CHAPTER VII
FOR SKIPPY
Skippy washed the dishes and cleaned up the cabin, then made some fresh coffee. He put the two cups on a little tin tray and carried it out on deck where his father sat disconsolately puffing a pipe.
“I made this good an’ careful, Pop,” he said, handing Toby a cup of the steaming beverage. “Maybe it’ll make you feel better, it’s so hot.”
Toby took the proffered cup and smiled wanly.
“Yer think your Pop’s a coward, takin’ on this way?” he asked anxiously.
Skippy flushed and, to cover his embarrassment, sat down on a stool a little distance away.
“Nah, I don’t think that, Pop,” he said at length. “I guess I know how kinda crazy an’ different you’d act after seem’ that. Gee, it musta been pretty awful to make you act so different.”
“I know how yer mean by different, Sonny, but I ain’t blamin’ yer. I know it must look funny, but it ain’t. Besides I ain’t a coward ’bout it. If I’d told the mate right on the spot, he’d had ter keep me till the police come. Then what would happened ter you? Even if I give myself up now they’ll hold me on charges an’ the law’s that slow, it’ll be months mebbe ’fore I kin clear myself.”
“But that’d be better’n lettin’ ’em think you was the one that killed Mr. Flint, wouldn’t it?”
“I thought mebbe we could run somewheres out west or the like, hey Skippy? Yer don’t know what the law is once yer git in its fist. If they can’t find nobody else they’ll pin it on me no matter what we say—I know it! So we might’s well take our duds an’ beat it now.”