356 
do with me, and the cracker brought 
by) une” erie, Winery Ve SaiMmecl tne 
beach we saw a schooner standing in- 
shore—the same Bob and I had previous- 
ly observed. Its appearance seemed to 
greatly please the 2 men. When it was 
about % mile away it went up into the 
wind and was stationary. Pretty soon we 
saw a boat contamine 3) On Ay men leave 
its side. They had covered one-half the dis- 
tance to the island; then they turned and 
started back much faster than they had 
come. 
All had been so interested in watching 
the boat we had not thought of the man 
in the tree. Now we looked and saw 
him running toward us at the top of his 
speed, shouting loudly and waving his 
arms excitedly. It was the Spaniard. He 
didn’t stop when he reached us, but kept 
on in the direction of the bayou. As he 
dashed past he shouted something. We 
couldn’t catch his meaning, but the Indian 
and the Floridian rushed after him, leaving 
Bob and me without a glance or a word. 
The schooner was under way again, stand- 
ing out to sea. 
Happening to look to the Northward 
we saw stealing about the keys—where we 
had first seen the schooner—a steamer 
with a trailing cloud of smoke hanging in 
its wake. 
“Hello!” Bob cried. “That's the revenue 
cutter we saw in Cedar Keys.” 
Just then we heard a lot of noise in the 
channel. The 3 men were trying to get 
their catboat into the open water. They 
were having a time of it, too, for the tide 
was racing in and the wind was against 
them. Evidently they were in a hurry, 
for instead of poling out they had gone 
overboard and were wading to their hips 
as they pushed the boat rapidly up the 
channel. They buffeted the waves until 
they finally got from the channel into the 
cpen bay and hoisting the sail started, as 
we supposed, in pursuit of the schooner. 
Meanwhile the steamer had been head- 
ed in the same direction. When it was 
about 2 miles off it hove to and put out 
a poat,, Ong 2 Sacqtaintancesm uiaG manok 
made much headway, but they held on. 
spunkily until they were quite close to the 
approaching boat.  Dhen the catboat 
came around like a shot and tore back 
over the course she had covered with so 
much effort. Sie eiidhin te torielinmetent me 
island but kept well away, and soon we 
saw her sail flashing among the small 
keys nearer to the mainland. 
The boat from the revenue cutter came 
on to the island, an officer and some sail- 
ors landed, and, to our amazement, we 
found ourselves in custody again. The of- 
ISH QIR SGA TI QDIN, 
ficer asked if we held any communication 
with the schooner and if we svoke Span- 
ish. Fortunately we were ab.e to give a 
positive and truthful negative in response 
to every question from him. 
“You are sure you are telling me the 
truth, boys?” he asked. 
We assured him we were. 
“Do you think you could locate the spot’ 
where the schooner hove to?” 
"Yes, sity” -Bob) satdes ie thiml<limca@uladres 
“Then come with me.” But we hesi- 
tated; wondering what was to become of 
us. The officer must have understood 
what was going on in our minds, for he 
said: 
“Show me the spot as nearly as you 
can, and you shall be put ashore when you 
have done so.” 
That. sounded fair. We got into the 
boat with him and were rowed to where 
the schooner had been, as nearly as we 
could tell, Rhe ofticer stood 1p—as) did 
a sailor in the bow—and looked around. 
“Do you see anything?” he asked. 
“Yes, sir,” the sailor answered; “I see 
a bit of cork that doesn’t move with the 
waves.” 
“Where?” 
IDeAGl alneacl, Sie” 
“Give way,” and the boat glided for- 
ward at the command. In a moment we 
were alongside of what seemed to be a 
cork such as fishermen se on their nets. 
As the man lifted it from the water we 
saw a stout rove attached to its under 
surface. The sailor began to pull on this, 
when up came a demijohn—the rope knot- 
ted securely about it—then another and an- 
other until an even dozen were raised from 
the bed of the gulf. 
That explained the whole matter. The 
Floridian had evidently not wanted the 
schooner’s people to know of our presence 
on the island, which was doubtless a reg- 
ular rendezvous, lest it should deter them 
from landing. It also explained the hur- 
ried dash to sea which had for its object 
the recovery of the demijohns from the 
place where they had been left by the 
schooner. 
When Bob and I were put ashore we 
got our belongings together and resumed 
our cruise. As we left. the island we 
could see the schooner with the cutter in 
chase just disappearing below the horizon. 
Later when we reached Tampa we learned 
the chase continued almost to Cuba before 
the cutter overhauled the smuggler and 
brought her back in triumph. 
As for our 3 worthy friends of the 
island we never heard whether or not they 
were captured. 
