Part 5 (1/2)

”I have men out watching for the schooner. Man Dalton will be arrested as you request. Will notify you.”

”Good!” cried Mr. Seaton, rubbing his hands vengefully. ”Oh, Dalton, you scoundrel, you can't escape us now, for long! You knew that, if you continued down the coast, there was danger that a United States revenue cutter would intercept the s.h.i.+p and take you off. At best, you knew you would be arrested at Rio Janeiro, if I suspected you, as I was bound to do. So you tried to steal ash.o.r.e here, to be swallowed up in the mazes of this broad country at least an hour or two ahead of pursuit. And, but for the wireless spark that leaps through s.p.a.ce, you could have done so. But we shall have you now.”

”Unless----” began Tom Halstead, hintingly, then paused.

”Unless--what?” insisted Mr. Seaton.

”Suppose Dalton is shrewd enough to pay the captain of the schooner to land him at some other point, where there is neither a policeman nor a telegraph station?”

Seaton made a noise that sounded as though he were grinding his teeth.

Then he picked up a pencil, writing furiously.

”Send this to the police chief at Beaufort,” he ordered. Joe Dawson's fingers made the sending-key sing. The message was one warning the police chief that Dalton might attempt to land at some point outside of Beaufort, and asking him to cover all near points along the coast.

Mr. Seaton offered to make good any expense that this would entail.

Once more, in a few minutes, the answer was at hand.

”Chief of police at Beaufort says,” Joe translated the dots and dashes, ”that his authority does not extend beyond the city limits.”

Again Mr. Seaton began to show signs of fury. Then, as though to force self-control, he trod softly out of the room, going toward the door of the sick-room, where Hank b.u.t.ts stood guard.

”No news, sir; no change,” Hank reported, in an undertone.

”I'm afraid Mr. Seaton is pretty angry with us,” said Tom Halstead, gravely, ”for allowing Hilton--Dalton, I mean--to get away from us.”

”Then he may as well get over it,” commented Joe Dawson, quietly.

”We're hired to furnish a boat, to sail it, and, incidentally, to run a wireless telegraph apparatus. We didn't engage ourselves as policemen.”

”True,” nodded young Captain Halstead. ”Still, I might have done some quicker thinking. My! What would Dalton have felt like if I had run straight for this dock, refusing to put him aboard any other craft?”

”If you had tried to do that,” retorted Joe, with another quiet smile, ”do you know, Tom, what I think your friends would have been doing and saying of you?”

”No; of course not.”

”Your friends would have been sending flowers, and bringing tears.

They would be looking at you, to-morrow, and saying, in undertones: 'Goodness, how natural he looks!'”

Halstead was puzzled for a moment or two. Then, comprehending, he grinned, though he demanded:

”You think Dalton would have dared anything like that?”

”Well, you notice what kind of a rascal Mr. Seaton thinks Dalton is.

And you know we don't go armed aboard the 'Restless.' Now, I'm pretty certain that Dalton could have displayed and used weapons if we had given him any cause to do so.”

Ten minutes later, when Powell Seaton entered the room, he beheld Captain Tom Halstead seated at the operator's table, sealing an envelope that he had just directed.

”What are you doing, Captain?” asked the charter-man.