Page:The Rover Boys in Southern Waters.djvu/199

Rh to Gasper Pold and Dan Baxter, who stood behind an angle of the wall.

Almost before he could realize it, poor Hans was a prisoner. His arms were held tightly by someone, while someone else thrust a gag into his mouth and fastened it by means of a cloth running to the back of his neck.

"Sthop! ton't choke me!" he gasped, and that was all he was allowed to utter. Then his arms were fastened, and his feet secured.

"Now, into the stateroom with him!" cried"

Gasper Pold, and the three evildoers lifted the prisoner up, carried him into one of the staterooms, and threw him on the berth. Then the door was closed and locked.

"That's Number One," declared Sack Todd. "And an easy job, too."

"If you can bag the others as easily, it will be a grand job," was Dan Baxter's comment.

"We must get one of those chaps up from below next," said Gasper Fold. "Baxter, you can go down and tell one of them his brother in the wheelhouse wants to see him. We'll catch him on the stairs."

"All right," said the former bully of Putnam Hall.

He hurried down to the engine room and then to the nearest coal bunker, where Sam was shoveling coal.