A dismal groan announced that the breath had been pretty well driven from the spy’s lungs; and before he could recover his wits enough to try and produce any weapon Frank clapped the end of his wrench against his temple while he called out in very commanding tones:
“Don’t try to draw a gun or you are a dead man! I’ve got you covered, and will pull the trigger if you so much as move a hand!”
Having in this manner caused the prisoner to behave, Frank hastily searched his pockets and confiscated a stubby little revolver which he found there. Then he told Billy to tie the man’s wrists together, placing them behind his back, with a stout piece of tarred rope that lay within convenient reaching distance.
“Now he’s helpless, and we can let him get to his feet if we want,” said Billy; but Frank thought otherwise.
“It’s better to be on the safe side,” he observed. “So use the balance of the rope around his ankles, Billy. I want to leave you two here while I go to town and make arrangements through Major Nixon to have the man held simply as a thief and not as a spy. I’d like to know he couldn’t get away.”
They found that he was rather a small man, with a cunning face. He did not look very much like a German, and possibly had been picked out for his hazardous pursuit on that very account.
To their surprise he addressed them in the best of English.
“I am an American citizen, you must know, and I have the papers to prove it. My name is Hans Larsen and I came from Sweden many years ago.”
“Oh! is that so?” remarked Frank, who had lately read that many Germans across the sea had been able to secure the naturalization papers belonging to others in order to cross to Sweden or Italy without being taken prisoner by the English naval men, and Frank rightly guessed the spy had fortified himself in that way so as to have some means for escaping death in case of capture.
“Then what were you doing hidden in that locker?” demanded Billy.