"You can't go."
"I must. Young man, I will pay you any——"
"I do not want your pay. You came aboard by that boat. Get into it and return ashore. If you are so anxious to get to Devil Island, you will find plenty of fishermen who will set you on there if you pay them for it."
"You are wrong. All the fishermen seem afraid to go near it. I tried several of them this morning, and then the man with the broken nose and the bent eye told me you were going down that way. That is why I am here."
The little man in gray seemed very much in earnest now, but Frank had made up his mind and was not to be turned.
"Get into that boat, sir," he commanded. "We can't take you to Devil Island."
"You'll have to," said Mr. Cooler, stubbornly. "I am here, and I am going with you."
"I rather think not," drawled Bruce Browning, who had been brought to the deck at last by the sound of talk.
The big fellow picked the little man up by the collar, carried him to the rail and dropped him into the dory, saying to the boatman:
"Take him ashore immediately, or he will have to