The men the scouts were trailing struck into a lively pace. They seemed to be conversing earnestly. Through the shadows the two boys crept along behind them. Presently they were traversing a residence street, edged with elms and lawns and white picket fences. It was deserted and silent. The occupants of the houses were wrapped in sleep.
"Maybe they're going to turn into one of these houses," whispered Hiram.
But the men didn't. Instead, they kept right on, and before long the last electric light had been passed and they were in the open country.
"Hadn't we better turn back?" murmured Hiram. "It looks as if we were going too far for safety."
"Let's keep on," urged Tubby. "There's no danger. If we gave up the chase now we'd have had all our work for nothing."
Hiram made no reply, and the two boys, taking advantage of every bit of cover--as the game of "Hare and Hounds" had taught them--kept right on dogging the footsteps of their quarry. All at once Tubby began sniffing the air.
"We're getting near the sea," he proclaimed. "I can smell the salt meadows."
Aquebogue lay some distance back from the open waters of the ocean. It was situated, like Hampton itself, on an inlet. In the dim light of the stars, the two boys presently perceived that they were traversing a sort of dyke or raised road leading across the marshes.
"Where can they be going?" wondered Hiram.
"Don't know. But there are lots of fishermen's huts and shacks dotted about in the marshes. Maybe they are making for one of them."
"Maybe," opined Hiram, "but if you weren't so all-sot on following them, I'd be in a good mind to turn back."
"Not yet," persisted Tubby, and the chase continued.
But it was soon to end. All at once the faint glimmer of a watercourse, or inlet from the sea, shone dimly in front of them. Upreared, too, against the star-spangled sky, they could see the inky outlines of a structure of some kind.
"Crouch down here," said Tubby suddenly, as the men ahead of them came to a halt.
A bunch of marsh grass offered a convenient hiding place, and behind it the two boys lay flat. Pretty soon they heard the scratch of a match, and then the grating of a lock, as the door of the dark building they had remarked was opened. The men entered the place and slammed the door to. A few instants later, from the solitary window of the shack, a light shone out. The window was toward the creek, and the glare from it showed the two watching boys the mast and rigging of a large sloop. At least, from her spars, they judged her to be of considerable size.