“Well, now we’ll come down to brass tacks,” growled Broom, after an interval of thought. “How much is your liberty worth to you?”
“So that’s your game, is it, you rascally blackmailer?” sputtered the infuriated millionaire. “You won’t get a cent out of me.”
“Perhaps in a few days you’ll sing a different tune,” he said, and something, not in the words, but in the way they were uttered, sent a cold shiver down Jack’s spine.
CHAPTER XXVIII.—THE FREE-BOOTER’S DEMANDS.
“Well, what do you demand?” was the millionaire’s next question.
Donald Judson drew ‘Bully’ Broom aside and whispered to him. The other nodded.
“The least we will take is one hundred thousand dollars,” he said.
“That is for the liberty of both,” said ‘Bully’ Broom coolly. “Fifty thousand for the boy and fifty thousand for you. If you don’t want to take the boy, you can pay up fifty thousand and we will keep him.”
“Well, the river is full of hungry alligators——” grinned the wretch.
“You scoundrel,” thundered Mr. Jukes, “do you suppose I’d leave him behind, anyway?” Jack cast him a grateful look. “But what have you done with my brother, you ruffian?”
“Ah! I was coming to that,” said the rascal with an insolent smile, “but you can also have him for the very insignificant sum that I have already mentioned as being the price for you and the boy.”
“You’re worth a whole lot more than that, Jukes,” put in Judson, with an equally insolent air. “You’re a regular old money-bags, you know.”
“You’ll never get my money,” raged the millionaire.
“Hunger makes a lot of difference, Mr. Jukes,” smiled Broom.
“So you mean to starve us into submission, eh?” demanded Jack. “I don’t see how such rogues can exist. Judson, you are the worst young hound I ever heard of.”
In high rage the boy’s enemy stepped up to him and deliberately struck him a heavy blow in the face, which Jack was, of course, powerless to return.
“Yes, a cowardly trick like that is in perfect accordance with what I know of your nature,” said Jack with menacing quietness.
“You dare say that again,” screamed Donald, beside himself with anger, “just you dare and I’ll——” He ended with a shake of his fist.
“Oh, you can’t scare me, even if I am tied,” said Jack scornfully.
His perfect calmness added fuel to the fire of Judson’s rage.