ery nice girl.

"Oh, yes, we're safe," she said, trying to control her voice.

"But those awful men; that--that horrid woman!" gasped Amy.

"You needn't worry about them any more," Allen assured her. "We'll see
that they get what's coming to them."

Whether or not he would have been able to put this into operation is a
question. But unexpected help arrived. It would not have been easy for
the little force in the motor boat to cope with the larger crew of men
on the schooner. Besides, there were three girls to be considered, and,
though they were equal to most emergencies, both Betty and Amy were now
rather unnerved.

There was a sharp whistle outside--a boat signal, evidently.

"What's that?" asked Allen, who, with Henry, Roy and the girls, was in
the cabin, so recently a prison.

"It's a revenue cutter," bawled Tin-Back down the hatchway. "They want
to know if we need help."

"We'll take it, anyhow," chuckled Allen. He felt like laughing now. "But
how in the world did they come, and in the nick of time?"

"Maybe Will sent them," suggested Mollie. "They may be down here after
the smugglers."

And so it proved when Allen went up on deck and held a short talk with
an officer aboard the trim cutter, which had come to a stop alongside
the motor boat and drifting schooner.

Will, left behind at the cottage with Mrs. Nelson and Grace, had
suddenly thought to send the cutter _Minoa_ to follow up the
_Pocohontas_. The government vessel had come down to Ocean View in view
of certain facts Will had given his chief in the Secret Service, but
Will had not expected to use the _Minoa_ in the chase. When he recalled
that she was but a short distance off shore, awaiting wireless
instructions, he rushed in Percy's auto to the telegraph office in town,
and got into communication with his chief, who was awaiting word from
him.

It was but the matter of a few minutes to relay the instructions to the
cutter by wireless from Boston, and she started out to look for a small
motor boat chasing a suspicious schooner. She found both in the nick of
time.

Explanations made, men from the revenue vessel boarded the sailing craft
and made her captain and crew prisoners, the old crone being among those
captured. She had tried to make off in the rowboat trailing at the
schooner's stern, but had been caught by Tin-Back.

"No, you don't!" he cried. "We want you!" and the old lobsterman held
to her despite her struggles.

There were mo