"How does it happen he had the nerve to come here when he knew you counted on showing the people who visited this fair your skill in rowing?" Dan asked, with a laugh.
"I reckon he didn't think I was tellin' the truth."
It was useless to attempt to make Sam acquainted with himself. He had such a remarkable idea of his own abilities, despite the scrapes he was constantly getting into, that the most eloquent orator would have been unable to convince him he was anything more than a very egotistical boy, with little save his vanity to recommend him to the notice of the general public.
In five minutes the boat at the opposite bank had received as much of a cargo as her owners wished to carry, and then the men began to row leisurely down the river.
"Now, go slow, Sam, and don't turn around to look, or they may suspect we are following them," Dan said, warningly. "I'll keep you posted about what they are doing, and you can tell us afterward what ought to have been done. Pull moderately, for we don't want to get very near while it is light enough for them to see us."
The chase was not a long one. By keeping the boat's head to the bank and moving leisurely as boys who were bent only on pleasure might have done, the pursuers evidently caused no suspicions as to their purpose, and after about a mile had been traversed the burglars turned up a narrow waterway which led to a barn or shed built on the meadows for the storing of marsh hay.
There were plenty of ditches near at hand into which the amateur detectives could run their craft unobserved, and as the pursued left the creek Dan steered into one of these.
Here their heads hardly came above the bank, and all three could see the men carrying their cargo to the building.
"We've got 'em now," said Sam, triumphantly, as the first of the packages was taken on shore, "an' the sooner we nab both the better."
"How do you intend to set about such a job?" Teddy asked.