The other man came running after him. The first impulse of the two chums was to run, but they saw that flight would be useless. They were midway on the hillside leading to the beach and the path was treacherous with rocks and loose gravel. They would be overtaken in a moment.
“Fight ’em!” said Chet, gritting his teeth.
The boys stood their ground. The two gangsters, one of whom they recognized as Pete, came floundering down the slope. They had started out in such a rush that now they were not well able to stop, and as the pair came at them the two chums braced themselves for the shock.
Biff met the first man squarely. His passion for boxing now stood him in good stead. He judged his distance perfectly. As the fellow came at him, arms swinging, he drove a straight left to the fellow’s midriff.
The gangster gasped and doubled up with pain. He wavered for a moment, then Biff swung. His right fist crashed against the man’s jaw, and the gangster toppled over on his face. He rolled over in the gravel a few times, then came to a stop, sprawled senseless on the hillside.
As for Chet, he made use of strategy. When the second man rushed at him he sidestepped neatly.
His right foot went out. The gangster tripped over it and, so great had been the force of his rush and so sudden was his downfall, that he went ploughing forward on his face for several yards until he came to a ledge of rock. He made frantic efforts to save himself as he felt that he was going over the side, but his descent could not be checked. Chet had a glimpse of desperately waving arms and kicking legs; then his adversary disappeared with a crash. The ledge was only a few feet from the beach, but it was certain that the fall would knock the breath out of the gangster’s body for several minutes at least.
Without another word the boys scrambled back up the hillside. They knew that the gangsters would recover quickly and that the alarm would soon be sounded. They must hide, and that quickly.
They gained the shelter of the bushes just as the gangster who had gone tumbling over the ledge began to find his breath again and shout for help. Desperately, the boys scrambled through the undergrowth, seeking no path, seeking only a hiding place.
At length, when they were in a dense thicket where the branches were so closely entwined that further progress seemed impossible, they halted.
“This is as far as we can go,” panted Chet. “They’ll be searching for us now, but they’ll never find us in here.”
“That was a narrow escape!”
“It sure was. But we gave them something to remember us by.”
Biff Hooper doubled up his fist with satisfaction.
“I knocked my man colder than a sardine,” he declared.
It was nearing dawn. The first faint streaks of light were appearing in the eastern sky.
“I wonder where that boat went,” said Chet suddenly. “Perhaps it’s still near the island.”
“It wasn’t one of the boats belonging to the gang, anyway, by the way those two fellows were talking. If we could get a hiding place a little nearer the shore we might be able to see it.”
“Yes—let’s get out of this thicket.”
Quietly, the boys began to withdraw from the deep thicket in which they had become entangled. But the branches cracked underfoot and seemed to have the brittleness of matchwood. The chums were afraid they would be heard.
“Better stay where we are,” muttered Chet.
They remained motionless for some time, and the swift dawn soon began to paint the sky. The darkness diminished and the boys could now see one another plainly, and could see the extent of the deep thicket in which they had become enmeshed.
“Now let’s try to get out,” said Chet.
Again they attempted to make their way out of the thicket, and this time, because they could see what they were doing, their efforts met with more success. But they could not avoid making considerable noise, and the crackling of branches seemed like the reports of rifles.
Then, to their horror, they heard a voice:
“I heard a noise in the bushes over there almost an hour ago, and now I hear it again.”
“We’ll go over and see,” replied another voice.
The boys looked at one another, then froze into silence. They could hear heavy footfalls near by. Branches crackled.
“They’re hiding around on this side of the island somewhere,” said the first voice. “If I ever lay my hands on ’em—”
Chet put his finger to his lips as a warning to silence, but there was no need. Biff was scarcely daring to breathe.
Just at that moment a sound broke forth that sent a thrill of fear through them both.
It was a sibilant, terrifying hiss, right at their feet.
Chet looked down and gave a low cry. A huge blacksnake was coiled in the grass, in readiness to strike.
XXII
The Chase
Chet Morton leaped back with such violence that he collided with his chum. He had seen the serpent in the nick of time, and his backward leap had been so instinctive and so involuntary that he somehow evaded the swift, whiplike thrust of the evil head that plunged at him.
The snake missed, although its body writhed against Chet’s boot for a second and the fangs stabbed against the heavy leather. The boot saved the boy. Had the snake struck against his leg he would have been bitten.
The chums plunged blindly through the thicket.
There was no thought of caution now. They were filled with unreasoning terror of the blacksnake, the instinctive revulsion that fills most people at the sight of such a reptile, and they went crashing through the bushes. The noise of their flight did not escape the two rascals who had been searching for them.
“I see them!” shouted one of the men. He came plunging through the deep grass at the outskirts of the thicket to
