CHAPTER XVII
ARTIE JENKINS AT THE DREDGES
Captain Hamilton Haley, stepping eagerly aboard the other bug-eye, accosted Captain Bill.
“Have you got him?” he asked.
“Reckon I have,” said Captain Bill; “and he’s been squealing like a baby. Just like those chaps as are always trapping other chaps; once they get it, themselves, they go all to pieces. You met Tom Noyes, then, all right? I sent word down by him. I thought I’d get Artie.”
“Yes, and I’ve got another one, too,” said Haley. “He’s stowed in for’ard; I haven’t got a good look at him yet. Caught him trying to rob the men in the forecastle; he’d sneaked out from shore. I reckon he won’t be any great hand at the dredges, but I’ll make him work his passage, all right. Bill, you’ve done me more good catching that little crimp, Artie Jenkins, than it would to find a brand new reef that no dredger had ever touched before. Get ’em to fetch him aboard.”
Jim Adams escorting him, with a big, black hand at the scruff of his collar, and Sam Black walking alongside, grinning at the success of his part of the plot—admonishing the youth as to what would befall him should he utter a cry—there appeared Artie Jenkins, his knees wabbling under him, the drops of perspiration standing out on his forehead. They marched him down into the cabin, where, a moment later, descended Captain Hamilton Haley. The other bug-eye cast off, and the two vessels resumed their course down the river at full speed.
Hamilton Haley, standing with arms akimbo, his great round head thrust forward, his gray eyes twinkling with a cruel light, surveyed the young man before him, much as a spider might eye a fly that had become entangled in its web. A look of intense satisfaction overspread his face.
“Well,” he said, hoarsely, “thought you’d come aboard, did you, Artie?”
Artie Jenkins, the heart all taken out of him, trembling and weak-kneed, essayed a feeble smile, which made his sallow face take on a more unprepossessing expression than ever.
“I say, Haley,” he said in a shaking voice, “this is a beastly joke you and Bill are playing—a joke I don’t like. It’s got on my nerves. You wouldn’t lug me off down the bay—you know you wouldn’t, Haley. ’Twouldn’t be the square thing. Nobody ever did a trick like that. Come on, old man, say you’re going to put me off down below. I’ll stand for the joke all right. Just say it’s a joke, will you?”