“She’s some freight boat making for Cleveland,” guessed Dick, but even as he spoke, the green starboard light flashed into view and it was evident that the boat had altered her course and headed in shore.
For a time the boys watched the strange craft as it drew steadily nearer, when suddenly her lights winked out, leaving her a black hulk which loomed dimly in the darkness.
“Well, what the deuce does that mean! What is she up to now?” exclaimed Dick.
As if in reply to his question, a long, thin finger of light reached out from the vessel’s bow and played along the shore, not twenty yards from where the boys stood.
“Down! Quick! Don’t let ’em see us!” cried Ned, flinging himself flat upon the sand.
Dick dropped beside him and together they watched with fascinated gaze the small circle of light as it crept toward them along the ground. Nearer and still nearer it came, but just as it seemed about to settle upon them the spot lifted suddenly and touched instead the wall of the house, which it slowly swept from end to end.
“That’s the light we saw Saturday night,” whispered Dick. “A searchlight that shot through the window when you opened the shutter!”
“Yes, and I think I know what they are searching for,” replied Ned in the same low tone. “Look!” and seizing Dick’s arm he pointed to the white mark now clearly illuminated as the circle of light came to rest upon the chimney of the house.
“The ranges!” Dick’s voice rasped in his throat. “She’s picking up the old range marks!”
In a moment the top of the tall whitened stake at the water’s edge was touched by the thin beam of light and it was evident that the mysterious craft was creeping shoreward in line with stake and chimney. And now there occurred something that brought a gasp of astonishment from the two watchers lying prone and motionless upon the sand. A hundred yards or more from shore and just ahead of the oncoming vessel, the quiet surface of the water was suddenly agitated into ripples which silvered as the moon poured its rays through a great ragged break in the clouds and disclosed a small dark shape that seemed to rise from the depths and float upon the surface. Instantly the searchlight was extinguished and the darkened vessel drifting slowly shoreward came to a stop beside the floating object.