“Pup-pup! Pur-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r! Pup!”

“She’s off!” yelled Paul.

“All aboard!” shouted Merritt, as Rob darted forward, being careful to avoid the rapidly whirring propeller, which would have beheaded him at one sweep if it had struck him. He swung himself into the seat beside Paul, digging in with his “toenails,” as he expressed it afterward. The next instant Paul released the lever which manipulated the brake.

Like an arrow from a bow, off shot the iceaeromobile, scooting across the ice at such a pace that it fairly took their breaths away.

“She works!” yelled Paul, throttling the engine down a bit as they dashed along.

“Of course, she does,” shouted Rob back in his ear above the roaring of the engine, “and she’s getting a great trial trip.”

To the eastward, where she was now being driven, they could see the schooner. Paul gave his steering wheel a slight twist, swinging over the front bob. Obediently the iceaeromobile swung around, too, answering her helm as a perfectly-trained horse obeys his bridle.

“Paul, you’re a blessed genius!” shouted one of the passengers, clinging on for dear life behind. But the wind whipped his words shoreward without their being heard by the lads on the seat.

Over the ice, for two miles or more up the Inlet, which branched out and ran eastward at this point, the motor ice-scooter drove. It was rough riding, but none of them minded that. The fact—the glorious fact that they were riding in such a craft as no man or boy had ever ridden in before—was a tonic in their veins. They could have sung aloud for joy if the cold had not cracked their lips and dried their faces.

“There’s the De Regny mansion,” shouted Rob, pointing shoreward at the gloomy old place among its dark trees. “Say, we’ve covered the distance in ten minutes. I wouldn’t have believed it possible.”

“The ice doesn’t offer much resistance,” shouted back Paul modestly.

At last the head of the Inlet was reached, and Paul shut off his engine. A lever thrown into place acted on an ingenious arrangement of cogs and reversed the propeller. With the aid of his spiked brake, the young inventor brought his mile-a-minute craft to a dead stop within two hundred feet of the place where he first shut off the power. The iceaeromobile had been tried and not found wanting.

But other things than the success of Paul’s invention engaged their attention now. Not more than half a mile from them the schooner was laboring bravely still, when something happened that proved the beginning of the end. The boys saw her foresails torn bodily from their ropes by the wind, and sent scurrying like birds, inland, toward the De Regny house. The next instant, deprived of all means of keeping her head up to the seas, the schooner broached to. Almost before they could realize what had occurred, the doomed vessel was in the midst of the rolling breakers.

As they gazed, a cry of horror went up from the boys. It was fairly forced from their throats by the apparent hopelessness of the schooner’s position. Like a helpless log, she was driven shoreward, while over her and about her the green seas lifted and broke as if in triumph at their victory.

CHAPTER XXI.
MOTOR-SCOOTERS TO THE RESCUE.

“Great guns, we’re too late!” groaned Merritt.

“No. See! she’s not awash yet,” cried Rob. “Look! they are climbing into her rigging. Come on, fellows, run as you never ran before.”

It was hard work plowing along that soft beach with the bitter wind fighting them every inch of the way, but the Boy Scouts stuck to it doggedly. Before long they were opposite the turmoil of waters in which the unfortunate schooner lay.

To their astonishment, however, she was not in such a desperate plight as had at first seemed the case. Her decks were still unswept by the waves, although, occasionally, a big sea would break against her side and fling a smother of spray almost as big as her topmasts.

“She’s stuck on that sandy shoal the captain told us about,” said Rob comprehendingly. “It runs along the beach here at just about the distance she lies off shore.”

“I wish those life savers were here with their gun,” exclaimed Tubby. “We’ve got lots of rope here, but how are we going to reach them?”

This problem, however, was solved more easily than they imagined. A bearded man clambered into the lee rigging as he spied the party on the shore, and, after a dozen attempts, succeeded in flinging a light line with a leaden weight attached to it to the beach. The wind helped him, or otherwise he could not have succeeded, but as it happened, Providence was good to the stranded schooner in this respect, at least.

