The Dock Rats of New York | Page 5

It was a strange thing to do; why should they tread thus lightly the deck
of a ship ten miles off shore, as though their footsteps might be heard?
Alas! it was a case of involuntary stealth, a sign of the nervous,
trepidation which attends conscious guilt.
It did not seem that there could be any danger near; the heavens were
clear, the bosom of the deep unruffled even by an evening breeze.
Nature called not for the coward tread, and the gleaming eye, the pale
face, and the anxious glance hither and thither. No, no; but the
smugglers feared another peril. Revenue cutters were known to be
cruising along the coast; more than ordinary vigilance was being
exercised by a robbed Government.

The men upon the schooner knew that the revenue officers were up to
many of their tricks and were posted as to many of their signals; false
lights might gleam across the waters like an ignis fatuus luring on a
famished traveler in the desert, and within the hour after their calling
had been betrayed, every man might be in irons, and the cargo and the
vessel would be confiscated.
A fortune was at stake, and the shadow of a prison loomed out over
across the waters and threatened to close in behind them.
Spencer Vance, the disguised detective, the supposed sea-tramp, moved
about with the smugglers, acting as they acted, stepping on tiptoe, and
looking pale and anxious, and it did not require that he should assume
the pale excited look, for it was a momentous crisis. He had hit the
vessel the first clip, and he had struck the trail which had baffled men
who claimed a larger experience in that particular branch of the
detective service. He had "piped" down to a critical moment, but he
carried his life in his hands. He was not watched, but one false move
might draw attention toward him, and but a mere suspicion at that
particular moment would cost him his life; these men would not have
stopped to bandy, words or make inquiries.
As stated, there came the gleam of a light flashing across the calm
waters, and the men who were not on ship duty strained their eyes.
Soon there followed a succession of lights, signal lights telling their
story, and then the schooner men let out answering lights, and the sails
were lowered and the schooner merely drifted upon the bosom of the
deep.
Spencer Vance was speechless with excitement as the little game
proceeded.
At this period in our story we will not describe the modus operandi, as
later on we propose to fully depict the smugglers' methods under more
exciting circumstances, when Spencer Vance was better prepared to
checkmate the game. We have here only indicated in an introductory
form the detective's keen plan for running down and locating the haunts
of the pirates.

Three days following the maneuvers of the schooner off the coast, the
detective appeared at a fishing village, and at once he set to locating his
shore men.
It was not the poor sailors, who were mere instruments in the robbery
scheme, whom the detective was seeking to "pipe" down. His game
was to follow certain clews until he trailed up to the capitalists, the
really guilty parties, the rich men who flaunted in New York in
elegance and luxury on their ill-gotten gains.
The detective had got an good terms with one of the gangs. He had
been off several times with them an a cruise, and considered that he
was fast working down to a dead open-and-shut, and the really guilty
parties, when he received the strange wanting at the hands of the weird,
but beautiful girl who called herself Renie Pearce.
That same night the detective had engaged to go off in the yacht; it was
understood that a smuggler was expected off the coast that night, and
he was looking to strike on a big "lay."
We must explain to our readers that the arrival of expected vessels is an
uncertain event, and the shore watchers were sometimes compelled to
go off night after night, even for weeks, before the vessel, sending out
the long-looked-for signals, hove in sight off the horizon; and it was on
these vigil nights the detective had sailed out with the men. He had
thought his game well played, his disguise perfect, his victory sure,
when, as stated, at the last moment, a strange, beautiful girl came along
and whispered in his ear the terrible warning that danger awaited him if
he went off in the boat that night.
Spencer Vance, however, was undaunted; the warning was not
sufficient to deter him going off and braving death in the way of duty,
and he would have gone had not an incident