The Shore Road Mystery/Chapter 8

"Let's tackle that fellow!" exclaimed Frank Hardy. "We can ask him about your fishing rod, Jack."

Frank scrambled into the bushes, where Gus Montrose had disappeared, and in a moment his companions were hurrying after him. But although Frank had lost little time making up his mind to question the former hired man, Montrose had been too quick for him. The fellow was nowhere to be seen.

"Shall I call to him?" asked Jack Dodd.

"You can if you want to," answered Frank. "I doubt if he'll answer."

"Might scare him into running faster," suggested Joe.

"I reckon he's running about as fast as he can now."

"Gus! Gus Montrose!" yelled Jack. "Come back here! We want to talk to you!"

All listened, but no reply came to this call.

"Silence fills the air profound," came soberly from Joe.

​"So much noise it would wake a tombstone," added Chet.

Again Jack called, and with no better results.

"Let's all yell together," suggested Joe.

This was done, but no answer came back.

"Sorry, but I've got a date elsewhere," mimicked Joe. "Be back next month at three o'clock."

"That fellow is no good, and I know it," murmured Frank. "An honest man would come back and face us."

"Listen!" cried Jack, putting up his hand.

All listened with strained ears.

"Don't hear a thing—" began Chet.

"I hear it," interrupted Frank.

A snapping and crackling sound among the bushes ahead lured the boys on and they went plunging through the woods. They failed to catch sight of the quarry, however. Evidently Montrose was well acquainted with this part of the country, for after a while the sounds of his retreat died away.

Frank, who was in the lead, came to a stop, realizing that further pursuit was useless. In a few minutes the others came up, panting.

"Did he get away?" asked Joe.

Frank nodded. "He was too quick for us. When he knew we were after him he didn't lose any time."

​"I wish we had been able to talk to the rascal," said Jack Dodd. "I would have had a few things to tell him."

"Probably we wouldn't have got much satisfaction out of him, anyway," Frank remarked. "Still, you could have asked him what he knew about that fishing rod."

"It's something to know that he's still hanging around this part of the country," pointed out Chet. "He has evidently been lying low since he left your farm."

"He's up to some mischief, I'm sure of that."

"Probably built himself a shack somewhere in the woods," suggested Joe.

"Well, we may run across him some other time. It's getting late and I think we'd better be starting home," said Frank.

Chet and Joe agreed that it was about time, and as there seemed little to be gained by continuing the search for Gus Montrose or for any evidence of the stolen cars, the boys retraced their steps back through the woods until they reached the Shore Road. Their motorcycles had been parked in the shelter of the trees.

"About time for my supper, too," said Jack Dodd. "If you're out this way again, look me up and we'll make another search through the woods."

His friends promised to do this and, bidding ​Jack good-bye, they mounted their motorcycles and were soon roaring off in the direction of Bayport. They had spent more time in the wood than they had been aware of, and were anxious to get back to the city without being too late for the evening meal. Mrs. Hardy seldom scolded, but the boys had vivid recollections of Aunt Gertrude's acid remarks on similar occasions.

They emerged on an open stretch of road where a sand embankment sloped steeply down to Barmet Bay. The beach lay beneath them at the foot of the sheer declivity and the waters of the bay sparkled in the rays of the late afternoon sun.

A movement on the beach caught Frank's eye and he brought his motorcycle to a sudden stop.

"What's the matter?" asked Joe, swerving wildly to avoid piling headlong into Frank's machine.

"Run out of gas?" inquired Chet, putting on the brakes.

But Frank had dismounted and was walking over to the side of the road, out on to the top of the embankment.

"There's somebody down on the beach."

"What of it? Somebody swimming or fishing. Do you mean to say you stopped just because of that?"

​But Frank was gazing down the steep, sandy slope.

"There's something queer about this," he said slowly. "There are two men down there, lying on the sand."

Joe and Chet, immediately interested, came running over. The three boys looked down at the two figures on the beach far below.

"They're not asleep," said Joe. “One of them seems to be rolling around."

"They're tied!" shouted Frank. "Look! You can see the ropes! I was wondering what was so queer about them. Those men are tied hand and foot!"

Joe was examining the embankment at their feet.

"Why, they've been rolled down the side!" he exclaimed. "Look where the sand has been disturbed!"

True enough, sand and gravel at the top of the slope showed a distinct depression, and all the way down the embankment this depression continued, as though a heavy object had slid to the bottom.

