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Title: The Motor Boat Club at the Golden Gate; or, A Thrilling Capture in the Great Fog

Author: H. Irving Hancock

Release date: May 23, 2015 [eBook #49030]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
        produced from images generously made available by The
        Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AT THE GOLDEN GATE; OR, A THRILLING CAPTURE IN THE GREAT FOG ***




Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)






The Motor Boat Club at the Golden Gate

OR

A Thrilling Capture in the Great Fog

By

H. IRVING HANCOCK

Author of The Motor Boat Club of the Kennebec, The Motor Boat Club at
Nantucket, The Motor Boat Club off Long Island, The Motor Boat Club and
the Wireless, The Motor Boat Club in Florida, etc., etc.

Illustrated

PHILADELPHIA
HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY


COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY HOWARD E. ALTEMUS


[Illustration: "I Trust You, But I'll Hold Onto the Pitcher."

_Frontispiece._]




CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                           PAGE
    I. TOM HALSTEAD, KNIGHT OF THE OVERLAND MAIL,    7

   II. HAZING, M. B. C. K. STYLE,                   22

  III. CAPTAIN TOM'S NEW COMMAND,                   34

   IV. HALSTEAD IS LET INTO A SECRET,               52

    V. A HUNT IN THE UNDER-WORLD,                   59

   VI. FACING THE YELLOW BARRIER,                   68

  VII. DICK TAKES THE RESCUE BOAT TRICK,            81

 VIII. THE REAL KENNEBEC WAY,                       94

   IX. THE CHASE OF THEIR LIVES,                   100

    X. COMING TO CLOSE, DANGEROUS QUARTERS,        111

   XI. GASTON GIDDINGS MAKES TROUBLE,              122

  XII. TOO-WHOO-OO! IS THE WORD,                   129

 XIII. THE CALL FROM OUT OF THE FOG,               136

  XIV. MR. CRAGTHORPE IS MORE THAN TROUBLESOME,    146

   XV. THE MIDNIGHT ALARM,                         155

  XVI. THE FIRE DRILL IN EARNEST,                  164

 XVII. CRAGTHORPE INTRODUCES HIS REAL SELF,        172

XVIII. A TRICK MADE FOR TWO,                       183

  XIX. TED DYER, SAILOR BY MARRIAGE,               196

   XX. THE FIND IN THE FOREHOLD,                   206

  XXI. ON A BLIND TRAIL OF THE SEA,                213

 XXII. A STERN LOOMS UP IN THE FOG,                222

XXIII. ROLLINGS'S LAST RUSE,                       228

 XXIV. CONCLUSION,                                 243




The Motor Boat Club at The Golden Gate




CHAPTER I

TOM HALSTEAD, KNIGHT OF THE OVERLAND MAIL


"I feel it in my bones," announced Joe Dawson, quietly though
positively.

"That's no talk for an engineer," jibed Tom Halstead. "Tell me, instead,
that you read it in your gauge."

"Oh, laugh, if you want to," nodded Dawson, showing no offense. "But
you'll find that I'm right. You know, I don't often make predictions."

"Yet, this time, you feel that something disastrous is going to happen
before this train rolls out on the mole at Oakland? In other words,
before we set foot in San Francisco?"

"No, I don't say quite that," objected Joe, thoughtfully. "There's a
heap of the navigator about you, Tom Halstead, and you're pinning me
down to the map and the chronometer. I won't predict quite as closely as
that. But, either before we reach 'Frisco, or mighty soon after we get
there, something is going to happen."

"And it's going to be a disaster?" questioned Tom, closely.

"For someone, yes; and we're going to be in it, at great risk."

"Well, it's a comfort to have it narrowed down even as closely as that,"
smiled Tom Halstead. "I hope it isn't going to be another earthquake,
though."

"No," agreed Joe, thoughtfully.

"Oh, well, that much of your prediction will comfort the people of San
Francisco, anyway."

"Now, you're laughing at me again," grinned Joe, good-naturedly.

"No; I'm not," protested Halstead, but belied himself by the twinkle in
his eyes, and by whistling softly the air of a popular song that the
boys had heard in a New York theatre just before leaving for the West.

At the present moment both boys were sitting comfortably facing each
other in their section in a sleeping car on the luxurious Overland Mail.
It was early forenoon. They had left Sacramento behind some time before,
on the last stretch of the run across the state of California.

Joe Dawson was riding facing forward. Tom Halstead, in the seat
opposite, half lolled at the window-ledge, with his back toward the
engine. Both boys had slept well on their last night out from San
Francisco. Both had breakfasted heartily, that morning, in the dining
car now left behind at the state capital. The next thing that would
interest them, so far as they could now guess, would be their arrival at
Oakland, and the subsequent ferry trip that would land them in San
Francisco.

It may seem a curious fact to the reader, but neither Tom Halstead nor
Joe Dawson knew just what new phases of life awaited them in the City by
the Golden Gate. They were engaged to enter the employment of a man who
owned a motor yacht. The owner had agreed to their own terms in the way
of salary, and he was paying all their expenses on this luxurious trip
westward. Moreover, the same owner had engaged some of the other members
of the Motor Boat Club of the Kennebec, as will soon be told.

Readers of the preceding volumes of this series are already well
acquainted with bright, energetic, loyal and capable Tom Halstead, who,
from the start, had held the post of fleet captain of the Motor Boat
Club. The same readers are equally familiar with the career of Joe
Dawson, fleet engineer of the Club.

As narrated in "THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB OF THE KENNEBEC," Tom and Joe were
two boys of seafaring stock, and natives of Maine, having been born
near the mouth of the Kennebec River. That first volume detailed how the
two young men served aboard the "Sunbeam," the motor yacht of a Boston
broker, and how the boys aided the Government officers in solving the
mystery of Smugglers' Island. Out of those adventures arose the founding
of the Club, with Tom and Joe at its head.

In "THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AT NANTUCKET" the two boys were again seen to
great advantage. There they had some most lively sea adventures, all
centering around the abduction of the Dunstan heir. Next, as told in
"THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB OFF LONG ISLAND," the motor boat boys played an
exciting part in the balking of a great Wall Street conspiracy. In
recognition of their services at this time, the man whom they most
helped presented them with a fifty-five foot cruising motor boat, which
the two proud young owners named the "Restless." Afterwards they
installed a wireless telegraph apparatus on the boat, and then came one
of their truly famous cruises, as related in "THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AND
THE WIRELESS," wherein wireless telegraphy was employed in ferreting out
one of the great mysteries of the sea.

"THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB IN FLORIDA" described the sea wanderings of Captain
Tom and Engineer Joe in the Gulf waters, and their subsequent
adventures in the Everglades and at Tampa, including the laying of the
Ghost of Alligator Swamp.

From time to time other seafaring boys, whose experience aboard motor
yachts qualified them, were elected members of the Motor Boat Club, an
organization which now boasted some forty members along the Atlantic
seaboard. Several of these boys had made themselves barely less famous
than had Halstead and Dawson.

Broker George Prescott, of Boston, their first employer and founder of
the Club, was still their staunch friend. So, too, in scarcely less
degree, was Francis Delavan, a Wall Street financier to whom Tom and Joe
had rendered most valuable services.

It was through Mr. Delavan that Halstead and Dawson had secured their
present engagement, the details of which they did not yet know. This
engagement had come just as the young men were leaving Florida waters in
January, preparatory to making their way to New York, near which great
city the "Restless" was now laid up, out of commission at present,
though as seaworthy a boat as ever.

Tom had been allowed to engage Jeff Randolph, the Florida member of the
Club, for this new, unknown enterprise. Jeff was believed to be either
on his way, or already in San Francisco, at the Palace Hotel, on Market
Street, which was to be the meeting place of the motor boat boys.

Yet there were other old friends due to meet the fleet captain and fleet
engineer. Mr. Delavan had also engaged, by wire, Dick Davis and Ab
Perkins, of Maine, now back from a famous trip to Brazil as told in "THE
MOTOR BOAT CLUB AND THE WIRELESS." Jed Prentiss, a Nantucket member of
the Club, was also on his way to or in San Francisco to join them,
thanks to Mr. Prescott's interest. How Jed joined the Club, and proved
himself more than worthy, was all told in "THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AT
NANTUCKET."

The name of the San Francisco man who had engaged six members of the
Motor Boat Club to cross the continent was Joseph Baldwin. Beyond this
the boys knew nothing of him, save that Francis Delavan had vouched for
him. That was enough. Not even the name of Baldwin's craft was known to
the seafaring boys who were crossing the continent.

"I wonder if Mr. Baldwin will be at Oakland, to meet us?" asked Joe, as
the train sped evenly, swiftly along.

"It isn't likely," replied Tom. "He has told us where to report. I fancy
he considers that enough."

"A man might get a boat's crew together a good deal more cheaply,"
mused Joe, aloud. "Our fellows that Mr. Baldwin has engaged are all
top-notchers in the way of salary. With such a crew it's going to cost
our man a good deal to keep his boat running."

"You know the reputation that California millionaires have, Joe,"
laughed his chum. "It is said of them that they'd sooner spend money
than keep it drawing interest."

"Still," pondered Joe Dawson, "I don't believe California people like to
pitch money out of the window any better than people of other sections
do."

"It has struck me," Tom went on, "that we're engaged by a man who is
running a racing boat. If that is so, and we can get the top speed out
of his craft, then I suppose Mr. Baldwin wouldn't consider the matter of
expense at all. All he wants, in that case, is to win cups and build a
big reputation for his boat."

"I hope it _is_ a racer," cried Joe, his eyes glistening. "Whew! How our
crowd, pulling together in team work, could make a boat everlastingly
sprint over the waves!"

The car in which the two boys sat was the last of the train. It had an
observation platform at the rear. In this observation compartment the
motor boat boys had spent much time while the train was rolling along
through the highly picturesque scenery of the Rocky Mountains. This
morning, however, going swiftly past sun-lit sections of California,
over a nearly level road, both young travelers were content to remain in
their seats by the window.

In the car were a dozen other passengers. Only one other besides the
motor boat boys was especially young. She was a girl of about eighteen,
blond, rather plump and very pretty. She appeared to be traveling alone,
having boarded the train at Kansas City. Tom and Joe had been able to
offer her a few travelers' courtesies, which had been graciously
accepted. Neither young man, however, knew the girl's name. Both motor
boat boys were too well bred to attempt to force an acquaintance.

Just now, as Tom happened to lean over his seat and glance down the
aisle, he saw that this young lady was in the observation compartment.
She appeared to be alone there. Something in the expression on her face
made her seem highly uneasy about something.

"I hope she isn't in any trouble," murmured Halstead, to himself, "and
that she isn't going to find anything unpleasant at the end of her
journey."

The next time he glanced down the aisle Halstead again caught a glimpse
of her face.

"By Jove, I believe she's been crying, or else is about to begin,"
muttered the young captain. "I wonder if it's real trouble, or just
something that she's afraid of."

Then Tom made haste to look away, lest the young lady should see that he
had been studying her and take offense.

"Look at the roses," commented Joe, glancing out of the window at a
pretty little California village through which the train was passing at
somewhat lessened speed. "Great Scott, there are violets growing in the
garden we've just passed. February! Think of the deep feet of snow on
either bank of the Kennebec just now!"

"It's the land of roses and other posies, all right," agreed Halstead,
himself looking out with a good deal of interest at the bright scene
under the soft haze of the California winter day.

"Say, these are real days! This beats Florida!" exclaimed Joe,
enthusiastically.

"When it doesn't rain," remarked the practical Halstead. "You know, this
is the rainy season in California."

"I don't care," contended Joe. "Even on a rainy day it must be beautiful
in this fine old state."

"And on a foggy one, also," laughed Tom. "You know, at this time of the
year, there are likely to be some great old fogs around San Francisco
Bay. I've heard that it takes a clever pilot to guess correctly whether
he's landing at San Francisco or Oakland."

"Humph!" grunted Joe.

Dawson turned, looking out of the window for some time without speaking.

"We're getting near some big town," he remarked, at last. Then, after
glancing at his watch: "It must be Oakland."

"Yes," nodded Tom. "I guess we'll soon be making our stop at the
Sixteenth Street station."

"Anything special about that station?"

"It's the last stop before we run out onto the mole at Oakland."

The train had now begun to run, at greatly lessened speed, through one
of the streets of the city. Joe found less to interest him. He glanced
upward at the rack, toward his traveling bag and overcoat.

"That overcoat seems like an insult to the climate," he remarked.

"Don't throw it away," advised Tom Halstead, "until you see whether some
of the 'Frisco nights are chilly. I've sort of an idea they will be."

"I wonder whether we're going to have much time ashore, or whether it
will be all spent on the water?" suggested Joe. But Tom, of course,
didn't know the answer.

"Sixteenth Street next stop!" called the porter through the car.

"Might as well stretch our legs," hinted Tom, rising. Joe also left his
seat.

As several of the passengers in the car were heading toward the front
end, the motor boat boys started for the observation compartment at the
rear end.

The young lady was still standing there. It looked as though she
intended to step down outside as soon as the train should come to a
stop. Not wishing to intrude, Tom Halstead halted, a few feet away, Joe
doing the same.

Hardly had the train stopped when a porter opened the door of the
observation compartment. The young lady quickly descended, the boys
following. The young lady remained close to the steps, glancing about
her. Lifting their hats, Tom and Joe stepped past her, mingling in the
throng at the station. There wasn't much here to see, but it was a
relief to be quit of the train for a minute or two.

"There's the engine bell ringing," nudged Joe, at last. "We may as well
hustle back."

As the two motor boat boys turned once more, Tom saw the young woman
standing beside the rear steps, one hand holding to the brass rail. She
appeared rather frightened. Before her, talking rapidly, was a man of
perhaps thirty years of age and some five feet nine inches in height.
On his smooth-shaven, dark face rested an ugly, black look. Something
that the man said just as Tom glanced that way caused the girl to wince
and grow paler.

"Why, that fellow has been on the train, though not in our car, for the
last two days," occurred to Halstead, swiftly. "And now I remember I saw
the young lady talking to him back at Battle Mountain. Jove! but she
seems afraid of him. There, she's trying to leave him, and he has caught
at her sleeve to hold her. Confound the ugly look in his eyes! I wish
she were _my_ sister for five minutes!"

Almost unconsciously, in his indignation, Captain Tom increased his
pace. Joe, looking in another direction, did not at once perceive this,
and so fell a bit behind.

"I'm not going to listen to you any longer," cried the young woman, in a
voice that sounded tearful, though she was resolutely keeping the tears
back out of her eyes. "You are talking like a coward!"

"Pardon me," said Captain Tom, rather stiffly, brushing past the young
man. The girl edged to give the motor boat boy room on the steps, and,
as he passed her, started to follow him up into the car.

"You're not going to leave me in that fashion," snapped the dark young
man, angrily. "See here----"

Again he caught at the girl's sleeve, after leaping up onto the lowest
step.

"Let me go," commanded the girl, indignantly.

"Not until----"

She wrenched herself free, then bounded after Halstead.

"Don't let him come into the car," begged the girl.

"Out of my way, young fellow," ordered the dark man, gaining the second
step up.

"Is this man annoying you?" asked Tom, in a friendly tone of the girl,
though he turned a cool, hostile stare upon the young man.

"Yes, he is," the young woman answered.

"Get out of the way, boy," commanded the man, reaching out a hand.

Tom Halstead's right hand closed instantly. His fist shot out, landing
on the fellow's neck. That persecutor fell back, missed his footing, and
went sprawling to the station platform. The girl had started to dart
into the car, but now she turned, watching with fearful eyes.

"Oh, don't let him hurt you!" she cried to Tom.

"Thank you," responded the young captain, dryly; "I don't believe he
will."

The train was beginning to move as the man fell sprawling on the
platform. Joe, who had seen the blow struck, darted in, dragging the
fellow swiftly to his feet.

"You'll have to hustle, mister, if you're going to get your car
forward," Joe advised him.

"This car is the one I----" began the man.

But Joe coolly swung in ahead of him, elbowing the fellow out of the
way. The next moment the porter, grinning, reached over with the key and
locked the door of the car, which Dawson had closed.

Looking the picture of rage, the man darted swiftly down the platform.
The train was now moving too rapidly, however, for the stranger to get
aboard, and the last car rolled by him as he stood, baffled, on the
platform.

"I--I don't know how to thank you both," faltered the girl.

"I assure you it didn't even put us to any inconvenience," smiled
Captain Tom.

"But--oh! I hope you won't meet him in San Francisco," cried the girl,
in sudden alarm. "He's dangerous, ugly, vengeful!"

"We've met such men before," laughed Captain Tom, quietly. "And
yet----well, we're here."

"But you don't know that man!" shuddered the girl.

"That we don't is something to brag about, I reckon," smiled Joe.

"If you ever do come face to face with him, or catch him, anywhere,
watching you, beware of him!" begged the young lady, earnestly. "He
never forgives anything--that wretch!"

"Are you uneasy over the remainder of your journey?" asked Tom,
politely. "Will you feel safer for escort?"

"Oh, I shall be all right, now," replied the girl, with a grateful
smile, though her cheeks were still pallid. "He is no longer on the
train."

"Command us, if you will," begged Captain Tom Halstead, gallantly. He
and Joe Dawson lifted their hats courteously, then passed on to their
own section.

"One of the little dramas of life that are being enacted all around us,"
muttered Halstead.

"I wouldn't have minded seeing that one through," returned Joe.

Neither boy, at that moment, suspected that they would yet "see it
through."




CHAPTER II

HAZING, M. B. C. K. STYLE


At the ferry slip on the San Francisco side the two motor boat boys saw
the young woman again.

A big, broad-shouldered, well-dressed, wholesome looking young man of
twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, came forward eagerly, hat in
hand, to meet her.

"She's all right, now," declared Joe, with satisfaction. "Gracious! That
husky young fellow could eat up two or three muckers like the one you
punched, Tom."

"Yes; our young lady of the journey is surely all right," nodded
Halstead, delighted with what he had seen. "So come along, Joe. We'll
probably never see any of that party again."

Through a throng of eager cabmen the two young motor boat boys plodded
sturdily. Neither had ever been in San Francisco before, but they knew
that the ferry came in at the foot of Market Street, and that the Palace
Hotel was but a few blocks from the water-front on the same great artery
of traffic.

"Might as well walk up, and get a little bit of a look at the town,"
proposed Halstead.

"Which side of the street is the Palace on?" queried Joe.

