clear off its rusty hinges. "Just
busted open like yer'd taken the crust off'n a pie! Ah, if I could lay
my hands on the fellers that done this, I'd run 'em tip ter the yardarm
afore a foc'sle hand could say 'Hard tack'!"

"Why, we think that--" began Tubby, when Rob checked him. The captain,
who had been bending over his dog, didn't hear the remark, and Rob
hastily whispered to Tubby:

"Don't breathe a word to anyone of our suspicions. Our only chance to
get hold of the real culprits is to not give them any idea that we
suspect them."

After a little more time spent on the island, the boys took their
leave, promising to come back soon again. First, however, Rob and his
corporal made a brief expedition to see if they could make out the
tracks of the marauders of the previous evening. Whoever they had been,
however--and the boys, as we know, had a shrewd guess at their
identity--they had been too cunning to take the path, but had
apparently, judging from the absence of all footmarks, made their way
to the house through the coarse grass that grew on each side of the way.

"Well, what are we going to do about it?" Tubby inquired, as they
speeded back toward home.

"Just what I said," rejoined Rob. "Keep quiet and not let Jack or his
chums know that we suspect a thing. Give them enough rope, and we'll
get them in time. I'm certain of it."

How true his words were to prove, Rob at that time little imagined,
although he felt the wisdom of the course he had advised.

As they neared the inlet, Rob, who was at the wheel and scanning the
channel pretty closely, for the tide was now running out, gave a sudden
shout and pointed ahead. As the others raised their eyes and gazed in
the direction their leader indicated they, too, uttered a cry of
astonishment. From the mouth of the inlet there had stolen a long,
low, black craft, gliding through the water at tremendous speed.

In the strange craft the boy scouts had little difficulty in
recognizing Sam Redding's hydroplane.

"So he's got her back," exclaimed Merritt, recovering from his first
astonishment.

"Yes, and she seems little the worse for her experience," remarked
Tubby. "It doesn't appear, though, that they are going to profit by
their lesson of the other day, for there they go out to sea again."

"Probably consulted the glass this time," remarked Rob. "It read 'set
fair' when we started out."

"Well, that's the only kind of weather for them," comm