The Collector of the Port did not care so much about the crews of the vessels, it was the owners and capitalists he was seeking to trail down.

The smugglers had given over the search for Spencer Vance, and in parties of twos and threes, had gathered at Rigby’s, until at least fifteen or twenty men were assembled.  They were all smugglers and members of the crew of the smuggler yacht “Nancy.”

As intimated in our opening chapters, the men ostensibly were fishermen, and their boat was stated to be a fishing-boat; and to lend color to the claim, the men did go off between times on fishing expeditions, and the latter little trick had been their best “blind” and “throw off.”

Again, as intimated in our former chapters, three Government officers had mysteriously disappeared, and the duty had devolved upon the Government officials not only to stay the illegal traffic, but to ferret out and bring to punishment the murderers of the missing detectives.

There was no actual proof, however, that the men were murdered; as far as the Government officials were advisedly concerned, the detectives were merely missing.  It was reported by some “Smart Alec” that the detectives had been put on outgoing vessels bound for some distant port, and that in good season they would turn up, and then again there was the chance that the officers might have met with accidents in their perilous undertaking.

Spencer Vance, however, was fully satisfied in his own mind that his brother officers had been murdered.  He knew too well that tragic events are of constant occurrence which never come to light; tragedies so terrible that were the details to be known, a thrill of horror would go throughout the whole land.

There are horrors enough that do become public, but there are as many more that never come to the surface.

The men, as stated, gathered at Rigby’s; they had just returned from a search for Spencer Vance.

There was no doubt in their minds as to the truth of the report that he was a spy in their midst.  The fact that he had declined to go out on the yacht that night was to them proof as clear as “Holy Writ” that he was a Government officer.

It was important to catch him and put him out of the way as soon as possible, as there were several very valuable shipments on the way to New York, and chances favored the men for making quite large sums of money.

Our readers must not understand that the vessel engaged in the smuggling business carried no other freight; the goods intended to be smuggled in was but a small part of their cargo, but amounted on each vessel to enough to yield enormous profits to the capitalists as well as to the actual smuggler crews.

One of the men, as he drunk off a glass of grog, remarked: 

“Boys, it’s a cold day for us that the fellow should have received a warning; it’s money out of our pockets!”

There was a one-eyed, ugly visaged fellow sitting off in a corner of the room, who remarked: