The red-headed man, with a bruise over one eye, produced a length of stout cord from his hip pocket.
"Tie 'em up!" he snapped. "We've got 'em this time for keeps."
Pete grabbed the cord, and in a few minutes Chet's wrists were bound tightly behind his back and his ankles were securely tied. Pete cut the cord and used the remainder for binding Biff. The two chums were helpless.
As for Tony Prito, in the Napoli, he had quickly seen that it would be impossible, even foolhardy, to attempt to rescue his two chums. In the first place, there were five boys against five men, the latter desperate and fully armed. The only result would be the capture of them all and the capture, as well, of the three motorboats by the gangsters.
"I hate to see them caught with us so close, but what can we do?" he said, turning to the others, as he slowly brought the Napoli around.
"If the men catch us and the motorboats, the boys will only be worse off than they were before."
"I guess you're right," agreed Jerry Gilroy. "I sure thought for a minute that we were going to be able to save them. Between the crowd of us we could have held off those other two toughs long enough to get Chet and Biff on board, but when the others showed up I knew it was all off."
"The fellows put up a good fight, anyway," declared Phil Cohen. "I hope those villains don't treat 'em too rough."
"We'll get them free yet," asserted Tony. "I don't know how it's going to be done, but we'll get 'em free. We've still got all the motorboats and the gang can't leave the island, that's sure."
When he had brought the Napoli out a safe distance from shore, Tony decided to drop anchor.