Hank, until we're all in a good mood to say pleasant
things."

Thereupon, with a snort, Hank dragged a chair into a far corner, and
seated himself in it.

Halstead walked slowly to the table, on which Mr. Seaton was resting
his elbows, his face buried in his hands.

"There must be some explanation for this, Mr. Seaton," began the young
motor boat skipper, more calmly. "I don't mind your first suspicion of
me, because----"

"Not you, more than the others," broke in the bungalow's owner,
excitedly. "All of you young men knew about the hiding-place. You
were the only ones besides myself who did know."

Again Hank gripped his fists tightly, but a stern look from Joe Dawson
prevented Butts from giving any further expression of his feelings.

"Don't sit there like that, Mr. Seaton," broke in Tom Halstead, once
more. "Whatever has happened, something must be done--and it must be
the right thing, and at once."

"You can search us, if you want----" began Hank's growling voice, but
Joe Dawson stood before him, towering in grim purpose.

"Don't you open your mouth again, Hank, until you've collected some
sense," warned Joe. "Let Tom do the talking. He's the captain,
anyway."

"You're right," responded Powell Seaton, looking up in a good deal of
a daze. "I must do something--quickly--yet what?"

"If anyone has stolen the final set of papers," advanced the young
skipper, "it must have been either Dalton or someone working for him.
In either case, Dalton must now have the papers, or he soon will
have."

"But what does this lead to?" inquired Mr. Seaton, regarding his young
captain dubiously.

"Why, sir, it must be plain that the best course is to drop all other
steps and concentrate every bit of your energy and ingenuity on
getting hold of Anson Dalton."

"Yet what can I do to him, if I do?"

"In the first place, you might charge him with being the man who
struck Albert Clodis over the head. That would be enough to have your
man arrested on, even if you couldn't prove the charge. A charge that
you _can_ fight on is that of having helped to steal the 'Restless'
the other night. If you can only get the fellow locked up, then you'll
have more time to find out whether there's any way of getting the
missing papers away from him, or from any hiding place in which he has
put them."

"Lock the fellow up?" jeered Powell Seaton. "Bah, boy, you don't seem
to realize the money that's behind him. Ten thousand dollars, or a
h