“Hey, fellow! What you do?” The voice came from among the pines, and Gus turned to see a dark-skinned, black-eyed young man, of about twenty-five or more, coming toward him. Gus stopped.
“You shoot in these woods?” asked the man.
“I reckon I might an’ I reckon I do if I kin find any durn thing fer t’ shoot,” said Gus, easily falling into the native vernacular.
The man approached and the boy quickly observed that the pocket of the loose coat, worn even this hot day, bulged perceptibly, and the man put his hand within it. He showed an interest in the shotgun and extended his hand.
“Where you get so fine gun, eh?” he questioned.
“Man give her t’ me fer beatin’ him at shootin’.” This was literally true, the said man being Mr. Grier. “He’s a sportin’ feller, but he don’t shoot no more. Hain’t seen him round these here parts fer two year.”
The fellow took the fowling-piece and looked it over. He said:
“I buy her, eh?”
“You couldn’t buy her if you had her heft in gold,” said the boy. “An’ you couldn’t shoot her, anyway—not to hit anything. Could you get a bird with her goin’ like a bullet through these pine trees? Shucks! I kin.”
“No! Yes? I get you shoot for me, eh?” handing back the gun.
“Shoot fer you? How?”
“You don’t like law policemans, eh?”
“You wouldn’t like ’em if they chased you fer shootin’ when the game laws was on.”
“I think of that. You come into woods along of me, now, eh? I show you what do and how make large lot money. Big! And maybe how shoot policemans to keep away. Big money you get.”
“Lead me to it!” said Gus, his swift guess at what might be coming making him shove in a less backwoodsy phrase.
Without another word the man started along a tortuous and narrow path and Gus followed for more than half a mile. They were just off the thoroughfare when they started, but the youth could hear the distant booming of the ocean waves on the beach before they stopped.
To the right, with a roof seen above the low underbrush of young pines, holly and sweet gum, was a building of some kind toward which the path turned abruptly. A hundred yards ahead the woods ceased, and Gus knew that beyond were the ever-shifting sand dunes crowned with their short-lived scrub oaks or pines and tufts of beach grass which bordered a wild and lonely shore for many miles. Twelve miles to the south was a somewhat popular seaside resort.
Gus had not crossed the woods at this spot, though he had at some other very similar places. He had been all along the beach and had boated on the thoroughfare clear to the inlet. This was nowhere deep enough for even a large sloop. But he was thinking less of this than of a very possible opportunity that seemed to loom ahead.
“What your name?” asked the Italian.
“Sam is my name,” said Gus.
“Now then, Sam, you stay here. If some man who no business has here come to look, you give order to go—see? You say this your father’s ground and no—what you call?—trespass. All this day you stay. To-morrow you come, also. Two dollar you get each day, eh?”
“Thought it was big money. Mebbe I’ll have t’ shoot somebody an’ I will, quick. But——”
“We give three dollar, Sam, and you stay with us. If not and somebody comes you get nothing but this.” The man slapped his pocket. “But no, we friends, eh? And you will shoot?”
“You bet I will!” said Gus, and meant it. But whom would he shoot? He was not saying.
The man went toward the building and presently came back with a modern, high-powered rifle. He edged off through the woods to the left. After a while he came back with another fellow and they fell to talking in a language which Gus could not understand. They stopped for the new man to look Gus over and the boy turned his head to gaze at none other than his late schoolmate and bitter antagonist, Luigi Malatesta!
The general resemblance between the two men made Gus know that he had been talking to the older brother. Luigi, the younger, went off. At that distance he could not have recognized Gus, though for one moment the boy had a queer feeling, a real bit of fright, but not enough to rob him of the quick sense to be ready with his gun if his enemy had guessed his identity. On second thought Gus felt pretty sure that if he kept his ragged hat well pulled down Luigi would never know him.
And Gus was tremendously elated, so much so that he could hardly keep from prancing or slapping himself; but the danger of what he meant to do, and to do quickly, kept him from undue exuberance.
The elder Malatesta brought one other fellow, evidently an American, to take a squint at Gus. Gus called the Italian over:
“How many of you got here, hey? I don’t want t’ shoot one of——”
“Not any more; three of us; you four.”
“What is all this fuss fer?” asked Gus.
