Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

Fantasy Football Challenge - Library of Books for Football Fanatics

Fantasy Football Challenge presents
The Adventure Club Afloat

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we'll be easy with you if you talk quick." "Let me suggest, if I may," said the man in a strangely quiet and restrained tone, "that you get off my stomach. This conversation can just as well be conducted under more comfortable conditions." Perry blinked and Wink viewed the captive doubtfully. "Promise not to try to run?" demanded Perry. "I have no intention of running, thanks." The robber carefully dusted his clothes as he arose and then felt anxiously of a bruised elbow. "Now, if you will inform me what this--this murderous assault means I shall be greatly obliged to you." "Suppose you tell us what you were doing at that safe?" said Perry sternly. "Is that any of your business?" asked the other. It was evident that he was losing his temper again, and Wink drew a step nearer. "I presume I have a perfect right to open my own safe! What I wish to know--" "Your own safe!" gasped Perry. "Oh, come now, you needn't try to tell us that you--you live here. You're a cracksman, my friend, that's what you are--" Ossie tugged at Perry's sleeve, but Perry failed to notice it. "One look at that face of yours is enough, old top," continued Perry. "It's got crook written all over it!" "It has, has it?" gasped the man. "Let me tell you that my name is Drummond, sir, and that this is my house, and that is my safe, and--and if you'll mind your own business--" "What!" asked Perry weakly. "You mean that you--that this--you mean that--" "I mean," interrupted the man angrily, "that I was about to deposit some money in that safe, some money I'd been carrying around in my pocket all the evening and feared I might lose, when you--you young thugs set on me and knocked me down! Knocked me down right in my own house, on my own hearth-rug! Why, you--you--" Mr. Drummond's wrath got the better of his speech and he only sputtered, waving an accusing finger at the retreating Perry. Wink was already glancing about for a means of escape and Ossie was frankly deserting. "I--I didn't know!" gasped Perry. "I--we saw you come in--and you looked like--like a--" "You've said that already!" said the man, "Never mind my criminal looks, young man!" "No, sir, we don't--I mean I was mistaken, sir! But, you see, it looked so--so queer, you coming in like that--" "Queer! What was queer about it!" demanded Mr. Drummond irascibly, "No one but a parcel of young idiots would think it queer!" He took an envelope from his pocket, tossed it into the safe, closed door and panel and faced them again. "Who are you, anyway? I don't remember you." "Er--my name--my name--" stammered Perry, "my name--" "Well, well! Don't you know your name? Who invited you here?" "Yes, sir, oh, yes, sir! It's Bush. We--you see, we were on the porch there, and we wanted to get back to the--the front of the house--" "Who invited you here, tonight? Who--" The host's expression changed from indignation to suspicion. "Huh!" he ejaculated. "Robber, eh! Well, what were you doing in this room? Seems to me--hm! We'll look into this, I think!" He stepped back and touched a button in the wall. "We'll have this explained! We'll see who the robber is! We--" "_Good night!_" Perry spurned the table against which he was leaning, hurdled a chair and plunged down the room. Ossie was at his heels and Wink was a good third. They fled at top speed and from behind them came the irate commands of their host: "Stop! Come back! Stop, I say!" But they didn't stop. They only ran faster. Wink beat Ossie to the first window easily and passed out even with Perry. And as they landed on the stone flagging outside they heard Mr. Drummond excitedly directing the pursuit. "Quick, Wilkins! Get them! They tried to rob the house!" Mr. Drummond's voice pursued them along the verandah. "Help! Robbers! Head them off!" The boys took the stone steps in two bounds, crashed at the bottom into a hedge, went tearing through and emerged beyond in a service yard, dimly lighted by one struggling electric bulb over a back doorway. It was Ossie who fell into the clothes basket and Wink who collided with the clothes reel and sent it spinning wildly and creakingly around in the darkness. Perry fortunately avoided all pitfalls and was leading by six yards when he reached the top of another flight of steps and saw the marquee and the dancing platform and the gay lights at his right. To make their way in that direction would be sheer folly, while in front of them lay a tangle of shrubbery and trees. Into this they hurtled, as from behind them came cries of "Stop, thief!" and the crunching of many footsteps. Off went Wink's hat as he fled after the scurrying Perry. Ossie went down in a tangle of briars and prickly things with a grunt, rolled somehow clear and was off again. "This way!" shouted a voice. "I seen 'em! They went in here! Come on, men!" Perry was running alongside a wall now, as he hoped, in the general direction of the street. Behind him came Wink and Ossie, crashing through shrubbery with a desperate disregard for noise. Then suddenly, the wall turned abruptly to the right. Perry stopped short, looked and decided. "We've got to get over!" he gasped, as Wink ran blindly into him. "Give me a leg-up!" Wink leaned weakly against the wall and Perry set a foot on his cupped hands and was just able to reach the top of the wall. But that was enough. Up he climbed. Then up came Ossie, and together, while the pursuit drew instantly closer, they pulled Wink to safety. For a brief moment they sat there and caught their breath while wondering what lay below them in the gloom of the further side. But there was scant time for conjectures, for the pursuit was in sight. Three bodies launched themselves into space, there was a frightful, devastating sound of breaking glass and the boys disengaged themselves from a cold-frame and sped on again into the darkness. A house loomed suddenly before them, a house with lights and folks about the porch and a panting automobile curving its way down a drive. They turned to the right and kept along a lawn in the shadows of the trees. The automobile passed them with a purr and a sweeping flare of white light. Then Perry was after it and in another moment they were all three huddled somehow on the gas-tank at the rear and going with increasing speed out of the grounds and along a road. For a few minutes

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