The three turned and retraced their steps.
Tod quickened his pace and stepped into the house ahead of the others. Not only did he intend to tell the captain of what he had heard, but he intended to tell him at once.
Captain Holt was in his private room, sitting at his desk, busy over his monthly report. A swinging kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling threw a light full on his ruddy face framed in a fringe of gray whiskers. Tod stepped in and closed the door behind him.
"I didn't go to the inlet, sir. Green had thought of the yawl and had looked after it; he'll report to you about it. I just heard a strange yarn from that fellow you sent with me and I want to tell ye what it is."
The captain laid down his pen, pushed his glasses from his eyes, and looked squarely into Tod's face.
"He's been askin' 'bout Miss Jane Cobden and Archie, and says your son Bart is alive and sent him down here to find out how the land lay. It's a cock-and-bull story, but I give it to you just as I got it."
Once in the South Seas the captain awoke to look into the muzzle of a double-barrelled shot-gun held in the hand of the leader of a mutiny. The next instant the man was on the floor, the captain's fingers twisted in his throat.
Tod's eyes were now the barrels of that gun. No cat-like spring followed; only a cold, stony stare, as if he were awaking from a concussion that had knocked the breath out of him.
"He says Bart's ALIVE!" he gasped. "Who? That feller I sent with ye?"
"Yes."