Then we ran over the course the ship always steered on her run out the main ship channel, going close to the Southwest Spit Buoy.
We did not come back to town again, but remained in the boat for two days and nights, coming in only to get gasoline and supplies, and then keeping right on the run in and out to sea.
It was lonesome work, and we passed many small boats daily, but none had the men we hoped for in them.
The third evening, just about dark, we noticed a launch running for the red buoy at the turn of the channel near Sandy Hook. We both were much disguised, being rigged with false beards and uncouth clothes.
In daylight no one would have recognized us thirty feet distant, and at night we might have talked to our best friends without detection.
As we came in, running very slow, we noticed a boat with two men in her near the Southwest Spit Buoy. The boat had stopped, and the men were doing nothing. They seemed to be waiting for something.
We came past, sitting well below the gunwales of our craft, but watching the other boat. When we came within fifty feet Smith sank below the coamings.
"That's them all right," he whispered.
I watched the pair from the corner of my eye, and headed away from the vicinity, keeping well down in our boat, and showing nothing but the back of an old battered hat.
It was the doctor and his pal, and they were at work. They stood back and forth across the channel a few times, and one of them held a line towing astern. It was evident that they were dragging a grapnel over a certain part of the channel marked by the buoy and bearings upon Sandy Hook.