Pep was a quick thinker. He could not tell how it was, but the minute his eyes lighted on the two strangers he somehow associated them with the group from whom he had anticipated trouble earlier in the night. In fact he was not sure that they were not two members of the quartette who had been the object of the visit of the officer from the city.

“What do you want?” Pep instantly challenged.

For answer his assailant leaped forward and made a grab for him. Pep knew that the intrusion of these men could have no good motive. He dodged, seized a frying pan from the gas stove, and brandished it vigorously.

“I’ll strike!” he shouted. “Don’t you try to hold me!”

“Quiet the young spitfire,” growled the second of the men, and although Pep got in one or two hard knocks with his impromptu weapon, he was finally held tightly by the arms from behind by one of the men. Pep let out a ringing yell, hoping to attract attention from outside, but his friends were by this time in the turmoil of the fire, and the few crossing vacant spaces were shouting and excited like himself.

“I supposed they had all rushed out to the fire,” spoke the man who had first appeared. “Keep this one quiet, if you have to choke him.”

Pep’s captor threw him to the floor and pinned him there with his knee on his breast, despite his wrigglings. He managed to apply a gag. Then he rudely jerked Pep to his feet, holding his wrists together in a vise-like grip.

The flare from the fire and the bright moonlight illumined the room as clearly as day. Some vivid thoughts ran riot in the active mind of Pep as the other man went into one of the partitioned sleeping places.

“That’s right,” called out Pep’s captor. “The boy who had the tin box carried it in there somewhere.”

“Got it!” sounded in a triumphant tone two minutes later, and there was a rattle and a rustling sound.

Pep groaned inwardly. He could figure things out clearly now, he fancied. The intruders were the two former companions of those arrested not two hours before by the city officer.

“Then it was the fellow he was after that left the chamois bag,” theorized Pep rapidly. “He didn’t want it found on him, and he got word to these friends of his. They probably saw us looking at the necklace through the windows and planned to get it back. When Frank and the others ran out to the fire they hurried in here, and——”

“Got it; eh?” inquired Pep’s captor, as his comrade reappeared.

“I have,” chuckled the other, and busied himself rolling a pillow slip about the tin box. “Found it under a cot in there. Now then, quick is the word.”

The man who held Pep gave him a sudden fling. Pep landed against the wall on the other side of the room with stunning force. The two men, hurriedly departing, directed a quick glance at him.

“That settles him,” observed the foremost of the two, running down the outside stairs.

Pep was dazed for a moment. He actually fell back half stunned. His head had received a terrific bump. The instant a thought of the loss of their little treasure box drifted into his mind, however, he was on his feet in a flash.

He tore the obstructing handkerchief from his mouth and made for the open door, capless and out of breath. Pep darted down the stairs, his eyes glancing in every direction. The whole top of the building, three hundred feet away, was blazing now. There was a vacant space behind the Wonderland, and across this people were running in the direction of the fire. Pep could not make out his friends anywhere about. As his glance swept in the opposite direction he saw two shadowy forms headed on a run for the side street.

“It’s them; I see them!” cried Pep, and he sprinted ahead, his eyes fixed upon the scurrying figures. They disappeared between two buildings. Then they came out on the street next to the boardwalk.

All along Pep’s idea had been to get near enough to them to call upon others to assist him in detaining them as thieves. There was no police officer in sight, however, and people about were thinking only of getting to the scene of the fire. Then, as Pep came out upon the street into which the two men had turned, he saw them standing by an automobile. One of them was cranking it. The other had climbed into the rear seat.

“Stop those men! they have robbed us!” shouted Pep, putting for the spot where the automobile stood and addressing three or four persons who were hastening in the direction of the fire.

One of these halted and looked at Pep as if to take heed of his announcement, but his fellows urged him to come on and laughed at Pep. The outcry had hastened the movements of the thieves. The man in front of the machine jumped into the chauffeur’s seat and seized the wheel.

“You shan’t get away with our property!” declared Pep, gaining on the auto just starting up. “Help! Thieves! Police! Police!”

The man in the rear seat had placed the box by his side. He had both hands free. As Pep leaped to the step and clung there, he reached out both arms. He was a fellow of powerful build, and he was annoyed and angry at the pertinacity of their pursuer. Pep dodged his head and body aside, but the man got a hold on his coat and pulled him clear over into the machine.

“Now go on,” he directed his companion. “I’ll squelch the young wildcat.”

“You won’t! Help! Police—pol——”

The man had Pep down between his knees. He was cruelly brutal, squeezing him down out of view from the street and choking him into silence. Pep gave up all hope now. He was silenced and helpless. The machine made several turns to baffle pursuit, if anyone should follow, and started down a winding road leading into the country.

“Now you sit still there and keep your tongue quiet or I’ll do worse for you next time,” growled his captor, lifting Pep to the seat and holding to one arm.

“Why don’t you pitch him out?” demanded the man acting as chauffeur. “We’re past the hue and cry now.”

“Not from a fellow with his sharp wits,” retorted the other. “He’d find the first telephone, double-quick. He’s made us a lot of trouble. I’ll give him a long walk home for his meddling.”

