CHAPTER XX
“NEVER SAY DIE!”
It was, of course, Billy who first found his tongue after the three robbers had left the trio of boys bound in the cavern on Island Number One.
“We got into a nice mess this time; didn’t we?” he complained.
Dan was silent; and it was not strange that the tongue-tied youth was likewise dumb.
“We’ll have a nice time getting away, too,” growled Billy. “Dad will have something to say about it, Dan. He’ll have to go on the milk route in the morning——”
“Is that all that’s worrying you?” demanded Dan, in his quiet voice.
“Well!”
“If the storm continues, and nobody gets out here to the island to find us, it looks to me as though we’d be in quite a pickle. What do you think? Getting the milk to the customers around Riverdale isn’t bothering me.”
“Crickey! we’ll be hungry bye and bye, I suppose,” admitted Billy.
“We must find some way of getting out of this place, or we’ll be more than hungry. Can you stretch those cords a little bit, Billy?”
“Crickey!” exclaimed the younger lad again. “I’ve done all of that I want to. Don’t you see my wrists are bleeding?”
“I know, Billy. So are mine. And Dummy——”
He rolled over with an effort to look at the strange lad. The latter was weeping softly, the tears running unchecked down his dusty face. His legs still hurt him most woefully, without doubt.
“Well,” grunted Dan, “I guess we needn’t look to him for much help. If we are going to get out of this mess, Billy, we’ve got to do it ourselves.”
“I have a sharp knife in my pocket, Dannie——”
“So have I. Sharper than yours. But how’ll we get at either of them—and how use them?” demanded Dan.
“Well! what else is there?”
“Let me think,” said Dan.
“A lot of good thinkin’ will do us,” growled Billy.
“Never say die!” quoted Dan. “There’s got to be a way out of it.”
“Out of this cave? Sure!” snorted his brother. “The way we came in. And I wish to goodness we hadn’t come in at all!”
“They’d have burned Dummy badly if we hadn’t.”
“And is he any better off? Besides,” added Billy, “those scamps got what they were after, just the same. What do you suppose was in that box, Dan?”
“Ask Dummy,” suggested Dan, with a grim smile.
“Huh! And how far will they get with the box through this storm?”
“Maybe the storm has eased up,” said Dan. “If they try to walk to the shore—either shore—they’ll have a job; for I fancy there is a lot of snow on the ice by this time.”
“They said they’d take our boat,” declared Billy.
“And they’ll have a nice time sailing her through the drifts.”
“Just the same, they are better off than we are right now,” declared Billy.
Dan only grunted. He had been at work during the past few minutes, and was rolling himself over and over on the floor.
“My gracious!” exclaimed his brother, “do you expect one part of this hard floor is any better than another?”
Dan made no reply. Billy and the dummy watched him. Dan was gradually working himself near to the hearth.
The overturning of the forge with the live coals in it had done no harm, after the smoke had cleared away. There was nothing for the coals to set afire. But the heap of ash-covered coals was still hot underneath.
Dan was very well aware of this; yet Billy saw him rolling quite close to the embers. He called out:
“Look out, Dan! You’ll be burned!”
“Never mind yelling about it,” growled the older youth, between his set teeth.
He knew he had a peculiarly unpleasant job to perform; but Dan was just brave enough to do it. Once he had won a motorcycle race with flames eating into his leg while he covered the last lap—and he bore the scar of that yet.
He judged his distance well, gritted his teeth, and rolled close to the heap of embers. He could feel them scorching his back, while his tied wrists were right over the stirred embers.
At once a flame sprang up. There was the smell of scorching flesh. Billy, suddenly understanding what his brother was about, screamed aloud as though it were he who was being burned.
He tried to throw himself across the floor of the cave to reach Dan, by his action forcing the cords deeper into his own flesh.
And then Dan Speedwell flung himself over and over on the floor, still silent but in evident agony. His hands, however, were free!
“Oh, Dan! Dan!” sobbed Billy. “What have you done?”
