“I am pretty human,” answered Ike.
“How did you do that?”
“Oh, that’s my way of serving out ugly doggies.”
“Tell me how you did it.”
“I’ll tell you, but I won’t show you. My master was the greatest electrician that ever attempted to chain down lightning. He made a machine for me—the only one in the world. I can close my hands on anything living and give them a shock that paralyzes them. I just paralyzed the dog; that’s all.”
“Could you paralyze a man?”
“I reckon so.”
Ike suddenly seized the detective by the two wrists and the officer writhed and squirmed, and would have fallen helpless on the sand had Ike not let up on him.
“Ike,” he exclaimed when released, “I’ll give you a thousand dollars for that contrivance.”
“Thank you, captain, but it is not for sale. I’ve got out of too many bad scrapes with that little machine, and I feared I had lost it when I was taken aboard the schooner; but they didn’t search me, and I am all right.”