“Look back, Joe. This shuts us out from the sight of that striped pirate, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” nodded Dawson.
Tom shut off the speed, adding:
“Stand ready, Joe, to use speed or wheel, and keep her about so-so. I’m going to lower the dingey into the water and row ashore. I’ll rig a line to her stern, so you can haul her back. Don’t bother to get the small boat up at the davits. Just make her fast astern. And then——”
“Wait here for you,” guessed Joe.
“No, as soon as you get the dingey made fast, put on headway and run the boat back to Mr. Dunstan’s pier. Report to him, telling him just what I’m doing and assure him I won’t be afraid to telephone if I learn anything worth while. I’ll get over to his place as soon as I can, later in the evening.”
Tom got the small boat into the water, left one end of a small rope in Joe’s hands and rowed somewhat more than a hundred feet to the beach. From there he waved his hand. Joe began to haul in on the line. Within thirty feet of the beach the woods began; Halstead was quickly lost to his chum’s sight.
Full darkness came on while Tom was still in the woods heading cautiously south. As he hastened along, making little or no noise, Halstead wondered what he would do with the man in case he discovered him to be really one of the pair who had sat in the seat ahead on the train.
“I suppose I’d better wait and make up my mind after I’m sure it is the same fellow,” Tom concluded.
The young skipper did not, at any time on this swift walk, move far from the shore line. At last he came to the edge of the woods, a very short distance from the pier he was seeking. There was still a man there, seated on the rail of the pier. There were some bushes, too, to aid in shielding the boy’s forward progress if he used care. Tom went down, almost flat, then crept forward, moving swiftly, silently, between bushes.