Part 5

The boathook, flashing down with all Terry’s muscular strength, landed heavily on Frank’s shoulder, causing the little man to drop back into the boat with a sharp cry.

But with Benito he was not so fortunate. While Terry was busy with the smaller man the leader of the men had flung a rope loosely over the stern rail of the sloop and was even now springing aboard. Before Terry could raise the boathook again the powerful man had thrown his arms about the boy.

“No use to struggle, bub,” he grumbled. “We’ve got you.”

Encouraged by the success Benito had met with, Frank scrambled on the deck, casting an ugly look at Terry. As for the boy himself, he suddenly felt sick and disgusted. He had been left with the sloop in his care, and now he had allowed the men to creep up alongside in the darkness. Deep down in his heart he knew that resistance was useless, but he still struggled.

“Look here, young fellow—” began Benito when the sloop heeled over slightly as a sudden weight was added to the starboard side. Terry, twisting in Benito’s grasp, found Jim standing behind him, a boathook in his hand. For a moment the two outlaws, thinking that Jim was alone, started toward him, Benito dragging Terry.

But as Terry began to kick and squirm Captain Blow leaped on deck. The old man looked the picture of fury as he bore down on the two men from the other side of the island. Jim, springing at Frank, just missed him with a swing of the boathook, and the little man, uttering a howl of terror, rolled off the deck and splashed into the water. Benito, seeing the grim look in the captain’s eyes, attempted to let go of the boy, but Terry, realizing that he was to be captured, in turn held on to him.

Captain Blow’s haste spoiled the whole scheme. Like a battering ram the captain’s knotted old fist caught the bandit on the side of the head, knocking him clean overboard. Without touching the low rail or any portion of the sloop Benito simply flew in a back dive into the water.

“Get him!” yelled Jim, “don’t let him get away!”

Frank had succeeded in climbing into the rowboat and was rowing swiftly to where Benito was bobbing around in the water. As they watched the leader climbed into the boat, and they started to row rapidly for the island.

“We’ll get ’em in the dory,” Captain Blow said shortly. “Hop in, you two.”

Terry and Jim piled into the dory without loss of speed and the captain started the engine. The little boat ran around the _Lassie_ and then started in toward the shore.

“Oh, shucks!” snorted the captain. “I wish we’d thought to bring a flashlight along. My boat’s got no light on it. We’ll sort of have to feel our way along after them fellows.”

It was not too much like feeling, for the captain had a remarkably sharp pair of eyes, but although they patrolled up and down the shore for a good half hour they saw no signs of the two men in the rowboat.

“Must have headed right in to the shore,” Jim suggested.

“Yes,” the captain agreed. “Probably hiding in some black creek right now, where we’d never find ’em in a year of Sundays. Well, I suppose we go back now.”

“Aren’t you going to the house to get Don?” Jim cried.

The captain shook his head and headed the dory out to sea. “Nope, sorry to say. It wouldn’t be the sensible thing to do just now. Somebody has got to stay aboard the ship to watch her, and those fellows might come out again. Besides, we’d have a mean job finding the house in the dark and we couldn’t get in and roam around. Anyhow, you said your brother had escaped, so he may be somewhere on the island, just waiting for daylight.”

“I hope so,” Jim muttered. “But we’ll go ashore in the morning, won’t we?”

“Don’t you hang any doubts on that!” the captain declared, with emphasis. “We’ll just land all troops and clean up that place in fine style!”

They boarded the _Lassie_ again, where Jim told Terry of his adventures of the last few hours. Terry was very much pleased with Jim’s new find, Captain Blow. On his part, the old sailor was much impressed with the boys.

“You’re real shipshape lads,” he declared, warmly. “None of these softy loafers. I must say you keep this little boat in first class order. I’ve sailed in some worse rattletraps than this, in my time. Galloping smelts! there goes my fool tongue again. I mean I’ve sailed in some ships in my time that was rattletraps, not that your boat is one. Good thing my boats don’t navigate like my tongue.”