The fellow seemed to ponder a moment. “I tell you,” he said, as though with sudden conviction. “In the hut yonder is crazy man. Our brother, yes. We love heem, ver’ much. But he malsano—insane—lika fury. And we disgrazia. But he not go to a silo—hospital and treat bad. Oh, no! We swear it! They want getta heem. We hid heem and give heem treatment—medicine, lika say great doctore. Doctore come two day—more tardo. We guard brother ver’ fierce—fight—fight! No let go—no let policeaman come. See?”
Gus nodded slowly. It was a well-told yarn, a plausible lie. In a good cause could he not take a turn at that?
“By cracky, you’re dead right t’ make ’em mind their own bizness! It’s your bizness, ain’t it? I’d serve ’em that-away, too. I’ll bluff ’em, an’ shoot, too, if I got t’. Where’s these other two standin’?”
The man indicated a spot to the left, another beyond the cabin, and his own position toward the beach. They probably stood on sentry duty most of the time. Gus was given the most dangerous place, the one most likely to be the way of approach. Well, he’d better act, and quickly, if he didn’t want the officers of the law to step in ahead and spoil his own plans.
Gus waited until he felt sure the men had taken their places again. Then he contrived a neat bit of strategy that was almost too simple. He meant to get a peep in yonder building, or hut, as the elder Malatesta had called it, and he meant to do this at once. Rapidly and silently he sneaked through the woods until he stood close behind the American gunman who sat drowsily on a log, his gun across his knees.
“Say, bo, get next. They’s a couple o’ men sneakin’ through the woods round beyon’ you. They ain’t comin’ my way. Lay low an’ watch ’em.” The man crouched.
Gus crept back and then out toward the beach where, by sheer good luck, he came across both Malatesta brothers talking. When they were still at a little distance from him he told them the same story and instantly the elder was on his guard while the younger brother left, crouching as he progressed toward his station. Gus, also crouching, went back quickly.
The boy felt sure that these fellows were armed and that they would remain fixed for a very considerable time—all of them well out of sight of the building. Cautiously at first, then almost running, Gus followed the path right up to the door of what was really a stout log cabin, the one window barred with heavy oaken slats, recently nailed on, and the door padlocked. Gus went straight to the window, thrust aside a bit of bagging that served for a curtain and peered within. Speaking hardly above a whisper, he said:
“Hello, in here! Who are you? Is it Tony Sabaste?”
“Well, what do you want? Who are you?”
Gus felt his heart almost leap in his bosom. The voice may have been a little huskier, with an accent of suffering and despair, but it was recognizable.
“Keep very quiet, Tony. I’m not supposed to be here, but out yonder, guarding the path. Paid to do it, you understand? But lie low until to-morrow. Then——”
“But tell me; I seem—I—who can you be? Oh, what——?”
“Oh, you don’t know me, sure enough. I’m Gus, Tony—Gus Grier. Bill Brown and I are down here to get you. We—, but that must keep. Lie low, old chap. I’ve got to get away now and go awfully careful, but it’ll be all right——”
“Oh, Gus! My friend Gus! You here and for me? I believed the world—but no matter now. Oh, my good friend Gus, you will not never give up? You will—oh, my friend——”
“Go slow, Tony, not so loud! Do you think we would come this far and then go back on you? I must get away now—right off. Lie low.”
Gus felt an almost irresistible desire to break open the window or the door at once and get his friend out. Then, if need be, fight their way to safety, but common sense told him that the certain noise of doing such a thing would be heard and perhaps his effort defeated, with great danger to himself, and Tony, too. If there had been but one guard or even two—but three were too great odds.
Back he went to his position, and there he watched for the rest of the day, elated with his discovery of Tony, saddened by the delay, grinning at the thought of the Malatesta and their confederate compelled to watch, almost motionless, for the supposed prowlers.
At last darkness threatened. Those small banditti, the mosquitoes, as bloody-minded as the Malatesta, began to sing and to stab. The assassin owls made mournful cadences in keeping with the scene and its half-tragic human purposes, while the whippoorwills voiced the one element of brightness and hope.
