PRISONERS
"I heard a fellow shouting and beat it, or I'd'a done a better job.
Anyhow, that's one plane won't be able to fly for a while."
One of the two men dropped this remark as the pair, engrossed in
conversation, passed abreast of the party on the outside of the
boundary fence and not ten feet from them. The speaker was a short,
broad, powerfully built man in appearance, and he spoke in a harsh
voice and with a twang that marked him as a ruffian of the city slums.
He wore a cap, pulled so low over his features as to make them
indistinguishable. And he walked with a peg leg!
The moonlight was full on the face of the other, and the boys
recognized him as Higginbotham. There was an angry growl from Bob,
farthest along the line toward the beach, which he quickly smothered.
Apparently, it did not attract attention, for Higginbotham and his
companion continued on their way oblivious to the proximity of the
others.
"The young hounds," said Higginbotham, in his cultivated, rather high
voice. And he spoke with some heat. "This will teach them a lesson not
to go prying into other people's business."
The other man made some reply, but it was indistinguishable to those
in hiding, and the precious pair proceeded on their way, now out of
earshot. But enough had been overheard. It was plain now, if it had
not been before, where lay the guilt for the attempt to destroy the
airplane. Plain, too, was the fact that Higginbotham was engaged in
some nefarious enterprise.
For several seconds longer, after Higginbotham and his companion had
gotten beyond earshot and were lost to view among the trees, Jack
remained quiet but inwardly a-boil. Then he turned to Captain Folsom
and Tom Barnum, crouching beside him.
"What an outrage," he whispered, indignantly. "Poor Bob and Frank. To
have their airplane damaged just because that scoundrel thought we
were prying into his dirty secrets. I wish I had my hands on him."
Suddenly his tone took on a note of alarm.
"Why, where are Bob and Frank?" he demanded. "They were here a moment
ago."
He stared about him in bewilderment. The others did likewise. But the
two mentioned could not be seen. With an exclamation, Jack rose to his
feet.
"Come on," he urged. "I'll bet Bob decided to go for the fellow who
burned his plane and take it out of his hide. When that boy gets
angry, he wants action."
He started striding hastily down toward the beach, alongside the wire
fencing. The others pressed at his heels. Presently, they caught the
glint of water through the trees, and then, some distance ahead,
caught sight of two figures moving out from the grove onto the sands
on the opposite side of the fence. Jack increased his pace, but even
as he did so two other figures stole from the woods on the heels of
the first pair.
Involuntarily, Jack cried out. The second pair leaped upon the backs
of the first and bore them to the ground. The next moment, the air was
filled with curses, and the four figures rolled on the sands.
"Come on, fellows," cried Jack, breaking into a run, and dashed
ahead.
He broke from the trees and discovered the boundary fence came to an
abrupt end at the edge of the grove. It was here Bob and Frank, he
felt sure, had made their way and leaped on Higginbotham and the thug.
For so he interpreted what he had seen.
As he came up the fight ended. It had been bitter but short. Frank was
astride Higginbotham and pressing his opponent's face into the sand to
smother his outcries. Bob had wrapped his arms and legs about the city
ruffian and the latter, whose curses had split the air, lay face
uppermost, his features showing contorted in the moonlight. Bob knelt
upon him. As Jack ran up, he was saying:
"You want to be careful whose airplane you burn."
An exclamation from Captain Folsom drew Jack's attention from the
figures in the immediate foreground, and raising his eyes he gazed in
the direction in which the other was pointing. Some fifty yards away,
on the edge of Starfish Cove, a half dozen objects of strange shape
and design were drawn up on the sand. They were long, shaped somewhat
like torpedoes and gleamed wet in the moonlight.
Not a soul was in sight. The moonlit stretch of beach was empty except
for them.
"What in the world can those be?" asked Captain Folsom.
"They are made of metal," said Jack. "See how the moonlight gleams
upon them. By George, Captain, they are big as whales. Can they be
some type of torpedo-shaped boat controlled by radio?"
"This is luck," exclaimed Captain Folsom. "That's just what they are.
Probably, those two scoundrels were coming down here to see whether
they had arrived, coming down here from their radio station. Come on,
let's have a look."
He started forward eagerly. Jack was a step behind him. An
inarticulate cry from Tom Barnum smote Jack's ears, and he spun about.
The next instant he saw a man almost upon him, swinging for his head
with a club. He tried to dodge, to avoid the blow, but the club
clipped him on the side of the head and knocked him to the ground. His
senses reeled, and he struggled desperately to rise, but to no avail.
A confused sound of shouts and cries and struggling filled his ears,
then it seemed as if a wave engulfed him, and he lost consciousness.
When he recovered his senses, Jack found himself lying in darkness. He
tried to move, but discovered his hands and feet were tied. He lay
quiet, listening. A faint moan came to his ears.
"Who's that?" he whispered.
"That you, Jack?" came Frank's voice in reply, filled with anxiety.
It was close at hand.
"Yes. Where's Bob?"
"He's here, but I'm worried about him. I can't get any sound from
him."
"What happened?" asked Jack, his head buzzing, and sore. "Where are
the others?"
