“I’d give a lot to be smart enough to guess what their game is,” whispered Joe, curiously.
“It’s a puzzle,” sighed Captain Tom Halstead. “It looks, now, as though Dalton and Lemly are trying to hold us here while someone else does something on shore.”
“Then you think the two who landed on either bank of the river––”
“We know that neither of them was Dalton or Lemly, but I’m beginning to suspect that one, or both, of those fellows carried messages, somewhere and of some nature. In that case, we’re letting our curiosity hold us up here while the enemy are accomplishing something at some other point.”
“Confound ’em!” growled Joe, prodding the bulwarks with his toe. “They’re clever rascals!”
“Meanwhile,” whispered Tom, “I’ve just been thinking of something else that we ought to be doing.”
“What?”
“There may be another steamship for Rio Janeiro passing somewhere in these waters at any time. We ought to send out a call on the 154 wireless at least once an hour. There’s something else in the wind, old fellow, and we do want to know when the first steam vessel for Rio passes through these waters.”
“Then I’ll go below and get at work at the sending key,” proposed Dawson. “Send out the wireless call once an hour, you say?”
“Yes; yet we don’t want to forget that we’re being watched all the time from that old drab pirate yonder. Don’t let the enemy see you going to the cabin.”