Free The Mystery of the Chinese Junk by Franklin W. Dixon

Clams Dagget when he said this junk was nothing but junk!”
    Joe stifled the angry retort that rose to his lips, and Frank said, “Please be calm, everyone. We’ll get you safely back to Bayport.”
    â€œYou’d better!” the stout woman snapped.
    Meanwhile, the action of the bilge pump had stemmed the flood of water pouring into the compartment. The source of the leak was now visible—a gaping hole several inches in diameter.
    â€œHey!” a man in the bow called out. “You mentioned Clams Dagget. Isn’t that his boat over there?”
    A motor launch was speeding toward them. “That’s Clams, all right!” a high school youth confirmed.
    The girl beside him clutched his arm happily. “Thank goodness!” She sighed. “Now we’ll all be saved!”
    The other passengers cheered.
    The crew of the Hai Hau felt too disgusted and heartsick to comment. Joe and Tony had crawled down into the compartment below the afterdeck and were plugging the leak with socks and sweaters.
    â€œThat hole was no accident,” Tony muttered between clenched teeth. “Look!” He picked up a round piece of wood floating on the water in the compartment.
    â€œCheck,” Frank replied, disturbed. “Someone made it with a keyhole saw from the outside. After a while the wood gave way.”

    â€œPlease be calm,” Frank said. “We’ll get you
safely back to Bayport.”
    By the time the leak was stopped, Clams Dagget’s motor launch, the Sandpiper, had arrived within hailing range of the Hai Hau. In response to shouts from the junk’s passengers, he pulled alongside.
    â€œWhat’sa matter, boys? Havin’ trouble keepin’ that Chinese bathtub afloat?” Clams taunted with a sneering grin. To the others aboard, he added, “Just climb over into my launch, folks. I’ll get you to Rocky Isle safe and sound. I coulda told you that old hulk wasn’t seaworthy!”
    â€œYou did tell them!” Tony said angrily. “Maybe you had something to do with this leak, too!”
    â€œYou tryin’ to say I caused it?” Clams roared.
    â€œI sure wouldn’t be surprised!”
    The rest of the exchange was drowned out by the passengers clamoring for their money back. The boys refunded all fares, then assisted the people to climb over into the motor launch.
    As it sped away, the Hai Hau’s crew looked at one another in deep chagrin. Biff revved the outboard to top speed and they headed back to Bayport.
    Reaching a repair dock, the junk was hoisted out of water and thoroughly examined. The boys spent the next few hours pounding in a plug, covering it with a steel plate, and calking the patch securely. When they finished, the Hai Hau was as seaworthy as ever.
    â€œNeat job,” said Biff, wiping his hands on a rag. “But I’d sure like to know if Clams did saw that hole.”
    â€œWe can’t prove he’s the guilty party,” Frank reminded the others. “If those Chinese we tangled with in New York are here in Bayport, they might have done it.”
    Late that afternoon, after Frank and Joe had returned home, Jim Foy stopped at the house. He said he had brought a letter from his uncle in Chinatown. It contained information not only about George Ti-Ming, but Chin Gok as well, gleaned through the Chinese Benevolent Association.
    â€œBetter read it yourselves,” Jim advised.
    The report stated that Chin Gok and Ti-Ming were the New York agents for two rival Chinese export firms based in Hong Kong. Both firms had been in trouble with United States and British authorities on smuggling charges. During the past few years, however, Ti-Ming’s group seemed to have stayed within the law.
    â€œTi-Ming became a traveling salesman, so far as anyone knows, and is rarely in New York any more,” Mr. Foy concluded in his letter.
    The Hardys thanked him, and Jim left. That evening, the brothers