“I’ll send out for him,” the sheriff promised, “and in the meantime, we’ll all keep pretty close in the office.”
“That’s a good idea,” suggested Gilmore. “There’s no knowing how many friends the smugglers have in this town. I would suggest, however,” he went on, “that some one go out and look over the two machines.”
“The machines are all right,” the sheriff assured the others. “There are six deputies out there now in charge of Stroup, and he sent in a report not long ago. The crowd has been hustled off the field, and everything out there is as quiet as a prohibition convention.”
“What time ought we to start?” asked Ben, like all boys, eager to be away. “I’m actually getting anxious to be off.”
“We can make the distance in half an hour, if we are obliged to,” replied Havens, “unless I’m greatly mistaken in the location of the promontory. So we ought not to leave here until about midnight.”
“It will be dark as a stack of black cats!” exclaimed Carl looking out of the window at the sky.
“There’s plenty of room above the clouds!” smiled Havens.
“Never thought of that!” exclaimed Ben. “We were above the clouds in Mexico once, but that seems a long time ago now.”
“And there will be a moon about midnight, too,” Gilmore explained, “so we can see everything above the clouds quite distinctly.”
“Huh!” grinned Carl, “we can’t look through the clouds at the schooner and the Chinks, can we?”