st nicely by having an interest in
both kinds of ventures."

The boys knew the names of most of the owners of great estates along
the Long Island shore up to Southampton and beyond, and some time was
spent in laughing speculation as to whether this or that great man was
involved in the liquor-smuggling plot.

"Captain Folsom said," explained Jack, "that so much money necessarily
was involved in the purchase and movement of all that liquor, in the
radio equipment, the buying of the Brownell place, the hiring of
ships, the employment of many men, and so on, that he was pretty
certain the men captured were only underlings and not principals. And,
certainly, the business must have taken a great deal of money."

Several days passed without the boys hearing further from Captain
Folsom, nor was any word received that their motor boat had been
recovered. They came to be of the opinion that it had been either
scuttled or abandoned in some lonely spot upon which nobody had
stumbled, or else that the thieves had managed to elude police
vigilance in the harbor of New York. That the thieves might have used
it to make their way to sea to a rendezvous where the ships of the
liquor-smugglers' fleet gathered did not occur to them, for the reason
that despite the knowledge they had gained of the contraband traffic
they were not aware as yet of its extent. Yet such was what actually
had happened, as events were to prove.

Meantime, both Mr. Temple and Mr. Hampton returned to their homes, to
be amazed at the tale of developments during their absence. Over their
cigars in Mr. Hampton's library, the two, alone, looked at each other
and smiling shook their heads.

"I had to scold Jack for running his head into trouble," said Mr.
Hampton. "But--well, it's great to be young, George, and to have
adventure come and hunt you out."

Mr. Temple nodded.

"I gave Bob and Frank a talking-to," he commented. "Told them they had
no business getting into trouble the minute my back was turned. But
Bob said: 'Well, Dad, we got into trouble when your back wasn't
turned, too, out there in California last year. And we got you out of
it, as a matter of fact.' And Frank said: 'We manage to come out on
top, Uncle George.'"

Mr. Hampton laughed.

"Jack said something of the sort to me, too," he said. "He recalled
that it was only by putting his head into trouble, as I called it,
that he managed to rescue me when I was a prisoner in Mexico and to
preven