"Do you think we got out without being seen?"
Lang shook his head sagely in the darkness.
"Not much of a chance," he answered after a moment. "Couldn't have had a better night, though. But it's mighty hard to slip anything over on the dago. If the fog would lift up it would be even shootin' you'd see one of Mascola's outfit trailin' us astern. We've got him nervous, I tell you."
"It's high time they were getting nervous," Gregory rejoined. "When they try to browbeat American fishermen off the high seas and coastal waters it's time somebody was getting nervous."
He was silent for a moment and Lang as usual only grunted his assent. Then Gregory went on:
"But there's something else that's making them nervous, Lang. Something they are doing around that devil-island. What kinds of laws they're breaking out there nobody knows. They may be doing anything from shooting fish to catching chicken-halibut or baby barracuda. We don't know what. But we do know they're mighty touchy on who cruises round El Diablo. When our boats get around that infernal island something always happens. You know that."
Lang's grunt was emphatic and Gregory concluded:
"That's why it's up to us to find out what it is. It's hard enough to get the fish as it is without Mascola
staking out the water like he owned it and telling us to keep out."
For some time the two men leaned together against the engine-house, each keeping his own counsel, each busied with his own thoughts. Then Gregory spoke: