ubbing his hands vengefully. "Oh, Dalton,
you scoundrel, you can't escape us now, for long! You knew that, if
you continued down the coast, there was danger that a United States
revenue cutter would intercept the ship and take you off. At best, you
knew you would be arrested at Rio Janeiro, if I suspected you, as I
was bound to do. So you tried to steal ashore here, to be swallowed up
in the mazes of this broad country at least an hour or two ahead of
pursuit. And, but for the wireless spark that leaps through space, you
could have done so. But we shall have you now."

"Unless----" began Tom Halstead, hintingly, then paused.

"Unless--what?" insisted Mr. Seaton.

"Suppose Dalton is shrewd enough to pay the captain of the schooner to
land him at some other point, where there is neither a policeman nor a
telegraph station?"

Seaton made a noise that sounded as though he were grinding his teeth.
Then he picked up a pencil, writing furiously.

"Send this to the police chief at Beaufort," he ordered. Joe Dawson's
fingers made the sending-key sing. The message was one warning the
police chief that Dalton might attempt to land at some point outside
of Beaufort, and asking him to cover all near points along the coast.
Mr. Seaton offered to make good any expense that this would entail.

Once more, in a few minutes, the answer was at hand.

"Chief of police at Beaufort says," Joe translated the dots and
dashes, "that his authority does not extend beyond the city limits."

Again Mr. Seaton began to show signs of fury. Then, as though to force
self-control, he trod softly out of the room, going toward the door of
the sick-room, where Hank Butts stood guard.

"No news, sir; no change," Hank reported, in an undertone.

"I'm afraid Mr. Seaton is pretty angry with us," said Tom Halstead,
gravely, "for allowing Hilton--Dalton, I mean--to get away from us."

"Then he may as well get over it," commented Joe Dawson, quietly.
"We're hired to furnish a boat, to sail it, and, incidentally, to run
a wireless telegraph apparatus. We didn't engage ourselves as
policemen."

"True," nodded young Captain Halstead. "Still, I might have done some
quicker thinking. My! What would Dalton have felt like if I had run
straight for this dock, refusing to put him aboard any other craft?"

"If you had tried to do that," retorted Joe, with another quiet smile,
"do you know, Tom, what I think your friends would have been doing and
saying of you?