CHAPTER V--A JOKE ON THE ENEMY
The slight, swarthy stranger rolled his cigarette up nicely, moisteningthe edge of the paper, stuck the thing between his lips, lighted thetobacco and began to smoke in evident enjoyment.
"That's my party, all right," quivered Tom. "And now I've found him whaton earth am I going to do with him?"
That was a new poser. Halstead had been so intent on identifying hissuspect that, now he recognized him, he must figure out what was to bedone.
"If the fellow is all right he ought to have no objections to goingalong with me and answering questions. If he won't do that"--here Tom'seyes began to flash--"I believe I'll make him. This is a business thatcalls for stern measures. This fellow belongs to the crowd that mustknow all about Ted Dunstan's disappearance."
Yet, to look at him, one would hardly suspect the swarthy man leaningagainst the pier rail of being a conspirator. As he smoked he appearedto be wholly at peace with himself and with the world. He did not seemto have a care on earth.
As he still crouched behind a bush, watching the nearby fellow in thedark, an impulse of mischief came to Tom Halstead. He remembered thatnight prowling about the "Meteor" over at Wood's Hole, and he rememberedhow Bouncer had frightened this same man.
"Gr-r-r-r!" sounded Tom suddenly from behind the bush. "Gr-r-r-r! Woof!Woof!"
It was a splendid imitation of the growl and bark of a bulldog. At thesame instant Tom made a semi-spring through the bush.
The "pirate" uttered a wordless howl of fright. He lurched, attempted torecover himself and leap at the same instant, and----
Splash! There was another howl of terror as the man slipped overbackward, then, head-first, struck the water at the side of the pier.
"Help! I drown!" came in a muffled voice, and a new note of terrorsounded on the night.
Now drowning anyone was as far from Tom Halstead's mind as could be.With an upward bound he sprinted out onto the pier, bending under therail close to where the frightened one was making huge rings on thewater in his struggle to keep up.
In his efforts the fellow reached one of the piles of the pier, hangingto it in mortal terror.
"Help, help, kind sir!" he pleaded hoarsely. "Not a stroke do I swim.Pull me out before I drown."
Throwing himself upon the pier, Tom bent down with both hands.
"Here, catch hold," he hailed. "You're in no danger. I'll pull you outall right."
It was some moments before Tom could persuade his "pirate" to let gothat frantic clutch at the pile. But at length Halstead drew hisdripping suspect up onto the boards of the pier.
"Where is that terrible, that miser-r-rable dog!" panted the swarthyone, glaring about him.
"That's all right," Tom answered composedly. "There isn't any dog."
"But--but I heard him," protested the other, still nervous, as he staredsuspiciously around him. "The wr-r-retched animal sprang for me. Histeeth almost grazed my leg."
Such was the power of imagination--a fine tribute to Tom's skill as amimic.
"Aren't you thinking of the other night, over at Wood's Hole, when youtried to get aboard the 'Meteor' to wreck the engine?"
Halstead shot this question out with disconcerting suddenness. The youngskipper looked straight, keenly, into the other's eyes, standing so thathe could prevent the stranger's sudden bolt from the pier.
"I? What do you talk about?" demanded the foreigner, pretendingastonishment.
"Oh, I know all about you," nodded Tom. "You're the party."
"Be careful, boy! You insult me!" cried the other angrily.
"That's all right, then," Tom went on coolly. "Now maybe I'm going toinsult you a little more. The trouble is, I need information, and you'rethe best one to give it to me. Where's Ted Dunstan?"
"I--I--you----" stammered the foreigner. "What do I know about TedDunstan? No, no, no! You are wrong. I have not seen the boy--do not knowhim."
"Yet you appear to know that he is a boy," insisted Tom sternly. "Come,now, if you won't talk with me you'd better walk along with me, andwe'll find some one you'll be more willing to answer."
"How? I walk with you? Boy, do not be a fool," retorted the swarthy oneangrily. "I shall not walk with you. I do not like your company."
"I'm not sure that I like yours, either," retorted the boy. "But thereare times when I cannot afford to be particular. Come, why should youobject to walking along with me? All I propose is that we find thenearest constable and that you answer his questions. The constable willdecide whether to hold you or not."
"Step aside," commanded the swarthy man imperiously. Full of outrageddignity he attempted to brush past the young skipper. But Tom Halstead,both firm and cool, now that his mind was made up, took a grip on thefellow's left arm.
"Take your hand off! Let me go!" screamed the fellow, his eyes ablazewith passion. "Out of my way, idiot, and take yourself off!"
As the swarthy one struggled to free himself Tom only tightened hisgrip, much as the bull pup would have done.
"Don't be disagreeable," urged Tom. "Come, my request is a very properone. I'm only asking you to go before one of the officers of the law. Nohonest man can really object to that."
"You----" screamed the foreigner.
He shot his right hand suddenly into a jacket pocket. But Tom, watchingevery movement alertly, let go of the fellow's left arm, making a boundand seizing his right arm with both strong hands. There was a fiercestruggle, but Halstead's muscles had been toughened by exercise and bymany days of hard work at a steering wheel in rough weather. This slightman from another country was no match for the American boy.
