MY "HOLIDAY HOUSE"

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 54, 31 August 1940, Page 21

MY "HOLIDAY HOUSE"

"♦ "I have always thought that Holiday House is a place where you leave every trouble behind you at the door, and romp through to see what awaits you inside. There are two 'paths leading away from a door on the other side of the house; one path to the country and one to the seaside. You are free to do what you like, to go where and when you like. If you are fond of exploring, caves' are in some mysterious way put ready at your disposal. In fact, the Holiday House is the ideal place to spend your holiday. You go there only on the condition that you leave all your troubles behind you, and your only object is to enjoy yourself." { "GREY OWL." | City. I

FIICK RAYNER and his brother Bob ■*-* were overhauling their motor speed-boat one night in a lonely spot among the marshes, for Dick had designed a new engine for the Sea King and he wished to keep it a secret. They hear an aeroplane engine and soon afterwards see a parachute fall- j ing. The parachute carried an oilskin package. Now read on. "(~)PEN it and sec," he said, at last, and Dick fished a-penknife out of his pocket and began to cut through | the cord with which the package was j tied. i But before (.he boy could yet it upea j a motor-boat shot out from a creek j lower down the river and came racing; towards them. There were two men I in it. and one of them shouted threat-( eningly as soon as he came within | hailing distance of the Sea King. ; "Leave that package alone, unless I you want to get into trouble!' he roared. "It belongs to us, do you hear!" | Dick didn't like the fellow's tone, j and he stared at him rather angrily, I though he stopped sawing through the j cord. Bob also resented the bullying! manner in which the man addressed them, and he frowned. However, he kept a grip on his temper and replied in a quiet, level voice, "If it is your property you can have it, but how do we know it belongs to you?" "Never you mind that," the man blustered. "Are you going to hand over that package or have I to make you?" "Cheeky beggar!" Dick exclaimed wrathfully, and Bob's face flushed. Easygoing and good-natured though he was, he hated to be driven cr bullied, and the stranger had adopted the one sure method of making him refuse to j hand over the package. J "We've only got your word the j package belongs to you," he snapped. { "And .1 don't intend to give it up. li shall hand it over to the coastguards.." Suddenly an .ugly-looking little auto-.

matic pistol appeared in the stranger's hand. ' "Give me that package,'' he growled thickly, and pointed the weapon at Bnb's head. By this time the motor-boat was almost alongside the Sea King, and the man who was driving slackened speed. But he judged his distance so badly | that the two vessels collided with v jjav that set them rocking. The feli low with the gun lost his balance, and : before he could recover Bob had j reached for the throttle lever. ! Errrrrr! With a sudden thunderous I roar the Sea King shot away from the > motor-boat and rocketed along- the 1 estuary. I "Duck, kid!" Bob shouted to his broi ther, and Dick crouched low in the cockpit, just as the gunman regained I his balance and began firing at them with his automatic. But it isn't easy to shoot straight with a pistol from i the heaving floor of a motor-boat, and j the bullets went wide. !In a little while the speedboat was ! out of range of the gun, with her sixcylinder engine roaring to a crescendo and, her exhaust belching «& flaring tongue of red and blue flame, she went racing along the estuary. The motor-boat gave chase but the ; Sea King easily outdistanced her, and presently Dick gave his\brother a grin. \ "They'll never'catch us." he declared, yelling to make himself heard above the bellow of the engine. "Who do you think they are? And what do you think the package contains?" "Don't know," Bob answered briefly. "I believe it's contraband," Dick said. "I've read'that lots of smuggling goes on by aeroplane these days." He 'began to fumble with the cords I which still tied the oilskin package,

[ but broke off almost at once as he caught sight of the flying-boat swoop-; ing down on them from the sky. A; big, white-crested wave broke from under her keel as she skimmed the waves, and a cloud of flying spray all | but hid her for a few moments. Then | she came hurtling straight for them. Sunder full throttle, and'*Dick gasped jwith horror, for it looked as though | she meant to ram them with her huge, i keen prow. j | Part HI. | But just as the flying-boat towered j above them, and it seemed certain the j | knife-edged keel' must cut the Sea j ! King in two, Bob flung the wheel hard lover and the speedboat went into a j sharp skid. Missing the prow by inches, I she shot through the cloud of flying j &prny' and under one of the flying- | boat:s wings. Then, with a solid wall iof water rising on either side of her I bow, and a wake of creaming foam streaming behind her, she thundered on along the eAiary. At first the tvo boys thought they were safe. But after a while a whitefaced Dick looked back, and yelled to his brother that the flying-boat was following them. Flinging a hasty glance over his shoulder, Bob saw the vessel flying low above the estuary, asvith the blotchy yellow disc of the rising moon behind it. He had his throttle wide open, and the Se.a King was tearing through^the water as she had never done before. But fast though she was the flyingboat was faster, and presently she dived for them "a second time. For a moment she seemed to fill the heavens, and Dick ducked instinctively. At the same instant Bob flung the speedboat into another skid, and thus avoid- ; led being run down as the flying-boat]