"And so you come here and tell me a fairy tale about my chums?" Case exclaimed. "You don't expect me to believe a word you say, do you?"
"And yet it is the truth," Max insisted. "I was up this morning early, paddling across the St. Lawrence, for I knew from the Captain's conversation that you were over here. Not long ago I came upon a boat leaving the river to the west. From the man who was rowing, I learned that your friends had been attacked and captured."
Case still doubted. He did not like the look in the eyes of the boy. He remembered the treacherous act which had sent the disabled _Rambler_ drifting down the St. Lawrence. He thought fast for a moment and then asked abruptly:
"Will you tell me what your interest is in this matter?"
The boy hesitated a moment, glanced casually over the west bank of the stream and then lowered his eyes to the deck.
"I was ordered to do so," he said in a moment.
"Ordered to disable our motors and cut our cable?" demanded Case indignantly. "Don't you know that you might have been the cause of our death? Is everything you have told me to-day just as true as the fairy tales you told us that night? You may as well be frank."
Again the boy hesitated. To Case it seemed that he was listening for some sound or signal from the shore.
"Will you tell me," continued Case, "who it was that ordered you to cut our cable and disable our motors?"
The boy shook his head. His manner was now anxious and uneasy, and Case turned his own eyes toward the shore which was being watched so closely.
"I can't give you the name of my employers," the boy finally said.
"Then tell me this," insisted Case. "Why did the men who ordered you to do the work want it done?"
"I presume," Case went on, "that you would have destroyed the _Rambler_ with a stick of dynamite if you had been told to do so."
"I wouldn't have committed murder," was the quick reply.
"Now let us get back to your story of to-day," Case said. "Who was it that told you of the capture of my chums?"
"Was it a man with whom you are acquainted?" asked Case.
"I never saw him until to-day," he replied.
"How did he come to speak to you of the boys at all?"
"He mentioned that he had seen three boys evidently under a restraint in a boat with three men farther up the stream."