When he had finished telling Sandy what little he knew himself, he said, "So let's take a look around here first and see just what kind of hole I've got us trapped in."

"You?" Sandy blinked at him.

"Sure. It's my fault we were picked up. I'm the one who insisted on taking a look at the hospital."

Sandy reached toward the glove compartment. "Cut it out," he said. "We're wasting time."

Ken didn't argue with him. He was too glad to hear the brusque note in Sandy's voice, to know that from now on they were really facing this predicament together. Sandy found the flashlight and climbed out of the car. When he first put his feet on the ground, he clung to the door handle a minute, weaving slightly. But then he raised the flashlight and flicked it on, and they both followed its beam as it traveled in a slow arc.

They were in a windowless enclosure measuring some forty feet from the double doors to the back wall, and about twice that distance in the other direction. The ceiling was of rough planking laid above untrimmed logs. Ken studied it for signs of a trap door, but found none.

"Good," he muttered. "Then n.o.body can get at us from there."

In one corner there was a circular stone construction which on closer inspection proved to be an ancient forge. A masonry hood, six feet above the hearth, had been designed to catch the smoke and funnel it into a stone chimney. Ken leaned over the edge of the forge and peered upward.

"I can see light," he said. "But the chimney's only about a foot square inside. I guess n.o.body could get SPARKS OF HOPE 171.

through there either." He took a deep breath. "So it looks as if the doors were our only problem."

He hadn't told Sandy yet, but he felt convinced that when Al and Joe returned to the attack they would no longer be using merely their own strength. They probably would have a truck or a car of some sort, with which they would attempt to ram the doors open.

As the flashlight continued its survey of the room Ken watched for the sight of something-anything-which might serve as added weight to the barricade now formed by the convertible. The yellow beam slid over a small pile of broken bricks, several rusted five-gallon cans which had once contained oil, and a couple of splintered worm-eaten planks. Ken shook his head. None of the dusty litter was of any use.

And then he caught his breath. "Look!" he said. "A model T Ford!"

The flashlight was illuminating a fantastically battered old roadster, its four thin tires flat and cracked open from years of disuse, its top gone, its high-set body covered with a thick layer of rust. Ordinarily Sandy's mechanical interest would have leaped at the sight. But now it was Ken who was aroused.

"Can we drag it up against the back b.u.mper of our car?" he asked. "It would add a lot of weight to our door block."

"Sure we can," Sandy told him slowly. "If you think we need it."

"We'll need it all right," Ken told him then, "if they decide to try to break the doors down by driving a car through them."

"Oh." Sandy's brow furrowed and Ken knew that his friend was just beginning to foresee the grim problem that still lay ahead of them. "All right. Come on."

172 .

Ken was still afraid to urge Sandy to hurry, for fear his slowly returning strength would be wasted in panicky motion. The car moved sluggishly on its flat tires, an inch at a time. They pulled it forward and then had to cut the front wheels over and back it up, in order to s.h.i.+ft its direction. Finally, after several such maneuvers, the old car was close to the convertible's rear and sideways to it, its rusted left side in contact with the convertible's b.u.mper.

"O.K." Ken was out of breath. "To skid our car backward now, they'll have to move this ton of sc.r.a.p sideways."

"Hey! You in there!" The shout from outside was their first indication that Al and Joe had returned. "This is your last chance!" Al warned them harshly. "Clear the doors I"

Sandy stiffened. Ken shook his head, warning him to silence. A long moment went by.

"All right!" Al shouted then. "You're going to regret this."

They could hear a car motor roar.

Sandy turned suddenly and took several long strides to the pile of broken bricks that lay on the floor. "If they crash through there," he said, "we're going to fight."

Ken started to protest. A handful of bricks, he knew, would be small defense against the arms Al and Joe would undoubtedly bring with them if-or when-they battered the big doors open. If the barricade didn't hold, he and Sandy and the still unconscious Roberto would be lost. It was their only real hope. But Ken knew Sandy would feel better if he had some kind of weapon at hand, and so he too gathered up as many of the broken bricks as he could carry. They both returned to SPARKS OF HOPE 173.

the doors and stationed themselves on either side of the convertible. Each had a pile of bricks at his feet, and a single sharp-angled one held tightly in his right hand.

The big doors quivered slightly. The car outside had b.u.mped gently against them.

"All right, Joe," Al ordered tersely. "Give it all you've got."

The engine outside speeded up and the pressure against the doors increased. With infinite slowness the heavy timbers moved inward until there was a half-inch slit between the two wide panels. The convertible moved backward slightly too, as the tires tried to climb the wheel blocks. But a half inch was as far as the barricade yielded.

The roar of the engine rose another notch in volume. The slit widened another quarter of an inch. Sandy's throwing arm lifted. Ken's heart was thudding against his ribs. A sudden vision of Gonzalez's big car, with its whip antenna and its two-way radio, flashed through his mind and he wished desperately that that car stood in the red convertible's place. Then they could be flas.h.i.+ng an appeal for help into the ether, with the certain knowledge that Phillips and Gonzalez would pick it up. If only there were some way they could get a message through the stone walls of this prison!

