Page:The Rover Boys on the Ocean.djvu/72

60 "We know how to do the fair thing by others—and that is more than you—"

"Shut up; I'm in no humor to listen to your preaching."

"Then open the door and let me go."

"Not just yet. I want to know how much you overheard of my talk with Buddy Girk."

"I reckon he heard all of it," growled the tool. "If I was you, Baxter, I wouldn't let him go at all."

"You would keep him a prisoner?"

Buddy Girk nodded.

"But we can't guard him, Buddy."

"We won't want to guard him. Just bind him hands and feet, and stuff a gag in his mouth, and there you are."

"Would you leave him in this room?"

"I don't know." Girk scratched his tangled head of hair. "No, I wouldn't. I'll tell you where to take him."

He finished by whispering into Arnold Baxter's ear. At once the rascal's face brightened, and he nodded. "Just the thing!" he muttered. "It will serve him right."

"Are you going to let me go?" demanded Dick uneasily, for he saw that the two men were plotting to do him injury.

"No," came from both.