“Better lose him than have any bloodshed,” declared Mr. Anderson. “That fellow is a desperate man, and wouldn’t hesitate to use firearms to protect himself from capture.”
“It looks that way,” commented Joe. “Whee! Look at him row!”
“Consarn him, I wish he’d bust an oar!” growled out the sailor gloomily.
“No, all the busting seems to be done on this ship,” was Joe’s dismal response.
“Now, Joe, no grumbling,” warned Nat, always optimistic even when things appeared blackest; “we may get him yet. ‘There’s many a slip——’”
“‘’Tween the law and the crook,’” growled out Joe, finishing the quotation for him.
“Oh, put it the other way round,” advised Nat.
Just then Ding-dong appeared on deck.
He held up the broken eccentric ring which he had just detached.
“Here it is,” he said; “that’s what has crippled us.”