"Why, they actually mean to fight," gasped Mr. Barr.
"They're nervy fellows, all right," commented the ensign; "we may have a tougher time of it than we think, Barr."
He turned and warned Tubby to take his boat back out of range. On and on came the green boat without making a sign of any kind, hostile or otherwise.
"What can they be up to?" wondered the ensign in tones of blank amazement.
Scarcely twenty feet intervened between the two boats now, when suddenly a boyish figure, bareheaded and clad in a Boy Scout uniform, leaped to the rail of the green craft.
"Kre-ee-ee-ee!" he shrilled out.
"The call of the Eagle Patrol!" gasped Mr. Barr.
"Yes, and by all that's wonderful, that lad is Rob Blake!" fairly shouted the ensign, waving his cap.
By this time Tubby, too, had recognized his leader. The air rang with cheers, shouts, questions and answers in a perfect babble of sound.
"Well, who on earth but a Boy Scout could get himself kidnapped and then kidnap his abductors' boat!" exclaimed the ensign that evening as they lay at anchor off Rob's "Ivory Island."