“Billie, can you put on new tires?” demanded Ben, somewhat anxiously, making a mental determination to learn all about the mechanism of motor cars before he went on another motor trip.

The others stood back rather helplessly. Merry, especially, felt stupid and uncomfortable in having to stand aside and let a girl do all the work.

“Of course, I can,” replied Billie, trying to speak cheerfully, as a low cannonading of thunder rumbled in the distance. “I have done it dozens of times, only it will take time, of course. The tools are under the seat. Hustle up, everybody. Charlie, you get the new tires. Ben, you help me.”

In a few moments Ben and Billie were kneeling on the ground adjusting the tire of the first wheel, while Charlie and Merry were engaged in examining the extra tires, which the motor carried in case of accident, and Percy made himself as useful as possible, unpacking all the wraps, Billie’s oilskin coat and cap and the rubber blankets.

“Billie,” announced Charlie, “there are only three good tires here. The fourth has a puncture. It’s only a small one, but——”

“I know,” interrupted Billie, looking extremely worried. “It was an imperfect one. I may be able to patch it.”

Then Charlie and Merry held a whispered conference and disappeared around the bluff.

“What’s up?” asked Ben, looking over his shoulder at their retreating figures.

But nobody could answer the question. The girls were getting into their ulsters and Percy was arranging the rubber blankets and rugs in the car.

“What a confoundedly low, mean trick of that fellow to do this,” he kept saying to himself, keeping one eye on the black clouds piling up and the other on Billie and Ben. He figured that it would take an hour and a half at least to get all four tires on and, he thought, Billie would be a pretty smart girl to do it that quickly. It was half-past three o’clock.

“What about that ferry,” he said to himself.

At last they were pumping up the third tire. It seemed an age to those who were idly looking on. The girls sat in a row on the side of the road, their hands folded patiently in their laps, while Percy paced up and down, watching the top of the bluff uneasily.

“Where are Charlie and Merry?” he said at last, unable to conceal his anxiety any longer.

“Idiots,” exclaimed Nancy. “Haven’t we enough to worry us?”

While she spoke there came a blinding flash of lightning and a clap of thunder seemed to split the heavens in two.

Nancy hid her face on Elinor’s shoulder. Billie and Ben kept on working steadily. They had reached the fourth tire now and Billie had managed to patch the punctured place just as the first great drops of rain began to fall.

“Where are those boys?” Ben called over his shoulder, not stopping to look up.

“I’ll call them,” said Percy, and running to the top of the cliff he began to halloo and whistle.

It had grown suddenly so dark that they thought the sun must have set an hour earlier than usual. A cold wind sprang up and whizzed through the pines with a sound that made them shiver.

“Hurrah, it’s done!” cried Billie triumphantly, just as a driving wall of rain struck her in the face. “Get in, girls, quick,” she shouted, as she slipped on her oil skins. “Boys, where are you? Crank up, Ben.”

Suddenly, in the midst of the din and racket of the storm, came a wild halloo. Charlie and Merry appeared, running down the road toward the motor car, and six men were following them, shouting and gesticulating.

“Get in as fast as you can,” commanded Ben, and the girls will never forget the terror of that moment as they tumbled into the car.

The booming of the sea in the caves, the cannonading of the thunder, the sharp whistle of the wind in the tops of the trees, and the shouts of the men! But in the midst of it all came the kindly, cheering whir of the motor engine. Billie could have kissed the faithful “Comet” on his broad, good-natured forehead for his loyalty at this moment, when they most needed him. As Charlie and Merry leaped onto the step, she threw in the clutch, and they were off just as the first man reached the car, brandishing a long knife and yelling hoarsely.

The boys climbed over into the back, too tired to speak. Merry had a black eye and Charlie had a bloody nose.

“Billie, the next ferry is Payne’s,” called Percy. “It’s about a mile from here. Go straight ahead.”

And Billie, sticking to her wheel like a good pilot, ducked her head and guided the flying motor along the slippery road.

They seemed hardly to have taken breath before they reached Payne’s landing and found it empty and deserted of every human being who had ever ventured into that lonely place.

“We’ll have to try for the next ferry landing then,” said Percy, dejectedly. “It’s back toward Flag Point.”

Without a word, Billie turned the car, and putting on all speed they whizzed through the rain. At that moment she had only one prayer in her heart: to pilot her friends safely through the storm and get them to the ferry landing. There was no sign of any of their pursuers as they passed the fort. When at last they reached the second summer encampment they breathed a sigh of relief. The ferry boat was docked at the landing and a man stood under the shed, his hands in his pockets.

Billie drew up at the entrance.

“Captain, will you take us on?” called Ben. He always called boatmen and conductors captain. He found it pleased them, but this man did not reply and still stood with his back turned looking out on the now angry strip of water between Seven League Island and the mainland.

Ben shouted and they all shouted together, but the man was as unmoved as a wooden statue.

“He’s deaf,” said Billie. “Get out and shake him.”

Ben jumped out and shook the man’s shoulder, who, with a strange guttural sound, turned slowly around.

“And dumb,” exclaimed Ben, indicating with violent motions first the automobile and then the ferry-boat.

The deaf mute shook his head and pointed in the direction of Flag Point. They offered him money, tried persuasion, threats, prayers, which he could not hear, and finally ended by dashing off toward the last ferry.

