"We were tacking across the channel, and it was very dark. We had just come about, and suddenly I heard a swish in the water and felt something a yard or so off sweeping by. I couldn't see what it was at first. It seemed to pass in the air. Jo heard it too, and we were both pretty scared. A minute after it was light for an instant and we got sight of her, a few yards to windward of us, bending under her sail. Jo pointed her out to me, and the next moment she seemed to disappear. We got into port this afternoon very late with our fish, and as soon as I could I came to tell you." "How many times have you seen this--this ship without a light?" "Just the once. We don't carry a light ourselves, or we mightn't have seen her this time." "Where was this?" "To the south of Fidalgo Island." "In the outer channel?" "No, right below the slough, to the inner side of the island and the main shore." "Where did the boat seem to come from?" the Inspector asked, looking straight in the boy's face. "Well, we couldn't exactly be sure; but Jo seemed to think that she had come from the slough--that was what set us to thinking she must be a smuggler." "Have you told anybody about this?" "No." "Don't. How about this Indian boy, this Siwash?" "He hasn't said a word about it to any one. I made him keep it quiet till I had told you." "Sure no one else knows?" "No one; at least no one but the man in the outer office here." "What did you tell him for?" the Chief asked, with sudden vexation. "He wouldn't let me in till I told him what I wanted; he said you were busy." At this moment the door opened and a man in uniform entered. "Ah," he said, glancing at the boy, "he's told you, then. Had we better put any confidence in the tale? I've been speaking to the Captain of the _Madrona_ about it. He is in the outer office now. He seems to think there is something in it." "You may go now," said the Chief, with a preoccupied look, to the boy; "you had better go right home, and next time carry a light yourself. Good-evening." "I am sorry you let the boy go," the deputy began, as the door closed; "we may need him for evidence. But here's the Captain." A tall gentleman, in the uniform of the United States navy, entered the room at this moment. "I've been having a word with your salmon-fisher," he said, "and I think he's telling the truth. I'll catch them to-night when they're getting back north, and give them more light in Puget Sound than they will find altogether convenient. Where was it he saw them now?" "I don't think the boy said," the deputy answered. "Did he tell you?" and he turned to his superior. "Yes, he did, now I recollect." "Was it in the main channel, or below the slough to the inside of the island?" "In the outer channel; it was too large a boat to get through the slough." "Why, I thought he said it was a sailing sloop," mused the Captain, turning to the deputy. "So did I."