“How about the stolen automobiles on the Shore Road?”
“And Gus Montrose and the others in the gang?”
Carl Schaum saw that his bluff had failed. Then he looked more closely at the brothers. He turned pale.
“The Hardy boys!” he exclaimed.
“At your service,” returned Joe, with a bow.
“You see, we know what we’re talking about. Get up, Schaum.”
“What are you going to do with me?”
“Get up!” repeated Frank. “We’re going to take you out to the road and see that you’re turned over to the authorities.”
“Don’t do that,” whined Schaum. “Honest, I never had anything to do with stealing them cars. Let me go.”
“You were in the gang, and if they’ve been punished, it isn’t fair that you should get off,” insisted Frank. “You escaped from the jail and if you are innocent you had nothing to fear. You’d better get up and come with us.”
He prodded the prisoner firmly with the toe of his heavy tramping shoe, and Schaum struggled to his feet. He made many whining pleas for mercy, but the Hardy boys were determined that he should be sent back to Bayport to answer for his participation in the Shore Road automobile thefts.
“I’ve reformed,” sniveled Schaum. “I’ve gone straight ever since I got out of jail.”
“Yes, you have!” laughed Frank. “How about stealing my motorcycle while we were in swimming?”
Schaum looked confused.
“I didn’t know it was your motorcycle.”
“It doesn’t matter whose motorcycle it was. You meant to steal it. That doesn’t look as if you’ve reformed very much. No, you must come along with us.”
Unwillingly, Carl Schaum stumbled along the beach with his two captors.
Frank and Joe did not have a very clear idea of what they were to do with Schaum, now that they had captured him. At first they thought of keeping him in the cave, but Joe pointed out that he might get away again and that it would mean too much trouble keeping guard over him.
“And he’d eat too much,” added Frank. “That’s another little score we have to settle with you, Schaum. You were in the cave the other night and stole most of our provisions.”
“I was hungry,” whined the prisoner. “I only meant to borrow a little bit of food.”
“Borrowers don’t come sneaking around when everyone is asleep. Where are our provisions now?”
“They’re in my own cave,” said Schaum sullenly.
“Where is that?”
“Try to find it.”
“All right,” returned Frank. “When you go back to Bayport you will find yourself facing an extra charge of robbery. We’ll lay a complaint against you for stealing our provisions. You’ve already admitted that you took them, so it will go hard with you.”
Schaum wilted at this threat.
“Aw, don’t tell on me,” he begged. “Your grub is all right. It’s in the cave that you’ll find not ten feet from where I was lying on the beach. I was walking last night and I must have tripped.”
“I’m glad you’ve decided to be sensible,” observed Frank. “We’ll go to the cave and get our food when we come back. We didn’t know you had a cave.”
“I came here just a little while before you boys came.”
“Did you bring your trunk?” asked Frank, with a grin. “Anything in your cave you’d like to take back to jail with you?”
Schaum shook his head.
“No,” he answered shortly. “Just a pair of blankets. You can have ’em.”
“They’ll give you blankets in jail.”
The boys soon reached their own cave. There was no sign of Chet and Biff, and they realized that the fishers might be far off down the shore by now, so they decided to take Carl Schaum out to the road themselves.
They clambered up the trail through the ravine until they reached the top of the cliff, and then they made their way over the rocks and down the hillside back to the fisherman’s cottage. The fisherman was at home, and when he saw the little procession coming down the path he rushed out, anxious to learn what had happened. He was greatly excited when he saw that the villainous-looking Carl Schaum was bound.
“Have you cotched the man who was firin’ off all the guns?” he asked.
Frank shook his head.
“I don’t think this is he,” he said, remembering that Schaum had reached the caves only a short time in advance of their own arrival. “But he’s almost as bad.”
“What’s he been doin’?”
The Hardy boys explained why they had captured Carl Schaum, and when the fisherman learned that they were going to take their captive out to the main road he promptly volunteered the use of his car, an ancient and decrepit flivver. The boys had been wondering how they would get Schaum out to the road by motorcycle, and the fisherman’s offer solved this difficulty.
Accordingly, they all wedged themselves into the ramshackle car and set out for the main road, which they reached in due time. Frank and Joe did not want to waste too much time with Schaum, and they decided to wait in hope that some passing motorist would take the fellow in to the nearest police station.
In a short time a car came into sight and when it came near, Frank stepped out into the road and signaled the driver to stop. The automobile slowed down.
The man at the wheel looked at them curiously.
Then Frank gave an exclamation of delight.
“Why, he’s from Bayport!” he shouted to Joe. “It’s Mr. Simms.”
At the same moment, the driver recognized Frank.
“Hello there, Hardy!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing so far away from home?”
Frank and Joe knew Mr. Simms, having met him at the time of the solving of the Shore Road mystery, because he was one of the automobile owners who had suffered at the hands of the car thieves. The very car Mr. Simms was driving just then had been recovered by the Hardy boys when they had found the automobiles stolen by Gus Montrose, Carl Schaum and the other members of the gang.
“This is luck!” exclaimed Frank. “How would you like to take a passenger back to Bayport with you?”
“Do
