The man chuckled as he said:
"I thought you would listen to me when I let on what I
know'd."
"Tell me the secret!" commanded the girl.
"Oh, yes, Renie! but I've a condition."
"A condition? What condition would you exact?"
"You must become my wife. There, the thing's out; so now,
what have you got to say?"
"I say, no!"
"That's your decision?"
"That's my decision."
"Be careful, gal. I only asked you to marry a me to give you
a chance; remember you're nobody's child, and I've hooked on
to the secret."
"You're a mean man, Sol Burton, to threaten me!"
"Well, the fact is, Renie, I like you! I'm dead in love with
you, and I'm willing to marry yer, and that's more than most
of the fellows round here would do, knowing all I know."
"Good-night, Sol Burton, I'll not stop to talk with you, nor
will I tell my father that you said insulting words to me."
"What do you suppose I care about Tom Pearce? I can whisper a
few words in his ear that will take some of the starch out of
him! He's been mighty uppish about you, although he's let you
run round the beach barefoot these sixteen years."
"Go talk to Tom Pearce, and do not be the coward to repeat
your threats to me!"
The girl started to move away, when the man suddenly leaped
forward and grasped her in his arms, but the same instant he
received a blow which sent him reeling, as the girl was
snatched from his rude grasp.
A curse fell from the man's lips, and he arose to his feet and
advanced toward the man who had struck him.
"Run home, little girl!" whispered the detective; "I will take
care of this brute!"
"Thank you!" said the girl, and she glided away along the
beach.
"See here, you're the man who struck me?"
"Yes; I'm the man."
"I think I've seen you before."
"I think we've met before."
"What did you hit me for?"
"I struck you because you put your hands rudely upon the
girl."
"Yer did, eh?"
"Yes."
The man leaned toward the detective with the remark:
"Well, it's my turn now!"
And his turn it proved to be, as he received a rap, which
caused him to turn clean over.
Sol Burton was raving mad when he once more regained his feet;
the fellow was an ugly chap, a great bully ashore, and a cruel
heartless man afloat. As he arose he exclaimed:
"All right, you're fixed for me to-night; but my time will
come! I'll get square with you before you're much older!"
Sol Burton turned and walked away a baffled man.
Spencer Vance walked to the point on the beach where he had
stood when the girl had come to him with the strange warning.
The young man was a Government officer, a special detective,
and had been assigned to the collector at the port of New
York to run down an organized gang of smugglers who were known
to be doing a large business off the Long Island coast.
Several detectives had been detailed to work up the matter,
and one after another they had mysteriously disappeared, and
the Government had never succeeded in solving the mystery of
their taking off; and further, none of the officers had ever
been able to locate the head-quarters of the gang.
One fact had been established: large quantities of smuggled
goods had been carried into New York, and each week the
Government was swindled out of thousands of dollars of
revenue; and the illicit traffic had grown to such an extent
that a number of honest merchants had subscribed a large sum
of money which had been placed at the disposal of the
collector to be used as a fund for the breaking up of the
gang, who were ruining regular importers in certain branches
of trade and commerce.
Spencer Vance, although but a young man, had quite a
reputation as a detective. He had done some daring work in
running down a gang of forgers, and in the employ of a State
Government, he had been very successful in breaking up several
gangs of illicit whisky distillers. He was a resolute, cool,
experienced man, an officer who had faced death a hundred
times under the most perilous circumstances. And when
summoned upon the new duty he accepted the position readily.
By methods of his own he got upon the track of the workers;
the men who did the actual work of landing the contraband
goods.
The latter were not the really guilty men. They were not the
principals, the capitalists; but they were the employees who
for large pay ran off the coast, intercepted the steamers
carrying the contraband goods, and landed them within certain
assigned limits.
The men ostensibly were fishermen, and honest people among
whom they associated never "tumbled" to their real calling.