er lips.

"Can you carry her, and keep her from screaming?" asked the man, who had
pulled some cords from his pocket and was quickly tying Amy's hands.
Then he fastened a rag over her mouth, and poor Amy, who came out of a
half-faint, was too late to add her voice to Betty's.

"Carry her--no, she'll struggle like a cat!" muttered the old woman.
"You'll have to help."

"Help! Haven't I got my hands full?" he demanded. "Where are some of the
others? They ought to be back now. They knew this chance might come any
time."

"They have been lying in wait for us," thought Betty. It was one of the
many ideas that raced through her brain at express-train speed. "That is
why this old woman wanted us to come to her hut."

"There's some one now!" exclaimed the man, leaning up from having put a
cord around Amy's ankles as she lay on a sand hill.

"If it isn't some one she's brought by her yells," snarled the fishwife.

"No, it's Jake, thank goodness!" muttered the man, as a rough-looking
specimen, the counterpart of himself, peered around a dune. "Get busy
here, Jake, and truss up that other--cat!" the first man ordered.

"All right, Pete," was the answer. "Got any rope?"

"Here's some," and the one addressed as Pete kicked over some net-cord
toward the newcomer.

Meanwhile Betty had desisted from her struggle to get loose. She was
strong and wiry, but the old crone was more than a match for the Little
Captain. The fisherman's wife seemed to know how to handle struggling
persons, for she held Betty in a peculiar grip that was most effective.
Bend and strain as Betty might, she could not break away, and that hand
was still held over her mouth, preventing any further outcry.

"Just a minute now, Mag, and I'll have her safe," went on Jake, as, with
practiced hands he whipped several coils of cord around Betty's wrists
and ankles.

"Stop! Stop!" she implored as the woman's hand was taken from her mouth
for a second. It was poor Betty's last chance to appeal, for, an instant
later, a fold of ill-smelling cloth was put over her lips, and she was
effectually gagged. Tears of shame, rage and fear came into her eyes.

"Now you can carry her, without any trouble," announced Jake, rising.

"Take 'em up to the shack," ordered Pete. "Then tell the others to get
the boat ready."

Betty wondered what that meant. Were they to be kidnapped? She tried to
look at Amy, but could not see her just then.

A moment later she felt herself