“But what is their object, and why do they want to make prisoners of us? What have we done?”
“I think we have Sandy Merton to thank for our being locked up,” went on Frank. “You see the captain arranged this after Sandy saw us and ran back to tell Mr. Needham. Sandy has been on our trail. You remember he was in the canoe. Then he was on guard there, near where those men had their hut. You can depend on it there’s a deep mystery here, and, in some way, whether we know it or not, we’re mixed up in it.”
“Do you think these men on the boat are, also?”
“Of course. They’re acting for some one, and they don’t want us to get away to give an alarm. That’s as much as I can understand now. If any of you can get at the bottom of it say so.”
But no one could.
“It’s getting cold in here,” remarked Bart. “I’m going to crawl in the bunk. These overalls are rather thin.”
He got into one of the narrow beds and the others followed his example. The light from the lamp in the other room illuminated the apartment dimly. The boys talked the situation over from all sides coming to no conclusion.
“But what are we going to do?” asked Ned.
“Let’s wait until morning,” suggested Bart. “We’ll be rested then, and can think better. We’ll have a look around the place and maybe we can make a break.”