The Missing Chums by Franklin W. Dixon Page A

shack was empty. The door was padlocked.
    As Frank and Joe wandered among the huts, they noticed that each one had a trash heap of its own in the rear. Suddenly Joe darted to a pile in which something glinted in the sunlight.
    â€œWhat did you find?” Frank called, and ran forward to look.
    â€œPop bottles!” Joe exulted, holding one aloft. “Fizzle soda!”

CHAPTER XII
    The Desolate Island
    JOE picked up another bottle from the rubbish heap. “It’s exactly like the one we pieced together last night,” he declared. “These prove the bank robbers are linked up with Shantytown!”
    â€œIt looks that way,” Frank conceded. “But—Fizzle soda may be sold around Bayport. As you said, we don’t know for certain that the robbers used the Sleuth. Somebody may just have ‘borrowed’ it for a joy ride.”
    â€œWell, the bottles make it likely that the robbers are connected to this place,” Joe amended. “But let’s scout around some more.”
    The two boys, hands in pockets, strolled casually among the shacks. Although they looked closely at the few squatters hanging around, they saw no one they recognized. Disappointed, the brothers circled back to the trash heap.
    â€œWe’re getting nowhere,” said Joe, disheartened.
    Suddenly Frank’s body tensed. “Sh! Listen! Hear that?”
    â€œAll I hear is the ocean.”
    â€œSomeone is groaning!”
    Still listening intently, Frank turned and looked all around him. The nearest building was a gray, windowless shack with a closed door. Abruptly he strode toward it, Joe behind him.
    Reaching the handleless door, Frank gave a tentative push and it swung open. Warily he stepped inside and blinked for a moment in the darkness.
    â€œJoe! Quick!”
    A man lay huddled on a cot. His face and the blanket he clutched were smeared with dried blood, and he moaned and heaved for breath.
    â€œThe man’s unconscious,” said Frank as he took the limp wrist for a pulse. “Find water, Joe. Maybe there’s some in the jug on the table.”
    Joe looked into the container. “We’re in luck!” He soaked his handkerchief and bathed the injured man’s face. As the blood and dirt came away, the boy gave a gasp of surprise.
    Hank Sutton!
    â€œHe’s badly hurt,” Frank observed. “Cuts and bruises on the head, and shock. Might be fractures, too,”
    â€œI’ll call the police ambulance,” Joe volunteered. “We passed a house about a mile down the road. They must have a phone.”
    â€œHurryl” Frank urged. “I’ll stay here.”
    Joe sprinted for his motorcycle. While he was gone, Frank searched the dim hut for clues to an assailant, but found nothing.
    Soon an ambulance, its red lights blinking, was speeding toward Shantytown. A police car followed. When they passed the house where Joe had telephoned, he zoomed after them.
    At Shantytown he led an intern and two stretcher-bearers across the sand to the hut where Frank waited with the injured Sutton.
    â€œHow is he?” asked the doctor quickly on entering. “Is he conscious yet?”
    â€œNo, he’s delirious,” Frank said. “He keeps mumbling something over and over—a man’s name.”
    â€œWhose?” asked Joe eagerly. He had appeared in the doorway, with Chief Collig behind him.
    Frank looked up at them with a frown. “Alf Lundborg‘s, I’m afraid.”
    â€œSo he took his revenge on Sutton,” the chief concluded. “That’s bad.”
    The intern hustled everyone out of the way. Expertly the injured man was transferred to the stretcher and borne across the sand to the waiting ambulance.
    Chief Collig and the boys trailed along. “We’ll have to pick up Alf,” the chief remarked. “He had the perfect motive for assaulting Sutton.”
    â€œJust the same I don’t believe he did it,”