Hope that Don had managed to get away from the island house safely in some measure eased the minds of the two boys, and they ate some food. The captain asked to look at their barometer and frowned at it, but said nothing. In another hour, as they sat on the deck, a moaning breeze began to blow through the halyards of the sloop, and it began to rock with increasing force.

“In for bad weather,” growled the captain.

His words were scarcely out of his mouth before a violent gale swept over them, and the fury of the storm was on. Shouting to them to get below the captain forced his way to the bow to examine the anchor cable. Presently he dropped through the hatchway, soaking wet from head to foot from the flying spray.

“If it gets any worse we’ll have to weigh anchor and scoot,” he reported. “That baby hawser is getting quite a strain on it.”

For the next half hour the sloop rocked without stopping, and the three sat and talked in low tones. Each time a wave hit the little ship it jerked roughly at the anchor cable. Finally, shaking his shaggy head, the captain got up.

“Turn your power on,” he ordered Jim. “We’ve got to get that mud-hook up. If we don’t the cable’ll bust in two and then we’ll be bouncing all over the ocean.”

While Jim turned on the power the captain scrambled outside to pull up the anchor. Even under full power the _Lassie_ made little headway, only enough to slack up the strain on the taut cable. Bending double in the raging storm the old sea captain slowly and painfully cranked up the hand windlass. Reluctantly, the anchor came up.

Immediately the captain flew to the tiller, for, once released of the controlling power of the anchor the sloop bucked and rolled like a thing alive. Jim shut off the power and the boys looked out of the companionway, which was opened on a crack, at the captain, where he sat holding the sloop firmly on its course.

“What shall we do now?” Jim shouted to the skipper.

“Toss me out a good oilskin and then go to bed,” he returned, looking through narrowed eyes at the huge waves that rolled around them.

Terry handed him a suit of oilskins. “We don’t want to go to bed, sir,” he said. “Too much excitement.”

The captain slapped his knee. “Excitement, by golly! What kind of sailors do you two calculate to be? Don’t you know a real jack tar don’t let anything bother his sleep but the sinkin’ of the ship! And answer me this: either of you ever try to hold a small vessel in line in a blow?”

The boys shook their heads. The captain chuckled. “If you tried this tonight, you’d be flappin’ back and forth in the breeze like a shirt on a line. Get into bed and get some sleep!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” laughed Jim. He and Terry climbed into their bunks, but for a time found sleep impossible.

“My gosh!” gasped Terry. “I was never in a bed that threw you up in the air like this.”

Finally, however, almost worn out by the events of the day, the boys went to sleep, to wake up several hours later. They sprang up and opened the companionway slide, to find that they were far from the island. The wind had gone down and the stalwart old captain still sat at the tiller.

“Good morning, Captain Blow,” nodded Jim. “I feel guilty to have slept while you sat here on this wet deck all night with the tiller.”

“I do, too,” agreed Terry.

“Pull in your sail!” ordered the captain, good-naturedly. “It didn’t hurt me any. We’re a considerable spell further out than we were yesterday, ain’t we?”

“Yes,” Jim agreed, anxiously. “Can we get back?”

The captain tossed his oilskins aside. “We sure can. We’re about three miles off of that island now. The water’s running pretty heavy right now, but put on the power anyway. We’ve got to get back to that island.”

The sloop was soon under full power, headed back toward the low island. The captain surrendered the tiller to Jim and went below to make coffee, which warmed them and buoyed up their spirits.

It took them more than an hour to run back to the island, but at the end of that time they dropped anchor in the cove, where the dinghy had been placed on the sands. But there was no dinghy there now, and Jim was worried.

“Let’s hope Don didn’t take to the dinghy and was lost in the storm,” he said.

But the captain shook his head. “Don’t believe it,” he declared, stoutly. “Well, here is where we raid that nest in the woods. Only this time I suggest that Jim stays on the ship, and you, Terry, come with me.”

“Can’t we all go?” Jim cried.

“Nope. I’d like you to stay here, while Terry and me see what we can stir up in that place.”

