“Oh, that’s awfully good of you!”
“Not a bit, and now you’d better be getting back home. It’s quite a sail from here to Powell’s Cove, and your folks will be wondering where you are.”
“I haven’t got any folks, only just my dad,” was the pathetic reply; “and dad, he don’t take no account of where I go. He’s got a friend stopping with him, though, that’s powerfully interested in you fellows over here.”
“Is that so?” asked Joe rather indifferently.
“Yes, he’s always talking about you and about the wireless. From what I’ve heard him telling dad, he hasn’t got much use for you, either.”
“How is that, Jim?”
“Why, he says that you are interfering busybodies, and that if it wasn’t for you, he’d be out of the country by this time instead of having to hide his head.”
Joe grew suddenly interested.
“What sort of a looking fellow is this friend of your father’s, and when did he come to stop with him?” he asked.
“Oh, about two weeks ago. I don’t like him a bit. He’s got a big, black beard and looks at you ever so fiercely. He don’t go out much, and whenever there’s a rig or anything coming along the road, he beats it for the cellar. ’Pears to me like he’s scared of something, and——Why! what’s the matter?”