“Let me go!” he cried, fiercely. “What kind of a trick do you call this?” He wrenched, to free himself from the other’s grasp; but he was drawn back. Captain Bill seized him by the throat and forced him down on one of the bunks.
“You’re not going ashore this trip,” he said, sharply. “Captain Ham Haley and I have got a bone to pick with you.”
Trapped at last, Artie Jenkins fought with all his strength; but he was no match for the stalwart captain. Exhausted, battered and thoroughly terrified, he sank back on the bunk and begged for mercy.
“It isn’t right, Bill,” he pleaded. “You ain’t playing the game fair. How are you going to get men, if you go and nab a man that’s in the business with you? Nobody ever did that before? Haven’t I always used you right?”
“No, you haven’t,” exclaimed Captain Bill; “and you’re going down the bay. Now you just keep below and stay quiet. You know what they get if they holler.”
Captain Bill, with this parting injunction, went on deck. The bug-eye’s sails were all set and she was going down the river.
Several hours later, a forlorn figure appeared at the companion-way, cautiously, ready to dodge a blow from Captain Bill’s boot.
“Bill,” said Artie Jenkins, plaintively, “Haley won’t stand for this. He knows it isn’t the way to play the game.”
“No?” queried Captain Bill, contemptuously, “you can ask Haley, yourself. Here he comes now.”
The bug-eye, Brandt, was indeed coming up the river, near at hand, standing out from behind a point of land. The two vessels were soon side by side, drifting for a moment up with the tide.