"East."

"Then we'll cross over. I don't believe we can miss it."

It was a bustling crowd through which the boys steered their way. The
man on the San Francisco sidewalk who is under eighty years of age is
engaged in making his fortune, and has no time to lose. After he has
made it, he buys an automobile, and has comparatively little need of a
sidewalk.

Men from every country in Europe and the Orient passed them. There was,
of course, a large sprinkling of native Americans, yet even the chance
passer knew that he was moving through a throng recruited from the four
quarters of the world.

To Tom the walk ended all too soon. However, they were bent on business,
not pleasure, so they turned in briskly through the main entrance of the
Palace Hotel as soon as a policeman had pointed it out to them.

Captain Tom Halstead stepped to the desk, picking up a pen to register.
"Are Davis, Perkins, Prentiss and Randolph here ahead of us?" queried
Halstead, as soon as he had written his name and his chum's.

"All of 'em," smiled the clerk, after glancing at the entry on the
hotel register. "Davis, who got here first, with Perkins, engaged rooms
close together for the whole party. Front! I'll have you shown right up,
Captain Halstead."

The colored boy in blue uniform and brass buttons confiscated the bags
and overcoats of the two young travelers, leading the way to the
elevator. That bell-boy turned his head to conceal a grin that illumined
his face.

"So our friends are all here ahead of us, and have everything ready?"
remarked young Dawson.

The bell-boy, his head still turned away, seemed to be choking.

"I wonder if they've seen Mr. Baldwin, or heard from him?" mused Tom,
aloud.

"Right dis way, sah," begged the bell-boy, stepping out of the elevator
ahead of them at the third floor.

He led them down a long corridor, turned into another corridor, then
halted before a door. That bell-boy gave three distinct knocks; a pause,
then two more knocks.

"I reckon yo' can go right in, sah," announced the bell-boy, dropping
some of his burden in order to throw the door open.

Utterly unsuspicious, Tom and Joe passed through the doorway. The
instant they had done so, the bell-boy tossed their bags and coats in
after them, yanked the door shut and fled, chuckling.

"Here they come! Welcome!" roared Dick Davis's deep, hearty voice.

A short hallway led from the door to the room proper. As Tom Halstead
passed over the inner threshold a pair of arms reached out from either
side, yanking him into the room out of Joe's sight. Dawson leaped after
his chum, only to be similarly seized.

Then it snowed! At least, for a brief instant, that was what the victims
thought.

Tom was neatly, ruthlessly tripped, being sent sprawling to the floor,
while Ab Perkins, snatching up a bolster, which he had ripped open,
shook all the fine, downy feathers over him. They sifted down the young
captain's neck; they obscured his vision; some of the small feathers
fell into his mouth. He fell to spitting them out with vigor, even
before he tried to get up.

Nor did Joe Dawson fare any better. If anything, he was rather more
roughly handled by Jed Prentiss and Jeff Randolph.

"Now, roll 'em!" roared Dick Davis.

Before either of the newcomers could rise to his feet they were rolled
together in the middle of the floor. Ab lifted the mattress from the
bed, plumping it down over the two victims. Then all four of the gleeful
assailants threw themselves across the mattress, shoving it over the
floor, using Tom and Joe, underneath, for rollers.

And, over it all, rose the famous club yell:

"M. B. C. K.! M. B. C. K.! Motor Boat Club! Wow!"

"Oh, but we're glad to see 'em!" yelled Dick Davis, in his deepest
tones. "Good old chums! Keep up the welcome, fellows!"

From under the mattress Tom Halstead managed to make himself heard,
though his voice sounded muffled indeed.

"Help!" he roared. "Turn out the port watch! Mutiny!"

"Port watch, ahoy! Roll up on deck, you lubbers!" roared Ab Perkins.
"Cap'n wants you!"

At that Jed and Jeff left the mattress, darting to where Tom's and Joe's
traveling bags lay. These they quickly opened, dumping all the contents
on the floor.

"All hands to quell mutiny!" yelled Jed Prentiss. Dick Davis and Ab
Perkins joined them on the jump.

That gave Tom and Joe, both very red-faced and much winded, a chance to
crawl out from under the mattress.

Yet no sooner did they show their astonished faces than all four of the
first-comers began to pelt them with the articles dumped from the
traveling bags.

Slippers flew straight and true, landing with swats. Hair brushes,
tooth-brushes, cakes of soap, boxes of tooth-powder and numerous other
articles filled the air, a veritable cyclone with the fleet captain and
the fleet engineer in the middle of it.

"Cut it!" commanded Tom Halstead, sternly. "Oh, if I had my revolver and
handcuffs and leg-irons here. This is the last time I'll ever go on deck
without 'em. But cut it--anyway!"

Dick Davis, having thrown the last missile that came to hand, and having
pitched Halstead's overcoat up in the air so that it now lay hanging
from the chandelier, suddenly straightened up, looking very grave as he
saluted and roared out:

"Aye, aye, sir!"

At that the other three disturbers of the peace lined up with Dick, all
saluting.

"What's the meaning of all this riot?" insisted Halstead, trying to keep
back the grin that struggled to his face.

"After not having seen each other for all these moons," demanded Davis,
in a hurt voice, "can't we do anything to show you how ding-whanged glad
we are to behold you two once more?"

"Your joy takes a strange turn," grimaced Captain Tom.

"I prefer people who put their welcome in writing," retorted Joe.

At that Ab Perkins, with a whoop, made for a table. From it he snatched
up a cork, one end of which had been burned to a char.

"Come on, then, fellows," proposed Ab Perkins, gleefully; "we'll write
our welcome on Joe's face."

"Will you, though?" demanded Dawson, crouching low, as though for a
football tackle. He caught Ab, and rising with that boisterous youth,
toppled him over. Ab Perkins went sprawling; fortunately for him he
landed across the mattress.

"Hold on!" expostulated Tom Halstead. "The reception committee is
excused--fired--bounced, in fact. Now, stop all this monkey-business,
and let's get down to trade topics. But, first of all----"

Tom paused to spit out two or three fragments of down feathers. Then he
crossed to where the water pitcher stood on a tray. Pouring out a glass
of water, Halstead took a mouthful, while the late mutineers looked on
expectantly.

"O-oh! Ugh! Waugh! Wow!" sputtered Tom, expelling his mouthful into a
waste-water jar beside the wash-stand. "That water's _salt_!"

"Well, what of it, you bo'sun's mate of a lobster trap?" demanded Ab
Perkins, aggressively. "Is it the first time you've ever hit up against
salt water?"

"Now, see here, fellows," grinned Halstead, looking around at the impish
faces of the first-comers, "this is all right. We know how glad you are
to see us. Your pleasure is far greater than we had ever dared to
hope----"

"Oh, we can show more pleasure!" proposed Dick.

"Do it at your personal risk, then!" defied the young captain, arming
himself with the water pitcher. "Now, then, will you all be quiet?"

"Oh, aye!" promised young Davis, with a sudden assumption of meekness.

"I trust you--trust you all to the death," affirmed Tom, grimly. "But
I'm going to keep hold of the water pitcher just the same!"

"This deck doesn't look ship-shape, does it?" demanded Dick Davis,
glancing about him. "Hadn't we better change craft? Wait here a moment."

Stepping to the push-button, he pressed twice, for the porter. Tom
Halstead remained on guard, armed as before, and Joe keeping rather
close to him, until the porter knocked at the door.

"See here, my friend," remarked Dick, holding out a dollar bill to the
porter, "there has been a ship-wreck here."

"It looks like it, sir," grinned the porter, pocketing the money.
"What'll you have, sir?"

"Find the chambermaid that belongs on this floor," begged Dick, "and
bring her here."

The porter was soon back with the chambermaid, who also received a
dollar bill from young Davis.

"Now, you two try some team-work, please," begged Dick Davis, "and see
whether you can make this place look neat enough to be a captain's
cabin. Gentlemen of the Motor Boat Club, will you adjourn to the costly
quarters that Ab and myself consider almost good enough for us?"

Tom Halstead laid down the water pitcher and passed out of the room last
of all.

"I reckon you'd better go into the other room first, Joe, and let me
bring up the rear," called Tom, grimly. "Then we can watch, from both
ends of the line, for any new tricks."

Dick Davis produced a key, admitting all hands to the adjoining room.

"Now, be seated," proposed Davis, in his most hospitable tone. The club
members found chairs.

"Have you seen Mr. Baldwin?" inquired Captain Tom.

"No; but we've sent him word," Ab replied. "Mr. Baldwin has offices in
the Chronicle Building."

"Is that near?" queried Halstead.

"Only a few hawser lengths from here, on the other side of Market
Street," put in Jed Prentiss. "Come here to the window. There's the
Chronicle Building over yonder."

"Mr. Baldwin has a telephone, of course?" suggested Captain Tom.

"Yes; 9378 Market."

"I can tell him we're here, then," murmured Tom, crossing the room to
where a telephone apparatus rested against the wall.

"Don't," prompted Dick. "Mr. Baldwin has sent his orders. You can 'phone
him between three and three-thirty to-day. Mustn't bother him at any
other time."

"That's right, is it?" demanded Halstead, looking half-suspiciously at
Davis.

"Quite right," nodded the latter youth, gravely. Dick was older than the
others, being nineteen, as against a general average of sixteen years
for the other boys. Dick was different in another respect. While the
other five boys followed motor boating as a means of livelihood,
depending upon their earnings, young Davis, the son of a ship-builder of
Bath, Maine, was at all times well supplied with money. Dick's outline
for the future included a possible college course, and then breaking
into the ship-building business with his father. It was not yet quite
decided whether young Davis should omit the college part of the plan. In
the meantime, the elder Davis believed that an active membership in the
Motor Boat Club would be the best possible training to fit his son for a
position in the ship-yard.

"Well, if those are the instructions, then," replied Captain Tom,
returning to his chair, "we'll wait until a few minutes after three."

"And now it's half-past eleven," said Jed, consulting his watch.
"Luncheon will not be served until one. We can wait here as well as
anywhere. Say, fellows, I'm just crazy to hear some good old yarns of
what you others have been through."

With that, yarn-spinning became the order of the day. The young men were
still at it when they went down to the gorgeous dining room of the
Palace Hotel. The air about their table was thick with yarns all through
the meal.

While they sat around the table, absorbed in one another's stories, a
dark-visaged, well-dressed man of thirty started to enter the dining
room. Just at the threshold, however, he paused, for his glance had
alighted on a profile view of Captain Tom Halstead at one of the tables
in the center of the dining room.

"That's the cub who struck me this morning," muttered the dark-faced
one, drawing back. "I want to know who he is. I want to place him--I
want to meet him and settle the account for that blow and the
disappointment it brought about!"

Tom Halstead turned around, a moment later, but he did not see the man
he had knocked from the train that morning at the Sixteenth Street
station in Oakland. That worthy had drawn quickly back out of sight, and
was now looking about for some hotel employé to question.

Ten minutes later he of the dark visage had all the information he felt
he needed.

"Tom Halstead? So that's your name?" snarled the stranger, as he started
for the street entrance. "And you're employed by Baldwin--could anything
be more favorable to our meeting again, eh?" The stranger smiled darkly,
meaningly, as he pronounced the name of Baldwin.

Luncheon over, the yarning motor boat boys embarked in the elevator.
This time they went direct to the room assigned to Tom and Joe. The
trunks of these two young men had arrived, and now rested in the room.

Once more the yarning went on, until Captain Tom checked it at exactly
two minutes past three o'clock.




CHAPTER III

CAPTAIN TOM'S NEW COMMAND


"It's time for Mr. Baldwin to hear from us, now," announced the young
skipper, rising and crossing to the room-telephone. He gave the number,
waiting briefly.

"Hello," sounded a voice in the receiver.

"Hello," returned Tom, quietly. "Is this Mr. Baldwin?"

"No; wait a moment. I'll connect you."

"Hello," came, an instant later.

"Hello. Mr. Baldwin?"

"Yes."

"I am Captain Tom Halstead, here at the Palace Hotel, awaiting your
orders."

"Is Dabson with you?"

"Dawson, sir," Tom corrected. "Yes; Dawson is with me."

"Then your whole crew is on hand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good! Well, as the finishers are about through with their repair work
on my boat we shall be ready to get you aboard without delay."

"May I ask, sir, how big a boat----"

"Captain, be at my office, all of you in uniform, at four o'clock
exactly."

"Very good, sir. Four o'clock."

"Captain Halstead, punctuality is one of my failings," warned Joseph
Baldwin's voice.

"It's one of my studies, Mr. Baldwin."

"Then, at four o'clock?"

"Four o'clock, sharp, sir!"

"Good-bye."

Ting-ling-ling! Tom hung up the receiver.

"Well," came an eager chorus. "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to get into our club sailing uniforms," smiled Captain Tom,
"and we're to be at Mr. Baldwin's office at four o'clock to the minute."

"What sort of a boat----"

"Cruising or racing----"

"Coasting or sea-voy----"

"You'll all of you have to cut out the questions," laughed Tom Halstead.
"I've told you every blessed thing I've just learned over the 'phone.
Fellows, I think our Mr. Baldwin is stingy----"

"Stingy?" broke in Ab Perkins, with fine scorn. "And paying every one
of us first-class salaries!"

"Stingy of words," finished Captain Tom, calmly. "If our new employer
keeps on as he has begun, we won't know anything he means to do until
the time comes to do it. Then he'll give his complete orders in from six
to eight words. That's the way it looks. Now, for your uniforms. Come
along, Joe, and we'll get into ours. Mr. Baldwin, I omitted to tell you,
did inform me----"

Captain Tom paused, looking mysterious.

"Told you what?" chorused Dick, Ab and Jed, eagerly.

"That he's extremely partial to people who are punctual to the minute,"
finished Tom Halstead, making a sign that brought Joe along in his
trail.

Sailors are accustomed to quick dressing, as they are to quick work of
all sorts. Hence the six motor boat boys, all looking decidedly neat and
important in their uniforms and visored caps, were soon on their way to
the elevator shaft. Soon afterwards they stepped from the Palace
entrance to the street, making for the other side of Market Street at
the first crossing.

More than one swift pedestrian paused long enough to send a look back
after these six trim, almost martial-looking young men, who walked in
pairs and carried themselves like graduates of the Naval Academy.

It was just five minutes before four o'clock when the sextette halted
outside the Chronicle Building.

"A couple of minutes to breathe," announced Halstead, watch in hand.
Presently, he marched them into the corridor. Here, after a short wait,
they stepped into one of the several elevators, leaving it a few floors
from the street.

"Sixty seconds yet to spare," whispered Captain Tom, smilingly, holding
up his watch.

Precisely at the dot of four o'clock the six motor boat boys filed in at
the door of the Baldwin offices, after Halstead had turned the knob.

In the outer office were several clerks, behind a railing. An office boy
sat at a desk close by the gate of the railing.

"Mr. Baldwin expects us at four," stated Tom to the boy. "Will you
please tell him that Captain Halstead and party are here?"

The boy disappeared. When he returned a briskly-moving man of fifty was
at his heels. It was Joseph Baldwin, one of the rich men of the Pacific
Coast, and one of its most daring promoters. He was a man who acted,
ordinarily, as though the day were but five minutes long and crowded
with business. Mr. Baldwin looked like a prosperous business man,
though there was nothing foppish in his attire.

"Captain Halstead?" he demanded, holding out a hand. The act was
gracious enough, though hurried. In less than a minute Tom had presented
his friends and all had been through the handshake.

Back of Mr. Baldwin stood a clerk, holding his employer's hat.

"I'm off for the day, Johnson," he announced. "Is the transportation at
the door?"

"Yes, sir. I just looked out of the window. Your transportation is
ready."

"Come along, Captain Halstead and gentlemen," directed Mr. Baldwin.

Though he led them swiftly, another clerk had slipped out ahead of them,
and now stood by the elevator shaft. A car was just stopping at the
floor. Down the party whizzed. Mr. Baldwin led the boys to a street
door, outside of which two automobile touring cars stood.

"Captain, I want you and Dawson in the car with me. Let your friends
follow in the other."

Two tonneau doors closed with bangs. Off whizzed the cars. Speed laws
did not appear to be made for the concern of a man like Joseph Baldwin.
It seemed as though the cars had barely started when they ran out onto a
dock not much to the westward of the ferry houses.

A man in plain blue uniform and visored cap, wearing the insignia of a
quartermaster, stood at the far end of the dock. He saluted as soon as
he espied Joseph Baldwin hastening toward him.

"I see you're on time, Bickson."

"Yes, sir."

By this time Mr. Baldwin was going down a short flight of steps to a
landing stage. There lay moored a trim-looking sixteen-foot power
tender.

"Fall aboard," briefly directed Mr. Baldwin, and the motor boat boys,
rather enjoying this systematized bustle, obeyed.

Bickson, without waiting for orders, cast off, started the motor and
sent the boat gliding out into the stream.

"Quite a motor yacht that carries a quartermaster," observed Captain
Halstead, with a smile.

"I carry three," rejoined Mr. Baldwin, thrusting a cigar into his mouth
and lighting it with a "blazer" match.

In and out among the shipping the tender glided. Then, at last, Captain
Tom caught sight of a graceful craft some hundred and twenty feet long.
She looked like a miniature liner.

"I wonder if I'll ever command a handsome craft like that?" thought the
young motor boat skipper, with a brief pang of envy. "Jove! what a
boat!"

The next thing the motor boat boys knew they were running up alongside
this hundred-and-twenty-footer. A young man of twenty-five or
twenty-six, whose uniform proclaimed him to be a watch officer, stood at
the top of a side gangway.

"This can't be the boat--such a beauty!" gasped Tom Halstead, inwardly.
Joe Dawson's eyes were full of wonder. Ab Perkins's lower jaw was
hanging down in proof of his bewilderment. Dick Davis's face was
flushing. Jed was staring. Only Jeff Randolph appeared indifferent.

"How do you do, Mr. Costigan?" hailed Mr. Baldwin, leading the way up
the side gangway. "Mr. Costigan, pay your respects to the new captain of
the 'Panther.' Captain Halstead, Mr. Costigan, your third officer."

If Mr. Costigan appeared astonished, Tom Halstead did not look less so.
That he was really to command this big, handsome craft seemed to Tom
like a dream. A moment before, when he had realized that the "Panther"
was Mr. Baldwin's craft, the most the Maine boy had expected was that he
and his companions would be allowed to stand watch in the engine room
and on the bridge. But--captain!

