I had lately found myself wondering how Hiram, Jr., would behave when Dame Fortune landed her knuckles between his eyes with a staggering blow. I knew it had to come. I had become so attached to him that I dreaded it as one dreads to see a lovable child punished, though to its manifest advantage.
He did not say a word or move until I came up to him. There was something of a sneer and a contemptuous curl in his face when I looked the question I hesitated to ask. He sneered openly at the Jinx that had come to harass him.
"Well, Ben, I guess we have made the fatal mistake of underestimating the resources of our enemies—they've got us."
CHAPTER XXIV
Hiram still retained his nerve, but his anger and disappointment had become stolid as he handed me the paper and pointed to the Fearsome across the river—the tug still alongside.
I stood before him, astonished and silent, hastily examining the paper. It was an injunction the court had issued, restraining him from interfering with the lawful owners of the boat Fearsome, of which he had obtained possession by an irregular and fraudulent sale.
"The officer has just left," Hiram volunteered. "The captain and I were on the dock checking up when the tug came alongside. I thought nothing until they slipped our lines and she was away before I could walk twenty feet," he said, letting his foot drop to the dock despondently.
"Ben, I thought we had a right—she was sold for crew's wages. We had nothing to do with that. We only bid her in," he began, but with no note of censure, although I had attended to that detail.