“Tell us all about it, Tom—the whole story. There’s plenty of time. It won’t be ‘good and dark,’ as criminals reckon such things, for nearly two hours yet. Begin at the beginning.”
“There isn’t any story in it,” said Tom, “but I’ll tell you what I did. When I climbed to the top of the lookout tree, I saw first of all that our game was still there. But I noticed that some of them—all that weren’t drunk, I suppose—were busy. I couldn’t make out at that distance what they were doing, but I thought they seemed to be carrying things, not down to the cove where we saw them land the other night, but over toward our creek, as we call it. I tried to see their landing place there, but couldn’t.
“Of course I had already found out all you wanted to know, but I wanted to know something more. My curiosity was aroused, and I determined to gratify it. So, sliding down, I made my way to my old hiding place in the thicket near their camp. Then I saw what they were at. They were taking the cigars and rum out of the little hovels they use as caches, and carrying them over to their landing on the creek. I wondered why, but I could not see the landing, so I had to let that remain as an ‘unexplored region,’ for the time being at least.
“Presently the gentleman of the impaired locomotor attachments made a final visit to the hut that stood nearest me—the one I had myself entered on a previous occasion. As he came out and passed the boss bully, he said:
“‘That’s all they is in there.’
“‘Well, I’ll look and see for myself,’ said the boss, seeming to doubt the veracity of his follower. He went into the hut and presently came out, muttering:
“‘Well, he told the truth for once—I didn’t ’spose he knew how.’
“As he walked away from the empty hovel it occurred to me that I might find it a safer point of observation than the one I had. So I slipped into it, and dug out one of the chinks in the log wall, to make a peep hole. It was then that I saw the boss making a football of his follower and heard him say what he did about getting the boats away.
“That still further stimulated my curiosity. I wanted to see how nearly the boats were loaded, and the sort of landing place they had, and all the rest of it. So I determined to go over that way. It was slow work, of course. The undergrowth was terribly tangled, and then the smugglers were passing back and forth with their loads. As their path was often very near me, I had to stop and lie down whenever I saw any of them approaching.
“I got down there at last and saw the boats. They were partly loaded, but most of the freight was still on the bank. I suppose that was because they wanted to get all the things there before bestowing them. All the rum kegs that had been brought down were in the boats, while all the cigars were piled on the banks.