“I’m going to take you up town, Swanson, and I warn you not to make any trouble,” said he, tapping his side pocket, which bulged suggestively. “Mr. Adams, pass the word to the men off watch that there is to be no shore leave. Come, Swanson!” And the skipper stepped onto the dock, apparently unmindful that he had turned his back on his prisoner.
The members of the crew, however, watched the oiler closely, and as he did not start instantly, the first mate snapped significantly:
“Didn’t you hear?”
Apparently Swanson had heard, for he stepped onto the dock and disappeared from sight, walking beside the burly ship-master.
“Nerviest man I ever saw, the skipper,” exclaimed Mr. Adams, his admiration of his superior evident in his voice. “There isn’t another man on the lakes who would take Swanson, unshackled and without a police guard, up town.”
“Then you think Captain Perkins is in danger?” inquired Phil.
“Danger?” repeated the first mate; “just look at that hill!” And he nodded toward the sand bank which, though nothing but a bare hillside when Phil and Ted had first noticed it, was now swarming with men and boys.
“Who are they? Where did they come from?” asked both young passengers at once.
“Strikers!” exclaimed the second mate.
“More likely sympathizers; the strikers are pretty orderly,” returned Mr. Adams. “If Swanson should call on them for help, they’d attack.”