Some half hour later Dayton and Morello, carrying the heavy box between them, reached the wharf where the boat they had already mentioned was in waiting. The rest of their rascally companions were there already, impatiently awaiting the word to "shove off." The boat was one of the schooner's own and in the stern sheets sat Captain Nelsen himself.
"So the boy never wakened," Colonel Morello said, with a low chuckle, as they neared the wharf.
"No," rejoined Dayton, in a sinister tone, "and if he had, it would have been mighty unhealthy for him. Luckily, though, he had evidently fallen asleep while he was sitting up in a chair guarding the stuff. It was no trick at all to get it out from under the bed, where they had it stowed, and lower it to you by that rope fire escape."
"Well, all is well that ends well," said Morello, as they stepped down on the landing place. "But I confess that I was nervous while you were in that room. Now, captain, if you are ready, we will embark without further delay."
"Budt I am nodt retty, by der greadt Horn Schpoon," sputtered Captain Nelsen, in whose stolid mind suspicion had for some time been waxing strong. "It looks to me, by Dunder, dot der vos some dings crooked here, alreatty yedt. Vot for you vant to gedt off by der schooner adt midnighdt? Vot you godt in dot box?"
Without waiting for an answer to his questions, he thrust his hand into his breast pocket and fished out a battered wallet.
"Here," he said, "I gif you back your moneys. I dond't vant to be mixed up in noddings dot looks so suspicibrious as dis sort of vork. You can' haf no monkey business by my schooner. I——"
Before the honest captain could say another word a coat was thrown over his head by one of the men in the boat and he was violently thrown down on the thwarts. But if they thought they were going to subdue Captain Nelsen without a struggle, Morello's rascals were mistaken. The mariner, with muscles hardened in many a blow and time of stress at sea, battled like a wild cat. But, at last, sheer force of numbers outgeneraled him, and he was compelled to lie quiet at the bottom of his own boat.
"I'd have silenced him with an oar if that had kept up any longer," commented Dayton grimly. "We've lost a lot of valuable time already. Come, boys, tie that fellow up, and then give way for the schooner, lively. We'll—— What's that?"
As he uttered the abrupt exclamation, from the direction of the town there came a sound of shouting and uproar.
"They've discovered the theft!" gasped Morello scrambling into the boat after Dayton. "Pull for your lives, boys. It's prison if they catch us."
The men did not need this warning to make them give way with a will. The boat, bearing in it the unconscious captain, fairly flew over the water toward the dark outline of the schooner. In the meantime, the hubbub ashore increased. Lights could be seen flashing in every direction. Shouts and cries were borne clearly over the water.
"We can laugh at all that once we are on board and the anchors weighed," muttered Dayton. "There's a good breeze springing up, and by dawn we ought to be twenty miles out at sea."
But Colonel Morello suddenly recollected something that dashed their enthusiasm.
"Those boys have a motor boat!" he exclaimed.
"Concern it all, that's so," snarled Dayton. "Let's see, we've got to do some quick thinking. Is the tide setting in or out?"
"It's going out," said one of the oarsmen.
"Whatever has that to do with the matter?" snapped Colonel Morello impatiently.
"Everything," was Dayton's reply. "Boys, pull us over toward that motor boat. There—off in that direction—you can just see her white outline."
"What do you mean to do?" asked Morello nervously. "We've no time to waste on foolish notions."
"This isn't a foolish notion, as you'll see," replied the other.
A few minutes more rowing brought them to the side of the motor boat. All was silent on board, Hinckley being asleep in the cabin. Captain Akers had told him that it would not be necessary to keep a strict watch, and he was making up for lost sleep on the rough voyage up by a sound slumber.
As they drew longside the "Nomad," it was seen that her stern was swung seaward, showing that the strong tide which set out of the bay was dragging her Pacificward. The anchor cable was drawn taut as a fiddle string under the strain.
Dayton stood up in the boat, and with one slash of his heavy knife he severed the stout rope, the few strands which he had not cut through parting under the strain of the tide-swung craft.
He gave a low chuckle as the "Nomad," anchorless and adrift, began to glide out to sea at quite a swift pace.
"Now, then," he laughed, "I guess we are ready for the schooner. From her decks we could stand off an army in rowboats, and that is the only kind of craft they can obtain now."
By the time they reached the schooner's side, so rapidly had the tide done its work, that the "Nomad" had completely vanished in the darkness, not even a dim white blur of her form showing up.
"I guess this is the time that we have the Motor Rangers checkmated to a standstill," muttered Dayton to himself, as he climbed up the side of the "Nettie Nelsen." "By the time they recover their boat we shall be miles at sea and beyond danger of pursuit."
Presently they had all gained the decks of the vessel, the chest and the unconscious form of poor Captain Nelsen being handed up, after the boat had been hauled up on the stern davits. This done, the men, under the directions of the gigantic Swensen, the former sailor, set about heaving the anchor and ungasketing the sails preparatory to leaving the bay with all the speed they could command.
In the meantime, let us go back and see what had been occurring ashore. As the astute Dayton had surmised, Nat, who was on watch, but had been overcome by weariness, had awakened with a start a few minutes after the two rascals had set out for the wharf with the chest.
Directly he opened his eyes, one of those strange intuitions that come to us all at times apprised him that all was not well. Gazing about him, the first thing the lad noticed was that the window blind was shoved aside. It had been left that way by Dayton in the invader's hasty exit. With a queer sensation of dread, Nat, broad awake now, sprang from the chair in which he had dozed off, and made for the bed under which the chest had been hidden.
There was nothing there.
With a shout of consternation, the boy staggered back, fairly dazed by the disaster. But Nat was not a boy to remain uselessly thunderstruck for more than a few seconds. Recovering his wits, he instantly realized what must have occurred. Somebody had entered the room by means of the porch roof and stolen the chest.
