"Charles Hansen, Boats Built and Repaired.
All work Promptly Exicutid."
Hansen himself came toddling down the wharf. He was an old man with a rheumatic walk and a stubbly, unshaven chin stained with tobacco juice. A goodly sized "chaw" bulged in his withered cheek.
"Can you repair our boat quickly?" asked Jack, pointing to the hole.
Old Hansen shot a jet of tobacco juice in the direction of the injury.
"Bustitupconsiderable," he remarked.
"What's that?" demanded Billy. "Doesn't he talk English?" and he turned an inquiring glance at Captain Simms, who laughed.
"That's just his way of talking when he's got a mouthful of what he calls 'eatin' tobacco.' He said, 'he is of the opinion that your boat is bust up considerable.'"
"Well, we don't need an expert to tell us that," laughed Jack.
"Doyouwantmetofixit?" inquired the eccentric old man, still running his words together in the same odd way.
"Yes," replied Jack, "can we have her by to-morrow?"
"Haveterseehowbadlyshesbusted," muttered the old man.
"He'll have to see how badly she's busted," translated Jack. "Suppose you take a look at her," he added to the boatman.
"Maybeagoodidee," agreed old Hansen, and he scrambled down into the boat.
"I'llfixherbyto-morrow," he said at last.
The charges, it appeared, would not be more than ten or twelve dollars, which the boys thought reasonable.
"Especially as they won't come out of our pockets," commented Billy.
"Not if I can help it," promised Jack decisively.
"And now," said Captain Simms, "as I happen to have some business at the Pine Island Hotel, I'll run you down there in the Skipjack, as I call my boat."
"That's awfully good of you," said Jack gratefully. "I began to think that we would have to stay ashore here all night."
Before many minutes had passed they were off, leaving old Hansen, with working jaws, examining the hole in the Curlew's side. The Skipjack proved speedy and they made the run back to the hotel in good time, arriving there before sundown. Captain Toby had met Captain Simms after the latter had found the treasure party at the spot where they had unearthed the rich trove. But he proved equally reticent as to the object of his presence at Alexandria as he had been with the boys. He was doing some "special work" for the government, was all that Captain Toby could ascertain.
"There's considerable mystery to all this," said Captain Toby to the boys after Captain Simms had left them to write some letters which, he said, he wished to send ashore by the hotel motor boat that evening.
"It's some sort of secret work for Uncle Sam, I guess," hazarded Jack, "but what it is I've no idea. Anyhow it's none of our business."
The boys little guessed, when Jack made that remark, how very much their business Captain Simms' secret mission was to become in the near future.
CHAPTER V.
NIGHT SIGNALS
After supper Captain Simms suddenly announced that he wished to make a trip to the mainland to the town of Clayton. He wished to send an important telegram to Washington, he explained.
"How are you going?" asked Jack. "The hotel boat has stopped running for the day."
"I know that, but I'll go on the Skipjack. You lads want to come?"
"Do we? I should say we do."
"You lads must be full of springs from the way you're always jumping about," remarked Uncle Toby, with a smile, "but I suppose it's boy nature."
The run to the shore was made quickly. It seemed almost no time at all before they made out the string of lights that marked the pier and the radiance of the brilliantly lit hotel behind them. But as they were landing an unforeseen accident occurred. Mistaking his distance in the darkness, the captain neglected to shut off power soon enough, and the nose of the Skipjack bumped into the pier with great force. At the same time a splintering of wood was heard.
"Gracious, another wreck," exclaimed Jack.
"Wow! What a bump!" cried Noddy.
"Is it a bad smash?" asked Billy anxiously.
The captain was bending over the broken prow of the boat examining it by the white lantern.
"Bad enough to keep us here all night, I'm afraid," he said. "Do you boys mind? It looks to me as if it could soon be repaired in the morning, and the boat will be safe here to-night at any rate."
"It's too bad," exclaimed Jack. "We seem to be regular hoodoos on a boat."
"It was my own fault," said the captain, "but the lights on the pier dazzled me so that I miscalculated my distance."
"Well, it's a good thing no other harm was done," was Billy's comment.
The boat was tied up and the watchman on the dock given some money to keep an eye on it. They engaged rooms at the hotel, and while Captain Simms composed his telegram, the boys took a stroll about the grounds of the hostelry, which sloped down to the bay. They had about passed beyond the radiance of the lights of the hotel when Jack suddenly drew his companions' attention to a figure that was stealing through the darkness hugging a grove of trees. There was something indescribably furtive in the way the man crept along, half crouched and glanced behind him from time to time.
"A burglar?" questioned Billy.
"Some sort of crook I'll bet," exclaimed Noddy.
"He's up to some mischief or I'm much mistaken," said Jack, as he drew his companions back further into a patch of black shadow cast by some ornamental shrubs.
"Let's trail him and see what he's up to," said Noddy.
"Gracious, you're a regular Sherlock Holmes at the drop of the hat," laughed Billy. "What do you think, Jack?"
"I don't know. He's going toward the wharf and I don't see just what he could steal there."
"Look at him stop and glance all around him as if he was afraid of being followed," whispered Billy.
"That doesn't look like an honest man's action, certainly," agreed Jack. "Come on, boys; we'll see what's in the wind. Do you know, somehow I've got an idea that we've seen that fellow somewhere before."
"What gives you that impression?" asked Billy.
"I can't say – it's just a feeling I've got. An instinct I guess you might call it."
The three boys moved forward as stealthily as did the man whose actions had aroused their suspicions. Presently they saw him cut across a small patch of lawn and strike into a narrow path which led among some trees.
With every care to avoid making any noise, the three boys followed. The path led to the edge of a cliff, down the face of which a flight of stone steps ran down to the water's edge. The man descended these.
"What can he be? A smuggler," suggested Billy.
"I don't see any boat down there, if he is," rejoined Jack in low tones.
Suddenly a sharp, low exclamation came from Noddy, who had been looking out over the lake.
He caught Jack's arm and pointed.
"Look, boys, a yacht!" he breathed.
"Heading in this way, too," rejoined Jack. "It looks like – but no, it cannot be."
"Cannot be what?" asked Billy, caught by something in his companion's voice.
"Cannot be the Speedaway."
"Judson's craft, the one that ran us down? Nonsense, you've got Judson on the brain, Jack."
"Have I? Well, it's an odd coincidence, then, that the yacht yonder has a tear in her foresail exactly where our bowsprit