The young fellow in the narrow, dark, log-walled cabin, with its barred window and padlocked oaken door, had been long disconsolate. But now, for the first time in many days, hope came to him as he walked back and forth, fighting pests, still tortured in mind, fearing failure, wondering, praying, yet proud and never beseeching, waiting for another and perhaps a brighter day.
For three months he had been a prisoner, waking from a fevered sleep after a long illness, his splendid constitution alone serving to doctor him, he had found himself mysteriously at sea, in the locked cabin of a tossing yacht that knew no harbor of rest. He had been denied even the chance to talk to, or to know his jailers. He had managed to keep alive on the rough, often unpalatable food poked under his door. There was no response to his callings, hammerings or threats. A less balanced, hopeful, kindly, gentle fellow would have gone insane.
Then, gagged and bound, he had been dumped about almost like a sack of wheat and landed in this horrible place alongside of which his prison room in the yacht was a palace. Now here for the first time had come a friendly voice, that of more than a friend, indeed, and he had again seized upon hope.
Yes, he would lie low, be patient, hope on and wait.
“Bill, Bill, we’ve found Tony! Saw him a little in the dark and talked to him. We’re going to get him out, Bill!” And Gus, after bursting in with this good news, told his chum and old Dan all about it. Then they held a council of war.
It was pretty certain that the Malatesta had no means of radio communication, as they could not have burdened themselves with the apparatus, nor could they have confined their communications to one person. That they were seeking ransom money was also pretty certain, and they were in a position to get it, too.
Bill, Gus and old Dan laid some plans, carefully considered from every angle, and with the impetus of youth to be acted upon at once. Having put their transmitting station in operation, Bill got busy on the wires, and on a wave length of 360 meters, began broadcasting notifications to Mr. Sabaste and to the police relative to Tony’s whereabouts.
“Mr. Angelo Sabaste, do not send ransom money. Mr. Angelo Sabaste, do not send ransom money. Please convey this message to Mr. Angelo Sabaste, banker, of New York City, do not send ransom money. Police departments and coast patrol, send swift vessels all along the coast to Lower Point Gifford, and the lower inlet to head off any foray from the sea on the part of those who may have caught this; also to prevent escape of kidnapers from the inlet.
“Send men to surround the point and cut off escape by land along the peninsula north of the inlet; also to watch the lower thoroughfare. Some men meet the senders of this at Oysterman Dan’s, in neck of woods above Lower Point Gifford, to raid kidnapers’ roost from there, and effect rescue of young Anthony Sabaste.
“Station men and vessels to-night. Watch all landing places around Lower Point. Be prepared for trouble. Kidnapers armed and will shoot. Anthony Sabaste in small cabin in pine woods about one mile north of inlet. Hard place to find. Guarded by three men.
“This is William Brown speaking, at Oysterman Dan’s cottage—for Augustus Grier, also. Have situation well in hand. Please radio reply at once.”
Bill switched off his batteries and clamped the ’phones of the receiver to his ears. He had to listen in for but a few moments.
“Police Department, City. West Rural Section speaking. We are in direct communication with East State Mounted Force and contingents and will relay, acting in unison. Also in communication with coast patrol who also have your radio, no doubt, and will act independently. We are sending men and will make raid in morning, closing in north of Lower Point. Men sent to Oysterman Dan’s house to-night. Coast patrol will also go out to-night. Will advise you personally in the morning. Have Dan send boat for men across thoroughfare to Stone Landing. If men not there by three A.M., go to Possum Beach and wait.”
Bill still listened and the message was repeated, almost verbatim; then silence. He communicated the information to Gus and old Dan, and the oysterman went off to tidy up his boat for the trip. Bill and Gus decided to snatch a little sleep. Old Dan, who had napped in the afternoon as usual, agreed to wake them before he left at about two o’clock, which he did.
“Bill, I’ve got a hunch we are going at this thing a little too fast,” said Gus.
“How too fast? We can’t delay at all, can we?”
“But suppose, when the police make their raid, these Malatestas get desperate and mad enough to kill Tony? They’re a bad lot. I’ve a notion we ought to get Tony out of there before——”
“The iron gets too hot, eh? I guess you are right, Gus.”
“Look, Bill, here’s a scheme. What if we work it this way?” Gus proceeded to outline a plan with every detail of which Bill agreed; and it called for action.
