“I’m ready for action right now,” said Herc grimly, clicking the lock of his pistol ominously.
“Can’t you make this boat go faster?” urged Ned of the reporter.
The other replied in the negative.
“She’s got all the gasoline and all the spark I can give her now,” he said. “We couldn’t do an inch more if a torpedo was chasing us.”
An instant later they ran in beside a rickety wharf, which, as it so happened, was some little distance below the one at which Mr. Lockyer had been landed, and had been intended for trade boats to land at, while the other had been designed for the use of yachts and pleasure craft. To make fast the painter and get ashore was the work of a jiffy. Under Ned’s directions they scattered.
“Two shots in quick succession will be the signal that one of us has struck the trail,” whispered Ned, as they separated. “Don’t forget now, two shots close together mean trouble. It will be the duty of each of us to get there as soon as possible when he hears them fired. So long!”
He slipped off into the darkness under the mournful spruce and hemlocks. The others darted off with equal alacrity in the directions to which he had assigned them.
But it was Ned who was to “strike the trail” first. Plunging as silently as possible through the dark shadows of the overhanging trees, he presently emerged on what had evidently once been a driveway. He with difficulty choked back a gasp of amazement as he perceived standing there, unlighted and silent—an automobile!
“Jove! here’s what they came in,” he muttered.