to seek your information elsewhere."

"It wasn't so much that I wanted to find out about Bold Island harbor. I
wanted to get him talking. Thought I might be able to trip him up if I
got a good chance to ask him questions."

"But he wouldn't talk."

"He seemed suspicious."

They watched the hunchback go into a store. Just before passing through
the door, which stood open, he turned his head and looked back.

"Wanted to see if we were following him," smiled Frank.

They walked about the village, finally returning to the hotel. As they
approached the hotel Inza and Paula came out and asked to be shown
around the village.

For an hour the four strolled about. From the yacht in the harbor
Diamond saw them occasionally, and the Virginian's heart was throbbing
with anger. He felt that he could kill Bruce Browning without a qualm of
conscience.

Finally the party returned to the hotel, but, before leaving the girls,
Frank had invited them to be ready for a short cruise on the yacht the
following morning, and they had promised to do so.

As the boys approached the wharf beside which their boat floated, a man
came toward them and spoke to them. He was the man with the crooked eye
and broken nose.

"I hear you chaps are thinkin' of goin' down to Devil Island?" he said,
one eye seeming to look at Frank while the other looked at Bruce. "Is
that right?"

"We may go down there," answered Frank.

"To-morrow."

"Better not."

"Why?"

"It's dangerous."

"How?"

"You heard the yarns about the critter on the island, and you ought to
know why."

"Those yarns are the very things that make me want to go down there,"
declared Frank.

The cock-eyed man looked surprised.

"You don't want to be ketched by the monster, do ye?"

"No, but we'd like to catch the monster," laughed Frank.

"You can't do that. The critter ain't human. If he ain't the devil
hisself, he's one of the devil's imps."

"Well, we'd like to catch a genuine imp. If we could capture a real imp
and take him to Boston or New York we could get a royal good figure for
him from the manager of some dime museum. Freaks and curiosities are in
great demand, and they are very scarce."

The cock-eyed man seemed astonished and disgusted.

"Why, you dern fools!" he exclaimed. "You don't 'magine you kin ketch a
real imp, do ye?"

"We can give him a good hustle," answered Merry, with apparent
seriousness. "He'll have to be lively if he gets away."

"I've h