“Come on, now,” he said. “You won’t be able to play no tricks this way. You’re too far back for any leg grabbing, and I got this gun aimed right at the top of your head. Now come on up, and come slow!”
Sandy stepped from the deck of the sloop to the lower rungs of the rope ladder and did as he was told, moving his “gun leg” as carefully as he could without running the risk of attracting any attention to it. At least, he thought with some satisfaction, he had gotten over the first hurdle!
On the deck of the freighter, the boys were met by Jones, Bull, and a mean-looking crew of some of the dirtiest men they had ever seen. The freighter itself was none too clean, with paint scaling from the decks and splotches of grease covering the cargo-handling winches and other deck machinery. The white deckhouse, seen from close quarters, was a dingy and spotted gray, and the portholes were streaked with dirt and dried salt.
In the midst of a rat’s nest of coiled ropes, fraying cables and other ship’s debris, Jones sat on an overturned crate as if it were an easy chair. He seemed perfectly at ease and completely out of place at the same time, his smart sports clothes and yachting cap making an odd contrast to the mixed clothing of the freighter’s crew.
Despite his air of being a gentleman of leisure, Jones had his rifle still with him, lying across his knees, and his long fingers played restlessly with the safety catch and the trigger.
“Gentlemen,” he smiled. “Welcome aboard. I hope you will find our modest accommodations suitable for your long journey. The Captain will arrive in a moment, and I am sure that he will do whatever is in his power to see to it that you are treated—appropriately.” Still smiling, he turned to Bull and said, “Bull, see to it that our passengers aren’t carrying any unnecessary luggage.”
Bull looked puzzled. “I don’t getcha,” he mumbled.
Jones rose with a swift movement, his smile turned at once to ice. “If you weren’t such a stupid lout, perhaps you’d get me the first time I speak to you! If you weren’t such a stupid lout, we wouldn’t have had these boys here with us in the first place.”
He moved forward as if to strike the cowering Bull, but stopped and regained control over himself. Once more, he put on his bland smile.
“Pardon my temper and my little jokes, Bull,” he said. “What I meant by ‘unnecessary luggage’ was concealed weapons. In other words, frisk them.”