It was not until after supper that Eph turned the talk back to Sam
Truax.
"I don't like the fellow, at all," declared young Somers. "He always wants to be left alone in the engine room, for one thing."
"And I've made it my business, regular," added Williamson; the machinist, "to see that he doesn't have his wish."
"He's always sulky, and kicking about everything," added Eph. "I may be wrong, but can't get it out of my head that the fellow came aboard on purpose to be a trouble-maker."
"Why, what object could he have in that?" asked Captain Jack.
"Blessed if I know," replied Eph. "But that's the way I size the fellow up. Now, take that time you were knocked senseless, back in Dunhaven. Who could have done that? The more I think about Sam Truax, the more I suspect him as the fellow who stretched you out."
"Again, what object could he have?" inquired Benson.
"Blessed if I know. What object could anyone have in such a trick against you? It was a state prison job, if the fellow had been caught at the time."
"Well, there's one thing Truax was innocent of, anyway," laughed Captain Jack. "He didn't have any hand in the way I was tricked and robbed by the mulatto."
"Blamed if I'm so sure he didn't have a hand in that, too," contended
Eph Somers, stubbornly.