But the wreckers outnumbered our friends two to one, and some, if not all, of the desperate characters might have escaped had not reinforcements appeared. These were in the shape of four sturdy fishermen from the little colony where the moving picture boys lived.
“Oh, if we could only capture the others!” cried Tom Cardiff, when he had finished with his man, and saw some of the wreckers struggling to make their way through the thick bush. “Come on, boys!” he yelled to his friends. “When you finish with those fellows keep after the rest of the gang, though I’m afraid they’ll give us the slip.”
“No, they won’t!” cried a new voice, and then appeared the husky toilers of the sea, armed with stout clubs. At the sight of them the wreckers not yet captured gave up in despair. Counting those tied up, the forces were now equal, and as Mr. Hadley had taken all the moving pictures possible, owing to the struggle taking place out of range of his camera, he left the apparatus, and joined his friends.
“Well, we got ’em!” cried Tom Cardiff, as he surveyed the line of prisoners, fastened together with ropes. “Every one of ’em, I guess. You’re a nice crowd!” he sneered at big Hemp Danforth. “A nice lot of men to be let loose!”
“A little later and you wouldn’t have had us!” snarled the leader of the wreckers. “You were too many for us.”
“That’s so,” spoke Tom. “How did you happen to come to help us?” he asked of Abe Haskill, who was one of the reinforcing fishermen. “Who sent you?”
“Old Stanton telephoned over from the lighthouse,” was the answer. “He said you were on your way here, and that the gang might be too much for you. So I got a couple of my friends, and over we came—just in time, too, I take it.”
“That’s right!” exclaimed Blake, trying to staunch the flow of blood from a cut on his face, received in the fight he and Joe had with their prisoner. Joe himself was somewhat bruised. “A little later and we’d had only half of ’em,” went on Blake.
“It looks as if the lantern was nearly finished, too,” went on Joe.
“Um!” sneered the chief wrecker. “You may think you have us, but it’s a long way from proving anything against us. What have we done that’s wrong?” and he looked defiantly at Tom Cardiff.