"What under the canopy are you doing, Mr. Bissell?" demanded Mad Twinker angrily.
"I am afraid the Dasher will not catch us if I run off any farther," replied Bissell.
"No matter whether she catches you or not. All you have to do is to land us at Sandy Point, on the bay side," added the leader of the ruffians.
"I guess we had better run back a piece," said Bissell, unmoved by the wrath of his passengers.
"We don't wish to go back," protested Jeff Monroe. "Do you want the tinkers to board us and take our prisoner out of the sloop?"
"I don't know that I care if they do."
"Don't you? Well, we do! We won't stand this sort of thing. We hire the boat, and she must go where we say," replied Jeff, rising from his seat, boiling over with wrath. "We won't stand it!"
"What are you going to do about it?" inquired Bissell in the mildest of tones.
"I order you to come about and take us to Sandy Point, as you agreed to do."
"I didn't agree to do anything of the kind. I told you I would take Paul on board, and then the rest of you, when you asked me to do so. That's the whole of it."