CHAPTER XV
HENRY BURNS IN TROUBLE
Will Adams, stirring the coals in the fireplace of his cheery dining-room, added two sticks of oak to the blaze, resumed his seat and addressed his guests.
“I’ve been wishing for years,” he said, “that I could have a chance to catch one of these dredging pirates that misuse their men so. Why, I’ve lain in bed on summer nights and heard those poor fellows out aboard begging for mercy—and I couldn’t do anything to help them. It’s hard to catch a captain in the act of beating a man, and they have all kinds of tricks to escape; the worst ones stand together and help one another out. But we’ll get this man, Haley, because he comes into the river, you say. I don’t remember him, at all, but I think I know the boat, as you describe it.”
“We’ll get a warrant for him, the first thing,” said Edward Warren.
“Well, that’s what we’ll have to depend on,” replied Will Adams; “but that’s a slow process, and we may be able to do better, in the meantime, ourselves. We want to get young Harvey, right off, before he has any more of Haley’s rough handling.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Ed. You take the boat, day after to-morrow, for Baltimore, swear out the warrant, and get back here as quick as ever you can. That will start the authorities after the fellow. But I warn you, they’re rather slow. They’ll have to put a steamer on Haley’s trail, to make sure.
“You see, news has a way of leaking out up in Baltimore. I don’t know how they do it—politics, I suppose. But as soon as a warrant is out, somebody gets word of it on the water-front and then the news travels down the bay like wildfire. One captain passes it along to another. Why, the chances are, Haley might have young Harvey out of the way aboard some other craft, or set ashore down in the Eastern shore swamps, before any police captain came up with him.
“That’s why I say I hope we can get the boy off, ourselves, in the meantime. Now I’ve got a sloop up in the creek back of Solomon’s Island, that I can fit out and have ready by to-morrow afternoon. She’s a good one, too, is the old Mollie. She’s fast, and she can go across the bay in anything that ever blew; thirty-seven feet long; a good, roomy cabin that will sleep six of us easy, and seven on a pinch, by making up some beds on the cabin floor. She’ll carry sail, too, and if it comes to a brush between us and Haley’s craft, why the Mollie will show up surprisingly. He’d have hard work to give us the slip, altogether, unless night came on.
“Yes, sir,” exclaimed Will Adams, arising and squaring his broad shoulders, “we’ll fit out the Mollie like a regular sloop-of-war. I’ve got three shot-guns and any number of revolvers, and you’ve got a good rifle, Ed. Why, we could show enough force to capture a Malay pirate, let alone Haley. We may get him easier than that, right here in the river—and then again we may not. We’ll be ready for anything. What do you say?”
“Well,” said Edward Warren, “I’m for capturing the man wherever he shows himself, if we can; but I’m not so sure that I ought to let these youngsters run the risk of getting into a fight like that.”