n't go back on you, sir. If you own this boat, I'll tell you all I
know about her."

"I don't say that I own her."

"I know you don't say so; and for that reason I can't say anything more
about her. You only told the truth about the letter."

"But I might have held my tongue, and I'm sorry now I didn't."

After this speech, Little Bobtail had no doubt that Captain Chinks was a
bad man, and he felt the necessity of extreme caution in dealing with
him.

"I don't see how you could keep still when Squire Gilfilian asked you
the question," added Bobtail, in his simplicity.

"If I had done by you as you are doing by me when I ask you a question,
I should have kept still, as you do."

"But I don't want to get any one into a scrape," pleaded the skipper.

"What do you mean by that? I only ask you to tell the truth, as I did
for you this morning," said the captain, in a coaxing tone.

"Squire Gilfilian owned that letter, and he had a right to ask about it.
If you say you own this boat, I shall feel that I am perfectly safe in
answering your questions."

"Perfectly safe! Then of course there was a cargo in her," added the
visitor.

"I don't say there was. Have you lost a cargo, Captain Chinks?"

The captain mused. To say that he had lost a cargo would be to
acknowledge that he was a smuggler, and he could not trust the secret to
a boy like Little Bobtail, who had the reputation of being an honest and
truthful boy. If called upon to give evidence, the boy would tell the
whole truth. He would rather lose both the cargo and the boat than be
convicted of smuggling.

"If there was no cargo in her, you would say so, Bobtail; so I have no
doubt there was a cargo in her," continued Captain Clunks, after a
silence of a few moments. "I take it for granted there was some sort of
goods in her."

"What makes you think so, sir?"

"I have a notion of my own on that subject. If I'm not greatly mistaken,
I saw this boat down to Bar Harbor. My idea is, that she went out to sea
somewhere, and took a lot of goods from some fishing vessel, and tried
to run them up to Camden, or some other port. I don't say it is so, but
it might be. Very likely some of those custom-house officers got wind of
the affair, and were on the lookout for the boat. Very likely the men in
charge of her abandoned her, and cleared out to save themselves."

"I wonder if they went over to Camden in the Islesboro' packet this
morning," suggested Bobtail, innoce