“I’ll tell you what you may do for us, Lieutenant, if you are still so minded.”
“Of course I am. I’ll do whatever you suggest. What is it?”
“Why, write a brief letter to Tom and let me have it for delivery after we get away from Beaufort. He’ll cherish that as long as he lives, and you see after all it was Tom who did it all. He first found the smugglers’ camp and investigated it; he made the later reconnoissance on which you acted, and he led the—”
“Say no more,” the lieutenant answered. “I’ll write the letter and give it to you.”
The lieutenant had another thought in mind; he did not mention it; but when at last the boys got back to Charleston, they found a letter awaiting each of them, a letter of thanks and commendation. Those letters were not from the commanding officer of a revenue cutter, but from the Secretary of the Treasury himself, and they were signed by his own hand.
All that occurred later, however. At present the story has to do only with what further adventures the boys encountered in their coast wanderings.
XXV
A SIGNAL OF DISTRESS