“Aye,” he said at length, “that’s just about where he slid over the side the night afore. But I reckon we’ve seen the last o’ that customer.”
“You mean you don’t think he’ll come back?” queried Jack.
The watchman slowly nodded his head.
“It’s a pretty poor sort o’ fish that bites at the bait a second time, after feelin’ the hook,” he commented. “An’ if I’m any judge, this isn’t a fish o’ that kind. He’s cute. Nobody’s seen him. Nobody’s heard him speak. There’s a hundred million people in the United States, and so far as you or I know, it might be any one of ’em. All we got is a bit of his pants to go by, and if you arrested every man in Greenport who has met with a little accident o’ that kind, we’d have the jail full. No, Jack, your fish has got away this time, an’ if he comes back it won’t be in the same way; you mark my words.”
“I shall sleep on board, though,” declared the captain of the sloop.
“Sure thing! That’s the only way to keep him off. What licks me is, what’s he after?”
“There’s something queer about it all,” commented Jack, puzzled. “Maybe that’s the last we shall see of the chap, though.”
“But you didn’t see him,” replied Cap’n Crumbie. “That’s where he’s clever.”
That evening the two boys returned to the sloop after supper, Jack determined to defend his own property if necessary, and George equally determined to stand by his chum. They took something on board to read, and settled themselves comfortably. Presently, however, George threw down his book. Fiction seemed tame compared with the possibilities around him.
“I asked Dad to-day if he’d lend us his revolver,” the mate said. “But he didn’t seem to fancy the idea.”