You seem to forget that eleven o'clock is the very latest bedtime in Hampton." After a brief interval Jack Curtiss himself slipped out of the side door of the armory and joined his friend on the dark sidewalk.
"Well, what's the next move on the program ?" asked Bill.
"We'll sneak down Bailey's Lane--there are no lights there--to Hank's place.

Sam will be waiting off there with the boat," rejoined Jack.
"Yes, if he hasn't lost his nerve," was Bill's rejoinder as they shouldered their sacks and slipped off into the deep blackness shrouding the side streets.
"Well, if he has lost it, he'll come near losing his head, too," grated out Jack, "but don't you fear, he wants that fifty too badly to go back on us." Silently as two cats the cronies made their way down the tree-bordered thoroughfare known as Bailey's Lane and after a few minutes gained the beach.
"Say, that's an awful hike down to Hank's gilded palace," grumbled Bill, "why didn't you have Sam wait for us off here ?" "Yes, and have old man Hudgins discover him when he finds his boat is gone," sneered Jack, "you'd have made a fine botch of this if it hadn't been for me." The two exchanged no further words on the weary tramp along the soft beach.

They plodded along steadily with the silence only broken by a muttered remark emanating from Bill Bender from time to time.
"Thank heaven, there's the place at last," exclaimed Bill, with a sigh of relief, as they came in sight of the miserable hut, "I began to think that Hank must have moved." Jack gave a peculiar whistle and the next instant the same light the boys had seen earlier in the evening shone through the chinks of the hovel.
"Well, he's awake, at any rate," remarked Jack with a grin, "now to find out where the boat is." As the wretched figure of the beach-comber appeared Jack hailed him roughly.
"Where's that boat, Hank ?" "Been cruising off and on here since eleven o'clock," rejoined the other sullenly, "ah! there she is now off to the sou'west." He pointed and the boys saw a red light flash twice seaward as if some one had passed their hands across it.
"All right, give him the answer," ordered Jack.

"We've got to hurry if we're to be back before the captain and those brats of boys get after our trail." Hank at Jack's order dived into the hut and now reappeared with the smoky lantern.

He waved it four times from side to side like a brakeman and in a short time a steady "put-put!" told the watchers that a motor boat was approaching.
"Now for your dinghy, Hank," urged Jack, "hurry up.