The convertible was rocking under the pulsating surge of power on the other side of the doors. But its brakes still held, and the wheel blocks and the old car prevented the tires from being skidded rearward.

The laboring engine outside thrust even harder for an instant. And then it stalled. The tremendous pressure against the doors eased suddenly. The convertible rolled forward and jammed the doors tightly shut.

174 .

"Whew!" Sandy wiped perspiration from his face with the back of a hand that still clutched a brick in a paralyzing grip.

"So far so good," Ken said. "But-"

AFs angry voice snapped a command. "Back up and ram them!"

The engine started again. The car outside backed away from the doors and stopped. The noise of the motor subsided as the driver s.h.i.+fted to forward, and then it rose again as the car drove ahead. An instant later its front b.u.mper was cras.h.i.+ng against the wood. The heavy panels thudded backward against the convertible's b.u.mper, and the red car bucked as it reared up on its blocks. Its back b.u.mper clanged noisily against the old Ford.

But even before the noise died away, Ken could see that the impact had achieved nothing. The convertible held fast and the doors remained closed.

"Try it again!" Al ordered.

"But I'll wreck this-"

Al overrode Joe's alarmed protest. "Wreck it! But get those doors down!"

Once again the car outside could be heard backing off and then charging forward. And once again the stone walls echoed to the clang of cras.h.i.+ng wood and metal.

But again the barricade held solidly.

"The wheel blocks!" Sandy said hoa.r.s.ely, and bent swiftly down. The toe of his shoe drove hard against the log splits.

Ken glanced at the blocks on his side of the car and saw that they, too, had s.h.i.+fted slightly. With all his strength he jammed them back into place.

The car outside had backed away again. Its motor was idling now. Ken listened, waiting for the roar that SPARKS OF HOPE 175.

would mean another attack. But instead he heard voices in low, angry argument.

Suddenly a fist thumped furiously on the door. "Don't think we're giving up!" Al called to them. "We'll get you out of there if we have to blast the doors in!"

A moment later the car motor picked up a little, but to the boys' amazement the sound then diminished into complete silence. The car had driven away.

"Blast!" Sandy repeated faintly. "If they blast-" He looked down at the brick in his hand. Slowly he opened his fingers and let it drop. It hit the stone floor with a dull crack, a gesture of surrender.

"They won't blast," Ken told him sharply. "They wouldn't risk making that much noise." But he knew that Sandy, like himself, was now thinking of the many other things Al and Joe could do instead, things against which he and Sandy would have no defense. Sandy looked defeated, and Ken could feel himself sinking into despair.

A small whimper reached his ears. Ken's head snapped up. "Roberto!" He ran around the car, grabbed Sandy's arm, and pulled him along to the small boy still lying on the cold, stone floor.

As they neared the little figure, Roberto tried to raise himself on one arm. He shrank back in fright as the beam of the flashlight encompa.s.sed him.

Ken swung the light aside and knelt down. "Roberto," he said quietly, "are you all right?"

Roberto looked at him with wide eyes. When he recognized Ken he relaxed slightly. "Senor," he asked weakly, "why is my head turning and turning?"

"Don't worry," Ken told him. "It'll stop turning pretty soon. Won't it, Sandy?" He looked up at the redhead, towering above them.

176 THE MYSTEKY OF THE GREEN FLAME.

"Sure it will, Roberto," Sandy said, but his voice was unconvincing.

"But those men-they are here?"

Roberto's terror struck through to Sandy. Suddenly he knelt down and took the small brown hand in his own big one. "Don't worry, Roberto," he said steadily. "They're not in here, and we're not going to let them in. We're glad you woke up," he went on, "because we've got a job for you to do. Do you think you can manage it?"

Roberto lifted his head a little from Ken's supporting arm. "A job I can do, senor?" he asked hesitantly.

"Sure you can do it," Sandy told him. "Come on. I'll show you." He picked up the slight figure, winked briefly at Ken over Roberto's head, and carried the boy to the hooded forge in the corner. Seating him on the stone hearth, he said, "There. Now you keep an eye on that chimney up there and let us know if you see anything-anybody looking in through the top, or trying to drop anything down. All right?"

Roberto's lip was trembling but he bit it firmly. "All right, senor. I watch. But you are not going away?"

"No, of course not," Sandy a.s.sured him. "We've got our job to do right over here. And don't you worry-if you do your job, and we do ours, we'll keep those men outside."

"Nice going, Sandy," Ken said quietly a moment later, when they had drawn a few steps aside, in the direction of the convertible.

Sandy grinned wryly. "I learned the technique from you." The grin faded. "But what is our job, anyway? I'm sorry I panicked there a couple of minutes ago. But"-he drove a fist fiercely into a palm-"but it's being stuck in here unable to do anything."

SPARKS OF HOPE 177.

