"How—how is that?" bewilderedly asked Tom. "Isn't their tug still there?"
"It slipped out of the port while we were searching for those two rascals," said one of the policemen.
Tom looked thunderstruck. He could not speak. The stupidity of the police of Rockport seemed more than incredible.
"Then they're gone?" he asked dully. There was a ringing pain in his head. His heart felt like a lump of lead.
"Yes, Master Tom," said Jeff wonderfully gently, and slipping to Tom's side, "thanks to those chumps of police they have gotten away without waiting for all the coal to be put in. But we can telegraph every place and soon have them stopped and their craft searched for your brother and your chum. I——"
"Why don't the police get after them?" demanded Tom, anger replacing stupefaction, "why isn't there another tug after them, a——"
"They got too long a start, and there isn't a craft in this harbor that is fast enough to be of any use in chasing them," put in one of the men who had aided in the time-wasting search among the lumber.
Tom flushed angrily.
"Yes, there is—one!" he exclaimed.
"Where?" The question came from the dull-witted sergeant.