"My chum here is Gus Grier and I am Bill Brown."
"I shall be indebted to you forever," the girl said graciously. "You see I am in an awful fix. Those men deliberately stole our boat. This is my father"s auxiliary yacht, the _X-Ray_. My father is Doctor Louis Waring, of----"
"The great Doctor Waring, nerve specialist?"
"Nerves, yes. I believe people call him great sometimes. You see we have a summer home at Hawk"s Bill, just below the inlet here, and we girls, my two sisters and some friends are there now. Father and Mother are coming down to-morrow. I"m fond of boating, and sometimes, just to be on the water, I come down and sleep in the yacht. To-night I did and I waked up to feel that we were adrift and sailing, with somebody on board--two, I think. While I was wondering what to do, one came and tried my door and called to me, I said something to him, you may believe! But he would hardly listen to me, though he couldn"t force the door and I told him I"d shoot if he did. Presently we went aground and the men went back and started to work with the motor. I slipped out and got at the wireless, locking my door after me and locking the wireless room door. I don"t know how they didn"t hear me, though they were making an awful racket trying to hammer something. I sent several messages, then I listened and still heard them talking and slipped back. They couldn"t get the engine to run--it can hardly be cranked, but it has a starter which they didn"t understand. About half an hour ago they went off in the dory and I thought they were returning when you came."
"And you have no idea who they are?"
"None whatever. I only know that the talk of the one that called to me sounded as though he were a foreigner, perhaps an Italian--about the other I couldn"t say. They surely meant to steal this boat, and if they had not stuck here, I don"t know whatever would have become of me. And now, may I ask of you to----?"
"Start that motor and get you back? You sure may--and it ought not to be much of a job."
"My father will liberally reward you."
"We don"t want any reward, Miss Waring. Doing mechanical stunts in trying to rescue people is our specialty."
CHAPTER XXVII
UNDER FIRE
"I have a hunch," put in Gus, "that those fellows may come back any minute, possibly with some means, or hoping to get this boat afloat. We don"t want them to catch us off guard."
"I"ll stand watch," said the girl. "The slightest intimation----"
"Good. Let"s look at that power plant," demanded Bill.
It was a matter of minutes only, although the time was lengthened by the boat thieves" having hammered the gearing that connected with the starter, trying to slide it along on its shaft key in order to permit the cranking. They had failed in some way, however, to manipulate the gas and spark.
The boys had slipped the gearing into place again and the adjustments had been made, when a call from the girl made the busy lads grab their weapons and get up on deck, Bill being almost as quick as Gus.
Not fifty yards away and plainly seen in the now unclouded moonlight, a skiff was approaching. The boys, lying flat on the deck and peering over the rail, and the girl, crouching in the companion-way, could see three persons in the dory. Gus again told Bill to hail.
"Ahoy, there! Back water and stay where you are! What do you want?"
The rhythmic beat of the oars continued, rapidly lessening the distance.
"Halt, or we"ll shoot! If you don"t want to get sunk and have your carca.s.ses filled as full of holes as a pepper-box, you"ll sheer off!"
This had its effect. The oars were held and pushed to check the motion.
No word came in reply, but Gus plainly saw an object that resembled a gun barrel come from a vertical to a foreshortened position. This was sufficient for drastic action, though the boy was averse to compelling a tragedy. With careful aim he sent a load of shot just over the heads of the boatmen, then instantly fired another into the water at one side.
Almost immediately a shot came in reply, the bullet glancing from the cabin roof.
Gus slipped in two more sh.e.l.ls and coolly waited, knowing that there was only a remote possibility that the shots from the dory would do any great harm, but intending, if the rascals fired again, to give them a real taste of buckshot firing, at the bow of their boat first, to splinter and sink it gradually; then at the men if they persisted.
The dory turned about quickly. The oarsman was evidently in haste to get away. Then came a hail:
"Say, you! What you do in thata boat? That our boat! Get out, I say to you! We want to come aboard and go on away!"
Gus had heard that voice before. It belonged to one of the Malatesta.