"It's eleven o'clock already," Ken said, trying to keep his own voice steady. "Maybe the chief of police has already reported to Phillips and Gonzalez that we haven't turned up. Maybe-"

He broke off abruptly at the sound of a gentle knock on the big wooden doors.

"Holt-Allen-can you hear me?" It was the voice of Cosset.

The gentle mildness of it, filtered through the heavy timber, was more deadly than ever. Ken could feel his blood chilling in his veins.

"You don't have to answer," the voice continued. "I know you've recovered from the little nap I arranged for you. Too bad, really-I did it for your own good. I'm afraid you've been wasting your time, however, with your efforts to barricade yourselves inside there. Though I admit it was clever of you, under the circ.u.mstances. Quite clever indeed. You surprised me." He chuckled.

"Your friends, however," he went on, "have not surprised me. They have returned from their fruitless journey, just as I expected, and are beginning to wonder where you are. They have already made inquiries in the plaza, where your car was seen. But unfortunately people were more interested in the parade than in yourselves, and have not even told them the direction you took when you left the square. And of course your handsome car is now out of sight, so that the two planes circling overhead for the past twenty minutes have been unable to see it."

When he paused, the boys could hear, very faintly, the drone of a plane overhead. Sandy looked up toward the roof, jaw clenched.

"I'll be going now," Gosset's voice went on gently.

178 .

"But several of my men will remain outside here, in case you need anything-water, or food perhaps. Just open the door and express your wants, whatever they may be." Again he chuckled. "Of course," he added, lowering his voice a little, so that the boys instinctively strained to hear, "if you prefer to keep the doors closed, we will find it necessary to open them ourselves, when it becomes convenient. I'm sure you realize that that will be by no means an impossible feat. Good-by." There were three playfully light taps on the door, in farewell, and then there was silence.

Sandy loosened his clenched jaws. "I'd like to get my hands on him for about three minutes. That's all-just three minutes!"

"He's clever," Ken said, half under his breath.

Overhead, again, the circling plane droned faintly. Ken, standing near the convertible, struck it lightly with a balled fist. The car was their only protection against the men outside. And yet if the car itself were outside it could serve as a signal to the planes above.

They should have arranged things very differently, he thought. They should certainly have arrived at the hospital in Gonzalez's black sedan instead of in their own car. The sedan would form a st.u.r.dier blockade than the little red convertible, and at the same time they could be using its radio apparatus to- Ken's crazily wandering thoughts stopped suddenly and he swung around to clamp a tight grip on Sandy's arm. "Sandy! What was that story you told me once about the time you and Bert were fooling with an old spark coil? Didn't you say you messed up the radio reception for a couple of blocks around your house?"

"Huh? What story?" Sandy stared at him, bewildered by the sudden question.

SPARKS OF HOPE 179.

"You must remember!" Ken shook his arm. "It happened before I knew you. But you told me you and Bert were trying to make some sort of a machine that would administer electric shocks, and the sparks from the machine interfered-"

"Oh, sure. We got hold of an old Ford spark coil and-" Sandy's voice stopped abruptly and then rose to a near shout. "Ford spark coil!" He ripped himself free from Ken's grasp and ran to the old car. He opened the hood with such violence that it fell to the floor with a noisy clatter.

"Meesters," Roberto said faintly from his perch, "is trouble come now?"

Sandy waved a rust-smeared hand at him. "Don't you worry, Roberto," he said. "Trouble is going away now."

He was brus.h.i.+ng at the thick layer of cobwebs that overlay the coil-box cover, and then opening the clasps and lifting the cover up. The beam from the flashlight in Ken's shaking hand illuminated the four wooden boxes inside the larger box-the four wooden boxes that enclosed the spark coils.

"Trouble is going away now, we hope," Sandy breathed quietly. As if he were handling a stick of dynamite, he drew one wooden box slowly out of its place. "If only it still works," he whispered. "If only it still works!"

CHAPTER XV.

DESPERATE ERROR.

THEY STOOD THERE for a moment staring at the small wooden box that might have the magical power of summoning help. It didn't look like much, Ken thought. Certainly it bore no resemblance to the coil Sandy had pointed out to him under the hood of their own convertible. Its size was about half the size of an ordinary cigar box, and there was some sort of mechanism on top-a flat springy piece of metal that moved up and down, like half a seesaw, when Sandy gingerly touched the free end. Ken supposed that the dirt-encrusted nuts and screws set into the box top controlled the movement of the springy piece of metal. But he couldn't even guess at the purpose of the several metal disks he saw, set flush into the wooden sides of the box. To his unknowing eyes the most noticeable thing about the whole contraption was the fact that all the metal surfaces were dull and corroded, and that the wooden box itself appeared to be warped from long years of dampness.

"Is it any good at all?" Ken demanded finally.

"How do I know?" Sandy snapped back. Fear and uncertainty put a sharp rasp in his voice. "How can I tell until I've tried it out?"

"Well, try it out then." The strain was telh'ng on Ken too. "Don't just stand there."