Down they went to the flooring of the pier with a crash, but youngHalstead was uppermost. In another twinkling he was bending the swarthyone's right arm until that fellow was ready to sue for a truce.
Tom now held him helpless, kneeling on him.
"What were you trying to fish out of that jacket pocket?" demanded theyoung motor boat captain, thrusting his own hand in. He drew outsomething and held it up briefly--a clasp knife.
"A coward's tool!" uttered Tom, his voice ringing scornfully. Then hethrew the clasp knife far out so that it splashed in the water. "Whydon't you cultivate a man's muscle and fight like a man, instead oftoting around things like that? Come, get up on your feet."
Bounding up, Halstead yanked the other upright. In a twinkling theswarthy man broke from him, sprinting off the pier.
"You haven't learned to run right, either," grinned Halstead, dashingafter the "pirate" and gripping a hand in his collar.
That brought them facing each other again. How the swarthy one glared athis resolute young captor! They were about of a height, these two, andmight have weighed about the same. But the man possessed nowhere nearthe strength of this sea-toughened boy.
"Now see here," spoke Tom more pleasantly, "I'm doing what I think isright or I wouldn't venture to be so rough. Walk along with me sensibly,until we can find out where a constable lives. I've got the best of youand you realize I can do it again. But I don't want to be rough withyou. It goes against the grain."
The swarthy one's only answer was to glare at the young skipper with alook full of hate.
Tom suddenly changed his tone.
"I know what you're thinking of, my man," he cried tauntingly. "You arejust thinking to yourself what a fine time you'd have with me if you hadme down in Honduras--where your friends do things in a different way!"
The taunt told, for the stranger's eyes gleamed with malice.
"Ah, in good Honduras!" he hissed. "Yes, if I had you there, and----"
He stopped as suddenly as he had begun.
"That's just what I wanted to know," mocked Halstead. "Honduras is yourcountry, and now I know to a dot why you're interested in having TedDunstan vanish and stay vanished for a while. Come along, now. We'llkeep right on until we find that constable!"
Tom seized the stranger's right arm in earnest now. The other held back,as though he would resist, but suddenly changed his mind
.
"You are somewhat the stronger--with hands," he said in an ugly tone."So I shall go with you. But perhaps you will much regret what you aredoing to-night."
"Oh, I hope not," Tom jeered cheerily. "At all events I'm doing the bestI know how. And I'm glad you're not going to make any fuss. I hate to becranky with anyone."
The place to which the pier belonged looked, from what Tom had been ableto see of it, like a run-down coast farm. Away up on a hill to the leftwere a dilapidated old farm house and other buildings. Halstead feared,though, that the stranger might have friends up at that house and sodecided to keep on through the woods at the right.
Before long they struck a fairly well defined road through the forest, aroad that looked as though it might lead to somewhere in particular.
"We'll keep right on along this road, if you don't mind," said the boy.He kept now only a fair hold of the other's wrist. As the swarthy oneoffered no opposition, they made passably good speed over the road. ButTom, though he looked unconcerned, was wholly on the alert for anysudden move on the part of his captive.
"If I find I'm wholly in the wrong," said Tom pleasantly, after they hadgone at least a quarter of a mile in this fashion, "there isn't anyonein the whole United States who'd be more glad to make a completeapology."
"But that will not save you from trouble," breathed the swarthy oneangrily. "The laws of your country do not allow such high-handed deedsas you have been guilty of."
"Down in Honduras the laws are a bit different, aren't they?" askedHalstead very pleasantly.
"Down in Honduras, they----"
The swarthy one checked himself suddenly.
"That is the second time you have asked me about Honduras," he went onpresently. "Why do you say so much about Honduras?"
"I've trapped you into admitting that it's your country," laughedHalstead. "And that tells me, too, why you are so interested in havingTed Dunstan kept out of sight for the next few days."
"What's all this talk about Honduras?" demanded a gruff voice. Thechallenge made both jump. A stocky figure stepped alertly out frombehind a tree. It was the solidly built, florid-faced man--the other ofthe pair Tom had first seen in the seat ahead.
"Oh, you, you, you!" cried the swarthy one delightedly, as he wrenchedhis captive wrist free from Halstead's weakening clutch. "You haveappeared in time, my friend!"
"So?" roared the florid-faced one, taking a business-like grip of TomHalstead's collar. "What was this young cub doing?"
"Doing?" cried the swarthy one, dancing in his wrath, his eyes gleaminglike coals. "He had the impudence, this boy, to say he would take me toa constable. He insists that I know all about one Ted Dunstan."
"Does, eh?" growled the powerful, florid-faced one, giving Tom a mightyshake. "Then we'll take care of this young man! Oh, we'll give him apleasant time!"
"Yes, yes! Just as we would in Honduras!" laughed the swarthy onegleefully. "He has been asking much, just now, about the way they dothings in Honduras."
"Then he'll be sure to be just the lad who'll appreciate a littleinformation at first hand!" jeered Tom's captor.