"No hurry, Sam," said Jack in a more amiable tone than he had yet used that morning. "Let's sit around here a while and enjoy the sun—we might take a swim after a while."
"If you don't come now you'll have to swim ashore," grunted Sam, arising and brushing the sand from himself. "I'm going back to Hampton. I'm tired of camping out here."
He walked toward the beach and prepared to shove off the dinghy, preparatory to sculling out to the hydroplane, which lay a few rods off shore in the channel.
"Hold on, Sam," cried Bill; "we're coming. Don't go away sore."
"I'm not sore," rejoined Sam, in a tone which belied his words, "but I don't think you fellows are doing the right thing when you maroon a kid like Joe Digby on a lone island, in a deserted bungalow in which you'd be scared to stop yourselves."
"Why, what's got into you, Sam?" protested Jack. "It's more a lark than anything else."
"Fine lark," grunted Sam, "scaring a kid half to death and then writing notes for money. It's dangerously near to kidnapping—that's what I call it, and I'm glad I'm not in it."
Both the others looked rather uncomfortable at this presentation of the matter, but Jack affected to laugh it off.
"Pshaw!" he exclaimed, "it's a little bit rough, I know, but such things do a kid good. Teach him to be self-reliant and—and all that."
"Sure," agreed Bill, "you don't look at these things in the right light, Sam—does he, Hank?"