But the cove proved uninteresting. The sides were steep, although dense bushes grew about the base of the slopes, but there was no path, no trail, no indication that any human being had ever been in the place. Being protected from the wind, the water was calm. The echoes of the motorboat’s engine were flung back from every side in a roaring volume.
Suddenly Frank gave a gasp of surprise!
Standing among the thickets at the base of the steepest slope, was a man.
He was very tall and he wore a black felt hat, the wide brim of which obscured the upper part of his face. His countenance was tanned and weatherbeaten, his lips were thin and cruel. He wore a short black jacket, and he stood with his hands plunged into the side-pockets and his feet spread wide apart, in the manner of a seaman.
He was standing there quietly, gazing at them without a shadow of expression on his sinister face, as motionless as a statue.
When he saw that he was observed he called out:
“Leave this place!”
Tony throttled down the engine. The three boys stared at the man in the black hat as though he were an apparition.
“Leave this place!” he repeated, in a curiously metallic voice.
“We aren’t doing any harm,” replied Frank.
“Not now,” said the stranger. “But don’t land here.”
“Why?”
“You don’t have to ask why. This is private property. You can’t land here. You’d better leave at once.”
The boys hesitated. As though to emphasize his commands, the man in the black hat reached suddenly into his pocket and whipped out a wicked-looking revolver. Then he folded his arms, tapping the barrel of the revolver against one shoulder very deliberately.
“Turn that boat around and get out of here!” he snapped. “Don’t come back. Don’t ever come back. Don’t ever try to land here. This is private property. If you ever do land here you’ll be shot.”
The boys were unarmed. They realized that nothing would be gained by argument. Tony slowly brought the boat around.
“Goodbye,” shouted Joe cheerfully.
The stranger did not reply. He stood there, gazing fixedly after them, his arms still folded, still tapping the revolver against his shoulder as the motorboat made its way out of the strange bay, out into open water.
“Looks as if he didn’t want us around,” remarked Tony, as soon as the Napoli was out of the cove.
“I’ll say he didn’t!” exclaimed Frank. “What a wicked-looking customer he was! I expected to see him start popping at us with that gun of his before we got out.”
“I don’t want to run into him again,” Joe declared. “He sure gave us our orders. And he meant ’em, too.”
“I wonder who he is,” said Tony.
“Do you think—Fellows! do you think it could have been Snackley?” shouted Frank.
XV
Smugglers
The thought struck Frank Hardy like a thunderbolt!
The appearance of the stranger had been so sinister, he was so evidently a lawless and desperate man who was accustomed to being obeyed, and his presence in this place indicated too clearly that he had some connection with the house on the cliff, that Frank’s deduction seemed quite logical.
“Snackley!” exclaimed Joe. “It must be him.”
“The head of the smugglers!”
“I’ve never seen a picture of Snackley and I’ve never heard him described,” said Joe. “But that fellow looks just as I had pictured Snackley would look.”
“He’s a leader of some kind—you can tell that by his manner,” put in Tony Prito.
“He’s the fellow who chased Jones that day in the motorboat.”
“And he’ll chase us, too,” declared Tony, “if we don’t get away from here pretty quick.”
“Why should we go now?” demanded Frank. “We’ve stumbled on something important. That may be the smugglers’ cove.”
“But how do they get to the house if you think they have anything to do with the Polucca place?” asked Tony. “Those cliffs in there are mighty steep.”
“There must be some way that we don’t know of. What do you say we hang around here for a while and see what we can do?”
Tony became infected with the enthusiasm of the Hardy boys and he readily agreed to keep the motorboat in the vicinity of the cliff, although it was decided that they should not remain too near, but cruise up and down the shore in case the sharp-eyed man should be watching them.
“It was a good thing we didn’t put up an argument with that fellow,” said Frank, at last.
“I’ll say it was!” Tony agreed emphatically. “We didn’t have much chance to argue with that revolver he had.”
“I don’t mean that. He may think we were just out for a cruise and accidentally wandered into that cove. If he knew we were hunting for dad he might have acted very differently.”
“That’s true, too,” said Joe. “Well, we won’t go home just yet.”
It was late in the afternoon. The sky was overcast and twilight was falling. A cold wind blew in from the sea.
The motorboat went some distance down the shore and then they turned and, keeping well out in the bay, went on up past the cliff once again. They kept a sharp eye on the location of the cove, and in spite of the fact that they knew just where it was they were scarcely able to distinguish the narrow opening in the rocks.
“No wonder the place hasn’t been heard of more often!” Frank said. “It looks like an unbroken wall of rock from this far out.”
“You’ve got to be careful around here, Tony,” cried Joe. “First thing you know we’ll hit the rocks and be smashed.”
“That’s right,” added Frank. “It’s pretty dangerous so close to the cliff.”
“You leave it to me,” came from their schoolmate. “I know how to handle this boat.”
It was true, Tony did know how to handle the motorboat; yet several times they came perilously close to the rocks over which the waves were dashing. In fact, once there came
