“I know it won’t help once they get on top—but having it fastened would make it take longer to get to us. And we’d have the light switches and could light the mast light if they come at night.”
Tom returned to the deck.
“Either of you got a screw driver blade on your jackknife?” he asked. “I closed the cabin door, but the lock sticks and when I wrenched at the knob to open it again, the screw was loose that holds the knob to the shackle, and it just turned in my hand and I had to screw in the threads with my finger nail to get it to turn at all.”
“I have one,” said Cliff, but as he produced his knife he went on, “but I’d like to have you listen to a different plan.”
“All right,” agreed Nicky and Tom.
“The trouble with the cabin is that they can come at it from the after deck, at the blank rear bulkhead back of the engines, and we can’t cover the decks.”
“That’s so,” Nicky conceded.
“So I think we ought to do some other way,” Cliff urged. “And I wish you’d tell me what you think of this: Suppose we take it for granted that they won’t come back for at least an hour—they will scatter and hide because they don’t know but that the cutter may be coming. In that time we can swim over to that island with the heavy trees, after we’ve dumped the guns into the water and flung things around to make them think the cutter’s men have searched a little.”
“That’s a corker!” exclaimed Nicky. “Much better than my plan. They will think the cutter took us off and we were too scared to tell where they were, and then they won’t come back or bother us any more.”
“That’s my idea,” Cliff nodded.