"Business?" sneered the man of the faded blue cap. "I thought you were out for a pleasure sail! You shut up!" he snapped, checking further complaints from the Cap'n. "If you've got a story that will fit in with your crazy-man actions, then you can wait and tell it to the court. As for me, I believe you're a gang of mutineers!" And after that bit of insolence the Cap'n was indignantly silent.
The cutter jingled her full-speed bell while the tackle was still lifting the sponson boat.
"They're ugly, and are hiding something," called the man of the faded cap, swinging up the bridge-ladder. "No good to pump more lies out of them. We'll go where they came from, and we'll get there before we can ask questions and get straight replies."
Cap'n Sproul, left alone on the cutter's deck, took out his big wallet, abstracted that fifteen-thousand-dollar check signed by Gideon Ward, and seemed about to fling it into the sea.
"Talk about your hoodoos!" he gritted. "Talk about your banana skins of Tophet! Twice I've slipped up on it and struck that infernal island. Even his name written on a piece of paper is a cuss to the man that lugs it!"
But after hale second thought he put the check back into his wallet and the wallet into his breast pocket and buttoned his coat securely. And the set of his jaws and the wrinkling of his forehead showed that the duel between him and Colonel Ward was not yet over.
As the steamer with the dun smoke-stack approached Cod Lead he noted sourly the frantic signallings of the marooned. He leaned on the rail and watched the departure of the officer of the faded blue cap with his crew of the sponson boat. He observed the details of the animated meeting of the rescuers and the rescued. Without great astonishment he saw that Hiram, of all the others, remained on shore, leaning disconsolately against the protecting bulk of Imogene.
"It's most a wonder he didn't try to load that infernal elephant onto that life-boat," he muttered. "If I couldn't travel through life without bein' tagged by an old gob of meat of that size, I'd hire a museum and settle down in it."
Cap'n Sproul, still leaning on the rail, paid no attention to the snort that Colonel Ward emitted as he passed on his way to the security of the steamer's deck. He resolutely avoided the reproachful starings of the members of the Smyrna fire department as they struggled on board. Mr. Butts came last and attempted to say something, but retreated promptly before the Cap'n's fiendish snarl and clicking teeth.
"That man there, with the elephant, says he can't leave her," reported Faded Cap to the wondering group on the bridge.