Did they have Tony with them? Were they making a terrible effort to escape in this way from the peninsula, and get to sea again? How then would they secure the hoped for ransom? Or were they merely going to hide the _X-Ray_, expecting to use her if their scheme fell short? Bill had sensed the situation.
"_Your_ boat, is she? You"ll find her back at Hawk"s Bill where she belongs, and in a little while you"re going to find yourself in jail.
Beat it now while the water"s fine!"
The oarsman was nothing loath. Either he was not the bravest in the party, or else he had the keenest appreciation of the odds against an exposed position. In a very few minutes the dory was a mere gray wraith on the water, but there it hung. Evidently the rower was overruled by others less cautious, or of the certain conviction that at the distance the yacht was a better mark than a rowboat.
Bill had the motor going in a jiffy. Gus was at the wheel, crouching.
Throwing in the reverse clutch he sent the boat off the sands. Then, letting Bill hold her steady, dropped the _Stella"s_ sails, cast her loose at the end of a hauser for a tow rope, paid it out from the stern and went back to the wheel.
He was about to swing round and head back into the narrow channel free from sand bars, which he could discern by the rougher water, when bullets began to come from the dory. They were aimed at the wheel and whether sent low or not, the trajectory, even from a high-powered gun, would pull them down to the danger level. One struck the mast directly in front of him. One hit the deck and glanced singing. The music from another flattened bullet was stopped by the water beyond.
Gus wanted desperately to get behind something, for this firing might mean death or wounding at any moment. But he held on, hoping shortly to get out of range. Bill, at the rear hatch, called to Gus to set her and come below, and Gus called back that they"d be aground again in a minute if he did. Then a brave deed was done.
The girl, perhaps as fully aware of the danger as the boys, leaped into the cabin, came out with two chairs and some cushions, erected a barricade alongside of Gus and said to him:
"I want to get back and we can"t stop, but most of all I want you to be safe."
Then she gave a sudden cry and staggered into the cabin. Gus called Bill, who limped across quickly. The shots continued, and one hit the chairs. Gus wondered where it would have hit him. Presently they were too far away for the shots to reach them, for they had entered the narrow bay.
CHAPTER XXVIII
ANOTHER SCHEME
Bill was not cut out for a nurse. His sympathies were large, but his fingers, deft at managing fine mechanical apparatus, were all thumbs when it came to anything even remotely concerned with human anatomy. The girl had been hit in the shoulder, undoubtedly a mere flesh wound, and the bleeding must be stopped. Lucy was very pale, but there was never a tear, nor the least indication of her fainting. She merely held her arm down and watched, with most rueful countenance, the blood dripping from her finger tips upon the polished floor.
"I"ll get Gus," said Bill, almost ready to weep at the sight the girl presented. She had torn her dress from her shoulder and a seared gash was disclosed which she could not well observe.
Gus pointed out the course to Bill, then went into the cabin. In a minute or less he had searched and obtained clean rags, torn strips from them, found a nearly exhausted bottle of vaseline, coated the rag with it and, with a deftness almost worthy of a surgeon, washed the wound with a quick sopping of gasoline. Then as more blood was flowing, he bound up the shoulder and arm so that the flow stopped and by its coagulation germs were excluded. Whereupon Lucy sought a couch where she lay, exhausted, and with a decided desire to cry, while Gus went back to the wheel.
"You shall hear from father and mother and all of us. They will be here early and father must see you." This was the very earnest declaration of the elder Waring sister, a young woman of twenty-five or more, "I cannot alone express our thanks, our deep grat.i.tude----"
"To use a rather slangy expression--please "forget it,"" said Bill, laughing.
Lucy, supported by another older sister, could only thank the boys with her pretty eyes. She did make so bold as to hold the hand of poor Gus until he turned a fiery red. Blushing herself, even through her pallor, she still persisted in trying to show her appreciation and admiration.
Bill had to grab and pull his stammering chum away.
The run back in the _Stella_ was made in rapid time to her owner"s slip.