ould be
waiting to transport the cargo to Tampa, St. Petersburg, or some other
city to the north.

Meanwhile the second boat was due around that time--they could hear her
hoarse exhaust as she bucked the billows rolling in toward the shore
line and a moving light about half a mile distant betrayed her position.

If one thing tickled Perk more than another just then it was the
realization that he and Jack held aces in the game--their possession of
that almost priceless muffler, by means of which they could approach
fairly close without the working motor betraying their coming, gave them
an enormous advantage.

"We sure have got the upper hand in this tangle," Perk was telling
himself in great glee as he listened to the chugging of the second
transfer boat. "Huh! I kinder guess them guys been sleepin' at the
switch not to savvy what a bully thing one o' these here silencers'd be
to the smugglin' game. Looks like it might be a walk-over for our team,
if the luck on'y holds good."

Jack had about decided on his course of action. He did not mean that
either of those boats should get safely ashore with their loads, if he
had anything to say about it, and he reckoned he had.

Still, it was not politic to be too quick on the trigger--they could
just continue to hang around and be ready to pounce down on their
intended prey after the fashion of a hungry eagle striking a fat duck
that had been selected out of the flock on the feeding grounds.

One thing he did do was to cut his intended wide circle short and again
head toward the scene of action, a move that certainly afforded the
eager Perk more or less satisfaction, he being thrilled with the
expectation of breaking into the game without much more loss of time.

But you never can tell just what may happen when rival forces are
striving against one another. The best laid plans often go wrong and
there was always a chance of the unexpected happening.

Hardly had the airship whipped around again so as to head into the north
than Perk became aware of the fact that there was a sudden accesssion of
weird noises springing up from the goal toward which they were now
aiming. Jack, too must have caught the increased volume, for he sheered
off as if to hold back a bit so as to grasp the meaning of the new
racket.

Men were no longer simply talking or laughing as they so cheerfully
labored in transferring some of the contraband from the sloop to the
deck of the speedboat--their