"Just one word before you begin your story," said Willis, who was not entirely satisfied with Roy's friendly speech and manner, believing, as he did, that the boy might have some sinister object in view. He was afraid to trust anybody, knowing full well that he could not be trusted himself.
"As many words as you please," replied Roy, resuming his seat and placing his injured arm in a comfortable position on the table at his side. "I told the clerk when I first came back that I wouldn't be interviewed; but I know he has sent three reporters after me. All they learned didn't do them much good. You see I don't want my name to appear in the papers, for my folks would be sure to see it; then good-by to all my fine plans for the summer. Of course you'll not say a word."
"Not I," replied Willis. "I don't want
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 everybody to know what fools Babcock and I made of ourselves. By the way, have you seen Bab this morning?"
Roy said he hadn't.
"That's all right," said Willis to himself; and he was so immensely relieved that he could scarcely keep still in his seat. "Then of course you don't know that I didn't tell you the truth when I said Bab had warned me that you were not Rowe Shelly. That's all right. Now, how much does this boy know or suspect, I wonder?" Then aloud he added: "I am sorry you haven't seen Bab, for he would show you a photograph of Rowe Shelly he has in his possession; and after you had taken one look at it, you would see how we came to mistake you for our runaway. I hope you don't bear me any ill-will for—"
"Of course I don't," interrupted Roy. "I don't feel hard toward you or Babcock either. I came within an ace of losing my life (I don't see how I managed to save it, having never swum a stroke in so rough water before), but here I am, safe if not sound, and all's well that ends well."
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"You and Rowe are as much alike as two peas," began Willis.
"I can easily believe that, for when I walked up to the desk the clerk began asking me questions I couldn't understand; but I can see the drift of some of them now, for those three reporters have been at me since then, and I know Rowe Shelly was here in this hotel last night, and that he went somewhere on a steamer. When I came in all bunged up, the clerk wanted to know if the boat had burst her boiler."
"Which way did Rowe go?" asked Willis, who was deeply interested.
"I don't know, and you wouldn't expect me to tell you if I did, would you? I have seen how nicely he is fixed over there on the island, and I am sure that if there wasn't some good reason for it, he would never leave a home like that and go out among strangers."
"He might if he was crazy," suggested Willis.
"And where's the boy who would not go crazy after years of solitary confinement, no matter if his prison was furnished like a pal
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ace?" exclaimed Roy. "I'll bet you that you could not keep me shut up in any such place as that. I would find some way to open communication with a lawyer, who would call upon that uncle of mine to show cause for detaining me against my will."
"I believe you would," thought Willis, who, as he gazed into the boy's flashing eyes, told himself that money would not tempt him to take charge of such a prisoner as Roy would be likely to prove. He knew too much, was altogether too wide-awake, and the desperate measures he had adopted to escape from the White Squall, after he had been fairly kidnapped, showed that he was by no means lacking in courage.
Willis wondered if any of those rebellious ideas had been put into Rowe Shelly's head since he ran away. If so, the next time his guardian saw him he would probably have an attorney at his back, and then there would be fun on the island. Willis really wanted information on this point, and while he was wondering how he could get it without asking questions that might excite Roy's suspicions,
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 the matter was settled in a most unexpected way. All on a sudden Roy staggered to his feet with an exclamation of surprise and pleasure on his lips, and darted forward to fall into the arms of two new-comers, namely Arthur Hastings and Joe Wayring.
"Where have you been?" said Roy, as soon as he could speak. "I have waited and watched for the last seven hours, and you don't know how lonely I have been without you."
"Haw!" laughed Joe. "We haven't been gone from the hotel more than an hour, and you were not here when we went away."
"We've been up on Bank Street to call upon Mr. Wilcox," replied Arthur, with a sidelong glance at Willis. "Where have you been to get mussed up in this way? You are a nice looking specimen, I must say. Who's been at you?"
"I can't let everything out at once, so you must ask your questions one at a time," said Roy, motioning to his chums to seat themselves. "In the first place, this is Mr. Willis, Colonel Shelly's superintendent. My two
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 friends, Joe Wayring and Arthur Hastings, Mr. Willis."
To Roy's great surprise his companions did not seem particularly pleased to make the acquaintance of Mr. Willis. They nodded, but did not offer to shake hands with him.
"Babcock has made his report and told everything just as it happened," said Arthur. "We have seen him, and he says he never would have made the mistake he did if Willis had not insisted that you were the boy they were looking for."
"Then Babcock told you what wasn't so," exclaimed Willis.
"That's what he told us, anyhow," said Joe. "He's outside now waiting for us, and you can speak to him about it, if you want to."
"Waiting for you?" repeated Roy. "Where are you going?"
"We intended to hire a tug and go over to the island after you," answered Arthur.
"But you see there's no need of it, don't you? Mr. Willis attended to that as soon as he became satisfied that I wasn't Rowe Shelly."
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"Ah! That puts a different look on the matter," said Joe. "But where did you get those black eyes if you didn't get them while escaping from the island?"
