They were reasonably certain now that the Doctor and the young woman were not a great way off. Van Dusen was confident of speedily running down the culprit, and he was exultant over the prospect. But Roy was still tortured with anxiety concerning the safety of the girl he loved.
Before coming out of the shack to go aboard The Hialdo, Ichabod took time to tidy up his person a little. This, for the sufficient reason that they were going first to Beaufort, where it might be that he would encounter Sarah Porter. It would never do for her to see him except properly "spruced up" for a trip to town. There was, in addition, the fact that he was about to go aboard a handsome yacht, where, as he knew, everybody went about habitually "dressed up." As he took a parting glance into his tiny bit of mirror, the old fisherman indulged in a self-satisfied smirk, and spoke aloud.
"I'd be willin' to bet that when them fine fellers gits to be as old as me, they can't tell as how ten single women kissed 'em all in one day, an' another one, by cracky, made eyes an' jest didn't darst!"
Having thus said, Ichabod hurried off to his visitors, and a minute later was following them up the ladder to the deck of The Hialdo. Van Dusen had taken on a pilot at Ocracoke, so that they had no trouble in following the intricate round-about ship's channel to the town.
Captain Ichabod directed the place of anchorage. This was in the small channel directly in front of the Inlet Hotel, where Sarah Porter reigned supreme. They would use her wharf in going ashore. He admitted to himself that he had been pleased over being kissed by the "young fry"; but he also admitted that the chief appeal to him had been made by the elderly woman who had looked on so disapprovingly from her place in the Doctor's launch.
Van Dusen was anxious to call first upon the Collector of the Port. That office here had become, of late years, rather unimportant, since the action of the tides had filled the Inlet with sand, to such an extent that very few vessels of the ocean-going steamer type could get over the bar. The Collector's business was confined to seeing that yachts and other vessels of small draft had their proper papers. There was no United States Marshal located in the town, and the case of The Isabel was plainly one to be handled by the Treasury Department.
It was unnecessary for Ichabod to guide the detective further than the wharf, for the Custom House, with its identifying flag, stood near the landing. So, the Captain felt himself at liberty to visit the hotel, where he reclined at ease in a rocking chair on the porch, and enjoyed an intermittent conversation with the hostess of the inn. Roy remained on board the yacht, at his friend's bidding, in order to recover from the shock he had suffered on hearing Ichabod's story.
Van Dusen found the Collector anxious to be of service in every possible way. He suggested that the services of the Sheriff should be enlisted, and that a warrant for the arrest of Doctor Garnet should be secured from the Justice of the Peace, for robbery, to be sworn to by Ichabod, since that offense had been committed within the jurisdiction of the state courts.
The Sheriff, when called up over the telephone, agreed to supply three deputies, each equipped with a copy of the warrant. Finally, two small launches, each carrying one of the Sheriff's men, were chartered to voyage in different directions for the search, while the third would go aboard The Hialdo. Other business prevented the Sheriff from giving his personal aid in the quest. Ichabod was interrupted during his pleasuring on the porch by a telephone call, which requested him to report at once to Squire Chadwick's office in order to swear to the necessary papers.
But the fisherman forgot the imperative summons as his hostess came out on the porch to bid him farewell.