Captured
When John came to, he fully expected to find himself held prisoner by
none other than Mr. Nevens himself. His surprise was the more intense,
as he shook his aching head and sat up, to find that he was still in a
fog; and it was not a mental one either. All about him was dark damp
fog. He had escaped from their pursuers? Yes, for there were no sounds
save the rustling of trees in the blackness. He started, all of a
sudden, shocked by the discovery that he had lost his bow and quiver of
arrows!
Knowing that they were his only weapon except his wits in the present
dilemma, he tried hard to think of what had happened to them. He
knew that he’d left the yacht with them, stepping ashore from the
_Staghound_ with them under one arm. He’d have to find them, and soon!
Then he had a flash of remembrance that, as Stan shouted for them to
run, he’d felt his bow and arrows yanked from his grip as he dashed
through the bushes. If some one of the pursuing men had grabbed them,
that party might be waiting now for him to go back to search for them.
He had to chance that likelihood.
So he went back as near as he could guess to the spot from which the
chase had begun, wondering as he did so about a lot of things. Where
was Stan? What was Mr. Sandborn doing? He had retraced his steps as
best he could and was searching about among the bushes, as quietly as
possible, when he ran into something which struck him in the chest! It
felt like the end of a gun barrel, and John Tallman thought that the
worst had happened!
But no challenge came with that touch, and gently he slid one hand to
the object. A little cry of joy escaped his lips as he recognized his
bow’s end! It was caught in a bush, and the catching of the string had
simulated a yank at the time he’d run. He released it, and found on
the ground the quiver with the arrows. Grateful for his good luck, he
listened, hearing footsteps approaching.
Then came voices, men’s voices.
“Where do you s’pose that other kid got to, Dago?” some one was asking.
Dago’s reply was mingled with profanity as the men came down a path and
passed by the spot where John was crouching, ears straining for every
word. As the men went on, the lad arose and followed them, stepping
softly and listening to a great many interesting things.
“Well, we got the other kid, anyhow, Dago.”
“Yeh, and we’ll get-a the dark-haired one, too, before the night’s
over. Nevada’s sure glad!”
“Gallagher didn’t seem so happy, somehow, Dago,” said a voice.
Dago swore.
“Gallagher ain’t----”
“Ain’t what, Dago?”
“Youse guys ull tell Nevada if I tells ya what I thinks, so I’m keeping
mum.”
“Trouble with you, Dago, is, you ain’t a good loser!” chuckled the
first man. “He licked you with the rods, licked you with his fists, and
his brain’s just ’bout eight times your size brain, stupid!”
“What’s the use of hanging round here all night, Dago,” some one else
wanted to know. “We can’t see the other kid in the dark. We ain’t cats,
ya know!”
“Well, if them kids is here, they got-a boat, ain’t they? And if they
got-a boat, we’ll find it to-morrow, by thunder. I knows her when I
sees her. Black she is, with one of them ‘gaff’ rigs.”
“I hear you left your gloves on her last time, Dago!” chaffed the first
speaker.
“I hears you ain’t gonna be healthy long, if you keep-a yapping at me,
Butch!” growled Dago.
John Tallman was so interested in what was being said that he came
within an inch of colliding with the last man of the bunch as they
slowed up and stopped. Some sixth sense warned him, and he stopped and
listened. He heard bushes rustling, something metallic clanking softly,
and then came a noise of men on wooden steps! In a moment the party had
disappeared, leaving John Tallman, puzzled and annoyed, standing in the
fog alone.
His back running gooseflesh, he pressed slowly and carefully forward,
and touched--a door! Investigation with careful finger tips proved it
to be a small oblong door of metal without any handle or latch. That
it went into an underground tunnel he knew, for the steps had sounded
“down,” not up, and besides, as John guessed, the island was a maze
of secret passages. How near to the cabin they were, in fact in which
direction they had been moving, he had no idea. But he had to find out,
because until something turned up, he’d have to follow every clue to
find Stanley and try to rescue him.
What lay beyond that door? And how could he get it open? He had no
answer to either question, but he had to find some way to get in and
discover for himself the answer to the first. Again he ran his fingers
over the door, particularly on the side away from the hinges; then he
tried pressing in that area and was abruptly rewarded by feeling a tiny
square of metal go in under his fingers, and at once the door swung
inward!
Darkness as dark as the outside still was there before his eyes, and he
stepped forward gingerly. Down several wooden steps he felt his way,
stumbled into the wall, and found that the passage now went sharply
away to the right. He went along, guiding himself by one hand against a
wall, feeling for each of the upright timbers supporting the walls and
roof of the tunnel. The air was close and damp, and smelled strongly of
sour earth.
How far he went in this manner he was not sure, possibly about one
hundred yards without an apparent turn in the tunnel, and then it swung
left sharply and went downhill to a slight rate of drop. Faint light
showed far ahead, though the distance could not have been above fifty
yards further, ending in another curve. There were side aisles now to
be dimly seen due to the vague reflection of the lights, and this was
extremely fortunate for John Tallman, for he heard footsteps and had
barely time to retreat to a side aisle and set an arrow to the notch,
when the men approached.
“The kid will be all right with Gagnon,” said Dago, passing down the
main tunnel.
“Yeh, he’s that nervous he’d choke the kid if the guy lets a peep out
of him!”
“And ain’t that just about what Nevada wants?”
“Just about. Only he aims to have this Gallagher guy take care of the
rub-out!”
“I still don’t-a like the looks of Gallagher,” Dago said. “Nevada’s
a fool-a to be taken in by the guy. How do we know he ain’t a Fed in
disguise?”
