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Rh "Maybe Sam or I had better go along/' suggested the shorter of two men, who stood leaning over the yacht's side. "We can make better inquiries than either Guy or Simon, Mr. Larabee."

"That may be, Sam Newton," admitted Dick's Uncle Ezra, whom, I suppose, the reader has already identified as the old man in question. "That may be, but I want you and Ike Murdock to stay on board, and have a talk with me. We've got to plan to catch my nephew, and he's ahead of us in a fast yacht."

"Then why did you want to stop here?" asked the man addressed as Ike Murdock.

"I wanted to make sure he'd been here. You never can tell what that boy will do. Since his father so foolishly let him have all the money he wants, he goes all about, looking for ways to spend it."

"And you're going to stop him," suggested Sam Newton.

"That's my intention. He'd have been stopped by this time if you men had managed to get hold of him, as I told you to, and paid you for. You bungled the whole business, and made me have to hire this steamship to take after him. Why didn't you get him into my hands secretly, as I thought you would?"

"Because he was too smart for us," admitted Ike, bitterly. "We had him fairly on board this yacht, and only for that old sailor, who happened