Third Officer Costigan, however, saluted in a most proper manner. Tom
held out his hand cordially.

"Presently, Mr. Costigan, I shall ask you to show me about this craft."

"At your orders, sir," replied Costigan, again saluting his commanding
officer, then making his way forward.

"Here's the captain's cabin. I have the key," announced Mr. Baldwin,
leading the way to a door immediately aft of the pilot house. The owner
unlocked the door, then led the way inside. Again Captain Tom wondered
if he could be dreaming. Though everything was compact in this
stateroom, yet all the conveniences were there, too. There was a double
bed, a wardrobe locker, running water, two easy chairs, a desk, and a
table just under a well-stocked China and glass cupboard.

"Your stateroom runs right through the deck-house from starboard to
port," explained Mr. Baldwin, who now appeared less pressed for time.
"Bathroom and chart-room open out of this cabin aft. I think, Captain,
you will be comfortable."

"Comfortable!" murmured Tom, then smiled in sheer delight.

The other motor boat boys stood about the doorway, not offering to enter
while the owner was there. Mr. Baldwin dropped into one of the arm
chairs.

"Now, Captain, I'll tell you what we have aboard," continued the owner.
"Costigan is third officer. He's a good fellow, and a capable sailor,
but he has his limitations, and--well, I don't believe he'll ever be
much more than a third officer. You'd better keep him in that
grade--unless you find he's better than some of your comrades. One good
thing about Costigan is that he has a pilot's license for San Francisco
Bay and the coast hereabouts. He's a good pilot, too. Another good thing
about Costigan is that he's loyal, and a man who knows how to keep his
tongue resting in the back of his mouth.

"Besides Costigan, there are three quartermasters and seven men in the
crew. We have also a cook and helper, a cabin steward and a men's
steward. That's the whole outfit. We have no one, at present, in the
engine-room department. You have men with you to fill out those
positions, haven't you, Captain?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then let me see how you'll go to work to place them," shot out Mr.
Baldwin, instantly.

"Mr. Perkins, first officer; Mr. Davis, second officer," replied
Halstead, promptly. "Mr. Costigan, of course, third officer."

"And in the engine room?" pressed the owner.

"Mr. Dawson, chief engineer; Mr. Prentiss, first assistant; Mr.
Randolph, second assistant engineer."

"All right," nodded Joseph Baldwin. "That makes our complement complete,
I think. Now, Captain, publish your selections to the crew and take
command. There's the bell at the side of your desk."

Hardly had Tom Halstead, still feeling as though in a trance, pressed
the button, when a jauntily uniformed sailor appeared at the doorway,
saluting.

"My compliments to Mr. Costigan; ask him to come here," ordered Tom.

From the speed with which he reported, Third Officer Costigan must have
been awaiting the summons.

"Pipe the crew forward of the pilot house, Mr. Costigan. All hands. I've
something to say to them."

The third officer's whistle rang out shrilly forward. A few moments
later Captain Halstead was notified that all hands were on deck.

Tom thereupon went forward, accompanied by the new officers of the
"Panther," who were proclaimed to the crew, including even the stewards
and cooks.

"And I now invite the officers to my cabin," said Captain Halstead as
he wound up his harangue to the men. "The details of the deck and engine
room watches will be decided at once."

This was soon done. Following the practice that now obtains on many
yachts, the watches were made eight hours long, instead of four. This
enabled each member of a watch to get a full sleep between watches. In
ordinary weather neither the captain nor first officer stands watch. The
captain's, or starboard, watch was to be taken by Dick Davis as second
officer. Mr. Costigan, third officer, was to stand the first officer's,
or port, watch. Joe Dawson, as chief engineer, was generally responsible
for the engineering department, but stood no watch in the engine room,
the starboard watch at the motors falling to Jed Prentiss, and the port
watch to Jeff Randolph. Bickson, as chief quartermaster, was made
responsible for the general policing of the craft, the other two
quartermasters taking watch trick at the wheel in the pilot house.

During the making of these arrangements Mr. Baldwin had strolled aft to
his own suite of rooms. These, immediately aft of the chart room,
consisted of parlor, bed-room and bath. Aft of these quarters lay the
deck dining room, from which a staircase led down to the cabin proper.
Off the cabin were eight handsome staterooms for the owner's guests.

All this Tom and his comrades saw as Costigan piloted them over this
superb yacht.

Forward of the main cabin, below, was the chief engineer's stateroom,
which Joe would occupy by himself. In Joe's room, also, was service for
the chief engineer's meals.

Then there was a stateroom for the second and third officers, and
another for the engineer's two assistants. For these junior officers,
and Mr. Costigan, there was an officers' mess. Further forward was the
crew's mess, then the kitchen department. Ahead of this was the engine
room, with the crew's forecastle quarters right up in the bow of the
craft, below decks.

"You see, sir," explained Mr. Costigan, "there's everything that could
be thought of for the comfort of officers and crew."

"It's the most compact boat I could imagine," declared Captain Tom,
enthusiastically.

"You may well say that, sir."

They passed on to inspect the engine room. Joe's eyes fairly gleamed as
he inspected the twin motors, the dynamos and all the other details of
his own department. It was a finer engine room than Joe Dawson had hoped
to command for many years to come. He remained below, with his
assistants, to inspect their new domain, while Tom, Ab and Dick
returned to the deck with Mr. Costigan.

The "Panther" was schooner rigged, with a full set of sails for each of
the two masts. There was a short bowsprit, carrying two jibs.

"This craft does pretty well under sail, sir," declared the third
officer.

"She looks as though she ought to," replied Captain Tom. "But what gait
does she make with her power alone?"

"She's been running, cruising, sir, at about twelve to fourteen miles an
hour. She's listed as a twenty-two mile boat at her best, but I believe,
sir, that a good engineer could get twenty-four out of her."

"The new chief engineer is one who can get out any speed that the motors
will stand."

"He looks it, sir."

Halstead was careful always to use the word "Mister." Watch officers and
engineers, who are also officers, are always addressed in that way, by
the captain, or even by the owner. Costigan was equally careful to say
"sir," when addressing any officer of grade above his own.

"When you can spare the time, Captain, I'll have a few words with you,"
called Mr. Baldwin, showing his head through the starboard doorway of
his suite.

"At once, sir," replied Captain Tom, turning and going to the owner's
door. At the threshold the new captain of the "Panther" halted.

"Come right in, Captain. Take a chair," invited the owner. "Now, then,
what do you think of your new task?"

"I'm astounded, sir. Overjoyed, too," Tom replied, with a candid smile.

"Why?"

"Well, sir, this craft represents the height of my dreams. The 'Panther'
is twice the length and about four times the total size of any boat I've
ever commanded before."

"Are you afraid it's too big an undertaking for you?" asked Mr. Baldwin,
regarding his young sailing master keenly.

"No, sir!" came the prompt answer.

"Hm! I'm glad of that. But I wasn't worrying. I've known Delavan a long
time. I told him what I wanted, and knew I could bank on his choice. Are
all your friends satisfied?"

"They're delighted," Tom nodded. "All they're aching for now, sir, is to
get out on the first cruise."

"They'll have their wish this evening," laughed Mr. Baldwin. "Is there
anything you want to ask me, Captain?"

"Nothing, unless you'll permit me to be a bit curious."

"That's a bad fault on this yacht," replied Joseph Baldwin, with a
slight frown that quickly disappeared. "What is it you want to know?"

"I'm wondering, sir, why you had to send all the way east for officers
for the 'Panther'?"

"Because I've had to get rid of two sets of officers," replied Mr.
Baldwin, crisply. "One captain was too inquisitive, the other was
incapable. Then I began to hear a good deal about your famous Motor Boat
Club. That set me to corresponding with Delavan. He told me a lot more
about you young men, and I couldn't get it out of my head that _you_
were the sort of people I wanted."

"You weren't afraid on account of our being so--well, youthful?"

"I knew, if you'd suit Frank Delavan, you'd suit me. And I'm just as
sure after having seen you all. Now, Captain Halstead, you'll be ready
to sail at any time after seven this evening. That is the hour when my
guests and I sit down to dinner aboard. At the time I'll give you your
general sailing instructions. Remember, Mr. Costigan must be your pilot
until you're out through the Golden Gate and clear of the coast."

"Yes, sir," assented Halstead, rising. "Any further orders, sir?"

"That is all, for the present, Captain."

Tom Halstead left the owner's suite and walked forward, filled with a
wonderful sense of elation. He passed the pilot house just in time to
see Joe Dawson coming up forward.

"Say, are we going to wake up, chum?" breathed young Dawson in his
friend's ear.

"I don't believe we'll have to," laughed the young skipper, happily.
"We're all right, I'm pretty sure, if we don't do something that greatly
displeases the boat's owner. Thanks to Mr. Delavan, the owner of this
craft is willing to believe, at the start, that we're all that's good
and wonderful. But come into my cabin, old fellow, if you have the time.
We'll dine together to-night."

Both motor boat boys sighed their supreme contentment as they dropped
into arm-chairs facing each other. It was now so dark that Tom switched
on the electric lights.

"How are the engines, Joe?" asked Tom, dropping into his old, friendly
manner.

"Ready to start at a second's notice. And Jed's on duty there, waiting
for the word."

"Gasoline?"

"Tanks bulging with it. Tom, this is a beautifully appointed boat below,
and every store of every description is in place."

"That's the kind of a man I'm pretty sure Mr. Baldwin is," nodded
Halstead.

Joe surveyed a row of speaking tubes that hung against the forward wall
of the captain's room. He picked out one labeled "engine-room," pressing
the button beneath it.

"Hello, sir," came the quick response, in Jed Prentiss's unmistakable
tones.

"Hello, Mr. Prentiss," Joe returned. "How do you like it down there, on
duty?"

"It's perfect!" responded Jed, almost dreamily. "Everything here but my
own personal steward. I ain't sure but what _he'll_ blow in, in a
minute, and ask me what I'll have for dinner."

"Tell him we're scheduled to start at seven," suggested Halstead.

"I can start in seven seconds, if I'm asked to," promised Prentiss.
"Anyway, I can have the propellers turning fast before you can get the
anchor up. Crackey! I forgot that I have to supply even the power for
hoisting anchor."

Twenty minutes later the two chums, who had begun their career by
patching up an old steam launch down at the mouth of the Kennebec River,
in Maine, were seated at table in the captain's cabin, doing justice to
a meal that was but little short of sumptuous.

The chief steward himself, a man named Parkinson, served the young
captain and chief engineer. He hovered about, as attentive as any hotel
waiter or private butler could have been.

It was the second steward, however, who came in with the dessert for
the two chief officers of the "Panther."

"What has become of the other steward?" inquired the young captain.

"Time for him, sir, to put on the finishing touches in the dining
saloon," replied Collins, the second steward, who served also the junior
officers and the crew.

"If we eat like this at every meal, Joe," sighed Halstead, contentedly,
when the second steward had removed the last of the things, "we'll have
to devote all the rest of the time to exercising off extra flesh. Let's
get out on deck."

"All right. But I mean to be in the engine-room when the start is made."

At the side gangway the chums stepped quickly past, to make way for half
a dozen men who were coming up over the side, while Mr. Costigan stood
respectfully by to receive them. They were guests of the owner just
coming on board for the night's cruise. One of these newcomers went
directly to Mr. Baldwin's suite.

"Owner's compliments, sir," called Parkinson, softly, as he came
hurrying after the young sailing master. "Mr. Baldwin wishes to see
Captain Halstead on the jump, sir."

The call had come for the brisk beginning of the strangest duties in
which young Halstead had ever been employed.




CHAPTER IV

HALSTEAD IS LET INTO A SECRET


"Captain Halstead, my friend, Mr. Jason Ross," announced Mr. Baldwin,
crisply, as soon as the young skipper had closed the owner's door behind
him.

Mr. Ross was a man of forty-five, and looked like a man who might be of
much importance in the financial world. Yet _he_ was presented to
Halstead, for on a yacht the captain is considered next in importance to
the owner.

Tom modestly greeted Mr. Ross.

"Sit down, Captain," snapped out the owner, though not unkindly. "Now,
I've got to take you into my confidence a bit. Delavan's word for you
makes me feel that I can safely do it."

Tom had only time to nod ere Mr. Baldwin went on, crisply:

"My guests are on board, with one exception. In a way, the exception is
the most important one of us all. He isn't so very important in himself,
but Gaston Giddings, though a very weak, foolish young man, happened to
succeed his father in the principal control and presidency of the
Sheepmen's National Bank. Young Giddings and the funds his bank can
supply are of the utmost importance to my associates and myself in some
big enterprises we are putting through. Do I make myself clear?"

"Wholly so, sir," Tom answered, quietly.

"Now, Giddings, besides being several kinds of plain and ornamental
fool--no, I won't quite say that, but this weak young man has one
fearful fault for the head of a bank----"

Joseph Baldwin paused in his rapid speech. He looked sharply at Mr. Ross
an instant, then continued:

"Oh, well, Frank Delavan told me I could trust you and Dawson with
anything from my yacht to my reputation. You understand that what I'm
telling you, Captain, is absolutely confidential?"

"Of course, sir," responded Tom, quietly.

"Well, then, within the last three months young Giddings has, in some
way we can't understand, fallen a victim to the opium habit. The young
man is all but totally wrecked by the vile drug. How, or why, he
started, none of us can understand. You see, a good many of us older
men, who were fast friends of his father, have tried to stand by the
young man. Two of to-night's party are directors in the Sheepmen's Bank.
We've tried to get the bank's funds placed in interests that we control,
so that young Giddings couldn't go very far wrong, by not having enough
money left in his charge to wreck the bank. You follow me?"

"I--I think so, Mr. Baldwin."

"Truth to tell," pursued the owner, "I had planned--my friends on board
with me--to go out ostensibly for one night, but really to be gone for
several days. One of our friends is a specialist in the opium habit--Dr.
Gray. We had hoped, on this trip, to plan some financial enterprises
that would use up, for the present, the dangerously large balance at the
Sheepmen's Bank. At the same time we were going to try to force young
Giddings to agree to heroic medical treatment in order to overcome his
fearful vice."

Tom Halstead remained silent, but attentive.

"Now, at the last moment," pursued Mr. Baldwin, "we hear that Giddings
was seen in a closed carriage, evidently headed for Chinatown, that vile
Oriental section of San Francisco, where the opium vice flourishes at
its worst. And in Chinatown a man can disappear so completely that his
friends can't find him again in years. Giddings was to be here to-night,
but he's in a Chinatown opium den instead. If we appeal to the police,
it'll all be in the newspapers. There'll be a scandal that will disgrace
Giddings forever, start a run on the Sheepmen's Bank, and--though this
is the least of our worries--will delay for some time the pushing of
the big financial game in which my friends and myself are interested.
Now, we've got to find some way of getting at Giddings, and of bringing
him on board without trouble or noise. I've told you this much, Captain
Halstead, so that you'll understand the need of secrecy. If we can find
Giddings, and get him out here, then we _must_ bring him over the side
and get him into his stateroom without his being seen by any of the crew
on board, except, possibly, by one or two of your own comrades whom you
think you can best trust."

"I can trust every one of 'em, sir," declared Captain Tom, promptly. "So
will you, when you know them better."

"Then, Captain, before we make any move to find Giddings in his
Chinatown hiding-place, and attempt to get him aboard this yacht, we
must have all of the crew safely out of the way, save for your own
personal friends among the officers."

"I can plan for the crew to go ashore," declared Tom Halstead. "I have
only to state that you've decided to delay putting out to sea, and that
you've been good enough to grant the men a night on shore at the theatre
at your expense. That will take every one of them over the side. Do you
want Mr. Costigan to go?"

"Why, I think Costigan is all right, but he isn't needed here, anyway,
so he'd better go ashore also."

"Easily settled, then, Mr. Baldwin. I can send Mr. Costigan off in
charge of the shore party. At what hour do you wish them all to return,
sir?"

"Not a minute before midnight!"

"Very good, sir. I can tell Mr. Costigan that you've been called ashore,
that you will dine there, and that you are very glad of this opportunity
to give the older members of the crew a chance to enjoy themselves
ashore."

"Excellent, indeed!" cried Mr. Baldwin, in a low tone. "What do you say,
Ross?"

"If Captain Halstead can vouch so heartily for the silence and
discretion of his own friends, then the plan ought to clear the decks so
that we can get Giddings aboard--if we find him--without any comment or
scandal at all," agreed Jason Ross.

Joseph Baldwin employed himself stripping a few banknotes from a roll
that he drew from a trousers pocket.

"Give this money to Mr. Costigan, Captain, and tell him to see to it
that the men have a good time on shore--though no drunkenness! And you,
Captain Halstead, I trust to see to it that none but your own friends
remain aboard."

Ten minutes later Captain Tom returned to the owner's suite to report
that Third Officer Costigan and the crew, including the stewards and
cooks, had gone ashore in the tender, Jeff Randolph running the boat in.

"How soon will Randolph be back?" asked Mr. Baldwin.

"Within ten minutes, sir."

"Then I shall want him to put Mr. Ross and myself ashore. We two must
take up the seemingly impossible task of locating young Giddings in the
heart of Chinatown's slums, and bring him here by force, yet without
noise. Once we get him on board, and below, we can keep the young man
quiet until morning, when we'll be well out on the ocean. Dr. Gray will
attend to that."

"Are your friends going to remain on board, without dinner?" asked
Halstead.

"No; they can go ashore and get dinner at a restaurant, returning
presently. Mr. Randolph can keep the tender at the landing stage until
they return. Then, as soon as he has brought our other friends aboard,
Mr. Randolph can return for Ross and myself, when we get back. But Mr.
Randolph must not let Costigan or the crew get aboard until after we've
returned."

"I'll make his instructions clear on that point," nodded Tom.

"That is all, then. Let me know when the tender returns."

"Hold on, a moment, Baldwin," interposed Mr. Ross.

"Well?"

"Baldwin, neither of us is in what might be called the pink of
condition, and young Giddings may put up a fight in his half-crazed way.
Don't we need a little real brawn with us?"

"Taking Captain Halstead with us, do you mean?"

"That was the idea that had come into my head," nodded Mr. Ross.

"Yes; it would be an excellent idea. Captain, you will go with us. Leave
your first officer in command here until we return."

"Very good, sir."

Tom Halstead saluted, then withdrew. He gave his orders quickly, not
deeming it necessary to mention any phase of the story of young Gaston
Giddings to his comrades of the Motor Boat Club.

