“No,” soberly Evan Tudor replied. “It will have to be broken up sometime. Probably we should have a little more proof about Bill and his friends.”
“Oh, yes,” eagerly Peggy replied.
“Poor child,” Evan Tudor was thinking.
Safely they all went through the spray. Mr. Tudor went first, then turned his light upon the place for Jack’s exit. To their surprise they found it foggy and by the time they reached Ives Bay and the dock there the fog was rolling in so thickly that it was decided to leave the Swallow among the Ives boats till the next day. Evan Tudor and the girls would walk home.
Jack was distressed about this and wanted to accompany them, but Peggy insisted that it would be foolish and the rest agreed. “The more quickly and quietly we get into the house the better, Jack,” said Peggy, “and no one will notice the Swallow, Mr. Tudor. We do all sorts of crazy things going back and forth, and Jack and I might easily have rowed home in the Swallow, or all of us landed here and gone on some hike or other.”
Tired as the girls were, they managed to give a full and clear account of their suspicions and discoveries to Mr. Tudor on the way home. It was a comfort to pass over some of the responsibility to him, though he did not tell them that this smuggling of aliens was the subject of his quest, nor that he represented the law and the United States government. The other smuggling would naturally be attended to at the same time, but it was desired to find the heads of a ring having operations at different points.
“We have been so troubled, Mr. Tudor, about our duty, how to notify the right authorities, or whether to do so or not, with Peggy and her family to consider,—though I suppose that it is wrong to be hindered by that.” So Leslie told the man who represented the right authority.
“It would be a hard thing for you to take up without more proof, Miss Leslie. Suppose you just do nothing but keep your eyes open and tell me about it. I will watch, too. Did you say that a schooner was expected about the twenty-eighth?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I will talk it over with your brother and Miss Beth. Good-night; do not worry about this.”