“Yes, they’re a bad lot,” supplemented the sailor.
“They certainly look it,” agreed Nat; “but, as Mr. Anderson says, they can’t get away from here in their crippled boat, so I don’t see what harm they can do me.”
“All right, go ahead then. We’ll watch carefully and see that no harm comes to you,” said Joe, and Nat swung himself over the side and dropped lightly into the black motor boat.
“Go ahead! Look around all you want to,” said old Harley, squinting at the boy with his odd, twinkling little eyes.
Nat looked around the interior of the hull. It had lockers on each side, far too narrow, however, to hide the body of a man. There were cross seats, too, but these were mere thwarts laid from side to side of the craft and couldn’t have concealed a ten-year-old child.
He examined the floor, but no cracks appeared in it which might indicate a trap-door leading to some place of hiding within the hull. Only the big space under the raised hull forward that housed the engines remained unexamined. Nat hardly thought it worth while, but just the same he decided to make his search thorough. Nevertheless, against his better judgment and against his certain knowledge that Minory had boarded the motor craft, he was beginning to believe that, in some extraordinary way, a mistake must have been made, or else by some inexplicable means Minory had managed to evade them.
He examined the engine-space with due care, but could see nothing within the dark machinery cabin to warrant him in assuming that Minory was concealed within.
“Wall, what did I tell yer?” cried old Harley triumphantly, as Nat looked perplexed and chagrined. “You’re a nice one, you are, to come accusing a respectable old man who makes an honest livin’ of hidin’ criminals and avadin’ the law, ain’t you?”
“I’ll have to accept your statement as true,” said Nat slowly, “but I’m still convinced that there is some trickery about this affair.”
“Hark at him!” cried old Harley, throwing his hands high in the air in apparently righteous indignation. “But say, son,” he went on, placing a grimy, gnarled hand on Nat’s shoulder, “I don’t bear no malice, not me. To prove it, I’m going to ask you a favor. You’re summat of a ingine sharp, I’ve heard tell; will you take a look at our motor an’ see what ails it? I can’t fix it, no more can the boys here.”