[Gutenberg 42728] • Forbidden Cargoes

Mystery Stories for Boys

Forbidden Cargoes By ROY J. SNELL

CHAPTER I. A STRANGE MESSAGE

In a plain board shack with a palm thatched roof which had the Caribbean Sea at its front and the Central American jungle at its back, a slim, stooping sort of boy, with eyes that gleamed out of the dark corners exactly like a tiger’s, paced back and forth the length of a long, low room. His every motion suggested a jaguar’s stealth.

It was Panther Eye, a boy who was endowed with a cat’s ability to see in the dark, and who spent much of his young life in India and other tropical lands. He also found himself quite at home in Central America. Nevertheless, at this moment he was in deep trouble.

The palm thatched shack boasted but one room. As the boy paced the mahogany floor of this room he passed a desk of roughly hewn rosewood. A small steel safe stood in one corner, the door slightly ajar. Before it on the floor lay a litter of papers, a few bundles of letters and a sizeable roll of currency. The boy paused to consider this litter.

“It was the map they wanted,” he told himself. “Easy enough to see that. They didn’t even look at the money, nearly a thousand dollars. The map! They knew we could do nothing without the map. The dirty dogs! If only Johnny Thompson were here!” Again he paced the floor.

What was to be done? His thoughts were in a tangle. The thieves who had broken into the safe were now well away in the jungle. There was no time to be lost. He’d catch them, he was sure of that. A jaguar couldn’t escape him, much less a man. Yet the map might be destroyed. Without it nothing could be accomplished. Thousands were at stake, the treasure of a lifetime. And some one dearer to Pant than life itself was scheduled to lose. All day in that stuffy office he had waited for Johnny. Now evening was near.

CONTENTS

1\. A Strange Message

2\. An Underground Sea

3\. A Strange Dark Room

4\. Johnny Thompson in Jail

5\. Tottering Walls

6\. An Earthquake Within a Cave

7\. Johnny Wins a Friend

8\. An Ancient Castle in Ruins

9\. Creeping Shadows

10\. Camp Smoke

11\. Battling Against Odds

12\. Destruction

13\. A Thousand Pearls

14\. Hope Springs Eternal

15\. Unseen Foes

16\. In Battle Array

17\. Pant’s Problem Increases

18\. Two Blade Johnny

19\. The Unwilling Guest

20\. Hail and Farewell

21\. On the Trail of the Pearls

22\. A Startling Revelation

23\. Treasure at Last