CHAPTER XI.

IN HONOR BOUND.

"Thank you for the compliment," Jack said; "but there are just six of us, all told; and each one is as much entitled to your praise as I am."

"I object," George broke in. "Lots of times the pack of us would have been in a bally lot of hot water only for the clever way you had of handling things."

"And that's no lie, either!" burst out Jimmy. "Whin there's any credit flyin' around loose, sure Jack desarves the lion's share, so he does now."

"Better and better!" cried the man who had given his name as Bliss. "Why, you're as loyal a bunch of chums as I ever ran across. It's a rare treat for my friend Carpenter here and myself to meet up with such fellows, eh, Bryce?"

The way he laid particular emphasis on that name every time he used it somehow gave Jack the impression that he did not wish the other to forget who he was! It was of course a queer feeling to have, but the boy could not get it out of his head.

"How about going back with us, Josh; feel equal to a little walk; or shall I come around after you in a small boat?" Jack asked.

"Rats! what d'ye take me for?" demanded Josh, indignantly. "Just because I've got a little puncture in my noggin is no sign I'm out of the running. Why, course I'll go back with you, and right away, too."

"What's the hurry, boys?" asked Mr. Bliss, quickly.

"Well, for one thing," Jack remarked, "we've got a couple of anxious chums in camp, who'll be eating their heads off with curiosity to know what's become of Josh."

"That's right," declared the tall lad, chuckling; "and it's a shame to keep poor old Nick away from his feed so long. Ten to one he's as hungry as a bear right now, waiting for grub time to come around."

"But won't you stay and have a bite with us?" asked Mr. Carpenter. "We're not extra fine cooks, but we've got lots of good stuff aboard."

"That's right kind of you," George thought he ought to say; "but, considering the circumstances, I reckon we'd better be going, if Josh says he's fit."

"Well, I'll show you I'm feeling just like myself, and not a bit weak, after bleeding like a stuck pig," and the long-legged boy started to climb out of the cabin as he spoke.

"Please wait a minute," Mr. Bliss interrupted. "If you must go, there's no need of Josh getting himself all wet. You see, we've got it fixed so we can push ashore by a very little effort on our part, right alongside the roots of that tree; and where the water chances to be fairly deep. We had the boat in there when we brought your friend along, and it'll be easy to get back again. Then a jump lands you, safe and sound."

He snatched up a setting pole, the most useful thing that can be carried on a cruise along the shallow waters of the keys, and with very little effort managed to send the anchored boat into the tiny cove, his companion having loosened the anchor cable meanwhile.

Jack was the first to spring ashore, and the others followed quickly at his heels, with Josh bringing up the rear, and anxious to prove his words true about being in first rate condition.

"Glad to have made your acquaintance, boys," said Mr. Bliss; "and if we happen to cross each others' path again, there's no reason why we shouldn't be friends, is there?"

"Well, I should say our chum here is under heavy obligations to you, sir; and on his account, if no other, we'd feel inclined that way," returned Jack.

"Shake hands on that, Jack," Mr. Bliss remarked; and each of the four boys in turn did so, even carrying the friendly act out with the other skipper of the little power boat.

"The best of luck go with you all!" called out Mr. Bliss, waving his hand after them.

"Same to you, sir!" replied George, who had apparently quite gotten over the suspicions by which he had been almost overpowered earlier in the evening.

And presently, after they had pushed their way across the tongue of land lying between the two lagoons, they could only tell where the boat which they had just left lay, by the glowing light flooding out of her cabin.

Jack placed himself at one side of Josh, while George lined up on the other. But the lanky boy observed these movements with suspicion.

"Hey, what's this mean?" he demanded. "Got an idea I'm apt to keel over any old minute, have you? Just because I did that silly thing once, now don't you think she's goin' to get to be a habit with me. That's a mistake, fellers. I'm tougher'n you reckon on, now. Come along, buck up, George, and hit up a faster pace."

"Hold on, now," said George, as he struggled with a vine that had caught him under the chin, and almost lifted him off his feet; "there ain't any such hurry as all that, you know. It's bad walking here, and I don't feel like being strangled just yet awhile."

