"Sweating" the Prisoner
It was now supper time, but nobody except the Canadian officer was hungry
enough to think of eating. The latter, being a disinterested party, save
as one commissioned with the duty of enforcing the law, had not diverted
to a subject of absorbing interest the energies that ordinarily create a
human appetite, hence he was normally hungry. Moreover, he was a man of
good physical proportions and organic development, and consequently
hunger with him meant a good plateful, or dissatisfaction.
This officer, who was introduced by Mr. Perry as Mr. Harrison Buckley,
seemed to take no interest in his mission until he saw the evening meal
in course of preparation in real kitchen-like manner; then he took the
prisoner in charge and proceeded to "sweat" him in the approved style of
a police captain's private office. The prisoner squirmed about for a
time, successfully evading the inquisitorial probe aimed at him, but at
last he "confessed" as to his name and address. He said that his name was
Grant Howard and that his residence was at Gananoque, Ontario. Then a
call to supper was issued and the composite aggregation of humans
gathered around the table, which was never intended to accommodate quite
so many guests.
However, with the exercise of due ingenuity, the supper was properly
disposed of with the unexpected discovery of more appetite than was
originally expected. Max Handy proved to be a healthy eater and the
savory smell of juicy broiled steak from the Catwhisker's refrigerator,
loosened even the nervous tension of Mr. Baker's worry over the fate of
his son, so that he was able to do fair justice to the cooking of Cub,
Hal, and Bud, who had full and joint charge of the preparation of the
gastronomic spread.
After the meal the four boys cleared the table and washed and wiped the
dishes, while the three men joined forces in the continued "sweating" of
the prisoner. The latter adhered stubbornly to his earlier "confession"
as to what he and his three companions had done with Mr. Baker's son, but
failed to make a satisfactory statement as to his own business and the
use to which he and his friends had put "their island possession". To the
question as to the character of his business, he replied, after some
hesitation:
"I work in a store."
"What kind of store?" asked Mr. Buckley.
"A grocery store."
"What do you do there?"
"I clerk."
"What was the price of butter the last day you worked?" asked the
inquisitor so quickly and sharply that the victim of the thrust actually
turned pale, in spite of a strong front of bravado. But he made a brave
enough effort to get over the hurdle.
"Twenty-nine cents."
"A pound?" asked Mr. Buckley.
"Yes," replied the prisoner.
"What did you sell butter at a loss for?" the inquisitor demanded. "It
hasn't been down that low anywhere that I know of since the war."
"I meant butterine," "corrected" the "sweat subject" hurriedly.
"Well, you've hit it about right, by accident, of course. Now, let's see
if you know anything more about grocery business. What did you sell eggs
and potatoes for the last day you worked?"
"I didn't sell any."
"All you sold was butter?"
"Yes."
"You mean butterine, don't you?"
"No, I sold butter and butterine and a few other things."
"And buttermilk and cheese," the officer amended.
No answer.
"How much did you charge for butter?"
"Fifty cents a pound," the prisoner replied, desperately or doggedly, it
was difficult to determine which.
"Do you know that butter is selling now for thirty-nine or forty
cents a pound?"
"Then it's come down."
"No, it hasn't. It's been around forty cents a pound for several months."
The prisoner fixed his eyes on the ground and said nothing.
"The trouble is, you haven't done your wife's grocery shopping, or you
could tell a more plausible string of lies," Mr. Buckley commented. "Now,
let me tell you this: It's been a long time since you saw the inside of a
grocery store."
"If you don't want to believe me, it's up to you," snarled the prisoner.
"Now, Mr. Howard," the inquisitor continued, "your friends, I am told,
addressed you as Captain. Why was that?"
This query stimulated a little brilliance in the fellow.
"I run a grocery boat on the river," he said. "I don't do much clerking,
but supply groceries to several stores from a wholesale house."
"So that is your explanation for not being very familiar with retail
prices, is it?" Mr. Buckley inferred.
"Yes."
"Well," the Government "sweater" went on, "your story doesn't hang
together very well."
