“What?”
“The schooner, ‘Black Betty,’ has just been seized, thirty miles down the coast, by United States officers. She’ll be held until the customs men have had a chance to look into the charges that the schooner has been used in the smuggling trade.”
“Was Lemly caught with her?” asked Tom, eagerly.
“No such luck,” retorted Joe.
“I’d feel better over hearing that Dave Lemly was the prisoner of the United States Government,” remarked young Halstead. “If he keeps at liberty he is the one who is going to be able to make Anson Dalton dangerous to us.”
“Then you’re beginning to be afraid of that pair, are you?” asked Joe Dawson, looking up.
“No, I’m not,” rejoined Tom Halstead, his jaws firmly set. “A man—or a boy, either for that matter—who can be made afraid of other people isn’t fit to be trusted with the command of a boat on the high seas. But I’ll say this much about my belief concerning Dalton: For some reason we’ve been in his way, and are 89 likely to be much more in his way before we’re through with him. If Dalton got a chance, he wouldn’t hesitate to wreck the ‘Restless,’ or to blow her up. For any work of that sort Dave Lemly is undoubtedly his man.”
“What can make them so desperate against Mr. Seaton?” queried Joe.
“We can’t even guess, for we don’t yet know the story that’s behind all this mystery and the list of desperate deeds.”
“I wonder if Mr. Seaton will ever tell us?” pondered Joe.