From the beach below came a faint shout.

"Help! Help!"

The men on the shore had seen them.

"We'd better go down," said Frank. "I wonder if there isn't a path of some kind around here."

​"Let's slide!" Chet suggested.

"We're liable to break our necks tobogganing down this slope. No, there should be a path."

Frank ran along the top of the embankment toward a clump of trees a few yards away, where the slope was not so steep, and there he found a foot-path that led a winding course down the side of the hill toward the beach. It wound about across the face of the slope and covered twice the distance they would have had to go if they had adopted Chet's suggestion, though it was a great deal surer. They emerged on the open shore eventually and saw the two bound figures lying on the beach not fifty yards off.

In a short time the boys were bending over the prostrate victims. The men, who were clad in overalls, were bound hand and foot with heavy rope, at which the lads slashed vigorously with their pocketknives.

The strands fell apart and the two men were able to sit up, rubbing their limbs, which had been chafed by the ropes in their efforts to free themselves.

"I thought we'd be here all night!" declared one of the men, a plump, grimy young fellow about twenty years of age.

"Mighty lucky thing for us that you saw us," said the other, who was older in appearance. "We shouted and shouted. At least a dozen ​cars must have passed along the road and no one saw us."

They got to their feet.

"What happened?" asked Frank. "How on earth do you come to be down here, tied up like this?"

"Hold-up!" said the older man briefly. He looked up toward the road, an anxious expression on his face. "I don't suppose you met a truck along the road anywhere?"

The boys shook their heads.

"It's gone, then," said the younger man with a gesture of resignation. "Six thousand dollars' worth of goods!"

"We'll have to get back to town and report this."

"We can take you back," said Frank quickly. "We have motorcycles up on the road."

"Fine, Let's hurry!"

The two men started back toward the path at a rapid gait and the three boys hurried along. As they ascended the slope, the plump young chap explained what had happened.

"We're truck-drivers for the Eastern Importing Company, and we were bringing a load of silk into Bayport," he said. "Right at the top of the embankment we were held up by those two men."

"How long ago?" Joe asked.

"A little over an hour ago. They stepped ​out of the bushes, each man masked and carrying a revolver. Bill was at the wheel and I was on the seat beside him. They made him stop the truck and then they made us get down into the road. When we did that, one of the hold-up men covered us with his revolver while the other tied us up. He made a good job of it, too, I'll tell the world. We couldn't move hand or foot."

"How did they get you down onto the beach?"

"They rolled us down the embankment! Don't we look it?"

The clothes of both men had been badly tattered and torn, while their arms and faces also gave evidence of the bruises and lacerations they had suffered in their descent.

"I thought we'd roll clean into the bay," said the other man. "If we had, it would have been all up with us."

"We'd have been drowned, without a chance to save ourselves," his companion agreed. "As it was, we came pretty close to the water's edge, banged and battered from that toboggan slide, and then we just had to lie there until somebody came along and set us free. At first we thought some one would surely see us from the road, but as car after car went by we began to lose hope.

"I was afraid it would get dark and then ​no one would be able to see us, even if they did chance to look down this way. It wouldn't have been very pleasant, staying out on that beach all night."

"Did you see where the truck went to?" asked Frank.

The men shook their heads.

"The hold-up men drove away in it—that's all we know," said one.

"It took us a few minutes to recover our senses after the slide down the embankment, and by that time the truck was gone. Whether it went on toward Bayport, or turned around, we can't tell," added the other.

"It certainly didn't pass in the other direction," said Chet.

But Frank was dubious.

"We were down in the woods quite a while, remember," he pointed out. "It might have gone by during that time."

They regained the road.

"Perhaps we can find the marks of the tires," suggested Joe.

Assisted by the two men, the lads searched about in the dust of the roadway, but so many cars had passed in the intervening time that all trace of the truck had been obliterated.

"No use searching now," said the driver. "If you lads will get us into Bayport we'll report the case to the police."

​They abandoned the quest and in a short time the party had arrived in the city, Frank and Joe taking the two men as passengers on their motorcycles. At the police station, the hold-up was duly reported and immediately word was flashed to the police in other cities and to officers out in the country.

But to no avail.

By nine o'clock that night there had been no report on the missing truck. It had not passed through any of the three cities at the other end of the Shore Road, and Bayport police were positive it had never entered the city. The truck, with its six thousand dollar cargo, had utterly disappeared.