Seizing up the light line, the boys ran back on the beach with it, and guided by the man’s gesticulations, they began to haul on it for all they were worth. Presently it was seen that a heavier line was attached to the first one, and was evidently intended to serve as a life rope between the vessel and the shore.

The lads cast about them for some place to which to make the line fast. Soon they spied the gaunt framework of an old range light, long disused. The timbers seemed stout, however, and in a jiffy they had the line fastened with two double half hitches on the uprights. In the meantime, the men on the schooner had made their end fast.

Before taking this latter action, they had slid the rope through the handles of a stout basket, intending, it seemed, to use it in getting ashore. As the rope was inclined at quite a steep angle, this looked as if it would be an easy matter. As the boys waited for the first person to take the perilous trip over and through the waves, some members of the crew began handing the woman and child up the shrouds. But before they could get anywhere near the basket, a man’s form was seen to dash past them, pushing them so roughly aside that they were almost projected into the sea. The next instant the intruder was in the basket and several feet out from the ship’s side. On he came toward the beach, clawing at the line and pulling himself along, hand over hand. The bearded man had leaped into the rigging and was shaking his fist furiously after him, but he was far too engrossed with securing a safe passage for himself to pay any attention to this.

“He’s a fine coward, whoever he is,” commented Rob, as the man in the basket neared the shore. But at this point the weight on the rope caused it to sag till the basket was immersed completely in the immense waves. Gasping and fighting for breath, they could see the crawling figure on the rope emerge again and again from the vortex of one of the big waves. At last, with a howl of anguish, he vanished altogether. As the wave that had engulfed him rolled on shoreward, it could be seen that there was nothing on the line. The force of the big sea had torn the basket off, and hurled its living freight into the turmoil of water.

The Boy Scouts dashed down the beach to watch for the man’s reappearance. As the big wave broke, they saw him. Rolled helplessly up the beach in the tumble of waters, he would have been drawn back when the wave receded, but for the fact that Rob had already acted. Rapidly instructing the others to form a chain, of which Tubby acted as the anchor, the leader of the Eagle Patrol waded waist deep into the water. Just as the wave was about to drag back its prey, the boy’s strong arms closed around the man, who was by this time unconscious, and dragged him up upon the beach.

As the boys gazed down into the features of the man they had rescued, they broke into involuntary exclamations of amazement. The man was no stranger to any of them.

It was Hank Handcraft, the former beach-comber. A thick beard now covered the lower part of his face, but about his identity there could be no question.

“Drag him further up the beach,” ordered Rob, their first surprise over. “I’ve no idea how he comes to be out of prison, but we’ve no time to worry over that now.”

A shout from Merritt, who had been gazing down the beach, caused them all to turn their heads from the unconscious man.

“Hooray! Here comes the life savers!” he cried, and sure enough, from the direction in which he pointed, came the brave beach patrolmen from the Lone Hill Life Saving Station. Two stout horses dragged their “rope-gun” and a large dory boat. Hasty explanations were soon exchanged between Captain Ed Baker of the life savers and the boys, all of whom knew him well. While these were being made, the men of the Life Saving Station rigged a line, and presently a sharp report was heard as their rope flew seaward and fell over the deck of the schooner. It was soon made fast, and then a breeches buoy was sent across. The first person to come ashore in it was the woman they had seen on their wild trip across the ice. She clasped in her arms a little lad about four years old.

Rob and the boys were set to work by Captain Baker with the medicine chest, administering restoratives to the woman. She explained to them that she was the wife of Captain Tom Pratt, the skipper and owner of the schooner, the Vesper of New York. They had set sail the day before, bound for the West Indies, and without a cargo. The gale which they encountered at midnight had proven too much for them, and for ten terrible hours they waited for death.

Tubby, who had been looking after Hank Handcraft, announced presently that the man showed signs of life, and was coming to. This induced Rob to ask Mrs. Pratt if she knew anything about the fellow. She replied that she did not. He had shipped at the vessel’s Brooklyn Wharf only the day before, and her husband being short a man had signed him on.

Before long all the crew were ashore. The last man to make the voyage in the breeches buoy was Captain Tom Pratt. He thanked the boys warmly, and he and his wife could not say too much in praise of their bravery and that of the life saving crew.

