“If he is anything like his father, he will do,” said the boatswain.  “Well, Tom and me will overhaul the yacht, and I will go aboard at once.  Just as soon as the cap’n boards us we will start.”

“That’s the way I like to hear a man talk,” commented the broker.  “I will go back to the hotel and turn the yacht over to Clyde, in writing, and bring it to the Orion myself.  Now, Clyde, go and get ready, and return some time before morning.”

“I will be there!”

And the happy boy sped away toward home with visions of all sorts of adventures flitting before his imagination.

He had found his father half a dozen times before he reached his room on the third floor, and broke in on his brother with his face flushed with excitement.

“Get ready, Ray,” he cried.

“Get ready for what?” asked his surprised brother.

“To go to sea.  We are going on a long cruise.”

“Look here, Clyde Ellis, are you crazy?”

“Not a bit of it,” replied Clyde, cheerily.  “Listen.”

And rapidly he detailed the occurrences of the day.  Before he had quite finished there was a step in the hall, and a moment later Uncle Ellis appeared at the doorway.

“Not gone to bed yet?” he asked.

He seemed to be laboring under a heavy strain, and it was with difficulty that he controlled himself.

“Not yet,” replied Clyde.

And his heart sunk like the mercury in the thermometer upon the approach of a cold wave, a presentiment of coming danger.

“You have been out to-night?” queried the uncle.

“Yes, sir.”

“Where have you been?”

And his uncle eyed him sternly.

“I have been over to the hotel.”

“Where else?”

“Oh, around town a bit!”

“I am almost afraid to trust you after what you told me this evening.  After I have shown you the will to-morrow, which I will do in New York, I have no fears that you will talk; but, until then, I think it best to keep you under my eye.  To-morrow you shall know all.”

Clyde thought it very likely that his uncle would also be the wiser in the morning, but he did not say so.

Mr. Ellis pulled the key from the door and placed it in the lock on the outside; then he stepped out and closed the door after him.  The next instant he had turned the key, and his retreating footsteps were heard along the hallway.

Clyde jumped to his feet and tried the door.  It was firmly locked.

He staggered back to the bed and threw himself upon it, burying his face in his hands.

“Trapped!” he cried, bitterly.  “Just when everything is ready, we are prisoners and there is no help for it!”

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

[This story began in No. 48.]

KIDNAPPED: 

or,

The Adventures of Jason Dilke.

by J. W. DAVIDSON,

Author of “Hardy & Co.,” “Rob Archer’s Trials,”
“Limpy Joe,” “Harry Irving’s Pluck,”
“Mind Before Muscle,” “Squid,”
etc., etc.