Tom Barnum had disappeared. Now he ran up from the rear of the radio station.

“Quick, Mister Frank, with that revolver,” he said. “They’ve split up an’ the fellows in the woods are trying to work their way around to take us in the rear. I been watchin’ from the back side.”

Frank nodded and started to follow. Then he spun around, ran again to his former vantage point, and sent a couple of bullets towards the figures in the sand.

“That’ll hold ’em there for a minute,” he said.

As he ran after Tom Barnum to the other corner of the station on the side which sheltered them, he refilled the emptied chambers of the precious weapon.

“There,” said Tom Barnum, crouching low, and pointing.

Frank tried to follow directions but saw nothing. He pressed the revolver into Tom’s hand. 155

“Don’t waste time trying to show me,” he said. “If you see anybody, shoot.”

Tom took the weapon, glanced along the barrel, and pressed the trigger. A yell of pain was the response. Twenty yards away there was a crash in the bushes, then silence.

“Back to the other corner,” said Tom, chuckling, and dashed again to the post from which Frank originally had fired.

Frank sat down, with his back against the wall of the station and laughed hysterically.

“Golly, but this is a game of hide and seek, all right,” he gasped.

Again the revolver spoke, a yell followed, and then came a rain of bullets.

“Here they come,” cried Tom, and in quick succession he pumped out four more shots.

Howls and shrieks of anguish rose. Tom was shooting with deadly intent. The attempted rush was halted, broken. The desperadoes composing the attacking force could not stand before that deadly aim. They broke and ran back toward the trees, leaving three figures groveling in the sand.

“One for Mister Frank, and three for me, them two and one back behind,” said Tom Barnum grimly, to Bob and Jack, who were peering over his shoulder. “That ain’t so bad.” 156

A cry from Captain Folsom, followed by Frank’s voice calling urgently, caused the three to spin around. They were just in time to see one man go down under a terrific blow from the doughty, one-armed officer, while Frank leaped in under the arm of a second desperado, upraised to fire, and brought him crashing down with a flying tackle.

“As pretty as I ever saw,” muttered Bob. “Old Frank ought to make the All-American team for that.”

Quick as thought, having felled his man, Captain Folsom stooped down and wrenched a revolver from his grasp, then spun about on his knee and fired just as a third rounded the corner. The man toppled forward. By this time Bob and Jack had reached the scene. But the attack from the rear had spent its force. The three most daring evidently had taken the lead. And the way they had been disposed of deterred the others. A half dozen in number, they hung uncertainly in a group along the wall of the radio station.

Captain Folsom helped them make up their minds as to which direction to take by sending several shots over their heads. Without even waiting to reply, they ran for cover toward the trees and bushes at the edge of the clearing.

The man whom Frank had tackled capitulated 157 without a struggle, seeing the fight had gone against him. Frank took his revolver. From the fellow whom Captain Folsom had shot, and who proved to be wounded only in the thigh, Bob obtained a revolver. All except Jack were now armed, and he had the butcher knife which Frank had carried away from the Brownell house, although he laughed as he flourished it.

“The way you fellows treat our friends,” he said, “I expect none of them will come close enough to give me a chance to use this.”

“Look here,” said Captain Folsom, approaching the boys, after having ascertained first that the man whom he had shot had only a flesh wound; “we aren’t out of the woods yet. These fellows are determined scoundrels, and they know they can’t afford to let us escape. Finding they can’t rush us, they will next try to work around through the trees and attack us from this side. I think we had better make a dash around Tom Barnum’s corner and get into the radio station.”

“But how about my going to the beach to meet Lieutenant Summers?” asked Jack.

“Our position ought to be evident to him,” said Captain Folsom. “He can understand what is going on, and come up cautiously. I can’t risk having any of you lads run the gauntlet. I’ve reproached 158 myself a hundred times already for leading you into danger.”

“Nonsense, Captain,” said Jack. “We volunteered. And we’re safe so far, aren’t we?”

The other shook his head with a smile of admiration. These boys were made of manly stuff.

“Come,” said he, “there is no time to waste. Any minute we may expect to be peppered from the woods on this side. Here, you two,” he added, addressing the two unwounded prisoners, “help your pal and march. We’re going into the radio station.”

The men, young, smooth-shaven and looking like what they were, city toughs, were cowed. Without a word, they moved to obey.

“All clear there, Tom?” asked Captain Folsom of Tom Barnum, who had kept up his watch at the forward end of the side wall.

“If we move fast we can make it,” Tom replied. “There’s nobody out here in front but the wounded, an’ they’re crawlin’ to cover.”

“Good,” answered Captain Folsom. “Now, altogether.”

A quick dash from cover, and the party was safely within the sending room of the station.

Jack’s first move was to ascertain whether any of the enemy had gained entrance to the power 159 house. He approached the connecting door at the rear of the room. It still was closed and locked. Tom Barnum had taken up his post inside the door, which he had swung shut behind him, not, however, until Frank had found and pressed a wall button which switched on a cluster of electric lights overhead.

“Lucky for us there is no other entrance to the power house than through this door,” said Jack. “At least there is none, so far as I have seen. If there had been, they might have slipped in that other room, come through here and have gotten close enough to rush us before we could have stopped them.”

Captain Folsom approached Tom Barnum, after asking the boys to keep an eye on the prisoners.

“I see you are keeping watch through a crack in the door,” he said. “But, I believe we would be better off with the door open entirely. That would give us a clear view of the side from which attack must come. We can push this big table across the doorway, upending it. So.” And, suiting action to word, he and Tom dragged the heavy article of furniture into position. “Now let us push the door open,” he said.

Just as Tom was about to comply, an outburst of shooting in the clearing split the air. 160

“Hurray,” shouted Jack. “The ‘Dry Navy’ got on the job. Come on, fellows, open the door.”

As Tom Barnum, who had paused in that very act, stunned by this new development, completed the task and the door swung outward, the others crowded to the barrier of the upended table.

Jack’s surmise was apparently correct. Along the wall of the radio station were ranged a dozen men. They had been stealing up to pour a hot fire through the door. But Lieutenant Summers with his landing party, drawn to the clearing by the sounds of combat, had made a hurried march up from the beach, and opened fire. His men were advancing across the clearing, scattered out fanwise, crouching and shooting as they came.

Taken by surprise, the smugglers were returning only a ragged fire.

Seeing how matters stood, Captain Folsom directed the table be pulled away and then, commanding the boys to keep in the background, he and Tom Barnum stepped out to the stoop and poured the contents of their revolvers, fast as they could pump them, into the smugglers.

The surprise of the latter was complete. Caught between two fires, they did not know which way to turn. They wavered a moment, then dashed away 161 along the wall of the radio plant in an opposite direction from the door.

As they disappeared among the trees, pursued by a detachment of Lieutenant Summer’s men, the latter with a half dozen followers dashed up to the radio plant and, in the lighted doorway, recognized the figure of his colleague, Captain Folsom.

Greetings were exchanged, and then Captain Folsom called the boys forward and introduced them.

“Plucky lads, if ever I met any,” he said, warmly, “and resourceful, too. Their ingenuity has pulled us through time and again to-night.”

“Not to mention,” said Bob, gruffly, “that it was my darned foolishness that got us into this scrape to begin with.”

“Nonsense, my boy,” said Captain Folsom. “You did only what any of us would have done in jumping that rascal, Higginbotham. Well, now, let us head for the house. Probably that is where these rascals will take refuge. They must be wondering who you are, Lieutenant, and how you happened to appear on the scene.”