As soon as the launch was alongside Tom hastened to inform Mr. Baldwin.
The entire party thereupon came out on deck, gathering at the side
gangway. They speedily embarked in the tender, in which Jeff sat where
he could handle both engine and steering gear.

"Your instructions are clear, Mr. Perkins?" called Tom Halstead,
softly, from the launch.

"Quite clear, sir," Ab replied. "The instructions will be followed to
the letter."

"Shove off, then," Tom commanded. "To the landing stage, Mr. Randolph."

It would have been almost laughable, to anyone who had witnessed the
frolicsome motor boat boys going through their hazing affair of the
forenoon, had he now been at hand to hear them using the stately
"mister" and "sir" with all the gravity of naval officers.

Jeff speedily had the party ashore.

Twenty minutes later a closed cab rolled slowly in at one corner of
gayly-lighted, malodorous Chinatown. The vehicle contained Messrs.
Baldwin and Ross and young Captain Tom Halstead. In this poisonous
atmosphere they sought a young human wreck, Gaston Giddings.




CHAPTER V

A HUNT IN THE UNDER-WORLD


During the ride from the water front Captain Tom Halstead had sat on the
front seat of the cab, quiet and reserved.

Now, as they entered the outer confines of Chinatown, Halstead leaned
slightly forward, peering out at the shops and at the queer Oriental
jumble, mixed here and there with white people, that thronged the narrow
sidewalks.

"Are you headed for any particular place, sir?" queried the young
skipper, after a few moments.

"No," admitted Mr. Baldwin. "I know nothing of Chinatown. We must drive
through, first of all, at a venture. Presently an idea may come to us.
Whatever we do, our plans must soon be formed. If I dared speak to a
police officer--but the risk is too great."

"There's a restaurant," murmured the boy, suddenly. "It looks like a big
and clean place. Why don't you and Mr. Ross slip in there, have some tea
or something, and let me prowl about in these queer, crooked streets for
a few minutes? Chinatown is only a few blocks in extent, I understand. I
may be able to learn something that way, unless you have a better plan,
sir."

"I am afraid you'll run into danger, alone in this barbarous crowd,"
objected Mr. Baldwin.

"I'm not in the least afraid," smiled Tom, confidently. "Two prosperous
looking men like you might attract attention, but, as for me, the people
hereabouts will think only that I'm some young sailor ashore for a lark.
Shall I stop the cab, sir?"

"Yes," agreed Joseph Baldwin, though he spoke doubtfully.

Tom's hand shot up at once, grabbing the check string. The driver pulled
up his horses, then came to the door, opening it.

"This will be as good a place for you to remain, driver, as anywhere,"
said Halstead, as he stepped out. Then he turned, waiting for Messrs.
Baldwin and Ross to alight.

"Shall I find you in that restaurant, sir?" the young skipper inquired.

"Yes; but don't be too long away, Halstead, or we shall be more uneasy
than ever."

"Trust a sailor to take care of himself in any crowd, sir," laughed Tom
Halstead, jauntily. With that he stepped off, at a more rolling gait
than he usually employed on shore.

The young motor boat captain carried in his mind a good personal
description of Gaston Giddings. He had secured this from Mr. Baldwin
before leaving the yacht.

"Ugh! The smell here is worse than in New York's Chinatown," Tom told
himself, disgustedly.

From upper windows of some of the buildings that lined the narrow, dirty
streets came the squawkings of Chinese fiddles and other discordant
"musical" instruments of a wholly Oriental type. There seemed to be two
or three joss-houses, or temples, in every short block. On the street
floors, however, stores offering all kinds of Chinese merchandise were
most common. Tom suspected that the gambling places and opium joints lay
in the rear of these stores.

"Want a guide to Chinatown? Show ye everything, boss, for two dollars.
Show ye every real sight in Chinatown," appealed a seedy, dirty, young
white man who now held Tom by one sleeve.

"Anything really worth seeing?" asked Halstead, smilingly.

"Oh, _everything_ worth seeing," responded the seedy guide, with a wide
wave of one arm. "Best two dollars' worth you ever had. Most curious
sights you ever saw in any part of the world. Sailor, ain't ye?"

"Yes."

"Sailors are my specialty," declared the seedy guide, grimly. "Come,
ye'd better haul up the two dollars and let me take you about."

"What about opium joints, for instance?" asked Tom Halstead, speaking as
though he had not enthused much as yet.

"I know 'em all," asserted the seedy guide, eagerly. "Want to smoke the
opium pipe?"

"Can't say," replied Tom, vaguely. "Yet, if I do go around with you,
you've got to take me to the really swell opium places."

"Oh, I can do it--better'n any other guide in Chinatown," promised the
fellow, quickly. "Come, just hand over the two dollars, and see what I
can show you."

With a great pretense of reluctance Captain Tom produced four half
dollars, which he handed to the guide.

"Remember, now," he said, "I want what you might call the aristocratic
places."

"If ye ain't satisfied," promised the guide, glibly, "then ye'll get
your money back."

"Go ahead, then, but mind what I told you."

Through dark alleyways, or through stores into rear apartments, Halstead
followed his conductor. In rapid succession he passed in and out of half
a dozen opium joints. One was as much like another as two kernels of
wheat resemble each other.

In each place there was the same outer room, then the same bunk-room, an
apartment fitted up with bunks at the sides. It was in these rooms that
the smoking was done. The intending smoker stretched himself out in a
bunk, while a Chinese attendant brought lamp and kit. A tiny ball of
opium was quickly lighted--"cooked"--at the lamp's flame. Then this
glowing pellet of opium was thrust into the bowl of an opium pipe, and
the latter handed to the smoker in the bunk. The smoker consumed his
pellet after two or three whiffs. After smoking three or four pipes,
most of the smokers succumbed, falling back in a torpid sleep.

The air was heavy, disgusting in these places. Degraded white men and
women were occasionally to be seen, though most of the smokers were
Orientals, generally Chinese.

Heart-sick and dizzy, Tom Halstead still kept on, though, whenever he
reached outer air, he took pains to inflate his lungs several times
before again entering one of the wretched, squalid "joints."

Off the bunk-rooms several of these dens had "private" sleeping
apartments, for white smokers who desired more privacy. Wherever he
noted doors to such private rooms Tom Halstead thrust them open,
glancing inside. Nor was his conduct resented. The opium smokers were
too far gone to show or feel anger.

"You haven't shown me any very swell places yet," protested the young
skipper, after leaving the seventh place.

The guide, a thin, undersized, slovenly man in his early thirties,
turned to look the motor boat boy over keenly.

Tom noticed that the fellow's eyes had a look in them much like the look
in the eyes of several of the smokers they had just seen.

"This fellow is an opium-user himself," decided Tom Halstead.

"Say, young feller," remarked the guide, in a cautious undertone,
"you're looking for _someone_."

"Perhaps I am," the young skipper half admitted.

"Who is he?"

"No matter. But do you know any of the men who come here to Chinatown
often to use the pipe?"

"Say, if there's any white hop-fiend that I don't know, then he's a
brand-new one," rejoined the guide.

"Do you know a young man of twenty-four or five, about five-eight tall,
dark, slim, rather fine-looking, smooth faced and with a slight scar
under his right ear?"

"I guess that must be young Doc Gaston," whispered the guide.

Gaston? That was Giddings's first name. Tom Halstead started, though he
strove to conceal his excitement.

"Where does Doc Gaston go?" he demanded.

"What'll you pay to find out?" insisted the guide, cunningly.

"Ten dollars."

"Make it fifty, and I'll do it for you."

Tom, however, stuck to his original price, though three or four minutes
were lost in haggling.

"Ten dollars is the highest price," Tom declared, flatly. "That pays you
for standing by me until I get Doc Gaston--if he's the one I'm looking
for--outside of Chinatown."

"Well, gimme the money now, then," demanded the guide.

"Oh, no," retorted the young skipper, tartly. "You get the money after
we're through and on the edge of Chinatown in a cab. Now, don't haggle
any more, or I'll drop the matter altogether. Are you going to take my
offer, or not?"

"Say, you'll sure pay the ten, will ye?" whined the fellow.

"As sure as there's a sky above us."

"Then come along."

"Where's the place?" questioned Tom Halstead.

"Around the next corner."

"Do you know where Yum Kee's restaurant is?"

"O' course. They call Yum Kee the Chinatown Delmonico."

"Lead me back there, then, and we'll get the carriage."

Tom Halstead had been around so many corners in this crowded, complex
quarter of San Francisco that he had lost his bearings. The guide,
however, piloted him back to the waiting cab within two minutes.

First of all, however, the young skipper peered in at the restaurant.
Messrs. Baldwin and Ross were at one of the rear tables, eating.

"Tell the driver where to go, now, and we'll make the start," Tom
instructed the guide. Soon afterwards they alighted before a
brightly-lighted Chinese grocery store. Besides the proprietor, there
were three or four clerks and a dozen yellow-skinned, pig-tailed
customers in the place. The guide, with an air of being at home here,
led the way straight back, pushing ajar a door at the rear. The instant
they entered this rear compartment the sickening odor of sizzling opium
greeted Captain Tom's nostrils. This proved to be the inevitable outer
room, but the guide led into the adjoining bunk-room. In this latter
apartment were half a dozen doors.

"Just look through 'em," whispered the guide. "Don't talk to me none.
Remember, if there's a row here, I've got to make up a yarn that will
square things for me."

Two of the private rooms into which Halstead boldly intruded proved to
be empty.

In the third room a weazened little old Chinaman crouched over a lamp
and a tray holding an outfit. He was preparing to remove these things.
In the bunk, sprawled out, with glassy eyes, was a young man whom Tom
Halstead recognized in a flash--weak, vice-ridden Gaston Giddings!




CHAPTER VI

FACING THE YELLOW BARRIER


"Maybe what you likee here?" demanded the little old Chinaman, looking
up with a snarl.

"Looking around," retorted Tom, grimly.

"Allee same--_git_!"

The guide had approached, taking a swift, shifty look in at the bunk.

"That's Doc Gaston, isn't it?" whispered Tom, over his shoulder.

"Don't ye know him?" queried the guide, suspiciously.

"He looks strange, with that glassy look in his eyes."

"That's Doc Gaston, all right. 'Least, that's what he calls himself in
Chinatown."

"You allee same git--chop-chop," snarled the Chinaman, savagely. He had
put the smoking outfit on the floor once more, and now pushed against
the motor boat boy with both hands, trying to force him from the room.
Tom, however, coolly and gravely picked the short Chinaman up off his
feet, wheeled and put him down again on the floor of the bunkroom
beyond.

"Now, shove off!" ordered Halstead, half gruffly. "Don't bother me
again."

After flashing an ugly look at the motor boat boy, the Chinaman fled in
the direction of the store.

"Now, whatcher going to do?" demanded the guide, nervously.

"If I can't get young Gaston to walking on his own feet, then I'm going
to pick him up in my arms and carry him out to the carriage," answered
Tom Halstead, firmly.

"Smoking joss-house!" gasped the guide. "D'ye know what'll happen?
There'll be a house-full of them chinks down on us! Hatchet men--gun
men--say, young feller, dontcher know that these here hop-joints are
protected by the highbinders?"

Tom Halstead had heard of the Chinese highbinders in New York. He knew
of them as a desperate crowd of yellow-skinned thugs. The guide's own
terror was too real to be feigned.

"If you're afraid of this kind of a job, what did you come here for?"
asked the young skipper, quickly, gruffly.

"Why, I thought ye was goin' to try to _coax_ the young Doc out. But,
say--taking him out by force--lemme get outer this on the jump!"

"No, you don't," roared Tom Halstead, with swift and quite unlooked-for
energy. "Stand by, now!"

He gripped the guide by the arm, fairly forcing him over to the bunk in
which the young opium smoker lay. Giddings, if it was really he, lay
open-eyed, yet unheeding.

"Come, get up!" ordered the boy, reaching with both hands under the
opium smoker's shoulders and raising him. "Out on your feet!"

A drowsy, unintelligible protest came from the stranger. But Tom fairly
lifted him out onto his feet, then threw a strong, supporting arm about
him.

"Now, walk! Come along!" ordered Halstead, briskly, taking hold of the
young man with his other hand.

"Sufferin' joss-sticks!" wailed the guide. "Here come the
chinks--number-one man and all!"

The door of the bunkroom burst open. Through the doorway rapidly
advanced the gorgeously-dressed Chinaman whom Tom had supposed to be the
proprietor of the store beyond. Back of him came four plainly-attired
Chinamen with as hard-looking, evil faces as could be found in all
Chinatown's quagmire of vice.

"This ain't my doings, Ling!" wailed the guide, quailing before the
stern glances of the yellow leader--the "number-one man." "I told this
young fellow he'd have to quit. Let us out."

"Yes; let us out!" repeated Tom Halstead, staring undauntedly into the
eyes of Ling.

"Put him down," ordered Ling, nodding scowlingly at the stranger whom
Halstead supported. "Then, maybe, we see what we do with you."

The air was full of danger of the most awesome kind. Though not a weapon
showed, as yet, each of the four Chinese behind the proprietor stood
with his hands thrust up into his sleeves. A Chinaman always carries his
weapons up his sleeves, whence he can bring them down, into action, with
incredible rapidity.

"Now, don't think you've got me frightened," uttered Tom Halstead,
sturdily, gazing undauntedly at the Chinese. "There isn't any scare in
me when I'm dealing with people like you. If you make one single false
move you'll be the ones who'll be sorry for it. Ling, I'm going to take
this young man out of here. His friends know where he is, and they've
sent me here to get him. I'm going to take him out of here, chop-chop.
If I'm not out of here in another minute or so, then this young man's
friends will bring down police enough on you to clean the place out."

Ling laughed contemptuously.

"Oh, you may think you have money enough, and 'pull' enough, to keep the
police from troubling you," jeered young Halstead. "But, if this young
man's friends get after you, it'll make a noise that the police can't
shut their ears to."

Two of the men behind Ling stood blocking the doorway. The other two, by
now, were edging around to get on either side of the unflinching boy.

"You yellow scoundrels, get back, and stay back!" commanded Tom, glaring
at them sternly.

There comes into notice, now and then, a man who has enough of the
magnetic quality of bravery to hold a mob back. Tom Halstead was
possessed of the grit needed for such an undertaking.

"Get out of the way, Ling--you and your heathen hatchet men," commanded
the young skipper, resolutely. "I'm going past you. If I find any fellow
in my way I'll knock him down. If you fight back, it'll be the finish
of you and of this place. _Gangway, you yellow idiots!_"

[Illustration: "Gangway, You Yellow Idiots."]

Still supporting, half dragging, the dazed young banker, Tom Halstead
grittily pressed his way to the doorway and through it. One of Ling's
henchmen attempted to stand immovable, but Halstead, with a quick blow
of his open hand, sent the fellow stumbling backward.

"If you're thinking of creeping up behind me, don't try it," advised
Halstead, as coolly as ever, as he started across the outer room.

He gained the closed door connecting with the outer store. Pausing here,
a moment, he beheld two of Ling's yellow-visaged fellows creeping toward
him.

"Back for yours--that'll keep you out of trouble," barked the young
skipper, coolly, without raising a hand to defend himself. Then he threw
the door open, calling backward over his shoulder:

"Don't you dare let this young man in here again, Ling. If you do, it'll
wind you up."

With that the motor boat boy contrived to pilot his charge swiftly
through the store. He was not safe until he had passed the last of these
yellow men, and the young skipper knew it. Yet, at last, he had the
stranger out on the sidewalk, one hand up to signal the driver of the
cab.

The guide, keeping close to the motor boat boy, had managed to get out
with him. But the little fellow was shaking as though seized with the
ague.

"Get into the cab, and help me take the young man in," ordered Tom, and
the guide was glad, indeed, to dive inside the carriage. In another
moment they were driving away.

"Say, but you've got the nerve!" chattered the guide, his teeth knocking
together.

"Maybe you'd have some nerve if you'd learn to leave hop alone,"
rejoined Halstead. "Hop" is the Chinatown name for opium.

Halstead sat on the rear seat, supporting the young banker beside him.
In a little while the cab again halted in front of Yum Kee's restaurant.

"Here," said Halstead, producing a ten-dollar bill. "Take this. Skip as
soon as you like."

"You oughter gimme more," whined the guide.

"I've given you all I agreed. No use trying to get any more."

The guide, thereupon, sprang out, vanishing within a few seconds. Going
to the doorway of the restaurant, yet standing where he could keep a
close watch on the cab, Tom uttered a long, low whistle. Messrs. Baldwin
and Ross saw him instantly, and came hastening out. By the time they
reached the cab the young skipper was inside again.

"Is this your young man?" asked Halstead, almost in a whisper.

"Yes," nodded Baldwin, a jubilant gleam showing in his eyes.

"Better jump in, then, sir, so we can get away quickly."

Gaston Giddings now leaned against Tom's shoulder, sleeping the sleep of
drugged stupefaction.

"How on earth did you find him so soon?" questioned Joseph Baldwin,
leaning forward when the cab had gone beyond the confines of Chinatown.
Tom told the whole story, simply and modestly.

"Young man," uttered Jason Ross, solemnly, "I don't believe you have any
idea, yet, of how huge a risk you ran yourself into. The Chinese
criminal is desperate at all times, but ten-fold more so when he's on
his own ground, surrounded only by his own crowd."

"Well, I got out, didn't I?" smiled the young skipper, coolly.

"Yes; but I marvel at it."

"I understand more and more why Delavan recommended these youngsters to
me," breathed Joseph Baldwin, gleefully. "'Ready for anything,' he told
me, was the motto of the Motor Boat Club boys."

When the cab rolled out onto the dock Jeff Randolph was found pacing
back and forth on the landing stage. No other member of the crew was in
sight, and Jeff stated that none of the others of Mr. Baldwin's party of
guests had yet returned.

Gaston Giddings, still unaware of his surroundings, was helped aboard
the tender. A swift trip was made to the "Panther," and the unfortunate
young man was immediately carried below to be put to bed in one of the
stateroom berths.

Half an hour later Mr. Baldwin's other guests returned from dinner.
Jeff, who had gone back to meet them, brought them on board, next going
back to await the arrival of Third Officer Costigan and the crew. Dr.
Gray hastened below, to attend to Giddings, and to keep him quiet, also,
after the crew should come on board.

