About the same time I struck a wall running at right angles to my course and made out, in the dim light, dense woods on the other side of it. So I turned to the right and followed the wall, keeping close to it, so that I could climb it and plunge into the woods at the first sign of pursuit. And presently the trees about me thinned, the land ahead fell away and I came to the top of a bluff. I looked down some sixty or seventy feet to a long white beach, deserted in the starlight, and saw the white line made by little breakers. Far in the distance shone the lights of the Connecticut coast. I was somewhere on the north shore of the Island; and, judging by the bluff, I was a long way from town; somewhere out beyond Port Jefferson, I thought. Then I had a shock. My eye swept along the line of the beach and I realized suddenly that it was not deserted. To my left, and, as I judged, about opposite the house from which I had escaped, I made out the dim outline of a smack pulled part way up on the sand. I could dimly discern the moving figures of men about it and the murmur of voices came softly to my ears. But the boat carried no lights nor did the men about it. On impulse, I made my way along the top of the bluff until I came almost opposite to where the boat lay. Here my progress was stopped by a sort of gully running inland a little way, and I lay down on the bluff to watch, keeping my head down so that it could not show up against the sky-line. These people might be picnickers or almost any one. But, on the other hand, they were close to the house I had left and I did not intend to take any chances. They might also be bootleggers, in which case they would hardly be pleased to see me. Presently the men about the boat drew away from it in a mass and came up the beach toward me. They seemed to be carrying heavy burdens. They came forward steadily, and I was just getting ready to beat a retreat when I realized that they were drawing into single file and preparing to advance into the gully. I wriggled forward a little and looked down again. The men moved slowly forward in single file for a matter of twenty yards or so. Then, one by one, they disappeared! Of course I could not see very clearly. But they certainly went into the gully and they certainly did not come out either at the top or at the mouth! And presently the gully was empty! It was too much for my nerves, and I made a mental note of the location of the gully in connection with the sweep of the beach, for possible future use, and prepared to beat a retreat. I had more pressing business than the solution of this mystery. I made my way back to my friendly wall, turned about and headed straight inland. If I kept on in a straight line, taking my direction roughly from the stars, I was bound to come to a road sooner or later.