“I don’t believe there’s any doubt about their being smugglers. Let’s go down and see what the police have discovered.”
They descended to the deck. The ship’s lights had been turned on and the stolen goods hoisted aboard. They were small bales of hemp. A policeman was breaking one of them open. Roy remembered that they had been brought aboard with the very first of the cargo and trucked to the forward part of the ship. Evidently they had immediately been secreted by the four smugglers who had joined the crew and were at work in the hold. When the policeman had torn away a part of the hemp, out rolled a four-gallon can filled with liquid. The screw-cap was cautiously removed and the policeman gingerly sniffed the contents. Then a smile spread over his face.
“It’s the real stuff, Rounds,” he said, passing the can to the waiting roundsman.
The roundsman sampled the liquor. “The very same,” he replied, “and worth a good many dollars a gallon. If the twenty-four bales each contain four gallons, we’ve captured two good hogsheads of whiskey for Uncle Sam, and saved him a nice little sum of revenue. We’ll just take the booze along with the prisoners, Captain Lansford.”
“You are welcome to both,” said the captain. “We’ll make sure there is no more of the stuff aboard. If we find any, I’ll let you know. Meantime, I’m obliged to you for catching these fellows.”
“You’d better thank your wireless man, Captain. They’d have got away with the stuff sure, if it hadn’t been for him. And we’d have missed them again.” Then, turning to Roy, the roundsman thanked him warmly. The whiskey and the prisoners were put into the captured motor-boat, and towing their rowboat behind them, the police went chugging back to Harbor A.
During the days that the Lycoming lay in her dock, Roy spent many an hour in sober thought. He had had a taste of life afloat now, and more than ever he felt sure that he wanted to be a wireless man. He wanted to succeed. He wanted to reach the very top in his chosen calling. No boy was ever more ambitious, ever more willing to work hard. Indeed, the unusual quality in Roy, the thing that distinguished him from most lads of his age, was the fact that he had early grasped the idea that the road to success is named work.
Always Roy had done things with a will. When he played, he played hard. When he studied, he studied hard. And after he had become interested in radio communication, he had striven hard to perfect himself as an operator. He understood his instruments perfectly. He could make new parts or entire new instruments, if given the materials. He could improvise a wireless outfit out of next to nothing. He could read messages as fast as any human hand could send them, and he could himself transmit with unusual speed. In short, despite his youth, Roy was an unusually skilful wireless man.
But he lacked what most boys lack. He lacked experience of life and the sane judgment that should go with experience. He lacked perspective. He was impatient. He could not always see matters in their true relationship.