Page:The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes.djvu/196

178 "You are going to Buryport at once? What about the others you said were with you?"

"I will answer no questions." Tom turned around and winked at Sam, who had heard the previous conversation. "I guess they'll follow right enough, eh?"

"Sure," answered Sam. "Dick knows what he's doing, and so does that detective."

"A detective!" groaned Josiah Crabtree. "Has it come to this!" And he wrung his hands nervously.

"Mr. Crabtree, I must ask you to step forward," went on Tom. "I do not wish you to go below."

"Why?"

"I do not wish you to worry Mrs. Stanhope," answered the youth. But what he was afraid of was that Crabtree might take it into his head to arm himself and bring on further trouble.

"As you please," answered the former teacher, with a shrug of his shoulders. "You seem to have matters well in hand." And he strode forward, biting his lip in vexation. He would have tried to escape to the island, only he was afraid no one would ever come to rescue him.

While speaking, Tom had taken the pains to display the pistol taken from the sailor at the cave. Sam now took up a short iron bar lying