Moving through the woods, Halstead was quickly in Nantucket. In a drug store he picked up the telephone directory, scanning the pages until he located “Oceanside, 332.” He could have jumped from sheer excitement. It was the telephone number of the farmer, Sanderson, on the east side of the island. Sanderson was the man who had been receiving so many cases of “machinery” from the mainland.
Slipping out of the drug store, Halstead went swiftly down one of the side streets. He did not want to run any risk of encountering Gambon.
“So the scene shifts back to Sanderson’s?” thought the young skipper excitedly. “Then if Don Emilio’s crowd isn’t there, there must at least be some one there who has authority to telephone orders to Gambon. Whatever those orders are Joe will have to find out—if he can.”
Down at the further end of this side street, as Captain Tom knew, was a shop where a bicycle could be rented. Within two minutes the boy felt the saddle of a wheel under him. He pedaled fast, yet he did not take the principal highway that led past Sanderson’s.
“There’s too much chance of being seen by the wrong folks if I go openly on the main road,” Tom told himself.
From Jed he had learned the lay of the roads in that part of the island. Well trained to sailing by chart, Halstead found that he could pick his roads and paths, even at night, from the mental map of the east side of the island that Jed had supplied him.
When he dismounted it was on a side road, at a distance of a quarter of a mile from Sanderson’s house. Most of the land between was covered by young woods.
First of all, Halstead looked about for a thicket that offered a secure hiding place for his rented wheel. When that had been stowed away the young skipper secured his bearings once more.
“And now to see what’s going on at Sanderson’s to-night, and who’s there,” Halstead told himself, as he plunged through the woods in what he knew must be the right direction.
After a few minutes he came out in the open. Ahead the well-remembered old farmhouse showed dimly in the darkness.