“Sure. It was Chadwick. He said he was completing a deal with Paul Chadwick.”
Jerry James heard a sharp hiss above him, and then the rustling of bedclothes. Then, to his surprise, a pair of long, lean-muscled legs dropped down in front of his eyes. In the next instant, Sandy Steele was crouching in his underwear alongside Jerry’s bunk, whispering excitedly.
“Chadwick! That’s it! Listen, Jerry, when I came in to Captain West’s cabin tonight, I interrupted him as he was writing a letter. I didn’t mean to see who it was addressed to, but I did.” Sandy paused dramatically. “It was addressed to Mr. Paul Chadwick!”
For a long second, there was a silence in the little cabin, a silence broken only by the heavy breathing of the two youths. Then, as Jerry James scrambled quickly from his bunk, Sandy whispered, “We’ve got to get out of here and warn Mr. Kennedy, Jerry. I’m positive that Captain West is working for the Chadwick shipping interests, and against Mr. Kennedy. He’ll never tell Mr. Kennedy about the deposits Dad discovered! And Mr. Kennedy will go right ahead and sell his boats for practically nothing!”
“You’re right, Sandy,” Jerry whispered, hastily pulling on his dungaree pants. “Good thing you found out about Captain West before it was too late. Our ship doesn’t sail until to—”
Jerry James cut short his sentence with a groan. In their mad rush to get dressed, Sandy and Jerry had not noticed the steady shuddering of the _James Kennedy_’s sides. They had paid no heed to the regular throbbing of her motors.
The _James Kennedy_ had put out on Lake Superior ten minutes ago.
In the morning, there was no time to make further plans, as the two friends had promised each other before they finally dropped off to sleep. They were awakened by the sound of Cookie’s voice as the little man leaned in the door of their cabin and cried, “Up and at ’em, boys, up and at ’em! It’s five o’clock, and that’s the time to rise and shine!”
Still sleepy-eyed, Sandy and Jerry tumbled out of their bunks and stood looking at Cookie with blank expressions on their faces. Cookie returned their stare with a toothless grin.
“Don’t rightly know where you are, hey, boys? Well, you’re aboard the _James Kennedy_ and right now we’re out in the middle of Lake Superior.” He cocked a twinkling eye at them and flashed another one of his smiles, and the youths were heartened to find someone, at least, who seemed to want to be friendly with them.