“How I’d like another pot shot at you, Mr. Dago!” cried Stan, softly.
John was grinning like a cat.
“Me too. Tamp me down with a ten-pound weight!”
They watched the boat disappear around the point again, and then gave sighs of delighted relief. They ate with gusto, cracking jokes, and figuring the size of mast and area of sail needed for the revamped sloop. The rough estimate of money involved was a bit staggering but they had a large sum of reward money due from the Hogan case and knew that Mr. Sandborn would insist on lending them enough to take care of the present need. After supper, their figures in hand, as near as they could tell, they went to bed to get a few hours’ sleep.
As they lay in their bunks Stan spoke of the Sea Hawk, the yacht they had seen in the cove.
“The Sea Hawk figured in several rum-running cases, John,” he explained, “and got out of them through technicalities. Fitted out as a yacht in every way, she can still carry a load of anything illegal that the underworld might want to transport or sell! I wonder who owns her now and why she was at Black Cove. Does Nevens own her?”
John grunted.
“Don’t ask me riddles, to-night, Skipper. Blast my tenpins and sing out when the whales breach—but I’ll be glad when this case is solved!”
“And why the salvage job in Black Cove, divers, night work? What ship was she? What is still aboard her?”
“All I know, Stan, is that Dago is a bad actor, and Mr. Nevens is no better than he should be! Think of that secret laboratory, his aquariums, his underground passages, all his electrical devices! And none of his boats seem to show riding lights or running lights at night!”