"Heave!" he shouted back to the others. With a rush Nat and the man he had saved were pulled out of the surf by the living chain and landed high and dry on the beach. Morello's senses had left him and his cheeks were a dead white under their swarthy hue. He gasped like a fish that has just been landed.
Nat knelt by him and began applying "first aid" measures. While doing so he noticed that the man's body was extraordinarily lumpy. The next instant he discovered why. Morello's pockets were filled with the sapphires. It was a wonder he had not sunk like a stone when he jumped. The cause of the fight between himself and Dayton was explained now. Doubtless the other had tired to prevent his leader escaping with the loot.
Without compunction on the Motor Rangers' parts, the outlaw leader's pockets were rifled. Of course, not all the stones were there, but the finest lay exposed to view on the sand when the task was done. Sam Hinckley—or Sam Gooddale, as we must call him now—looked on with eyes that fairly bulged.
"And just to think," he exclaimed, "that my poor dad found all that."
"It is tough to think that he found it too late to make use of it," agreed Joe.
Just then Morello opened his eyes. He sat up with a start and a wild shout:
"Get the wheel over, you lubbers! Head her about, I say! I——"
He broke off short and looked about him with a terrible look of rage as he realized all at once where he was and what had happened. Suddenly his eyes fell on the sapphires. With a yell, he dashed for them. But Cal's strong hand jerked him away.
"Go easy, colonel," he said. "You've had a lot of rope, but you've reached the end of it now. And, moreover—— Ah! you would—would you!"
The colonel had drawn a knife, and, but for Cal's quick blow on the wrist, which sent it spinning into the spume, he would have plunged it into the mountaineer.