o the
sloop, or if luck runs against us, sink her, after smashing every bottle
aboard."

"Good enough, Red," Jack told him as they shook hands for the last time.
"I hope we run across you boys again some day, and please keep your lip
buttoned about our being down here with an amphibian to knock some of
these smugglers of Chinks and rum galley-west."

"You can depend on us to keep mum, Jack," the red-headed ex-harbor tug
engineer assured him.

So the last line was cast off, Jack and Perk retired to their own ship,
and with many a wheeze and complaint the sloop started to pass out to
the open gulf, and commence the night journey to Tampa Bay.

CHAPTER XV

WITH THE COMING OF THE MOON

"Wall," Perk was remarking as the sloop passed beyond range of their
vision amidst the gathering shades of night, already drawing her sable
curtains close, "I hopes they get through without runnin' smack against
a bunch o' the racketeers."

"With fair luck they ought to manage to slip along," Jack went on to
observe, confidently. "You heard me warn them to keep a watchful eye out
for smugglers and hijackers by land and sea and air? Anyway we've
finished our part of the job and this paper proves that our find was all
I cracked it up to be when I talked with Mr. Ridgeway."

"Course, you knocked up against the gent then, eh Jack?"

"Sure, or I shouldn't have been able to fetch those lads back with me to
take over the sloop and contraband cargo," the other told him. "But I
was in a tail spin at first when I learned that Mr. Ridgeway had gone
down to St. Pete to interview some people who had reasons for not
wanting to be seen going into his Government offices in Tampa. But I got
his address and jumped my boat, slipped down Tampa Bay, and pulled in at
the long municipal pier at St. Petersburg."

"I first hired a dependable man to keep watch over my ship while I was
off hunting my superior officer but I found him after a bit and he was
sure glad to see me, shook hands like a good sport, and asked me a bunch
of questions before starting to tell me what important fresh news he had
picked up through his agents working the spy game for all it was worth."

"Was he tickled to learn how we managed to run off with that slick
little sloop that carried so neat a pack o' cases marked with foreign
stamps?"

"Seemed to be," came the ready answer. "He isn't a man of many words,
you know, Perk, but what he says he means. He told me they were