The "Dock Rats" of New York; Or, The Smuggler Band's Last Stand — A Reader’s Guide

The man chuckled as he said:

"I thought you would listen to me when I let on what I know'd."

"Tell me the secret!" commanded the girl.

"Oh, yes, Renie! but I've a condition."

"A condition? What condition would you exact?"

"You must become my wife. There, the thing's out; so now, what have you got to say?"

"That's your decision?"

"That's my decision."

"Be careful, gal. I only asked you to marry a me to give you a chance; remember you're nobody's child, and I've hooked on to the secret."

"You're a mean man, Sol Burton, to threaten me!"

"Well, the fact is, Renie, I like you! I'm dead in love with you, and I'm willing to marry yer, and that's more than most of the fellows round here would do, knowing all I know."

"Good-night, Sol Burton, I'll not stop to talk with you, nor will I tell my father that you said insulting words to me."

"What do you suppose I care about Tom Pearce? I can whisper a few words in his ear that will take some of the starch out of him! He's been mighty uppish about you, although he's let you run round the beach barefoot these sixteen years."

"Go talk to Tom Pearce, and do not be the coward to repeat your threats to me!"

The girl started to move away, when the man suddenly leaped forward and grasped her in his arms, but the same instant he received a blow which sent him reeling, as the girl was snatched from his rude grasp.

A curse fell from the man's lips, and he arose to his feet and advanced toward the man who had struck him.

"Run home, little girl!" whispered the detective; "I will take care of this brute!"

"Thank you!" said the girl, and she glided away along the beach.

"See here, you're the man who struck me?"

"I think I've seen you before."

"I think we've met before."

"What did you hit me for?"

"I struck you because you put your hands rudely upon the girl."

The man leaned toward the detective with the remark:

"Well, it's my turn now!"

And his turn it proved to be, as he received a rap, which caused him to turn clean over.

Sol Burton was raving mad when he once more regained his feet; the fellow was an ugly chap, a great bully ashore, and a cruel heartless man afloat. As he arose he exclaimed:

"All right, you're fixed for me to-night; but my time will come! I'll get square with you before you're much older!"

Sol Burton turned and walked away a baffled man.

Spencer Vance walked to the point on the beach where he had stood when the girl had come to him with the strange warning.

The young man was a Government officer, a special detective, and had been assigned to the collector at the port of New York to run down an organized gang of smugglers who were known to be doing a large business off the Long Island coast.

Several detectives had been detailed to work up the matter, and one after another they had mysteriously disappeared, and the Government had never succeeded in solving the mystery of their taking off; and further, none of the officers had ever been able to locate the head-quarters of the gang.

One fact had been established: large quantities of smuggled goods had been carried into New York, and each week the Government was swindled out of thousands of dollars of revenue; and the illicit traffic had grown to such an extent that a number of honest merchants had subscribed a large sum of money which had been placed at the disposal of the collector to be used as a fund for the breaking up of the gang, who were ruining regular importers in certain branches of trade and commerce.

Spencer Vance, although but a young man, had quite a reputation as a detective. He had done some daring work in running down a gang of forgers, and in the employ of a State Government, he had been very successful in breaking up several gangs of illicit whisky distillers. He was a resolute, cool, experienced man, an officer who had faced death a hundred times under the most perilous circumstances. And when summoned upon the new duty he accepted the position readily.

By methods of his own he got upon the track of the workers; the men who did the actual work of landing the contraband goods.

The latter were not the really guilty men. They were not the principals, the capitalists; but they were the employees who for large pay ran off the coast, intercepted the steamers carrying the contraband goods, and landed them within certain assigned limits.