"It will be a damp roll of bills we take ashore with us if we have to do that."
"Better a lot of wet money, Joe, than no money at all."
"Right, exactly right, as per usual. I've got this pop-gun of Cousin George's. It looks like one of those toy Fourth of July things that make a noise and let it go at that. Still, maybe the sight of the thing would scare somebody."
Together they left the cabin, and, in order that their view might be more extensive, climbed the steep stairs to the house boat's upper deck. Here there were comfortable chairs, and the boys sat down and allowed their eyes to wander about them over the shadowy surface of the cove.
The lights of the house-boat settlement were still gleaming in every direction, but every sound had died away and a dead silence reigned.
"If a launch was coming," said McGlory, "we could hear her a mile off—which is three times as far as we could see her."
"That's right," said Matt, "and I'm hearing one now. Listen! Unless I'm away off in my reckoning a boat is bearing this way from the direction of Tiburon."
McGlory bent his head.
"You've made a bull's-eye, Matt," said he. "A boat's coming, but is it the Sprite or the San Bruno?"
"It's the San Bruno," averred Matt.