Cap'n Mike's voice came from the doorway. "I'd call that mighty impolite!"

Rick turned on his side and stared unbelievingly. The old sea captain stood rock steady in the door, and at his shoulder was Carrots' rifle.

He spoke calmly. "Only got one shot in here. You could get me before I had time to pump it up again. Found it on the porch and took me a few minutes to figure it out. Almost put a slug through my foot doing it.

But I got it in hand now. Got one shot. Who wants it?"

Marbek took a half step forward and the muzzle swung to cover him.

Cap'n Mike's finger tightened. "You, Brad?"

Marbek stepped back.

"Come toward me, both of you," Cap'n Mike said. "Rick and Scotty."

Rick crawled forward, under the line of fire. Scotty, suddenly released, dropped to the floor and did the same.

The smugglers stayed where they were, frozen by the calm threat of the old man's voice. "Been eel fishing," he said. "Saw that young reporter skate around the corner with two men after him. Then I noticed Scotty and Rick looking out, and I thought I better take a hand. Didn't know just what to do until I spotted this BB gun in front of the porch."

His voice hardened as Red Kelso shifted position. "But now I know what to do."

Far down Million Dollar Row, Jerry met the State Police cars. And as Rick grinned up at the Captain, he heard the welcome sound of sirens.

CHAPTER XX

Read All About It!

Jerry Webster came out of the pressroom with a bundle of papers under his arm, the roar of the presses providing a background for his chant.

"Extra! Read All About It! Spindrifters Smear Smugglers! Seaman Shows Shootin' Savvy! Simple Sap Scampers, Saves Skin! Read All About It!"

Rick s.n.a.t.c.hed one of the papers. "Thanks, I will. Hey, gang, listen to this!" He read the headline aloud. "'Seaford Gunrunners Caught.'"

Scotty took a paper, too, and read the subhead. "'New Night Movie Camera Supplies Evidence for Surprise Raid.'" He grinned at Jerry and Duke Barrows. "Very restrained. Not a purple adjective in the lot."

Captain Douglas let out a bellow. "Hey! You don't mention the State Police until the second line of the story. Call a cop someone, I want these guys pinched."

"Charge 'em with serving poison coffee," Cap'n Mike suggested. "Never drank such a brew in my life."

Duke grinned. "That isn't coffee, skipper. It's printer's ink with cream and sugar. Go on, Rick, or someone. Read the rest of it."

"Byline," Rick said, "by Jerry Webster, and under that it says copyrighted by the _Morning Record_. How did you copyright it so quickly, Duke?"

"Sent a copy air mail to the copyright office and enclosed a dollar.

The letter will go out tonight. It's standard procedure. Go on, read.

I edited Jerry's story so fast I didn't have a chance to enjoy it."

Rick read on. "'A Seaford trawler captain, four members of his crew, and two New Yorkers were arrested tonight on gunrunning charges after a surprise raid by State Police officers culminated a series of events that included the wrecking of the trawler _Sea Belle_, the use of a new invention by the two youngest members of the Spindrift Island Foundation to photograph the transfer of arms under cover of darkness on the high seas, the kidnapping and maltreatment of a _Morning Record_ reporter, and a fight in the attic of the Creek House hotel that was ended by the timely intervention of a retired sea captain.'"

Rick got the last words out with his last bit of breath.

Scotty looked at Jerry with admiration. "He's not only a distance runner, he's a distance writer. That was a hundred-yard sentence."

"I cannot tell a lie," Jerry said modestly. "I did it with my little dictionary. Written by an ancestor who was also famous. Noah Webster."

"'One of the most surprising disclosures,'" Rick read on, "'was the reason for the stubborn silence of Captain Thomas Tyler, master of the trawler _Sea Belle_, which was wrecked on Smugglers' Reef a week ago.

As reported in previous editions, Captain Tyler maintained an obstinate silence as to the real reason for the wreck of the trawler in the face of pleas from friends and officials. He had maintained that he was solely responsible and that his error in judgment had been caused by liquor. After the arrest of the smugglers, Captain Tyler willingly told this reporter that he had discovered the smuggling activities of Captain Bradford Marbek and Roger and James Kelso two weeks before.'"

"That was a good guess we made," Cap'n Mike said soberly. "Poor Tom.

