CHAPTER XXIV.
IN THE PULSIFERS' HANDS.
Sinewy and well-muscled as he was, Ned realized a moment later that hewas in for such a battle against odds as he had never fought before.Hardly had he made his unexpected appearance and bowled the astonishedyounger Pulsifer over with a well-directed blow of his fist, beforeone of the quartet that had downed Mr. Varian sprang upon the lad andgripped him in a strong-armed embrace.
As they swayed back and forth, Ned saw the fellow's features as the twoemerged into a patch of moonlight. His astonishment almost caused himto lose his advantageous grip.
"Hank Harkins!" he gasped.
"Yes, Hank Harkins; and this is the time I even up old scores," gratedthe other, through his close-set teeth.
"Not while I've got two arms," grunted Ned, striving to overset theother. But, as he felt Hank's body bend back and his sinews crack, twoof the other men flung themselves on the Dreadnought Boy from behind. Afew brief seconds later, Ned, borne down by overwhelming numbers, was aprisoner.
Even as he fell he recognized the two who had come to Hank's aid asCarl Schultz and Ralph Kennell.
"This is the kind of work I should have expected to find you takingpart in," sneered Ned, as he lay on his back, his arms and legspinioned by Hank and Carl Schultz and Kennell's evil face glaring downinto his.
"It's the kind of work you'll have no reason to like," grinned Hankmeaningly. "I fancy that we'll be able to even up things now."
Ned disdained to answer the fellow, and returned his threats with astare of cold contempt. The next instant he set up a shout, which wasinstantly choked back by a rough hand on his throat. Kennell it was whohad compressed the Dreadnought Boy's windpipe till breathing becamepainful.
"Your handkerchief--quick!" Kennell ordered Schultz.
The graceful Schultz brought out a scented piece of linen.
"Now, younker, open your mouth again," ordered Kennell, taking his handfrom Ned's throat.
Ned set his teeth firmly, however. Kennell, beside himself with fury,struck him a cowardly blow across the face with his clenched fist.Still Ned's mouth was locked.
The blue-jacket, seeing that it would take too long to force Ned'slips open in that way, then seized hold of the lad's nose, compressingthe nostrils. In a short time Ned was compelled to open his mouth tobreathe and the handkerchief was then thrust in between his teeth,making an effectual gag.
The Dreadnought Boy was then rudely yanked to his feet. As he stoodupright, he noticed a faint, sickly smell in the air.
Chloroform!
The inventor's figure, white-faced and outstretched as though in a deepsleep, lay a few paces away. His stupor showed to what purpose the drughad been put.
"He'll give us no more bother," grinned Pulsifer, nodding in thedirection of the recumbent inventor, over whom the scowling Silas stoodguard.
"Got any left for the kid, if he gets mussy?" inquired Kennell.
"No, confound it," muttered the younger Pulsifer; "the stuff upset andspilled on the grass."
"I should say it did. The place smells like a medical college,"commented Kennell. "Now, guv'nor, where's the gasoline gig?"
"Two of you fellows pick up Varian," ordered Pulsifer, "and followme. Kennell, you take care of the boy--wherever he came from. Tie hishands. The rig is right outside the rear gate of the grounds."
Ned, helpless as he was, had no recourse but to obey Kennell's roughorder to "Look alive." In the meantime the traitorous Silas roped thelad's hands. In a few minutes they reached the back gate. Outside itstood a powerful touring car.
There was a lamp on the rear gate, and Pulsifer, as he went by, reachedup to turn it out.
"The less light we have, the better. No knowing who is skulkingaround," he remarked. As he straightened up to reach the lamp,however, his eyes fell on Ned, whose face was illumined momentarily bythe light.
Pulsifer gave an exclamation of delight.
"Look who's here, Dave," he cried exultingly; "little Johnny Fixit.Don't you remember him?"
"Why," exclaimed the elder Pulsifer, "that's one of the rowdy kids whotried to get us out of our seats on the subway."
"Tried to," thought Ned; "I guess we came pretty near doing it."
"Oh, this is luck," grinned the younger Pulsifer; "talk about killingtwo birds with one stone. We'll attend to you, my young friend--youdirty young spy. We'll put you where what you overheard to-night willdo you no more good than--this."
He stepped lightly forward and deliberately struck the Dreadnought Boyan open-handed slap on the cheek.
Ned's hands struggled with the rope that Kennell had twisted about hiswrists. He palpitated, ached, and longed with a superhuman intensity,to get at the younger Pulsifer, and beat his sneering face into anunrecognizable mass. It was a lucky thing for that young man thatKennell had tied his knots with sailor-like thoroughness. In a fewminutes--by the time they had been bundled into the tonneau of themachine, in fact--Ned was once more calm. He recognized the sternnecessity for keeping absolutely cool.
