“GET OUT!”
Their heads held high, Sandy and Jerry marched back to their quarters.
And the door had hardly swung shut behind them, before the skipper whirled and pounced upon his mate with the low snarl of an enraged puma. With a cry and a whimper, the fawning mate who had opened his mouth for words of toadying praise, cringed back against the bulkhead.
“No, Skipper, don’t,” he whined, but Captain West ignored his pleas and seized him by the shirt collar and began to shake him.
“You lying, sniveling drunk!” the skipper growled. “Do you think you fooled me for a moment? I saw you smash that rum bottle in front of that Steele boy’s face tonight. I smelled your breath when you came reeling down the passageway, shrieking like the lily-livered ninny you are.” He shook Mr. Briggs again, fiercely. “Do you think I believed that cock-and-bull story of yours? Do you? Answer me!”
Terrified, the mate babbled, “N-no, sir.”
“But you still took me for a fool, is that it?” the skipper snarled, almost beside himself. Then, seeing Mr. Briggs burst into a fit of uncontrollable blubbering, he uttered a growl of disgust and flung him back on the bunk like a sack of wheat. He returned to his desk and sat down again.
“Briggs,” he said heavily, “if it wasn’t for the fact that I can make use of you, I’d have skinned you alive long ago. I pretended to believe you tonight only because I saw a chance to put those nosy brats of Kennedy’s in their place. I want them under lock and key until that deal is signed in Buffalo. And that’s the day after tomorrow.” The skipper drew another deep breath. “They belong to you, Briggs,” he said. “And you’ll answer for them with your hide.” His voice took on an ugly, menacing tone that raised bumps of fear all along the mate’s spine.
“If something goes wrong, Briggs, if I see you so much as look at another bottle, I’ll flay that hide of yours from one end of the Lakes to the other. I’ve got too much at stake to fool around! Paul Chadwick wants those Kennedy boats and I want him to get them. If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to be chief captain of the combined Chadwick and Kennedy lines—and no high school kids are going to get in my way by telling Old Man Kennedy about those high-grade ore discoveries. So, remember that, Briggs—and now get out of here and let me get some sleep.”
Still trembling, the shaken mate crept from Captain West’s quarters and closed the door softly behind him. Then he slipped down the passageway toward the tiny cabin occupied by Sandy Steele and Jerry James.