"Sho', now, you don't say so!" he exclaimed. "Lor'! I'll get you there for the next boat over to the city, and won't ask you anything, either. I just hope you'll get them;" and the farmer plied his whip to the horse with a force that sent him tearing down the island at a rate that must have been a source of astonishment to the usually sedate animal.
He kept his promise, too, and drove on to the ferry wharf just in time for Judd to jump on the already moving boat as she left on her half-past three o'clock trip. At four o'clock, therefore, he was in the city, and running up to Thames Street, he hurried around to the wharf of the Providence and Newport Steamboat Company, where he had noticed that a tug with her steam up was lying.
As he turned off from the street onto the passageway leading to the wharf he saw just ahead of him Mr. Avery, the constable. Quickening his pace to a run, Judd overtook him.
"Mr. Avery," he exclaimed, "where are you going?"
"Home on the next boat," replied Mr. Avery, shaking hands with the lad, "and while I was waiting for the boat I walked around here. But did you wish to see me for anything special?"
Drawing him to one side, Judd in a low voice told him of the discovery he had made, and what he had come to the city for.
"Now," he said, "I want you to come along with me, if we can agree as to the division of the reward."
"Budd, you say, is in their clutches, and he certainly deserves one share; you ought to have a second for your discovery; and I a third, for going with you, chartering the tug, running a risk of the capture, and assuming the legal responsibility of the arrest. How does that strike you?" asked Mr. Avery, with the tones of a man who wanted to do the fair thing.
"Agreed; and we have no time to lose," responded Judd. "There is a tug right below here with her steam up."
Two minutes later the officer and lad stood on the dock looking down into a neat and trim tug, named the Thetis.