WORD OF A STRANGE CRAFT
Picked up by the boat at Starfish Cove, to which Bob had made his way
without suffering any great inconvenience, the boys were rowed to the
Nark where they were greeted on deck by Captain Folsom and Lieutenant
Summers.
At once the speedy craft got under way again, and was soon edging
seaward yet with the low coast line on her bow, a creaming smother of
water under her forefoot. Lieutenant Summers, after greeting the boys
pleasantly, returned to his duties. Leaning over the rail with them,
Captain Folsom began to speak of the liquor smugglers.
No trace had been found of Higginbotham, he said. Inquiry had been
made at the McKay Realty Company offices, but Mr. McKay who was said
to be out of the city on business, had not yet returned, and nobody
else could be found who could give any information of Higginbotham's
haunts. It was learned he led a bachelor existence and had rooms at a
downtown apartment hotel. The hotel had been visited, but Higginbotham
had not put in an appearance nor called by telephone.
A search warrant had been obtained and the rooms entered and
inspected. But no papers of any sort that would give a clue to
Higginbotham's connections in the liquor traffic were found. A canny
man, he had avoided keeping any such incriminating documents about.
Ryan and the other prisoners had been released on bail, Ryan himself
putting up the bond money which amounted to a large sum.
"If only I could lay my hands on the principals behind this plot,"
said Captain Folsom, thoughtfully. "The liquor smuggling is growing,
and there is every evidence that some organizing genius with a great
deal of money at his command is behind it. The newest manifestation of
the smugglers' activities came the other day when an airplane which
fell into a field near Croton-on-Hudson and was abandoned by the
aviator, who was unhurt, was found to have carried 200 bottles of
expensive Canadian liquor. And a map of the route from an island in
the St. Lawrence near Montreal to Glen Falls, New York, thence to New
York City was found in the cockpit. It was well-thumbed, and showed
the trip must have been made many times of late."
"But, if you do catch the principal, won't that merely result in
curtailing activities of the smugglers for the time being, but not in
putting a permanent stop to them?" asked Frank. "Aren't the profits so
large that somebody else with money, some other organizing genius as
you say, will take up the work?"
"Perhaps, you are right," said Captain Folsom. "This prohibition law
has brought to pass a mighty queer state of affairs in our country. It
is one law that many people feel no compunctions at violating.
Nevertheless, I feel that behind all these liquor violations in and
around New York City to-day there is a man of prominence, someone who
has united most of the small operators under his control, and who
virtually has organized a Liquor Smugglers' Trust.
"If we can land that man," he added, "we will strike a blow that will
deter others for a long time to come from trying to follow his
example. And I have the feeling that the events which you boys
precipitated will lead us to that man--the Man Higher Up."
So interested were the boys in this conversation that they failed to
note the near approach of the Nark to an ancient schooner. They stood
gazing at the creaming water under the bow, caps pulled low over their
eyes to protect them from the sun's glare, and their radius of vision
was strictly limited. Now, however, the speed of the Nark sensibly
diminished until, when they looked up in surprise and gazed around to
see what was occurring, the boys found the Nark practically at a
standstill while a cable's length away rode an ancient schooner,
lumbering along under all sail, to take advantage of the light airs.
"By the ring-tailed caterpillar," exclaimed Frank, employing a quaint
expression current the last term at Harrington Hall, "where did that
caravel of Columbus come from? Why, she's so old you might expect the
Ancient Mariner to peer over her rail. Yes, and there he is."
He pointed at the figure of a whiskered skipper, wearing a dingy
derby, who peered over the rail at this moment in response to a hail
from the Nark.
There was some foundation, in truth, for Frank's suggestion. The old
schooner whose name they now discerned in faded gilt as "Molly M,"
seemed like a ghost of other days. Her outthrust bow, her up-cocked
stern and the figurehead of a simpering woman that might have been
mermaid originally but was now so worn as to make it almost impossible
to tell the original intent, was, indeed, suggestive of galleons of
ancient days. This figurehead jutted out beneath the bowsprit.
"Heh. Heh."
As the skipper of the ancient craft thus responded to the hail from
the Nark, he put a hand to his ear as if hard of hearing.
"Lay to. U. S. patrol boat," returned Lieutenant Summers,
impatiently.
"Evidently our friend believes we have come up with a liquor
smuggler," said Captain Folsom, in an aside, to the boys.
But the old skipper, whose craft was drawing away while the Nark
rocked idly in the swell, with her engines barely turning over, merely
repeated his gesture of putting a hand to his ear, and once more
called:
"Heh. Heh."
