unition was thrown into the
sea," which may or may not have been the case. On May 23, the tug _Three
Friends_ left Jacksonville, took on men and arms from two small vessels
waiting outside, and landed all in Cuba. A month later, and again two
months later, the _Three Friends_ repeated the trip from Florida ports. On
June 17, the _Commodore_ made another successful trip from Charleston.

While these and other minor expeditions were going on, the department of
expeditions in New York was busy with a more extensive enterprise. An order
was placed for 3000 rifles, 3,000,000 rounds of ammunition, 3 12-pound
Hotchkiss field-guns and 600 shells, _machetes_, and several tons of
dynamite. The steamer _Laurada_ was chartered, and the ocean-going tug
_Dauntless_ was bought in Brunswick, Georgia. A part of the purchased
munitions was ordered to New York, and the remainder, two car loads,
shipped to Jacksonville by express. Ostensibly, the _Laurada_ was to sail
from Philadelphia to Jamaica for a cargo of fruit, a business in which
she had at times engaged. Her actual instructions were to proceed to the
vicinity of Barnegat, about forty miles from New York, and there, at sea,
await orders. The arms and ammunition came down from Bridgeport on the
regular boat from that city, and were left on board until night. There was
no particular secrecy about the shipment, and detectives followed it. But
when, at dark, the big gates of the dock were closed and locked and all
seemed over for the day, the watchers assumed that nothing would be done
until the next day, and went away. But, immediately after their departure,
a big lighter slipped quietly into the dock across the wharf from the
Bridgeport boat, a swarm of men appeared and, behind the closed gates, in
the semi-darkness of the wharf, rushed boxes from steamer to lighter. The
work was finished at midnight; a tug slipped up and attached a hawser to
the lighter; and the cargo was on its way to Cuba. Johnny O'Brien was on
the tug. The _Laurada_ was met off Barnegat, as arranged, and the cargo and
about fifty Cubans put on board of her. She was ordered to proceed slowly
to Navassa Island where the _Dauntless_ would meet her. General Nunez and
O'Brien returned to New York on the tug, and while the detectives suspected
that something had been done, they had no clue whatever to guide them.
Nunez and O'Brien started immediately for Charleston, with detectives at
their heels. The _Commodore_, a tug