rear window of the second-floor hall. He held a gun in his right hand, but with his left he gestured for
attention.
"My name's Snattman," he announced with a theatrical wave of his hand. "Before you storm this place, I
want to talk to you! I know you've been looking for me and my men a long time. But I'm not going to let
you take me without some people on your side getting killed first!" He paused dramatically.
"Come to the point, Snattman," Captain Ryder called up to him. He, too, had a gun poised for action
should this become necessary.
"I mean," the smuggler cried out, "that I got three hostages in this house-Fenton Hardy and his two
sons!"
Chet and Tony jumped. The boys had found their father, only to become captives themselves. And now
the three were to be used as hostages!
"What's the rest?" Captain Ryder asked acidly.
"This: If you'll let me and my men go, we'll clear out of here. One will stay behind long enough to tell you
where the Hardys are." Snattman now set his jaw. "But if you come in and try to take us, it'll be curtains
for the Hardys!"
Chet's and Tony's hearts sank. What was going to be the result of this nightmarish dilemma?
In the meantime Frank, Joe, and their father, for the past hour, had despaired of escaping before
Snattman might carry out his sinister threat. After the smuggler left the attic, they had heard hammering
and suspected the smugglers were nailing bars across the door. The Hardys tiptoed to the foot of the
stairway, only to find their fears confirmed.
"If those bars are made of wood," Frank whispered, "maybe we can cut through them with our knives
without too much noise."
"We'll try," his father agreed. "Joe, take that knife I got from Malloy."
As Detective Hardy sat on the steps, leaning weakly against the wall, his two sons got to work. They
managed to maneuver the knives through the crack near the knob. Finding the top of the heavy
crossbars, the boys began to cut and hack noiselessly. Frank's knife was already dull and it was not long
before Joe's became so. This greatly hampered their progress.
Half an hour later the boys' arms were aching so badly that Frank and Joe wondered how they could
continue. But the thought that their lives were at stake drove them on. They would rest for two or three
minutes, then continue their efforts. Finally Joe finished cutting through one bar and started on the second
of the three they had found. Ten minutes later Frank managed to cut through his.
"Now we can take turns," he told his brother.
Working this way, with rest periods in between, the boys found the task less arduous.
"We're almost free!" Joe finally said hopefully.
Just then, the Hardys heard cars coming into the driveway. They were sure that the police had arrived
because of the illumination flooding the place even to the crack under the attic door.
It was less than a minute later that they heard the cars come to a stop outside and then Snattman's voice
bargaining for his own life in exchange for his hostages!
"Let's break this door down and take our chances," Frank whispered hoarsely.
"No!" his father said. "Snattman and his men would certainly shoot us!"
At this instant Frank gave a low cry of glee. His knife had just hacked through the last wooden bar.
Turning the knob, he opened the door and the three Hardys stole silently from their prison.
From the bedroom doorway they peered out to where Snattman was still trying to bargain with the
police. No one else was around. The boys and their father looked at one another, telegraphing a
common thought.
They would rush the king of the smugglers and overpower him!
CHAPTER XX
The Smuggler's Request
AS THE three Hardys crept forward, hoping to overpower Snattman before he saw them, they heard a
voice outside the house say, "You'll never get away with this, Snattman! You may as well give up without
any shooting!"
"I'll never give up!"
"The house is surrounded with troopers and Coast Guard men!"
"What do I care?" Snattman shouted, waving his arms out the window. "I got three hostages here, and
I've got one of the Coast Guard."
"He's in the house too?"
Snattman laughed. "Trying to catch me; eh? Well, I'm not going to answer that question."
There was silence outside the house. This seemed to worry the man. He cried out, "It won't do you any
good to talk things over! I got you where I want you and-"
Like three stalking panthers Frank, Joe, and their father pounced upon the unwary smuggler. Mr. Hardy
knocked the man's gun from his hand. It flew out the window and thudded to the ground below. The
boys pinned his arms back and buckled in his knees.
From below came a whoop of joy. "The Hardys have captured Snattman!" The voice was Chet
Morton's.
"My men will never let you in here!" the victim screamed. He snarled, twisted, and turned in his captors'
grip.
Mr. Hardy, fearful that Snattman would shout to order his men upstairs, clamped a hand over the
smuggler's mouth. By this time there was terrific confusion inside and outside the Pollitt place. State
troopers and the Coast Guard men had burst into both the front and rear doors.
Others guarded the sides of the house to prevent any escape from the windows. A few shots were fired,
but soon the smuggling gang gave up without fighting further. The capture of their leader and the sudden
attack had unnerved them.
The Hardys waited upstairs with their prisoner. In a few moments Chet and Tony appeared and behind
them, to the utter astonishment of Frank and Joe, were Biff, Phil, and Jerry.
Stories were quickly exchanged and Mr. Hardy praised Frank's and Joe's chums for their efforts.
All this time Snattman glowered maliciously.
In a few moments chief petty officers Bertram and Brown appeared in the second-floor hall with Captain
Ryder. Immediately the state trooper fastened handcuffs onto the prisoner. He was about to take him
away when Frank spoke up:
"There's someone else involved in this smuggling who hasn't been captured yet."
"You mean the man who got away from here in the truck?" Officer Ryder asked. "We've set up a
roadblock for him and expect to capture him any minute."
Frank shook his head. "Ali Singh, the crewman on the Marco Polo, has a friend who owns a small cargo
ship. Right now, it's lying somewhere offshore. Snattman was thinking of putting my dad, Joe, and me on
it and arranging things so that we never got home again."
The king of the smugglers, who had been silent for several minutes, now cried out, "You're crazy! There's
not a word of truth in it! There isn't any boat offshore!"
The others ignored the man. As soon as he stopped yelling, Joe took up the story. "I have a hunch you'll
find that your Coast Guard man is a prisoner on that cargo ship. The name of the captain is Foster."
"You mean our man Ayres is on that ship?" Petty Officer Brown asked unbelievingly.
"We don't know anyone named Ayres," Frank began. He stopped short and looked at his brother. They
nodded significantly at each other, then Frank asked, "Does Ayres go under the name of Jones?"
"He might, if he were cornered. You see, he's sort of a counterspy for the Coast Guard. He pretended to
join the smugglers and we haven't heard from him since Saturday."
"I found out about him," Snattman bragged. "That name Jones didn't fool us. I saw him make a sneak trip