_ CHAPTER XXII
One adventure had led forward to another, and again to another, until the detective was well on his road toward the point where he could make a "closing in" attack.
He knew it would be a grand thing for him to run the gang clear down to their bottom methods.
The detective had been keeping tireless vigils, and sleep was what he most needed, and two good hours of undisturbed sleep was as much to him as seven or eight to an ordinary person.
He was aroused by Taylor, and upon awaking and looking out, he saw that it was broad daylight, and indeed a bright and beautiful morning.
Taylor had been up some time; he had been to his boat, and had brought back the necessary articles for a good breakfast, and our hero was summoned to as solid a morning meal as he had ever enjoyed.
After breakfast the two men went to where Taylor's boat lay, a large and stanch little mainsail and jib boat, rough in appearance, but a good sea boat and a fast sailer.
The captain of the little craft steered her through the channel, and was soon running across the famous Great South Bay, and later on our hero found himself in one of those many famous Long Island sea-coast towns, where summer boarders made merry the passing hours of the July and August months.
Taylor took our hero to his own home, and introduced him to a cleanly and interesting family.
"When do we start?" demanded Vance, after indulging in a good, and really substantial dinner.
"We will take the two o'clock train," was the reply.
Our readers will observe that we do not name localities, and we have a good reason. Within the last few months smuggling has been resumed, and the government is adopting measures once more to suppress the traffic, and we have decided that the interest of our narrative does not demand more specific details.
To those of our readers who are acquainted with the Long Island coast, it is not necessary to name the several localities; as, from passing hints, they will be able to locate the several points; and readers who live afar would be no wiser were we to name towns, and designate exact localities.
It was late in the afternoon when our hero and his friend, Taylor, stood on the shore of another one of the several famous bays that indent Long Island's sea shore; and, what seems still more startling, about half a mile off shore lay the yacht "Nancy."
Our hero and his companion were at the point when the taut little smuggler ran down from the inlet, and came to an anchor oft the shore.
At the time the place had not become as great a resort as at present, and the hordes of pleasure-seekers, who now, during certain seasons of the year dwell on the coast, little dream of the wild scenes, and wilder orgies that occurred thereabouts a few years back.
Taylor and the detective had crossed the bay to the island and were hidden in the brush that fringed the bluff overlooking the shore, when the "Nancy" ran down as described and came to an anchor.
"There's the smuggler!" exclaimed Taylor as he first caught sight of the yacht.
"Yes, there's the 'Nancy' as sure as you are born," returned the detective.
"Ah, you know her?"
"I reckon I do."
"There's a bad lot on that boat."
"There is a bad lot; they are a crew of murderer and bandits."
"They do great harm to our legitimate business, and good honest men are constantly annoyed by the cutters who hail and search them almost daily."
"We will soon put that crew out of harm's way," remarked the detective.
"She's loaded," said Taylor.
"How loaded?"
"She's got contraband cargo beneath her decks."
"How do you know?"
"She never runs in here only when she comes to put her goods ashore."
"Don't the people over on the mainland know of her business?"
"Well, a few may suspect, but I don't believe they know; you see she will put in a load of produce, take a regular cargo from here, and the most of the people think she's an honest coaster. I've known her to get freight from a regular shipping company in New York, and deliver an assorted cargo, simply as a blind."
"How is it you chanced to run her down to her real business, and get all the points so dead on the crew?"
"My first discovery was accidental, and since then I just investigated a little for my own satisfaction."
"How long has she been engaged in this traffic?"
"About two years; previous to that the business was broken up and nothing was done for a long time; but about two years ago, the 'Nancy' was manned and put under the charge of Denman, who is an old smuggler, and I believe that man could be worth thousands upon thousands, but they say he goes to New York and gambles and sports all his money away; but he must handle a good pile in the course of a year."
"I see his crew is made up of all nationalities?"
"Yes; but they are mostly West Indians, not natives, but fellows raised down among the Islands."
"When will she run her cargo ashore?"
"To-night, and she will do it so quickly that you'd hardly know her crew had been at work."
"It's a wonder they have never been discovered."
"I reckon they have been, but Denman practices the old Captain Kidd maxim: 'Dead men tell no tales.'"
"Has he dared to kill anybody?"
"Well, men have been missing around here, and later on, they have been found floating in the bay, and the people have always concluded they were cases of drowning while drunk; and I always thought so myself, until about two months ago, when I fell to a suspicion."
"Did you never tell your suspicion?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I was waiting a chance to verify it."
"You think it would cost a man his life to be caught by those fellows?"
"That's my idea."
The detective had made some important discoveries, and, among others, he had "piped" down to the fact that the crew of the "Nancy" were as desperate and blood-thirsty a set of scoundrels as ever ran in and out of Long Island even with that famous buccaneer, Captain Kidd.
"About how many men have been missing at different time?" asked our hero.
"It's hard to tell; but the crew of the 'Nancy' could tell some fearful tales if they were to open their mouths."
The detective was destined to go to the bottom of the mystery.
The place selected by the men for their work was one of the most lonely and desolate on the whole coast at that time.
Taylor informed our hero that they would not unload from where they were anchored; he said:
"They will run down around the point yonder, put their cargo ashore, and then sail back and reanchor where you see them now. I tell you they make quick work of it."
"But cannot see how they escape detection."
"Oh, they have plenty of confederates; the gang is not composed alone of the men who sail in the 'Nancy'."
"Then we must lay low until night falls"
"Yes."
The detective encountered some thrilling adventures ere another sunrise. _