"Guess we're all here, Mister Jack," answered Tom Barnum's voice, out
of the darkness. "Leastways, Captain What's-his-name's here beside me,
but he don't speak, neither."
"Good heavens," exclaimed Jack, in alarm, and making a valiant effort
to shake off his dizziness. "Where are we? What happened? Frank, do
you know? Tom, do you?"
"Somebody jumped on me from behind," said Frank, "and then the fellow
I was sitting on, this Higginbotham, squirmed around and took a hand,
and I got the worst of it, and was hustled off to the old Brownell
house and thrown in this dark room. I had my hands full and couldn't
see what was going on. I heard Tom yell, but at the same time this
fellow jumped on me. That's all I know."
"There was a dozen or more of 'em come out of the woods," said Tom.
"They sneaked out. We was pretty close to the trees. I just happened
to look back, an' they was on us. Didn't even have time to pull my
pistol. They just bowled me over by weight of numbers. Like Mister
Frank, I had my own troubles and couldn't see what happened to the
rest of you."
There was a momentary silence, broken by Jack.
"It's easy to see what happened," he said, bitterly. "What fools we
were. Those things on the beach were radio-controlled boats which had
brought liquor ashore, and a gang was engaged in carrying it up to the
Brownell house. We happened along when the beach was clear, and
Higginbotham and that other scoundrel were the vanguard of the
returning party. When they shouted on being attacked by you and Bob,
and Frank, the rest who were behind them in the woods were given the
alarm, sneaked up quietly, and bagged us all. A pretty mess."
A groan from Bob interrupted.
"Poor old Bob," said Jack, contritely, for he had been blaming the
headstrong fellow in his thoughts for having caused their difficulties
by his precipitate attack on Higginbotham. "He seems to have gotten
the worst of it."
"Look here, Jack," said Frank suddenly. "My hands and feet are tied,
and I suppose yours are, too. I'm going to roll over toward you, and
do you try to open the knots on my hands with your teeth."
"Would if I could, Frank," said Jack. "But that clip I got on the side
of my head must have loosened all my teeth. They ache like sixty."
"All right, then I'll try my jaws on your bonds."
Presently, Frank was alongside Jack in the darkness.
"Here, where are your hands?" he said.
After some squirming about, Frank found what he sought, and began to
chew and pull at the ropes binding Jack's hands. It was a tedious
process at first, but presently he managed to get the knot
sufficiently loosened to permit of his obtaining a good purchase, and
then, in a trice, the ropes fell away.
"Quick now, Jack," he said, anxiously. "We don't know how long we'll
be left undisturbed. Somebody may come along any minute. Untie your
feet and then free Tom and me, and we can see how Bob and Captain
Folsom are fixed."
Jack worked with feverish haste. After taking the bonds from his
ankles, he undid those binding Frank. The latter immediately went to
the side of Bob, whose groans had given way to long, shuddering sighs
that indicated a gradual restoration of consciousness but that also
increased the alarm of his comrades regarding his condition.
Tom Barnum next was freed and at once set to work to perform a similar
task for Captain Folsom, who meantime had regained his senses and
apparently was injured no more severely than Jack, having like him
received a clout on the side of the head. Tom explained the situation
while untying him. Fortunately, the bonds in all cases had been only
hastily tied.
"Bob, this is Frank. Do you hear me? Frank." The latter repeated
anxiously, several times, in the ear of his comrade.
"Frank?" said Bob, thickly, at last. "Oh, my head."
"Thank heaven, you're alive," said Frank fervently, and there was a
bit of tremolo in his tone. He and the big fellow were very close to
each other. "Now just lie quiet, and I'll explain where you are and
what happened. But first tell me are you hurt any place other than
your head?"
"No, I think not," said Bob. "But the old bean's humming like a top.
What happened, anyhow? Where are we? Where are the others?"
"Right here, old thing," said Jack, on the other side of the prone
figure.
Thereupon Bob, too, was put in possession of the facts as to what had
occurred. At the end of the recital, he sat up, albeit with an effort,
for his head felt, as he described it, "like Fourth of July night--and
no safe and sane Fourth, at that."
"I don't know if you fellows can ever forgive me," he said, with a
groan. "I got you into this. I saw red, when I discovered it was
Higginbotham and that other rascal who had set the plane afire. There
they were, in the woods, and I set out to crawl after them. Frank
followed me."
"Tried to stop him," interposed Frank. "But he wouldn't be stopped. I
didn't dare call to the rest of you for fear of giving the alarm, so I
went along. Anyhow, Bob," he added, loyally, "I felt just the same way
you did about it, and you were no worse than I."
"No," said Bob. "You weren't to blame at all. It was all my fault."
"Forget it," said Jack. "Let's consider what to do now? Here we are,
five of us, and now that we are on guard we ought to be able to give a
pretty good account of ourselves. I, for one, don't propose to sit
around and wait for our captors to dispose of us. How about the rest
of you?"
"Say on, Jack," said Frank. "If Bob's all right, nothing matters."
"You have something in mind, Hampton, I believe," said Captain Folsom,
quietly. "What is it?"