A burst of raucous laughter resounded down the tunnel at that, and
Butch roared, “You been readin’ these G-man mags, Dago, old rat!”
“I been readin’ about-a that Hogan case, you mean. They say they was a
G-man what was a spy fer one of the gangs!”
“Worked right in with them, Dago?”
“Right-hand man!”
There was silence as they hurried away; then some one grunted,
“Something to think about, anyhow; eh?”
But John Tallman had heard enough to make his hopes rise as well as
fall. He knew that Gallagher was probably Mr. Sandborn and that he was
in grave danger because these men would stop at little to discover his
real identity, and he felt elated, because what had been said must
mean that Stanley Sandborn was not far distant!
Excited, he shoved off towards the lights again, hurrying along now
that he could see, ready to dart into a side aisle at the first need.
He rounded a bend in the tunnel faster than he planned and was through
a door and into a small room before he realized what had happened!
There _he_ was and there was--Stanley, with a youngish mobster! Stan
was tied with his hands behind him, and the gangster had a drawn
automatic on a convenient table. The man, probably the Gagnon Dago had
mentioned, went for the gun, but John had an arrow drawn back to the
tip!
“Leave it alone!” ordered John, aiming for the man’s right arm.
But the hand was streaking for that gun and did not stop. His fingers
closed over the weapon and he was drawing it back when the arrow
twanged home! With a startled outcry of pain the man dropped the
weapon, and grabbed for his arm with his left hand.
The arrow had punctured one of the muscles, and John covered the man
with another arrow as Gagnon pulled the first one free of the wound.
Being a muscle wound and the arrow having missed any arteries or veins,
it hardly bled any, but was painful. The man turned a white face,
almost chalklike, towards the youth.
“Give me your knife, and fast!” ordered John.
The man reached awkwardly for his pocket and drew out a knife. He
opened it on order, wincing from the pain of his wounded arm, and cut
Stanley’s ropes.
Stan’s bows and arrows were standing in the corner of that room and the
G-man’s son, rubbing his arms quickly to restore the circulation, was
shortly standing with drawn bow beside John.
“Tie him up, John, while I cover his face with this hunting arrow!”
Now, like most other young men, especially of his type, Gagnon was
particularly anxious to keep his good looks, and the sight of that
steel point robbed him of any desire to resist the ropes with which
John now tied his wrists. And Gagnon was thinking fast. He voiced his
thought in a moment.
“Listen, fellows,” said he, trembling, “I can’t let Dago and the others
find me like this!”
“Why not?” asked John, scornfully.
The man shivered, and his face seemed even whiter.
“They would think I released you and then let you tie me because I
wanted you to get away!”
“You’d be on a spot, then; eh, Mr.--Gagnon!”
“How’d you know my name?”
“Had an idea,” admitted John, withholding the source of that
information.
“They’d kill me, boys!” cried the excited and scared gangster.
About that time Dago and his men had emerged from the tunnel and
followed a path in the fog to the boat-shed. There they were received
in the lighted interior by Nevada and Gallagher.
“We got the yellow-haired kid safely enough. We took him to the
‘waiting room’ and left him with Gagnon. And----”
“Is he there now?” demanded Nevada, sharply.
“Sure. We looked for the other kid and couldn’t find him, and then went
back to see that Gagnon and the kid was o.k.”
“Gallagher, I guess you can take over the job now. The other kid must
be on the Island somewheres. They probably landed from that black sloop
of theirs. We’ll have the Island circled from daybreak by our runabouts
and nab that boat wherever it is. In the meantime we’ll get the
dark-haired Tallman kid. You do what you think best with the Sandborn
kid. You kin get rid of him now or----”
“I’ll rub ’em both out to onc’t, Cowboy!” said Gallagher, wiping his
lips with his dry tongue. “It’s like drowning kittens, ya know. I’ll
take ’em both to onc’t, like I said!”
“Get going, then.”
Sullenly Dago led the new trigger-man up the path to the tunnel
entrance. Mr. Sandborn knew that this tunnel ended in the “waiting
room,” where a party of heavily armed mobsters could wait in safety
till such time as their presence was needed to counter attack any gang
circling the main system of tunnels about the cabin. In time, Nevada
planned to have tunnel connections from the cabin to the waiting
room, but in the meantime it was isolated. The G-man was not unduly
nervous at what lay ahead, for he had no intention of course of letting
harm come to either John or his own son, Stanley. He only hoped now
that Stan would not give away the G-man’s identity by any unexpected
outburst of emotion.
“The kid’s pretty scared, Gallagher,” Dago said. “I don’t-a envy you
none!”
“Probably ain’t half as scared as you are of him, Dago!” chuckled
Gallagher.
Butch roared at that.
“The kid’s o.k., Gallagher. It’s Dago what’s scared like a hen on a
railway crossing! Arrows ain’t so hot, be they, Dago?”
“Here we are,” said Dago, displaying a flashlight now which illuminated
the door while he opened it to the passage. They went down and along
the way to the room. The lights at the other end glimmered round the
corner. There was a rustle in a side aisle!
“What was that?” demanded Dago.
Butch roared again.
“Them kids with their little bows and arrows, probably!” cried Butch,
hugging himself with amusement, “Run, Dago, run!”
Beefy faced and purple with anger, Dago put back his weapon, and they
went on to the room, rounding the corner and going through the door.
“Suffering tripe!” cried Dago.
“Wow!” bellowed Butch.
Mr. Sandborn smiled.
“Gone!” said he, quietly.
“Gone?” demanded Dago as if he doubted his own eyes. “Gone? How? Where?
What about Gagnon?”