But who?
As we know, none of the boys had any idea of the close vicinity of Colonel Morello's band. They deemed them, in fact, far from there, in the fastnesses of the Sierras. Nat's first suspicious thought then flashed on the landlord. The man's interest in the chest, his furtive eye and servile manner, all rushed back into the lad's recollection.
He hastily aroused Joe and apprised him of the startling thing that had occurred. Joe, scarcely less taken aback than Nat, was out of bed in an instant. Together the two boys made all speed to the room occupied by Cal and Ding-dong Bell. The mountaineer sprang to his feet with a roar of rage as Nat communicated his dire tidings. He hastily threw on his clothes, and while the rest did the same examined his revolver.
"I've a notion I may have ter use you afore the night is over," he said, addressing the well-worn weapon as if it had been a sentient being.
As soon as they assembled once more—which was within a few minutes—Cal burst out with:
"I'll bet the hole in a doughnut that this here robbery has something to do with that crackling we heard in the chaparral this afternoon. I was pretty sure then that the noise was made by some coyote a-listenin' to our talk. I'm sure of it now. Whoever it was—and I suspect it was one of that Morello crowd—they heard enough to put them wise to the fact that we had the sapphires and meant to stop in Santa Inez ter-night. Ther rest was easy for them."
"But it would not have been had it not been for my neglect of my duty in going to sleep," said Nat bitterly. "It's all my fault. I ought to be——"
"There, lad, no use in crying over spilt milk," comforted Cal. "The thing ter do now is to find the robbers. They kain't hev got very far. And when we do find them thar'll be some fireworks."
Nat hastily communicated his suspicion about the landlord. Cal shook his head.
"I'll bet he's in bed and asleep," he said. And so, on investigation, it proved. The man, however, was honest enough to relate in full to the boys the conversation he had had in his drinking bar with the two strangers. From his description they at once recognized that Cal had been right and that in all probability the marauders were Morello and Dayton.
The landlord volunteered to rout out his friends and form a strong posse, and this was the cause of the shouts and cries that the rascals who had stolen the sapphires and set the "Nomad" adrift had heard. But having no idea in which direction the men could have gone, it was some time before Nat suggested searching the water-front. All that time had been lost in aimless hunting about under the direction of the chief of police of Santa Inez, who was also the main part of its police force.
However, the landlord had succeeded in rousing twenty or thirty citizens, all of whom were armed, so that the posse was quite a formidable one. As they reached the water-front, Cal enjoined silence.
"If so be as they've took ter a boat," he said, "by listening quietly we kin hear ther oars."
But they listened for some minutes without hearing a sound. Suddenly Nat's sharp ears caught an odd noise. The lad, born and brought up by the sea, instantly recognized it. It was the "cheep-cheep" of blocks.
"It's that schooner," he cried, pointing to the dark blot the vessel made against the night. "They're getting up sail."
"Impossible that any one on board her could have anything to do with the robbery," decided the chief of police sagely. "I've known Captain Nelsen for many years," he went on, "and he is as honest as daylight."
"Just the same, there is something mighty queer about a schooner getting up sail at midnight," observed Nat. "If we can get a boat, I'm going to look into the matter."
Although the chief looked dubious, and many of the others in the posse opined that they were wasting time, Nat finally gained his point. Three dories were found and commandeered and the little flotilla set off through the darkness toward the schooner. As they neared her the rattle of anchor chain as it was reeled home was distinctly heard. Also they could catch the sound of commands being given in low voices.
"By Hookey, they are getting her ready for sea," muttered the chief, in a surprised tone. "I guess you were right, boy. This looks very suspicious."
"We'd better give them a hail," suggested Nat.
The chief stood up in the boat, in which, beside Nat and himself, were Joe, Cal, and Ding-dong Bell.
"Schooner ahoy!" he hailed. "We want to board you!"
The reply was prompt and removed all doubts as to the character of those on board the craft.
A flash of light split the night, followed by a sharp report. Nat, who was standing upright by the chief, felt the bullet fan his ear.
"That's for a warning," came a harsh voice. "Stand clear of this schooner, or you'll get more."
But the chief of police was by no means a coward, and this answer, instead of intimidating him, aroused him to fury.
"I am chief of police of this town," he cried. "In the name of the law, I command you to lay to."
A sneering laugh was the only rejoinder. It was followed, however, by a scattering fire.
This was the last straw with the chief.
"Let 'em have it, boys!" he shouted.
In obedience to his command the posse opened fire on the dark form of the schooner. It is doubtful, however, if they did much damage, as the night was too black to make out more than her outline.
But the men on board now had the sails up. The pyramids of canvas loomed up like spires against the dark background of the night. The rushing of water under her forefoot as she began to move could be distinctly heard.
"By Thunder, we'll stop that craft, or know the reason why," roared the chief.
At that same instant there came a shout from the schooner's bow.
"Out of the road, or we'll run you down, you swabs!"
"Great Heavens!" cried Nat. "They've changed their course. Out of the way, quick, or they'll sink us!"
But before any one in the boat had recovered his wits at this sudden and dangerous turn of events, the great form of the schooner loomed above them like some menacing tower.
"Back water! Back water!" screamed Nat.
But before he could utter another word, there was a terrific shock. The schooner's sharp bow had crashed clean into the boat. The air was filled with shouts and cries.
Nat felt the boat sinking under him, and, mustering all his strength, he sprang upward aiming for the "dolphin striker," which loomed right above him.
But even as he sprang he felt a sudden sharp pain pass through him. A million constellations swam sparklingly before his eyes and then his senses went out amid the turmoil about him.