Taking the revolver and some extra cartridges, Bill hobbled along by Gus, who gave him a lift, now and then, piggy-back. The boys made their way south for more than a mile along the thoroughfare swamp edge. Then they turned sharply on a path across the wooded peninsula to the beach, and went another half mile among the dunes. A very tall pine tree against the sky-line gave Gus his bearings. A little below that they stopped, and Bill found a comfortable hiding-place among scrub pines, with the boom of the breakers in his ears and the sea breeze keeping off the mosquitoes.
Gus cast about silently for the path that led in to the kidnapers’ cabin. Finding it with some difficulty in the darkness, he noted certain landmarks and went back to Bill. Agreeing on signals in whispers, Gus went back to the path and struck a match, whereupon Bill fired a shot, and immediately afterward, another. Then Gus swiftly made his way directly toward the cabin, and when near it, called softly:
“Hello, hello, you fellers! It’s me, Sam.”
There was a very profound silence for a few minutes. Gus called again:
“Hello! It’s me, Sam. Don’t shoot!”
And very much with his heart in his mouth, but still determined, he advanced, crouching low so that a bullet would most likely pass high over him. Suddenly a figure appeared directly in front of him and a flashlight was thrown in his face for an instant. Gus knew that he had been identified.
“Lay low,” he whispered, not forgetting to keep up the dialect. “They’re out there, somebody—sneakin’ along in the open. I seen ’em an’ let fly at ’em an’ they shot back, but I run on down the woodses. Git yer gang an’ come along so’s we kin head ’em off if they start in here.”
“How we do that? We stay here an’ fight ’em, eh?”
“An’ that’ll give ’em the lay o’ this place. We want t’ draw ’em up the beach. Chase along up through the woodses an’ come out ’bout a mile above and shoot oncet er twicet. Two of us kin do that an’ two kin lay out yan at the end o’ the path an’ watch fer any of ’em startin’ in this away, an’ then you kin lead ’em off. See? That’s the way the smugglin’ fellers do it.”
The plan must have looked good to the fellow still in the darkness; Gus did not know to whom he was talking, but he heard the man walk away rapidly. He waited, as though on pins, and in a moment three figures loomed before him, one voice questioning him again. The boy tactfully repeated his suggestions—then turned back with them as they started forward, evidently agreeing.
One fellow, Gus could see, was rubbing his eyes. All carried guns.
Two men kept to the path that led toward the beach edge of the woods. Another and Gus went straight on. Presently Gus suggested that they stop and rest awhile; then move on farther up, stop, scatter a little, and listen. He would sneak out into the open, he said, and look around. There was no danger of his being seen. It would be best to remain thus for an hour or more—perhaps till morning, mosquitoes or no mosquitoes. A grunt signified agreement.
The boy crept out toward the dunes and on, until he felt sure he could not be heard. Then, with the smooth, hard sand for a track he ran, softly on tiptoe, until once again he came below the tall pine. A low hiss thrice repeated was answered, and he found Bill in the same spot.
“They’re all stuck along in the woods yonder,” Gus whispered. “If you hear them moving off toward the cabin again, shoot. If they go on, shoot twice. If they come your way, lie low. Here goes for Tony, old scout!”
Gus had some difficulty getting to the cabin from the south side. He missed it once, got too far into the woods, turned, regained the dunes, struck in again and this time started to pass within a few yards of it, but by merest chance saw the gable end against the sky.
Again Gus approached the cabin, feeling sure now of the outcome of the plan. He reached the clump of thick pines below the tall one and turned to make the bee-line in, not a hundred yards from the building, when the alarm notes of a ruffed grouse reached his ears. It was just ahead, the angry, quick, threatening call of a mother bird, disturbed with her young, quick to fight and to warn them of danger. Might not this be a weasel, fox or mink that had sneaked upon her? But if so, it would be the note of warning only, to scatter the little ones into hiding-places while the hen sought a safe shelter just out of the reach of the marauder and after she had, pretending a hurt, led it to a distance from the brood.
But this was different. The grouse had played her usual trick of decoy, no doubt, and failing in this had returned to attack something regarded as a larger enemy. She would know better than to include deer, or the wandering, half-wild cattle of the peninsula as such. There were no puma and few bear in these woods, and surely none here. What then could the disturber be but a man? Gus well knew the ways of these knowing birds.
