They went upstairs. The stranger was sleeping when they looked into the room, but the slight noise they made awakened him and he gazed at them dully.
“Feeling better?” Joe asked.
“Oh, yes,” replied the stranger weakly. “I must have lost a lot of blood, though.”
“That was when they shot at you just before the boat blew up,” said Frank.
The man in the bed nodded, but said nothing.
“What’s your name, stranger?” asked Mr. Kane bluntly.
The man in the bed hesitated a moment.
“Jones,” he said, at last.
It was so evidently a false name that the Hardy boys glanced at one another, and the farmer scratched his chin doubtfully.
“How come you to be in such a mess as this?” he asked, at last. “What were they shootin’ at you for?”