Steve and Bert Alley
remained on deck. Steve, although he perhaps needed sleep more than
anyone, refused to trust other eyes than his own, and while darkness
lasted he watched the white path cast across the water by the
_Adventurer's_ searchlight. But darkness and silence held until shortly
after four, when the eastern sky began to lighten. The next half-hour
passed more slowly than any that had gone before. Gradually their range
of vision enlarged, and Steve, peering into the greyness, drew Bert's
attention to a darker hulk that lay a few hundred yards up the harbour.
They watched it anxiously as the light increased. That it was a boat of
about the size of the _Follow Me_ and that is was painted dark became
more and more apparent. Then, quite suddenly, a ray of rosy light shot
up beyond Eastern Point and the neighbouring motor-boat lay revealed.
Steve sighed his disappointment. She was not the _Follow Me_ after all,
but a battered, black-hulled power-boat used for gill-netting.

One by one, as the light strengthened, the others stumbled on deck,
yawning and rubbing their sleepy eyes. The _Adventurer_ was anchored
more than a mile from the inner harbour, and between her and Ten Pound
Island lay a big, rusty-red salt bark, high out of water, and five
fishing schooners. But these, aside from the disreputable little
gill-netter, were all the craft that met their gaze.

"Either," said Steve wearily, "she never came in at all or she's up in
the inner harbour. I'll wager she didn't get out again last night. We'll
go up and mosey around, I guess. Ossie, how about some coffee?"

"I'll make some, Steve. Guess we'd better have an early breakfast too."

"It can't be too early to suit me," murmured Bert Alley, as he dragged
his feet down the companion way and toppled onto a berth. The
_Adventurer_ weighed anchor and in the first flush of a glorious Summer
dawn, chugged warily up the still harbour. She kept toward the eastern
shore and the boys swept every pier and cove with sharp eyes. Then
Rocky Neck turned back them and they picked a cautious way over sunken
rocks to the entrance of the inner harbour. By this time it was broad
daylight and their task was made easier. Still, as the inner harbour was
nearly a mile long and a good half-mile wide, and indented with numerous
coves, the search was long. They nosed in and out of slips, circled
basins and ran down a dozen false clues supplied by sailors on the
fishing schooners that