“I heard one man that I afterwards knew was Mr. Bliss say, as plain as anything: ‘I tell you, they’re nothin’ but boys, and they ain’t goin’ to give us away.’ And then the other one, he says, says he: ‘If I thought this one knew anything, I’d be tempted to let him lie there where we picked him up, that’s what. We can’t afford to take any chances, and you know it, Sam!’”
Jack gave a low whistle.
“And yet Mr. Bliss said his friend’s name was Bryce Carpenter,” he observed. “I had an idea all along, from the way he called that name, he wasn’t used to saying it. Sam came easier to his tongue. Now, we don’t know who Sam is, or what he’s done, but seems to me there’s something crooked about that yarn they set up, of a wager made with that Lenox fellow.”
“They never made such a wager,” declared Josh, stubbornly; “and right now the only thing they want to do is to get around to Tampa, where they expect to slip aboard a boat bound for Cuba. I heard some more talk before I opened my eyes and spoiled it all. If the one who calls himself Carpenter hadn’t got cold feet, their plan was to drop down the keys to Key West, and get across to Havana from there.”
“Well, what’s that to us?” remarked Jack. “They treated you white, Josh, didn’t they?”
“They sure did,” answered the other, warmly.
“All right,” Jack went on; “then it’s no business of ours who and what they are; and we’ll just have to forget them. But, listen, wasn’t that a shout ahead, there?”