“That isn’t the idea. If I had acted on your plan, I should have taken hold and helped those fellows impose upon you. I don’t ask or expect anything for what I have done. I have made enemies of these chaps, whoever they are, for the sake of one who drove me out of Centreport, hit me a crack in the face the other day, and told me squarely that he hated me.”
“You wait, Wolf, and see what you will see.”
“I don’t ask anything, and I won’t take anything for what I have done. I only want you to have ideas a little different about other people.”
“It’s no use of talking; you may be a saint, but I can’t be one,” said Waddie impatiently. “I think those fellows will swamp the boat; but she has air-tanks, and can’t sink.”
“We needn’t stay here any longer. You can go up-town in my boat. I think we may as well be ready to pick those fellows up when they upset.”
“I will try to find my clothes,” said Waddie, as he moved off toward the tar-kettle.
I went down to my boat. She lay just as I had left her, except that the two glass ports in the trunk of the cabin were broken. The prisoners had evidently attempted to reach the lock by thrusting their arms through these apertures. Whether they succeeded or not, or whether they were released by their companions outside, I do not know. Beyond the breaking of the glass, no injury had been done to the Belle. The padlock and key were both there. I hoisted my reefed mainsail, and stood up to the wharf, toward which Waddie was now walking, with his coat and vest on his arm.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE WRECK OF THE “HIGHFLYER.”
When I ran the Belle out of the little inlet in which I had moored her I found that the wind had been increasing, and the waves were really quite savage. My first solicitude was in regard to the ruffians in Waddie’s boat; for, whatever they deserved in the way of punishment, it was terrible to think of their being engulfed in the raging waters. I soon obtained a view of them. They had lowered the sail, and were tossing madly about on the waves. Of course, the craft was no longer under control, if it had been since the rogues embarked in her, and she appeared to be drifting rapidly toward the land.
The line of the shore in this part of the lake extended about northwest and southeast. Without knowing anything at all about a boat, the conspirators against the peace and dignity of Waddie Wimpleton had run out from the wharf, keeping the wind on the beam. Doubtless, the furious movements of the boat astonished them. It must have shaken them up to a degree they had never before experienced; but they were reckless fellows, and perhaps believed that this was the ordinary behavior of a boat when the breeze was fresh.