“I’ve come to say good-bye,” he explained to Bob 176 and Frank. “I have to go back to the city, and Hampton is going to motor me to the railway. I can’t thank you fellows enough for your part in this affair. If it hadn’t been for your perspicacity, in the first place, we might not have gotten wind of what was going on. And the way you all fought and acted on your own initiative time and again when we were in trouble was fine, indeed.”
“You’ve got to come down again, Captain,” said big Bob, on whom the other had made a favorable impression.
“I’d be delighted to do so, sometime,” Captain Folsom replied.
“By the way, Captain,” interposed Frank, “keep us posted, will you, on how this affair turns out? Let us know if Higginbotham is located.”
“I’ll do that,” the other promised. “Well, good-bye.”
And bowing to the girls, he crossed the lawn to Jack’s side and the two swung down the drive to where Jack had left the car parked by the side of the main road at the gate.
On Jack’s return, he informed his chums that the liquor at the Brownell place had been removed to the Nark, the captives placed aboard, and that then Lieutenant Summers had steamed away, leaving a detail of men on guard at the house and the radio plant 177 to round up any of the smugglers who, thinking the place deserted, might straggle back.
“He gave me a bit of advice to be passed on to you fellows,” Jack added, out of hearing of the girls. “That was, to go about armed for a time, and to be on guard.”
“Why?” asked Bob, in surprise.
“Well,” Jack replied, “he said some of those fellows who escaped into the woods undoubtedly would have it in for us for having spoiled their plans, and that it was barely possible they might have learned where we live and might try to waylay us. He pointed out the men were a desperate lot, and that some of them were Italians who are notoriously revengeful.”