ turnin’ it over to the people of his State without its costin’ them a single cent. Not one single red cent! That’s the kind of man Erasmus Rust is, an’ don’t let no one tell you diff’runt.”

He glared about as though challenging contradiction.

“One of Nature’s noblemen,” murmured Teddy to Don.

Don nudged his friend in the ribs.

“No wise cracks,” he advised him.

“That is certainly very generous of Mr. Rust,” remarked the professor thoughtfully, “but isn’t it rather superfluous, when the State itself has undertaken to do the same thing? Would it not be better for Mr. Rust to spend his money for some other purpose equally beneficial to the people?”

“An’ let the Governor hog all the credit for establishing the big marine museum?” cried Gold. “Not on your life! That big stiff would point to it as one of the great achievements of his administration. He ain’t a-goin’ to get the chance, not if Erasmus Rust can beat him to it. That’s what I’m here for, purfessor, to get you to turn down this State offer an’ take up with ours. Your name and reputation would make the Rust Museum lay all over any other. We’d knock the Governor into a cooked hat, make him look ridic’lous.”

He spat the last words out with venom.

The captain and the professor looked at each other. It was clear that both were disgusted with the coarseness of the man. Erasmus Rust, whoever he might be, had been unfortunate in the choice of an emissary.

It was the captain who spoke.

“It seems to me,” he said coldly, “that there is more of politics in this than there is of science and philanthropy. The main purpose seems to be not so much to establish a great museum for the benefit of the people as it is to hurt the prestige of the Governor of California, to ‘knock him into a cocked hat,’ to use your own phrase.”

“And on the other hand to bring Mr. Rust into the limelight as a public benefactor,” added the professor.

“No such thing,” snapped Gold. “If he gets hurt in the mix-up, that’s his hard luck. Nobody’s aimin’ to do him dirt. Not but what he ought to be fired from his job. He’s a four-flusher, if there ever was one, and the sooner his term is over, the better it will be for the people of California.”

“I had an impression that the Governor was a man of character and of marked ability,” observed Captain Sturdy.

“You don’t know that bird as I do,” Gold blurted. “But all this rag chewin’ ain’t gettin’ us anywheres. I’ve made you a bang-up offer, purfessor. How about it?”

The professor reflected.

“I will discuss the matter with my brother-in-law and Captain Sturdy and let you know,” he said, not wishing to hurt by a blunt refusal.

“Got to ask permission, eh?” sneered Gold. “Ain’t big enough to act on your own——”

At the gross insult Captain Sturdy leaped from his chair.

As he flings himself across the room to collar the offender, it may be well, for the benefit of those who have not read the preceding volumes of this series, to tell who Don Sturdy was and what had been his adventures up to the time this story opens.

Don Sturdy, now in his seventeenth year, was born and reared in Hillville, near New York City. He was a muscular, lithe, clean-cut youth, with brown hair and eyes and a fair complexion, much bronzed, however, by life in the open.

He was the son of Richard Sturdy, noted explorer, and Alice Sturdy. His sister Ruth was two years his junior. Two bachelor uncles, Captain Frank Sturdy, big game hunter, and Professor Amos Regor Bruce, scientist, often visited them. When Don was thirteen, they took him on a trip to the Sahara Desert. The first volume of this series, “Don Sturdy on the Desert of Mystery,” tells about their rescue of Teddy Allison’s father, captured by Arabs. Later on they went to Brazil to search for Don’s parents and sister, who had been shipwrecked near that coast, and the volume, “Don Sturdy with the Big Snake Hunters” depicts their encounters with wild animals of the Amazonian Jungle. In Brazil Don found his sister, and they left for Egypt, where their parents had gone, Mr. Sturdy having sustained a head injury in the shipwreck. They found, however, upon arrival, that their father, half-demented, had disappeared. They traced him to the Valley of the Kings. Here the party was captured by bandits and trapped in the “Tombs of Gold,” and the third volume of the series tells how they escaped; of the finding of Mr. Sturdy, his recovery, and the journey home.

The spirit of adventure persisted in Don, however, and he took a hazardous trip by airship to the North Pole. In “Don Sturdy in the Land of Volcanoes,” his thrilling adventures among the volcanoes of Alaska are related. “Don Sturdy in the Port of Lost Ships” depicts his fearful experiences in the Sargasso Sea.

In the volume, “Don Sturdy in Lion Land,” are related Don’s travels into darkest Africa, into Gorilla Land, and his encounters with savage beasts in the lion-infested regions of the Dark Continent.

Greater risks even than these were incurred on a trip to Patagonia, perhaps the least known of the countries of the world. What terrifying animals he faced in that wild region—what ordeals he was compelled to undergo—the captivity he endured at the hands of savages—the daring and ingenuity that finally accomplished his escape are told in the preceding volume of this series, entitled: “Don Sturdy In the Land of Giants.”

And now to return to the turmoil that arose in the library of the Sturdy home as the captain hurled himself at the man whose coarse insult to the professor had roused him to furious anger.

Don, too, had been equally quick, and before the astonished Gold fairly realized what was happening, an arm on either side was grasped by powerful hands and he was being propelled rapidly to the door.

He struggled to free himself, but they held fast and in a moment he was at the threshold.

“Out you go!” roared the captain. “Nobody can talk that way in this house and get away with it. If you ever show your face here again——”

“Frank! Don!” pleaded the professor, hurrying to the door. “No violence! Please. No doubt Mr. Gold spoke thoughtlessly and is willing to apologize——”

“He’d better be,” growled the captain. “It’s either that or a mighty quick trip to the out-of-doors.”

“I—I’ll apologize,” stammered Gold, as he shrank before the blaze in the captain’s eyes. “I spoke before I thought——”

“That’s all right,” said the professor generously, eager to bring a distressing scene to an end. “We’ll just forget that anything unpleasant has been said or done.”

Don and the captain relinquished their hold of Gold’s arms. The latter stood for a moment uncertainly and then picked up his hat.

“Well, you’ve got my offer, anyway,” he muttered. “Here’s my card,” as he handed it to the professor. “Let me hear from you by letter or telephone. If you know a good thing when you see it, you’ll take it up. Now I’ll be going.”

“Not just yet,” said the captain, barring the way. “I have a matter to settle with you on my own account.”

Gold stared at him in astonishment.

A tense hush fell on the room.