“I don’t think this is going to be so tough,” Dick told us. “We’ll try to reach the garage without bumping into the pickets, catch these birds together, overpower them, then fire a shot which will bring the two watchmen, knock them over and go up and knock on the front door of the house.”
“Meantime, Jonathan might make a getaway,” I objected.
“He has to use a car, and we have the garage,” he countered. “Come on, boys.”
We went outside. The moon was not up yet, but there were lights in the second story of the house and lights on the second floor of the garage. We moved carefully in the latter direction.
“Some one coming,” warned Jim Bridgeman. We fell flat. A man was coming down the driveway toward the lodge.
“Can’t have that,” whispered Dick. “Get him, Tim.”
I crawled on hands and knees to the edge of the driveway. I saw him only fifty feet away. I waited. When he was almost opposite me I made a dive tackle and struck him with my shoulder at the knees. They didn’t teach football in the school he went to and he didn’t know how to relax. When I got up, he didn’t. The fellow’s head had struck the concrete and he was out cold.
I pulled a big revolver out of the side pocket of his jacket and was joined by the others.
“Lots of time,” said Dick. “We’ll park him in the lodge, tied up with the old man.”
He came to as we were entering the lodge, but a word of warning kept him quiet. Five minutes later we set out again. “Only five,” said Dick. “It’s a cinch.”
This time we arrived at the garage without encountering anybody. There was a small door unlocked and we got inside. Dick had a flashlight and we located the stairs.
“Take off your shoes,” he whispered. We obeyed, and with Dick in the lead we started up the stairs. At the head of the stairs there was a door with a wide streak of light beneath it.
A voice said loudly, “No good, I have three aces.”
“Poker game, what a break!” muttered Dick. We threw open the door.
Four rough-looking men sat around a table.
“Royal flush,” shouted Barton. “I win!”
We had them covered. Their cue was to lift their hands. Instead, one of them fired point blank at Dick Barton. He fired too quick and missed, and I winged him. The Bridgeman brothers plunged in. There followed as hard and sharp a scrap as I ever got into. A dozen shots were fired at such close range that most of them missed. Fists and butts of guns came into play. I was rolling on the floor with a burly thug who got his gun against the pit of my stomach but whose skull cracked against the floor before he could pull the trigger.
After three or four minutes the battle was won. Three of the enemy were unconscious and one was dead. And Bill Bridgeman had a bullet in his left arm.
I suppose twenty shots were fired during the battle and enough noise was made to wake the dead.
”Disarm these yeggs and leave them,” commanded Dick. “Ah!” He turned as man rushed into the room gun in hand.
“If it ain’t Jake!” exclaimed Dick. “Stick ’em up, Jake.”
Jake, true to the gunman code, fired, but my right foot had got into action. I kicked the revolver out of his hand and Dick floored him by bringing his fist with the automatic in it against his temple.
“Can you travel, Bill?” he demanded.
“This ain’t anything,” replied Bill, but he grimaced with pain.
Dick was plunging down the garage stairs. We followed. We raced across the grounds and up to the front door of the house. The ground floor was all lighted up.
Dick was thumping on the front door with the pistol. “Open up,” he roared. The door did not open. Dick fired a shot through the glass panel beside the door. The glass made a horrid jangling sound.
“Open up or I’ll burn the house down,” he bellowed. We heard a chain being dropped and the big door flew open. In the hallway stood two men, fully dressed, an old man and a middle-aged one. A butler was there. On the stairs were two half-dressed women servants.
Chapter XXII
Tiger Cañon
“What’s the meaning of this outrage?” cried the middle-aged man furiously. “How dare you break in here? Who are you?”
I thrust my gun against his middle. “Where’s Steve Steele?” I demanded savagely.
“He’s dead, you fool. Put up that weapon. What do you want — money?”
Dick had the old man by one arm. “You’re coming with us,” he shouted.
“I’ll be gosh blamed jiggered if I am,” cried the old fellow. “Leggo me. If I had my rifle—”
Dick was dragging him, protesting, toward the door.
“Dick,” I pleaded, “we have to find Steve.”
“We’ve no time to search the house,” he shouted back. “We’ve our ace right here. They’ll have to release Steve.”
“Up those stairs,” Jim Bridgeman commanded of the butler, who scampered up in great haste.
“You, too,” I growled to the secretary, for that, obviously, was who he was.
“I tell you, you’re mad. That’s Jonathan Steele. Kidnaping is a capital offense in this State.” He had the nerve to make a grab for my gun, so I swung my left to his jaw and dropped him. I was the last out of the house. Bill Bridgeman, with his good hand, had a grip on Jonathan’s left arm while Dick was dragging him along by his right arm.
“I’m eighty-two years old. I can’t run so fast,” he protested.
“You’re lying by ten years,” retorted Dick. “Step on it.”
We made the lodge without interference. Dick turned Jonathan over to Bill Bridgeman, rushed into the lodge, and in a moment the great gate swung open, operated by mechanism from the house.
I’d had a good look at the old man in the lighted hall of the residence. He was a frail old man with snow white hair, clean shaven, with high cheekbones, a small, thin-lipped mouth and a pointed chin. He looked pretty much as I remembered Jonathan upon the occasion when he had visited the school ten years back. I grew weak around the gills to think what would happen to us if it was really Jonathan.
Dick rushed out of the lodge and our flight was resumed. We already heard shouting from the vicinity of the house.
Jim Bridgeman was half carrying Jonathan because he couldn’t run as fast as the rest of us.
“Farrell thinks it’s kidnaping,” called Dick with a laugh.
“What in tarnation is it, if it isn’t kidnaping?” quavered Jonathan.
“You’ll be surprised, old top,” Dick retorted. “Damn it, we have to run a couple of hundred yards up the road. No, we don’t.”
For, as we emerged into the highroad, there stood the big car with Clarice at the wheel. She had heard the shots, backed the car down to the entrance to the private road, and our getaway was fixed. She sprang out of the car.
“Hello, Tommy Donnegan,” she exclaimed.
“You made a mistake, I never heard of him,” he cried shrilly.
Jim was boosting him into the car; we scrambled in. We heard the sound of a motor up the private road, but Clarice was under way.
“Clarice,” called Dick, “stop at a hospital at Santa Barbara and let Bill Bridgeman off. He’s wounded in the arm. How do you feel, Bill?”
“I’m not going to any hospital,” he growled. “I’m all right.”
“But he’ll be arrested,” protested Clarice.
“He’ll be all right. We’ve won,” exclaimed Dick. “Say nothing, Bill. Tell them to fix your arm and go find out how you got shot. By tomorrow we’ll all be on top of the world.”
Dick and I had Jonathan between us. I could feel the old fellow shaking with fright. I was almost sorry for him until I thought of Steve.