TOM DISCOVERS THINGS

By advice of the lieutenant, the boys left their shotguns on board the cutter and carried instead the short, hard-shooting repeating rifles that he furnished them. Armed in this way, each could fire many shots in rapid succession, instead of the two which alone their shotguns permitted.

“We can defend ourselves now if the gang discovers and assails us,” said Larry, with a satisfied smile. “With these guns we’re a good deal more than a match for those ten smugglers armed as they are with nothing better than pistols. By the way, Tom, what’s the plan of campaign?”

“That’s for you to say,” Tom answered. “You’re the captain.”

“Not a bit of it this time,” responded Larry. “This is your expedition and you must manage it in your own way.”

“That’s only fair,” said Dick. “Tom has undertaken to go ashore, find out certain facts and report them. We’re here to help him in any way he wishes, but he is responsible for results and must choose his own methods.”

“I congratulate you, Dick, on having another lucid interval,” broke in Cal, who could never endure seriousness for long. “‘Pon my word, they’re growing more and more frequent and by the time we get back to Charleston we’ll have to discharge you as ‘cured.’”

“Stop your nonsense, Cal,” said Larry, “and let Tom give us our instructions.”

“Fortunately, I’m under no sort of obligation to stop my nonsense at your command, Larry, as by your own voluntary declaration you’re not captain of this special trip ashore, and Tom is.”

“All right,” said Tom, laughing. “I’ll give the order myself. Stop your nonsense till I get through mine—for I dare say you’ll all think my plan is nonsensical.”

“All right as to that,” said Larry, “but what is your plan? It doesn’t matter what we think of it.”

“Well, then, my notion is not to pull the Hunkydory up on shore, but to anchor her at our old landing, so that we can handle her quickly in case of need. Two of you are to stay by her—that will be you and Dick, Larry. If we should be discovered, and those rascals should want to catch us, their first effort would be to get possession of our boat and put us into a trap. So you two will stay with the dory, and if you are in trouble, Cal and I will come to your assistance as fast as our legs can carry us. Cal will go with me to the lookout tree and stay there while I creep down to the lair of the thieves. If I get into trouble he’ll know it and signal you by firing one shot. Then, of course, you’ll all come to my support. How does that strike you as a plan, Larry?”

“A Lee or a Grant couldn’t make a better one. Here we are at the mouth of the creek.”

“Isn’t it ridiculous?” asked Cal, as they turned into the inlet.

“Isn’t what ridiculous—the creek, or its mouth, or what?” Tom responded.

“Why, the way things keep turning themselves around. First, the gentleman with the impaired walking apparatus, representing the smugglers, mistook us for officers or agents of the revenue, and sought to make prisoners of us by getting possession of our boat, so that we had to disarm him in self-defense. Next, the officers of the revenue mistook us for the smugglers and we had to defend ourselves against them. Now we are helping our later assailants to capture our foes of an earlier date. Wonder if we shall presently have to join the smugglers and assist them against the revenue people?”

“That last question answers itself, Cal,” said Tom; “and if it didn’t, there’s no time to discuss it now, for here we are at the landing. Run her head to the shore, fellows, and let Cal and me jump out. Then back her out a little way and anchor her. I leave you in charge of the ship in my absence, Lieutenant Larry. You have your instructions; see that you obey them to the letter.”

With footsteps quickened by eager interest, Tom and Cal were not long in making the journey to the lookout tree. Tom climbed it to the top and very carefully studied what lay before him. Cal, who was watching him, observed that he seemed specially interested by something over to the left where the creek lay, and perhaps a little puzzled by it. But he asked no questions as Tom hurried from the tree-top and set off down the blind trail.

He was gone for so long a time—nearly two hours—that Cal became very uneasy about him, but at last he came out of the thicket and set off toward the dory’s anchorage at as rapid a trot as the nature of the ground would permit. He said nothing to Cal except the three words: “We must hurry,” and as he neared the landing, he called out:

“Up anchor, quick.”

Then as the boat was moved toward the shore he impatiently waded out to meet her in water leg-length deep. Cal followed, though he did not know the cause of Tom’s hurry.

“Are they after us?” asked Larry and Dick, both speaking at once.

“No. But we must hurry or it’ll be too late.”

In response Larry shipped his oars as the mouth of the creek was passed and, with Dick’s assistance, stepped the mast, hoisted sail and let the sheet run out until the boom was almost at right angles with the keel.

“There’s a stiff wind,” he said by way of explanation, “and it’s almost exactly astern. We can make better time with the sails. Here, Dick, you’re the best sailor; take the helm and get all you can out of the breeze.”

“Don’t hug the port rail so close,” Dick ordered; “trim toward the kelson and let her heel over to starboard; there, that will do; she makes her best running with the rail awash.”

