For five miles the drab seventy-footer kept her lead, though she did not seem able to increase it. That craft was still heading shoreward, and now the low, long, hazy line of the coast was in sight, becoming every minute more plain.
“They’re going to head straight for the shore, unless they’ve some slicker trick hidden up their sleeves,” declared Tom Halstead.
“I wonder that they’re running so hard from us,” mused Powell Seaton.
“Most likely, sir,” responded the young skipper, “because Dalton and Lemly believe we have officers aboard. Of course they know—or suspect—that warrants are out charging them with stealing the ‘Restless’ the other night.”
“Suppose Dalton and Lemly are not aboard that boat?” challenged Mr. Seaton, suddenly.
Tom Halstead’s lower jaw sagged for just an instant.
“Of course, there’s that chance. We may have been fooled, and we may be chasing a straw man in a paper boat right at this minute, sir. Yet, if Dalton were out on the water, with his stolen papers, he’d want to get nowhere else but to Brazil. If he isn’t on the water, then he’s 131 not trying this route to your Brazilian enemies, and we might as well be out here as on Lonely Island.”
As the boat in the lead neared the coast Halstead again kept the marine glass to his eyes.
“There’s a little river over yonder,” he observed.
“Yes; I know the stream. Hardly more than a creek,” replied Mr. Seaton.