“I’ll make you pay for this!” Will heard him yell as he hurried down the wharf in the direction Tom Dalton had gone, “I’ll make you and all your family suffer for this!”
Time proved to Will Bertram how cruelly Captain Morris kept his word.
CHAPTER III.
A DARING FEAT.
Will Bertram satisfied himself on two points before he relaxed the rapid pace with which he had left the deck of the Golden Moose.
The first was to learn that Captain Morris was not following him, and the next that Tom Dalton had got out of sight.
“I don’t know whether I have done right or wrong in incurring Captain Morris’ enmity,” he soliloquized, “but I couldn’t stand it to see him abuse poor Tom, and I wouldn’t let him whip me. I wonder what father will say when I tell him what has occurred.”
This thought worried Will considerably, and, revolving the episodes of the day over and over in his mind, he found himself wandering considerably from a straight course homewards.
An exciting divertisement for the time being took his thoughts into new channels. As he reached the public square he observed quite a throng of people gathered around a large structure just in course of completion, and went towards them to learn the cause of the curiosity and excitement their actions manifested.
A moment’s lingering on the outskirts of the throng gave Will an intelligent hint as to their interest in the spot.