Strogoff was the first in the proffered boat, and the rowers that manned it did not pull any too fast to suit him.
With a file of soldiers the searching party went below, but among all the smutty-faced, stripped-to-the-waist workers in the furnace room the men wanted could not be found. No more successful was the further and thorough search made in every conceivable hiding place on upper and lower decks.
“Duped again,” raged Strogoff. “What is your opinion, captain?” he appealed to Walki.
Captain Walki, who had been fully advised of the clue which had caused the pursuit of the transport, reflectively stroked his short beard and laconically remarked:
“I think the sailor on the collier lied!”
CHAPTER XV.
THE SERGEANT’S VOW.
“Do you know what I believe, Buddy,” said Billy to his chum, while they were having a little quiet discussion of their own about the way Strogoff had been misled; “I believe, sure and certain, that it was a phony crew on the collier—not a man jack of them regularly on the job.”
“Report at once, pard, and get your badge,” laughingly urged Henri. “Why don’t you tell it to the sergeant?”
“I’m not taking any chance of getting on his toes just now,” was Billy’s reply, shaking his head.
Strogoff, though somewhat crestfallen over the collapse of his eagerly conceived plan to put the irons on the adroit Ricker and the lesser lights with him, had lost none of the bulldog tenacity of purpose which characterized his every movement.