RESCUE ARRIVES
Tom Barnum had disappeared. Now he ran up from the rear of the radio
station.
"Quick, Mister Frank, with that revolver," he said. "They've split up
an' the fellows in the woods are trying to work their way around to
take us in the rear. I been watchin' from the back side."
Frank nodded and started to follow. Then he spun around, ran again to
his former vantage point, and sent a couple of bullets towards the
figures in the sand.
"That'll hold 'em there for a minute," he said.
As he ran after Tom Barnum to the other corner of the station on the
side which sheltered them, he refilled the emptied chambers of the
precious weapon.
"There," said Tom Barnum, crouching low, and pointing.
Frank tried to follow directions but saw nothing. He pressed the
revolver into Tom's hand.
"Don't waste time trying to show me," he said. "If you see anybody,
shoot."
Tom took the weapon, glanced along the barrel, and pressed the
trigger. A yell of pain was the response. Twenty yards away there was
a crash in the bushes, then silence.
"Back to the other corner," said Tom, chuckling, and dashed again to
the post from which Frank originally had fired.
Frank sat down, with his back against the wall of the station and
laughed hysterically.
"Golly, but this is a game of hide and seek, all right," he gasped.
Again the revolver spoke, a yell followed, and then came a rain of
bullets.
"Here they come," cried Tom, and in quick succession he pumped out
four more shots.
Howls and shrieks of anguish rose. Tom was shooting with deadly
intent. The attempted rush was halted, broken. The desperadoes
composing the attacking force could not stand before that deadly aim.
They broke and ran back toward the trees, leaving three figures
groveling in the sand.
"One for Mister Frank, and three for me, them two and one back
behind," said Tom Barnum grimly, to Bob and Jack, who were peering
over his shoulder. "That ain't so bad."
A cry from Captain Folsom, followed by Frank's voice calling urgently,
caused the three to spin around. They were just in time to see one man
go down under a terrific blow from the doughty, one-armed officer,
while Frank leaped in under the arm of a second desperado, upraised to
fire, and brought him crashing down with a flying tackle.
"As pretty as I ever saw," muttered Bob. "Old Frank ought to make the
All-American team for that."
Quick as thought, having felled his man, Captain Folsom stooped down
and wrenched a revolver from his grasp, then spun about on his knee
and fired just as a third rounded the corner. The man toppled forward.
By this time Bob and Jack had reached the scene. But the attack from
the rear had spent its force. The three most daring evidently had
taken the lead. And the way they had been disposed of deterred the
others. A half dozen in number, they hung uncertainly in a group along
the wall of the radio station.
Captain Folsom helped them make up their minds as to which direction
to take by sending several shots over their heads. Without even
waiting to reply, they ran for cover toward the trees and bushes at
the edge of the clearing.
The man whom Frank had tackled capitulated without a struggle, seeing
the fight had gone against him. Frank took his revolver. From the
fellow whom Captain Folsom had shot, and who proved to be wounded only
in the thigh, Bob obtained a revolver. All except Jack were now armed,
and he had the butcher knife which Frank had carried away from the
Brownell house, although he laughed as he flourished it.
"The way you fellows treat our friends," he said, "I expect none of
them will come close enough to give me a chance to use this."
"Look here," said Captain Folsom, approaching the boys, after having
ascertained first that the man whom he had shot had only a flesh
wound; "we aren't out of the woods yet. These fellows are determined
scoundrels, and they know they can't afford to let us escape. Finding
they can't rush us, they will next try to work around through the
trees and attack us from this side. I think we had better make a dash
around Tom Barnum's corner and get into the radio station."
"But how about my going to the beach to meet Lieutenant Summers?"
asked Jack.
"Our position ought to be evident to him," said Captain Folsom. "He
can understand what is going on, and come up cautiously. I can't risk
having any of you lads run the gauntlet. I've reproached myself a
hundred times already for leading you into danger."
"Nonsense, Captain," said Jack. "We volunteered. And we're safe so
far, aren't we?"
The other shook his head with a smile of admiration. These boys were
made of manly stuff.
"Come," said he, "there is no time to waste. Any minute we may expect
to be peppered from the woods on this side. Here, you two," he added,
addressing the two unwounded prisoners, "help your pal and march.
We're going into the radio station."
The men, young, smooth-shaven and looking like what they were, city
toughs, were cowed. Without a word, they moved to obey.
"All clear there, Tom?" asked Captain Folsom of Tom Barnum, who had
kept up his watch at the forward end of the side wall.
"If we move fast we can make it," Tom replied. "There's nobody out
here in front but the wounded, an' they're crawlin' to cover."
"Good," answered Captain Folsom. "Now, altogether."
A quick dash from cover, and the party was safely within the sending
room of the station.
Jack's first move was to ascertain whether any of the enemy had gained
entrance to the power house. He approached the connecting door at the
rear of the room. It still was closed and locked. Tom Barnum had taken
up his post inside the door, which he had swung shut behind him, not,
however, until Frank had found and pressed a wall button which
switched on a cluster of electric lights overhead.
"Lucky for us there is no other entrance to the power house than
through this door," said Jack. "At least there is none, so far as I
have seen. If there had been, they might have slipped in that other
room, come through here and have gotten close enough to rush us before
we could have stopped them."
Captain Folsom approached Tom Barnum, after asking the boys to keep an
eye on the prisoners.
"I see you are keeping watch through a crack in the door," he said.
"But, I believe we would be better off with the door open entirely.
That would give us a clear view of the side from which attack must
come. We can push this big table across the doorway, upending it. So."
And, suiting action to word, he and Tom dragged the heavy article of
furniture into position. "Now let us push the door open," he said.
Just as Tom was about to comply, an outburst of shooting in the
clearing split the air.
"Hurray," shouted Jack. "The 'Dry Navy' got on the job. Come on,
fellows, open the door."
As Tom Barnum, who had paused in that very act, stunned by this new
development, completed the task and the door swung outward, the others
crowded to the barrier of the upended table.
Jack's surmise was apparently correct. Along the wall of the radio
station were ranged a dozen men. They had been stealing up to pour a
hot fire through the door. But Lieutenant Summers with his landing
party, drawn to the clearing by the sounds of combat, had made a
hurried march up from the beach, and opened fire. His men were
advancing across the clearing, scattered out fanwise, crouching and
shooting as they came.
Taken by surprise, the smugglers were returning only a ragged fire.
Seeing how matters stood, Captain Folsom directed the table be pulled
away and then, commanding the boys to keep in the background, he and
Tom Barnum stepped out to the stoop and poured the contents of their
revolvers, fast as they could pump them, into the smugglers.
The surprise of the latter was complete. Caught between two fires,
they did not know which way to turn. They wavered a moment, then
dashed away along the wall of the radio plant in an opposite
direction from the door.
As they disappeared among the trees, pursued by a detachment of
Lieutenant Summer's men, the latter with a half dozen followers dashed
up to the radio plant and, in the lighted doorway, recognized the
figure of his colleague, Captain Folsom.
Greetings were exchanged, and then Captain Folsom called the boys
forward and introduced them.
"Plucky lads, if ever I met any," he said, warmly, "and resourceful,
too. Their ingenuity has pulled us through time and again to-night."
"Not to mention," said Bob, gruffly, "that it was my darned
foolishness that got us into this scrape to begin with."
"Nonsense, my boy," said Captain Folsom. "You did only what any of us
would have done in jumping that rascal, Higginbotham. Well, now, let
us head for the house. Probably that is where these rascals will take
refuge. They must be wondering who you are, Lieutenant, and how you
happened to appear on the scene."