The G-man's son at Porpoise Island

STANLEY SANDBORN realized that there was little time to lose. Hegarty’s plans had been changed, and the identity of Mr. Sandborn was no longer a secret! Hegarty was evidently not intending to drop out of the picture with a G-man in it. He had too big stakes in the game, was gambling for too much power, to let even the fear of “Federal heat” deter him from his course. Without a doubt his chief aim was to capture the lavish stores of wealth he believed Nevada to possess. If things worked out right then, he would also have control of the syndicate which the ex-cowboy had built up. If a Fed was killed in the squabble it was just too bad for the Fed!

The sandy-haired youth arose, winked at John, paid their bill, and they left by the same side door through which they had entered.

Out in the street, away from the restaurant he acted even more quickly, racing for the nearest store. It was a magazine and novelty place, and what he wanted was visible through the window—a phone booth! Into this he went as casually as possible while John made a purchase or two to keep the proprietor busy.

When Stan came out of that booth he was grinning a little. They went outside.

“O.k.?” queried John.

“I got Main Haven’s G-man on the phone and he’s letting the big Chief know. That’ll help keep Dad safer unless Nevada gets wise to his real identity! We’ve got less time and just as much work to do now. It’s Porpoise Island for us to-night, after all!”

“We’re as good as there!” John commented eagerly.

“But I’ve a chore to do first, John. Skip to our boat and wait for me!”

“Oars out?”

“You bet, I may come on a run!”

He was gone a few minutes after John got into their rowboat, and he did come back running.

“I got it!” he cried triumphantly as he jumped in and helped shove off.

Mystified, John rowed away.

“Got what, Skipper? Not a hundred dollar bank note, I trust!”

“No, but something that will help stick those babies behind the bars when exhibited in court!” observed Stan gleefully.

He would say no more, and John rowed swiftly to the Staghound.

“Get the sails up, Mate,” ordered the G-man’s son as he hurried below. “We’ve got to get into motion!”

They were off Zenith Light and laying a compass course for Porpoise Island when Stan took the wheel and told John to go below, if he liked, and see what they had to add to their evidence. The lanky youth did so, and whistled. It was a rubber handle neatly removed by a jackknife, slit from the motor of the Sea Hawk’s tender, and on it silver powder had been scattered lightly by the joyful Stanley to bring out several very fine fingerprints.

“How many men left their prints, I wonder, Stan?” asked John, returning to the cockpit and closing the cabin slide to hide the extra light.

Stan rejoined, “Looks like three to me. We’ll know who did it later when Dad gets a chance to have the F. B. I. look them up in the fingerprint files!”

Back at the boat wharf a group of men argued over the discovery that the handle to the tender’s motor was no longer rubber covered!

“Where were you while it happened?” Hegarty demanded of an abashed thin chap who had been left at the tender.

“Just went in town on an errand, boss, and come right back!” he confessed.

“Well, whoever did that must have had a good reason and——”

One of the men in business suits with Hegarty gave a low curse of anger.

“Fingerprints is what they wanted whoever done it!” he said aloud.

“That’s it!” cried Hegarty. “And I bet it was them kids! Come on; what are we waiting for. Let’s get going after them!”

But the boys had been gone some time now, and the racing rowboat, overloaded and hard to manage, circled the harbor without any luck while the valuable minutes passed. Then Hegarty was put aboard the Sea Hawk.

“Get under way, boss?” asked a sailor at the controls on the bridge.

“No!” snapped Hegarty, and he went below to his cabin where he was shortly closeted with his lieutenants.

“Why not chase the kids further, Hegarty?” asked one.

“What’s the use? You can’t expect to find a small sloop in the bay on a night like this, or any night for that matter! We’ll find ’em to-morrow!”

“Who handled the motor grip, boss?”

Hegarty winced.

“You and me and him all gripped it in succession as we steadied ourselves to step to the wharf!” he groaned.

On the waters of the bay the sloop forged ahead for the Island at her fastest gait, and soon was cruising in the darkness along the north shore, hunting for a certain new cove into which to slip. She was running in at slackened speed under the starlight when something fast and dark hummed in behind her! It was a speedboat coming at moderate velocity, and both boys were startled.

“The bows, John!” yelled Stan, and the Mate went below, returning at once with their weapons.

“Do you think it’s Dago and the mob?” John asked, putting an arrow to the string. “Indigo nanny goats, what breaks we get!”

