Read Ebook: The Boy Scout Fire Fighters; Or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed by Maitland Robert

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Ebook has 539 lines and 27735 words, and 11 pages

For a moment, silent and ominous in the darkness, he stood there, studying the situation, as it seemed, and making up his mind just how to accomplish his purpose. Then, drawing a handkerchief from his pocket, he took the cork from a small bottle and poured its contents on the handkerchief. At once a strong, sickly, sweetish smell arose, unhealthy, and unpleasant, in contrast to the strong, fresh smells of the sleeping woods. Holding this handkerchief in his hand, the newcomer, a savage grin of ugly satisfaction on his lips, approached Jack Danby, and, with a motion so swift as to be hardly visible, flung his hand, with the handkerchief flat on his palm, over Jack Danby's face.

Jack awoke at once and struggled for a second. But he could not cry out, and in a moment the handkerchief, soaked with chloroform, had done its work, and he lay unconscious.

Jack was entirely helpless, drugged as he was, and, with a triumphant leer, the man who had drugged him picked him up, and, moving as cautiously as ever, carried him to the motor boat. But he had underestimated the watchfulness of the Scout sentries. At the sudden, sharp explosions of the engine as it was started, and the launch backed off the beach, there was a sudden cry from one of the watchers, and in a moment his shrill whistle aroused the camp, so that a dozen Scouts, turning out hastily, saw the motor boat back out and turn, as if to race for the outlet at the foot of the lake, nearly ten miles away.

For a moment all was confusion in the camp. Awakened suddenly from a sound sleep, the Scouts could not at first tell what had happened.

The sentry who gave the alarm had seen only the one thing--the motor boat backing out from the beach.

"It's nothing," said Bob Hart, sleepily. "Someone mistook this for their own landing, and, when they found out their mistake, backed out and went for their own cottage."

But Dick Crawford thought suddenly of Jack Danby.

"Jack!" he shouted. "Jack Danby!"

There was no answer, and a swift rush to his lean-to proved that it was empty. Durland and Dick Crawford ran there together, and Durland recognized the smell of the chloroform at once.

"There's been foul play here!" he cried, furiously. "Someone has drugged Jack and carried him away."

He called for Crawford then, but the Assistant Scout-Master was already gone to the rescue.

"Get to the outlet as soon as you can!" he shouted, and they heard him breaking through the woods to the road that was near by. "I'm going there on my wheel!"

Dick had ridden to the camp on his motorcycle, and now they heard the sharp clatter of its engine as he started it.

"If they're making for the outlet, he'll head them off," said Durland. "Hart, take your Patrol and go up to the dam there, in case they went that way. The rest of you follow me. We'll take Crawford's route, and see if we can't get there in time to help him. I'm afraid Danby is in the gravest sort of danger."

They followed him with a shout, half dressed as most of them were. Jack Danby didn't lack friends, at least, even if he did have powerful and determined enemies.

THE RESCUE

Needless to say, it was some time after he was roughly thrown into the bottom of the motor boat before Jack came to his senses. The chloroform had taken effect quickly, and the soaked handkerchief had not remained very long over his mouth and nostrils, or Jack might have ended his career then and there. As it was, however, the rush of the cool night air as the swift motor boat sped along the quiet waters of the lake did a good deal to revive him, and it was, comparatively speaking, only a short time before he realized where he was--or, rather, realized that he had been snatched from his blanket, and was being carried off somewhere, probably by those who had anything but good-will toward him.

His first impulse was to cry out, but he checked himself, for he realized that his best chance just then was to feign an ignorance of his surroundings that would throw his abductors off their guard. If he made them think that he was still senseless, he might find some way of escape opening before him, and he might, too, overhear something that he could turn to his own advantage.

It was pitch dark in the bottom of the boat, and his eyes, moreover, were aching. His whole head throbbed as he came out of the effects of the deadly drug that had been used to make him helpless, and he decided that the first thing he should do was to give nature and the healing air a chance to restore him to his senses and some semblance of a better physical condition. He was in no state now to do anything to help himself, and he had no idea of whether or not any of his comrades had taken the alarm when he was carried off. He was senseless when the men who had caught him were making their escape, and he had no way of telling what had happened.

He guessed, even before he saw the evil face of the man who sat up in the bow, stripped now of his black mask, and gloating over his success, that it was one of the trapped and disappointed train wreckers who now had him in his power, and he shivered a little at the thought of what his fate might be. A man who had planned such a fiendish crime was not likely to be anything but brutal in his treatment of one of those who had helped to foil him, and Jack understood that perfectly well. If he had needed anything more to make him realize his position it was supplied in a moment.

"I wonder if that young whelp's shammin', or if we really knocked him out with the dope?" asked the man who had worn the mask.

And, by way of finding out, he lurched back, and kicked Jack brutally in the ribs. Jack expected the blow, and managed to relax so that no bones were broken by the kick, though he was sore for hours. Moreover he fortified himself so that, although the pain of the kick was far from trifling, he did not cry out.

Satisfied, the man made his way to the bow.

"Dead to the world!" he said. "That's all right! We'll get him through the lock. That's better. I don't want to knock him on the head and throw him overboard here--his body would turn up too soon. Once we're through the lock we can get down the river all right, and they'll never know what happened to him. I hope Dick don't make any mistake about meeting us with the big boat. This is a tidy little craft, but she's not meant for deep water sailing."

