“Why, captain,” calmly returned Hank, with an indulgent grin, “I really think you must be gettin’ childish in your old age.  You must be seeing things.  I hope you ain’t drinking.”

“You—­you scoundrel, you!” roared the old captain, almost beside himself with rage, and dancing with clenched fists toward Hank.

The beach-comber’s filthy hand slipped into his rags in a minute, and the next instant he was squatting back on his haunches in the corner of the hut, like a wildcat about to spring.  In his hand there glistened, in the yellow rays of the lamp, a blued-steel revolver.

“Don’t get angry, captain.  It’s bad for the digestion,” grinned the castaway.  “Now,” he went on, “I’m going to tell you flat that if you say I came to your island to-night, you’re dreaming.  It must have been some one else.

“Come on, boys,” directed the captain, with an angry shrug.  “There’s no use wastin’ time on the critter.  I’m inclined ter think now that there’s somethin’ more than ordinary in the wind,” he added, as they left the hut, with the half-idiotic chuckles of its occupant ringing in their ears.

CHAPTER VI

SOME STRANGE DOINGS

It was not far from midnight when the boys, sorely perplexed, once more reached Hampton.  The main street had been deserted long since, and every one in the village had returned to rest.

The boys left the captain by the water-front, while they headed up the Main Street for their respective homes.  Rob remained up, pondering over the events of the evening for some time, without arriving at any solution of them.  He was just about to extinguish his light when he was startled by a loud: 

“His—­s—­st!”

The noise came from directly below his open window, which faced onto the garden.

He put out his head, and saw a dark figure standing in the yard.

“Who is it?” he demanded.

“It’s me, the captain, Rob,” rejoined the well-known voice.  “I wouldn’t have bothered yer but that I saw a light in yer window.”

“What’s the trouble, captain?” asked the boy, noting a troubled inflection in the old man’s voice.

“My boat’s gone!” was the startling reply.

“Gone!  Are you sure?”

“No doubt about it.  I left her tied ter the L wharf when I come up from the island, and now there ain’t hide nor hair uv her there.”

“I’ll bet anything that that fellow Curtiss is at the bottom of all this,” cried Rob.  “I remember now I heard some time ago that he was thick with that Hank Handcraft.”

“I don’t know what ter do about it at this time uv ther night,” went on the distressed captain, “an’ I can’t go round waking folks up ter get another boat.”

“Of course not,” agreed Rob.  “There’s only one thing for you to do, captain, and that is to put up here to-night, and in the morning we’ll see what we can do.”