Before he had finished Ruth and Boardman were down on their knees beside the place Tom indicated. It took them only a moment to find the uneven spot in the flooring—another to lift the loosened section and disclose the hole beneath!
Ruth gave a strangled laugh and plunged her hand into the aperture.
“The films!” she cried. “My precious films! Tom—Helen—I think I’ll just die—of joy!”
“‘The Girl of Gold,’” said Layton Boardman, looking gravely down upon her, “is saved!”
Such rejoicing as there was at Knockout Point that night!
Tom and Chess appeared little the worse for the wear and tear of their harrowing experience. Stiff and sore they were, for a fact, but so elated over the success of their detective work that a few small bodily ills meant nothing to them.
They had, it appeared, chanced to see Charlie Reid emerge from the back door of The Big Chance. The fellow had glanced furtively along the street, but had not looked up to the second story window of a near-by building where Tom and Chess were, talking and joking with Sandy Banks. The two young men had hurried down the stairs and had followed Reid to the cabin and had crept upon him as he was in the act of looking into the hiding place of the films, apparently to see if they were still safe.
But suddenly, just when they had seemed in sight of victory, they had been set upon from behind by Bloomberg and the powerful Rumph. They had both been knocked out by a vicious blow on the head and when they came back to consciousness found themselves gagged and bound.
“I managed to get my hands loose,” said Tom, “and when nobody was looking scribbled the note to you, Ruth. I had to wait until they had turned their backs for a minute, and then I chucked the note wrapped in a stone I found on the cabin floor as far out of the door as I could. It must have landed pretty far down the ravine and it was just luck that any one found it.”