Page:The Wireless Operator with the U.S. Coast Guard.djvu/277

 the only explanation we can see for the situation.”

“Why don’t you stop the Orient before she gets into the harbor and search her?” asked Henry.

“We would do that, but her master is foxy. He has a habit of appearing in the harbor hours before he is expected. He’s here before we know he’s anywhere near New York. There's no use searching him after he’s in the harbor, for he probably passes his stuff out to fishermen or boatmen before he reaches the Narrows. Likely he drops it overboard, with buoys to mark it, so his confederates can go out in small boats and pick it up. We figure he must do it this way, for the custom guards have watched his ship at her pier as a cat watches a mouse-hole, and they can never get a thing that is suspicious.”

“Why don’t you get a compass bearing on the Orient while she is at sea?” asked Henry. “Then you could steam out and intercept her.”

“Sounds easy, but she won’t answer radio calls. That’s another suspicious thing about her. When she does give her position, as she sometimes does to her owners, we have found that she almost always gives a false one. She’s nearer port by a good deal than she says she is. We’ve tried lots of times to intercept her, and that’s the way she fools us. If we had nothing else to do