Biff met the first man squarely. His passion for boxing now stood him in good stead. He judged his distance perfectly. As the fellow came at him, arms swinging, he drove a straight left to the fellow's midriff.
The gangster gasped and doubled up with pain. He wavered for a moment, then Biff swung. His right fist crashed against the man's jaw, and the gangster toppled over on his face. He rolled over in the gravel a few times, then came to a stop, sprawled senseless on the hillside.
As for Chet, he made use of strategy. When the second man rushed at him he sidestepped neatly.
His right foot went out. The gangster tripped over it and, so great had been the force of his rush and so sudden was his downfall, that he went ploughing forward on his face for several yards until he came to a ledge of rock. He made frantic efforts to save himself as he felt that he was going over the side, but his descent could not be checked. Chet had a glimpse of desperately waving arms and kicking legs; then his adversary disappeared with a crash. The ledge was only a few feet from the beach, but it was certain that the fall would knock the breath out of the gangster's body for several minutes at least.
Without another word the boys scrambled back up the hillside. They knew that the gangsters would recover quickly and that the alarm would soon be sounded. They must hide, and that quickly.
They gained the shelter of the bushes just as the gangster who had gone tumbling over the ledge began to find his breath again and shout for help. Desperately, the boys scrambled through the undergrowth, seeking no path, seeking only a hiding place.
At length, when they were in a dense thicket where the branches were so closely entwined that further progress seemed impossible, they halted.
"This is as far as we can go," panted Chet. "They'll be searching for us now, but they'll never find us in here."
"That was a narrow escape!"
"It sure was. But we gave them something to remember us by."