chooner drift a
couple of hundred yards off the little pier, and Archie and me paddled
ashore in our quarter-boat with a spare lantern.

"There was the lighter, but no bales of hemp. Up on the pier, about two
hundred yards, we see a streak of light. We crept up to that, and
through a pane of glass high up--me standing on Archie's shoulders to
get a look through--was four men playing cards, with money and a bottle
of whiskey and a kerosene lamp on the table. We looked around. On the
narrow-gauge railroad track we found the little flat hand-car, and on
that, under a tarpaulin, were the bales of hemp.

"We crept around to the door of the shack. By feeling we saw it opened
out; so the two of us felt around for big-sized stones, a hundred pounds
apiece, or so, and them we piled in front of the door, fifteen or twenty
of 'em, very softly, and then I whispers to Archie to hustle the flat
car along to the pier.

"And he did, but in getting started the car wheels grinded a little, and
somebody inside yells, 'What's that!' and again, 'Listen!' and then I
could hear one of 'em jumping up and cursing and swearing: 'What started
her?' Next thing somebody rattled the door-latch and pushed. And pushed
again. And then--bam! his whole weight against the door. The top part
springs out, but the bottom half sticks.

"Then there was a quiet, and then somebody said something quick, and I
could hear 'em all jumping up and yelling out, and they came piling
bang-up for the door and slammed against it, but the big stones held
'em. Then they stopped, and one of 'em says: 'We're locked in all
right.' 'Yes,' I calls out, 'and you'd better stay locked in, for the
first man, and the second man, and the third man comes out the door he
gets his. And now, men,' I calls out, 'keep that door covered and cut
loose if it's knocked open.' And then I hurried after Archie's lantern,
which I see is now to the pier.

"It didn't take us more than a couple o' minutes to pitch those little
bales off that car, tote 'em across the lighter and drop 'em into our
quarter-boat. Then we rowed out to our vessel and threw them over the
rail and let 'em lay there amidships till we could get a chance to rip
'em open and see what we got.

"It was then two o'clock, and 's by this time the breeze'd made a bit, I
was hoping we'd slip by the gunboat before daylight. And we did--almost;
but not far enough by. Before the sun was fair up they saw us and puts
after us. It took