"Sure," admitted Harry. "Still, they might have picked up another team somewhere else, and you want to remember that it only pays to smuggle things that are valuable and can be easily moved. Now one packhorse load of dope would be worth a good many dollars, and you can't move anything much easier than a man. He's got feet." This was incontestable, but Frank considered the matter. "If you turned a number of Chinamen loose in the bush wouldn't they be recognized as strangers at any settlement they reached and have to give an account of themselves to somebody?" "The trouble is that, although I believe they have to carry papers of some kind, it's mighty hard to tell one Chinaman from another and they all work into each other's hands." "Your idea is that the smugglers have confederates?" "They have them, sure," said Harry. "There's some diking being done on a salt marsh not far away, and the last time I was there it struck me there were some hard-looking white toughs on the workings. Then there's a small Chinese colony behind the settlement, and it's thick bush with only a few ranches for some leagues beyond. Just the kind of country for running dope through." "Are the ranchers likely to stand in?" "No, not in a general way, but it's possible that a man here and there living by himself in the bush would say nothing if they borrowed a horse or two. It's not nice to have a gang of toughs up against you." "Your father doesn't seem inclined to look at it that way." Harry laughed. "I'll allow that there's a good deal of sense in dad. It would be clear to him that he couldn't well give them away afterward if he did nothing this time. They'd certainly have got him; and dad's not the man to let a gang of dope runners order him round." He paused a moment, and added significantly: "If they try any bluffing in this case there'll be trouble." Frank asked no further questions and they set about the trenching. CHAPTER VI AT THE HELM Mr. Oliver did not come back until nightfall. He said nothing about his visit to the settlement and several days passed before the boys heard anything further of the matter. In the meanwhile they went on with the drain they were cutting across a swampy strip of clearing, and one afternoon they stood in the bottom of the four-foot trench. Harry was then busy with a grubhoe, cutting through the roots and breaking up the wet soil, which his companion flung out with a long-handled shovel. It was unpleasantly hot, and the flies were troublesome. Frank's hands were too muddy to brush them away and they crawled about his face and into his ears. He had already decided that draining was about the last occupation he would have chosen for a scorching afternoon, had the choice been open to him.