I am happy now to say that we did not give up. We couldn’t, for the ship fires were going right on, increasing in frequency, and somebody was making bombs, for they continued to be found. On the assumption that a lighter captain who would place a bomb in a sugar-bag must first get the bomb, we began to shadow the captains, not only afloat but ashore, and then suddenly the case took a queer twist and our theory of German intrigue got badly balled up. We followed certain lightermen to their homes, their drinking haunts, and their other places of business, and among their other places of business found the residence--on the lower West Side of Manhattan--of a man known to be a river pirate. That was enough for an arrest, and on August 27 we brought Mike Matzet, Ferdinand Hahn, Richard Meyerhoffer and Jene Storms, Germans, and John Peterson, Swede, to headquarters for examination. Matzet confessed that he, and “all the rest” of the lighter captains, as he expressed it, had been regularly stealing sugar from the consignments, and selling it to river pirates for ⅙ the market price, which allowed the pirates to re-sell it at ⅚ the market for 400 per cent. clear profit. The pirates in a motorboat would steal into the shadow of a lighter as she lay at her anchorage, take off a few bags, and slip away. We had seen such boats, but had never been able to close in and see what they were doing. The checkers who were supposed to render a true and just account of the number of bags which later passed into the hatches of the ocean vessels were merely accomplices who shared in the profits when the stolen sugar was sold. There were no bombs on the captains (who presently went to jail) but they were all fully aware of the conditions along the waterfront, for one said to a pirate who was “buying” sugar: “Take all you want--the damn ship will never get over anyway!” No bombs--and what if there had been? We were reasonably certain that the ships were being fired, but we did not know now whether it was for German reasons, or merely to efface the sugar thefts before the cargoes reached the other side of the ocean and were discovered by the consignees. The conviction of the thieves was not much consolation for the slow development of the case, and it fixed no guilt for bombs. But when you are bound on a long trip, and you have mislaid your ticket, it is second nature to go through your pockets one by one, knowing full well that it is not in any of them, for you “just looked there.” Then you find it in one of the pockets where you knew it could not be. Acting on a not dissimilar instinct we began to retrace our steps from June to September, and to follow again the progress of sugar from the refinery to the hold of the outward bound steamer. Our theory that the bombs had some connection with the sugar was either to be proven or destroyed this time. It was in this more or less dull review that we made the acquaintance of the Chenangoes.