New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club Read Online Free PDF Page B

 
"Sure they will," I said. "The sluice is still used as a lock to
let boats out of the millpond. The winches are in good shape. We've closed the
gates lots of times to trap fish."
           
"Remind me to tell the game warden about that," said the deputy.
           
"Forget it," said Freddy Muldoon. "That's just one of Charlie's
fish stories."
            "Do
you have any tear gas?" Henry asked.
           
"Yeah!" said the deputy. "That's a good idea. There's two
grenades in the glove compartment there. Get 'em out."
           
"Put your lights out before we get to the creek," Henry warned.
"We don't want to tip them off."
           
"OK, Chief!" said the deputy. "Any other orders?"
            The
deputy pulled the car off the road about a hundred yards short of the creek,
and we ran the rest of the way to the millhouse. With a half moon rising in the
east there was just enough light to see by. The old millhouse is a pretty
sneaky place to be messing around in when it's dark, but we knew every nook and
cranny of it by heart. Dinky and Freddy clambered across the catwalk to the
other side of the sluice and lay flat on their bellies on top of the wall.
Henry and I took the deputy into the winch house, and the three of us lowered
the downstream gate. It creaked and groaned a lot, but we figured the bank
bandits were still far enough away so that they couldn't hear it.
           
"Don't close it all the way," Henry advised. "We don't want the
water level to rise too high in the sluice. After we've shut the upstream gate,
we can let it down the rest of the way."
            We
crawled out onto the mill dam and lay there behind the railing holding our
breath. The only sound came from the water gurgling under the downstream sluice
gate, and we hoped the men we were waiting for weren't smart enough to
recognize the sound and realize the gate was closed. Henry had the directional
receiver tuned again and was rotating the antenna, trying to get a fix on the
transmitter signal. He had just picked up the beep when I could see the dim
outline of a small boat ease out of the shadows about two hundred yards
upstream and move into a patch of moonlight. I grabbed Henry by the elbow and
he shut off the receiver. We crawled back to the winch house, leaving the
deputy lying flat on his stomach near the upstream gate.
            Inside
the winch house we waited, crouched in the darkness, for the signal that would
tell us when to close the upstream gate. It seemed like it was forever, and I
could hear Henry's breathing just as clear as the blower on our hot air furnace
at home. I was sweating all over and shaking with chills at the same time. I
figured this must be how an eel would feel in a Turkish bath.
            Suddenly
a flash of light flicked at the window of the winch house. It was the signal
from the deputy that the boat had entered the sluice. Henry and I sprang into
action and threw our weight against the trunnion of the winch. My feet slipped
from under me and I tripped Henry, and we both fell to the floor, but we
managed to spin the winch fast enough to close the. upstream gate before the
men in the boat knew what was happening. Then we dashed to the other winch and
lowered the downstream gate the rest of the way.
            When we
scrambled out to our places along the guard rail at the edge of the sluice, the
boat had already rammed against the downstream gate. There were sounds of
confusion and violent cursing coming up from the bottom of the dark chamber in
which the bandits were trapped. The bright beam of the deputy's flashlight
stabbed into the depths of the sluiceway and came to rest on the figures of
four men huddled in a small rowboat. The deputy's voice rang out in a booming
command that resounded back and forth between the walls of the sluice.
           
"Throw your guns in the water! You're surrounded!"
            Four
more beams of light hit the bandits in the face as Dinky, Freddy, Henry, and