The detective, however, did not have much time to meditate on his strange meeting with the girl and the stranger incidents that followed that meeting. He was warned that it was necessary for him to take measures for the safety of his life.

Spencer Vane was a thoroughly experienced detective. He was no tyro at the business, and he was up to all the tricks and devices of the modern science of criminal detection. He was as good at the art of disguise as any in the profession, and it was his skill in the latter particular which make him so indifferent as to the approach of the gang of madly drunken smugglers.

Our hero walked over behind a high sand drift, and in a few minutes had worked a most startling and extraordinary "transform;" no living man, unless posted as to his disguise, could ever have recognised in the dark-faced, rough-looking man who issued from behind the drift, the same light-haired, dashing-looking fellow who had a moment before disappeared behind it.

CHAPTER X.

The detective had just completed his change in appearance, when he was startled by hearing a shrill piercing scream in a female voice from the direction of Tom Pearce's cabin.

"As I feared!" he muttered, and he walked rapidly toward the cabin, and approaching, he saw an excited group of men standing outside, while something of a more ordinary character appeared to be transpiring beneath the humble roof.

The detective approached the group of men standing outside and inquired:

"h.e.l.lo, what's going on here?"

The men crowded around the new-comer, and glared in his face, and one of the men called out,

"Ahoy there, bring a glim here, quick! Here's stranger, and by all that's fatal, I believe Tom's enemy!"

The detective was perfectly cool as he answered;

"Will you tell me what's going on here"

"Who are you, anyhow?" came the query in a rough tone.

Meantime one of the men had brought out a ship's lantern, and it was held up in front of the detective's face, and the men glared at him.

"Do any of you know this fellow?" came the question.

One man after another declared his utter ignorance of the ident.i.ty of the stranger.

"Who are you, my man?" again came the question;

"My name is Ballard, but I reckon no one around here knows me."

"I reckon you're right, you villain! and now what brings you here?"

"I came here to see a woman named Betsy Pearce."

"You came here to see a woman named Betsy Pearce?"

"Yes."

"What brought you here to see Betsy Pearce?"

"That's my business."

"You've been here before, to-night, old man!"

"Who says so?"

"We all do."

"Then you are all mistaken!"

"We are, eh? Well, my friend, it stands you in hand to give an account of yourself, and explain your presence here, or tomorrow's sun will never rise before your eyes!"

"Will you men explain why I am a.s.sailed this way?"

"My friend, Tom Pearce, has been found in his cabin unconscious!"

The detective gave a start, and a shudder pa.s.sed over his stalwart frame. The start and shudder were the result of far different causes than the men around him supposed, but they noticed his momentary agitation, and one of them exclaimed:

"We've got the right man! And now, boys, get a rope; there'll be no foolin' in this case!"

Meantime one of the men entered the cabin and whispered to Renie, who was weeping over the body of her murdered father.

"They've caught the rascal, miss, and they're going to hang him!"

The girl uttered a scream, a wild piercing wail of anguish and terror! At that terrible moment it flashed across her mind that the men had caught Spencer Vance, and had concluded that the detective was the a.s.sailant of her father.

The girl rushed from the cabin screaming:

"Hold! Hold! do not harm that man! He is innocent! Hold!

Hold, I say!"

The girl advanced to the center of the group of men that surrounded the detective, still exclaiming:

"Do not harm that man! he is innocent! He is innocent!"

She approached close to the prisoner; one of the men held the the lantern so its gleam shone full in the detective's face, and he inquired:

"Do you know him, Renie?"

The girl fixed her eyes on the prisoner and recoiling, exclaimed:

"No, no, I do not know him! I thought it was another man! He must be the one!"

As the excited girl spoke she pointed toward the detective.

The latter still stood, the coolest party amidst all there a.s.sembled.

Renie had taken but a cursory glance at the prisoner. One glance had been sufficient to prove to her that it was not the detective, and observing the man's swarthy complexion she connected him with the Cuban Garcia, and it was the latter fact which in the excitement of the moment caused her to exclaim

"He must be the one!"