“Say, maybe there are a few Deweys left in America,” he laughed aloud. “I wonder what’s the answer?”
CHAPTER XXIII—SPYING ON THE FILIBUSTERS
Meanwhile, at the Sanderson farm, business was proceeding at a rate that entitled the word to be spelled with a very large capital “B.”
Mr. Lawrence and his comrades, under Captain Tom’s pilotage, were hidden where, despite the darkness, they could get a very fair idea of what was going on at the pier. Joe had led Warren and the other local officers up where they could know what was going on behind the farmhouse. Sanderson, Alvarez and all hands except Captain Jonas French, were working like so many industrious ants. Two of the men were moving cases out of the new shed onto the pier. The rest were bringing cases down to the pier from the farm outbuilding. All the cases were being piled at the end of the pier.
“That means they’re going to ship everything to-night,” whispered Mr. Lawrence.
“When are you going to jump on them?” Halstead asked.
“Not until they get everything on their vessel, and get out on the water. If we showed ourselves now, and tried to arrest the crowd, what could we prove? Sanderson has a perfect right to stack any kinds of merchandise on his pier. But when we overhaul a craft out on the water, loaded down with filibuster’s supplies, and the captain of that craft can show no regular papers for such a cargo, then we have the crowd where we want them.”
It was a dull time waiting, but Inspector Lawrence was right, as a man of his experience was quite likely to be. The time slipped on, with no open move on the part of the law’s people.
“I thought I saw a rocket up north, then,” whispered Tom, at last.
“Watch and see whether there’s another,” replied Lawrence, also in a whisper. But the rocket Tom had seen was the last that Jed had derisively shot after the retreating tug. It wasn’t long, however, before the young motor boat skipper and the United States officers heard the sound of the tug approaching. They lay low, but watched, quietly until the tug had docked at the end of Sanderson’s pier.