on the beach of lonely Cliff Island. And the
boys did not have such an advantage as it would seem at first, even
though the hands and feet of their mysterious prisoner were bound.

He was big and strong, and he had evidently been in tight places
before, for he knew how to handle himself. Every time he got a chance,
as he and his captors rolled together over the sands, he would strike
out with his two hands at once. Several times he hit Frank or Andy
glancing blows, and once he gave the elder lad such a bop on the side
of the head that the boy saw stars for a moment.

Again he hit Andy, and knocked him several feet distant so that at
first Frank feared his brother had been hurt.

"I'm all right!" shouted the plucky Racer lad, as he jumped and came on
to renew the struggle. "Hold his head down in the sand, Frank, and
I'll tie some more ropes around his feet!"

"You will not!" yelled the man, and as Frank took his brother's advice,
and pressed the man's head down in the yielding sand, Andy endeavored
to slip another noose about the feet, for the boys had cut the tow rope
into several pieces.

Like a madman the fellow kicked out with both feet. Frank saw his
object, and uttered a warning cry.

"Keep away!" shouted the elder lad. "If he hits you it will be all day
with you!"

"That's what it will!" yelled the infuriated man.

"Watch me!" cried Andy with a laugh. "I didn't learn to throw a lasso
for nothing." He swung the noose in a circle about his head, and, as
the man raised his feet in the air, to ward off any personal attack,
Andy skillfully tossed the coils about his feet. They fell around the
shoes, and in an instant Andy had pulled his end of the rope taut,
making two coils about the prisoner.

"Now I have him, Frank," he called. "I'll take a turn around part of
the boat, and pull. Then you tie down his arms."

It was a good plan, and well carried out. With a turn of the rope
about a part of the wrecked motor boat, Andy pulled the man's menacing
legs down flat on the sands. He could no longer raise them.

"I have him!" exclaimed Frank a moment later, as he passed several
turns of the rope he held about the still bound hands and arms of their
prisoner. "Now we'll truss him up!"

The man was practically helpless now, and realized it. Suddenly he
ceased his struggles and when the brothers had completed their work,
and raised him to a sitting position on the sand, he could do no more
harm.