Stan had no chance to reply, for a searchlight was flung for an instant full upon the boat, then as quickly shut off. In another split second, blinded as he was by the flare of light, John would have let fly with an arrow anyhow, but a voice commanding, yet friendly, came distinctly to the boys.

“This is the law, boys! Heave to, while we come aboard!”

“What law?” demanded Stan doubtfully, trembling a little in spite of his courage.

“Men of the F. B. I., boys! John sent us!” came the answer.

Tingling with excitement, the boys hove to and the boat drew down upon them and swung alongside. It was clear, for the starlight reflected from its surface, that the boat was not one of the familiar gray speedboats. The men stepped easily aboard the sloop, and one remained with the motorboat while she drifted away at the end of a line.

“Go ahead and anchor when you are ready, boys,” said the leader, speaking quietly.

The anchor was dropped overboard and the sails were smartly lowered. Then the boys led the men below, the leader, clean-shaven, smart appearing, with clear blue eyes and a firm mouth, the others, three in number, being all ordinary-appearing young men, yet each looking quite capable of taking care of himself in an argument. They seated themselves in the now crowded cabin upon bunks and the table, and got down to the point of the visit.

“John got us at once, after you phoned, Sandborn,” said the leader. “I’m the agent in charge of this district—Holmes is the name—and these are my men.”

“Dad works under you part of the time, doesn’t he?” queried Stan.

“That’s right. This time he’s on his own by order of the big Chief. We’re here to snap up these gangster rats when their big battle starts.”

“IT’S starting Wednesday night instead of Thursday!” Stan said, excitedly.

“So John informs us, Sandborn,” Holmes said. “Now, we just found you by accident. We’d been planning to drop in along here later but made it to-night due to the emergency, and you chose the same cove!”

“Want us to get out?”

“No. You stay right here. We’ll shove off towards dawn and hide further down, to the west. What were your plans in anchoring here?”

Stanley explained that they were intending to go ashore, hiding the tender, find out what they could in the darkness, and, at daybreak, take pictures from cover and try for fingerprints.

“The idea is fine, boys, so go ahead. We’ll be round here till dawn; that is, the man on watch will be. The rest of us are going to do some sleuthing on our own to-night! If anything happens, remember to head for this cove! By the way, you heard about the boner Dago pulled the other night, didn’t you?”

“No; what was it?” Stan asked, mystified.

“He and some other men were out apparently hunting for some one in one of the gray boats and they overtook and boarded a New York yacht off Porpoise Island! The owner thought them modern pirates and blasted away with an automatic!”

Laughter rang in the cabin as the other men joined in with Holmes’ amused roar.

“He was luckily a bum shot and hurt no one, but Dago pushed off in a big hurry, leaving a gun behind on the yacht’s deck! The thing got in the papers of course, though the yacht owner naturally didn’t realize who had boarded him, and I got to him and to the police and got possession of the gun, upon which I found some very excellent imprints of the honorable Mr. Dago’s fingers!”

“Didn’t the police search for the gray boat?”

“Sure; but you know how Black Cove is, hidden away! They either forgot it or passed it up as a hiding place somehow, for they did not sight any suspicious boats! I guess that police boat crew is still wondering where the ‘pirates’ came from!”

After some more conversation the boys went ashore in their little tender which they had carried on the port side of the deck, upside down, during the run from Zenith, and carried it up the beach and into some bushes to hide it before hunting for a trail inland. Soon they were moving along a trail, bows and arrows in hand, flashlights in pockets, and fingerprint outfits and the spare camera along, too. Thus laden, they got over the Island under the starlit sky and were soon close to the cove.

Moving cautiously and slowly, they came along the path upon which their adventures had begun, and down through bushes to the shore. There they had a grand stand seat from which to study the activity on the scow. The scow was anchored in its regular spot for night work, and lights glimmered and men moved about!

They stayed there for some time consumed by unsatisfied curiosity.

From that spot, unchallenged, they passed through a maze of paths to the south ridge back of the cabin and were going along in the dark, when Stan grasped John by the arm.

“A tunnel, for sure, John!” he said.

It was indeed a half concealed entrance to a tunnel, and the two boys stood before it, nervous and eager.

“Shall we go in?” John asked, in a whisper.

“Why not?”

“Go ahead!” said a voice from the darkness, close by. “But I’m going with you!”

It was Holmes, who now stepped from the bushes.

“Where you been all this time, Mr. Holmes?” asked Stan, puzzled at the coincidence of that meeting.

Holmes chuckled.

“I’ve been following you, and I’ll admit you are cagy sleuths. I nearly lost you a dozen times. Hold it—here comes the enemy!”