They could hear the life saving corps yelling orders and the storm bell sounding out constantly in the distance. It was as they came to the street that cut down past the National, that Frank and his friends paused to survey a scene of great excitement.

The street, as has been already noted, dropped away from the boardwalk to a depression fully twenty feet below its level. This made it a natural outlet, not only for the waves that beat up over the boardwalk, but also for what drained laterally on both sides.

"Why, it's like a regular water course," declared Frank. "I say, there's someone needing help."

"Just look at the National!" exclaimed Pep, as they returned from carrying some crying children away from the menace of the flood.

The rival playhouse stood at the lowest part of the depression. A long platform ran to its entrance. This was fully four feet under water and the lower story of the place was two steps lower down. Here the surplus water had gathered, growing deeper every minute. The street in front was impa.s.sable, and running two ways a veritable river, which cut off the National as if it was an island.

"I hope no one is in it," said Frank.

"But there is!" cried Randy. "Look, Frank-that window at the side. Some one is clinging to the window frame."

The flashes of lightning, indeed showed a forlorn figure at the spot Randy indicated. And then Vincent, after staring hard, cut in with the sharp announcement:

"It's certainly Jack Beavers!"

"Hey, you!" yelled Pep, making a speaking trumpet of his hands and signaling Peter Carrington's partner. "Help me fellows," and Pep sprang upon a platform that had drifted away from its original place in front of some store.

Frank was beside him in a moment. Randy had got Jolly to help him tear loose a scantling from a step protection. He joined the others, using the board to push their unstable float along.

The water was over six feet deep and the scantling was not much help. A great gust of wind whirled them ten feet nearer to the playhouse building. At the same time it blew over the chimney on its top.

The boys saw the loosened bricks shower down past the clinging form in the window.

"He's. .h.i.t!" shouted Pep. "He's gone down!"

Jack Beavers fell forward like a clod and disappeared under the swirling flood. In an instant the motion picture chums acted on a common impulse and leaped into the water after him.

CHAPTER XXV-CONCLUSION

It was a moment of great suspense for Ben Jolly and the ventriloquist as, without a moment's hesitation, the three motion picture chums dived from their frail raft. The surface of the flood was so strewn with pieces of floating wreckage-the bottom and sides of the newly formed water way so treacherous-that it was a tremendous risk to get into that swirling vortex.

Frank and his companions were no novices in the water. They saw that Jack Beavers had been struck down from the window sill by the falling bricks, and had probably been knocked senseless. Almost immediately after diving the heads of the boys appeared on the surface.

"Got him!" puffed Randy.

"Lift him up," directed Frank, swinging out one hand and catching at a protruding window sill of the building. This purchase gained, all exerted themselves to drag up the limp and sodden form of Peter Carrington's partner. Frank and Randy kept the upper part of the man's body out of the water. Pep swam after the floating platform they had used a a raft. Jack Beavers, apparently more dead than alive, was placed upon it. His rescuers pushed this over to where the water was shallow and then carried the man into a drug store fronting the boardwalk.

"I suppose I had better stay with him," observed Vincent, as Beavers, after some attention from a physician who happened to be in the drug store, showed signs of recovery. "I know him the best, although I can't say truthfully that I like him the best."

"Yes, he's struck hard lines, and it's a sort of duty to look after him," said Ben Jolly.

He and the boys put in nearly two hours helping this and that group in distress among the storekeepers of the slump. They got back to the Wonderland to find that its superior location had saved it from damage of any consequence.

A wild morning was ushered in with a chill northeaster. Daylight showed the beach covered with wrecked boats and habitations. The tents over on the Midway were nearly all down. The National was still flooded and the street in front of it impa.s.sable. Very few of the frame buildings, however, had been undermined.

The worst of the storm was over by afternoon, but no entertainment was given until the next evening. A big transparency announced a flood benefit, and five thousand dodgers telling about it were circulated over the town.

It was a gala night for the Wonderland. There were few of the minor beach shows as yet in condition to resume operations, and after twenty-four hours of storm everybody seemed out.

"At least seventy-five dollars for the benefit of the poor families down on the beach," observed Pep. "Say, let me run down and tell them. It will warm their hearts, just as it does mine."

"All right," acceded Frank. "I guess you can promise them that much, Pep."

Frank and Jolly stood in front of the playhouse talking over affairs in general as Pep darted away on his mission of charity. A well-dressed man whom Jolly had noticed in the audience, and one of the last to leave the place, had loitered around the entrance. Now he advanced towards them.

"Is there a young man named Smith connected with your show?" he inquired.

"Yes, sir," replied Frank. "He has gone on a brief errand, but will soon return."

"I'll wait for him," said the stranger, and he sat down on the side railing.

Frank went inside as Randy appeared with his cash box. Jolly remained where he was. Finally Pep came into view briskly, happy faced and excited.

"Some one to see you-that man over there," advised Jolly.

"Is that so? Stranger to me. Want to see me?" he went on, approaching the stranger.

"If you are Pepperill Smith."

"That's my name," vouchsafed Pep.

"The same young man who was the guest of Mr. Tyson at Brenton?"

"Guest!" retorted Pep, in high scorn. "Oh, yes, I was a guest! Fired me the first time he got mad."

"Oh, well, we all have spells of temper we are sorry for afterwards,"

declared the man smoothly.

"Is Mr. Tyson sorry?" challenged Pep.

"He is, for a fact. You see-well, he gave you some papers, cheap stocks or bonds; didn't he, instead of cash for your services? He thought maybe you'd rather have the money. I've got a one hundred dollar bill for you.

If those papers are lying around loose you might hand them over to me."

"I haven't got them," said Pep, and the man looked disappointed. "Maybe my friend preserved them. Oh, Mr. Jolly," and Pep called the pianist over to them and explained the situation.

"H'm!" commented Jolly thoughtfully, when Pep had concluded his story, and glancing keenly at the stranger, "you seem to have discovered some value to the stock you refer to."

"Oh, I suppose these stock brokers know how to juggle them along,"

responded the stranger, with a.s.sumed lightness.

"Well, as I understand it, they were given to my friend Smith."

"Undoubtedly-why, yes, that is true."