He was in some spot. He knew about the smuggling, but he was like we were. Couldn't prove a thing. He could have told the police and asked for protection, but they wouldn't have had grounds for holding Brad and the Kelsos. They would have been free to carry out their threats against his family inside of twenty-four hours."

"That's right," Scotty said. "But he didn't know any more than we did what they were smuggling."

The axes of police officers had disclosed rifles, submachine guns, and ammunition in the cases innocently labeled as sewing machines, and no one had been more surprised than the boys.

"Thousands of guns and ammunition must have gone out before we caught on," Rick said. "What happens to the people that received them?"

"That's not our affair," Captain Douglas told him. "Since they went to ships and nationals of a foreign country, it's up to the Department of State to take action, if there's going to be any."

"We filed the story with Universal Press Service," Jerry explained.

"It's all over the country by this time. Copyright by the Whiteside _Morning Record_." He grinned. "We're modest, Duke and I."

"You are, anyway," Rick scoffed. "'Kidnapping and maltreatment of a _Morning Record_ reporter.' Why didn't you give the reporter's name?"

Jerry turned a little red, but he said loftily, "We heroes prefer to remain anonymous."

"Heroes is right," Duke said dryly. "You came within an inch of having a bronze plaque erected to your memory as one who fell in line of duty."

"What? Only bronze?" Jerry looked hurt.

Rick gave him a comradely wink. Jerry's act had brought him close to the ranks of heroes at that, if quick thinking and nerve combined with bad luck were any qualification. He glanced through the story quickly, and found what the young reporter had said about his own part.

"'While attempting to gather evidence, the _Morning Record_ reporter who figured in the case was caught by the truckmen who delivered the arms to Creek House. After being beaten, bound, and gagged, he was taken to the hotel. His questioning was interrupted by the arrival of Brant and Scott.'"

And that really was modesty. Jerry had been returning from the boat landing when he pa.s.sed a big trailer truck that carried the name of a large manufacturer of industrial castings. He thought quickly, surprised at seeing such a vehicle in Whiteside. Such trucks always used the shorter main route. To his positive knowledge, there was not a single manufacturing plant on the entire sh.o.r.e road on which Whiteside and Seaford were located. There was a definite chance, he decided, that the truck might be carrying a load for Creek House. He knew the smugglers had made fast changes in their plans, as witness the moving up of the ship sailing. There was a strong possibility they had been forced to ask for immediate shipment of contraband, too.

Jerry pa.s.sed the truck and stopped at the newspaper long enough to scrawl a note to Duke, explaining what had happened, then he pa.s.sed the truck again and drove furiously toward Seaford. He went by Salt Creek Bridge and parked his car in a pasture, then ran back to the bridge, made his way into the marsh and waited.

The trailer truck arrived, stopped, and put out flares, and three men got out. They jacked up the rear wheels of the trailer, then started to unload. By so doing, they had a perfect reason for being there. If a police car came along, they had only to explain that they had broken an axle and were replacing it, and that they had taken out part of their cargo to lighten the load until repairs were completed.

The stage was no sooner set than up the river came the flatboat from Creek House. It pushed its way into the marsh, toward Jerry. Not until the actual loading started did he discover his bad luck. He had taken a fairly well-defined path into the marsh. The path was artificial, made by the Kelsos. They had carried rocks to make both the path and the stone jetty to which the flatboat had come. The deception had worked, because the path and jetty surfaces, strong enough to carry the weight of men with heavy cases, were under an inch of mud and water!

Jerry had described the end simply. "They fell over me. I tried to get away, but there were too many of them."

But he had gotten in one good blow. His hand closed over one of the rocks of the path and he swung it effectively. The State Police, hearing his story, made a routine check of doctors and hospitals along the route the truck probably had taken; they a.s.sumed it would not turn around on the narrow sh.o.r.e road. The trucker Jerry had felled was in a small clinic two towns below Seaford, and an interstate alarm had gone out for the others, giving license numbers and descriptions supplied by the reporter. They wouldn't get far.

Jerry's luck had been bad, but Captain Douglas' luck had been good.

The acc.u.mulated evidence probably would have been enough, but one of Brad's seamen had talked, hoping for a lighter sentence.