Hank Handcraft had, by this time, recovered, and had recognized the boys with a wild cry of surprise in which alarm mingled. He begged them piteously not to be hard on him. He had escaped from the western penitentiary in which he had been confined and had made his way east, he said, and then shipped on the Vesper in hopes of beginning a new life in the West Indies.

“We won’t cause you any trouble as long as you behave yourself,” Rob promised him. “But I can’t answer for the captain of the Vesper,” he said, as Tom Pratt approached with thunder in his eye.

“You miserable varmint! You yaller dog!” he exclaimed. “I’ve a notion to throw you back inter the sea, if it wasn’t that even the waves would throw you back again. This feller, boys,” he exclaimed, turning to the life savers, “threw my wife aside and tried to save himself on the life line them brave boys helped us rig up.”

A low, angry growl came from the life savers, and Pratt’s crew advanced threateningly upon Hank. The wretched creature threw himself on his knees and whimpered like a baby as he saw these danger signals.

“Bah! Leave him alone,” said Captain Pratt disgustedly, turning to his wife. “I wouldn’t soil my hands on the critter.”

The boys’ motor-scooter—which caused great wonderment to the life savers and the rescued crew, as may be imagined—did good work in taking the shipwrecked men ashore. A big crowd met them on their first trip, and the cheers that went up for the Boy Scouts were deafening. They reached the ears of Jack Curtiss and his crowd, and of Stonington Hunt. The former broker was as vindictively malicious as the others when he heard that his enemies, as he designated them, had again distinguished themselves.

“I’ll be even with them yet,” he grated out.

“Sneaking into the limelight again,” sniffed Jack, as he and his chums joined the crowd on the water front.

Hank Handcraft was the last to be brought over, but none in the crowd recognized him with his heavy beard and pale, woe-begone face. With a growled-out, grudging word of thanks, he parted from the Boy Scouts and made his way up the village street. But he was not to go altogether unrecognized. Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender, after an incredulous glance, were convinced they had made no mistake in their man, and followed him up.

“Hank!” exclaimed Jack, coming up behind the fellow and laying his hand on his shoulder.

“Jumping periwinkles! It’s Jack Curtiss!” exclaimed Hank. “The very fellow I want to see, too. Have you got a quiet place we can go and where you can give me a good drink?—and I’ll tell you something that’s worth your while.”

“Worth while. What are you getting at?” exclaimed Jack incredulously, for he knew Hank of old. “I heard about your escape. Why, you are just an escaped convict. What can you know that’s worth while?”

“I know there is two thousand dollars in good money right on that schooner,” was the astonishing response, “and if you keep me hid and the boat don’t break up I’ll pay you well for your trouble.”

“Sure you’re not at your old tricks, Hank?” questioned Jack and Bill, in one breath.

“No; it’s true as gospel. You believe me, don’t you?”

The outcast, wet, dripping, and miserable as he was, had a convincing ring in his voice as he hinted at his improbable tale.

But Jack was so dishonest and unreliable himself that he applied the same standards to everybody else—and with some justice in Hank’s case. He, therefore, made a non-committal reply.

“I know a place where I can hide you, Hank,” he said, “till we find out if your yarn is true or not. In the meantime, come on and get on some dry clothes, and throw a feed into yourself. Then you can tell us your story. If you’re lying to us, it will go hard with you.”

“I wish I were as sure of going to heaven as I am that there is two thousand dollars on that schooner,” grunted Hank, in reply.

CHAPTER XXII.
JIM DUGAN AGAIN.

As you can readily imagine, it was some time before the fame of the lads’ exploit in going to the rescue of the crew of the stranded Vesper died out. All the praise that came their way, however, the lads accepted without undue self-satisfaction. In fact, everybody else seemed to consider what they had done as being much more remarkable than they themselves did.

“If it hadn’t been for Captain Baker’s Lone Hill fellows, we wouldn’t have got anybody off,” was the way Rob put it.

