“What makes you think he hides the stuff there?”
“From what Rufus said. You see, Rufus isn’t more than half or three quarters witted, and he feels that he hasn’t been treated by this man as he ought to have been. So he wrote those letters to get even, as he said, with the smuggler, and then as nothing was done about them he felt just as much provoked at Mr. Button as he had at the smuggler himself. So he has been first on one side and then on the other.”
“Whose side is he on now?” asked Grant.
“Just at the present time he’s on the smuggler’s side. But he was so anxious to talk all the while that we think he let out more than he knew. Among other things he told us why the smuggler keeps that big dog that we saw the other night. It seems there are three of those dogs and at night two of them guard the barn and the other is taken inside the house to protect that place. When we asked Rufus why they had to have two dogs around the barn he said that if we knew what was in the barn we wouldn’t ask any such foolish questions as that. Putting that together with some other things he said, I haven’t any doubt that whatever it is that Mr. Halsey deals in it is something that is very valuable and isn’t very large and can be easily carried.”
“What do you suppose it is?” inquired Grant. “That sounds like money.”
“Men don’t smuggle money,” sniffed Fred scornfully. “When we get back to Mackinac I’m going to tell Mr. Button, if he’s there, all about it and ask him what he thinks. And if he goes over to Cockburn Island and makes a search I want to go with him.”
“But he can’t make a search on Cockburn Island,” said George positively. “That’s in Canada. An American officer can’t go over there and make searches.”
“Not unless he gets a Canadian officer to go with him,” retorted Fred. “At all events when we get back to Mackinac we’ll find out what can be done and then we’ll just go ahead.”
CHAPTER XXIV
TWO BOATS
It was late when the party at last arrived at Mackinac Island.