"My, my!" murmured Joe Dashington. "He thinks I'm stringing him! If I'd been careless with the truth he'd have believed me; but now that I'm giving it to him straight, he winks the other eye and drops a mitt on his left shoulder."
The carriage came to a stop. Joe Dashington started up and looked through the carriage window.
"Have the cops landed on me?" he inquired, "or have we reached the place we're going?"
"We've stopped where I wanted to, Motor Matt," returned Whistler. "Do you see this?"
He lifted a hand from his outside jacket pocket and showed a glimmering bit of steel.
"Not being blind," answered Dash calmly, "I'm wise to the pepper box. Ah, ha, the plot thickens! Why the gun?"
"I said I was watching you, there on the dock," answered Whistler sternly, "and I was doing it for a purpose. You were disguised, and I believed then and am of the opinion now that you were trying to find out something about me. I intended going to False River on that boat, but changed my plans when I saw you. You're going to get out here and accompany me into the house before which we have stopped; and you're going to remember, Motor Matt, that this pepper box is in my pocket all the time, and that I can use it there just as well as though I had it in sight."
"Yes, yes, this is a funny play, but I'm a passenger, Mr. Whistler, and you seem to hold all the trumps. I shall be glad to go into the house with you. Johnny Hardluck has been rubbing my fur the wrong way for days and days, and I'd get heart failure if he didn't keep it up."
Whistler opened the door with one hand, and he and the youth got out of the carriage, crossed the walk, climbed a flight of steps and vanished into the house. They were met in the hall by a man who showed a good deal of surprise.
"Great Scott, Whistler!" fretted the man. "I thought you were on your way to False River, by now."