assassin
owls made mournful cadences in keeping with the scene and its
half-tragic human purposes, while the whippoorwills voiced the one
element of brightness and hope.

The young fellow in the narrow, dark, log-walled cabin, with its barred
window and padlocked oaken door, had been long disconsolate. But now,
for the first time in many days, hope came to him as he walked back and
forth, fighting pests, still tortured in mind, fearing failure,
wondering, praying, yet proud and never beseeching, waiting for another
and perhaps a brighter day.

For three months he had been a prisoner, waking from a fevered sleep
after a long illness, his splendid constitution alone serving to doctor
him, he had found himself mysteriously at sea, in the locked cabin of a
tossing yacht that knew no harbor of rest. He had been denied even the
chance to talk to, or to know his jailers. He had managed to keep alive
on the rough, often unpalatable food poked under his door. There was no
response to his callings, hammerings or threats. A less balanced,
hopeful, kindly, gentle fellow would have gone insane.

Then, gagged and bound, he had been dumped about almost like a sack of
wheat and landed in this horrible place alongside of which his prison
room in the yacht was a palace. Now here for the first time had come a
friendly voice, that of more than a friend, indeed, and he had again
seized upon hope.

Yes, he would lie low, be patient, hope on and wait.

CHAPTER XXV

STRATEGY

"Bill, Bill, we've found Tony! Saw him a little in the dark and talked
to him. We're going to get him out, Bill!" And Gus, after bursting in
with this good news, told his chum and old Dan all about it. Then they
held a council of war.

It was pretty certain that the Malatesta had no means of radio
communication, as they could not have burdened themselves with the
apparatus, nor could they have confined their communications to one
person. That they were seeking ransom money was also pretty certain, and
they were in a position to get it, too.

Bill, Gus and old Dan laid some plans, carefully considered from every
angle, and with the impetus of youth to be acted upon at once. Having
put their transmitting station in operation, Bill got busy on the wires,
and on a wave length of 360 meters, began broadcasting notifications to
Mr. Sabaste and to the police relative to Tony's whereabouts.

"Mr.