Thinking that he had heard enough by this time and knowing that if they discovered him he would be captured as a spy, Hugh began to wonder how and when he should leave his hiding place and crawl back to camp with the least risk of being observed.  At any moment the men might emerge from the hut or others of their gang might join them.  Yet he did so want to learn where they had come from, and whether their vessel was lying at anchor somewhere among these many islands!  So he lay there, flat on the sand, scarcely daring to breathe lest he should be heard, heartily wishing the men would give some more definite hint of their purposes, and devoutly hoping that none of his friends, missing him from camp, would come in search of him with shouts and calls!

“That would be fierce!” he whispered inaudibly.  “That would give me away and scare off these jail birds mighty quick!”

Suddenly the distant tchug-tchug of a gasoline motor boat came to his ears.  Raising himself on his elbows, he peered over the stump, out across the glittering blue water, and saw a good-sized dory, manned by a solitary individual who wore light oilskins, coming swiftly toward the hut on the beach.

“That must be the motor boat that passed our camp last night,” thought Hugh.  “I feel sure now, surer than ever, that I heard it go by in the darkness.  But it’s coming over from the mainland now.  Wonder who’s that man at the tiller?”

Down he sank again and waited.

Presently the motor-dory drew up alongside the strip of beach in front of the bamboo hut and came to a standstill.  The man in oilskins called out: 

“Hey!  You-all in thar!”

Instantly one of the three rascals came forth from the hut.

“Hello, Durgan!” he called, not at all loudly, through his cupped hands.  “What’s the news?”

“Beat it!” was Durgan’s warning answer.  “Thar’s a campin’ party on th’ island below here—–­I seen ’em ’bout ten minutes ago—–­old Cap’n Lem Vinton, an Injun, an’ four or five boys.”

“Lem Vinton, eh?  All right, Joe, we’re going.  Can you tow us around Spider Key?”

“Nope.  I’m goin’ home now,” Joe Durgan replied tersely, with the abruptness of one who has done an irksome duty and would avoid further responsibility for the present.

Suiting actions to words, he quickened his engine and made off toward the Florida shore.

His boat had scarcely become a speck on the water, when Hugh began to crawl back to the other side of the mound.  Joe Durgan, who was evidently not nearly so “looney” as represented, had warned the smugglers of the presence of the Arrow near their retreat, and Hugh realized that no time should be lost if Vinton were to spread sail and go in pursuit of them or of the Petrel.

“Now’s the time for me to beat it, too,” he resolved.  “While they’re talking they won’t hear me or see me, and I can hurry back to the place where I left my coat and shoes.”