CHAPTER XVII

STUCK ON AN OYSTER BAR

“Do you think they’ll attack us, Joe?” asked Jerry as the sharpie began to head straight for the anchored motor-boat.

“No, I don’t.  Them fellers is big cowards, and when they see the guns they’ll take it out in talking,” came the prompt answer.

“I believe Joe is right.  They must be cowards, or they’d never have abused a boy as they did him.  He showed me a lot of bruises from kicks he’s had,” observed Frank, with a gleam in his eye and a look on his face that told of his detestation for the brute who could, in a temper, knock a child down.

“Say!  Perhaps it might be just as well to get the anchor up, and start the motor, in case we wanted to move, anyway,” remarked Bluff.

“A hunky idea!” echoed Jerry.

Frank himself agreed to it.  So while Jerry hastened to get the mudhook aboard, Frank bent down over the motor.  They heard him crank it, and then came the merry and suggestive hum that bespoke business.

“Now, if we wanted, we could go spinning away, and laugh at them,” observed Will.

“But we don’t intend to, all the same,” said Frank quietly, making his appearance again, gun in hand.  The boat had moved a length or so, and then floated on the smooth water of the lagoon.

A shout from the sharpie had told that the spongers believed they meant to run off, and at the same time one of them was seen flourishing a gun.

“Hold up, there, you rascals, you!” came across the water, and a shot followed, the bullet splashing close to the motor-boat.

“Don’t you try that again, there, or we’ll give you a broadside!  Do you hear?” shouted Frank, as he and his chums lifted their array of weapons so that the men could easily see what they were up against.

The sharpie kept pushing on until close by.  Then a sudden shifting of the rudder caused the boat with the tall masts to “come to” in the wind, with her dingy sails shivering as they hung there lifeless.

“We want that kid!” called a tall, gaunt man with a red beard.

“That’s Uncle Ben!” exclaimed Joe, who was peeping over the gunwale.

“Well, you’ll have to take it out in wanting, then, because you’re not going to get him.  Joe says you beat him.  He prefers to stay with us, and we’re going to take him home to his mother in Cedar Keys.  Get that?” called Frank.

The three men conferred together for a minute or two.

“Say! my breakfast’s getting cold!  I wish they’d hurry,” remarked Bluff.

Will was getting busy himself.  The old familiar click announced that he had secured a picture of the three spongers at a time when they stood out plainly.

“Hey, you fellers!  What yuh mean a-comin’ an’ stealin’ my nephew out o’ my boat?  He signed for the cruise, he did.  It’s ag’in the law, what yuh did, an’ yer liable ter git yerselves in trouble,” the red-bearded man now called.