Striped shirt was on his feet now, but still starved for air. His mouth hung open as he gasped, but he was coming forward.
Rick met him. He dove into the man"s stomach and felt his head smack into soft flesh. The breath went out of striped shirt again. Rick regained his feet and turned to Barby. She was making sounds through her gag, her eyes desperate.
The boy whirled. The women were back in the fight, one of them scrambling for the gun under Jan"s chair. Jan kicked it far back, out of reach. Rick scooped up the table and slid it along the floor at them. The table caught them like a pair of tenpins and knocked them into the corner. He turned back to Barby and started to untie her, his fingers racing.
A blow landed on his shoulder. He turned in time to meet another one across the cheek that knocked him back against the wall. He rebounded, fighting. The dark man was crouched low, fists weaving. Rick danced lightly around him waiting. Let the man come to him.
The man led with a right. Rick rolled away from it, watching the left that was c.o.c.ked for a Sunday punch. The man threw his punch. Rick caught it on the forearm and gasped with the pain of it. The guy had a wallop like a mule!
Rick feinted with the hurt arm, then drove a chop at the man"s nose.
It connected and brought a gasp of pain. Barby was screaming through the gag again, but he couldn"t look now. He brought a roundhouse punch up under his opponent"s guard and felt it smack solidly against ribs.
Then an arm encircled his neck and a clenched fist crashed against the back of his head. He saw stars, and for a moment his guard dropped.
Then both arms were pinioned.
Striped shirt had caught him from behind. Now the dark man stepped in, fist c.o.c.ked for a knockout punch. Rick saw it coming and braced himself.
The punch never landed. A crisp voice said, "Don"t do it!"
Encircling arms fell away. Rick turned, knees weak.
A man in Boy Scout uniform stood in the cabin door, and in his hand was a Police Positive.
"All right," the Scout said cheerfully. "Party"s over."
CHAPTER XIX
Taped for Trouble
Another Scout leader moved into the cabin, followed by Scotty. Rick gave them a grin, then turned and picked up the gun behind Jan"s chair. He stuck it in his pocket and untied the girl.
The plastic cap was still on her head. He lifted it off gently and put it on top of the machine.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
She nodded, hand at her throat. "Yes," she managed. "I can"t talk. The gag ..."
"Time for talk later," Rick said. He started for Barby, but Scotty was already untying her. The moment her hands were free, she pulled the gag from her mouth and announced, "Well! You took long enough getting here!"
Rick didn"t know what to say to that. He didn"t have a chance to say anything. His sister rushed over, put her arms around him, and squeezed.
"You were wonderful," she said. "Scotty, he held four of them at bay.
I never knew you could fight like that, Rick Brant!"
Rick grinned. "I didn"t do so much. You took one of them out of play by stamping on him. And Jan gave me an opening with as fine a kick as I"ve seen off a football field."
The two JANIG agents had produced handcuffs, and the men and women were manacled together in a continuous chain.
"Outside," one agent commanded. "Get into the pram."
"You"ve got nothing on us," the man in the striped shirt protested.
"We were only protecting ourselves against this wild man who barged in here."
"Were you protecting yourselves against the two girls?" Scotty asked.
"We were holding them for the police," striped shirt stated. "They sneaked aboard, probably intending to steal anything they could find.
You"re going to get yourselves into a peck of trouble, my friends.
There"s a law in the state against carrying firearms! A fine reputation this will give the Boy Scouts!"
The agent with the pistol said mildly, "You talk too much. Get in the pram." To Rick he said, "We"re taking them to Spindrift. We"ll send the speedboat back for you."
The four young people stood at the rail and watched as the crowded pram with its outboard motor chugged off to the island.
Barby pulled off her bathing cap, and Rick saw that she wore the Megabuck unit underneath. He pointed to it. "I tried to call you. Why didn"t you answer?"
Barby replied with an embarra.s.sed blush that started at the shoulders and swept up until her face was bright red. "I forgot to turn it on,"
she admitted. "Jan reminded me while they were tying her up. They hadn"t got to me, yet. One of the women was holding the pistol and pointing it at me. Jan sort of looked up and said, "We need an outside power to help us now. But we must be sure the power is turned on."
Then I remembered. I pretended my head hurt, and pushed the switch."
Rick looked at Jan. "That was clever. I"d been trying to reach Barby, with no success. Then, suddenly, I heard her talking."
"We knew you were close, because we could hear the plane." Jan shuddered. "The men heard it, too, because they ran out right after they tied us up and put that thing on my head. The women guarded us, and one of them had just started the machine running when the plane came right at us. We saw it, through the open door, and we thought you were going to crash!"
Rick grinned at Scotty. "That was our fast-acting pal. If he hadn"t done that, I"d never have had a chance to get aboard."
"Good thing you figured out what I was doing," Scotty admitted. "When I saw you moving fast toward the boat, I knew it was okay, and that I didn"t have to crash."
Rick stared. "Do you mean you"d have actually crashed?"
"Not head on, because that would have hurt the girls. I was planning to swing at the last minute and try to knock the men off with the wing."
Rick could only mutter, "My sainted aunt!"
Scotty turned on the girls. "And here"s the pair that made it necessary. What in the name of a painted parsnip were you two trying to do?"
Barby lifted her chin defiantly. "We had a good plan. Can we help it if it didn"t work?"
"Can"t answer that until we know the plan," Scotty said reasonably.
"Suppose you tell us."
"Well, we needed evidence that the houseboaters were in the plot against our fathers, didn"t we? I knew we could get it, if we could plant a radio. So we made a plan."
"Lot of good a turned-off radio would have done," Rick muttered.
Barby glared. "We decided that we"d go swimming with the lungs. Then we"d come up right next to the houseboat, and we"d be so surprised! Of course the people would come out to see us, then we"d say I had a cramp, and could we please come up and rest."