“It’s our only chance,” said Ben, “but we’ll get over in that if we have to use force.”

Meantime, the island, lashed by the storm, looked bleak and cold, and they wondered they could ever have admired it at all. Crouched under the rubber covers, they shivered with chill, while Billie, on the front seat, Ben and Percy beside her always on the lookout, with clinched teeth and hands gripped to the wheel, guided them through the hurricane. It seemed to her they must be riding on the very wings of the wind, and the speedometer announced fifty miles an hour.

As they dashed through the straggling little street of that forlorn village of Flag Point, the few indifferent natives who braved the winters on the island looked out of their windows in wonder. It seemed to them that a streak of red lightning had flashed through the storm.

“Cheer up, all of you, our troubles are over,” called Ben. “The ferry-boat’s at the landing.”

The old boat seemed like a haven of rest when they pulled into the shelter of its alley for wagons and motor cars.

“Captain, why didn’t you tell us that this was the only ferry running?” demanded Ben of the wrinkled old man.

“Because I don’t never answer questions that ain’t first been put to me,” replied the laconic boatman.

“Don’t scold him,” said Billie, wiping streams of water from her face. “Any one who is obliged to live in a God-forsaken, wretched place like Seven League Island couldn’t be supposed to have any human interest. I imagine they all get to be like their own flinty rocks, hard, sharp, and ugly.”

“Well, bloody nose and blacky eye,” put in Percy, “it’s about time for you to give an account of yourselves.”

“Yes,” said the others, who had been so stunned by the fast ride through the storm and the race for the ferry that they had almost forgotten what had happened.

“When we found,” began Merry, “that one of the tires had a puncture, Charlie and I thought we might as well make that low, scoundrelly thief who slashed the tires pay back with one of those he had stolen from Mr. Butler. So we chased over to Smugglers’ Cave, but it took longer than we had expected, because we had taken the wrong path and had to crawl around a precipice and jump over crags like two mountain goats.”

“Don’t forget to tell that your pirate brigantine was anchored out in the harbor,” put in Charlie. “We supposed it was lying up to get out of the storm, but we had another think coming——”

“Yes, I guess you will all listen to me, next time,” went on Merry. “That was the most piratical-looking band of fellows with their knives and their red handkerchiefs as I ever saw in a story book. Well, we did get to the cave at last and found it as empty as it was before. Charlie had a chisel in his pocket. You know, he is the human tool box, and with that and a piece of stone we managed to loosen some of the boards. But there wasn’t a tire or anything else connected with an automobile inside the box. You’ll never guess what the boxes were filled with. Something about as foreign to a motor car, except in sound, when a tire bursts, as a caterpillar.”

“You don’t mean guns?” demanded Ben.

“We certainly do. Rifles by the dozens packed in all the boxes we had time to open.”

“We were chumps,” interrupted Charlie. “If we had stopped sooner, I never would have had this bloody nose.”

“Well, haven’t I got a black eye?” demanded his friend.

“What happened? What happened?” cried Percy impatiently.

“While we were tinkering with the boxes, we heard the sharpest, loudest whistle I ever heard in my life, and we both lit out and ran. I was in front and just as I got to the mouth of the cave, a one-eyed, one-armed ruffian leapt out at me. His one arm was as strong as most men’s two, but he couldn’t beat Charlie and me together, although he gave me this little souvenir and he planted his fist on Charlie’s nose. While we were fighting, a boat from the ship with six sailors in it landed below. They came tearing up the steps like a lot of bloodhounds, and Charlie and I had a run for our lives. Didn’t we, midget?”

Charlie acknowledged the fact gravely. There was no denying that the two boys had been in a very dangerous situation.

“We were ready just in the nick of time, too,” said Billie. “If Ben hadn’t cranked up, we’d have had those men on us in another minute.”

It was good to be on land again, even though it wasn’t dry land, and the ride home, safe and swift, was blissful after the dangers and excitement of that thrilling picnic.

It seemed that Seven League Island must have been the very centre of the hurricane and that West Haven had only been visited with a heavy shower. Miss Campbell, therefore, was spared any great anxiety.

But, oh, the joy of drawing up to the cheerful blaze of the wood fire, while eight youthful adventurers related a somewhat softened version of the events of the day! Then the supper that followed, in Miss Campbell’s big, old-fashioned dining room, with fried chicken and hot biscuits and omelette as light as a feather, and strawberry jam that took the prize at the county fair!

But best of all was what Merry did at the last, when, notwithstanding his stiff joints and bandaged eye, he rose from his seat and cried:

“Hip, hip, hurrah! Three cheers for Billie, the pluckiest chauffeur that ever ran a motor car.”

And all the rest joined in, even Miss Campbell, who clapped her hands and cried:

“Three cheers for my dear, dear Billie.”

Then Billie cried:

“Three cheers for Ben because he never said ‘I told you so,’ about the rain.”

That very night, before he went to his own home, Ben called at Mr. Richard Butler’s house and told him the story of the bogus automobile supplies marked with the name of Butler Brothers.

There was a great telegraphing and telephoning by long distance. The Butler Brothers were very excited and angry, just as their niece had predicted they would be. Detectives were engaged and other ships warned to keep a sharp lookout, but nothing was heard of the pirate brigantine.