“That means they’re going to ship everything to-night,” whispered Mr. Lawrence.
“When are you going to jump on them?” Halstead asked.
“Not until they get everything on their vessel, and get out on the water. If we showed ourselves now, and tried to arrest the crowd, what could we prove? Sanderson has a perfect right to stack any kinds of merchandise on his pier. But when we overhaul a craft out on the water, loaded down with filibuster’s supplies, and the captain of that craft can show no regular papers for such a cargo, then we have the crowd where we want them.”
It was a dull time waiting, but Inspector Lawrence was right, as a man of his experience was quite likely to be. The time slipped on, with no open move on the part of the law’s people.
“I thought I saw a rocket up north, then,” whispered Tom, at last.
“Watch and see whether there’s another,” replied Lawrence, also in a whisper. But the rocket Tom had seen was the last that Jed had derisively shot after the retreating tug. It wasn’t long, however, before the young motor boat skipper and the United States officers heard the sound of the tug approaching. They lay low, but watched, quietly until the tug had docked at the end of Sanderson’s pier.
“We’ll still have to use patience,” smiled Mr. Lawrence, turning to Tom. “This is going to be a watching game for some time yet.”
By now the gang that had been bringing cases down from the outbuilding all filed out onto the pier. The sounds of brisk but regular loading followed. An hour of this work, monotonous for the hidden watchers, followed, and then another hour. Neither Tom Halstead nor Mr. Lawrence, from their hiding place, could see the cargo piles on the pier very distinctly.
“Halstead,” inquired the inspector, “do you suppose you can safely wriggle nearer, and see how far the loading has gone?”
“I know I can,” Tom answered. “I’ll go slowly about it, and make never a sound, or show myself.”
After a few minutes, in fact, Tom got within seven or eight feet of the pier. He had crawled over the ground, and now lay flat with his head behind the roots of a tree.
From where he lay he could make out Don Emilio Alvarez standing talking with Captain Jonas French. The latter, with a swollen nose and a powder-burned cheek, was telling the gentleman from Honduras all about Prentiss’s remarkable achievement.