Nor was he so very much surprised, come to think of it. He had half anticipated something of this sort, at the time he heard what seemed to be the peculiar chug! chug! of the noisy motor belonging to that snub-nosed boat. The professor had indeed come back to the haunted island; nor had he thought it advisable to inform his new boy friends of his return.
Had Josh been there to see, he must have surely jumped to the conclusion that it was his wild desire to set eyes on a ghost that had lured the professor back.
Jack looked at the matter from an entirely different standpoint. He, for instance, did not believe that the gentleman was one-half so much interested in mysterious visitations from departed spirits as he was in the movements of certain persons who might be engaged in a trade that shunned the light of day, because it was by nature evil, and in defiance to the laws.
And this party who stood there, holding that lantern and waiting, was evidently something in the line of a leader.
Only for a brief space of time did the so-called professor remain at that broken window; then he vanished from the view of the watching boy. But it gave Jack considerable satisfaction and confidence just to know that Herman Marshland was near by.
Already he had his hand upon the solution of the whole puzzle that had been eluding his best efforts up to now. And just like Columbus discovering America, it was so exceedingly simple, once you knew how, that Jack silently laughed at himself for not having grasped the prize answer before now.
Smugglers, that was what the rough-looking men in the boats were! This must be a central point with them, where for some time they had secretly landed the goods ferried over from the nearby Canadian shore. Here on American territory they were perhaps secreted until such favorable opportunity arrived to send them further afield into the sovereign State of New York, when all trace of them would be lost to any government agents who might be prowling around on the lookout for such law-breakers.
Since coming to the St. Lawrence the boys had heard more or less about such a class of persons, who made it their business to try and evade the revenue men. In some cases it was Chinamen they shipped across the border, receiving so much per head to get them into the protected country. Then again it meant laces, diamonds, silks, anything that was small in dimensions, but upon which the government at Washington levied a heavy toll.
Pleased with having guessed the secret, Jack could not think of slipping away. It might be none of his business what these bold and bad men were doing; but somehow he could not help feeling a deep interest in the movements of the man who had visited them that very afternoon, and made such a hit with the boys.
Of course the pretended college professor must really be one of those sagacious revenue men, engaged in running these rascals to earth.