"I got them on the White Squall," replied Roy, "and that brings me to the story I was getting ready to tell Mr. Willis when you came in. But before I begin, go out and ask that detective to come here. I should like to see the photograph he's got in his pocket. I am told it looks just like me."
"And so it does, at first glance," said Arthur, rising from his seat. "But the more one gazes upon it, the less it looks like you. You shall see for yourself."
"Let me go after Babcock, please," Willis interposed, "and you stay here and talk to your friends. I will bring him right in."
There was nothing strange in this proposition, so Arthur sat down again, while Willis went out to make things straight with the detective. He didn't want him to come into Roy's presence until he had opportunity to post him.
"So that's the scamp who got you into so
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 much trouble, is it?" said Arthur, in tones of disgust. "We meant to have him arrested if he didn't talk pretty smoothly to us, and yet we find you and him here as thick as a couple of thieves."
"Now, what's the sense in going on like that?" demanded Roy. "If I am satisfied with his story, I'm sure you ought to be. Willis is all right. The minute he learned that I wasn't Rowe Shelly, he woke me up in the middle of the night, put me into a boat with two good men to row it, and sent me over to the city. He was as anxious to be rid of me as I was to find you. Now see if you can't treat him decently when he comes back."
How Willis would have hugged himself if he could have heard Roy Sheldon say this! There was not the faintest suspicion in the boy's mind that the superintendent had been guilty of treachery, and that he had sent him on board the White Squall intending that he should be "shanghaied" and carried so far away from America that he would not get back for six months or a year. If Roy had mistrusted that there was anything wrong, his
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 fears on that score would have vanished when he saw Bob and Tony driven forward to do duty before the mast, and their boat given up to the mercy of the waves. He thought they had unwittingly brought themselves and him into serious trouble. That was all there was of it.
I never heard just how Willis went to work to put himself on a friendly footing with the detective, but my impression is that he told him the whole truth, and offered Babcock a bonus if he would back up anything he might say in the hearing of Roy and his friends. At all events that was what the detective did. When he entered the reading-room he took a photograph from his pocket, and after spending a minute or two in comparing it with the face of the boy before him, he stepped up and handed it to Roy.
"So that's the way I look when I haven't a black eye and a lame arm, is it?" said the latter, as his gaze rested on the picture. "I know something now I never knew before."
"What is it?" asked Joe.
"That I am the handsomest and most
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 stylish looking chap in our party," replied Roy.
"We haven't time for any more nonsense of that sort," said Arthur. "Mr. Babcock, our missing friend has turned up, as you see, and so we shall not be obliged to go to the island. How much do we owe you?"
"Not a red cent," said the detective, who was glad indeed that his mistake and Willis's seemed in a fair way to straighten itself out, and that he wasn't going to get into difficulty through the blunder he had made the night before. "I am heartily sorry that I caused you and your friend so much trouble and anxiety."
"But he did his best to undo it," chimed in Willis. "He went over to the island and told me to set the boy ashore as soon as I could, and give him a guide to show him to his hotel, and that was the way I came to send him off in the boat that was caught in the storm. I might have waited until morning, but Roy wouldn't hear of it."
"Of course not," assented Roy. "I wanted to see my friends and relieve their suspense."
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"I guess we have asked questions enough for the present," said Arthur, who was impatient to know how Roy came to have those black eyes, "and now we'd like to have you tell us why you didn't come ashore in better shape, when you had a boat and two good men to manage it for you."
Roy's story was none the less interesting because it had been so long delayed. I have told you how he left the island without opportunity to shout his adieu to the superintendent, even if he had thought of it; but he didn't. The waves made a fearful noise as they broke upon the beach, and came with such force that Bob and Tony were obliged to wade in until the water reached to their waists before they could launch the boat and ship the oars. By the time this had been done, darkness closed down upon them and shut the island from view.
When they got out from under the cliffs where the wind had a fair sweep, the way the boat began to pitch and toss about was alarming, and Roy lived in momentary expectation of seeing her come about and start back
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 for the island. But he was a canoeist instead of a deep-water sailor, and perhaps that was the reason he was frightened. For he was frightened, as he was afterwards free to confess; more so than he would have been if he could have had a hand in the management of the boat. But there were only two oars, and no rudder to steer by, and all Roy could do was to sit still in the stern-sheets and wish the trip was at an end.
"What are you holding so far to the right for?" Roy demanded at length, shouting at the top of his voice in order to make himself heard. "The city is off there, more to the left."
"There's a hack-stand where we are headin' for," came a hoarse voice, in reply, "and there you can get a carriage to take you straight to your hotel. More'n that, we dassent run afore the waves with only two oars, for fear that one of 'em will come in over the starn an' sink us. We have to run kinder criss-cross of 'em."
"But you don't take them quartering," protested Roy. "You are holding so that they
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 strike almost broadside. I'd rather you'd round to and go back. That's what Mr. Willis told you to do in case you found the wind and sea too heavy for you."
"I'd like mighty well to do it," Tony made answer, "but I dassent. Now that we've got this fur, we've got to go on. If we should turn around the sea woul............