“No milluk—no haig!” muttered the light tender; and they would have closed the door.
“Come, come now, my friends!” I rejoined testily. “Suppose you haven’t, you can at least be civil. I want to talk with you a minute. This is the power yacht Belle Helène, of Mackinaw, cruising on the Gulf. We went aground in the storm; and all we want now is to send out a little mail by you to Morgan City, or wherever you go; and to pass the time of day with you, as friends should. What’s wrong—do you think us a government revenue boat, and are you smuggling stuff from Cuba through the light here?”
“We no make hany smug’,” replied the keeper. “But we know you, who you been!”
He smote now upon an open newspaper, whose wrapper still lay on the floor. I glanced, and this time I saw a half-page cut of the Belle Helène herself, together with portraits of myself, Mrs. Daniver, Miss Emory and two wholly imaginary and fearsome boys who very likely were made up from newspaper portraits of the James Brothers! Moreover, my hasty glance caught sight of a line in large letters, reading:
Ten Thousand Dollars Reward!
“Peterson,” said I calmly, handing him the paper, “they seem to be after us, and to value us rather high.”
He glanced, his eyes eager; but Peterson, while a professional doubter, was personally a man of whose loyalty and whose courage I, myself, had not the slightest doubt.
“Let ’em come!” said he. “We’re on our own way and about our own business; and outside the three mile zone, let ’em follow us on the high seas if they like. She’s sound as a bell, Mr. Harry, and once we get her docked and her port shaft straight, there’s nothing can touch her on the Gulf. Let ’em come.”
“But we can’t dock here, my good Peterson.”
“Well, we can beat ’em with one engine and one screw. Besides, what have we done?”