upon his opponent. Then he beckoned. A third figure appeared. Groping about the dock, this figure at last seized upon some object that cast little shadow. This it handed to the crouching figure.

Some seconds of suspense, and at last two figures, one tall, one short, stood side by side looking at the water and the dock.

As they stood there, some trick of the moonlight and shadows made their two forms appear to melt into one; and that form presented a spectacle of abject despair. Thirty seconds this pose was held. Then the shadow appeared to explode and two figures melted into the shadows to the right.

What had happened? Red Rodgers had fought a battle and won, only to find that he had in reality lost. While groping his way toward the dock he had been detected and pounced upon by the kidnapers’ guard.

From earliest childhood Red had been prepared. A boy, reared among the tough fists of a steel town school, must be. When, in his teens, he had wrestled with red hot steel, this instinct for absolute preparedness had been intensified. Football had added to this training. When one considers that he was as quick as a panther, as strong as a lion and as cool-headed as a prize fighter, one must know that the flabby guard stood little chance. Instantly Red’s arm was about his neck in a clinch that prevented the least outcry.

The outcome of the battle you already know; but not quite. When the boy had conquered his opponent, when he had bound and gagged him, he went to look for the rowboat. Then it was that his lips formed a single word:

“Gone!”

And the girl, who in the moonlight seemed pitifully small, echoed:

“Gone!”

Where was this boat? Had it drifted away? Or had a second kidnaper rowed away to a second island, lying a stone’s throw away, for help?

No answer could be found. One thing remained to be done: to vanish into the night. This the strange pair lost no time in doing.

CHAPTER VI
THE RED ROVER GETS THE BREAKS

Drew Lane entered his room at three o’clock that morning. He and Tom Howe occupied a room together in the Hotel Starling. It was a very large place. Their room was on the top floor.

Throwing his coat over a chair he sank into a place by a table in the corner and allowing his head to drop on his arm tried to collect his thoughts. He had been following clues. A reporter from the News had given him a “hot tip” that grew cold almost at once. Casey from the State Street Police Station had given him another. It had led to nothing. After that he had begun setting traps. Calling in three trusted stool-pigeons, he had laid out their tasks for them. Having consulted his chief, he had begun laying plans for raiding all known hang-outs for kidnaping gangs. After that he had picked up a copy of the city’s pink sheet and had read in glaring headlines:

GHOST NO LONGER WALKS. HE GALLOPS.

He had read with some surprise the story of the Galloping Ghost.

“Rotten bit of sensation,” he muttered. “I saw no ghost. Don’t believe Howe did either. But that shot? Who fired it?”

He glanced at Howe’s bed in the corner. Howe lay across it fully clad, sound asleep.

“Like to ask him,” Drew muttered. “Like—”

He made a sudden move with his arm. Some unusually hard object rested beneath it.

To his surprise he found on the table a coarse brown envelope. On the face of it was scrawled:

Sergeants Lane and Howe.

Turning it over, he dumped its contents upon the table. A handful of shavings and one very misshapen bullet, that was all; or so he thought until he thrust in a hand and drew forth a much crumpled bit of paper.

With a quick intake of breath, he flattened the paper on the table.

Words were scrawled across the page. The writing was very bad, as if a right-handed man had undertaken to write with his left hand. In time he made out the message.

Here are some important clues. Guard them with care. When raids are made you will collect firearms. Collect pocket knives as well. You will hear from me later.

“The G.G.”

“Some crank,” Drew muttered.

Then a thought struck him all of a heap. How had the message gotten into their room?

“Howe brought it.

“No. That is impossible. Had he read that note he would have folded it neatly. That’s Howe every time.”

Well, here was fresh mystery. And what of these clues? A bullet. That was always important. But where had it been found? He examined it closely. “Wood sticking to it,” he muttered. “Been dug out.”

But what of the shavings? These too he examined. After studying them carefully he was convinced that some one, while waiting for a second person perhaps, had occupied his time whittling a bit of soft wood he had picked up.

“The world is strewn with such piles made by whittle-bugs,” he told himself. He was tempted to toss them into the waste paper basket. Instead he slid them back into the envelope.

After that he read the note through again. “Collect pocket knives.” His voice took on a note of disgust. “What could be the good of that?”

“‘You will hear from me again.’ Well, here’s hoping.”

He threw the envelope to a back corner of the table. But startling revelations would drag it again to the light.

“Collect pocket knives.” Down deep in his heart he knew that he would start this collection to-morrow. He hated doing silly things. But more than this he dreaded making fatal blunders. “A clue is a clue,” he had said many times, “be it faint as a moon at midday.”

* * * * * * * *

The battle Red Rodgers waged after leaving the cabin at the edge of the narrow clearing on that mysterious island was something quite outside his past experience. True, he was not unacquainted with struggle and peril. More than once in the vast steel mill he had watched hot sheet steel, caught by a defective roller, curl itself into a serpent of fire, and had dodged in the nick of time. On the gridiron, with mad crowds screaming, with forms leaping at him from right and left, he had over and over battled his way to victory.

Now he faced neither man-made steel nor man himself, but nature. Before him in the dark lay a primeval wilderness; a small wilderness, to be sure, but a real one for all that. Here, on a rocky ridge scarcely one hundred yards wide, for ages without number trees had fought a battle to the death.

He had not gone a dozen paces when he tripped and fell.

He felt ashamed that the girl must put out a slender hand to guide him. “I—I’ve never been in a forest,” he half apologized.

“Not even by day?” The girl’s awed whisper showed her astonishment. Her next remark gave him a shock. “Then you have never truly lived.”

Gladly would he have argued this point. But this was no time for mere talk. It was a time for action. They were on an island within a bay. The bay reached far, to a larger island. The larger island was far from the mainland. If the kidnaper’s statement was to be accepted, there were no people on this larger island save the kidnapers themselves.

“I wonder if there are other cabins on this island?” He whispered this more to himself than to the girl. She answered nevertheless.

“There are none. We must get away as far as we can. To the far end of the island. Then we must think what is to be done next. Come, we must