But he, recovering his self-possession, replied coolly
enough, "I was just a-keeping watch so they wouldn't steal--I kept them
from running off with the quadrant."
"Keeping watch so _nobody'd_ steal, I suppose," said Roger.
"Yes, sir! Yes, sir! That's it exactly."
Suddenly my mind leaped back to the night when Bill Hayden had died, and
the man from Boston had made that cryptic remark, to which I called
attention long since. "He said he could tell something, Roger," I burst
out. But Roger silenced me with a glance.
Turning on the fellow again, he said, "If I find that you are lying to me,
I'll shoot you where you stand. What do you know about who killed Captain
Whidden?"
For once the fellow was taken completely off his guard. He glanced around
as if he wished to run away, but there was no escape. He saw only hostile
faces.
"What do you know about who killed Captain Whidden?"
"Mr. Kipping killed him," the fellow gasped, startled out of whatever
reticence he may have intended to maintain. "Yes, sir! Yes, sir!"
"Do you expect me to believe that Kipping shot the captain? If you lie to
me--" Roger drew his pistol. By eyes and voice he held the man in a
hypnosis of terror.
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