One person there was in town who heard the news with an added interest, apart from the thrilling details of the actual work of getting the men through the surf. This man was Stonington Hunt. After hearing of the performance of the motor-scooter, he was more convinced than ever that the machine was a practicable invention, in which it would pay him handsomely to secure a controlling interest. As he himself often said, he was not a man to be easily beaten, and presently, after much casting about and quiet investigation, he lighted on a plan which he considered would place Paul’s interests in his hands and compel the boy to sell him the rights to the manufacture of other Motor-Scooters. What this plan was we shall see ere long.

In the meantime, nothing more had been heard of the former beach-comber who had so mysteriously reappeared and then vanished again. Although they made inquiries, none of the boys could find out what had become of him, and all their investigations along this line came to nothing. The Vesper still lay on the sand bar on which she had grounded. She had been fully insured, so Captain Pratt did not suffer great loss, and the insurance company, after a survey of the spot in which she lay, decided that it would be impracticable to remove her. She was a stout Nova Scotian built vessel, of good oak and pine, and, despite the buffeting she had been through, held together almost as intact as when she first grounded. The boys often planned to take an excursion to her some fine day in the spring, when the sea was more moderate than it was in the winter.

Toward the middle of April, the Boy Scouts decided that their organization was flourishing to such a degree that they needed more spacious quarters than those above the bank of which Rob’s father was president, and a large barn-like building on the main street—formerly a seine-net factory—being vacant, was fitted up as an armory, not all at once, of course, but by degrees. A minstrel show and other entertainments helped pay the expenses of fitting up the new quarters, and when they were completed no patrol in the state could boast more commodious or comfortable headquarters.

With the coming of spring, Lieutenant Duvall returned and took up his residence in the old De Regny mansion, and several other officers of the signal corps came with him. The arrival of half a dozen or more mysterious boxes and crates at the house gave rise to rumors that the government was going to carry out some extensive aeronautical experiments as soon as the weather grew favorable, and, naturally, among the most curious persons concerning these doings were our lads.

They got little satisfaction from the young officer, however. Although they were always welcome guests at the De Regny place, they understood that the experiments about to be carried out were in the nature of secret tests, and, after their first questions had been politely but firmly unanswered, they asked no more. This did not detract a bit, though, from the enjoyment they found in visiting the place on Saturday afternoons, and watching the private soldiers of the Signal Corps equipping the aeroplanes for the spring and summer work. “Spring styles in aeroplanes,” Tubby called it.

From time to time, however, the officer in charge of the station let drop a hint here and there which convinced the boys that the experiments were to be in the main devoted to testing the deadliness of dropped explosives and bombs.

One of the officer’s expansive moments came one afternoon when they were on the brick terrace watching the trying out of a new engine on a large biplane.

“I’d like to see how near I could come to putting that old hulk out of the way,” he remarked, waving his hand seaward to where the black hull of the wrecked Vesper lay, her two masts stretched up like appealing hands.

“Drop a bomb on her, you mean?” asked Tubby, with round eyes.

“Yes. She’d make a fine mark. A good thing to have her out of the way, too. I think I’ll try to see if the department can’t have it arranged.”

“It would be a great sight!” agreed Rob. “I’d like to see it. I suppose one of your projectiles would blow her to bits, if you hit her fair and square.”

“Well, there wouldn’t be much left to bother over,” admitted the lieutenant.

While this conversation was going on between the boys and the friendly young officer, a vastly different scene was transpiring in a room at the Southport Hospital, which was situated some miles from Hampton. In a private room there, Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender were seated by the bedside of a gaunt, pallid man, who had evidently just recovered from a severe illness. The man was Hank Handcraft, but so emaciated was he that any one would have had some difficulty in recognizing him. He had collapsed from the strain of his life since escaping from the prison in the west, and had become so ill that Jack and his cronies had found it necessary to have him removed from the small cottage belonging to Jack’s father, in which they had hoped to hide him till the time was ripe for investigating the wreck.

A problem had then faced the lads which was not solved till Stonington Hunt was taken into the secret. He possessed some influence at the hospital and on his word that Hank Handcraft was a reputable man named James Smiley, the former beach-comber had been admitted there. Stonington Hunt was not influenced by philanthropy in this matter. His main desire was to see Hank get well speedily so that he could guide them to the location of the money on the wrecked Vesper.