On the seat beside him in the tonneau lay the senseless form of theinventor. As a guard, Kennell, Schultz and Hank were seated also inthat part of the car. Dave Pulsifer took the wheel and his brother satat his side. Silas, the heavy-browed, occupied the small extension-seatat the elder Pulsifer's side.
With the engine muffled down, till it made scarcely any noise, the carglided off into the night, leaving behind it what Ned could not helpfeeling was the last hope of rescue.
As the wheels began to revolve, Dave Pulsifer leaned back, and, withone hand, extended to Kennell a revolver.
"If our guests should object to our little surprise party and moonlightride, just give them a leaden pill," he suggested pleasantly.
"Say, guv'nor, it would be pretty dangerous firing off a gun at thistime of night, wouldn't it? It might bring the alligator-zills, orwhatever they call these Cuban cops, about our ears, mightn't it?"
The younger Pulsifer laughed lightly.
"No danger of that," he said. "In ten minutes now we'll be out in adesolate part of the country, inhabited only by a few cattle-grazers,and they've got too much horse-sense to inquire into a casual shot. Sodon't hesitate to pepper away if our guests get obstreperous."
A few minutes later the car began to bound forward, the elder Pulsifer"opening her up," as they drew out of the few scattered huts on theoutskirts of the town. They emerged into an arid, stony region,fringed with low, barren hills, clothed with scanty vegetation. Hugecacti stood up weirdly, like tombstones in the moonlight, and a fewhalf-starved cattle plunged off to both sides of the track as the carsped along.
So far as _one_ of the prisoners becoming obstreperous was concerned,there was no danger, or immediate danger, at any rate. Henry Varianlay like one dead, with his face of a marble whiteness, in the coldmoonlight.
"Say, the guv'nor must have given him a pretty heavy dose," mutteredKennell, bending over the inventor and feeling his heart. "I hope hehasn't overdone it."
"What's the difference?" inquired the soft-voiced Carl, in a casualway. "We find plendy of places alretty vere ve get rid off him if hedond come back."
"I don't know. I don't care much about taking such chances," mutteredKennell; "killing a man is bad business. I should think you and Silaswould realize that, after your escape----"
"Hush! der boy hear!" warned Schultz, holding up a thin, white hand.
Kennell subsided with a growl of "what's the difference," but said nomore, to Ned's intense disappointment.
It was no trick of their eyesight, then, when the two DreadnoughtBoys had recognized in the two pictured convicts, at the biographexhibition, their two dastardly shipmates. Moreover, it seemed, fromwhat Kennell had let drop, that both men were jail-breakers. Revolvingthis in his mind, Ned saw the cunningness of the two men's movements,if they had actually escaped from Joliet. What less likely place tofind an escaped prisoner than in the United States navy? They must haveforged papers of recommendation and character, and thus
tricked thecareful authorities. In fact, Ned learned later that this was the case.
On and on droned the car, speeding through the same monotonous moonlitwastes of hills and scrub-grass--with here and there the gaunt formof a tall royal palm--as it had encountered on leaving the scatteredoutskirts of the town. All the time Ned had been working feverishly,but quietly, at his bonds, and now he began to feel what at first hescarcely dared believe--the ropes were becoming slightly loosened. Inten minutes more he had stretched the new rope, of which the thongswere made, till he could slip them off by dint of rubbing them againstthe cushion at his back.
His mind was made up as to what he would do the instant he foundhimself at liberty to make his escape. He would drop from the car andtrust to luck to get away. The surface of the hills was rough andcreased with numerous deep gullies. If he could get into one of these,it would be impossible for the auto to follow, and on foot--well, Nedhad a few records for sprinting behind him, and he was confident hecould outdistance any one of the occupants of the car.
He looked about him. The car was at this moment passing quite near toone of the arroyos--as they are called in our West--that Ned had noted.Kennell, his eyes half-closed, was hunched in a doze, the pistol in hislap. Carl Schultz and Hank Harkins were talking in low tones. Not asingle one of them was watching the Dreadnought Boy.
The moment to carry out his plan, if he was to put it into execution atall, had arrived.
With a quick move, Ned slipped off his thongs, and sprang to his feet.
Before any one of the occupants of the tonneau knew what was happeninghe was out of the auto and sprinting, as he had never sprinted beforefor the friendly darkness of the gully.
Angry shouts instantly broke out. The gully seemed farther than Ned hadjudged.
He had gained its edge, and, with a grateful prayer, was about to slideover into security, when he felt a sharp twinge in his right calf. Atthe same moment he heard the sharp crack of a revolver behind him.
Nobody had ever accused Kennell of being a bad shot, and he had aimedtrue this time.
Ned doubled up.
He was halted by unbearable pain. In another instant his pursuers hadseized him with exulting cries.
The Dreadnought Boys on Battle Practice Page 24