As they sped on, nobody asked Tom what the occasion for his hurry was. He seemed still out of breath for one thing, and for another the rush of the dory’s rail through the water made it difficult to hear words spoken in an ordinary tone, for though the wind was steadily freshening, Dick refused to spill even a capful of it. He was sailing now for speed, and he wanted to get all he could out of the wind. But chief among the reasons for not asking questions was the instinctive courtesy of Tom’s comrades. They realized that he had discovered something of importance, and they felt that he ought to have the pleasure of himself reporting it to the commanding officer of the cutter before telling anybody else about it.

In the same spirit, when the dory was laid along the cutter’s side, they held back to let Tom be the first to climb to the deck, where the lieutenant was awaiting him.

Tom’s excitement was gone, now that he had accomplished his purpose of reaching the cutter before dark—a thing he had feared he might not do. His report was made calmly, therefore, and with smiles rippling over his face—smiles of rejoicing over his success, and other smiles, prompted by recollections of what seemed to him the humorous aspects of what he had seen and done.

The report was utterly informal, of course; Tom was not used to military methods.

“They are all there, Lieutenant,” he began, “but they won’t be there long after it grows dark. They’re preparing to leave to-night, as early as they can get the drunken ones among them sober enough to sit on a thwart and hold an oar.”

“How do you know that, Tom?”

“Why, I heard the boss brute say so while he was rousing one of the drunkest of them into semi-consciousness by kicking him in the ribs with force enough to break the whole basket I should think. I won’t repeat his language—it wasn’t fit for publication—but the substance of it was that the victim of his boot blows had ‘got to git a move onto him’ because ‘them boats has got to git away from here jest as soon as it’s good and dark.’”

“Why, were you near enough to hear?”

“Oh, yes. I wasn’t more than ten paces away from the pair at the time that interesting conversation occurred.”

“Tell us all about it, Tom—the whole story. There’s plenty of time. It won’t be ‘good and dark,’ as criminals reckon such things, for nearly two hours yet. Begin at the beginning.”

“There isn’t any story in it,” said Tom, “but I’ll tell you what I did. When I climbed to the top of the lookout tree, I saw first of all that our game was still there. But I noticed that some of them—all that weren’t drunk, I suppose—were busy. I couldn’t make out at that distance what they were doing, but I thought they seemed to be carrying things, not down to the cove where we saw them land the other night, but over toward our creek, as we call it. I tried to see their landing place there, but couldn’t.

“Of course I had already found out all you wanted to know, but I wanted to know something more. My curiosity was aroused, and I determined to gratify it. So, sliding down, I made my way to my old hiding place in the thicket near their camp. Then I saw what they were at. They were taking the cigars and rum out of the little hovels they use as caches, and carrying them over to their landing on the creek. I wondered why, but I could not see the landing, so I had to let that remain as an ‘unexplored region,’ for the time being at least.

“Presently the gentleman of the impaired locomotor attachments made a final visit to the hut that stood nearest me—the one I had myself entered on a previous occasion. As he came out and passed the boss bully, he said:

“‘That’s all they is in there.’

“‘Well, I’ll look and see for myself,’ said the boss, seeming to doubt the veracity of his follower. He went into the hut and presently came out, muttering:

“‘Well, he told the truth for once—I didn’t ’spose he knew how.’

“As he walked away from the empty hovel it occurred to me that I might find it a safer point of observation than the one I had. So I slipped into it, and dug out one of the chinks in the log wall, to make a peep hole. It was then that I saw the boss making a football of his follower and heard him say what he did about getting the boats away.

“That still further stimulated my curiosity. I wanted to see how nearly the boats were loaded, and the sort of landing place they had, and all the rest of it. So I determined to go over that way. It was slow work, of course. The undergrowth was terribly tangled, and then the smugglers were passing back and forth with their loads. As their path was often very near me, I had to stop and lie down whenever I saw any of them approaching.

“I got down there at last and saw the boats. They were partly loaded, but most of the freight was still on the bank. I suppose that was because they wanted to get all the things there before bestowing them. All the rum kegs that had been brought down were in the boats, while all the cigars were piled on the banks.

“I noticed one thing that puzzled me; instead of anchoring the boats and loading them afloat, they had pulled them up on shore. As the tide had begun to ebb, I wondered how they were to get them into the water again after putting their cargoes aboard. However, that was their business and not mine. I had seen all there was to see, so I slowly crept back again till I reached the trail. Then I hurried for fear the quarry would escape before we could get there with your boats.

“That’s all there is to tell.”

The lieutenant smiled his satisfaction as he commended Tom’s exploit, adding:

“We can let it ‘get good and dark’ before pouncing upon them. They won’t get away in a hurry. They’ll have trouble getting their boats afloat again. Indeed, they’ll probably wait for the next flood tide. Anyhow, we won’t leave here till it is thoroughly dark. You’re sure you can find your way into the creeks in the dark? It’s cloudy, and the night promises to be very black.”

“Oh, there’ll be no trouble about that,” answered Cal.