He wouldn’t have cried for himself; but that his brother should have sacrificed himself in this way cut Billy to the heart.
“I know what I’ve done,” said Dan, shakenly, at length sitting up and trying to get a hand into his trousers pocket. “I know what I’ve done. I’ve made a chance for us to get free. Shut up your bawling, Billy! Somebody had to do it.”
He got out the knife, despite his burned wrist—and the burn was deep and angry. The skin of both wrists for at least half the way around was scorched.
Dan’s face worked with pain as he opened the blade, then cut the cords that bound his own ankles, using both hands. It hurt him dreadfully to use his hands at all.
But he was free, and he proceeded at once to free the other boys. Billy fairly hugged him, when once his arms were loose again.
“Oh, Dan! you’re the best fellow—the very best one!—who ever lived,” he cried. “I wouldn’t have had the pluck to do that——”
“Shucks!” grunted Dan. “Yes, you would. You didn’t just happen to think of it. We’ve got to get out of here quick, it seems to me; we couldn’t wait for rescue.”
“But in this storm——?”
“Well, if those fellows dared venture out into the blizzard, I guess we can follow them; can’t we?” the older Speedwell demanded.
“Follow them!”
“Of course. I’m not going to lose the Follow Me if I can help it. And that box, too——”
“We don’t know what’s in it!” cried Billy.
“Whatever it was, it didn’t belong to them,” cried Dan, his eyes flashing with anger.
“Ask Dummy,” suggested Billy, as Dan bent over the other boy to cut his lashings. Dan did so. But all they got was a mumble which meant nothing, and many head shakes.
“Oh!” cried Dan, “I don’t believe he knows.”
“And yet he had charge of it?”
“Of the box?”
“Well, didn’t he? Remember that paper he dropped at our house? He was taking that message to somebody—and it wasn’t to any of those three who got the box—not much!” exclaimed Billy.
“He did his best to keep the place secret from those who shouldn’t know, I reckon,” Dan agreed. “I bet something big depends upon that box.”
“Money in it!” exclaimed Billy, his eyes sparkling.
“Never mind what. Those fellows oughtn’t to have it. Let’s find out where they’ve gone.”
“Oh, I’m with you, if you’re bound to try following them,” agreed Billy. “But not before you’ve had those wrists bound up. I’ve a clean handkerchief in my pocket.”
“Guess your own wrists need a little attention, too,” returned Danny, making a grimace of pain. “And how about Dummy’s legs?”
The kettle, hung on the hook over the open fire, was steaming cheerfully all this time. Dan threw on some more wood, and Billy unhung the kettle and poured some water into a pan. They laved the burns with just as hot water as they could bear, to take the sting out.
Dummy’s trousers were burned in great holes between his ankles and his knees. His legs were merely scorched and blistered, however; his burns were not as deep as Dan’s.
Billy had crawled out of the cave for some snow with which to fill the kettle and reduce the temperature of the water poured into the pan. He reported the snow as blinding and the wind howling in the higher trees like a pack of wolves.
“If those fellows got away from this island, they’ve got pluck—that’s all I got to say,” he grunted.
“You bet they got away,” Dan returned, quickly. “Otherwise they’d be back here to the cave—don’t you see? No other place of shelter; is there, Dummy?” he asked the third boy.
The latter shook his head vigorously. He watched Dan with the eyes of a devoted dog. Evidently he was ready to fall down and worship Dan Speedwell.
It had been Dan who interfered and saved him from his captors. Dan had released him from his bonds. And now, it appeared, he was ready to follow the Speedwells in their attempt to trail the three robbers who had borne away the ironbound chest.
“You understand, Dummy?” demanded Billy. “We’re going to chase those men. Mebbe we’ll have another fight with them.”
He was whittling a handle on a husky stick of firewood, and showed by his motions what he purposed to do with the weapon if he caught up with the men who had so abused them.
It did not, however, shake Dummy’s determination. He was ready to start when the Speedwell boys were ready.