“He’s coming out of it all right, Pop,” was the rejoinder. “Hooky, though, that was a whaler of a crack you gave him.”
“Wall, it had to be a hard one. He’s a powerful strong kid and we couldn’t have afforded to have a tussle with him. He! he! he!” chuckled the old man, “how plumb flabbergasted those looneys on that Nomad was when they saw the kid knocked out and us gliding away like sixty!”
“Yes, that was a slick trick, pretending to break down. We’ve got ’em whar we want ’em now. They can’t do anything to us fer fear uv causing trouble fer the kid here.”
“That’s so,” struck in a third voice, that of old Israel’s other son, “but jes the same, it ’pears to me like we’ve bitten off more’n we kin chew this trip.”
“Sho!” exclaimed the old man scornfully. “Ain’t we a-gittin’ paid fer it?”
“Yes, and enough to git us right out of these diggins if they git too hot to hold us,” chimed in Seth reassuringly. “Ain’t no call to be narvous.”
“Of course there isn’t,” struck in another voice, which Nat recognized as Minory’s. He lay perfectly still, feigning that he was still unconscious. He wanted to hear all that he could. From what he had already caught, he realized that a trick had been played on them and that the motor craft owned by old Harley had not been injured at all; and that the pretended breakdown was only a deception to get him on board and divert the hunt from Minory to himself.
“You’re perfectly safe in this,” Minory went on, addressing old Harley and the others; “the interests I represent would go to a good deal more expense than this to get me safely on my way with what I have in my possession. As for the boy there, you’d best keep him out of the way for a while. That’ll keep his friends busy chasing around after him instead of bothering me.”
“Say, mister, you’re a slick ’un, all right,” declared old Harley in an admiring tone. “It was a good thing we had that little cubby hole up in the bow to stow you in, though, or your scheme might hev fallen through.”
“Phew! I thought I’d die cooped up in there,” declared Minory. “How did you ever come to have a secret hiding place on your boat?”