As for Captain Tom, after receiving Ab Perkins's report that all was
well aboard, he went to his own cabin, calling Joe Dawson, through the
speaking tube, to join him. Here Joseph Baldwin found both youngsters.

"Captain Halstead, how much did you spend on my account, to-night?"
asked the owner.

"Altogether, sir, twelve dollars on the guide."

"Never mind about any change, then," rejoined Mr. Baldwin, passing over
a bank note.

"I think I can make change for that, sir," retorted Skipper Tom, his
color rising. "I'm not out after 'tips,' you know, sir," he added, with
a smile.

Producing a roll of money from an inner pocket, Halstead counted out
eighty-eight dollars, which he handed to the owner.

"You may refuse, now, but I shall be even with you later," remarked
Joseph Baldwin. "And now, Captain, as soon as you can, after the crew
comes aboard, I want you to put out to sea. I'll give you more explicit
orders as soon as we're seven or eight miles west of the coast."

"Very good, sir," replied Captain Tom, saluting as the owner turned to
leave the captain's cabin.

"You've been running into a bit more excitement, have you?" queried Joe,
smiling.

"A bit," laughed Halstead. Dawson asked no further questions.

At a few minutes after midnight Mr. Costigan returned with his shore
party.

"It's your watch below, Mr. Costigan, until eight o'clock in the
morning," First Officer Ab Perkins informed the third officer. "When
you are called to turn out we'll be at sea."

"Very good, sir," replied Costigan, and went below to seek his berth.
Neither the third officer nor any of the crew had any suspicion that
anything unusual had happened this evening.

"Where's Mr. Costigan?" inquired Captain Halstead, coming forward.

"Gone below to sleep, sir," Ab replied.

"Then I'm afraid you'll have to rout him out. He'll have to stay on deck
until he has piloted us through the Golden Gate. I want to be under way
within five minutes."

Somewhat chagrined, Ab Perkins sent one of the crew below for the third
officer. Costigan was speedily in evidence.

Now, one of the motors began to chug briskly below, and the two bow
anchors came speedily up, being stowed by the watch. Joe was in the
engine room with Jed Prentiss, while Captain Tom Halstead, feeling
prouder and happier than ever in his life before, climbed to the bridge
up behind the pilot house. After him went Dick Davis, whose watch it was
to stand. Mr. Costigan, after seeing the anchors stowed, started for the
bridge also.

"Give the engine room slow speed ahead, Mr. Davis," directed Tom.

Dick gave the bell-pull at the bridge rail the required jerk. The
"Panther" began to move gracefully ahead, while Mr. Costigan, with the
pilot-house speaking tube in his hand, called down the helmsman's
orders.

"Dick, this is the real thing!" whispered Tom Halstead, jubilantly, in
his comrade's ear while Costigan was busy at the speaking tube.

"It's as fine as bossing a liner," rejoined Dick Davis,
enthusiastically.

"Better!" declared Halstead.

Dick presently signaled the engineer for more speed. The "Panther"
ploughed through the waters of the bay, toward the Golden Gate.

As Tom Halstead peered through the night ahead he felt another ecstatic
thrill. It was all so fine, so glorious! No doubt it was better for him,
at this moment, that he could not foresee all that lay ahead of him.




CHAPTER VII

DICK TAKES THE RESCUE BOAT TRICK


It wasn't long before First Officer Ab Perkins also climbed the stairs
to the bridge.

"If this craft runs on the rocks, it won't be for want of officers at
their post," laughed Skipper Tom, gleefully.

"I couldn't keep away," confessed Ab. "It's the first time in my life
I've ever stood on a real bridge by right. Oh, but this is a different
thing altogether from the tiny bridge-deck of a fifty-foot boat!"

Third Officer Costigan paid no heed to the motor boat boys. Though
Costigan had never held higher rank than he now enjoyed, standing watch
on a bridge was no new sensation for him. The young Irishman thought,
mainly, of the time when he would have the "Panther" through the Gate
and well off the coast. Then he could turn in below.

Presently a fifth person joined the little squad on the bridge. It was
Joseph Baldwin.

"You've a clear night and an easy sea, Captain," smiled the owner. "It's
a fortunate sort of start for you."

"Yes, sir."

"When you're well clear of the Gate, Captain, look in on me down in the
main cabin, and I'll give you your sailing orders for the night."

"Yes, sir."

Halstead knew his own dignity on the bridge. He was on duty, and did not
attempt to engage the owner in any conversation other than that which
concerned his present duties. Mr. Baldwin went below just after the
"Panther's" prow was turned into the beginning of the Golden Gate, that
magnificent approach to San Francisco harbor. The Gate is some two miles
long, and nearly a mile wide, with an abundance of deep water for the
passage of the largest craft afloat.

"What speed, sir?" asked Dick Davis.

"Ten miles is fast enough in this channel, isn't it, Mr. Costigan?"
inquired the young captain.

"About as much as is best, sir."

Dick, at a sign from Halstead, communicated the order to the engine
room. Twelve minutes later the "Panther" was clearing the Gate, leaving
a track of foam behind her as Davis signaled for increased speed.

Joe, leaving his first assistant below at the motors, now joined the
bridge squad.

"If there's nothing more, Captain," suggested Dawson, "I'll turn in
below for the night."

Captain Halstead nodded. Soon afterwards he went below, to the main
cabin.

"I've come to report for orders, Mr. Baldwin," he announced.

"They're simple enough," replied the owner. "Clear the coast by some
twenty miles; then cruise south, at not too great speed--say, about
twelve miles an hour."

"Do these orders hold until changed, sir?"

"Yes, Captain."

Tom saluted, then turned as though to leave the cabin, but Mr. Baldwin
called him back.

"You're not needed on the bridge yet, Captain. Remain with us a little
while, if you feel like it. You can see that Dr. Gray is keeping his own
watch down here in the main cabin."

At that moment the physician, an elderly man, stepped out of a
stateroom, closing the door after him.

"There! My patient will sleep for some hours, I think. I'll take the
upper berth in his room to-night, so that I can hear him and attend to
him if he wakes. Ah, good evening, Captain. Or is it good morning? I
have been told of your fine work--on land, at that."

"Is Giddings going to be in anything like his right mind when he wakes?"
asked Mr. Baldwin.

"Oh, in a general way, I think he'll know what he's saying," replied the
physician. "But he won't be at all bright before thirty-six hours have
passed. Even then I can't guarantee him. Opium drives him to the verge
of mania."

When several of the others had engaged in conversation, and the doctor
had taken a seat near the young captain, Tom asked:

"Is opium smoking a very great evil in San Francisco, Doctor? That is,
do very many take to it?"

"Not a very large proportion of the white population, I am glad to
say," responded the physician. "Still, when the hop habit does get hold
of our white people it works fearful havoc with them. Opium and morphine
streak all the crime in San Francisco. These habits are the horrible
revenge that the Chinaman has taken upon the city for the persecution
the Chinaman once suffered at the hands of our hoodlums."

"Then opium and morphine are largely responsible for the crime and vice
in the big city we have just left?" asked Halstead.

"No; I won't say they're responsible," replied Dr. Gray. "But they color
the wickedness of San Francisco in their own way. There's a heap of
wickedness in every large city, but the crimes and vices here take on
aspects that are tremendously due to the use of opium and morphine by
the criminal classes. A very large percentage of our San Francisco
jailbirds use either opium or morphine. These drugs give them a lower
order of intelligence, and make them more cowardly, though often more
desperate when they find themselves driven into a corner. Captain
Halstead, be sure you never allow yourself to be tempted to use either
of those drugs."

"Thank you; I don't believe I shall," smiled the young skipper.
"Especially, after what I've seen to-night."

"Great as the curse of alcohol is," added Dr. Gray, "the bane of opium
is ten-fold greater. In two or three generations it would ruin any
race."

"Then why isn't the Chinese nation destroyed?" asked Halstead.

"Because, although we have imported these dread habits from China, only
a small proportion of the Chinese people use the drugs. Those who do are
the outcasts of China."

It was growing late, so the young skipper rose, inquiring whether the
owner had any further orders for him.

"None, thank you, Captain," replied Mr. Baldwin.

Tom thereupon took his leave, returning to deck. The "Panther" was now
miles westward of the coast.

"Ugh!" shivered young Halstead, as he stepped out on deck. Though it was
February, the air had been all but balmy in town. Out on the bay there
had been a little more chill in the air. But now, out on the wide
expanse of the ocean, there was a cold, damp wind blowing that seemed to
bite to the marrow after the bright warmth of the main cabin.

Tom promptly stepped into his own cabin, taking down his deck ulster and
donning it. Then he made his way to the bridge, where Dick Davis was
pacing from side to side.

"No; I don't want any ice cream, thank you," grinned Dick, as his
captain joined him. Davis, who wore a reefer, was beating his arms
against his sides as though to keep warm. "I've been wishing, Captain, I
could get below for my ulster."

"Go ahead," nodded Halstead. "I'll walk the bridge until you return."
Dick needed no urging, but made speed for his stateroom below. When he
came back he looked more contented.

"Queer climate, this," he remarked.

"Yes," agreed the young skipper. "I'm told the thermometer never shows a
very low marking, but that the night air chills one down to the marrow
of his bones."

For five minutes more young Halstead remained on the bridge, then went
below, after having left the customary instructions to call him to the
bridge in case he was needed.

"Well, it's great to walk the bridge of as fine a craft as puts out of
San Francisco," Dick told himself, later on in the night. "But at night
it's mighty lonesome. I almost wish I could call one of the deckhands up
here to talk to."

Of the seven seamen of the crew, one was assigned to work under the
first officer's orders during the daytime. The remaining six were
divided between the two watches. Of the three now at Davis's orders, one
was in the pilot house, for the purpose of relieving the quartermaster
whenever required. A second seaman, at night, stood out far forward as
bow-watch. The third made regular trips of inspection around the yacht,
unless ordered to some other duty.

Jed Prentiss, sitting all alone down in the motor room, made the sixth
of those who were now awake on board the "Panther." At starboard and
port the colored running lights gleamed; a third light, white, twinkled
from the foremast-head. On the bridge stood a powerful searchlight whose
rays could be turned on at will.

Thus manned, the "Panther" swept on steadily over the ocean, now headed
south. The solitary, boyish figure pacing the bridge, represented in the
night the brains and the present master-hand of this yacht, which,
equipped with a single three-inch cannon at the bow, could have outrun
or destroyed all the navies, combined, of ancient times.

Through the night the sea roughened a good deal. The wind blew more
freshly, coming down off the land from the northeast. Still, the yacht
was in no labor in the sea, and the sky remained bright overhead. So the
second officer did not feel it necessary to disturb the rest of the
captain.

At a quarter of eight in the morning, however, with the sun hidden
behind a haze, Dick pressed the button that sounded the electric
vibrating bell over Tom Halstead's berth. Then Davis picked up the
mouthpiece of the speaking tube to the pilot house.

"Call the port watch," directed Dick, when the seaman had answered.

Captain Tom came up on the bridge, pulling on his ulster as he came. He
greeted Dick, then stood looking about at the sky.

"It has freshened up a good deal in the night," remarked the young
skipper.

"Yes; I thought, sir, you'd want to see the weather while the watch was
changing."

Third Officer Costigan was not long in appearing, greeting his two
superior officers as he reached the bridge.

"Does this weather spell trouble coming on this coast, Mr. Costigan?"
questioned Halstead.

"It'll most likely turn rougher, sir. Sometimes we get a gale out of the
northeast in February, though not as often as you do on the Atlantic.
That's all I can say, sir. How's the glass? The barometer, you see, sir,
is behaving like a gentleman at present."

As Dick left the bridge at the changing of the watch, Tom followed him.
Halstead went to his own cabin, where he ordered his breakfast served.
This meal eaten, the young skipper, who still felt the fatigue of late
hours the night before, threw himself down on a divan. Though he had not
intended to sleep, in less than five minutes Tom Halstead had traveled
all the way to the land of Nod.

Nor did the increased rolling and pitching of the "Panther" disturb him;
if anything, it lulled the young skipper into sounder slumber.

By ten o'clock the gale was going more than forty miles an hour. At
eleven Ab Perkins turned the knob of the door, stepping inside. As Ab
stood there looking at the occupant of the divan, moisture dripped from
the ulster of the first officer.

"I guess we need you on deck, sir," roared Ab, shaking the young
captain's shoulder. In a twinkling, Halstead was awake. In another
instant he was on his feet.

"Weather is booming a bit, eh?" cried Captain Tom, eagerly.

"Nothing near as much, sir, as this craft can stand with comfort," Ab
responded. "But we're coming up with a schooner under bare poles and
wallowing badly. Foretop-mast blown away, too, and some of the bowsprit
missing."

"Then you did right to call me," rejoined Halstead, pulling on his shoes
swiftly, and standing up to don his cap and reefer. "I'll go on the
bridge at once."

Baldwin and three of the passengers were on deck as Captain Tom
appeared. Halstead nodded their way, then hurriedly climbed the bridge
stairs. Now, he turned to take a look at the schooner. She lay dead
ahead, for Costigan had ordered the "Panther's" course altered so as to
speak the craft in distress. She was still about a mile distant, but for
a keen-eyed sailor it needed no glass to make out the fact that the
three-master was in utter distress.

"Hard luck, that, in only a forty-mile blow," muttered Tom.

"Wind-gauge shows forty-eight, sir," replied Mr. Costigan.

"Anyway, someone must have been dozing on that schooner, to let her
canvas be blown away in such a wind," contended the young skipper.

Then Tom picked up the marine glasses, for a good look at the craft.

"Why, confound it, she has nothing left but a dinghy at the stern
davits," muttered Captain Halstead. "I'm afraid, Mr. Costigan, we've got
to get out our own boat."

"I'm afraid so, sir."

"Then tumble out the starboard watch."

The order was given through the pilot house speaking tube. The sailor
down there with the quartermaster went below at lively speed, routing
out the sleeping watch.

By the time they were on deck Tom Halstead was manoeuvring the motor
yacht around to leeward of the wreck.

"Schooner, ahoy!" he bellowed through a megaphone, from the bridge end.

"Yacht ahoy!" came back the faint answer on the breeze. "This is the
schooner 'Alert,' Seattle; Jordrey, master."

"What help do you want, 'Alert'?"

"We're ready to abandon our vessel. Send us a boat, if you can."

"Boat it is, then, Captain," Tom bawled back, lustily. "Stand by to help
our boat make fast alongside your lee quarter!"

Then, turning, glancing down at the deck, Tom called:

"Mr. Davis, the rescue boat is the second officer's trick!"

"Glad of it, sir," retorted Dick, his eyes glistening.

"Lower the port life-boat. Take four men at the oars and one for the
bow. You'll have to row. The power tender would be worthless in this
sea. Mr. Perkins will take the bridge. Mr. Costigan and the
quartermasters will help you off, Mr. Davis."

Officers and men all moved with perfect discipline. With a merry roar
they lowered the life-boat. A boarding gangway was lowered at the side,
and down this the crew of the life-boat scrambled. Dick Davis took his
place at the tiller.

"Cast off," he commanded. "Shove off. Let fall oars. Now, then--at it,
hearties!"

From owner and passengers a cheer went up as the boat put off in such
famous style. In another instant, however, the boat tossed like a cork
on a high, rolling wave. Then it went down in the hollow between two
billows. It was up in sight, an instant later. The men at the oars were
doing their work with a will. Over the water struggled the life-boat,
and then turned to come up under the lee quarter of the schooner.

Suddenly Captain Tom Halstead clutched desperately at the bridge rail,
his face going deathly white.

"Merciful heaven!" he quivered, staring hard. For, near the crest of a
wave, the life-boat heeled. Another big wave caught her.

Dick Davis and the boat's crew had been hurled from the overturning
boat!




CHAPTER VIII

THE REAL KENNEBEC WAY


The young skipper of the "Panther" brushed his hand past his eyes.

It was no dream, no trick of the vision. The life-boat was overturned,
riding keel upward, while two of its crew clung desperately to the keel.
A third head could be seen bobbing on the water. What had become of the
other three human beings?

"Mr. Perkins, take command of the 'Panther,'" ordered Tom, hoarsely.
"Mr. Dawson, you and Mr. Prentiss, with two of the quartermasters and
the remaining seaman, stand by the starboard life-boat. I'll go in
charge."

All those ordered sprang to their posts. Like a flash the davits were
swung around outward, other hands loosening the lowering tackle.

"Captain, this is madness," remonstrated Mr. Baldwin. "If that boat
couldn't ride the water, this one can't."

"This one must," retorted Captain Tom. "They're our own shipmates in the
water over there. Stand by to lower!"

"Captain, I protest!" cried Baldwin.

"Get out of the way, then, sir, and do your protesting in private,"
came, sternly, from the young skipper.

Before those flashing eyes Mr. Baldwin took a step backward. At sea the
captain, not the owner, commands, and Joseph Baldwin quickly realized
it.

"Captain!" roared down Ab Perkins's voice from the bridge.

On the point of giving the lowering-away order, Tom turned to look where
the first officer pointed.

In another second Captain Halstead commanded, hoarsely:

"Stand by your posts at the davits!"

Then he darted forward along the rail, taking in the inspiring sight
that greeted his eyes.

Though Dick Davis had met with bad luck, he did not mean to let it turn
into disaster.

Seeing two of his boat's crew safe for the moment, Dick succeeded in
helping two more sailors to gain the boat. Still another was making
stubborn headway over the waves toward the side of the schooner, where
one of the crew of the wreck stood ready to cast a rope.

And now the master of the "Alert" made a splendid cast with a line that
shot far out, uncoiling until it lay across the overturned boat.

"Good old Dick!" breathed young Halstead, as he saw his second officer
catch the rope and pass the end quickly back past the others who clung
to the keel of the overturned life-boat.

The swimmer had now succeeded in reaching the rope, and was being helped
up to the schooner's deck. Dick and the remaining men, besides holding
onto the overturned boat, were slowly aiding those at the schooner's
rail to haul them to greater safety.

When Halstead saw the overturned boat made fast along under the
schooner's lee he turned to shout back:

"Swing in the davits, but stand by. We may need our boat yet."

Dick Davis, however, aided by his own men and those on the derelict, was
working hard to right the life-boat. When they succeeded a great cheer
went up from the watchers on the "Panther."

"Shall I go in closer, sir?" The question came from Parkinson, the chief
steward, who, when Captain Tom made such a draft for a second crew, had
been sent to the wheel house.

"Get your orders from the bridge," Tom called back to him.

