."

"Not in this peaceful community. You seem to forget that eleven
o'clock is the very latest bedtime in Hampton."

After a brief interval Jack Curtiss himself slipped out of the side
door of the armory and joined his friend on the dark sidewalk.

"Well, what's the next move on the program?" asked Bill.

"We'll sneak down Bailey's Lane--there are no lights there--to Hank's
place. Sam will be waiting off there with the boat," rejoined Jack.

"Yes, if he hasn't lost his nerve," was Bill's rejoinder as they
shouldered their sacks and slipped off into the deep blackness
shrouding the side streets.

"Well, if he has lost it, he'll come near losing his head, too," grated
out Jack, "but don't you fear, he wants that fifty too badly to go back
on us."

Silently as two cats the cronies made their way down the tree-bordered
thoroughfare known as Bailey's Lane and after a few minutes gained the
beach.

"Say, that's an awful hike down to Hank's gilded palace," grumbled
Bill, "why didn't you have Sam wait for us off here?"

"Yes, and have old man Hudgins discover him when he finds his boat is
gone," sneered Jack, "you'd have made a fine botch of this if it hadn't
been for me."

The two exchanged no further words on the weary tramp along the soft
beach. They plodded along steadily with the silence only broken by a
muttered remark emanating from Bill Bender from time to time.

"Thank heaven, there's the place at last," exclaimed Bill, with a sigh
of relief, as they came in sight of the miserable hut, "I began to
think that Hank must have moved."

Jack gave a peculiar whistle and the next instant the same light the
boys had seen earlier in the evening shone through the chinks of the
hovel.

"Well, he's awake, at any rate," remarked Jack with a grin, "now to
find out where the boat is."

As the wretched figure of the beach-comber appeared Jack hailed him
roughly.

"Where's that boat, Hank?"

"Been cruising off and on here since eleven o'clock," rejoined the
other sullenly, "ah! there she is now off to the sou'west."

He pointed and the boys saw a red light flash twice seaward as if some
one had passed their hands across it.

"All right, give him the answer," ordered Jack. "We've got to hurry if
we're to be back before the captain and those brats of boys get after
our trail."

Hank at Jack's order dived into the hut and now reappeared with the
smoky lantern. He waved it four times from side to side like a