Lieutenant Summers’s face grew red. Captain Folsom’s eyes twinkled, and the boys saw one of the Nark’s crew, an old salt, put up a big palm to hide a smile.
“The old shellback has our skipper,” whispered Captain Folsom to the boys. “He has him on the hip. We are outside the three-mile limit, undoubtedly. To think of the old Yankee’s spunk in telling us he has liquor aboard. His papers will be as he says, 205 too, but just the same that liquor will never reach St. John. It is destined for a landing on our own coast.”
Lieutenant Summers also was of the opinion apparently that he had been foiled. And little as he relished the fact that the old skipper was laughing at him up his sleeve, there was naught he could do about it. However, he decided to pay a visit to the “Molly M,” for he called:
“Stand by to receive a boat. I am coming aboard.”
Presently, the boys saw the little boat dancing over the waves, then Lieutenant Summers climbed to the deck of the schooner, and he and the old skipper disappeared together down the companionway.
Awaiting his return, Captain Folsom enlightened the boys about the difficulties of preventing liquor from being smuggled into the country.
“As you can see from this instance,” he said, “the traffic is carried on openly, or under only a thin coating of camouflage. That boat fully intends, no doubt, to land its cargo along our coast somewhere. But her papers are all in order and as long as she stays outside the three-mile limit we can do nothing about it. Of course, we can hang to her heels and prevent her from landing. But while we are doing that, other smugglers slip ashore somewhere else. It’s a weary business to try and enforce such a law 206 at first. And, what makes it harder,” he concluded, his brow clouding, “is that every now and then some member of the enforcement service sells out to the liquor ring, and then the rest of us who are doing our work honestly and as best we can are given a black eye, for everybody says: ‘Ah, yes, they’re all crooks. I thought so.’
“But here,” he said, “is Lieutenant Summers returning. Now we shall see what he found out.”
The old skipper and the naval officer appeared on the schooner’s deck, Lieutenant Summers went overside, and the boat returned with him. Once more the schooner put on sail, and began to draw away. When he reached the deck, Lieutenant Summers sent a sailor to summon Captain Folsom and the boys below. They joined him in the cabin.
“I have news for you boys,” said Lieutenant Summers, at once. “Captain Woolley of the ‘Molly M’ proved to be a pretty smooth article,” and he smiled wryly, “but from a member of his crew, one of my men learned that a speed boat answering the description of your stolen craft had been seen alongside a sub chaser manned by a crew in naval uniform off Atlantic Highlands on the Jersey coast.”