both whispered to the driver to cut loose with the whip.

"Run him down!" Tommy insisted.

"Jump the rig over him!" Sam advised.

The doctor, however, stretched forth a detaining hand and the driver
held in the horses.

"That's right!" Frank exclaimed.

"You mustn't get into any quarrel with the officers," Dr. Pelton
suggested. "We can soon settle this matter."

"Je-rusalem!" exclaimed Tommy. "Here we've been hanging around an old
blacksmith shop all day, and skulking through the streets, and not
getting half enough to eat, only to get pinched at the last minute! If I
had my way, I'd bump that officer on the coco and make for the landing.
We can't stay in this blooming little burg all the rest of our natural
lives. Will will be anxious."

"Now don't get excited!" laughed Frank. "We'll get out in, a few
minutes, all right."

"If it was so easy to get out in a few minutes," argued Tommy, "why
didn't you get out hours ago?"

Frank only laughed as the impatient question and sprang out of the
carriage. The doctor alighted, too, and they both stood for a moment in
close consultation with the officer.

Jamison, who was now very drunk, stood weaving about in the street,
demanding that all the boys, and the doctor, and the driver of the
carriage, be thrown into jail on a charge of piracy.

"Don't you think," Frank suggested to the officer, "that this man is too
drunk to be out on the street?"

"Why, of course he is," replied the officer beckoning to an associate
who stood watching the group from the next corner.

When the associate came up, Jamison was ordered under arrest, and was
taken away with many threats and exclamations of rage.

"I don't like this man Jamison any better than you do," the officer
said, speaking to Frank and Dr. Pelton, "but the case did look rather
bad for the boys, and I had to do something."

"He collected three hundred dollars of me, for a trip to and from
Cordova," Frank explained, "and then tried to maroon us on one of the
Barren islands. There's a member of his crew back here in the blacksmith
shop who will tell you the same story."

"So you paid him three hundred dollars, did you?" asked the officer.

"Yes, sir," answered the boy.

"And you have proof that he tried to maroon you?"

"Yes, sir!"

"And you took the boat only to enforce the contract you had made?"

"That's the idea!" replied Frank.

"Then I'm not going to bother with the case at all!" replied the
officer.