"Where is the cur?" Billy asked.
"Don't see um," replied the Seminole. He straightened up until his head was above the top of the grass. "A-ah!" he exclaimed in a guttural tone. "Man in sailboat yonder."
Impulsively Billy scrambled to a kneeling position, and his gaze followed Dave's. The two spies then beheld the figure of a man seated in the stern of a dug-out canoe that carried a mast and sail and was coming around the bend of a stream.
"If he sees us——-" began Billy.
"S-s-sh!" Dave interrupted warningly. "Wait, see where he go."
"Is the dog barking at us or at him? What d'you think, Dave?"
"At us," was the answer. "Man come, let dog loose,—-we better go back! Incah!"
"No," said Billy firmly. "Dog or no dog, I'm not going back till
I've found out where they've hidden Hugh!"
If Billy had only known that Hugh was locked in that further cabin! If Hugh had only been able to communicate with his friends on picket duty! How much trouble would have been avoided,—-yet what an adventure they would have missed!
Dave now explained to Billy that his purpose had been to purloin the sailing canoe, so that the smugglers on shore would be dependent on a boat from the Esperanza to take them and their goods away. This would enable the crew of the Petrel to intercept the smugglers as soon as they landed. But now, with the appearance of this man in the canoe, Dave's plan seemed about to be thwarted.