think they're hiding near here?" he asked, and Dave shook his
turbaned head.

"Gone 'way," was his answer. "Boat come back to-night, mebbe so."

"Boat? What boat?"

"_Esperanza_."

"Oh! Then you think they'll try to leave this part of the coast soon?"

"Dunno. Wait. We see, we tell _Petrel_."

There was nothing else to do, so Billy curbed his eagerness to learn
the present whereabouts of the smugglers and crawled forward in
silence. Once he drew back with a gasp of horror as a large moccasin
snake darted across his path; but seeing the loathsome creature glide
away to a safe distance, he went on, following the guide.
Nevertheless, a chill ran down his spine when he thought how narrowly
he had escaped stumbling full tilt upon the reptile, which, unlike the
rattlesnake, never gives warning of its presence.

When they had traversed the stretch of marsh between the peninsula
and the cove, alternately walking on soft springy ground above a bed
of coralline limestone and wading knee-deep along the watercourse,
they emerged upon the left bank of the cove. The two smaller cabins
were not more than twenty paces distant, and between them was a plank
bridge rudely built in the form of a trestle. Dave and Billy
approached this bridge.

Suddenly they stopped short and crouched in the high grass. Plainly
to their ears came the shrill barking of a dog.

Dave expressed his feelings in one round oath, which, being uttered
in his native dialect, sounded to Billy "Like gargling the throat."

It needed no expletives to inform Billy that the dog's appearance on
the scene of action was certain to cause trouble.

"Ketch um dog, choke um!" said Dave, looking about him to see if the
barking had brought anyone to the place.

"Where is the cur?" Billy asked.

"Don't see um," replied the Seminole. He straightened up until his
head was above the top of the grass. "A-ah!" he exclaimed in a
guttural tone. "Man in sailboat yonder."

Impulsively Billy scrambled to a kneeling position, and his gaze
followed Dave's. The two spies then beheld the figure of a man
seated in the stern of a dug-out canoe that carried a mast and
sail and was coming around the bend of a stream.

"If he sees us-----" began Billy.

"S-s-sh!" Dave interrupted warningly. "Wait, see where he go."

"Is the dog barking at us or at him? What d'you think, Dave?"

"At us," was the answer. "Man come, let dog loose,---we better
go back! Incah!"

"No