“Why, I’m sorry,” answered Nelson, turning to the captain, “but we’re just leaving. The fact is, we’ve got quite a ways to go before dark.”
“Where you going?” asked the captain, smiling ingratiatingly.
“Duxbury,” answered Nelson on the spur of the moment.
“Well, that won’t take you long. You let me see your engine, like a good fellow. I’ve been thinkin’ of getting one of them naphtha launches for a good while.” He made a slight motion with his hand and the sailors dipped their oars.
“Sorry,” replied Nelson firmly, “but we can’t stop. And I shall have to ask you not to come alongside unless you want to take a trip with us. All ready, Bob?”
“All ready.”
Over on the schooner the crew was lining the stern rail, and the tug, too, held its small audience. Nelson turned toward the engine-room door.
“Hold on a bit,” exclaimed the captain. “You listen to me, now. You’d better. You don’t want no trouble and I don’t want no trouble, eh?” He smiled with an attempt at frankness, a smile that made Nelson shiver and caused Dan to clench his fists. “My boy’s run away, and this man here says he seen him getting on to your boat.” He nodded at the sailor with the earrings, who grinned and bobbed his head. “That boy’s bound to me for a year—signed papers, he did—and I’m his lawful guardeen and protector. His mother give him into my care. How am I going to answer her when she asks me where is her boy, eh?”
“More than likely he’s halfway home by this time,” suggested Bob politely.
“If I was sure o’ that,” answered the captain, with a shake of his head, “I wouldn’t mind so much. ’Cause I think a heap o’ that boy, I do, and I wouldn’t have no harm come to him for half my vessel, I wouldn’t.” One of the men in the boat, the one who didn’t wear earrings, choked, and, finding the captain’s baleful glare on him, took a quid of tobacco from his mouth and tossed it overboard as though it were to blame for his seeming mirth. “No, that boy’s on your boat, I tell you,” continued the captain sorrowfully. “He was seen a-climbin’ down into her. Of course, I ain’t sayin’ as you knew anything about it; that ain’t likely, ’cause it’s agin the law to harbor deserters; but he’s there, I’ll take my oath. And so you just let me come aboard and talk to him kindly. I’m like a father to him, and I can’t think what’s got into his head to make him act this way. Pull in, Johnnie.”