A number of the men fell into a regular carouse with the
detective; among them was Ike Denman, the captain of the yacht
"Nancy." Indeed, the men got into a game of cards, and
Ballard lost like a little man and stood his ill luck with
such marvelous good nature, the men fell right to him.
When it was well into the morning, the game broke up, and
Denman invited the detective to go aboard the yacht and bunk
for the night.
Our hero gladly accepted the invitation; and when once aboard,
as it was a pleasant morning, the two even lay out upon the
deck, and Denman became quite confidential. He let the
detective into the secret of the real business of the crew of
the yacht, and told him that daily they were expecting a
schooner from the West Indies with a big cargo for them.
"How do you run it ashore?" asked the detective, innocently.
"Make a trip with us and we'll show you how the thing is done;
the fact is I'm a man or two short, and if you want to take a
rake in with us you're welcome."
"That's just the ticket for me!" answered Spencer Vance.
Our readers must understand that the detective had been
wonderfully diplomatic and cute to so readily, worm himself
into the confidence of Ike Denman.
The men at length went to sleep and slept far into the
morning. Ike Denman was the first to awake, seemingly, but in
reality the detective had been on the alert all the time.
The master of the "Nancy" was quite a different man in the
morning when burning under the after-effects of liquor than he
was when in the full fever of a jolly spell.
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