The boy’s advance now became so cautious as to make no audible sound even to himself, such being possible over the pine needles. Slowly he gained a vantage point where again the roof gable was visible against the sky. No sound ahead, except the mother grouse making the sweetest music imaginable in calling her young ones together during a half minute. The coast must be clear,—but just as the boy was about to go boldly forward, a flash of light shone about him and his staring eyes discerned, not thirty feet away, the three watchers standing together. They had returned, probably by pre-arrangement and had met in the roadway. Now they were silently listening for the fourth fellow—himself. One chap, thinking that they were not observed, had struck a match to see the time, or to light a cigarette. Had they been looking in Gus’s direction they might have seen him. Presently, mumbling some words, they all went on again toward the cabin, and Gus, sick at heart because seeing now no chance for a renewal of his effort, turned back after an hour to where Bill waited.
“Why, Gus, they came out here, all of them together and went part way over to the beach, then returned almost right away. I could hear only their voices at first, but when they came back they passed close enough for me to hear a little of what they said, I think it was the Malatesta that we know. He was declaring that ‘he,’ and I guess he meant you, must be the same. Do you think he knows you, Gus?”
“I don’t know. They must be suspicious of my story, or my purpose, anyway, or they would have stayed out and watched. Perhaps one of them followed far enough to hear me head out this way. Anyway, they think the cabin is the safest place. We can’t do anything now, so let’s go back and hit the hay.”
They went back, Gus to throw himself on old Dan’s couch and sleep like a dead man and Bill to take up the receiver phones, nodding over the table, to be sure, but remaining generally awake. For two hours he kept catching odd bits of no importance through long intervals. Then suddenly he sat up and, reaching over, poked Gus with his crutch. After two or three hard pokes Gus opened his eyes.
“Say, somebody’s calling for help! I can’t get it right, I reckon they’ve taken Tony away and out to sea again. Can’t tell who it’s from; it’s all jumbled, anyway. Done now, I guess.”
“But what was it?” asked Gus, now very wide awake.
“It came like this, in code,” said Bill. “The ‘S.O.S.’ several times. Then: ‘Aground. Rounding inlet, east channel, headed out. Hurry.’ There was a lot of stuff in between, but not intelligible.”
“Can it be Tony?”
“Who else?”
“But would they let him broadcast anything?”
“Gave them the slip, maybe.”
“What’ll we do?”
“You say it.”
“Well, then—rounding east channel of inlet, eh? Tide going out. Likely they’ll stick on the shoals. If only Dan were here now.”
“What then?”
“Why, we’d take his catboat and overhaul them. They’ll probably stick going about and the wind’s dead against going out. But Dan——”
“Isn’t here, but I am. I’ll go forward with the gun and you can handle the Stella. Let’s go!”
They went. It was but the work of a few minutes to gain the landing, hoist sail, cast off and reach down the bay, the wind abeam. Bill got into a snug place at the mast, Gus held the tiller, each boy firmly determined to do something that might call for the utmost daring and swift action.
Turning into the wind at the inlet, the boys went about first on the starboard tack and then luffed a half dozen times to get through into the broader water; but the sand bars were erratic. Gus knew two that were fixed from the set currents; other might change every few days. Bill crept to the rail and gazed ahead; there had been a moon, but it was cloudy.
Fortune favored them, however. At the moment that they were about to hit a narrow sand bar, the clouds parted and Bill gave a yell. Gus also saw the line of white and shoved over his tiller, missing the bar by the closest margin. In deep water again they swept across the inlet as the clouds darkened the moon and they were suddenly confronted by a splotch of white. They swerved once more just in time to avoid striking the stern of a small schooner fast on a bar, only her jib flapping in the breeze, not a light showing.
Gus put the Stella’s head into the wind and close-hauled the boom, but she fell away slowly. He told Bill to hail, which was done with a truly sailor-like “Ahoy!” repeated many times, and followed by the landlubber’s “Hello, there!” but without getting an answer. Gus had to work around to get the wind so as to come up again. Still there was no reply to the hailing, and without more ado the Stella was put alongside of the schooner, going also aground, but lightly.
