All of a sudden the downed fugitive began to fight, and Jack was forced to be strenuous.
"Here, let me take him. I"ll quiet him," promised Jacob Farnum, grimly.
That gentleman was in a state of mental maze over the sight of what at first appeared to be two Jack Bensons fighting each other; Yet the incident gave him evidence that there was something unusual in this night"s appearances. Without any difficulty, now, he separated the real from the false Jack, and promptly laid hands on the latter.
Don Melville"s face was now a sickly white, but he felt that he had to act on the instant.
"Here, let that fellow go," he ordered, darting up, his eyes blazing.
"Get back there! Stand away! Hands off!" roared the submarine boy, facing young Melville and sending him back by a blow in the chest.
"Let that fellow go!" insisted Don, angrily. "If you try to hold him, I won"t be responsible for what I do!"
"I can tell you what you"ll do, if you try to mix in at all where Mr.
Farnum is busy," retorted Jack, facing his foe with a savage grin.
Nevertheless, Don, espying a stick of wood lying on the ground, s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, then tried to dart around Captain Jack in order to get at Mr.
Farnum, who was having a rather one-sided struggle with the recent fugitive.
But Jack stopped Don--stopped him all of a sudden, by rushing at him and forcing him back up against a tree trunk. Whack! thump! It was no time for delicacy. Young Benson struck Don two hard blows in the face, next wrenching the stick away from him.
"The ground"s good enough for you--full length!" snapped Jack; wrathfully. Leaping at the Melville heir once more, he bore that angered youth to the ground. Had not Don been winded by so much running he would not have been so easy to handle.
"Now, you stay there," commanded Jack, testily. "I believe you know a good deal about things that have happened to me to-night, and we"ve got to get it all straightened out."
"I"ve got this one, Jack," called Mr. Farnum, gleefully.
The arrival of the real Jack Benson on the scene, in contrast with the sham one, had opened the boatbuilder"s eyes. He could not fathom, yet, what it all meant, but he was certain that his. .h.i.therto trusted young captain would be able to explain it all satisfactorily.
The young stranger in blue now lay on his back, while Jacob Farnum sat astride of him. The boatbuilder felt carefully over the outside of the clothing of his captive, until his hands encountered the feel of paper.
"I guess this is what I"m looking for," muttered the "Pollard"s" builder, thrusting his hand into a pocket and pulling out an envelope. "This looks like the envelope Don Melville handed you, back there up the road.
Let us see how much you got for your rascality to-night."
Striking a match, Mr. Farnum drew some banknotes from the envelope, counting them.
"Twenty dollars, for all that dirty work," sneered the boatbuilder.
"Young man, you sell yourself too cheaply. It ought to be worth more than twenty dollars, just to have to be found with the Melvilles."
Hearing that, Don gnashed his teeth. Like many another rascal, Don wanted people to think well of him.
"Jack," called out the boatbuilder, "see if young Melville has a long, white envelope anywhere about him. In the inside coat pocket, if I remember rightly."
"Don"t you dare!" challenged young Melville. But Jack glanced down at him with contempt, retorting:
"I follow only Mr. Farnum"s orders. People who follow your orders take too big a risk of having to go to jail."
In Don"s inner coat pocket rested a long, white envelope. Jack fished it out with a cry of triumph.
"Got it, Jack?" hailed the boatbuilder.
"Yes, sir."
"Then hold on to that envelope until we have a good chance to look it over. It"s supposed to contain plans, or some sort of information, that you were supposed to be selling the Melvilles to-night."
"What?" gasped Captain Jack.
"Oh, there"s a lot to the affair, and some of it needs unraveling, but we"ll get to the bottom of it yet."
"I should say we"d have to!"
"This young hoodlum that I"m holding down is dressed in a uniform just like yours."
"I noticed that, sir."
"He"s your figure, and complexion, and doesn"t look a whole lot unlike you, Jack. I was fooled to-night, from the distance, when he impersonated you. But, now I have a closer look, this young fellow looks more like a thug, and he"s slightly cross-eyed, too."
"I hear voices, so they must be over this way," sounded the tones of Broughton Emerson, between the trees. Then he and George Melville came upon the scene.
The elder Melville stared incredulously, with a startled gasp, when he got close enough to make out what had happened.
"Benson," blurted the capitalist, "how dare you? This is an outrage, you young puppy! Don, get up out of that undignified position. Get up this instant!"
"He will," said Jack, dryly, "as soon as he can get away. At present he"s held down by force of circ.u.mstances."
"Get off my son, you impudent young upstart!" insisted George Melville, aghast at the ignoring of his first order. "Don, get up this instant."
"Mr. Farnum gives all the orders here, so far as I"m concerned, Mr.
Melville," announced the submarine boy.
"Oh, let him up," said Farnum, dryly. "We know just where to find Don Melville any time that we need him."
Jack got up willingly enough, then. But Don, as soon as he had recovered some of his crumpled dignity, held out one hand imperiously.
"Give me that envelope you just took from my pocket," he commanded.
"Oh, will I?" rejoined Benson. "Ask Mr. Farnum for it."
"Hold onto that envelope, Jack," commanded the boatbuilder.
Jack Benson thrust it into his inner coat pocket, next firmly b.u.t.toning the front of his coat. Don made a move forward, as though to prevent, but drew back sullenly when he caught the flash of the submarine captain"s steady eyes.
"Did young Benson take anything from your pockets?" demanded George Melville, stiffly.
"Yes, that envelope that he has just b.u.t.toned up in his own coat," said Don, sulkily.
"Return that to my son, at once," insisted the capitalist.
Jack, this time, did not even honor the command so far as to admit having heard it.