The Galloping Ghost | Page 9

the mysterious girl stood in the obscurity of the cabin doorway. Breathing hard and peering out into the night, they were poised as if for flight.
The slight hold of the lock had been broken. They were free to go. But which way? They were on an island. How long was this island? How large was the island? What was its nature? Was it all tangled forest? Were there trails, clearings, deserted cabins? To these questions Red could form no answers.
"We'd better have a try for their boat--" he whispered.
In answer the girl pressed his arm.
Then together they stole out in the night. The shadow of a giant spruce tree swallowed them up.
After that, to an impersonal observer there might have appeared a gIiding bit of darkness from time to time, followed by two black figures leaping at one another by the foot of the small dock.
The action of the figures increased in its intensity, yet there was no sound. They writhed and twisted.
One went down upon knee, but was up again on the instant. They went over in a heap to roll upon the ground. They tumbled about until they reached the dock and all but tumbled into the icy water.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the struggle ceased. For ten brief seconds one figure sat upon his opponent. Then he beckoned. A third figure appeared. Groping about the dock, this figure at last seized upon some object that cast little shadow. This it handed to the crouching figure.
Some seconds of suspense, and at last two figures, one tall, one short, stood side by side looking at the water and the dock.
As they stood there, some trick of the moonlight and shadows made their two forms appear to melt into one; and that form presented a spectacle of abject despair. Thirty seconds this pose was held. Then the shadow appeared to explode and two figures melted into the shadows to the right.
What had happened? Red Rodgers had fought a battle and won, only to find that he had in reality lost.
While groping his way toward the dock he had been detected and pounced upon by the kidnapers' guard.
From earliest childhood Red had been prepared. A boy, reared among the tough fists of a steel town school, must be. When, in his teens, he had wrestled with red hot steel, this instinct for absolute preparedness had been intensified. Football had added to this training. When one considers that he was as quick as a panther, as strong as a lion and as coolheaded as a prize fighter, one must know that the flabby guard stood little chance. Instantly, Red's arm was about his neck in a clinch that prevented the least outcry.
The outcome of the battle you already know; but not quite. When the boy had conquered his opponent, when he had bound and gagged him, he went to look for the rowboat. Then it was that his lips formed a single word:
"Gone!"
And the girl, who in the moonlight seemed pitifully small, echoed:
"Gone!"
Where was this boat? Had it drifted away? Or had a second kidnaper rowed away to a second island, lying a stone's throw away, for help?
No answer could be found. One thing remained to be done: to vanish into the night. This the strange pair lost no time in doing.
CHAPTER VI
THE RED ROVER GETS THE BREAKS
DREW LANE entered his room at three o'clock that morning. He and Tom Howe occupied a room together in the Hotel Starling. It was a very large place. Their room was on the top floor.
Throwing his coat over a chair he sank into a place by a table in the corner and allowing his head to drop on his arm tried to collect his thoughts. He had been following clues. A reporter from the News had given him a "hot tip" that grew cold almost at once. Casey from the State Street Police Station had given him another. It had led to nothing. After that he had begun setting traps. Calling in three trusted stool-pigeons, he had laid out their tasks for them. Having consulted his chief, he had begun laying plans for raiding all known hangouts for kidnaping gangs. After that he had pick-
ed up a copy of the city's pink sheet and had read in glaring headlines:
GHOST NO LONGER WALKS. HE GALLOPS.
He had read with some surprise the story of the Galloping Ghost...
"Rotten bit of sensation," he muttered. "I saw no ghost. Don't believe Howe did either. But that shot? Who fired it?"
He glanced at Howe's bed in the corner. Howe lay across it fully clad, sound asleep.
"Like to ask him," Drew muttered.
"Like--"
He made a sudden move with his arm. Some unusually hard object rested beneath it.
To his surprise he found on the table a coarse brown envelope. On the face of