"You don't want it to hang together," the prisoner snapped. "You're here
to make me out a liar. You don't want the truth. You haven't got no right
to keep me here."
"He claimed the rights of a citizen of the United States and defied us to
interfere with him," interposed Mr. Baker, who, together with Mr. Perry,
had been listening eagerly to this quizzing process.
"How's that?" Mr. Buckley demanded.
"Why, Mr. Perry's son and I pulled guns on him and his three
companions, when they threatened us with clubs, and this fellow pointed
out what he said was the international boundary line between them and
us and defied us to cross over and capture them. I made my bull-dog
look at him squarely in the eye and hypnotized him over onto this side
of the boundary line between the United States and Canada and made a
prisoner of him."
"Where is that international boundary line?" Mr. Buckley asked.
"Right here," Mr. Baker replied, rising from his camp chair and walking
about fifteen feet to the stake that the prisoner had designated as
indicating the line beyond which any hostile advance must be regarded as
a foreign invasion.
"Who put that stake there?" he inquired, shifting his penetrating glance
from one to another of the three men before him.
"I don't know," replied Mr. Perry and Mr. Baker almost in one breath.
The prisoner said nothing, and Mr. Baker spoke for him as follows:
"If this fellow would answer, I presume the only statement he could make
is that it was put there by surveyors of the Canadian and United States
Governments."
"Humph! Funny surveyor's stake, isn't it?" grunted the Canadian officer,
"Methinks we shan't go much farther to prove this fellow a fabricator of
fairy tales. So that's the international boundary line, is it?" he asked,
eyeing the prisoner keenly.
"I was told it was; that's all I know about it," the latter
replied sullenly.
"Well that was a lucky reply if you intend to persist in your policy of
evasion," Mr. Buckley declared. "I was about to denounce you as an
illustrious liar. The boundary line between the United States and Canada
along here, my dear sir, doesn't cut islands in two. If you will examine
a map or chart of the Lake of the Thousand Islands, you will see that the
boundary line winds like a snake, dodging the islands through its entire
course in this part of the St. Lawrence river."
"It was foolish of me to swallow such a yarn as that," said Mr. Baker.
"But I called his bluff good and strong. However, I'm much relieved to
discover that my credulity was imposed upon; otherwise I might be accused
of trying to drag the United States and Canada into war."
All of his auditors, except the prisoner, smiled at this remark. The
boys, who had just finished washing the dishes, joined the inquisition
group in time to hear Mr. Buckley's last statement and Mr. Baker's
"confession of folly."
"I think we have got as much out of this man as we may hope to get at the
present time," the officer announced a moment later. "I think I had
better take him back with me and you had better come along, Mr. Baker,
and swear out a warrant charging him with kidnapping."
"That's exactly what I'm going to do if my son is not returned to me
to-night or early in the morning," answered the man thus addressed. "I
suppose you have no objection to remaining here over night."
"Oh, no; it'll be easier to take care of the prisoner here over night
than to work overtime, going back at night, and jail him. But we'll have
to keep careful watch over him to-night and see that he doesn't escape."
"Maybe we'd better lock him up in one of the staterooms of the yacht,"
Mr. Perry suggested.
"Yes, and keep a good watch over him all night," Cub put in. "We want
to make sure those three friends of his don't come back after dark and
let 'im out"
"I'll watch with Mr. Buckley," Mr. Baker volunteered. "We're both armed
and I don't think there's any chance of our being taken by surprise."
"We'll watch in two-hour shifts," Mr. Buckley proposed. "In that way
we'll keep fresh and on the alert, so that there'll be less danger of
being taken by surprise."
"Very well, that's agreed upon, if it's satisfactory to Mr. Perry," the
officer announced.
Further attempts to get information out of the prisoner, bearing on the
whereabouts of the place of concealment of Mr. Baker's son, were
unavailing, and at last they separated into two parties for the night,
Mr. Buckley and Mr. Baker taking charge of the prisoner on board the
Catwhisker and Mr. Perry and the boys distributing the sleeping quarters
among themselves in the camp.
But before the latter retired a new radio thrill was added to their
adventures.