“They took a lot of money and stamps from the post-office,” went on Mr. Blake. “They broke into it last night, in the storm, and blew open the safe. The wind and the rain made so much noise that no one heard them.
“This morning, when the postmaster came down to open his office, he saw what had happened. Then we heard about two strange men down at one of the docks in a motor boat, and we thought they might be the burglars; so Mr. Addison and I came after them. We’ve been chasing this boat for some time now, and a little while ago something happened to it. Maybe the motor blew up. It’s sinking, isn’t it?”
“That’s what it is!” chimed in Mr. Addison. “Now we can catch the two men who were in it and find out whether or not they took the stamps and money from the post-office.”
“I’m glad we’re here,” whispered Ted.
“The men aren’t in the sinking boat,” said Uncle Ben. “We saw them jump out or fall out, after they waved a white rag for help. There they go, now!” and he pointed to the rowboat, in which were the two men pulling hard toward shore.
“Oh, ho! So that’s how they are getting away, are they?” cried Mr. Blake. “We saw they had a rowboat tied on behind their motor craft. Then there came a dash of rain and we couldn’t see anything more until we saw the sinking boat. So we hurried toward it, and then we saw you.”
“Shall we try to catch those two men?” asked Mr. Addison. “We can easily do it in our motor boat.”
“Let’s first look and see if they left behind any of the money and stamps,” said Mr. Blake. “If we get back what they took out of the safe I don’t care so much about getting the men themselves. We can arrest them later, maybe. Let’s look in the motor boat.”
So the Gull, in which were the Curlytops with their father and Uncle Ben, and the other motor boat, in which rode Mr. Blake and Mr. Addison, steered toward the sinking craft. And no sooner had Ted looked over the side of the boat which was half sunk, than he cried:
“I see a satchel!”