On this spring afternoon Jack and Bill had visited the hospital and were readily admitted to the sickroom.

“But I must warn you, gentlemen, that James Smiley is a very sick man, and you must not bother him or excite him,” the house surgeon had said, as they left the office in charge of a nurse.

“Has he been delirious lately, Miss Jones?”

“No, sir, not since daybreak,” was the reply; “but last night, so the night nurse told me, he raved and talked for hour after hour about some money hidden on a ship.”

“Strange, isn’t it, what delusions a sick man will get?” mused the surgeon.

The boys were shocked, in spite of their hard, callous natures, at the change for the worse in Hank’s appearance since they had seen him a week before.

“Come, Hank, you must brace up,” said Jack, as the nurse left the room and they were alone. “It will soon be time to take a trip to the Vesper for that coin.”

“I shall never go,” rejoined Hank gloomily; “but I have drawn a rough map here to show you where I hid the money in a crack behind some beams in the forecastle. You must get it, and I must trust to you to divide it fairly with me.”

“We’ll do that, Hank,” Bill assured him.

“Where’s the map?” asked Jack, a greedy light coming into his hard eyes.

Hank stretched an emaciated arm forth and drew from under his mattress a crumpled bit of paper.

“It’s the third beam from the foot of the companionway steps,” he said. “You can’t miss it with this map to guide you. See, it is all set down here.”

He indicated some lines and marks on the paper, which Jack promptly took and pocketed. After some more conversation, they left the sick man and set out for their trip back to Hampton.

“Poor Hank, I think he was right. He has not long to live, I’m afraid,” said Bill Bender, as they were strolling down the road leading to the station.

“If he should die before we get the money,” said Jack, in a low voice, “then we would not have to divide it. It would be all ours.”

“Yes, if he isn’t giving us a fairy tale,” said Bill Bender. “That story of his about how he and another fellow—a tramp he met—broke into a post office and robbed it of that money sounds rather fishy to me. What would all that money be doing in a country post office?”

“He explained that,” said Jack; “it was in Montana and the money was deposited in the post office safe to pay off the miners at a copper mine not far off. It was the only safe place they could put it in that lawless country.”

“They got wind of it from overhearing the postmaster telling a friend about it, didn’t they?” asked Bill.

“That was the way Hank tells it. His tramp friend made a mixture of some stuff Hank called ‘soup’ and squirted it into the cracks of the safe door with an oil can. Then they blew off the door and escaped.”

“I’ll bet Hank is mad with himself for getting too scared to take it with him when he left the wreck,” said Bill.

“I’ll bet he is,” agreed Jack carelessly; “but that is not our funeral.”

That evening there was a consultation at Stonington Hunt’s home. Jack and Bill related what they had heard from Hank and exhibited the map. Stonington Hunt seemed overjoyed. Rising from the table, he went to the door and looked out into the night. It was still and calm, one of those breathless, starry nights that come in early spring.

“Well, when will we take a trip out there?” he asked, coming back to his seat. “It looks to-night as if we’d have a perfect day to-morrow. What do you say if we make a try for it, then?”

“Suits me,” said Jack. “How about you fellows?”

“Same here,” said Freeman, falling in with the rest.

“But won’t any one be suspicious if they see us leaving the harbor in a boat?” asked Bill Bender cautiously.

“Why should they be?” demanded Stonington Hunt, his crafty eyes glittering with greedy anticipation. “There are several launches in the water already. We’ll hire one and say we are going outside on a fishing trip. We’ll take squids and bait and lines as a blind. No one will suspect, and the wreck lies away up the beach off that old house in the hemlocks where those army idiots are experimenting.”

“I heard they are going to take up bomb-dropping practice,” said Jack, in a careless voice.

“Hope they don’t drop one on us,” laughed Bill Bender.

* * * * * * * *

“Rob,” said his father that evening after supper, “I had a letter this afternoon from Job Trevor, that garage man at Willitson. He incloses a bill for one hundred and fifty dollars. I thought I had paid it, but evidently I had not. Wonder if you’d go over there, provided you have nothing better to do.”