"How about the others?" asked the man at the wheel, in a nervous, timid tone that made Jack grin. Only one of his captors was formidable, anyhow, and that was something to be thankful for.

"I don't care about the others," replied the other, with a vile oath. "They'll have to save themselves. And they'll be in jail for the next ten years, sure. More fools they for gettin' caught! An' it was only kids as did them up. If they'd taken my advice, it wouldn't never have happened."

"You oughtn't to have stopped for this kid. It was too risky."

"Risk? My eye! Ain't everythin' we do risky? An' it's the only chance the others have got, anyhow. He's the biggest witness against them. He saw their mugs--no one else did. They'll have trouble getting off, anyhow, even if he ain't there. But he'd finish them, sure. An' he cost me twenty thousand dollars with his infernal buttin' in, too. I ain't overlookin' a chance to get hunk with him, the little rip!"

He was almost shouting in his rage.

"Easy there!" said the timid one, in a low tone. "We're getting near the lock. Look out, or you'll have everyone on to us."

"Right, oh! I'll shut up. Time enough to attend to him later, anyhow."

The boat slowed down, now, and Jack guessed that they were near the lock that formed the outlet of the lake into the river that ran through the city, the same river on which he had his exciting experience with the river pirates. Late as it was, the lock was quickly opened at the insistent, shrill call of the power boat's whistle, and in a moment it was in the narrow channel that led from river to lake.

It was Jack's chance. Here, where the banks were close on either side, if he could slip overboard, there was a chance to swim to the safety of the shore. He was still weak and dizzy from the effects of the drug, but he had an idea that if he could get into the water it would complete the work of reviving him, and he determined to make the effort. Both of the men who made up the crew of the little craft were busy as they passed through the lock, and, thinking him unconscious, they paid no attention to him.

Silently he slipped to the side. And, a second later, he dropped overboard. Silent as he was, he made a splash as he struck the water, and, at the sudden curse from the robber in front, and his quick leap around, Jack determined on the boldest and the riskiest move he could have made. But it was also the safest. Instead of striking out at once for the shore, he slipped around behind the motor boat, and clung to the stern as it swept along, clear of the propeller, but hidden by the shadow from the overhanging stern.

At the same moment there was a sudden outburst of shouts from the shore, and where all had been silence and darkness lights sprang out and the forms of excited, running men and boys appeared.

The headlight of an automobile was suddenly thrown on the scene, and Jack, guessing who was there, called out that he was safe and in the water.

"Swim ashore, Jack," shouted Dick Crawford's welcome voice, and a moment later, all fear of his captors gone now, Jack was helped up the steep bank.

"We got them in a trap," cried Dick Crawford. "I figured they'd have to come this way. They can't turn around, and the gate of the lock is closed against them at the river end. They're bottled in here, and they can't escape, no matter which way they turn."

In the power boat the big man who had carried Jack off was standing up now, cursing volubly, and trying to see what lay ahead of him. But it did not take him long to see and realize that all hope of escape in that direction was cut off. The boat had come to a full stop, and he looked about him in desperation, his mask on his face again. He held a revolver in his hand, but, for some reason, he did not fire.

"Careful, fellows!" cried Dick Crawford. "He's got a gun there, and you can't tell how soon he'll begin shooting."

"Not very soon, Dick," said Jack Danby, with a laugh. "He left his gun within reach of me, thinking I was still senseless, and I took all the cartridges out. There was a box half full of cartridges and I dropped that overboard, too, so I guess his teeth are drawn unless one of them has another gun."

"Good work, Jack! He'd find it hard to hit any of us, but it's good to think he can't even try, anyhow. You surely had your nerve with you to think of that."

"I had to, Dick. I was going to make a break for it here in the lock, anyhow, and I didn't want him to be able to take a shot at me from behind while I was trying to climb up to the shore. It would have been too easy for him to hit me, and from the way he talked there's nothing he'd like better than to use me as a target."

Suddenly the roar of the boat's engine broke put again.

"What's he trying to do now?" shouted Dick, racing for the opening of the lock.

The gate that barred the boat was in place. But suddenly Dick understood. The desperado in the launch intended to be true to his nature. He saw just one chance of escape in a thousand, and he meant to take it, perilous as it was.

Straight for the gate he drove the boat. The man at the wheel was crying out in piteous fear and the burly ruffian stepped back from the bow, crushed his friend to the deck of the boat with a brutal blow, and took the wheel himself.

"They'll both be killed," cried Dick. "He can't mean to drive against the gate."

But that was just what was in the desperate robber's mind. He saw and weighed the chances that were against him, but he was ready to risk life itself for liberty, and, in that desperate moment even Dick and Jack, debased as they knew the man to be, could not but admire his daredevil courage.

At top speed the launch crushed into the barrier. There was a terrific crash, and those, including Durland, who stood on the gate, leaped back precipitately.

For an instant the timbers shivered. Then, with a crash, they gave way, and the launch hurled through and dropped to the surface of the river. There, for a moment, it spun around. But the boat was well built. It stood the shock, and the next second, swaying from side to side, it was dashing away, past the possibility of pursuit. Jack was saved, but the villain had escaped--for the time at least.

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