“You grapple and hold her, Bill. I’ll board her and see what’s what,” said Gus, pistol in hand, stepping over the schooner’s rail.
Swiftly, without hesitation, he rounded the cabin, peered down the small companion-way and shouted into the cabin, door, calling loudly. Then he went back, got the Stella’s lantern, and Bill, having made fast, limped along after, gun in hand. The two silently explored every nook and cranny finding, to their utter astonishment, no one aboard. The door to one of the staterooms, however, was fastened.
“I wonder if somebody is in there,” whispered Gus.
“Must be. Looks funny. Let’s call,” Bill suggested.
“I guess we’d better beat it and mind our own business,” said Gus, loudly. “Come on, we don’t belong here at all.”
Had the boys been suddenly confronted with a genie, at the behest of Aladdin’s lamp, their surprise could not have been much greater than at the response from within the room. It was a girl’s voice that reached them, and though very sweet and low it was full of trepidation.
“I hear you. What can you be plotting now? If you intend to kill me you will have to destroy this boat to do it, for I’ll surely kill you if you try to break in here. Now, you’d better listen to me again. Sail back and I’ll see that you’re not arrested and—I’ll get you a reward. You will only get into jail by this——”
“I guess, Miss, you’re talking to the wrong party,” said Bill.
“You’re mistaking us for somebody else,” asserted Gus.
“Oh, who are you, then?” came the voice.
“Two fellows at your service. We got a radio at Oysterman Dan’s and thought we could rescue——”
“I sent it. I got to the wireless when they were working to get us off. But please tell me exactly who you are.”
“We are Marshallton Tech boys, down here on vacation,—that’s all.”
“Oh, you are? We know the professor of political economy——”
“Jennings? He’s one of our favorites—fine chap.”
“And that was where that boy was kidnaped, too.”
“The same. He never turned up.” Bill nudged Gus.
“Two weeks ago I was at Guilford and saw the ball game with Marshallton Tech,” said the voice.
“Hooray! Right out here with me is the pitcher who won that shut-out for us.”
“No! Do you really mean it? And then it was you who hailed and came aboard just now, and the others have not returned? I can trust you, can’t I?”
“Why not? We’re really harmless. But tell us who are these fellows?”
“I do not know, except that they are scoundrels and thieves,—of that I am sure.”
The door suddenly opened and a figure stood before the boys, something white, glistening and menacing in her hand. An arm was outstretched to turn a switch. With the flooding light Bill and Gus beheld a very pretty girl of about their own age, who smiled at them and hastily held the revolver behind her. Reassured, she calmly continued:
“I am Lucy Waring. May I ask——?”
“My chum here is Gus Grier and I am Bill Brown.”
“I shall be indebted to you forever,” the girl said graciously. “You see I am in an awful fix. Those men deliberately stole our boat. This is my father’s auxiliary yacht, the X-Ray. My father is Doctor Louis Waring, of——”
“The great Doctor Waring, nerve specialist?”
“Nerves, yes. I believe people call him great sometimes. You see we have a summer home at Hawk’s Bill, just below the inlet here, and we girls, my two sisters and some friends are there now. Father and Mother are coming down to-morrow. I’m fond of boating, and sometimes, just to be on the water, I come down and sleep in the yacht. To-night I did and I waked up to feel that we were adrift and sailing, with somebody on board—two, I think. While I was wondering what to do, one came and tried my door and called to me, I said something to him, you may believe! But he would hardly listen to me, though he couldn’t force the door and I told him I’d shoot if he did. Presently we went aground and the men went back and started to work with the motor. I slipped out and got at the wireless, locking my door after me and locking the wireless room door. I don’t know how they didn’t hear me, though they were making an awful racket trying to hammer something. I sent several messages, then I listened and still heard them talking and slipped back. They couldn’t get the engine to run—it can hardly be cranked, but it has a starter which they didn’t understand. About half an hour ago they went off in the dory and I thought they were returning when you came.”
“And you have no idea who they are?”
“None whatever. I only know that the talk of the one that called to me sounded as though he were a foreigner, perhaps an Italian—about the other I couldn’t say. They surely meant to steal this boat, and if they had not stuck here, I don’t know whatever would have become of me. And now, may I ask of you to——?”
“Start that motor and get you back? You sure may—and it ought not to be much of a job.”