“Of course, I’ll go, dad,” said Rob willingly. “We had a drill on for to-night, but Merritt can take it for me. Anyway, I guess I can get over there and back in time to be present at it.”

“Thank you, my boy,” said his father. “I don’t care to let bills run up, and, as you say, you ought to get there and back in time for your drill if you hurry.”

“Oh, I’ll hurry,” Rob assured him.

The leader of the Eagles ’phoned to Merritt that he might be delayed a little on his errand and asked the corporal to take charge in his absence. Merritt readily agreed to do this, and Rob, whistling a merry tune, hastened off to the shed at the rear of the house in which Mr. Blake’s auto was kept, to prepare for his trip. Soon afterward he chugged out of the yard and was off. It was about ten miles to Willitson, and Rob was not particularly observant of the speed laws as he cut across the island. It was exhilarating sport, speeding along on the deserted roads. Once he met another auto. It was going almost as fast as he was, and the two vehicles whizzed by each other at tremendous speed. They did not go so fast, however, that the occupants of the other car did not turn and look back into the darkness.

“Look here, Dugan,” said one of them, a small, yellow-faced man—a Jap, in fact, “wasn’t that face familiar to you in the flash we had of it?”

“Only got a glance at it,” rejoined the driver of the car, a heavy-set, big-jowled man, with an immense pair of shoulders; “but it did seem to me I’d seen it some place before.”

“That was one of the boys that attacked us on the road that day, Dugan,” rejoined Hashashi, with a vindictive snarl.

“It was,” snorted Dugan angrily. “I wish I’d known that, I’d have run him down.”

“You forget that to-night we want to make ourselves as inconspicuous as possible,” was the rejoinder. “You had better keep a sharp lookout—we are nearing the town now, I think.”

“That’s right. We’ll run the car off on this side lane and wait till it’s late enough for us to start working.”

“Ha! ha!” chuckled the Jap. “We remind me of those funny pills. Work while they sleep, eh, my friend?”

“Well, I hope they sleep,” grunted Dugan, turning off the main road into a rough cart-track. “If they don’t, they are likely to get some pills they don’t like—lead ones.”

“I hope you are too much of an expert not to be able to extract a paper from a country bank without rousing the whole town,” said the Jap uneasily.

“Don’t worry about me, Hashi, old boy. I’ll do the trick with neatness and dispatch, and when I’m at the head of the Japanese Aero Squad we’ll have many a good laugh over this night.”

As he spoke, the car came to a stop, and the two occupants got out and stretched their legs. It appeared that they had ridden a long way and were stiff and cramped.

“Better put out the lights,” said Dugan. As he spoke, he bent over the headlights, and before he extinguished them drew out his watch.

“Eight o’clock,” he muttered. “It’s a long time we’ve got to wait.”

“In the contemplation of great achievements, the hours pass pleasantly,” rejoined the Jap philosophically, clambering back into the car and making himself a snug nest with the blankets and robes. Presently he slept, but Dugan, leaning against the car, gazed with speculative eyes from the hilltop down toward the spot where a faint glow marked the site of the village of Hampton.

“It’s a risky game, Jim Dugan,” he growled to himself, “but you’re playing for the biggest stake that you ever saw.”

CHAPTER XXIII.
A CHASE IN THE NIGHT.

But Rob was disappointed in his hopes of getting back early to Hampton. In fact, he encountered a regular chapter of accidents to delay him. In the first place, the man he had come to see was not in, and he had to wait for an hour till he put in an appearance.

In the meantime, he had telephoned to Hampton that he might not be back till late, so that he knew the drill would go on without him, and this helped to make the wait less aggravating.

He set out for home at a good speed, but hardly had he gone two hundred yards beyond the garage he had visited, than “pop!” went a rear tire. By the light of a detached headlight, Rob examined it and found, to his dismay, that he had run over a broken bottle in the darkness and cut through both inner and outer tubes. That meant a long delay, for he knew what country garages were. However, there was no help for it, and, amid jeering cries of “Get a horse” from East Willitson small boys, he summoned help and wheeled the car back to the repair place.

