Plotting in Pirate Seas | Page 4

intriguing boy or man. He began cautiously, but got warmed up as
he went on, and made a whirlwind finish.
It was characteristic of him, thus, not to plunge into any wild and
desperate attempt to rescue his father, until he had time to puzzle out
the situation and work out a plan of action. He began by reading all the
papers and documents he had taken from his father's knapsack. This
was a long job, for the papers were full of allusions to subjects he did
not understand. It was nearly noon before he had digested them.
Then he lay on his back and looked up through the tracery of leaves
overhead, talking aloud so that the sound of his own voice might make

his discoveries clearer.
"The way I get it," he mused, "Father's on the trail of some plot against
the United States. This plot is breaking loose, here, in Haiti. This
Manuel Polliovo's in it, and so is a negro General, Cesar Leborge.
There's a third, but the papers don't say who he is.
"Now," he went on, "I've two things to do. I've got to find Father and
I've got to find out this plot. Which comes first?"
He rolled over and consulted one or two of the papers.
"Looks like something big," he muttered, kicking his heels meditatively.
"I wonder what Father would say I ought to do?"
At the thought, he whirled over and up into a sitting posture.
"If it's dangerous to the U. S.," he said, "that's got to come first. And I
don't worry about Father. He can get out of any fix without me."
The glow of his deep-hearted patriotism began to burn in the boy's eyes.
He sat rigid, his whole body concentrated in thought.
"If Manuel Polliovo has captured Father," he said aloud, at last, "it
must have been because Father was shadowing him. That means that
Manuel doesn't want to be shadowed. That means I've got to shadow
him. But how?"
The problem was not an easy one. It was obvious that Stuart could not
sleuth this Cuban, Manuel, without an instant guess being made of his
identity, for white boys were rare in Haiti. If only he were not white. If
only----
Stuart thumped on the ground in his excitement.
Why could he not stain his skin coffee-color, like a Haitian boy? If
sufficiently ragged, he might be able to pass without suspicion. It might
be only for a day or two, for Stuart was sure that his father would
appear again on the scene very soon.

This much, at least, he had decided. No one was going to plot against
his country if he could help it. There was not much that he could do,
but at least he could shadow one of the conspirators, and what he found
out might be useful to his father.
This determination reached, the boy hunted for some wild fruit to stay
his appetite--he had nothing to eat since the night before--and settled
down for the rest of the afternoon to try and dig out the meaning of his
father's papers, some of which seemed so clear, while to others he had
no clew. It was characteristic of the boy that, once this idea of menace
to the United States had got into his head, the thought of personal
danger never crossed his mind. The slightly built boy, small even for
his age, the first sight of whom would have suggested a serious
high-school student rather than a sleuth, possessed the cool ferocity of a
ferret when that one love--his love of country--was aroused.
His first step was clear. As soon as it was dark enough to cover his
movements, he would go to the house of one of his father's friends, a
little place built among the ruins of Cap Haitien, where they had stayed
two or three times before. From references in some of the letters, Stuart
gathered that his father had confidence in this man, though he was a
Haitian negro.
As soon as the shadows grew deep enough, Stuart made his way
through the half-grown jungle foliage--the place had been a prosperous
plantation during French occupation--and, a couple of hours later, using
by-paths and avoiding the town, he came to this negro's house. He
tapped at the same window on which his father had tapped, when they
had come to Cap Haitien a week or so before, and Leon, the negro,
opened the door.
"But, it is you, Yes!" he cried, using the Haitian idiom with its
perpetual recurrence of "Yes" and "No," and went on, "and where is
Monsieur your father?"
"I don't know," answered Stuart, speaking in English, which he knew
Leon understood, though he did not speak it. "I have missed him."

"But where,