"There's going to be some awful serious trouble for your outfit if that boy isn't returned," Mr. Perry went on, waxing fiercer and more fierce in his manner as he purposely worked up a towering rage for the sake of its effect on the boy on the cot. "Would you like me to turn you over to the father of the boy whom your scoundrel gang kidnapped? What do you think would happen to you if he got hold of you? Well, he's on the boat down at the landing, and your father is there too, under lock and key. And before long we're going to have the whole gang of you under lock and key. Now, don't you think it is best for you to give up your secret and tell where that boy is?"
The prisoner was now thoroughly frightened. He shrunk away from the glowering owner of the Catwhisker as if he feared the man's clenched fists were about to rain blows on his wounded body. At last he gasped in trembling tones:
"I don't know, I don't know."
"Don't know what?" thundered Mr. Perry.
"I don't know—I don't know—where he is," stuttered the terrified boy.
"And I don't believe you, young sir. Do you understand me? You're not telling the truth. Come on, boys, we'll turn him over to the father of the boy they kidnapped."
"Oh, no, no; don't, please don't, mister," pleaded the scared youngster. "I don't know where that boy is; please sir, I don't. But I'll ask my father to tell if you'll take me to him."
"There, I thought we'd get something out of you," said Mr. Perry in tone of satisfaction.
"But you didn't do it with mathematics this time, dad," Cub declared in a voice that indicated full confidence of victory.
"Oh, yes, I did, my youthful minus quality," his father flashed back. "I multiplied my wrath very righteously, and this fellow is going to have his woes multiplied and his joys subtracted and his peace of mind divided into a thousand more pieces if he doesn't get busy on the square and see to it that young Alvin Baker is returned to his father."