This was not the sum of his troubles, however. The repair man’s helper was an awkward youth, who apparently knew more about plows and harrows than he did about automobiles. At any rate, he succeeded in smashing part of the steering gear as they were jacking the car up, which required still further time to set it to rights.

As he left the garage, Rob saw, to his amazement (for long as the delay had been, he had not dreamed it was so late) that it was almost midnight.

“Got to hustle if I’m going to get any sleep,” thought the lad to himself as he bade the garage man “good-night,” the latter having magnanimously refused to take any pay for the repairing of the break caused by his helper’s carelessness.

Once out of the place, however, he made good time, till within a mile of home, when something went wrong with the radiator, which necessitated a further delay.

“Good thing we’re an orderly, law-abiding community down here,” thought Rob, smiling to himself, “or I would offer a good opportunity to an enterprising hold-up man. By George! Old Jenkins, the constable, is laid up with a smashed ankle, too. Well, Jenkins wasn’t capable of much anyhow, except to carry that big star around against a suitable background. Now, then, Mr. Radiator, if you’re ready we’ll go on.”

So saying—or rather thinking—the lad got back into the car and set off once more, the cheerful song of the motor delighting him after its temporary fit of backsliding.

In a few minutes he was at the head of the village street, dark, and deserted, of course, at that hour. Presently the white outline of the bank, the only stone building in the village, came into view, and as it did so Rob gave an amazed exclamation:

“Why, there’s a light in there. Wonder who can be working late. I thought Jennings and the rest had——. Hullo!”

The light had gone out as suddenly as if a hand had been placed over it. Plucky as he was, Rob could not repress an involuntary shiver.

“There’s something wrong,” he said to himself. He muffled down the motor and stopped half a block or more from the bank building. Then, with a heart that beat so hard that it shook his frame, he began cautiously tiptoeing down the darkened street. He kept on till he reached the bank, and then catching hold of the window coping, he raised himself silently till he could peer through the big plate glass window into the interior. At first it seemed as black as a pit in there and Rob began to think that his eyes might have played him a trick.

But the next instant he knew they hadn’t. At the rear of the main floor of the bank a sudden tiny glow of light flashed. No bigger than the midget lantern of a fire-fly it seemed, but as Rob’s eyes encountered it he knew that some human agency was at work within.

And now the light began to come closer and Rob guessed that it was a pocket electric torch. Whoever was carrying it came to the door—which was opened, it seemed, and peered out.

“All clear,” this figure muttered to itself, while Rob, who had dropped from the window at its approach, cowered back against the wall as flat as he could make himself.

And now Rob could hear, from the back of the bank, a queer, rasping noise. It sounded not unlike the harsh drone of big bumble bees. What could it be? His ignorance was soon to be enlightened.

“Keep that drill quiet, Dugan,” came from the man at the door; “you will wake the whole town up.”

Instantly the noise stopped, and as it did so the man at the door was joined by another. Hardly had the second dark figure glided into view before there was a muffled roar from within the bank and the ground vibrated under Rob’s feet.

Like a flash, the words of Lieutenant Duvall flashed into his mind:

“Dugan, I have found out, was once an expert safe-blower.”

The second figure had been addressed as Dugan. From what Rob could make out of the hazy outline of his big frame, it was the deserter. Evidently what had just happened was the blowing open of the big safe which served the Hampton bank in place of a strong room. With a swift flash of intuition the lad realized what was taking place. The two rascals, of whom the first was undoubtedly the Jap, were after the plans of Lieutenant Duvall’s equalizer.

“I’ll fix them,” thought Rob, feeling in his pocket for his Boy Scout alarm whistle. Three blasts on it would bring the Eagles and the Hawks about him in a jiffy, all those within hearing, that is.

But before he blew the alarm Rob was prudent enough to softly tiptoe to a safe distance. So silently did he proceed that he did not believe it was possible for the men in the bank to have heard him. But the next instant he was undeceived. Rob had been seen, and the Jap had crept after him as silently as he himself had progressed.

