Then Timur took a sheet of paper and scribbled on it with his blue pencil:
"Kvakin, no need for a sentry.
I've locked them up and am taking the key.
I'll come straight to the meeting place this evening."
They ran off.
Five minutes later Kvakin came through the gate.
He read the note, fingered the lock, grinned, and retraced his steps to the gate while Figure pounded frantically at the iron door with his fists and heels.
At the gate Kvakin turned around and muttered indifferently:
"Pound away, Geika!
You'll have plenty of time to get fed up with it before evening!"
Just before sundown, Timur and Simakov made their way to the market square.
At the edge of a straggling row of stalls dealing in soft drinks, vegetables, tobacco, groceries and ice cream, stood a rickety empty booth where cobblers worked on market days.
Timur and Simakov spent a few minutes in that booth.
At dusk the helm in the loft went into action.
One after another the wires tightened, conveying the right signals to the right places.
Reinforcements poured in.
Quite a large number of boys had already gathered—about two or three dozen.
And more kept creeping noiselessly through gaps in the fences.
Tanya and Annie were sent away.
Jenny stayed at home too.
Her assignment was to keep Olga from going out into the garden. Timur stood by the helm.
"Repeat the signal over the sixth line," Simakov requested anxiously, sticking his head through the window. "We don't seem to be getting any reaction on it."
Two boys were busy making a kind of placard out of a piece of plywood.
Ladygin's group arrived.
At last the scouts came in with reports.
Kvakin's gang was assembled on the common outside the garden of No. 24.
"Time to start," said Timur. "Get ready, boys!"
He released the wheel and pulled a rope.
Slowly the company's flag rose and rippled over the old barn in the uneven light of the moon that was shuttling in and out of the clouds. This was the signal for battle.
A file of a dozen boys crept along the fence of No. 24.
Halting in the shade, Kvakin said:
"Everybody's here but Figure."
"He's smart," someone remarked. "I'll bet he's in the garden already.
He always barges in first."
Kvakin removed two previously loosened boards from the fence and climbed through.
The others followed him.
Alex remained in the street to keep watch.
Five heads peeped out from the nettle and weed filled ditch on the other side of the road.
Four of them disappeared again.
The fifth—Nick Kolokolchikov's—did not follow immediately, but a hand reached up and slapped it on the crown and this head, too, vanished from sight.
Alex, the sentry, looked around.
All was quiet, and he stuck his head through the hole in the fence to see if he could hear what was going on inside the garden.
Three boys crept out of the ditch.
The next moment the sentry felt strong hands gripping his arms and legs, and before he could cry out he was yanked back from the fence.
"Geika!" he muttered, raising his head. "Where'd you come from?"
"Never mind," hissed Geika, "better hold your tongue!
Or I'll forget that you stood up for me."
"Okay," agreed Alex. "I'll shut up." Whereupon he immediately and unexpectedly gave a shrill whistle.
His mouth was clapped shut at once by Geika's broad palm.
Hands grabbed him and dragged him away.