As he spoke he lifted a hairy, repulsive face toward the Rambler and shouted:
“Come on, lad, the captain is fixing up a treat for you boys!”
“I’ve got to stay on board,” Jule answered.
“Oh, come along,” ordered the other, almost angrily.
“Pull away,” Clay advised, “we never leave the boat alone, night or day. It isn’t safe to do so on the Ohio.”
“Perhaps that isn’t a bad notion, either,” one of the rowers replied, with a sullen smile. “Perhaps the captain will send some one on board to keep him company.”
Clay saw by the significant and sneering looks passing between the two men that they considered him a prisoner already. So much of a prisoner, in fact, that they did not consider it necessary to attempt to conceal their contempt and their triumph.
Had the Rambler been in fit condition he would have leaped out of the boat and speeded away. It seemed to him now, however, that the common-sense course would be to find out exactly what kind of a boat the Hawk was before taking any steps having the appearance of alarm.
“All right!” the boy answered in response to the rower’s offer to send some one on board to keep Jule company, “the boy may become lonesome after a time, although I shall be gone only a very few moments.”
“There’s a mighty jolly crowd on board our boat,” the rower went on. “There’s many a man gets aboard for an hour’s ride and never gets off for a hundred miles.”