He saw the boat impelled toward it as it lay floating, and then it was hoisted on board.
“What black work is going on here?” thought the young wireless man as he watched.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A CALL FOR THE POLICE.
Suddenly, like a flash of lightning, the true meaning of the scene going on below him dawned on the lad.
The tobacco smugglers! The men who worked with the gang of customs cheaters, with their headquarters across the dark river in New Jersey!
Yes; that was undoubtedly the explanation of it. What was he to do? Go below and alarm the engineer in charge of the fire-room crowd? No; the man was only an apprentice engineer, as young Ready knew, and more than probably he was in with the gang himself.
Back and forth moved the boat, dodging in and out of the black shadows cast by the dock. It was an ideal night for such work. The fog lay thick, like a blanket laid over river and city.
Through the curtain of mist boomed the hoarse voices of tugs and ferryboats as they played a marine game of blind man’s buff in the fog. Jack felt terribly alone. He might have summoned help from the dock, but the rising and falling noise of the riot, which was evidently still in progress, told him that the men in charge of the wharf already had their hands full.