“Which is your basket?” inquired Harry, struggling hard to suppress a laugh.

“It’s a brown basket, with a white cover,” answered James.

George and Harry were too full of laughter to trust themselves to speak; but Charles exclaimed, as he drew aside the covering,

“There’s no brown basket here.”

“There ought to be,” said one of the coast-guards; “I brought my things in a brown basket.”

“So did I,” exclaimed another.

“There’s a cheat somewhere,” said James.

“You haven’t done as you agreed,” said Charles.  “You promised to carry all the things in one boat.”

“Yes, that’s what you agreed to do,” shouted several.

“And we’ve kept our promise,” said Harry.

“Then, where’s my basket?” inquired one of the boys, who had failed to discover it among the things in the Alert.

“I’ll bet the Champion carried some of the provisions over,” said another, “for there are not half of them here.”

“No, the Champion didn’t have a thing in her,” said a third.  “She passed so close to my boat, that I could have jumped into her, and I took particular pains to see that she was empty.”

“Well, here are the things that I brought, at any rate,” said Charles, who had just caught sight of the bag which contained, as he supposed, his lemons.  “My goodness!” he continued, as he lifted them out of the boat, “how heavy they are!”

And he began to untie the bag, and soon disclosed to the view of the coast-guards, not the lemons, but almost half a peck of smooth, round stones.

George and Harry, who could contain themselves no longer, rolled on the bottom of the boat, convulsed with laughter; and several ready hands tore off the coverings of the baskets and pails, and they were found to be empty.

A more astonished set of boys one never saw; and, as soon as they could speak, they burst out with a volley of ejaculations that will hardly bear repetition.

“We’ve been chasing the wrong boat,” said one.

“Yes,” answered another, “and I knew it would be so.  That Frank Nelson is too much of a Yankee for us.”

“The Speedwell—­the Speedwell!” shouted another; “keep a good look-out for her.”

“Oh, you’re too late,” said Harry, with a laugh, “the provisions were landed long ago.”

“I don’t believe it.  I didn’t see any thing of her.”

“Of course you didn’t,” said Charles; “you were too intent on catching the Alert.  Boys,” he continued, “we’re fairly beaten.  Let’s start for the island.”

The coast-guards silently obeyed, and the smugglers refrained from making any remarks, for they saw that the squadron’s crew took their defeat sorely to heart.

In a few moments the little fleet rounded the foot of the island, and the boys discovered the Champion and Speedwell, lying with their bows high upon the sand, and their crews were busy carrying the provisions under the shade of a large oak, that stood near the water’s edge.