“Are you going to leave the sloop?” asked Miss Elting.

“No.  We want that boat for reasons of our own.  We wish to look it over at our leisure.  Your sea anchor saved you, that and good seamanship.  Miss Burrell, it is a pity you are not a man.  You would be commanding a ship in a few years.  I think we had better transfer you now.  I’m afraid of the sloop.”

The transfer was a thrilling experience for the Camp Girls.  Several times they narrowly missed being upset and thrown into the sea, but after more than two hours’ work everyone had been safely landed on the deck of the revenue boat.  Three men were put aboard the sloop, a lifeboat being left with them in case the “Sue” foundered.  The revenue cutter then started towing her toward home.  It was late in the evening when finally they came to anchor off Camp Wau-Wau.  The surf was running so high that it was decided not to put the girls ashore until the following morning, though the “Sue” was cast off from her tow and allowed to drift into the bay.  From here her crew rowed ashore and informed the anxious Camp Girls that everyone of their companions was safe.

But the morning brought with it a further surprise.  The cabin in which the Meadow-Brook Girls had made their home had wholly disappeared.  With it had gone the bar, swept out by the storm, the cabin lying a hopeless, tangled wreck on the shore of the bay.  With it, too, had gone ashore a variety of stuff which the officers of the revenue boat examined early that morning.  They pronounced the ruined stuff ammunition.

Harriet told of the mysterious box that she had seen carried into the woods.  Later in the day this was located and dug up.  It was found to be a zinc-lined case, packed with military rifles of old pattern.

On board the “Sister Sue,” in the chain locker, was found a complete wireless equipment, together with quite a cargo of rifles and ammunition.

“These guns were meant for business!” remarked the captain of the revenue cutter, as he and another officer stood by superintending the work of four sailors.

“Why, I thought the days of piracy had gone by,” remarked Harriet.

“Pi—­” gasped Tommy, and turned pale.

“Pirates!” echoed Margery Brown in consternation.  “Why, we might have been killed and no one would have known what became of us!”

“Who said anything about pirates!” retorted the revenue captain, smiling.

“Why, you thaid—­” began Tommy wonderingly.

“I spoke of ‘business,’” came the answer of the man in uniform, “and that was what I meant to say.  In these days, in Latin-American countries, revolution appears to be one of the leading forms of business.”

“Revolution?” echoed Margery, quickly reviving, while Tommy listened in amazement.  “Why, revolutions are romantic; there’s nothing awful about ’em.”

“Nothing awful,” laughed Captain Rupert.  “In the countries to the south of us most of the revolutions are very tame affairs, so far as actual fighting goes.  The crowd that makes the most noise, whether government or insurgent, usually wins the day.  For that matter, I never could understand why blank cartridges wouldn’t do as well as the real ammunition in these Latin-American revolutions.”