Though Davis had lost his oars in the upset, the master of the "Alert"
was able to supply others. Now the loading of the life boat began. On
the return trip Dick was able to have six oarsmen. All hands stowed
themselves away in the life-boat, Captain Jordrey coming last of all,
with his log, papers and instruments. Then Davis gave the order to shove
off.

"Our friend is taking a big passenger contract, on such a rough sea,"
Tom muttered, uneasily, to Joe Dawson, who had joined him. "But Dick
will pull it through, if anyone can."

The life-boat, which was not of the largest size, lay low in the water
as she set out on her return. Every now and then one of the waves broke
with a choppy crest, to be succeeded by a long, rolling mass of water
that threatened to fill and overwhelm the boat. Dick Davis, however,
standing up, with one hand on the tiller and one knee against it,
handled his little craft with a master's skill.

"Your friend is a wonderfully good officer, Captain," cried Joseph
Baldwin, enthusiastically.

"Any of my other officers could do as well, sir," Tom replied, calmly.
"It's the way of the Motor Boat Club training, and its effect on boys of
sea-roving stock."

Yet there were half a dozen times, on that perilous return trip, when
those on the deck of the "Panther" held their breath, their pulses
moving faster.

At just the right moment Ab Perkins swung the craft around somewhat to
starboard, then headed in so that Dick Davis was able more quickly to
have the life-boat up under the yacht's broad lee.

Then, in a moment of relief, falls and tackle were made fast to the
boat, and the rescued men began coming up over the side like so many
squirrels.

"Where's your captain?" demanded Master Jordrey, as he came over the
side. "I want to tell him that that boy officer of his is worth a dozen
of some kinds of men I've seen."

"I'm captain here, at your service, sir," Tom announced, with a smile.
Jordrey stared hard, for Tom was plainly much younger than Davis.

"What is this?" gasped the master of the "Alert." "A juvenile orphan
asylum afloat, without the teachers? But no matter who you are, you know
how to handle boats, large and small. My respects, Captain."

The two mates, cook and crew of the schooner were pressing forward.
Costigan returned to the bridge, while Ab came down to the deck again,
attending to the hoisting and stowing of the life-boat. Halstead grasped
the hand of Dick Davis as he came over the side, looking at him with a
gaze full of appreciation.

"Where are you bound, Captain Halstead?" inquired Captain Jordrey, a man
of some forty years.

"Cruising," Tom replied. "According to the owner's whim or orders. But
we can stow your people away somewhere on the boat until we make port,
or pass some other craft in smoother water. There's an extra stateroom
forward, below, Captain Jordrey, that you can have."

There were also three berths, not in use, in the forecastle. For the
rest mattresses were laid, at need, on the forecastle floor.

"It serves my owners right to lose the schooner," grumbled Jordrey. "The
canvas was worn out. I put in a requisition for new sets of sails before
leaving port, but they wouldn't let me have them."

Joseph Baldwin approached Davis while he and Tom were talking on the
deck.

"All I want to say, Mr. Davis," explained the owner, "is that, every
time I see you Motor Boat Club boys do anything new it only makes me
more and more glad that you're on my craft."




CHAPTER IX

THE CHASE OF THEIR LIVES


It was Saturday forenoon when the officers and men of the "Alert" were
taken from the wreck. By Sunday morning the sea was running smoothly
after the short gale. On this latter morning the steamer from San Diego
to San Francisco was sighted and hailed, and Captain Jordrey and his men
were transferred to her.

At this time the "Panther" was cruising leisurely, first north, then
south, out of sight of land, and at a mean distance of some two hundred
miles from the Golden Gate.

On this Sunday morning young Gaston Giddings appeared on deck. He
appeared to have entirely recovered from his late debauch, though his
eyes lacked their natural luster. He was tastefully attired in a new
suit and topcoat taken from his wardrobe on board. He and Joseph Baldwin
walked much together, talking, and once in a while Mr. Ross joined them.

"Captain," called the owner, as young Halstead stepped on deck.

"Yes, sir," responded Tom, approaching.

"Mr. Giddings understands the part you played Friday night," went on
Mr. Baldwin, in a low voice.

"And I wish to thank you, of course," put in Giddings, holding out his
hand, though it seemed to the young skipper that his own pressure was
not very cordially returned.

"You're welcome, of course, Mr. Giddings," smiled Halstead, "though I
hope I shall never have a chance to render the same service again."

"I hope not," sighed the young man. Though Tom did not stare
impertinently, he looked into the young man's face long enough to note
the lifelessness depicted there, and the weakness of the mouth.

"It seems queer to think of such a young fellow, and such a pulseless
piece of putty, being president of a great bank," thought Tom to
himself. "However, of course, if he inherited the controlling stock, he
could see to it that he was elected to the post."

Dr. Gray, though he did not often speak to Giddings, hovered on deck,
keeping a rather watchful look over the young man.

During the afternoon Tom had occasion to go to the main cabin briefly.
Mr. Baldwin looked around from the table at which he sat with his
guests. He nodded to the young captain, then turned back to the pile of
papers that he had evidently been discussing with his guests.

"You needn't go, Captain," called the owner over his shoulder. "We are
talking business, but we know you have no ears, away from your duties.
Now, Giddings, as I've been explaining to you, we need ten million
dollars in cash to put this matter in motion. Your bank, the Sheepmen's,
then, will advance five millions on the collateral we have been
discussing, and the syndicate of banks that I have named will put up the
other five millions. That will start the matter in motion. Then, when we
come to the second step in the game, we shall have to be ready with
fifteen millions, and of this money the Sheepmen's----"

Tom Halstead heard, yet didn't hear. It was all a matter of listless
indifference to him what these men of the money world were planning in
the way of new and big enterprises. The young captain would have been
much more interested in reading the "Panther's" patent log.

"Are you certain, Giddings, that you have facilities for turning over
the five millions to us at once?" asked Mr. Ross.

"Why, we've been calling in cash for some days," replied Gaston
Giddings. "We've been preparing for this demand of yours for money.
Then, you know, we secured the whole of the Treasury Department's last
apportionment of thousand-dollar Treasury notes. We have three million
dollars' worth of these notes locked in our vaults at this moment.
That's good enough money for you, isn't it?" demanded the young bank
president, boastfully.

"Yes," muttered Ross, "if it's all there when we get back."

"What do you mean?" demanded Giddings, flushing.

"I guess you know how highly I esteem your cashier, Rollings?"

"He's all right," declared Giddings, hotly.

"As long as I don't own any stock in your bank I'm not worrying,"
replied Ross, rather shortly. "It's none of my business, young man; yet,
as one of your father's friends, I can't help being uneasy over the
thought that Rollings has the combination of your main vault."

"If he didn't have, I could hardly take these jaunts out to sea,"
retorted the young man.

"Yes, you could; Hawkins, your vice-president and your father's before
you, is a man to be trusted with anything. Hawkins could go to the main
vault whenever necessary. For Rollings to have that combination----"

"I don't want to hear any more of this!" cried Giddings, hotly, rising
from the table.

"You don't need to, then," rejoined Mr. Ross, coolly. "You know what I
_think_."

"Don't get in a huff, Gaston," put in Joseph Baldwin, briskly. "Ross has
told you, plainly, in so many words, just what other friends of yours
think of Rollings. He's an able banking man, but none of us think too
highly of his honesty. You'll find that two of your own directors, Mr.
Pendleton and Mr. Howe, who are here, agree with Mr. Ross and myself."

Mr. Howe remained silent, tapping the table with a pencil, but Mr.
Pendleton said, slowly:

"Oh, I guess Frank Rollings is all right. Still, I wish, with the
others, that he didn't have such easy access to three millions of
dollars in bills of such large denomination that the whole sum could be
carried off in a satchel."

"Gentlemen," announced Giddings, rather stiffly, "when we reach San
Francisco to-morrow morning, and find that the money is all safe, I
shall consider that I have the apology of each one of you for the doubts
thrown at my friend, Frank Rollings, behind his back."

That was the last that Tom Halstead heard, for he left the cabin. At
eight o'clock that evening, however, the young skipper received his
orders from Mr. Baldwin to make San Francisco at ten the following
forenoon. Almost to the minute the yacht's bow anchors were let go at
her usual moorings in San Francisco Bay. The power tender was lowered
over the side, to take Mr. Baldwin and his guests ashore, Quartermaster
Bickson going along to handle the boat.

"Come along with us, if you like, Captain," invited Mr. Baldwin. "After
we get through our business at the bank our party will lunch at one of
the clubs. It ought to be pleasant for you."

Tom gratefully accepted, making a swift change from his uniform to
ordinary street dress.

Gaston Giddings held his head a good deal higher than usual when he led
the party from carriages into the sombre, solid old building in which
the Sheepmen's Bank was housed. The young president conducted his party
through the long counting room and into the president's office at the
rear.

Here Giddings took command, as by right. Showing his guests to seats, he
stepped over to a massive roll-top desk, unlocking it and throwing the
roll up. Then he pressed a button on his desk. One of the bank's
messengers entered.

"Ask Mr. Rollings to come in," desired Giddings.

The messenger soon returned, to report:

"Mr. Rollings is out at this moment. Mr. Conroy, the first assistant
cashier, is at his desk."

"Mr. Conroy will do, then."

The first assistant cashier was soon in the president's office. To him
Giddings explained about the loan that had been decided upon.

"I will prepare a list, Mr. Conroy, of stable securities on which I wish
you to raise two million dollars in cash at once. But, first of all, get
Mr. Hawkins to go to the main vault with you. Tell Mr. Hawkins that I
wish the three millions in thousand-dollar notes brought here. You come
back here with Mr. Hawkins."

"Can it be delayed for just a little while, sir?" inquired Conroy. "Two
of the United States bank examiners are here, prepared to go over our
assets."

"Bring that three million here at once," rapped out Gaston Giddings,
rather sharply. "The bank examiners may come in here and help in
counting it here in my office. Now, go; carry out my orders, precisely."

Mr. Conroy departed in haste. While he was gone the two bank examiners
entered the president's room. Giddings greeted them, asking them to take
seats. Cigars were passed about by a messenger. The air was rather thick
with smoke when Conroy returned, accompanied by the aged
vice-president, Mr. Hawkins. The latter carried a satchel, which he took
to the large centre table.

"The money there?" inquired Giddings.

"Yes, sir," responded Mr. Hawkins. "I understood that you wished to look
it over here."

As Giddings laid down his cigar, moving over to the table, the two bank
examiners joined the bank's officers.

Not a very imposing-looking pile was revealed when Mr. Hawkins opened
the satchel, drawing forth the contents--three not very large packages
covered with numerous heavy seals.

"As I'll probably never see three million dollars again in my life, I'll
try to get a good look now," thought Tom Halstead, keenly alive with
interest. He sat at some distance from the table, but had a good view.

Gaston Giddings himself opened one of the packages. He broke the seals
deliberately, then unfolded many wrappings. Suddenly the contents of the
package fell to the polished mahogany surface of the table, followed by
the frenzied gaze of the young president.

"_Nothing but blank brown paper!_" he screamed, hoarsely. He collapsed,
falling with his arms across the table, his eyes bulging as though an
epileptic seizure threatened him.

With a fearful gasp Henry Hawkins snatched up another package, tearing
it nervously apart. Conroy did the same with the third package. In each
case the result was the same.

"Three million dollars worth of brown paper!" clicked one of the bank
examiners.

Gaston Giddings, moaning piteously, turned, tottering back to his desk,
where he fell heavily into his chair, next letting his head fall forward
on his arms. Messrs. Hawkins and Conroy recovered much more quickly.
They darted out into the counting room, but presently came back to
report.

Frank Rollings had been gone more than an hour. When he left, he had
carried a satchel. Some fifteen minutes before leaving the bank he had
been in the main vault, the huge steel door of which he had afterwards
closed. Conroy was now in that vault, with several subordinates, engaged
in making a rapid survey of the other contents.

In the president's room Henry Hawkins, who no longer waited to consult
the almost paralyzed young president, went swiftly to the telephone. The
Bankers' Protective Association, advised by telephone, swiftly had half
a dozen detectives scurrying to the bayside, to take up the trail at the
ferry that furnishes the sole avenue to the east. Others of these
detectives covered the docks of vessels due to sail that day from the
port of San Francisco.

Nor did the bank examiners present fail to do their duty promptly.
Within a few minutes a United States assistant district attorney and two
deputy marshals arrived at the bank.

From the first moment none who had knowledge of the affair believed
Frank Rollings, the absent cashier, to be innocent. The assistant
district attorney swiftly drew up an information, which Giddings and
Hawkins signed under oath. The law's officer rushed off to get from a
United States judge a brief warrant authorizing the arrest of the
cashier, for the Sheepmen's was a national bank, and the robbery came
under the jurisdiction of the United States courts.

Then came a telephone message from the Banker's Association:

"One of our detectives has learned that Rollings sailed, an hour ago, on
the steam yacht, 'Victor.' An observer at the Cliff House reports that
he has made out the 'Victor,' some miles from the coast, hull-down to
the southwest!"

That news electrified those in the bank president's office. They sprang
into action. Automobiles were summoned to the door of the bank. Joseph
Baldwin's same party sped back to the water front. Another 'phone
message summoned the assistant district attorney and his marshals to
meet them at the landing stage.

It was all carried through with a rush. Hardly had the last member of
the party stepped over the side of the "Panther" before Tom Halstead had
the anchors up and stowed. The young skipper himself, from the bridge,
rang the engine room bell for half speed ahead, quickly changing this to
full speed.

"Are you in the engine room, Joe Dawson?" called Skipper Tom, through
the speaking tube.

"Right on hand!" came the answer.

"Then whoop up the speed for all you're worth. Let's have it all--every
bit. We're on the chase of our lives!"

Captain Tom Halstead was still on the bridge when the Golden Gate was
left behind. He was still there, more than two hours later, when the
upper spars of a vessel believed to be the "Victor" were made out on the
far southwestern horizon.




CHAPTER X

COMING TO CLOSE, DANGEROUS QUARTERS


"Have any of you gentlemen ever had a good, long look at the 'Victor'?"
shouted Captain Tom, leaning down over the starboard bridge rail.

"I have," admitted Mr. Baldwin.

"Then I think you'd better come up here, sir, and take one of the
glasses."

"Think you've sighted her?" demanded Baldwin, eagerly, as he raced up
the steps.

"We've sighted some yacht. We've got to cut down a few miles of the
distance between us before we can be sure about the stranger."

Then, while Baldwin held the glasses to his eyes, Dick Davis showing him
where to look, Halstead snatched up the engine room speaking tube.

"Joe, give us more of that hot-foot, if it's in the old motors. We think
we're in chase--but, oh, man, man! How we need speed now!"

"I can't be sure of anything yet," complained Mr. Baldwin, in a
depressed tone. "We've got to be nearer, and see the hull of the craft
yonder, before I can feel sure about her."

"I'm pretty near sure, now, that it's the 'Victor,'" muttered Halstead,
after he had picked up his own marine glass and used it for a few
seconds.

"Why do you say that?" demanded the owner.

"Our masts must be visible to the commander of the other craft. As if he
suspected pursuit, he's crowding on steam. See that big cloud of black
smoke coming up between the other craft's masts?"

"Yes! You're right."

"Now, unless a captain who is already moving under good speed is trying
to escape something, he doesn't suddenly throw on his furnace drafts in
that fashion," went on Tom, hurriedly. "So, Mr. Baldwin, I think you may
feel sure that you're speeding along in the wake of the 'Victor.'"

"I'll have to call Jephson up here and show him this," cried the owner,
moving to the bridge rail.

"All right, sir. But don't ask any others up. We've got a hard chase in
hand, and don't want enough folks up here to interfere with the handling
of the 'Panther.'"

Jephson started quickly forward at the call.

"Have you sighted the runaway craft?" called Mr. Ross, also starting
forward.

"We think so," Mr. Baldwin answered. "But don't come up here. Captain
Halstead doesn't want a crowd on the bridge. All the space up here is
needed for handling the yacht."

Mr. Jephson saw what there was to see. He added his belief that they
were in the wake of the "Victor."

"Are you going to be able to overtake her, Captain?" he demanded,
eagerly.

"We're going to try," Tom responded, anxiously. "We've only four hours
of daylight, or so, left to us. If we can get close enough, however, we
ought to hold the 'Victor' after dark with our searchlight."

"You'll overtake her, of course!" declared Joseph Baldwin, abruptly.

"Yet the 'Victor' is said to be a very fast boat, sir."

"So is the 'Panther,'" retorted the owner. "Besides, Captain Halstead,
we've _got_ to overtake her!"

Tom Halstead took up the mouth-piece of the engine room speaking tube.

"That you, chief?" he asked. "I think you'd better come to the bridge,
watch the chase, and see what you have to beat."

Joe Dawson came immediately to the bridge. Presently he used the tube,
calling down very definite instructions to Jed Prentiss, whose trick it
was at the motors.

"Keep a close eye on your helmsman's work, Mr. Davis," the young captain
directed. "See to it that he doesn't waver a hair's breadth in bearing
down on the stranger. Any speed lost in steering would be a useless
waste."

While Joe remained on the bridge, Halstead soon went to the deck below.
Mr. Baldwin followed him.

"If you can make the 'Panther' show all I think there is in her,
Captain," commented the owner, "then we should overtake that other craft
and have this chase ended in a few hours."

"The 'Panther' is doing, now, sir, all that she is capable of doing
under her motors alone. The result of this race depends mainly on how
well the steam yacht is handled, for she seems very nearly, if not
quite, as speedy as your yacht."

"Is the 'Panther' going at absolutely her last quarter of a mile?"

"Chief Engineer Dawson informs me that he might get a little more speed
out of the motors, but that he feels it wouldn't be altogether safe to
try."

"Wouldn't a hoist of sail help us?"

"Not with the wind from the present quarter," Tom replied,
thoughtfully. "I have already been considering that."

"It seems hard to be beaten," sighed Joseph Baldwin. "It is hard, even,
not to find ourselves racing right up on the 'Victor.'"

"We haven't been beaten yet, sir," smiled Halstead. "Nor are we beaten
as long as we have the other boat in sight."

As Baldwin turned and stepped over to the rail, he saw Skipper Tom
moving away.

"Where are you going, Captain?"

"To my cabin, sir, to take a nap."

"Nap?" echoed the owner, in great amazement.

"Yes, sir; I am afraid I shall be up about all night. Just now there's a
chance for me to store up some sleep."

"But the chase?"

"Mr. Davis will have his orders to call me if we appear to be losing
ground at all."

Mr. Baldwin looked his astonishment. He did not yet know the Motor Boat
Club boys as well as he might have done. Dick Davis was up on the
bridge, keen-eyed and alert. Dick knew well enough what to do, and he
could call the young captain at need. Besides, Joe Dawson was up there
with the second officer, watching the relative speeds of the two boats.

When Tom Halstead turned out again he had put two hours of sleep into
his supply of reserve force.

"How do we stand, now, Mr. Davis?" asked the young skipper, reaching for
the speaking tube.

"We've been gaining, sir. We can make out the upper hull, now. Mr.
Baldwin is here on the bridge, and declares the stranger is the
'Victor.' One of the deputy marshals, who knows the boat well, is also
certain."

"Is the 'Victor' burning coal as hard as ever?"

"Just as hard, sir."

"And we're gaining? That shows we can overhaul the other craft in time.
How's the weather?"

"Slight haze, Captain, but fine weather," reported Dick Davis.

So Captain Tom Halstead felt that he could still safely take his time,
for he expected to be all night on duty. He indulged in the luxury of a
bath, dressed comfortably, drew on his reefer, then leisurely left his
cabin, ascending the stairs to the bridge.

"I've hardly been away from here," announced Mr. Baldwin.

"I doubt if I shall be, to-night, sir," Tom answered.

"You speak of to-night as though you thought the chase would last
through the hours of darkness."

"And doesn't it seem likely to you that it will, Mr. Baldwin, unless
something happens to the 'Victor'?"

"I fear I was never built for slow, patient work like this," sighed the
financier. "Gaining one second in every hour would wear me out in time."

Before dark Captain Halstead had the hull clearly in sight. The
"Victor," however, was still some five miles in the lead, nor did the
"Panther" appear to be gaining, much more than half a mile an hour.

It was Third Officer Costigan's watch on the bridge, by this time. Dick
Davis, however, did not feel like turning in, and spent much of his time
pacing the deck forward, keeping a sharp lookout.

Just before dark the motor yacht's searchlight was turned on. A few
minutes later its thin, bright ribbon of light was kept almost
constantly turned on the craft ahead.

Tom Halstead and Joe spent a comfortable amount of time over their
dinner at table in the captain's cabin.

"I guess Mr. Baldwin wonders that we can take any comfort at this sort
of thing," laughed Joe. "I'll wager he doesn't give much time to his
supper to-night."

"Perhaps we wouldn't, either, if we owned considerable stock in the
Sheepmen's Bank, as Mr. Baldwin does," murmured Halstead. "For him, and
for some of the others aboard, this race is for tremendously heavy
stakes. I wish, though, that Mr. Baldwin could realize that, even if we
do eat, and even nap, we are straining every nerve to catch up with the
other boat."

Just then the buzzer for the bridge speaking tube sounded. Tom was able
to reach the mouthpiece without leaving the table.

"Captain," reported Mr. Costigan, "the craft ahead seems to be making
somewhat less speed."

"Does it look like a break-down?" asked the young skipper.

"Can't say, sir. But the 'Victor' must be going two miles an hour slower
than she was ten minutes ago."

"That's the best news I've heard, Mr. Costigan. Watch your helmsman's
work. Let me know if anything more happens. Anyway, I'll be on the
bridge as soon as I've finished dinner."

Joe, who had jumped up while he heard his chum speaking, now looked
astonished.

"Going to finish your dinner, Tom, after hearing such news as that?"

"Yes. Why not? Oh, I'm enthusiastic enough, but it takes gasoline, not
enthusiasm, to keep motors going. You might call the news down to Jeff
Randolph, though, and see whether he thinks he can put on any more spurt
without danger."

Jeff Randolph reported that the motors were going at top speed.

Chief Steward Parkinson came in to remove the dishes for that course.
His face was glowing.

"Mr. Baldwin's up on the bridge, Captain," reported the steward.

"I thought he would be," nodded the young skipper, coolly.

Twenty minutes later, when Captain Tom Halstead had finished the last of
the meal, he rose, donning his cap, then pulling on his deck ulster.

"Now," he remarked, quietly, "I think I'll go above and have a look."

Joe Dawson followed at his heels. The long beam of the searchlight
trailed out over the water, its further end resting across the stern of
the "Victor." Mr. Costigan had ordered a sailor to the bridge, whose
sole duty was to keep the searchlight trained.

"This race can't last much longer," cried Mr. Baldwin, gleefully.

"The present indications, sir," Tom replied, "are that it will last more
than long enough for you to go below and have your dinner, Mr. Baldwin,
if you want it."

"I think I will go," laughed the owner. "Standing up here, watching,
watching all the time, my nerves are getting thready. You'll call me, of
course, if----"

"When we get near enough to hail the other boat, sir," Tom Halstead
replied, gravely.

Dinner was not quite over in the main cabin when Skipper Tom uttered a
sudden exclamation that made Costigan wheel about.

The "Victor" was palpably slowing down.

"What can that mean?" demanded Halstead.

"A crank-pin loose, or some other trouble with the machinery, sir?"
suggested the third officer.

Tom Halstead quickly summoned the sailor who was with the quartermaster
in the pilot house.

"Go to the main cabin, with my compliments, and tell Mr. Baldwin that
the other craft is slowing down," ordered Tom.

There was a rush from below. The assistant from the United States
district attorney's office took but a brief look, then dived below to
find his two deputy marshals. These two officers followed their
superior to the deck, stationing themselves in the bow.

"Captain," shouted Mr. Jephson, "will you go up close enough so that I
can hail them?"

"When we overtake the steam yacht," Captain Halstead shouted back, "I
shall run up to starboard of her, and as close as I can without danger
of collision."

"That will do excellently, Captain," assented the district attorney's
assistant.

The "Panther" was now rapidly closing in on the distance that separated
the two craft. As yet, however, the motor yacht remained almost fairly
astern.

Suddenly, from one of the stern port-holes of the steam yacht there came
two red flashes. A bullet crashed through the glass in the front window
of the "Panther's" pilot house. Captain Tom was standing with his head
some two feet from the searchlight. The second bullet whizzed between
his head and the light.

Almost instantly two more flashes showed ahead.




CHAPTER XI

GASTON GIDDINGS MAKES TROUBLE


THE second pair of bullets passed overhead, though close enough for
their whistling song to be heard.

In a jiffy there was a mad scramble to get away from the bridge. Captain
Tom Halstead and Third Officer Costigan had that place to themselves.

"Throw the wheel over three points to the starboard! Hold to a course
three points off the present one," called Halstead, sharply.

"You men answer with your revolvers," was Mr. Jephson's order.

"Our revolvers wouldn't carry that far, sir," objected one of the deputy
marshals.

"I know it, but let those scoundrels discover that we have firearms
too," retorted the district attorney's assistant.

So the futile revolver shots flashed out. In answer a rifle bullet
carried away the hat of one of the deputies.

"That's confounded close shooting," coolly uttered the unhatted one,
running down the deck after his head gear.

Another shot flew by close to the searchlight.

"That's the mark the scoundrels are aiming at," muttered the young
skipper, angrily. "Turn off the current, Mr. Costigan, and I'll unship
the light."

This done, the big reflector and the bulb behind it were taken down to
the pilot house by one of the sailors.

"You confounded pirates!" roared the district attorney, shaking his fist
in the direction of the "Victor."

"That _was_ actual piracy, wasn't it?" questioned Mr. Baldwin.

"Nothing else!" retorted the assistant, angrily, as he came down aft to
place the wheel house between himself and that other craft. "If we ever
get that captain and crew on shore we'll make 'em smart in a trial for
piracy!"

Having veered off the course of direct pursuit, Captain Halstead was now
steering ahead, meaning to run parallel with the "Victor." He kept half
a mile away, but, even had the other craft lowered its running lights,
the starlight was bright enough to enable the bridge officer to keep the
"Victor" in sight.

"Try to keep just this distance, Mr. Costigan," directed Tom Halstead.

"Aye, aye, sir."

Tom then descended to the deck, where he sauntered up to the excited
group.

"What's your guess, Halstead, as to the meaning of those shots?"
questioned Mr. Baldwin.

"Well, of course," replied Tom, slowly, "the master of that other yacht
would be glad to see our searchlight smashed. That was one reason for
the firing."

"And another?"

"Why, I imagine, sir, those people want us to know that they carry
rifles. They want to show us the folly of thinking we can pursue and
board them."

"This pursuit should really have been undertaken by a naval vessel or
revenue cutter," said Mr. Jephson, rather disgustedly. "One shot from
the bowgun of an armed vessel would bring that yacht lying to in a
jiffy."

"Humph!" grunted the practical Mr. Baldwin. "There isn't a cutter or
gunboat in San Francisco waters fast enough to overtake either of these
boats."

"I don't understand, sir," put in Halstead, quietly, "why you haven't
had a wireless telegraph apparatus installed aboard this yacht. Why,
even the little fifty-five foot boat that Dawson and I own has a
wireless installation."

"What would you do with one, if you had it on board now?" asked Mr.
Baldwin.

"Do?" repeated Halstead. "Why, we could signal in all directions. There
may be some fast cruiser or torpedo boat destroyer, out of our sight,
yet within reach by wireless. If we could pick up one such vessel now,
we could soon end this chase, and without bloodshed. Even any foreign
war vessel would answer, for all war vessels have the right to overhaul
and capture pirates. Any warship of any nation in the world would act,
now, on a request from Mr. Jephson, who represents the United States.
And such help may be not twenty miles off, but we have no wireless with
which to find out."

"As we haven't a wireless installation," pursued Mr. Baldwin, "what are
we going to do now, Mr. Jephson?"

"I trust you'll continue to keep that other yacht in sight," replied the
assistant district attorney. "We may yet meet a warship or a revenue
cutter."

"Any kind of a vessel we meet may have a few rifles on board that we
could borrow or buy," suggested Captain Tom.

"Anyway," decided Mr. Baldwin, "we'll keep that pirate craft right in
sight if we can, and as long as we can. We'll trust for something to
turn up that will throw luck in our way."

The "Victor" which was of some ten feet greater length than the
"Panther," looked like a boat which, despite her speed, was built to
carry a good deal of coal.

Yet, through the next few hours that followed, no attempt was made by
those handling the steam craft to get her best speed out of her. It
looked as though her sailing master and engineer meant to save some
coal, now that the "Panther" had caught up and could keep up. Both
vessels continued at a speed of some sixteen miles per hour.

Mr. Baldwin and his guests remained on deck. So did young Halstead, who
had decided that he must now do with but little sleep while the chase
continued in its present phase.

"Any sharp little sea-trick might enable the other fellows to slip away
from us," he declared to the owner. "Every man on board ought to help in
the good work on hand."

At about eleven o'clock the young skipper left Mr. Costigan on the
bridge, and went below, though he did not turn in.

Nor had any of the passengers sought their berths. All of Mr. Baldwin's
friends were on deck. Young Gaston Giddings, however, paced nervously,
apart from the rest.

"He's fretting over his folly in keeping Rollings in such an important
post, and giving the rascal the chance to run away with all that money,
I suppose," thought the young skipper.

Somehow, Tom could not help watching Giddings a good deal. It was the
nervous hitch in the young man's gait that first caught Halstead's eye.
Presently the young captain of the "Panther" strolled slowly by Gaston
Giddings.

"Confound it, what a queer, restless look there is in the fellow's
eyes," thought Tom, uneasy, though he could hardly have explained why.

After that Halstead watched the young bank president even more closely,
though he took pains to hide the scrutiny.

A request from Mr. Jephson called the cabin party over to the port rail
to watch the "Victor." The instant the last of his companions had gone
forward, and had passed around the pilot house, Giddings, after a swift
look about him, stole into the dining saloon.

Tom Halstead, ostensibly lounging behind one of the life-boats, saw this
move.

"Now, what's he up to?" muttered Tom. "Mischief, judging by his queer
antics. We've mischief enough to deal with, without having it take place
right on board our own boat!"

Halstead stole forward in time to see Giddings darting down the
staircase into the main cabin.

"I'll just get down where I can watch this," muttered Tom. Concealed
near the foot of the staircase, he saw Giddings, with some sort of a
small tool, prying the lock of Dr. Gray's medicine case open.

"Oho!" muttered Halstead, as he saw young Mr. Giddings abstract a
small, screw-capped vial. "There's morphine in that doctor's outfit, and
Giddings has guessed it!"

Tossing the medicine case back into the doctor's stateroom, Gaston
Giddings stole up the after-companionway to the deck aft.

"With all our other troubles aboard, I don't believe we want any
morphine maniacs here!" muttered Tom Halstead, excitedly.

Giddings, quivering with eagerness, trembling with aggravated
nervousness, leaned against the stern rail, glancing out over the water
as he drew the screw-capped vial from his pocket.

Just as he started to remove the cap from the bottle, a hand shot around
him from the rear.

The young skipper of the "Panther" snatched the vial, remarking coolly:

"Mr. Giddings, you don't need that stuff, and no one on board wants you
to have it."

With a swift movement, Halstead dropped the vial into one of his
pockets.

"You confounded thief!" hissed Gaston Giddings.

Swift as a flash, in his rage, the young man sprang at the youthful
skipper of the yacht.

"You'll give that back to me, or go overboard!" snarled the victim of
the drug habit.

"If you get it, it'll be after I'm overboard," snapped back Tom.

In another instant Giddings's fingers were wrapped in a tight hold
about Tom's throat. The drug maniac seemed possessed, for the instant,
of the strength of half a dozen men.

The young skipper himself was no weakling, but now he had his hands
full.

Even had he been so minded, he could not have called for help. Backward
and forward the pair struggled for a few seconds. Then the young skipper
found himself growing weaker for lack of air.

With a triumphant snarl Gaston Giddings forced his antagonist to the
stern rail. Still Tom Halstead fought furiously, silently, with that
tight grip at his throat making his brain reel. He realized that Gaston
Giddings was winning the victory!




CHAPTER XII

TOO-WHOO-OO! IS THE WORD


IN that last desperate moment Tom Halstead employed the trick he had
hesitated to use.

He raised one of his feet, kicking smartly at the left knee-cap of his
assailant.

With a groan, Giddings weakened his hold, for the pain following the
kick was intense.

Throwing both his arms tightly around the young man, Halstead held on,
drawing himself back to the deck as Giddings fell back.

"You're not going to fool me that way!" snarled the young drug maniac.
He made another spring, trying to forget the pain in his knee.

But Halstead had regained his footing fully. Now, he dodged, then closed
in, tripping Giddings and throwing him heavily to the deck.

"What's this? What's this going on?" demanded Joseph Baldwin, running
back along the port side, followed by Mr. Ross and Dr. Gray.

Halstead was now on top of his assailant, and, though Giddings still
tried to fight with fury, his strength was deserting him.

"One of you hold him," urged Captain Tom, "and I'll get up and explain."

"Did he attack you?" insisted Mr. Baldwin.

"Well, rather," grunted Halstead.

"Let him up. He won't dare attack you again, with so many about."

"No; but he may try to jump overboard," retorted Halstead. "Mr. Giddings
has another drug streak on him. He's not responsible for what he does."

"I guess that's right," nodded Dr. Gray. "Baldwin, you and Mr. Ross hold
him, while the captain gets up and tells us what has happened."

The young skipper quickly explained, producing the vial he had snatched
from the young bank president.

"That's all the morphine I have with me," remarked Dr. Gray. "I'll make
sure of keeping that, hereafter, where no one but myself can find it.
Mr. Baldwin, you'd better get the young man below. Use force, if you
find it necessary."

They accomplished this without having attracted the attention of any of
the sailors or stewards. Mr. Giddings was then unceremoniously thrust
into his stateroom, and the door locked, though this was not until the
physician had searched the young man, removing his pocket knife and also
the tool that the drug victim had used in forcing the lock of the
medicine case.

"I did what I thought was right," Halstead explained.

"And I'm mighty glad you saw him, and acted so promptly," replied the
physician.

Through the rest of the night the physician had a battle with his
patient, working hard to keep a more pronounced streak of mania from
coming on. It is to such fearful torments that "hop-fiends" and morphine
users are always exposed in the end.

At midnight Dick Davis again went on the bridge, beginning his eight
hours' watch. Though Halstead had the utmost faith in the skill and
judgment of his friend, he, also, remained up until nearly four o'clock
in the morning. Then he turned to leave the bridge.

"I'm going to my cabin now, Mr. Davis, to turn in on my sofa for a
while. If I am needed for anything at all, don't hesitate to call me
instantly."

"Aye, aye, Captain," Dick replied.

Barely two hours had the young skipper slept when the sharp, jarring
tones of the vibrating electric bell from the bridge rang over his head.
Tom was up in an instant, pulling on his shoes. As he reached for his
deck ulster and cap there came from overhead a note that told him at
once why he was wanted.

Too-whoo-oo-oo!

"Fog!" gasped the young yacht captain. "Of all the confounded luck!"

With his ulster over his arm he threw open the door of his cabin, making
for the bridge steps.

The mist was yet light and curling as Captain Halstead reached the open.
Second Officer Dick Davis met him at the head of the steps.

"How long has this been coming on?" demanded Halstead.

"The first little puffs rolled in half an hour ago," replied Dick. "You
see, I've put in closer to the enemy. We're still well in sight, or I'd
have called you earlier."

The motor yacht was now running along abreast of the "Victor," and less
than three hundred yards distant. The steam yacht's lights were in plain
sight, save when occasional puffs of fog obscured them briefly.

Tom groaned with excitement.

"This is going to get heavier," he muttered.

"Yes, sir," nodded Davis. "Still, I didn't believe it necessary to call
you until I had to use the whistle."

Too-whoo-oo-oo! sounded the auto fog-horn, controlled by the sailor on
watch in the pilot-house with the quartermaster.

"You did right, Mr. Davis," the young skipper nodded. "But we're going
to be up against it in half an hour. Where's your extra man of the
watch?"

Davis blew a thrilling blast on his mate's whistle. In answer the third
sailor of the watch came running to the bridge steps.

"My man," called down Halstead, "go at once to Mr. Baldwin's stateroom
door, and tell him, with my compliments, that I believe he'd better come
to the bridge at once."

Even with so imperative a summons as this, five or six minutes passed
before the owner appeared on the scene.

"Good heavens, Captain!" gasped Joseph Baldwin. "And this white curtain
is thickening all the time, isn't it?"

