“You did,” replied Phil; “and you reported to me, though you may have forgotten the fact, that it was ‘full up to the cork.’ Those were your own words, Will.”
Will remembered, though he had not before thought of the significance of the fact.
“Well, Phil, what was the matter with him, then?” asked Ed.
“Shamming, just as he shammed the cramps yesterday.”
“But for what purpose?”
“I don’t know, any more than you know why he pretended to have cramps. My theory is that he was so anxious to get down the river that he tried to make us miss Craig’s Landing entirely. The sum and substance of the matter is this. At Craig’s Landing I wanted to put the fellow ashore. Now I don’t want to do anything of the kind, and I won’t either, till I can read a good many riddles that he has given me to puzzle over.”
“Can we help you to read the riddles?”
“Yes. Watch him closely, and tell me everything you observe, no matter how little it may seem to mean.”
Just then Jim Hughes came up out of the cabin scuttle, and all the boys except Phil found occasion to go to other parts of the boat. When you have been talking unpleasantly about another person, you naturally shrink from talking to him.