Boy's Cinema (1939-40)

Every Tuesday Vivid drama and high adventure eurge through the pages of this pulsating serial story of the men who keep \vatch and ward on the American coast READ THIS FIRST Boroff, creator of a deadly compon7id known as disintegration c/as and head of a ruthless organisation, lias contracted to supply quantities of that gas to Morovania, a Central European poioer. Operating in America, he has fallen- foul of the authorities there and is wanted for the murder of a young coastguards- man named Jim Kent. The latter's brother Terry, a lieutenant in the Coast Guard Service, has stvorji to track Boroff down, and possesses three firm friends who are eager to help him. They are his fiancee Jean Norman, a reporter on a prominent newspaper, her brother Dick Norman, a rising young scientist, and Snapper McGee, a Press photographer on the staff of the publication Jean repre- sents. Acting on a hunch, Terry visits a remote chemical manufactory in company with Jean and Snapper. It proves to be Boroff's secret headquarters, and Terry U7id his companions become involved in a car-chase, a party of the murderous scientist's hirelings pursuing them in a powerful sedan. A shot fired by one of the crooks bursts the rear off-side tyre of the automobile occupied by Terry, Jean and Snapper, and the machine plunges disastrously over the edge of a ravine! (Now Read On) GETAWAY IT was fortunate that the car hi which Terry, Jean and Snapper had been travelling- was an open tourer, for as it dived down the slope of the gulch thev v;ere flung clear. And it was fortunate, too. that the declivity was thickly clothed with scrub that broke their fall. While the car continued its hurtling descent to finish up amidst the trees and underbrush that masked ihe bed of the ravine, the two men and the girl who had occupied it rolled down the incline for a distance of thirty or forty feet and then came to rest in close proximity to one another at a point where a belt of shrubbery flourished amid the tangled scrub. They were badly shaken, but had escaped serious injury, and, the first to recover himself, Terrv struggled up v.ith an efiort and helped jean and Snapper to rise. "You two all right?'' he jerked out laconicallv, as he lent each of them a hand. Jean answered him with a brief nod, and Snapper responded to his interroga- tion in a breathless voice. 'I'm okay," he gasced. 'What's more. I've got the ole camera right here, and It looks to me as if it's come off scot-free." He held up the photographic equip- ment v.hich was the source of his liveli- hood. He had clung to it instinctively and protectively, as to something that was infinitely precious. "I 'vbuldn't lose this outfit for the world.'' he added in fervent accents, refer- ring to the paraphernalia of his profes- sion. You wouldn't understand, Terry "Maybe not." the coast-guard lieu- tenant sti'uck in. "But you'll lose it if we don't get out of sight. You don't know it, but it was on account of a pic- tui'e you took that Boroff's men were so dead-set on catching up witli us." Even as he uttered the words he and Jean and Snapper heard a screeching -of brakes on the road above them, and at oiice Terry clutched his fiancee and the Press photographer and dived into the midst of the nearby shrubbery with them. Tlien. sheltered by the bushes, he pro- pelled Jean and Snapper along the sloce BOY'S CINEMA 10 until they were well away from the course that the girl's touring car had followed in its downward career. Meanwhile Boroff's henchman Degado had alighted from the big sedan in which he and Ihe other gangsters had pursued the three fugitives, and, his cronies piling out after him, the whole pack of them hurried to the edge of the highw-ay in a body and peered into the ravine. The crooks discerned Jean's car at the foot of the slope, an upturned wreck swathed in a haze of dust and oil-fumes, and lying athwart a mass of flattened undergrowth and a couple of saplings that it had carved down. "I guess that finished Kent and his girl-friend an' that cameraman," Degado announced to his confederates. His voice carried to the ears of Terry, Jean and Snapper, who were now lying lov/, and, effectively screened from view, the three of them exchanged ironical glances. Then they heai'd one of Degado's associates volunteer a comment. "We'd better make sure, hadn't we?" the man proposed. "Yeah, we'll make sure all right," was Degado's reply. " In any case, we've got to get down there and grab the films out of that Press photographer's camera." He started to descend the slope of the gulch and the other gangsters slithered after him, the party of crooks little di'eam- ing that they were being w-atched by the two men and the girl whom they expected to find lying mxangled under the wreck of the overturned touring car. Fi-om their covert, Terry and Jean and Snapper saw their foes reach the belt of shrubbery at a point where the tourer had hurtled through the bushes in its mad plunge. Then, as Borofl's emissaries penetrated that shrubbery and continued their descent towards the bed of the ravine, the coast-guard officer spoke to his companions in an undertone. "Come on," he Vvhispered, "let's get out of here while the going's good." He stole out of the shelter of the line EPISODE 9 :— Wolves at Bay RALPH BYRD AS TERRY KENT of bushes and proceeded to climb in the direction of the road above, and, Jean and Snapper following him, tl]e three of them had soon gained a coppice that bordered the edge of the highway. They at once perceived the sedan in which Degado and his accomplices had given chase to Jean's tourer, and a glance at the powerful automobile satisfied Terry that the rogues had deserted it to a man. "There's the car that belongs to those rats who are looking for us," he said. "They've made the mistake of leaving it unguarded, and they've handed us the chance of a clean getaway." He hurried in the direction of the vehicle with his fiancee and Snaoper at his heels, and a few seconds later the trio were piling into the machine, Terry settling himself behind the steering-wheel and starting up the engine. Next moment he had crammed his foot on the clutch-pedal and engaged the gear- lever. Then he released the hand-brake, let in the clutch and pressed down the accelerator, and with engine-note svcelling to a roar the sedan stormed forward along the highway. By that time Degado and his party had arrived beside the wreck of Jean's tourer and were vainly seaixhing for the bodies of the fugitives w-ho had been in it when it had dived from the road, and as they heard their own car move off they whipped round in a startled fashion and stared up the declivity they had negotiated. In another instant an inkling of the truth dawned on them, and with an angry outcry they commenced to scramble up the slope again—only to reach the high- way above as their sedan was swinging round a bend a considerable distance from them. Terry and his companions gained a brief impression of them in the sedan's reflecting mirror as the crooks blundered on to the road, and they saw that the ruffians had drawn their guns. But before a single shot could be fired the closed car had turned the bend in the highway and was out of the gangsters' sight. Terry drove on at full speed, and did not pull up until half an hour afterwards, when he entered the city of Portland and halted outside a building- that was situated November nth, 1939.