me. They'll have discovered the kid has gone by this time and the
alarm will be spread broadcast."

"I thought, when he yelled like that last night, we were goners sure,"
remarked Jack, scowling at the recollection. "It's a good thing those
kids sleep as hard as they do, or we'd have been in a tight fix."

"Oh, well, no good going back to that now," dissented Bill. "How was
the young cub when you left him, Hank?" he asked abruptly.

"Oh, he'd got through crying, and was lying nice and quiet on his
bunk," remarked Hank, with an amiable chuckle, as though he had just
performed some praiseworthy act, instead of having left little Joe
Digby locked in a deserted bungalow on an island some little distance
from the one on which the conversation related above was taking place.

"Well, that's good," said Bill; "although crying, or yelling, either,
won't do him much good on that island. He could yell for a week and no
one would hear him."

"No; the water's too shallow for any motor boats to get up there,"
agreed Hank. "I had a hard job getting through the channel in the
rowboat, even at high water."

"Is the house good and tight?" was Jack's next question.

"Tight--tight as the Tombs," was Hank's answer, the simile being an apt
one for him to use. "The door has that big bolt on the outside that I
put on, besides the lock, of which I carried away the key, and the
shutters are all nailed up. No danger of his getting away till we want
him to!"

"Couldn't be better," grinned Jack approvingly. "Now, here's the
letter. Tell me what you think of it?"

Opening the sheet of paper, the bully read aloud as follows:

"MR. AND MRS. DIGBY:

"Your son is safe and in good hands. I alone know where the men who
stole him have taken him. But I am a poor man, and think that the
information should be worth something to you. Suppose you place two
hundred dollars under the signpost at the Montauk crossroads to-night.
I will call and get it if you will mark the spot at which you place it
with a rock. Look under the same rock in the morning and you will find
directions how to get your boy back.

CAPTAIN NEMO."

"What do you think of that?" inquired Jack complacently, as he
concluded the reading of his epistle.

"A bee-yoo-tiful piece of composition," said Hank approvingly, with one
of his throaty chuckles; "the only thing is--who is Captain Nemo?"

"Why, so far as delivering the letter and getting the money is
concerned,