He had not even known until that minute that his late captor was a sheriff, nor could he imagine why he had been arrested.

What he did know was that some one well acquainted with the fact that he had taken a skiff not his own was now searching for it and for him.

This was sufficient to alarm him and fill his mind with visions of arrest, imprisonment, and fines which his father would be compelled to pay.
Then, too, the Captain of this strange craft on which he had just found an asylum, but from which he would already be glad to escape, had declared himself to be a friend of Sheriff Riley, and well acquainted with his boat.

Of course, then, he would gladly aid his friend in recovering his property, and would not hesitate to make a prisoner of the person who had run off with it.

In that case he would be taken back to Dubuque in disgrace, his father would have to be sent for--and who knew where he might be by this time ?--and there would be a long delay that he would probably have to endure in prison.