“Shall I call to him?” asked Jack Dodd.
“You can if you want to,” answered Frank. “I doubt if he’ll answer.”
“Might scare him into running faster,” suggested Joe.
“I reckon he’s running about as fast as he can now.”
“Gus! Gus Montrose!” yelled Jack. “Come back here! We want to talk to you!”
All listened, but no reply came to this call.
“Silence fills the air profound,” came soberly from Joe.
“So much noise it would wake a tombstone,” added Chet.
Again Jack called, and with no better results.
“Let’s all yell together,” suggested Joe.
This was done, but no answer came back.
“Sorry, but I’ve got a date elsewhere,” mimicked Joe. “Be back next month at three o’clock.”
“That fellow is no good, and I know it,” murmured Frank. “An honest man would come back and face us.”
“Listen!” cried Jack, putting up his hand.
All listened with strained ears.
“Don’t hear a thing—” began Chet.
“I hear it,” interrupted Frank.
A snapping and crackling sound among the bushes ahead lured the boys on and they went plunging through the woods. They failed to catch sight of the quarry, however. Evidently Montrose was well acquainted with this part of the country, for after a while the sounds of his retreat died away.
Frank, who was in the lead, came to a stop, realizing that further pursuit was useless. In a few minutes the others came up, panting.
“Did he get away?” asked Joe.
Frank nodded. “He was too quick for us. When he knew we were after him he didn’t lose any time.”
“I wish we had been able to talk to the rascal,” said Jack Dodd. “I would have had a few things to tell him.”
“Probably we wouldn’t have got much satisfaction out of him, anyway,” Frank remarked. “Still, you could have asked him what he knew about that fishing rod.”
“It’s something to know that he’s still hanging around this part of the country,” pointed out Chet. “He has evidently been lying low since he left your farm.”
“He’s up to some mischief, I’m sure of that.”
“Probably built himself a shack somewhere in the woods,” suggested Joe.
“Well, we may run across him some other time. It’s getting late and I think we’d better be starting home,” said Frank.
Chet and Joe agreed that it was about time, and as there seemed little to be gained by continuing the search for Gus Montrose or for any evidence of the stolen cars, the boys retraced their steps back through the woods until they reached the Shore Road. Their motorcycles had been parked in the shelter of the trees.
“About time for my supper, too,” said Jack Dodd. “If you’re out this way again, look me up and we’ll make another search through the woods.”
His friends promised to do this and, bidding Jack goodbye, they mounted their motorcycles and were soon roaring off in the direction of Bayport. They had spent more time in the wood than they had been aware of, and were anxious to get back to the city without being too late for the evening meal. Mrs. Hardy seldom scolded, but the boys had vivid recollections of Aunt Gertrude’s acid remarks on similar occasions.
They emerged on an open stretch of road where a sand embankment sloped steeply down to Barmet Bay. The beach lay beneath them at the foot of the sheer declivity and the waters of the bay sparkled in the rays of the late afternoon sun.
A movement on the beach caught Frank’s eye and he brought his motorcycle to a sudden stop.
“What’s the matter?” asked Joe, swerving wildly to avoid piling headlong into Frank’s machine.
“Run out of gas?” inquired Chet, putting on the brakes.
But Frank had dismounted and was walking over to the side of the road, out on to the top of the embankment.
“There’s somebody down on the beach.”
“What of it? Somebody swimming or fishing. Do you mean to say you stopped just because of that?”
But Frank was gazing down the steep, sandy slope.
“There’s something queer about this,” he said slowly. “There are two men down there, lying on the sand.”
Joe and Chet, immediately interested, came running over. The three boys looked down at the two figures on the beach far below.
“They’re not asleep,” said Joe. “One of them seems to be rolling around.”
“They’re tied!” shouted Frank. “Look! You can see the ropes! I was wondering what was so queer about them. Those men are tied hand and foot!”
Joe was examining the embankment at their feet.
“Why, they’ve been rolled down the side!” he exclaimed. “Look where the sand has been disturbed!”
True enough, sand and gravel at the top of the slope showed a distinct depression, and all the way down the embankment this depression continued, as though a heavy object had slid to the bottom.
From the beach below came a faint shout.
“Help! Help!”
The men on the shore had seen them.
“We’d better go down,” said Frank. “I wonder if there isn’t a path of some kind around here.”
“Let’s slide!” Chet suggested.
“We’re liable to break our necks tobogganing down this slope. No, there should be a path.”
Frank ran along the top of the embankment toward a clump of trees a few yards away, where the slope was not so steep, and there he found a footpath that led a winding course down the side of the hill toward the beach. It wound about across the face of the slope and covered twice the distance they would have had to go if they had adopted Chet’s suggestion, though it was a great deal surer. They emerged on the open shore eventually and saw the two bound figures lying on the beach not fifty yards off.
In a short time the boys were bending over the prostrate victims. The men, who were clad in overalls, were bound hand and foot with heavy rope, at which the lads slashed vigorously with their pocketknives.
The strands fell apart and the two men were able to sit up, rubbing their limbs, which had been chafed by the ropes in their efforts to free themselves.
“I thought we’d be here all night!” declared one of the men, a plump,
