"Not so you could notice it," gritted Jack, taking a firmer hold on his automatic. "If Wyckoff tries any of his dirty tricks around here, we'll fill him so full of holes he'll leak straw."
"You don't know him," shuddered the boy. "He's a desperate man. He shot a nigger once just because the fellow disputed Wyckoff about a match. He's a bad, bad man. I know him."
"And still he had the nerve to tell us on Petit Bois that his hands were clean," scornfully declared Jack. "He makes me sick."
"Oh, have you seen him?" questioned Carlos.
"He didn't tell me that! He just told me what I must do."
"What did he tell you to do?" inquired Frank not unkindly.
"He said that in the after cabin of this boat under the floor boards I would find a plug driven into the skin of the boat to fill an auger hole.
"He directed me to remove that plug carefully and swim ashore. I was not to awaken you but to get away quietly."
"Well, you surely were the pussy-footed little sleuth," declared Harry. "It would have been impossible to hear you more than forty or fifty miles away. There's nothing the matter with that voice of yours. I know an auctioneer who could use that noise."
"Don't rub it in, Harry," advised Tom. "The poor lad is having troubles of his own right now as it is. He's all in."