“My father will liberally reward you.”
“We don’t want any reward, Miss Waring. Doing mechanical stunts in trying to rescue people is our specialty.”
“I have a hunch,” put in Gus, “that those fellows may come back any minute, possibly with some means, or hoping to get this boat afloat. We don’t want them to catch us off guard.”
“I’ll stand watch,” said the girl. “The slightest intimation——”
“Good. Let’s look at that power plant,” demanded Bill.
It was a matter of minutes only, although the time was lengthened by the boat thieves’ having hammered the gearing that connected with the starter, trying to slide it along on its shaft key in order to permit the cranking. They had failed in some way, however, to manipulate the gas and spark.
The boys had slipped the gearing into place again and the adjustments had been made, when a call from the girl made the busy lads grab their weapons and get up on deck, Bill being almost as quick as Gus.
Not fifty yards away and plainly seen in the now unclouded moonlight, a skiff was approaching. The boys, lying flat on the deck and peering over the rail, and the girl, crouching in the companion-way, could see three persons in the dory. Gus again told Bill to hail.
“Ahoy, there! Back water and stay where you are! What do you want?”
The rhythmic beat of the oars continued, rapidly lessening the distance.
“Halt, or we’ll shoot! If you don’t want to get sunk and have your carcasses filled as full of holes as a pepper-box, you’ll sheer off!”
This had its effect. The oars were held and pushed to check the motion. No word came in reply, but Gus plainly saw an object that resembled a gun barrel come from a vertical to a foreshortened position. This was sufficient for drastic action, though the boy was averse to compelling a tragedy. With careful aim he sent a load of shot just over the heads of the boatmen, then instantly fired another into the water at one side. Almost immediately a shot came in reply, the bullet glancing from the cabin roof.
Gus slipped in two more shells and coolly waited, knowing that there was only a remote possibility that the shots from the dory would do any great harm, but intending, if the rascals fired again, to give them a real taste of buckshot firing, at the bow of their boat first, to splinter and sink it gradually; then at the men if they persisted.
The dory turned about quickly. The oarsman was evidently in haste to get away. Then came a hail:
“Say, you! What you do in thata boat? That our boat! Get out, I say to you! We want to come aboard and go on away!”
Gus had heard that voice before. It belonged to one of the Malatesta. Did they have Tony with them? Were they making a terrible effort to escape in this way from the peninsula, and get to sea again? How then would they secure the hoped for ransom? Or were they merely going to hide the X-Ray, expecting to use her if their scheme fell short? Bill had sensed the situation.
“Your boat, is she? You’ll find her back at Hawk’s Bill where she belongs, and in a little while you’re going to find yourself in jail. Beat it now while the water’s fine!”
The oarsman was nothing loath. Either he was not the bravest in the party, or else he had the keenest appreciation of the odds against an exposed position. In a very few minutes the dory was a mere gray wraith on the water, but there it hung. Evidently the rower was overruled by others less cautious, or of the certain conviction that at the distance the yacht was a better mark than a rowboat.
Bill had the motor going in a jiffy. Gus was at the wheel, crouching. Throwing in the reverse clutch he sent the boat off the sands. Then, letting Bill hold her steady, dropped the Stella’s sails, cast her loose at the end of a hauser for a tow rope, paid it out from the stern and went back to the wheel.
He was about to swing round and head back into the narrow channel free from sand bars, which he could discern by the rougher water, when bullets began to come from the dory. They were aimed at the wheel and whether sent low or not, the trajectory, even from a high-powered gun, would pull them down to the danger level. One struck the mast directly in front of him. One hit the deck and glanced singing. The music from another flattened bullet was stopped by the water beyond.
Gus wanted desperately to get behind something, for this firing might mean death or wounding at any moment. But he held on, hoping shortly to get out of range. Bill, at the rear hatch, called to Gus to set her and come below, and Gus called back that they’d be aground again in a minute if he did. Then a brave deed was done.
The girl, perhaps as fully aware of the danger as the boys, leaped into the cabin, came out with two chairs and some cushions, erected a barricade alongside of Gus and said to him:
“I want to get back and we can’t stop, but most of all I want you to be safe.”
