Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/398

 Roy Sheldon was so surprised that he could not speak again immediately. He leaned his wheel against the tree, looked first at Tony and then at his friends, and finally sat down on a convenient bowlder.

"Seems to me that there letter clears me and Bob of everything except taking you aboard the White Squall when we didn't want to do it," said Tony, after a pause. "We was as innocent as babbies of what happened afterwards."

"If you didn't want to do it what made you?" demanded Joe.

This brought Tony to the story he had to tell; and as I believe I can make it clearer to you than he did to Joe and his friends, I will tell it in my own language.

Rowe Shelly's guardian, who was fond of the water, kept a swift sailing-vessel as well as a steam yacht, and Tony and Bob Bradley belonged to it. The colonel furnished them a house, gave them regular employment during the yachting season, and in the winter time permitted them to make what money they could by shooting water-fowl at the lower end of the