“We are not spies, and we want you to let us alone,” said Jack. “We were trying to find our way from Nantucket to Chatham, and we hit you by mistake. It wouldn’t have happened if you had had a horn blowing. We sounded our own horn every once in a while.”
“Never heard no horn,” declared one of the men. “You can’t put up a job on us! I know your sort! We ought to throw the whole bunch of you overboard!”
It was easy to see that all of the men had been drinking and that several of them were in anything but an amiable mood. There were three small boats and each of them was piled high with boxes of liquor of various brands. Evidently the boxes had come from the three-masted schooner, for the larger vessel rode high and appeared to be empty.
A war of words followed, lasting ten minutes or more. In vain the Rover boys and their chums pleaded that their coming upon the rum-runners had been an accident. One or two of the men seemed willing to believe them, but the majority of the law-breakers were of the opinion that they were spies.
“I’ve spotted a motor boat following us two different nights,” said one of the men. “I’ll bet a new hat this is the same boat. They thought they would spot us with our cargoes and hand us over to the federal agents.”
“It isn’t true! Not a word of it!” said Ralph.
“We want you to let us go. Otherwise you’re going to get yourselves into a lot of trouble,” put in Gif.
These words seemed only to anger the men. They conferred among themselves, and then one of them, the fellow with the scar, came to Ralph.
“You go up on the schooner and talk to Captain Gilsen,” said he. “He’s the fellow to settle this.”
“And the rest of you go up with him,” put in another. “He’ll probably want to talk to every one of you before he lets you go.”