The Bungalow Boys in the Great Northwest

Hardly had the figure appeared before around the corner in close pursuit of the runner there flashed a dozen or more forms. They were shouting wildly, and as they caught sight of their quarry they set up a yell.

“After him, boys!” came a shout from one of them.

“Kill the dirty dog!” came another yell.

“Yes, he is the cause of all our troubles, the beast!” screamed another voice.

“Good heavens, it’s Hunt!” cried Tom suddenly.

“And he has my boy in his arms!” shouted the professor the next instant. Casting all prudence aside, he dashed out of his hiding place toward the almost spent runner. Hunt ran staggeringly, reeling from side to side. He seemed to be wounded.

“It’s all up now,” groaned Tom, as he saw the lanky form of the scientist spring out.

“Well, I don’t know that I blame him,” said Chillingworth, “it’s his boy, you know.”

Tom nodded soberly, but made no verbal reply. His wits were too hard at work trying to devise something to do to get the professor out of his predicament, for, as the scientist had rushed up to Hunt and seized his boy from the red-headed mate’s arms, the frenzied mutineers had opened fire.

“Follow me! Quick!” shouted Tom, as he perceived the scientist’s danger. With the others close at his heels he dashed out with a loud “Whoop!”

He calculated on the effect of his wild cry and sudden appearance to check the onrush of the mutineers. It worked as he had expected. Stricken with astonishment they halted for an instant. But that instant was enough.

“Here – get in here quick!” shouted Tom as he grasped the professor and whirled him about. The next moment the scientist had been propelled by Tom’s strong young arms into the dark interior of the deserted Chinese barracks. An instant later his son followed him, and then came Tom with the Kanakas and Mr. Chillingworth who helped him in dragging Hunt’s limp form for the mate had collapsed as the professor seized the boy from his arms.

As they all got safely inside Tom slammed the big door to, securing it with a heavy bar which, to his great delight, he had found on the inside. This gave them breathing space and a chance to lay Hunt, who seemed to be badly wounded, on a pile of bedding in one corner of the place. The man lay there panting for a few minutes, and then opened his eyes.

“What has happened?” he demanded, and then he gasped out, “Oh, I know now. You caught me and dragged me in here. It was pluckily done of you, lad. But we are in a bad fix.”

“You think the mutineers will attack us, then?” asked Tom.

“Not a doubt of it. I don’t know how you come to be here, and there ain’t no time to ask questions, but I’ll tell you what happened soon after you left with Lake. A bunch of them fellers came to ther store and said they had decided that the time had come to make a general distribution of all the grub and then set sail on the schooner.

“Of course, I told ’em to go about their business, but they said that they was a committee, and that if I didn’t let ’em ransack the provision house there’d be trouble. It seems they thought that Lake was lying to them about there being little grub left, and that they had an idea there was plenty. Well, to make a long story short, when I refused to let ’em have the keys they went away grumbling. Nothing happened till sundown, when I shot down one chap I saw sneaking up to the back door of the place.

“That was the signal for the trouble that had been smoldering. They charged down on the place like a lot of angry wasps, and I grabbed up the kid and ran. I saw it was no use to make a fight. I hid in a disused hut till just now, when they routed me out. Through a crack I watched ’em loot the storehouse. All the time they was sayin’ what they’d do to me when they catched me. Pretty soon they found kegs of rum in the cellar, and then I knew it was about all over but the shouting.

“One feller suggests that they set the storehouse on fire when they’d got everything out of it, and presently I seen them touch a match to a pile of tinder and start the blaze up.

“I watched for a while and then figgered that if ever there was a chance of my escaping with the kid it was right then. So I crept out of the hut where I’d lain hidden. But as ill-luck would have it, just at that instant a bunch of them ran upon me. I started off in this direction, expecting every minute to feel a bullet in my back. The rest you know.”

All this time there had come no sign from the mutineers. Outside things had, in fact, grown quite quiet. Ominously so. It meant, according to Tom’s way of thinking, that they were hatching up some plan of attack on the big shed, and – not one of its occupants had any more dangerous weapon than a pocket knife.

Suddenly a voice outside hailed them:

“Ahoy thar! in ther shed!”

“Well, what is it?” shouted back Tom.

“Will you give us up Zeb Hunt?”

“What do you want to do with him?” asked Tom, while Hunt watched him with an agonized look on his rough features.

“String him up!” came the savage rejoinder. “Send him out here and you shall all get off without any bother frum us. But ef yer keep him thar we’ll make you sorry fer it.”

“You hear what he says,” said Tom, facing round on the others, “what shall we do?”

“We would be a fine lot of cowards to give this man up to them after he has saved my boy at the risk of his life,” said the professor.

“That’s what I say,” chimed in Mr. Chillingworth.

“So do I,” agreed Tom, while Hunt sank back with a breathed “God bless you!” It was the most fervent wish that had ever left those lips.

“Wall, what be you a-goin’ ter do?” came the voice. “The boys is gittin’ impatient.”

“You can’t have Hunt!” hailed back Tom in decisive tones.

“What!” roared the fellow outside, “think of what you’re a-doin’ of, youngster. It’s his life or yours – now kin we hev him?”

“Not in the longest day you ever lived!” shouted Tom, “now be off and do your worst.”

“No fear of that, younker,” the voice assured him; “look out fer squalls!”

“If only we had some weapons,” exclaimed Tom. He stepped over to Hunt, thinking that perhaps the man had a pistol on him. But Hunt, when addressed, did not answer, and Tom soon made out that he had swooned again. Striking a match Tom bent over him. The man’s shirt was blood-stained, and he had, apparently, been wounded in the shoulder.

“He’s got grit, anyhow,” thought Tom. “He never said a word about his wound.”

Tom would have liked to doctor him there and then, but that was out of the question. Before the hastily struck match had died out there was a wild yell from outside as the mutineers rushed upon the place. But if they expected the stout doors to yield they were mistaken. The portals shook and swayed under the onslaught, but they held firm.

After battering furiously upon them with blood-curdling threats as to what would happen when they did get them open, the mutineers gave over their fruitless task. Apparently they retired to talk over some other plan of attack.

This looked ominous. Enraged as they were by their failure to carry the place at the first assault, it was not likely they would risk a second failure.

“I hope they don’t think of making a battering ram,” thought Tom, “they’d have those doors down in a jiffy if they did.”

For some minutes thereafter they sat in silence, listening intently for some sound which might inform them of what the mutineers intended to do next. In the meantime, the half-famished refugees munched on some rice and bread they had found spread out upon a rough table just as the Chinamen had left it, apparently.

All at once Tom heard a queer sound – a sort of scratching, scraping noise at one end of the barn. It sounded as if something were being piled against it.

What could the mutineers be doing? Tom racked his brain in vain for a solution of the queer sounds for some minutes. Then he hit upon an explanation. It was such a horrifying one that every drop of blood seemed to leave his heart at the bare idea.

It was brush that was being piled against the barn from the outside. Such a thing could have only one meaning. The mutineers meant to set the place on fire.

Rapidly he communicated his fears to the others. But before they had time to formulate any way of facing this new peril there was the quick, sharp scratch of a match outside.

At the same instant a red glow shone through the chinks of the boards. As the flames rose higher, licking the sides of the barn, the mutineers broke into brutal cries and taunts.

“You cowards!” shouted Tom desperately; “do you mean to burn us alive?”

“Yes; you can all shrivel up like a bunch of rats or else come out and be shot!”