So Jim was left alone to pace restlessly around the deck of the _Lassie_ while the other two, in the captain’s dory, went ashore. He watched them land and then settled himself to wait.

Terry and the captain took the path and soon reached the old house. It looked every bit as deserted as it ever had, but the captain wasted no time in wondering. He marched up the shaking front steps, raised his foot, and kicked the door off its hinges. With a roar the door flew into the damp hall.

“Nobody can say I didn’t knock!” he grinned.

Both of them had armed themselves with heavy sticks, although Terry was sure that the captain had something cold and steel in an inside pocket, something which reassured him, but which he hoped the captain would not have to use. They were now in a large hall, off which ran a number of rooms. A winding staircase ran to the floor above, and on a turn in it they saw a large old redwood clock.

“A grandfather clock,” breathed Terry.

“Sure! See the whiskers on it!”

Terry laughed. “Those are cobwebs,” he said. The captain moved away in the direction of another room, but the red-headed boy remained where he was, looking up the stairs.

“Come on,” ordered the captain, impatiently, “What are you standing there for? Your feet sprouting lead?”

“No,” answered Terry slowly. “But I do think I just saw that grandfather clock move, Captain Blow!”

_11. The Storage Room_

When Don let go of the edge of the flooring in the old house and dropped into space he had no idea of how far he would fall or how he would land. His teeth gripped together firmly, he felt himself shooting through a black void, to land suddenly on something wet and soft. The fall had not been long, and he was not even shaken up.

By feeling about him he soon came to the conclusion that he had landed on a heap of ashes, long ago soaked down by the dampness of the cellar. Don stood up and slowly moved his arms around in circles to gauge his distance, and then, finding that he was not near any wall or partition, began a careful advance. The place was pitch dark, and he had no idea what terrible holes or traps might exist in the loathsome place.

After traveling slowly in one direction he found that his hands encountered a wall, and with that as a guide he began a systematic journey around the place, seeking some sort of an opening. He had traveled around three of the four walls when his groping hands felt an iron door. He ran his hand up and down it from top to bottom and found that it was only five feet high and about three feet wide. The iron, much to his surprise, did not feel badly rusted. He wondered how that could be, and concluded that it had not been there for any length of time.

Continuing his explorations with his fingers he found a sliding bolt on the door which he had no difficulty in working. The bolt slipped back without protest, and the door opened inward, toward him. But when Don had opened the door, he felt rather disappointed. He had hoped to feel a rush of cold air, but there was none. Only a drier odor and one heavily tinctured with canvas. It was evidently good dry canvas, too, and that fact surprised him.

He stepped over the sill into the blackness and nearly pitched headlong. Only a good hold on the door frame saved him from going down, and he realized that this room was a few steps below the main cellar. So he lowered his foot until he felt the top step, and then found the second, and so on, until he had walked down four of them. Then he had made the level of the floor.

He felt a table to one side of him, and found that the top was covered with miscellaneous articles. Fortunately, he found a candle among the odds and ends which lay there.

“Now to find some matches,” he thought, and with increasing care he felt around the table until he came across a small box of safety matches. With an inward whoop of joy he scratched a match and lighted the candle. When the glow was steady he held the light above his head and looked around.

He was in a storage room that was quite large, and it was evident that some things were kept here with care. Several shelves ranged along the walls and these shelves seemed to be loaded with articles, all of which were covered with canvas. Don approached a bottom shelf and lifted a piece of canvas.

What he saw made his eyes bulge out. Quickly he lifted other coverings and examined the articles under them. In each case the same conviction was forced upon him.

“Jeepers!” he breathed. “These fellows are the marine bandits all right!”

Each piece of canvas covered some stolen object from a boat or a boathouse. Here there was a clock, there a sextant, there a binnacle, under another cover a compass and in a corner a telescope. There must have been almost a hundred pieces of ships’ goods there, and Jim’s clock was there, too.

