“If we have to stop over night, why, we 'll go to a hotel.”
“Not the jail, eh?”
“No,”—Beveridge gave his prisoner a keen glance, then shook his head,—“no, that won't be necessary.”
The Foote was not at Milwaukee; apparently she was not at Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Sturgeon Bay, or Marinette. Throughout the night, while Dick and Harper were shut up with Wilson on the top floor of the hotel, Beveridge haunted the telegraph office downstairs. Simultaneous messages went out to Cedar River, Green Bay, Two Rivers, Kewaunee,—to every little town along the west shore, even back to Kenosha, Racine, and Waukegan. Then Beveridge thought of the east shore, and tried all the ports from Harbor Springs down to St. Joseph, but with no success. He dropped on the lounge in the hotel office for a cat nap now and then. And finally, at half-past five in the morning, he was called to the telephone and informed that the Foote had just been sighted heading in toward the breakwater.
Promptly he aroused his prisoners, who obligingly tumbled into their clothes; and the party drove down to the river and boarded a tug. A little time was to be saved by meeting the revenue cutter before she could get in between the piers. So out they went, past silent wharves and sleepy bridge keepers, out into the gold of the sunrise.
There was the Foote nearly in, her old-fashioned engine coughing hard, her side wheels beating the water to a foam, making her very best speed of nine miles an hour. She caught the signal from the tug, stopped, backed, and let down her companion ladder. Captain Sullivan, a grizzled veteran, bearing evidences of hasty dressing, was at the rail to meet them.
“Well,” said Beveridge, “I'm mighty glad to see you, Captain. I didn't know whether you were on earth or not.”
“I got your message at Sturgeon Bay, and came right down.”
“Did you answer?”
“Of course,” somewhat testily. “You gave me no Milwaukee address. I sent it to Lakeville.”