Jack almost ceased to breathe, so intensely interested was he in watching the advance of the revenue man. It was a case of diamond cut diamond, apparently, and victory would go to the keener mind.
Now the agent was crawling over the stern, and evidently getting in readiness to suddenly swoop his arm down, with fingers extended, to clutch anything he might come in contact with there.
He made the movement with a celerity that reminded Jack of the swoop of a hawk on a pigeon. And apparently he must have gauged his action nicely; for immediately there arose a yell, and a threshing of the water followed; while the agent held on desperately, calling to the others for assistance.
Two hands were seen to clutch the brass rail; and then a head came into view.
“No need to yank my hair out; I’m coming aboard all right, Carson!” gasped the exhausted swimmer; but the government agent evidently looked upon him as a slippery customer, for he declined to release his clutch until the man had been pulled wholly into the boat, and stretched on his back in the bottom.
Jack felt a queer chill when he heard something “click,” and realized that for the first time in all his life he saw a prisoner hand-cuffed. But Glenwood did not appear to be very much cast down. He had faced this situation a long time, and evidently discounted all its terrors. He even laughed as soon as he got his breath.
“It was some fun while it lasted, Carson,” he said.
“And you came near playing it on me for good,” replied the other, laughing in his turn. “I only fell to your smart trick by accident. Seemed to me I felt something bump against the side of the boat, when none of us chanced to be moving. And then I figured what I would do myself in a similar case. That was how I came to hit on your game, Glenwood.”
“How about my friends; did they get away?” asked the other.
“George,” the agent went on, “turn around, and we’ll head back; if you’re in doubt I can tell you just where we’ll find the other boat, first of all, and then the island where your comrades are waiting.”
“Neither of them took the dare you set, Glenwood; and we got the upper hand of both in short order. Besides, there are three chaps with their legs tied up, on the island.”