He enjoyed it. The thought came to him that he would have a jolly time telling the fellows of the adventure. For one moment he saw in his fancy a crowd of friends gathered in his room eagerly listening to the narration of that night’s adventures. He did not wait for his friends to overtake him. He had lost them in the darkness, and he knew it would not do to wait. In a short time he approached the little steamboat pier, still running like a racer, head up, and breathing through his nostrils. “Wonder--if--I’m--ahead.” He could not tell. When he was close to the pier, he stopped and listened. He heard nothing but the sweep of the wind and the boom of the surf. “Can it be they got here ahead? Can it be they are gone?” He crept out on the pier and looked over. Was that a boat under the edge of the pier? He let himself over, hung down, felt out with his feet, found the boat and dropped into her. “This is the one they came ashore in,” he decided. “It’s the only one here. I am ahead of them.” The boat had drifted under the pier when he dropped into her. He put his hands against the wet and slimy timbers and pushed her out. Then he started to climb up on the pier. Hark! Voices close at hand! The men were coming! He took hold of the edge of the timbers above and pulled himself up, but the moment his head rose above the edge of the pier he realized that the men were close at hand. They were coming, and he could not get off the pier before they reached it! “Trapped!” He felt out with his feet, dropped back into the boat, sat down. Then it was that Frank Merriwell’s brain worked swiftly. What was he to do? He thought of several things. His first thought was to cut the boat adrift, push it under the pier, where they could not find it, and keep still. Then he knew his friends would soon be coming down to that pier, and, if the sailors were there, a collision must take place. His hand touched something in the prow of the boat. “A tarpaulin!” he whispered. With that discovery a daring scheme entered his mind. Not one boy in a hundred would have ventured to carry it out had he thought of it. The boat was fairly large, and there was little danger that one of the four men would be placed in the bow. “Got to hustle!” whispered Frank, as he heard the feet of the men on the pier above his head. He lifted the tarpaulin, crawled under it, stowed himself as closely as possible in the forward end of the boat. Not a moment too soon. There was a tug at the rope, and the boat was dragged from beneath the pier. Then several cursing, growling, shivering men dropped into it. Capt. Horn was there. He snarled at everybody, he swore at everybody, he was furious. “A lot of lubberly cowards!” he raved. “A lot of fools! You were scared at nothing!” “No, sir,” said a sullen voice. “I heard it, cap’n.” “An’ I felt it’s touch, cap’n,” chattered another, who seemed almost overcome with terror.