"That's all right," said Willis to himself; and he was so immensely relieved that he could scarcely keep still in his seat. "Then of course you don't know that I didn't tell you the truth when I said Bab had warned me that you were not Rowe Shelly. That's all right. Now, how much does this boy know or suspect, I wonder?" Then aloud he added: "I am sorry you haven't seen Bab, for he would show you a photograph of Rowe Shelly he has in his possession; and after you had taken one look at it, you would see how we came to mistake you for our runaway. I hope you don't bear me any ill-will for—"
"Of course I don't," interrupted Roy. "I don't feel hard toward you or Babcock either. I came within an ace of losing my life (I don't see how I managed to save it, having never swum a stroke in so rough water before), but here I am, safe if not sound, and all's well that ends well."
"You and Rowe are as much alike as two peas," began Willis.
"I can easily believe that, for when I walked up to the desk the clerk began asking me questions I couldn't understand; but I can see the drift of some of them now, for those three reporters have been at me since then, and I know Rowe Shelly was here in this hotel last night, and that he went somewhere on a steamer. When I came in all bunged up, the clerk wanted to know if the boat had burst her boiler."
"Which way did Rowe go?" asked Willis, who was deeply interested.
"I don't know, and you wouldn't expect me to tell you if I did, would you? I have seen how nicely he is fixed over there on the island, and I am sure that if there wasn't some good reason for it, he would never leave a home like that and go out among strangers."
"He might if he was crazy," suggested Willis.
"And where's the boy who would not go crazy after years of solitary confinement, no matter if his prison was furnished like a palace?" exclaimed Roy. "I'll bet you that you could not keep me shut up in any such place as that. I would find some way to open communication with a lawyer, who would call upon that uncle of mine to show cause for detaining me against my will."
"I believe you would," thought Willis, who, as he gazed into the boy's flashing eyes, told himself that money would not tempt him to take charge of such a prisoner as Roy would be likely to prove. He knew too much, was altogether too wide-awake, and the desperate measures he had adopted to escape from the White Squall, after he had been fairly kidnapped, showed that he was by no means lacking in courage.