"Yes, pull in your horses, Josh," Jack remarked. "We'll believe you're all right without you being in such a rush about getting back to camp."

Three minutes later Jack spoke again.

"None of you noticed that either of those gentlemen came ashore after we left, did you?" he asked, quietly.

"Why, no, of course they didn't," George remarked.

"For what are you askin' that same question?" demanded Jimmy.

"P'raps I might give a guess," remarked Josh, quietly.

"Well, I only wanted to make sure that anything we might say to each other wasn't likely to get to their ears," Jack went on.

"Say, now you've gone and got me guessing good and hard again," remonstrated George. "You seem to just love to say things that sound so mysterious. Tell a fellow, Jack, there's a good chap, why you don't want them to hear us talking. Why, we hadn't ought to have anything but good words to say about those gentlemen after the fine way they acted toward our chum here."

"That's true enough, George," Jack went on to say; "and make up your mind I'm the last one to look a gift horse in the mouth to find out his age; but there were a few things about our two new friends that somehow made me sit up and take notice; and I wanted to ask Josh here what he thought."

"I just expected you'd be up to that dodge," the party in question observed, with a little chuckle, as of amusement. "I knew that if anybody could get on to their curves, Jack would."

"Curves!" repeated George, wonderingly.

"Sure, he do be thinkin' he's playing baseball again," laughed Jimmy.

"And from the way you talk, Josh," Jack went on, paying no attention to these side remarks on the part of his other chums, "I can give a guess that you must have made some little discovery on your own hook that has told you our two friends might be playing a little game of blindman's buff with us right now. How is that, Josh?"

"Jack, you're the greatest feller I ever struck, to get on to anything," replied the long-legged one, admiringly.

"That isn't answering my question," the other continued.

"Then I'll say, yes," Josh went on.

"Tell us what it was you heard," George asked, once more fairly boiling with a desire to know everything connected with the mysterious passengers of the little power boat that had acted so strangely on the trip down the east coast.

"Hold on a minute," said Josh. "This bandage is slipping down, so I'll have to get you to fix it for me, boys. Hope the hole's leaked all it's going to, because I can't afford to lose as much fluid as some fellers, Nick for instance. There, that feels all right. Now, what was you saying to me? Oh! yes, about how I happened to get onto the fact that the two gentlemen that took me aboard their boat might be somethin' else besides what they said. Was that it?"

"Just what it was!" George came back, knowing how Josh always liked to beat about the bush more or less before telling anything he knew.

"Well, here's the way it stands, fellers," went on Josh. "You see, after they carried me on board the boat, I laid there like a mummy in a trance. But by slow degrees I began to come back again. And all the while my eyes must have been shut, I could hear some mumbling voices, though for the life of me I couldn't make out who it was talkin'."

"Oh! hurry up, old ice-wagon; get a move on you, and tell us!" exclaimed George, almost biting his tongue with impatience.

"I heard one man that I afterwards knew was Mr. Bliss say, as plain as anything: 'I tell you, they're nothin' but boys, and they ain't goin' to give us away.' And then the other one, he says, says he: 'If I thought this one knew anything, I'd be tempted to let him lie there where we picked him up, that's what. We can't afford to take any chances, and you know it, Sam!'"

Jack gave a low whistle.

"And yet Mr. Bliss said his friend's name was Bryce Carpenter," he observed. "I had an idea all along, from the way he called that name, he wasn't used to saying it. Sam came easier to his tongue. Now, we don't know who Sam is, or what he's done, but seems to me there's something crooked about that yarn they set up, of a wager made with that Lenox fellow."

"They never made such a wager," declared Josh, stubbornly; "and right now the only thing they want to do is to get around to Tampa, where they expect to slip aboard a boat bound for Cuba. I heard some more talk before I opened my eyes and spoiled it all. If the one who calls himself Carpenter hadn't got cold feet, their plan was to drop down the keys to Key West, and get across to Havana from there."

"Well, what's that to us?" remarked Jack. "They treated you white, Josh, didn't they?"

"They sure did," answered the other, warmly.

"All right," Jack went on; "then it's no business of ours who and what they are; and we'll just have to forget them. But, listen, wasn't that a shout ahead, there?"