Page:The Rover Boys in Southern Waters.djvu/200

184 "Sam!" he called out, to make himself heard.

"Hullo, Dan Baxter, what do you want?"

"Dick wants you on deck at once."

"What for?"

"I don't know—I think Hans has a fit. That Dutch boy always was a queer stick," muttered Dan Baxter.

"All right, I'll go up," answered the youngest Rover, and dropping his shovel, he hurried through the engine room.

"Sam!" called Tom, warningly, but his brother did not hear him on account of the noise made by the machinery.

All unconscious of the trap laid for him, poor Sam started to go on deck, when he was hurled backward in a dark corner of a passageway. Somebody came down on top of him, a gag was forced into his mouth, and a rope was brought into use.

"Let—let up!" he managed to say. "Help!" And then his wind was completely cut off for the moment until the gag was secured.

But though gagged the youngest Rover was game and did not give up. He squirmed and kicked and landed a blow on Gasper Pold and another on Dan Baxter. In return the former bully of Putnam Hall kicked him in the side, and the the men tied him up, hands and feet.

"Where will you put him?" asked Baxter.