“No; I’m no fool,” he declared. “I’d take you on and never bat an eyelash, but you and your whole gang, all at once? No. I’ll attend to you later on, when you haven’t all your heelers along.”
“I promise you they won’t interfere.”
Zorn snapped his fingers. “That for your promises! I know what I’m going to do, and when I’m going to do it—and this isn’t the time or the place. But when I’m ready, then you want to look out for me, Parker!”
Sam laughed in his face. “Bosh! You’ve been doing us all the harm you can.”
Oddly enough, Zorn laughed in return, but the laugh had no mirth in it. “Think so, do you? Well, you’ll have a chance to change that opinion. I tell you——” Then he checked himself, and called to Hagle, who had been hovering near by. “Here, Jack, come along! Say! get a move on, can’t you?”
Hagle obeyed, though with an air of reluctance.
“Er—er—good-bye, you fellows,” he quavered, and shuffled after Zorn, who already was striding away.
CHAPTER XVII
SAM HEADS A FISHING PARTY
Ever since Lon had recited the tale of Old Man Freeman’s William Trout he had been much importuned by the boys for information about the stream in which the big fish lived and grew mighty. He had chosen to make a great mystery of the matter, but under repeated questioning had dropped a hint here and spoken an inadvertent word there, until Sam, putting one thing with another, was able not only to form an opinion of the direction in which the brook lay, but also to make a shrewd guess at the whereabouts of the hermit’s cabin, or what might be left of it.
Sam had been planning an expedition of exploration and discovery, and the disaster to the Saracen quickened his purpose. Poke took the wreck very much to heart. In imagination he had pictured himself sailing gaily above the heads of admiring crowds; but, to do him justice, he had counted more upon the money returns of his enterprise than upon the attendant glory. Poke was a thoroughly honest chap, and it irked him to be in debt. He had hoped to repay his friends, and now that hope was dissipated, to say nothing of sundry new obligations incurred in the construction of the airplane. Naturally, therefore, he was temporarily taking a gloomy view of life, and was in sore need of soothing diversions.