“Yep. I’ll work as fast as I can.”
Bill clambered on to the dock and made off in the direction of the boat yard.
For the next hour Dorothy worked manfully, overhauling the motor sailor. Fierce rays of the noonday sun beat down on the open boat. She was worn out and dizzy, but stuck pluckily to her job, turning out the contents of lockers and investigating every nook and cranny of the smugglers’ craft. Except for an old coat and those odds and ends which accumulate aboard any boat as large as the motor sailor, she found absolutely nothing. Tired and hot and crazy for sleep, she decided to call off this unprofitable search, when Bill’s voice hailed her.
“Hello, there, pardner,” he sang out, stepping aboard. “How are things going?”
Dorothy straightened her back and wiped the perspiration from her forehead with a sodden handkerchief. She noted the deep circles below Bill’s eyes and the tired droop of his shoulders. He looked on the verge of collapse, but his voice still held its hearty ring.
“Not so good, old timer. There isn’t a blessed thing worth while aboard this scow. Finish your business?”
“Reckon so. Got Washington on the phone and the big chief is tickled silly with all we’ve done. Tell you more about it later. Yancy will be recompensed for the Mary Jane and will look after this motor sailor until the government men take her over. I got Lizzie on the wire. She expects your father home tonight.”
“Thanks. Did you get my letter, too?”
“It’s in my pocket. I put the diamonds in a safe deposit box at a bank uptown. And I guess that’s pretty much everything.”
“You look done up, Bill.”