Spencer Vance, the disguised detective, the supposed sea-tramp, moved about with the smugglers, acting as they acted, stepping on tiptoe, and looking pale and anxious, and it did not require that he should assume the pale excited look, for it was a momentous crisis. He had hit the vessel the first clip, and he had struck the trail which had baffled men who claimed a larger experience in that particular branch of the detective service. He had "piped" down to a critical moment, but he carried his life in his hands. He was not watched, but one false move might draw attention toward him, and but a mere suspicion at that particular moment would cost him his life; these men would not have stopped to bandy, words or make inquiries. As stated, there came the gleam of a light flashing across the calm waters, and the men who were not on ship duty strained their eyes. Soon there followed a succession of lights, signal lights telling their story, and then the schooner men let out answering lights, and the sails were lowered and the schooner merely drifted upon the bosom of the deep. Spencer Vance was speechless with excitement as the little game proceeded. At this period in our story we will not describe the modus operandi, as later on we propose to fully depict the smugglers' methods under more exciting circumstances, when Spencer Vance was better prepared to checkmate the game. We have here only indicated in an introductory form the detective's keen plan for running down and locating the haunts of the pirates. Three days following the maneuvers of the schooner off the coast, the detective appeared at a fishing village, and at once he set to locating his shore men. It was not the poor sailors, who were mere instruments in the robbery scheme, whom the detective was seeking to "pipe" down. His game was to follow certain clews until he trailed up to the capitalists, the really guilty parties, the rich men who flaunted in New York in elegance and luxury on their ill-gotten gains. The detective had got an good terms with one of the gangs. He had been off several times with them an a cruise, and considered that he was fast working down to a dead open-and-shut, and the really guilty parties, when he received the strange wanting at the hands of the weird, but beautiful girl who called herself Renie Pearce. That same night the detective had engaged to go off in the yacht; it was understood that a smuggler was expected off the coast that night, and he was looking to strike on a big "lay."