They were going at such a furious rate Pep knew that even if they passed anyone his shout would be incoherent and borne away on the wind. At any rate they were secure from pursuit except by an automobile like their own.

He foresaw the fate of the little tin box—carried away with its precious contents by these criminals, himself abandoned in some lonely spot to find his way back home as best he might. A desperate resolve came into Pep’s mind, as glancing ahead he caught the glint of water. At the end of a steep incline a bridge spanned a small river. Pep got his free hand ready. Just as the front wheels of the machine struck the first timbers of the bridge, his hand shot out for the tin box in its pillow case covering, lying on the cushion between himself and his captor.

It was all done quick as a flash. A grab, a whirl, a splash, and the hurling object disappeared beneath the calm waters just beyond the outer bridge rail. The man beside Pep uttered a shout. He was so taken aback at the unexpected event that he relaxed his hold on his captive.

His cry had startled his companion at the wheel, who took it as a signal of warning of some sort, and he instantly shut down on speed. It was Pep’s golden opportunity. Before the man beside him could prevent it, he made a nimble spring out of the machine, landed on the planking of the bridge approach, stumbled, fell, and then, as a crash sounded, dived into a nest of shrubbery lining the stream.

Pep did not wait to look back to trace the occasion of the crash. He heard confused shouts and knew that the two men had gotten into some trouble with the automobile. A light not over a hundred feet distant had attracted his attention. Pep darted forward. He ran into a barbed wire fence, then he crawled under it, and on its other side made out a farmhouse. The light came from the doorway of a big barn, where two persons, a man and a boy, were just unhitching a horse from a light wagon.

“Mister!” cried Pep breathlessly, running up to the men, “two thieves had wrecked their automobile right at the bridge. They have stolen a lot of money and jewelry. They tried to carry me away with them.”

“Run for my gun, Jabez,” ordered the farmer, roused at the sensational announcement. “Maybe they’re the fellows who broke in here last week when we were away at a neighbor’s.”

The boy ran to the house. He soon reappeared with a clumsy double-barreled shotgun over his shoulder.

“Arm yourselves,” directed the farmer, taking the weapon in one hand, the lantern in the other.

His son picked up a rake and handed a pitchfork to Pep. Then the boys followed the farmer as he strode towards the road.

The moonlight showed a wrecked automobile lying where it had been driven into a little clump of saplings—breaking them off two feet from the ground—and wedged in among the splintered branches. Evidently the amateur chauffeur had in his excitement made a turn at the wrong moment.

“Where’s your robbers?” demanded the farmer.

“They saw us coming and have run away,” declared Pep. “Mister, I want you to help me further and I will pay you for it.”

“What doing?” inquired the man.

“As I told you, those men had stolen a lot of valuables. They were in a little tin box. Just as we were passing over the bridge here I saw my chance to outwit them. I flung the box into the river.”

“What!” exclaimed the farmer.

“Sounds like a fairy story,” remarked his son skeptically.

“You find some more help, so if those fellows show themselves we can beat them off or arrest them,” observed Pep, “and I will prove what I have told you and pay you well for your trouble.”

“Jabez, go and wake up the two hired men,” directed his father.

“I’m a pretty good swimmer and diver,” said Pep, after the boy had gone on his errand. “Is the water very deep?”

“Six or eight feet.”

“Then the rake will help me,” said Pep, proceeding to disrobe. He was stripped of his outer garments by the time the boy Jabez had returned with two sleepy-looking men. He was in the water at once. First he probed with the rake. Then he made a close estimate of the spot where the box was likely to have landed and took a dive.

Pep came to shore and rested for a few minutes. Then he resumed his labors. After a long time under water his head bobbed up. He uttered a shout of satisfaction and waved aloft the tin box, its dripping covering about it.

“All right,” he hailed.

“A good deal in it, I suppose?” spoke the farmer, curiously regarding it.

“Yes, there is,” replied Pep. “Hold it, please, mister, till I get my clothes on. I want you to take me to Seaside Park right away—two of you and the shotgun. If you’ll do it you can charge your own price.”

“That’s fair,” nodded the farmer.

He got the rig in the barn ready and told the two hired men they could go back to their beds. They seemed, however, to have roused from their sleepiness. Pep had told of a big fire in town, and that had influenced them to accompany the crowd, “just for the fun of the thing,” as they expressed it.

Jabez drove, Pep holding the rescued box, the farmer between them with his shotgun ready for action. They saw nothing, however, of the robbers. The latter seemed to have decamped. If they were lurking in the vicinity, the sight of superior numbers kept them from making any demonstration.

As they got nearer to the town the glare of the distant fire was noted, and young Jabez whipped up the horse and made good time. The building on fire was pretty well consumed, but the fire department had saved adjoining structures. Pep directed Jabez to drive to the Wonderland by the rear route. He noticed that the living rooms were lighted up.

“Wait here for a minute,” directed Pep to those in the wagon, dashing up the steps of the playhouse with his precious box.