As they spun along the captain explained how he had got upon the track of the gang of rascals.
“This Captain Flinders is a regular shark,” he declared; “he’ll do anything for money, and has a mighty bad reputation along the water front. Well, as I was standing on the end of the Buttermilk Wharf where he keeps his boat—the Tarpon, and a clipper she is, too—I saw him meet four precious seedy-looking chaps. One looked like an old cab-driver and the rest were as bad.
“‘What’s in the wind now?’ I thought, and as they came toward me I slipped in behind a pile of bales, for I didn’t want Flinders to see me, and was curious to know what he was doing with that outfit of ragamuffins. Well, as luck would have it, they stopped just the other side of the pile of bales, and I could hear some of what they said. I heard enough to convince me that they were the chaps you were after, in disguise, and then I jumped for a telephone.”
The boys fairly gasped in their eagerness to hear more.
“Were they all there?” demanded Jack.
“Well, there were four of ’em. And they’ve got the model, too. I heard one of ’em, a chap the others called Melville, laughing about the way they’d tricked you by sneaking out of a stable by a secret back door.”
“So the rascals were there, after all,” exclaimed Jack; “well, if that doesn’t beat all!”
“Well, when I came back from ’phoning to you, what should I see but the Tarpon putting out into the stream. Right then and there I started for the hotel and there’s a chance—just a chance—that we may catch ’em yet. You see, from what I heard, they were figuring on not sailing till to-night, but I guess they changed their minds.”
“Jumping Jupiter!” exclaimed Tom, “this is warm work with a vengeance. You didn’t overhear them say where they were bound for, captain, did you?”
“Yes, East Hampton, they said. But here’s the wharf. Come on, pile out. Jack, you pay the cabman while I get the old Sea Gull ready.” When the boys joined the captain once more they found him busied over the engine of a good-looking cabin motor boat about thirty feet in length.