The Boy Scounts on a Submarine | Page 8

cheek, and pointed to
his heavy, bristling mustache.
"That must come off," he said. "There is a job for you in the
Administration Building where Colonel Bright has his office. You will
clean," as the man scowled, "I know you hate it. Never mind! Care not!
We are in trust. You must do all as I say. I am your superior officer."
"What do you do, Excellency?" asked the dark man with something of
a sneer.
"I come to buy horses, Ledermaim, and my father and Colonel Bright's
father, they were friends. I bring a letter from my father in Switzerland.
Unfortunately the Colonel's father, he is dead; so I make acquaintance
with his son. Do you see, Ledermann and Adolph, and you too, Weasel,
that I take for myself the hardest job? Now attend. Under no
circumstances are you to speak to me. If it is necessary to communicate
with me before the close of the fair you will wipe your faces with one
of these drab handkerchiefs. Then you will come here, right here; no
place nearer, and wait for me. I will keep all the papers instead of
dividing them as before. You, Ledermann, have plans of all the plants
of any size about here. Thanks." He filed the papers away. "Adolph,
give me the fair ticket, and the envelope with the blank paper. It looks
innocent enough, doesn't it? All white paper; no writing. Yet there is
news indeed on that good, innocent, little sheet if one knows how to

make it tell. I'll take them, Adolph."
He waited with a slim hand stretched across the table, while Adolph
plunged a hand into an inside pocket with a grin, felt in another
concealed pocket, and returned to the first with his face growing grave
and pale,
The Wolf watched him with steely eyes, suspicion dawning in them.
"Too slow; too slow, Adolph!" he smiled.
Adolph looked up. "It is not here! It is gone! Some one has stolen it!"
he stammered.
The Wolf snarled. "Oh, no, good Adolph!" he said silkily. "Look
again."
Adolph, with fingers that shook, turned his pockets out one by one,
then looked into the Wolf's yellow eyes with a gaze pleading yet sullen.
"They are gone," he said huskily.
With a flashing motion the Wolf reached across the table and clutched
Adolph by the throat. In a steel grip that he struggled hopelessly to
loosen he was helpless as a child. Brutally the Wolf bore him back to
the wall, where he beat his head savagely against the door frame. A
look of savage glee shone on the Wolf's smooth countenance.
Ledermann leaped across the floor and seized the Wolf's arm.
"Off!" cried the murderer, and with his hand dealt Ledermann a
stinging blow in the face. He fell back. Behind the overturned table, the
Weasel sat looking at the floor. It was nothing to him what they did. He
shrugged his thin shoulders.
Suddenly the Wolf stopped and let Adolph slip to the floor, where he
lay unconscious.
The Wolf kicked him. "I won't kill you, you swine!" he said. "You have
got to find that paper. Then I'll see about it. Pick him up, somebody. I

can't trust myself to touch him. Lost that paper--of course it is written
in invisible ink; but suppose some blundering fool should get it near a
fire?"
"They won't," said Ledermann as he worked over Adolph. "These
stupid country people, what would they know about invisible ink? It
may never be found at all. It may even now be trodden in the dust."
"Let us hope," said the Wolf. "Adolph shall retrace his steps inch by
inch until the paper is found, even so much as a tiny scrap of it, so that
I may know where it is."
"He will find it in the dust," repeated Ledermann and threw water over
Adolph, while the Weasel stood up and tightened his belt. Then the
Wolf counted out to him the money needed for his short journey to
Ithaca. The counting was interrupted with directions and threats. The
Weasel drew a long breath of relief when he was finally dismissed, and
was allowed to slip out into the night, where he turned toward Syracuse.
Ledermann still worked over the unconscious man.
The Wolf called at headquarters and was pleasantly received, with the
formula that was to overthrow the world lying in his pocket. Days went
by, and Monday came, and flags flew, and bands played, and crowds
gathered, and the New York State Fair opened at last.
The Wolf went unmolested; indeed he was an honored guest. Quite safe
he was for just one whole day. Tuesday morning, as he drove in his fine
car, splendidly dressed, his yellow eyes half hidden behind smoked
glasses, a