“Not the last of it, Joe, for we’re coming back there.”
“What for, I’d like to know? Just for old acquaintance sake?”
“No; for a more material reason. Didn’t you notice those boxes and bales in one corner? Old Harley must have used it as a storehouse for his smuggled stuff just as he did the cave, and I think they were intending to visit it to-night when we surprised them.”
“Ginger! Nat, I guess you’re right. Maybe those things are valuable.”
“Not a question of that. But now let’s get on our way back to the wireless station. Nate may need our help by this time.”
Putting their best pace forward, the two boys headed for the huts. They were not more than half way there, when out of the storm a figure appeared. It was Nate. He gave a shout of relief at seeing them unharmed.
“From the talk of those fellows I thought you were in a living tomb,” he explained; “they said they’d buried you alive where you’d never get out.”
“I guess a good many folks have thought that they had the Motor Rangers down and out,” he said, “but they are here yet. Now, tell us what happened over at the station, Nate.”
“If it hadn’t a’ bin fer this storm, I reckon there’s a whole lot of things would a’ happened,” was the reply; “but it come on to blow so hard that they was scared their ground tackle would drag and put the schooner on shore,—you know the wind’s shifted and is blowing right inter the cove. The two fellers I was shadowin’ made straight fer the wireless hut and I reckon calkerlated to smash things up generally, but I got on the job with my oar,—by the way, I busted it,—and persuaded ’em it would be healthier for them some other place.”
“What, you routed two of them?” cried Nat.
“Don’t know about routed ’em, but I sure got ’em on the run. Then the others come along and hollered to ’em, and, as by that time it was blowing great guns, I reckon they thought it ’ud be a sight better to vamoose than to bother after me; so they all piled inter the boat and rowed off to the schooner. She’s been gone about an hour. Then I set out to look fer you, fer I heard ’em boasting about how they’d got you bottled up.”
By the time Nate had finished his narrative they were almost at the huts.
“Now for a good, hot supper and bed!” cried Joe luxuriously, as they came in sight of the structures. “We’ve had just about enough excitement for one night, I guess.”