supplies and
ammunition, such as can be carried."

Kennedy looked at him keenly, but for some moments did not answer. I
knew he was debating on how he might properly dove-tail this with
Burke's case, ethically.

"Someone is trying to find out from eavesdropping just what your plans
are, then," remarked Craig thoughtfully, with a significant tap on the
detectaphone.

A moment later he turned his back to us and knelt down. He seemed to be
wrapping the detectaphone up in a small package which he put in his
pocket and closing the hole in the wall as best he could where he had
ripped the paper.

"All I ask of you," concluded Gaskell, as we left a few minutes later,
"is to keep your hands off that phase of things. Find the
incendiary--yes; but this other matter that you have forced out of
me--well--hands off!"

On our way downtown to keep the appointment Kennedy had made with Burke
the night before, he stopped at the laboratory to get a heavy parcel
which he carried along.

We found Burke waiting for us, impatiently, at the Customs House.

"We've just discovered that the liners over at Hoboken have had steam up
for a couple of days," he said excitedly. "Evidently they are waiting to
make a break for the ocean--perhaps in concert with a sortie of the
fleets over in Europe."

"H-m," mused Kennedy, looking fixedly at Burke, "that complicates
matters, doesn't it? We must preserve American neutrality."

He thought a moment. "I should like to go aboard the revenue cutter. May
I?"

"Surely," agreed Burke.

A few moments later we were on the _Uncas_, Kennedy and Burke in earnest
conversation in low tones which I did not overhear. Evidently Craig was
telling him just enough of what he had himself discovered so as to
enlist Burke's services.

The captain in charge of the _Uncas_ joined the conversation a few
moments later, and then Kennedy took the heavy package down below. For
some time he was at work in one of the forward tanks that was full of
water, attaching the thing, whatever it was, in such a way that it
seemed to form part of the skin of the ship.

Another brief talk with Burke and the captain followed, and then the
three returned to the deck.

"Oh, by the way," remarked Burke, as he and Kennedy came back to me, "I
forgot to tell you that I have had some of my men working on the case
and one of them has just learned that a fellow named Petzka, one of the
best wireless operators,--a Hungarian or something--h