Then she gave a sudden cry and staggered into the cabin. Gus called Bill, who limped across quickly. The shots continued, and one hit the chairs. Gus wondered where it would have hit him. Presently they were too far away for the shots to reach them, for they had entered the narrow bay.
Bill was not cut out for a nurse. His sympathies were large, but his fingers, deft at managing fine mechanical apparatus, were all thumbs when it came to anything even remotely concerned with human anatomy. The girl had been hit in the shoulder, undoubtedly a mere flesh wound, and the bleeding must be stopped. Lucy was very pale, but there was never a tear, nor the least indication of her fainting. She merely held her arm down and watched, with most rueful countenance, the blood dripping from her finger tips upon the polished floor.
“I’ll get Gus,” said Bill, almost ready to weep at the sight the girl presented. She had torn her dress from her shoulder and a seared gash was disclosed which she could not well observe.
Gus pointed out the course to Bill, then went into the cabin. In a minute or less he had searched and obtained clean rags, torn strips from them, found a nearly exhausted bottle of vaseline, coated the rag with it and, with a deftness almost worthy of a surgeon, washed the wound with a quick sopping of gasoline. Then as more blood was flowing, he bound up the shoulder and arm so that the flow stopped and by its coagulation germs were excluded. Whereupon Lucy sought a couch where she lay, exhausted, and with a decided desire to cry, while Gus went back to the wheel.
“You shall hear from father and mother and all of us. They will be here early and father must see you.” This was the very earnest declaration of the elder Waring sister, a young woman of twenty-five or more, “I cannot alone express our thanks, our deep gratitude——”
“To use a rather slangy expression—please ‘forget it,’” said Bill, laughing.
Lucy, supported by another older sister, could only thank the boys with her pretty eyes. She did make so bold as to hold the hand of poor Gus until he turned a fiery red. Blushing herself, even through her pallor, she still persisted in trying to show her appreciation and admiration. Bill had to grab and pull his stammering chum away.
The run back in the Stella was made in rapid time to her owner’s slip. And there, the morning light just beginning to show in the eastern sky, the boys found an odd-looking fellow busily getting ready to cast off a fishing skiff. He was one Pepperman, commonly called “Swamp” for short. He was something of a crony of Dan’s and the boys had seen him before.
As they headed in they made out the identity of “Swamp.” Gus suddenly had one of his ideas. He conveyed it to Bill in few words:
“We’ll get ‘Swamp’ to go to those Malatestas and tell them he can steal them a boat. Then we’ll get Tony away if he’s still there. You talk to ‘Swamp.’”
“Hello, Mr. Pepperman! Going fishing?” began Bill, as they made fast and lowered sail. “Yes? Expect to catch much? No? Well, I know something that will bring you in two hours more money than in three weeks of the best fishing you ever had.”
“Swamp” wanted to know how such a thing could be done. Said Bill:
“Dead easy! You take a walk right away down through the pines toward the Point. Know how to whistle a tune? Sure; well then, come over all the tunes you know. Let on you’re hunting for special fish bait or something. Sheer off toward the big pine and keep through toward the ocean. You’ll meet somebody likely. Don’t get curious, but talk fishing and boats. Tell them you take folks fishing and that you have a dandy boat all ready—a fast one. They’ll probably want to see her. Tell them you keep her up here, but if they’ll hang off shore at the Point you’ll sail her around there. Then, when they leave for the Point and you’re sure of it, you come up the bay side road and tell us. We’ll be waiting. How much is there in it? Twenty-five dollars, Mr. Pepperman, if your errand turns out successfully. Is that enough?”
“I reckon hit air,” remarked the sententious “Swamp.” “When do I git the money?”
“Any time—to-day,” said Gus, and without another word the lanky fellow, laying aside his tackle and bait of crab meat, was off into the woods.
Hardly an hour passed before Gus remarked to tired and sleepy Bill: “Somebody’s coming. I’ll bet it’s ‘Swamp.’”
It was, and he reported the exact carrying out of the plan. Two men, young fellows, one very dark-skinned, the other light, and both carrying guns, had started to the Point to wait for him. The other man,—there had been three along the wood road—had headed up into the nearer woods along the ocean side.
“You go back and wait for Dan,” said Gus to Bill. “I’m going to make one more try for Tony.”