Again Dave pointed, this time to a group of three ramshackle cabins just visible through the bushes.  In one of those cabins Hugh was even then a prisoner.  Had Dave or Billy known this, they would not have hesitated to swim to the place, if need be to say nothing of the difficulty of going there and “borrowing” a canoe, in which they all could approach the smugglers’ headquarters.

Dave explained that the cabins on the cove were called “Durgan’s settlement,” and that the place bore a bad reputation.  He added that to his certain knowledge the revenue men had intended for some time past to raid the place, and that they had waited only for more proof that the smugglers foregathered there.

Having assured the others that he and Billy would soon return with some kind of a canoe or boat, Dave set forth, accompanied by Hugh’s chum.  The others, separating, took up their positions where they were concealed by the long grass, but where they had a good view of the islands and straits, the cove, and the three cabins.

They were now pickets on duty.

CHAPTER VII

A GATHERING OF THE CLAN

“If there are any of the gang around here, where on earth are they?”

The question came in a whisper from Billy, as he and the Seminole pursued their way cautiously along the edge of a watercourse, in the direction of the cabins.  Bending forward, sometimes crawling on hands and knees, they advanced—–­an inch at every step, it seemed to impatient Billy.

“Do you think they’re hiding near here?” he asked, and Dave shook his turbaned head.

“Gone ’way,” was his answer.  “Boat come back to-night, mebbe so.”

“Boat?  What boat?”

“Esperanza.”

“Oh!  Then you think they’ll try to leave this part of the coast soon?”

“Dunno.  Wait.  We see, we tell Petrel.”

There was nothing else to do, so Billy curbed his eagerness to learn the present whereabouts of the smugglers and crawled forward in silence.  Once he drew back with a gasp of horror as a large moccasin snake darted across his path; but seeing the loathsome creature glide away to a safe distance, he went on, following the guide.  Nevertheless, a chill ran down his spine when he thought how narrowly he had escaped stumbling full tilt upon the reptile, which, unlike the rattlesnake, never gives warning of its presence.

When they had traversed the stretch of marsh between the peninsula and the cove, alternately walking on soft springy ground above a bed of coralline limestone and wading knee-deep along the watercourse, they emerged upon the left bank of the cove.  The two smaller cabins were not more than twenty paces distant, and between them was a plank bridge rudely built in the form of a trestle.  Dave and Billy approached this bridge.

Suddenly they stopped short and crouched in the high grass.  Plainly to their ears came the shrill barking of a dog.