So saying Jones broke into a run and led the way through a long hall to another flight of stairs, which he descended with headlong speed, Lester keeping close at his heels. On reaching the sidewalk they slackened their pace to a walk, and Jones suddenly turned into a shoe-store, with the proprietor of which he was well acquainted.
“Mr. Smith,” said he, addressing the man who stood behind the counter, “may I go in your back room long enough to take something out of my boot?”
Time was too precious to wait for the reply, which they knew would be a favorable one, so Jones and Lester kept on to the back-room. When they got there the former took his foot out of his boot—there was nothing else in it—while his companion, acting in obedience to some whispered instructions, concealed himself and kept an eye on those who passed the store.
“There he goes!” he exclaimed suddenly, as Don Gordon walked rapidly by, peering sharply through the glass doors as he went. “He must have followed us through the hall.”
“Of course he did, and consequently there is no need that I should tell you why I came in here. Now we’ll start for Cony’s.”
As Jones said this he opened a back door which gave entrance into a narrow alley, and conducted his companion through a long archway that finally brought them to a cross-street. After making sure that there were none of Captain Mack’s men in sight, they came out of their concealment and walked rapidly away toward the big pond. When they reached Cony Ryan’s house and entered the little parlor which had been the scene of so many midnight revels, they found it in possession of their friends, who greeted them in the most boisterous manner and inquired anxiously for Enoch Williams. A few of them had had opportunity to exchange a word or two with him, all knew how he had run the guard, but none of them could tell where he was now.
“He is safe enough,” said Jones, knowingly. “Of course you don’t expect him to show himself openly, as we can who have passes in our pockets. If you will be on Haggert’s dock at dark—and those who are not there will stand a good chance of being left, for when we get ready to start we shall wait for nobody—you will find him. In the meantime be careful how you act, and keep out of sight as much as you can. Mack knows that we haven’t come down here for nothing.”
The boys said they were well aware of that fact, and Jones went on to tell how closely Don Gordon and Captain Mack had watched Lester in the hope of finding out what it was that had brought him and his friends to town that day, and described how he and Lester had managed to elude them. While the boys were laughing over the success of their stratagem, Jones disappeared through a back door, but presently returned and beckoned to Lester, who followed him into the kitchen. Cony Ryan was there, and he had just placed upon the table two large buckets covered with snow-white napkins.
“That’s your dinner,” said he, as he shook hands with Lester, who had put many a dollar into his pocket that term. “They tell me that you are getting to be a very bad boy, Brigham. You have put the fellows up to stealing a yacht.”