Each piece of canvas covered some stolen object from a boat or a boathouse. Here there was a clock, there a sextant, there a binnacle, under another cover a compass and in a corner a telescope. There must have been almost a hundred pieces of ships’ goods there, and Jim’s clock was there, too.
“So,” decided Don, “this is where they store the stuff and then afterward they run it down the shore and sell it to cheap ship chandlers. No wonder they were never caught. It was easy for them to run out here and hide the stuff, and no one thought that they were so near home.”
He was trying to make up his mind just what to do when a sound outside startled him. Someone was walking around, and had gone into the room where he had been confined. With a swift movement Don blew out the light and waited, his heart pounding furiously. He knew that if they caught him in that room his life might be in grave danger, for they would realize that he controlled their secret.
The man in the room uttered a startled cry and then ran from the room. Don heard him running about the house, and then he heard other voices raised in excited talking. He also heard Jim fall through the porch, without knowing what it was, however. But when he heard a patter of feet returning to the room above he knew that he must seek safety at once.
His first impulse was to leave the storage room, but on second thought he dismissed it. Out in the dark cellar he would be at a distinct loss, and he dared not go out there with a light. No, he remembered that there was some extra canvas piled on the floor at the end of the storage room, and it was under this that he hid himself, hoping against hope that he was fully concealed.
He heard the man drop through the opening that he had made earlier in the evening and he could follow his progress as the man cautiously made his way around the cellar. It was not long before he heard the iron door open and a light, evidently from a lantern, flashed into the storage room.
From a split in the canvas Don could gain a fairly good view of what was going on. He saw the shaggy individual that Jim had seen come into the room and look about him carefully. Don could not understand why Benito and Frank were not with this man. Sizing him up, Don felt quite capable of handling him if it became necessary for him to try, but he hoped that it would not. Meanwhile, the man looked in each corner of the room, ducking his lantern down into the dark places.
At last, apparently satisfied that Don was not in there, the man turned and started for the steps. But as his foot touched the first one he paused and looked fully at the canvas under which Don lay. There was something burning in his glance, and Don felt his skin grow tight. Then, placing the lantern on the lowest step, the man headed straight for the heap of canvas.
Don gritted his teeth and clinched his fists, prepared to carry his adversary off of his feet in the first rush. But just as the man was about to lean down to pick up a strip of the covering Benito’s voice hailed him from above.
“Hey! Did you find that kid?”