HEAVEN’S INTERVENTION.
Luckily, Jack had received but a small portion of the electric fluid.
It was only a few minutes after the bolt had struck the barn with such
a deafening crash and such startling results, that he opened his eyes.
“What on earth has happened?” were his first thoughts. “Where am I? Oh,
I know, in that old barn. They threw us in here and by good luck I cut
my finger slightly on an old grass hook which had been left on top of
the hay. That gave me an idea and I easily cut my bonds by leaning back
against its sharp edge and gently sawing.
“Then that gun came flying through the air and I grabbed it up. I
guessed that Duke was the only one in the party that had one, and knew
it, too, for he had no fear in threatening his two accomplices. Then
came that thunderbolt. My! how my head aches and——”
He broke off short. Smoke puffed in his face and the hay behind him
broke into a lurid flame. The light showed that the bolt had ripped a
hole in the roof of the barn and had then buried itself in the hay not
ten feet from where Jack and Tom lay, setting fire to it.
The flames had hardly made themselves manifest before they were
shooting up brightly toward the roof.
“My! That bolt must have struck mighty close to me!” thought Jack. “I’m
lucky to be alive.”
“I’ve got to get out of here,” he added the next instant; “that fire’s
burning like a box factory. Come on, Tom!”
He shook his comrade’s shoulder, but the other only moaned.
“That brute struck him a terrible blow,” exclaimed Jack; “but thank
goodness, he appears to have some color in his face now, though he must
have been mighty pale for a time. Well, that’s a good sign.”
He bent over his comrade, and while the flames crackled and roared
furiously upward he dragged Tom out of their reach, across the
door-sill of the barn and out into the fresh air. As he did so, he
stumbled over a recumbent form near the door.
It was Blinky. Close by were the insensible bodies of Duggan and Duke.
“I’ve got to get Tom to a safe and comfortable place before I bother
about them,” thought Jack.
The flames were leaping up through the hole in the roof, lighting up
the whole neighborhood as plain as day. By their glare Jack found a bed
of soft fern and laid his chum’s still form upon it. Then he went back
for the other victims of the lightning, for he knew that if they lay
where they were the flames would soon become hot enough to scorch them.
One by one the boy pluckily dragged the heavy forms of the men who a
short time since were trying to do him harm, to a place of safety. By
the time he had finished, there was a glare coming from the burning
barn that was as bright as the blaze of a thousand arc lights. Glancing
over toward Tom, Jack was overjoyed to see his cousin sitting up with
his eyes open and gazing somewhat dazedly about him.
“Thank goodness you’re better, Tom,” he cried, hastening toward his
chum, for he had ascertained that Duke and his cronies were only
insensible and probably would recover possession of their faculties
shortly.
Pending this time, Jack had bound their hands and feet securely with
some light rope he had found on a fence near the barn.
“What’s happened?” gasped Tom, gazing about him in the glow of the
flaming barn. “What’s on fire? Where are we?”
“Not a hundred yards from where we stopped the machine, Tom. Those
rascals lying bound yonder knocked you insensible and overpowered me.
They had found out about the money in our shoes. By the way, one of
them is our old friend Duke.”
“Gracious! Adam Duke?”
“The same.”
“But how did he come to be here?”
“Struck by lightning like that barn was, and like I was, I guess.”
“No; but I mean how did he come to be at the place he was when we were
attacked?”
“The old fox saw us draw our money and drove ahead of us to this lonely
place in a machine that belongs to a workshop that employs him.”
“He trailed us in Camwell, then?”
Tom appeared to be still a bit dazed, and Jack decided to defer the
details of the story to some more appropriate time and place.
“I’ll tell you all about it later on,” he said hastily; “right now I
want to recover some stolen property from the inside coat pocket of our
friend, Mr. Duke, who, I perceive, is beginning to move.”
This was true. As well as his bonds would permit him, Duke was
stirring uneasily. Presently his two companions began to move, too. At
first they were too confused in their ideas to notice that they were
bound.
“Where are we—in jail?” demanded Blinky.
“I dunno,” replied Duggan in a flat, weak voice, “what d’you think?”
Plainly, and quite believably, both were not unfamiliar with the
state’s free lodging house to which they had reference.
“No; you’re not in jail, you rascals, though you richly deserve to be,”
exclaimed Jack, stepping forward. “Duke, give me those bills you stole
from us.”
“Don’t you do it,” warned Duggan.
“Pay no attention to him,” retorted Jack, “it will be best for you to
give them up at once.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You are bound fast and tight and cannot escape. If you refuse to tell
me whereabouts they are on you, I shall summon the authorities, leaving
my cousin to guard you with the pistol you were kind enough to present
to me.”
“You’ll smart for this! See if you don’t! I’ll fix you sooner or later.
I’ll——” warned Duke furiously.
A quick, certain footstep sounded behind them.
Then came a sharp, imperative voice, with a marked New England twang.
“What in ’tarnation’s all this yar?”