"I'll admit that I felt mighty good when I got my feet on solid ground again," said Bob. "There's no denying that that was a pretty strenuous night, what with fighting the waves and Dan Cassey too. But we beat them both and came through all right."
"Talking of Cassey," said Joe, "I saw the rascal this morning when I went into the town to attend to a little business for my father. I wasn't far from the jail and I dropped in to see just what arrangements had been made for his trial. The warden was glad to see me--you know he's been pretty strong for us since we saved the police the work of getting their claws on Cassey--and as he was just about to make the rounds he asked me to go along. So I had a chance to see Cassey behind the bars."
"I suppose he was glad to see you?" remarked Bob, with a grin.
"Tickled to death," laughed Joe. "I'm just as popular with him as poison ivy. He got just purple with rage and shook the bars of his cell as though he were trying to break them to get at me. He tried to tell me what he thought of me, but he stuttered so much that he couldn't get it out. I suppose he's stuttering yet."
"It's not surprising that he's sore at us," said Bob. "That's twice we've put a spoke in his wheel; once when he tried to swindle Miss Berwick in the matter of that mortgage and again when he blackjacked Harvey and looted his safe. We sure have been a jinx for him."
"And he isn't the only one who has it in for us," said Joe, as he caught sight of three boys of about their own age who were passing by, and who in passing cast looks of dislike on the little group on the sands. "There's a sweet bunch--I don't think."
The others followed the direction of Joe's glance and had no trouble in agreeing with him.
"That Buck Looker is sure bad medicine," remarked Bob. "And Lutz and Mooney who hang out with him are just about as bad. They're all tarred with the same brush."
"They're a blot on the landscape--or perhaps I should say seascape," put in Herb.
"Where every prospect pleases, And only man is vile,"
chanted Joe. "Do you notice how everybody steers clear of them? Outside of each other, not one of them has a friend in the whole colony."
"It's a wonder we haven't had a run in with them before this," ruminated Herb.