ld not; it need not be inferred he
transacted no business. Had any of these coast residents been blessed
with the occult ability to see beyond the apparent facts, and to
overhear, they might have learned of certain hard, if illegal, bargains
made between Wolf and one or more of their number, and they might have
witnessed late at night various mysterious movements of a small boat
passing from shore to the sloop empty, and returning laden with
apparently harmless kits of fish. Had these good people been still more
watchful they would have seen the Sea Fox spread her sails and depart
before dawn. Whence Wolf came no one knew; whither he went, no one
guessed. Like a strange bird of prey, like a fox at night, he stole into
port on occasions wide apart and unexpected, and as mysteriously went
his way.

The coast of Maine was particularly well adapted to aid Captain Wolf in
his peculiar enterprise. The great tide of summer travel had not then
started and its countless bays, coves and inlets were unmolested.
Wherever a safe harbor occurred a small village had clustered about it
and the larger islands only were inhabited. The residents of these
hamlets were mainly engaged in fishing or coasting, and of a guileless
nature. They were honest themselves, and not easy to suspect dishonesty
in others. Into these ports Wolf could sail unsuspected, and, like the
cunning fox he was, easily dupe them by his role of innocent trader till
he found some one as unscrupulous as he, who was willing to take the
chance and share his illegal profit.

While he played his role of fox by day and smuggled by night, it was not
without risk. The crusaders against the liquor traffic had an organized
force of spies and reformers. In every town there was one or more, and
as the reformers received half of all fines or value of liquor seized it
may be seen that the Sea Fox had enemies. No one knew it any better than
Wolf, and, like the human fox he was, no one was any more capable of
guarding against them. Well skilled in the most adroit kind of
deception, in comparison to his enemies he was as the fox is to the
rabbit, the hawk to the chicken. Frequently he would set traps for his
pursuers, and, giving them apparent reason for suspicion, would thus
invite a search. On these occasions, it is needless to say, no liquor
was found on board the Sea Fox. To discover his enemies by the method of
inviting pursuit and then doubling on his track as Reynard does was