"As you just said, I don't deny it."
"You and your pard are running off with the boat?" queried Hamp Gouch.
"Yes."
"Good enough. We claim a half-interest in the boat. Don't that go?"
"That's pretty cheeky," returned Lew Flapp.
"Let it go at that, Flapp," came from Baxter. "Yes, you can have a half-interest. But that isn't our game."
"What is the game?"
"On board of this houseboat are two girls who are mighty anxious to get back to their families and friends."
"Run off with 'em, did you?" cried Pick Loring, and now it must be confessed that he was really astonished.
"We carried them off, yes. And we don't expect to let them get back home unless we can make considerable money out of it," continued Dan Baxter.