SEARCHING THE WRECK
There was a hard struggle on the beach of lonely Cliff Island. And the boys did not have such an advantage as it would seem at first, even though the hands and feet of their mysterious prisoner were bound.
He was big and strong, and he had evidently been in tight places before, for he knew how to handle himself. Every time he got a chance, as he and his captors rolled together over the sands, he would strike out with his two hands at once. Several times he hit Frank or Andy glancing blows, and once he gave the elder lad such a bop on the side of the head that the boy saw stars for a moment.
Again he hit Andy, and knocked him several feet distant so that at first Frank feared his brother had been hurt.
"I'm all right!" shouted the plucky Racer lad, as he jumped and came on to renew the struggle. "Hold his head down in the sand, Frank, and I'll tie some more ropes around his feet!"
"You will not!" yelled the man, and as Frank took his brother's advice, and pressed the man's head down in the yielding sand, Andy endeavored to slip another noose about the feet, for the boys had cut the tow rope into several pieces.
Like a madman the fellow kicked out with both feet. Frank saw his object, and uttered a warning cry.
"Keep away!" shouted the elder lad. "If he hits you it will be all day with you!"
"That's what it will!" yelled the infuriated man.
"Watch me!" cried Andy with a laugh. "I didn't learn to throw a lasso for nothing." He swung the noose in a circle about his head, and, as the man raised his feet in the air, to ward off any personal attack, Andy skillfully tossed the coils about his feet. They fell around the shoes, and in an instant Andy had pulled his end of the rope taut, making two coils about the prisoner.