"You follow the car and the driver," decided Craig, hastily indicating the road by which it had gone. "I'll follow the footprints."
The Secret Service men jumped back into the car and Kennedy and I went along the shore road following the two crooks.
Already the wounded crook, supported by his pal, had made his way down to the water and had come to a long wharf. There, near the land-end, they had a secret hiding-place into which they went. The other crook drew forth a smoke signal and began to prepare it.
Kennedy and I were able, now, to move faster than they. As we came in sight of the wharf, Kennedy paused.
"There they are, two of them," he indicated.
I could just make them out in their hiding-place. The fellow who had stolen the torpedo was by this time so weak from loss of blood that he could hardly hold his head up, while the other hurried to fix-the smoke signal. He happened to glance up, and saw us.
"Come, Red, brace up," he muttered. "They're on our trail."
The wounded man was almost too weak to answer. "I—I can't," he gasped weakly, "You—go." Then, with a great effort, remembering the mission on which he had been sent, he whispered hoarsely, "I hid the second torpedo model in the Dodge house in the bottom of—" He tried hard to finish, but he was too weak. He fell back, dead.
His pal had waited as long as he dared to learn the secret. He jumped up and ran out just as we burst into the hiding-place.
Kennedy dropped down by the dead man and searched him, while I dashed after the other fellow. But I was not so well acquainted with the lay of the land as he and, before I knew it, he had darted into another of his numerous hiding-places. I hunted about, but I had lost the track.