The parrot was in a talkative mood, and reeled off such sayings as he had heard the boys repeat by the yard. At last he cocked his head on one side and shouted:
“Come out of that! Come out of that! What are you hiding for? What are you hiding for?”
“That’s odd!” Clay exclaimed, looking about the cabin of the Rambler curiously. “I never knew the bird to act in that way before. He usually contents himself with shorter questions.”
“I believe there’s something going on,” Paul declared, almost in a whisper. “Listen!”
Both boys listened for a moment, and then Clay stepped to the door, or window, leading to the aft deck and threw it open, remarking, as he did so, that it was a wonder it had not been open all the evening.
Then came the surprise of his life.
As Clay threw the window open a grinning face confronted him—a low, mean face, with small, black eyes, a bulldog chin, and a forehead which seemed like that of a snake, it sloped so, and was so narrow. The fellow, who was slender of form, extended a threatening revolver in his right hand and climbed through the window.
Clay was not armed, and he knew that Paul was in the same fix. Weapons lay all about him in the cabin, but none was within reach.
“What do you want?” demanded the lad, watching for an opportunity to get out of range of the weapon.
“You!” was the laconic answer.