“Drop that whistle or I shall be compelled to shoot you,” said a soft voice in the startled boy’s ear. As the purring accents reached him, Rob could feel the chilly impress of a revolver muzzle against the back of his neck. With a quick, snake-like turn, Rob ducked and fairly slid up under the astonished Jap’s arm before the other could realize what had happened. With a quick wrench the Oriental was dispossessed of the pistol, and Rob, master of the situation, placed the whistle to his lips, while with the other hand he leveled the revolver at the quaking Jap.

Three shrill calls rang out clear and loud on the early morning air.

“Now you stand there till they come and put you in the lock-up,” warned Rob, standing motionless as a statue before the yellow man, and keeping the pistol pointed straight at him.

“Truly you have me in a trap, honorable youth,” said the Jap. “I weep for my native Nippon, which I fear I may never see again.”

He seemed to be overcome with an excess of grief, and moved one hand downward.

“Don’t move,” snapped out Rob, devoutly hoping his companions would be quick.

“My handkerchief, honorable sir,” sobbed the Jap; “may I not dry my tears?”

“I’ll get it for you,” said Rob, sternly, and leaning forward, still keeping the pistol leveled, he drew a square of linen from the other’s breast pocket. As he did so, he became conscious of a strange odor in the air. The next instant a dark figure came leaping out of the bank, clutching something in its grip, and approaching them with leaps and bounds. It was Dugan. But as Rob gazed at the approaching fellow a sudden feeling of terrible lassitude overcame him. Dugan, the Jap, the bank, everything, grew hazy. He felt himself falling backward and tried desperately to catch himself. But his effort was a failure. Dropping the pistol from his nerveless fingers, Rob Blake collapsed in a heap on the sidewalk as Dugan came rushing up.

“Ha! An excellent idea to keep Orhsimi, the Japanese sleeping powder, in my handkerchief; see, honorable Dugan, our young enemy is disposed of.”

Stooping by Rob’s recumbent form, the Jap picked up the pistol and placed it in his pocket.

“Hark!” exclaimed Dugan, suddenly.

A strange sound was in the air. It was the patter-patter of dozens of young feet. The Boy Scouts, roused by the startling summons of their leader, were coming to the rescue.

“We’ve got to get out of this, and get out of it quick,” exclaimed Dugan, excitedly; “we’ll have a whole hornet’s nest about our ears if we don’t.”

“You’ve got the box with the plans in it?”

“Yes, but the smoke was so confounded thick that I could hardly see to get it.”

The last two speeches we have recorded were exchanged while the two rascals were diving down a side street where their automobile was concealed. As the Boy Scouts came pouring round the corner, to be met by a cloud of acrid smoke rolling from the open bank door, there was a sharp “chug-chug!” as the former soldier and the treacherous Jap made off with their spoil.

“What’s the matter? What is it? Who blew the alarm?”

These and a thousand other questions came from the anxious boys as they ran about trying to discover what had happened, and what was the matter. A cry from Merritt summoned them down the street past the bank. The corporal had stumbled over Rob’s unconscious form.

“Rob! Rob! What is it?” he was saying as the others came up.

“Somebody must have struck him and left him here,” said Tubby. “Fan his face, Merritt.”

The corporal produced a handkerchief and vigorously fanned the recumbent lad’s countenance. It so happened that in doing this he removed the subtle powder which the crafty Jap had had concealed in his handkerchief, and as its fumes lost their effect Rob awoke. At first he gazed dazedly about him, but presently all that had happened came rushing back to his mind.

“Did they get away?” he asked in a feeble voice.

“Who, old fellow?” asked Tubby, “whom do you mean?”

“Those chaps who robbed the bank.”

“Robbed the bank?”

“Yes. I’ll explain it all afterward. Did they get away?”

“An auto just chugged off down H street, if that’s what you mean,” volunteered Hiram.

“Down H street,” echoed Rob, “that leads into the New York road, doesn’t it?”

“Why, yes,” rejoined Merritt, “but what has that to do——”

“Everything,” exclaimed Rob, cutting him short; “come on, boys. My dad’s car is just up the street. We’ve got to take after those fellows and have them arrested. They’ve got valuable papers.”

“Rob! They’ve stolen the airship plans?” gasped Tubby, guessing what had happened.