"We will soon be if you don't let up!" answered Jimmie.
"Jimmie from the Bowery?" demanded the other.
"Sure!" was the reply. "What is this, anyway, a catch-as-catch-can? If you don't let up I'll take a rib out with my bolo."
With a spring which almost keeled the boy over the figure sprang up, ducked under the dripping canvas, and crouched in the thicket from which Jimmie had observed the tent. Jimmie's first thought was to follow, then he thought of the remaining prisoners and turned to cut their bonds.
But he was too late. As he turned three men came to the front of the shelter and bent low for the purpose of entering. To have hesitated longer would have been to invite capture, and so, with a sigh of regret, the boy shot under the canvas and joined the other in the thicket.
"It's leg bail for it!" came the familiar voice of Pat Mack, and the boys poked their faces into the thicket and kept going, regardless of the thorns and creepers which tore at their garments and tripped their feet. It was so dark now that they could not see a hand held two inches from their eyes, but they kept on, making as little noise as possible.
CHAPTER VII.
A MISSING MOTOR BOAT.
"You rapscallion," Pat Mack whispered, as the two came together in the embrace of a particularly tough creeper, "how did you ever get here? I saw you last on the good old Bowery!"