Suddenly the deck beneath the feet of the boys quivered slightly,
there was the report of a three-pounder, and a shot fell across the
bow of the old schooner, kicking up a feather of spray. The Ancient
Mariner, as Frank had dubbed him, came to life. He danced up and down
on his deck, where two or three other figures of seamen now appeared.
He shook his fist at the Nark.
"I'm outside the three-mile limit," he screamed. "I'll have the law on
ye."
"He means," explained Captain Folsom to the boys, "that he is beyond
the jurisdiction of United States waters and on the open sea."
Nevertheless, the old skipper barked out an order, sailors sprang to
obey, sails came down, and the schooner lay hove to. Then the Nark
approached until only a boat's length away. On the deck of the
schooner, only the skipper stood. The seamen had gone below, their
tasks completed.
"Look here, my man," said Lieutenant Summers, "you may be outside the
three-mile limit, but you are drawing the line pretty fine. What are
your papers?"
The old skipper looked at him shrewdly, quizzically, from out his
ambush of whiskers. A slow grin broke over his features.
"Ye know well as I we'm outside the three-mile limit," he said. "So I
don't mind tellin' ye. I got liquor aboard. But my papers is all
clear, an' ye can't touch me. I'm from Nassau in the Bahamas for St.
John. Two British possessions. An' I'm on my course."
Lieutenant Summers's face grew red. Captain Folsom's eyes twinkled,
and the boys saw one of the Nark's crew, an old salt, put up a big
palm to hide a smile.
"The old shellback has our skipper," whispered Captain Folsom to the
boys. "He has him on the hip. We are outside the three-mile limit,
undoubtedly. To think of the old Yankee's spunk in telling us he has
liquor aboard. His papers will be as he says, too, but just the same
that liquor will never reach St. John. It is destined for a landing on
our own coast."
Lieutenant Summers also was of the opinion apparently that he had been
foiled. And little as he relished the fact that the old skipper was
laughing at him up his sleeve, there was naught he could do about it.
However, he decided to pay a visit to the "Molly M," for he called:
"Stand by to receive a boat. I am coming aboard."
Presently, the boys saw the little boat dancing over the waves, then
Lieutenant Summers climbed to the deck of the schooner, and he and the
old skipper disappeared together down the companionway.
Awaiting his return, Captain Folsom enlightened the boys about the
difficulties of preventing liquor from being smuggled into the
country.
"As you can see from this instance," he said, "the traffic is carried
on openly, or under only a thin coating of camouflage. That boat fully
intends, no doubt, to land its cargo along our coast somewhere. But
her papers are all in order and as long as she stays outside the
three-mile limit we can do nothing about it. Of course, we can hang to
her heels and prevent her from landing. But while we are doing that,
other smugglers slip ashore somewhere else. It's a weary business to
try and enforce such a law at first. And, what makes it harder," he
concluded, his brow clouding, "is that every now and then some member
of the enforcement service sells out to the liquor ring, and then the
rest of us who are doing our work honestly and as best we can are
given a black eye, for everybody says: 'Ah, yes, they're all crooks. I
thought so.'
"But here," he said, "is Lieutenant Summers returning. Now we shall
see what he found out."
The old skipper and the naval officer appeared on the schooner's deck,
Lieutenant Summers went overside, and the boat returned with him. Once
more the schooner put on sail, and began to draw away. When he reached
the deck, Lieutenant Summers sent a sailor to summon Captain Folsom
and the boys below. They joined him in the cabin.
"I have news for you boys," said Lieutenant Summers, at once. "Captain
Woolley of the 'Molly M' proved to be a pretty smooth article," and he
smiled wryly, "but from a member of his crew, one of my men learned
that a speed boat answering the description of your stolen craft had
been seen alongside a sub chaser manned by a crew in naval uniform off
Atlantic Highlands on the Jersey coast."
"Hurray," cried Frank, "one of your fleet must have recaptured it."
Lieutenant Summers shook his head.
"That's the puzzling thing," he said. "If one of our boats had found
your craft adrift or captured it with the fugitive smugglers aboard, I
would have been notified by radio. You see, the schooner sighted the
sub chaser and motor boat yesterday. This sailor, a talkative chap
apparently, told my man they thought the chaser was a ship of the 'Dry
Navy' and crowded on all canvas to edge away from dangerous company.
Then, he said, they could see these uniformed men aboard the chaser
leaning on the rail and holding their sides from laughing at the
schooner. What it all meant, he didn't know, but at any rate the
chaser made no attempt to pursue."
"And you haven't heard from any of your fleet that our boat was
recovered?" asked Jack, in surprise.
"From none," said Lieutenant Summers. "However, I shall order 'Sparks'
at once to query all the ships."