"All right," came back the reply, "I'm in a corner."

"Now, stand by ter receive boarders!" roared the veteran as he placed the muzzle weapon at the lock and pulled the trigger.

"Bang!"

There was a roaring explosion from the wide mouthed weapon and a cloud of smoke filled the air. But simultaneously there came a sound of ripping, tearing and splintering and the lock of the door, shot clean out by the heavy charge, clattered down to the floor on the inside of the room.

An instant later Joe Digby, pale and trembling from privation, surprise and happiness all mingled in one, was in the midst of his friends and fellow scouts.

"I don't know what made me think of it," he explained in answer to eager questions about the smoke telegraph message. "It was what the books call an inspiration, I guess. There were plenty of loose boards--fragments of old packing cases lying about, and luckily they had not taken my matches. I built a blaze and then, while it was still smoldering, I covered it with an old strip of sacking that I wetted with some water out of the bottle they left me."

"It made about as good a signal, as one could want," responded Rob warmly, "but now tell us about your capture, Joe, how did it happen?"

"Why, you see," exclaimed the lad, his voice growing stronger as he proceeded, "I was just thinking it was about time to wake my relief when I heard a rustling noise in the bushes back of the camp. I walked up there to investigate, for I thought it might be some animals--maybe the captain's pigs."

"Keel haul them lubberly swine," from the captain.

"But, as you shall hear, I was mistaken. Hardly had I reached the edge of the dark shadows than I was seized and a hand put over my mouth. I had only time to let out one yell for help."

"The one that woke me," put in Merritt, in parenthesis.

"That was it; I guess," went on the small lad, "well, I was picked up and carried some little distance to where they had a boat, and thrown into it. Then the three men who were in the boat rowed to an island with a tent on it and there two of them got out. The other, a fellow with a big beard and very dirty, then rowed over to this place with me and, after putting some bread and a bottle of water inside the door, closed and locked it.

"I carried on like a baby, I guess. I cried for a long time and shouted, but no one came. Then I grew quieter and tried to find some way of escape but the shutters were all fastened and the door was too strong for me. I tried to clamber up the chimney once but I had to give it up. Then suddenly the thought of making a smoke came to me and then I improved on that idea and used the Morse code that Rob has been drumming into me. I never thought that I might be able to use it to save my life maybe--or at least a lot of hunger and misery."

"Could you recognize the men who took you if you saw them again?" asked Rob earnestly.

"I'm not sure," responded the small lad, "one of them I would know--the one with the beard. The other two wore masks. But I think their voices sounded like Bill's and Jack's. I'm sure of the man with the beard though."

"Hank Handcraft," exclaimed Merritt.

"Oh, that's who it was," cried the small lad, "I thought somehow the voice and something about the man seemed familiar. He's that old beach comber who lives outside Hampton."

"That's the son uv a sea-swab," roared the captain, "oh, if I could only get my hands on him, I'd--"

The fate the captain had reserved for Hank was doomed not to be known, for as he was speaking Paul Perkins gave a sudden shout:

"Look--look there!" he cried, pointing.

Sneaking up to the tented island was the familiar outline of Sam Redding's hydroplane.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ESCAPE OF THE BULLY

The group standing about the newly rescued lad on the veranda of the deserted bungalow galvanized into instant action.

"Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender are in her!" shouted Rob, "come on, scouts, we'll get after them while we can."

With a shout the Boy Scouts ran for the boat and speedily pulled out to the Flying Fish. Hastily as they executed this move, however, the two in the other boat had had time to head her about and start at top speed for the mouth of the inlet.

"Clap on more sail, my hearties," roared the captain, almost beside himself with excitement, "I want ter get my hands on them two piratical craft."

Rob, with a look of grim determination on his usually pleasant face, held the Flying Fish true on her course, but, heavily laden as she was, she could not make her usual speed and the hydroplane soon distanced her. Jack Curtiss stood in her stern and waved a mocking hand at the Boy Scouts as the light-draft craft shot over the shoals and shallows with case while the Flying Fish had to lose much time and way by threading in and out seeking the deeper water.

"Douse my toplights, I can't stand that," bellowed the irate Captain Hudgins. "I'll put a shot in that jackanapes' locker."

With these words, and before any of the boys could stop him, he rose to his feet and sent a bullet from his ponderous revolver flying in the direction of the fleeing motor boat. It missed and hit the water near by, sending up a little fountain of spray.

Even at the distance they were the occupants of the Flying Fish could see the fear which this warlike move inspired in the bully and his companion. They threw themselves flat in their boat till only the hands of Bill, who was steering, were visible.

They need not have feared, however. The captain's hasty move brought down on his head Rob's wrath, though the young leader could not find it in his heart to be really angry with the old man who had been irritated past endurance by the bully's mocking defiance.

"Shiver my garboard strake," he exclaimed contritely, when Rob pointed out to him that he might have killed one of the occupants of the hydroplane, "shiver my garboard strake, lad, I saw red fer a minute just like I did that time the Chinese pirates boarded the Sarah Jane b.u.t.ts in the Yellow River."

Although there was not much hope of catching the two, Rob stuck to the chase even when he realized the scouts were outdistanced, and in fact kept his attention so closely riveted on the other craft that when there came a sudden jar and jolt and the Flying Fish stopped with a grunt and a wheeze, he realized with a start that he had not been watching the treacherous channel and was once more fast on a sand bar.

With a last shout and a yell of defiance the bully and his companion, who had by now got over their fright, shot out on to the ocean and rapidly vanished.

"There goes our hope of catching those two crooks," cried Tubby angrily, while the engine of the Flying Fish was set at reverse. "It's all off now. They know that we have rescued Joe and they'll fly the coop for some other part of the country."

"I suppose they came down here to get their tent, not realizing we'd be here so soon," observed Andy, which indeed was the fact.

Fortunately the Flying Fish was not very hard aground and a little manipulation got her off into deep water once more.

"I guess those two chaps are almost in Hampton by this time and getting ready to leave town," observed Rob as the motor boat forged ahead, once more.

"This will be the safest thing for them to do," exclaimed Merritt, "they are in a serious position this time. Kidnapping is a dire offense."

"I wonder what they came back for?" said Tubby suddenly.

"No doubt to get their tent and the few things they had left on the island," vouchsafed Rob, skillfully dodging a shoal as he spoke, "maybe, too, they intended to see how Joe was making out."

"I wasn't making out at all," said the small lad, with a shudder at the recollection of his imprisonment.

"Never mind, Joe, that's all over now," put in Merritt.

"I'm glad it is," answered the small lad, "and just think, if I hadn't been a Boy Scout and understood that code I might have been there yet."

"That's true enough," said Rob, "for we had about made up our minds that the bungalow was deserted, and were not going to bother investigating it, till we saw the smoke."

About an hour later the boys landed once more in camp, where their reception by the others may be well imagined by my young readers.

"And now comes the final chapter in the career of Messrs. Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender," said Rob decisively, "I'm going to take a run up to Hampton. Joe, you'll come along, and you, Merritt, and Tubby. If that letter was delivered, as I imagine it was, Joe's parents must be in a terrible state of anxiety by now and we must hurry up and see them at once."