“So,” decided Don, “this is where they store the stuff and then afterward they run it down the shore and sell it to cheap ship chandlers. No wonder they were never caught. It was easy for them to run out here and hide the stuff, and no one thought that they were so near home.”

He was trying to make up his mind just what to do when a sound outside startled him. Someone was walking around, and had gone into the room where he had been confined. With a swift movement Don blew out the light and waited, his heart pounding furiously. He knew that if they caught him in that room his life might be in grave danger, for they would realize that he controlled their secret.

The man in the room uttered a startled cry and then ran from the room. Don heard him running about the house, and then he heard other voices raised in excited talking. He also heard Jim fall through the porch, without knowing what it was, however. But when he heard a patter of feet returning to the room above he knew that he must seek safety at once.

His first impulse was to leave the storage room, but on second thought he dismissed it. Out in the dark cellar he would be at a distinct loss, and he dared not go out there with a light. No, he remembered that there was some extra canvas piled on the floor at the end of the storage room, and it was under this that he hid himself, hoping against hope that he was fully concealed.

He heard the man drop through the opening that he had made earlier in the evening and he could follow his progress as the man cautiously made his way around the cellar. It was not long before he heard the iron door open and a light, evidently from a lantern, flashed into the storage room.

From a split in the canvas Don could gain a fairly good view of what was going on. He saw the shaggy individual that Jim had seen come into the room and look about him carefully. Don could not understand why Benito and Frank were not with this man. Sizing him up, Don felt quite capable of handling him if it became necessary for him to try, but he hoped that it would not. Meanwhile, the man looked in each corner of the room, ducking his lantern down into the dark places.

At last, apparently satisfied that Don was not in there, the man turned and started for the steps. But as his foot touched the first one he paused and looked fully at the canvas under which Don lay. There was something burning in his glance, and Don felt his skin grow tight. Then, placing the lantern on the lowest step, the man headed straight for the heap of canvas.

Don gritted his teeth and clinched his fists, prepared to carry his adversary off of his feet in the first rush. But just as the man was about to lean down to pick up a strip of the covering Benito’s voice hailed him from above.

“Hey! Did you find that kid?”

“No!” the man shouted. “He’s got away.”

“Well, then come on up. What are you doing down there now?”

“Just gettin’ a strip of canvas to cover that hole with.”

Benito snorted. “Never mind that now. I want you to go down to the cove and row those kids’ dinghy around to the creek. Frank and me are going out and capture the sloop.”

The man went out, taking the lantern with him, and the room was in absolute darkness. Don heard them all go out, and as soon as he knew that he had the place to himself he sprang from his place of concealment. Lighting the candle, whose light he did not fear, since there were no cellar windows in the house, he went to the door, hoping to find a way upstairs. But to his intense disappointment he found that the man had slipped the bolt into place as he went out.

Don was once more a prisoner.

The realization at first staggered him, and then made him angry. He realized that if he did not get out of here at once he would probably never have a chance to get out. He hoped fervently that Terry and Jim would not fall into the hands of the men, and groaned as he realized that he could not help them any. But the one fact remained: he must get out.

A thought occurred to him that made him pause. Suppose the men were ever trapped down in that room by someone entering the house above, how would they get out? Was it possible that they had made no provision for that? He could not believe it, and he felt certain that there was an opening somewhere in that very room. So, holding the dripping candle in front of him, he made his way back of the shelves, which were built out a bit from the walls, and began to search thoroughly.

He almost uttered a cry of triumph at what he found. Right back of the main section of the shelves he found a square piece of canvas hung up, and when he pushed it back a doorway, leading to a flight of iron stairs, was disclosed. These iron stairs ran upward at an abrupt angle and terminated at a small door. Don stepped through the canvas and walked up the steps, until he stood on the tiny platform before the door.

Not knowing where the door might lead, he blew out the candle and opened it.

He was astonished to hear the sound of a loud ticking burst on his ears. Thrusting his hand forward, he encountered wood, and at last, sure that he was not yet in the old house, itself, he relighted the candle and looked at the object before him.

It was the back of a big, redwood grandfather clock, and Don was further amazed to see that a hook held one side of it to the doorway. Undoing this hook he found that the big clock swung outward on hinges, and then it came to him. The clock was a real one, but it was a clever disguise. If anyone raided the house the men would open the concealed doorway by pushing forward their clock, and if they happened to be in the storage room at the time they could make their escape into the house by way of the clock. The clock, for all its works and its ticking, was in reality a door, leading either into the storage room or into the house from the storage room.

Don now found himself on the landing of the stairway and alone in the house, unless the old woman was about. Fearful that she was, and not wishing to meet her, Don was at a complete loss as to what to do. He might find his way to the cove in the darkness, overpower the man who had been sent for the dinghy, and then make his way out to the sloop.

He made his way down the stairs, which creaked loudly under his feet, and got as far as the front door. This he could not open, but a full length window on the other side was much easier. After raising the window, he threw one leg over the sill, which was about a foot high. Suddenly a thin old voice shrilled out from upstairs.

“Who is it? Who is it?”

Don knew that it was the old woman, and so he lost no time in getting away. He found that he was lost in the intense blackness of the night, and was almost as hopelessly mixed up as he had been in the dark cellar. But he had a general idea of the direction of the cove, and he made his way in that direction rapidly.

It took him longer to get there than it had taken him to get to the house earlier in the day, but when he did get there he found he was doomed to disappointment. The dinghy was gone, and there was no sign of the men. Thinking that they might have gone somewhere along the shore he followed it, puzzled by another circumstance. The _Lassie_ was nowhere to be seen. But that in itself was not hopeless, for he thought that Jim might have moved it purposely.

Continuing on around the shore he was in time to witness the battle aboard the sloop. He saw it all, from the appearance of Terry to the victory for his side. He exulted gleefully, mourning the fact that he could not be in on it, but he dared not swim out, for the distance was great and it was possible that they might weigh anchor and sail, leaving him to swim back to shore.

He missed the scene of the escape and the chase because of the darkness. He would not have seen the fight, except that vivid light poured up from the companionway of the _Lassie_. Realizing that he must stay there until morning, he sat down in the wet undergrowth to wait.

But when the storm came up he was forced to go back to the old house. He knew that he must find some kind of shelter, and so he followed the beach around to the cove and went back over the trail to the house. The place was absolutely black, without a light of any sort, but fearing a trap, he took refuge in a well-built henhouse until morning.

It was a long, dreary night, and he was glad to see the gray dawn. He watched the house for a full hour, and at last, convinced that there was no one around the place, he boldly entered the back door and roamed around. No one was in the place, and only one bed had been occupied, that of the old woman. They had fled somewhere during the storm and had taken her with them.

It was as he was coming down the front stairs that he heard two men tramp up on the front porch. Quickly he slipped in back of the clock and waited. In another moment the door was kicked off its hinges and the two entered. Don listened intently, and then, to his joy, he discovered that one of them was Terry.

_12. The Beach Party_

To Terry’s statement that he had seen the clock move the captain was prepared to give a contemptuous snort, but as he looked he too saw it move and then open wide. A moment later and Don Mercer was bounding down the stairs and thumping Terry on the back.

“Chucklehead, you character,” Don cried. “I sure am glad to see you!”

“Don’t say a word,” replied his chum, fairly dancing around in his joy. “We’re more than glad to see you, even if you did come out of a clock!”

“A little story which might be entitled ‘Once upon a time!’ eh?” grinned Don.

Terry frowned. “You must have been treated horribly here, to spring such a bad pun as that one. Don, I want you to know Captain Blow, who saved the sloop from capture.”

Don and the captain shook hands warmly. “Glad to meet you, young fellow,” the captain said. “We was prepared to rip up this island to find you.”

“You certainly took the gates of the mansion off in great style,” Don nodded. “I’m very happy to know you, captain. I appreciate what you have done.”

“It’s nothing,” declared the captain, waving his hand. “Anybody in this place?”