"The fog is beginning to roll in fast, now, sir. Mr. Davis, alter the
course so as to bring us a hundred yards closer to the 'Victor.' We've
got to keep her in sight to the last moment."

"We've got to keep that other boat in sight all the time," retorted Mr.
Baldwin.

"As close as we can go without running her down," Halstead answered.
"We've the rules of the sea to obey, sir, at any cost."

"Go and call Mr. Jephson here," shouted down Mr. Baldwin, to the sailor,
who was still standing by at the port rail.

In another five minutes the representative of the United States district
attorney at San Francisco was beside them on the bridge.

Dick Davis had now manoeuvred the "Panther" in within one hundred and
fifty yards of the "Victor." Closer than that Tom Halstead did not dare
to go. Even this he considered almost too little sea-way.

"May the furies consume the luck!" growled the man of the law. "Yet, of
course, we might have looked for this! It's bound to happen on this
coast. A genuine, four-ply, real old 'Frisco fog reaching out to
encompass us and let those blackguards yonder get away!"

Aboard the other yacht few signs of human life showed. One figure,
wrapped in a great coat and topped by a sou'wester, huddled in the bow.
That was the bow watch of the "Victor." As the light of coming morning
began to filter through the increasing fog, it was possible, now and
then, to make out a figure in the steam yacht's wheel house. A watch
officer tramped the bridge. No other figures appeared. Once the steam
yacht's watch officer looked directly over at his foes, and a cunning
grin illumined his face.

"That's a great face to show above the hangman's noose!" bellowed Mr.
Jephson, angrily, through the megaphone that he snatched up.

Captain Tom suddenly darted from the bridge, running to his cabin. When
he came back he carried a pair of revolvers, one of which he handed to
Dick Davis.

"Mr. Jephson, the fellows on that craft may open fire on us, at any
moment, hoping to make us drop back into the fog. If they do, we'd
better shoot back, eh, sir?"

"If they open fire on us," replied the assistant district attorney,
promptly, "I order Mr. Davis and yourself to return it."

To make matters more emphatic, Mr. Jephson passed the word to have his
two deputy marshals aroused at once and ordered to the deck.

Still, though the day broadened, the fog rolled in so thick and heavy
that the steam yacht, nearby though it was, became more and more
obscured.

Both yachts sounded their fog-horns simultaneously just as a final big,
thick, white blanket of mist rolled in and shut them out of each other's
view.

"Done! Beaten out!" groaned Mr. Jephson, savagely. "It's only a question
of minutes, now, when we shall have lost all trail of that craft on this
hidden waste of water!"

"Only a question of minutes?" repeated Tom Halstead, grimly. "Is it?"




CHAPTER XIII

THE CALL FROM OUT OF THE FOG


Out of the dense fog to port came a chorus of derisive yells, then a
prolonged blast of the "Victor's" fog-horn.

"That's as much as saying it's the last time we'll hear their toot,"
burst, savagely, from Mr. Baldwin.

"Maybe it _is_ the last time," admitted Tom.

Mr. Jephson and the owner began to talk excitedly.

"Sh!" warned the young skipper. "We don't want a tone aboard louder
than a whisper. If we can keep this interval, or pretty near it, we can
follow the steam yacht by the sound of her machinery. Mr. Davis, keep
your ears strained for it, and shape our course accordingly."

In the hush that followed the keen-eared listeners could hear the now
invisible "Victor" slowing down her speed. Captain Tom, the engine room
speaking tube at his mouth, called down the orders softly for a similar
slowing of speed. The "Panther" fell back close to the "Victor."

"Captain, they're likely to stop altogether, soon," whispered Mr.
Jephson. "Then we won't hear a sound to guide us."

"We'd do the same," murmured Halstead. "Then the yachts would be likely
to drift together and bump. No; I hardly believe the steam yacht's
captain will try that trick. If he does, we must match it."

The two craft engaged in this marine game of blind man's buff were now
going forward along their respective courses at not more than eight
miles an hour. Greater speed was not advisable, for they were in the
possible track of vessels plying between San Francisco and Hawaii, New
Zealand or Australia.

For the next ten minutes there was no sound from the "Victor's"
fog-horn. To run without this precaution was all but tantamount to
piracy in itself. Skipper Tom and Second Officer Davis, however, managed
to keep within sound of the steam craft's machinery. So, presently, the
"Victor's" steam fog-horn again sounded on the air.

Breakfast was served late, that morning, on board the motor yacht. All
hands were too much interested in the difficult chase to think of eating
before Nature made her demands clamoring.

At eight o'clock, when Third Officer Costigan again came up on the
bridge to take his watch trick, Dick Davis declared he had no interest
in sleep.

"You'd better go below," advised Tom. "This search through the fog may
be a long one. We'll want all hands to be fresh and bright. Get four or
five hours' sleep, anyway. I shall be on the bridge most of the time
until you're called again."

So Dick went below and turned in, though almost with a grumble.

For the next three hours Halstead was almost constantly on the bridge.
The blind pursuit kept up along the same lines. The steam yacht's
machinery still sent its dull clatter across the waters. The
quartermaster of the "Panther," with the help of the mate's orders,
still steered by that sound.

"It'd be fierce to have a big, noisy liner rumble up close to us now,
making noise enough to drown out the sound of our enemy," grumbled
Captain Tom to the owner.

Mr. Jephson, standing close by, heard, and his eyes snapped.

"I hadn't thought of that," he growled. "Since that would be the
toughest sort of luck, that's what is almost sure to happen."

"Don't complain of your luck," advised the young skipper, gravely.
"We've been able to keep right along with the steam craft for some hours
now. If we can do so for a few hours more, we're highly likely to run
out of this fog and be under a clear sky again. So far, Mr. Jephson, our
luck has been wondrously kind to us."

Halstead remained on deck until nearly two o'clock. Then he passed word
for Ab Perkins. To that young first officer, in the presence of Baldwin,
Ross and Jephson, he said:

"Mr. Perkins, my eyes are getting heavy, and I expect to be on deck most
of the night. I'm going to turn in, now, for an hour or two. Call me,
anyway, at the changing of the watches. You know the general orders, and
I look to you not to let the 'Victor' slip away from us."

"If I do let her slip," affirmed Ab, "I'll eat the starboard
life-boat."

"Mr. Perkins used to be the most famous 'hoodoo' at the mouth of the
Kennebec," Tom laughed, softly, as he turned to Mr. Baldwin. "His luck
changed, however, the day he went into the motor boating business. He's
about the luckiest young navigator afloat these days."

Nor did Ab, left in temporary full command, intend to lose his later
laurels. He soon left the bridge, however, feeling that he could listen
more effectively from the port rail forward. Occasionally he turned to
signal, silently, to Third Officer Costigan, who still kept to the
bridge.

Part of the time the "Victor" sounded its fog-horn with pauses longer
than the rules of the sea permitted in so deep a fog. It looked as
though those aboard the steam yacht were willing to leave it to the
"Panther" to warn away other craft from them both. However, thus far in
the day, no other vessel had sounded through the fog. Apparently, these
two craft had all of this part of the sea to themselves.

In the silence and under the white pall even the interest of the chase
could not prevent the time from passing with deadly monotony for Ab
Perkins. Quite plainly it impressed also the others that way, for the
cabin passengers, two or three at a time, disappeared below. Messrs.
Baldwin and Ross remained on deck more than any of the cabin party,
though even they went inside, restlessly, every now and then.

At last the deck was bare, save for Ab Perkins and the bow watch. In the
pilot house stood the quartermaster and his seaman helper. On the bridge
Mr. Costigan paced back and forth, glad that the fog was not too thick
for him to make out the first officer forward.

One of Ab's reasons for being well up forward was that he might more
readily hear the sound of fog-horn or of bell from any other vessel
hidden away in this white gloom.

It was a long while before he heard anything, but at last it came:

"Help! Don't run me down!"

The voice came from low down upon the water, somewhat ahead and barely
to port.

Quick as a flash the bow watch turned to see if the first officer and
the bridge watch had heard. Both Perkins and Costigan had sprung to see
what might come to them out of the fog.

"Careful!" warned Ab, in a steady voice. "Take the sound of my voice for
your guide. I'm at the port rail, moving toward you."

Suddenly, out of the fog, there came into view, near at hand, a ship's
yawl. It contained a single man, dark, rather tall and about thirty
years of age. He was dressed carelessly, yet had much the air of a
gentleman. His clothing seemed to be soaked with moisture, as though he
had been long exposed to the elements. With his back to the bow of the
yawl, the man turned to glance over his shoulder as he handled a pair of
oars.

"Don't run me down!" shouted the stranger. "Stop and take me aboard in
heaven's name."

Ab Perkins had already swiftly caught up a coil of rope, which he deftly
poised for a clean throw.

"We stop for nothing--mark that!" called First Officer Perkins, firmly.
"Catch this rope, or we've got to leave you behind!"

The yawl was drifting by, and barely thirty feet from the motor yacht's
hull, when Ab made the throw. He was a master at such feats. The coil
unspread as it went whirling through the air, and a length lay across
the yawl.

"Get it! Grab it!" panted sympathetic Ab.

The stranger just managed the feat, leaping up and holding on as though
for dear life, while the yawl, checked in its headway, was swung around.
Desperately the stranger bent down, taking a hitch with the rope. The
bow watch had sprung to help Ab make fast the inside end of the line.

"There you've got it," called Ab, cheeringly. As the "Panther" was going
but eight miles an hour the stranger was able, without risk, to haul
the small boat in alongside.

"Can you climb?" Ab called down, in a low voice.

"I--I think so."

"Only a few feet needed, then we can reach your arm-pits," Ab called,
encouragingly.

It was not long ere young Perkins and the bow watch were able to help
the stranger aboard.

The young first officer's first thought, on seeing the yawl sweep into
view, was that a trick had been attempted by the enemy, for the "Victor"
had recently slipped ahead. But Ab's first glimpse at the stern of the
yawl showed the name, painted in goodly black letters, "S. S. Dolbear."
In the bottom of the yawl lay two life preservers bearing the same name.

"How on earth do you come to be away out here at sea, in a small boat?"
demanded Ab of the stranger.

"I was a freight clerk aboard the liner 'Dolbear,' bound from Auckland,
New Zealand, to San Francisco," replied the rescued one.

"What happened to the 'Dolbear'?"

"Foundered, five days ago. Life boats crowded, so that the last three of
us had to take to the yawl. We tried to keep up with the other boats,
but fell behind the first night. Next morning we were alone on the
ocean. After two days one man in our party became crazed and jumped over
into the sea. Last night the other man with me did the same. Oh, it was
a gruesome experience, I assure you."

"It must have been," returned Ab Perkins, sympathetically.

"Sir, that yawl is bumping alongside," broke in the bow watch.

"Cut her loose, then, and let her drift," ordered Ab. "We can't be
encumbered with any useless lumber. Then return to your watch. Mr.
Costigan, warn the engine room to increase our speed as much as you find
necessary. We can't let the 'Victor' go on getting ahead of us. Run
right up parallel again."

"Yes, sir," from the third officer.

"You're hungry, I suppose," suggested Ab, looking at the stranger. "I'll
pass word for our second stew----"

"I guess I shall be hungry when I get it fully through my head that I'm
safe," laughed the rescued one. "Just at present I'd rather go below and
warm myself."

Ab blew his mate's whistle for the third seaman of the watch.

"My man," he directed, "take this man down to the motor room. Tell Mr.
Randolph it will be all right for Mr.----"

"Cragthorpe is my name," supplied the stranger.

"Tell Mr. Randolph it will be all right for Mr. Cragthorpe to dry
himself off in the engine room," continued First Officer Perkins. "When
you get hungry, come up on deck. Mr. Costigan will see that you're fed
if I'm not here."

The rescued one, after offering profuse thanks, was led below by the
seaman guide.

"Mr. Costigan, what do you know about the 'Dolbear'?" called up Ab,
softly.

"She belongs to the New Zealand line, and is due in 'Frisco about this
present time," replied the third officer from the bridge.

"Then it's all right, as far as Cragthorpe goes?"

"I think so, sir."

"All I wanted," Ab finished, "was to be easy in my mind that the
stranger didn't come from the 'Victor.' Don't let us get at all astern
again, Mr. Costigan."

"I won't, sir."

In the meantime Jeff Randolph, sitting out through a long and lonely
watch in the engine room, was not sorry to see company coming his way.

For some time they chatted together. Cragthorpe seemed greatly
interested in finding such young officers aboard the motor yacht. He
asked many questions about the Motor Boat Club.

At last Jeff Randolph rose, excusing himself and stepping just outside
the engine room door, though lingering near enough to hear a signal from
the bridge, if one came. The young assistant engineer wanted to stretch
his legs after sitting a long time by the motors. No sooner was the
motor boat boy out of sight than the stranger rose swiftly. Snatching up
a wrench, he prowled about the motors as though looking for something.

At last he evidently discovered what he wanted. Instantly he laid the
wrench on a bolt-head.




CHAPTER XIV

MR. CRAGTHORPE IS MORE THAN TROUBLESOME


Luckily, at that moment, the Florida boy turned about, glancing into the
engine room.

What he saw made Jeff stare, then gasp. Both operations were over in the
space of a second.

"Here, you infernal rascal!" shouted Jeff. "Stop it!"

Nor did he content himself with that startled roar. The Florida boy
carried his fighting pluck with him at all times.

Though Cragthorpe was about half as large again as the young assistant
engineer, Randolph made a direct spring for him.

Cragthorpe didn't have time to complete his mischief to the engine just
then.

Instead, he swung around, aiming the wrench at Jeff's head. But young
Randolph halted, instantly picked up another wrench, and sent it
whizzing.

Boiling with wrath, the Florida boy didn't aim particularly. He didn't
care where his wrench landed, provided that it served the purpose.

The flying missile struck hard against the knuckles of Cragthorpe's
right hand, forcing him to let his own weapon drop.

Then Jeff fairly flew at the larger stranger.

"You won't play any tricks while I'm here on watch," panted Jeff
Randolph, as he clinched with his adversary. So impetuous was the
Florida boy's assault that he carried Cragthorpe down to the floor.

There, locked in each other's arms, they rolled and fought. The pit in
which the motors stood was railed off, preventing their fighting their
way into the moving machinery.

Both combatants displayed a good deal of staying power. For the first
sixty seconds they fought without either seeming to gain any advantage.
It was a grim, lonely duel, in which neither could accept less than
complete victory.

No word was spoken. Neither cared to waste breath in speech. Jeff fought
for a strangle hold as his best chance. Cragthorpe tried to get in a
blow between the boy's eyes.

Once Randolph got briefly on top, but the stranger rolled over on him,
and then the fighting went on more furiously than ever.

However, the stranger's superior weight and a considerable advantage in
muscle soon told over the Florida boy's clear, savage grit. Though he
would not yield an inch, Jeff had to admit to himself that he could not
hope to hold out much longer.

After another sixty seconds of it, during which the Florida boy was
breathing sorely, Cragthorpe managed to free one hand. Raising the
clenched fist with the swiftness of lightning, he brought that fist
down, aiming the blow to land on Jeff's forehead just above his eyes.

The blow fell, though glancingly. Now there came a quick step behind the
stranger.

With a brutal oath, Cragthorpe sprang up to confront the burning glance
of Captain Tom Halstead.

Halstead had just come on deck again, after his nap. Learning from Ab
about the stranger, and quick to suspect, under such circumstances, the
young motor boat skipper had hastened below.

"Caught you, you sneak, didn't I?" jeered Tom, harshly, dodging back and
shedding his deck ulster with almost a single motion.

Then the young captain of the "Panther" threw himself on guard. Not an
instant too soon, for Cragthorpe had sprung forward to grapple with him.

The two fists of the young skipper, moving with lightning-like rapidity,
caused Cragthorpe to retreat, throwing up his own hands as soon as he
saw it was to be a game of fisticuffs.

As Tom crouched low, Cragthorpe attempted to leap in over his guard. It
was good tactics for one three inches taller. Yet Halstead was no novice
in boxing. He threw up his left on guard, holding back his assailant,
then tried to cut under and up with his right. He landed, though not
with much force, against Cragthorpe's ribs. It was enough to drive the
older combatant back until he could alter his guard.

In the meantime, Jeff lay on the floor, further forward in the engine
room. The Florida boy had not wholly lost consciousness, but he was
half-dazed, seeking to remember what had happened.

Now, at it again went Halstead and his enemy, each sparring cautiously,
each alternately retreating or forcing the other all around the open
part of the engine room.

Once Cragthorpe caught Tom near the railing, and let drive hard with
both fists, seeking to push the young skipper over the railing and in
among the moving machinery.

But Tom dodged artfully as he parried and struck back, and in an instant
more was away from his perilous position.

Not once did the young skipper think of calling upon Cragthorpe to quit
it and surrender. Halstead knew the fellow was there for too serious
business to allow himself to be talked to a standstill.

At last, as Cragthorpe retreated past him, almost stepping on the young
assistant engineer's face, Jeff rallied his senses enough to recall what
had happened.

For a few moments Tom Halstead cleverly fought his opponent forward,
putting up effective parries and raining in his blows so fast that
Cragthorpe had all he could do to save himself from being floored.

In those few moments Jeff managed to crawl past both, and down toward
the engine room door.

The tide of battle turned, now, briefly at least. Cragthorpe, stung to
greater fury by a glancing blow on the end of his nose, hurled himself
into the fray with so much added energy that Halstead was compelled to
give ground.

"Jeff, can you understand me!" panted Tom, as he retreated, an inch at a
time, keeping his fists moving fast.

"Y-yes," stammered the Florida boy, still a bit dazed.

"Then pass the word for help, like a flash!"

But Jeff lingered by the doorway, holding to the frame for support. Only
one thing was plain in the Florida boy's mind--that running away wasn't
in his line.

"A-a-h!" vented Cragthorpe, gleefully. He had suddenly closed in quickly
on Halstead, aiming a blow that it seemed must send the young captain to
the floor senseless.

And so it would have done--only Tom wasn't there. He ducked low, passing
under Cragthorpe's extended arm, and came up behind him, forcing the
stranger to wheel about.

That left the rascal with his back turned to the Florida boy.

Jeff's mind was becoming a bit clearer every instant. Now he left the
doorway, gliding forward.

Tom saw Jeff's new move, and half-guessed the meaning of it. By clever
sparring the young skipper held Cragthorpe just where he stood,
until----

Jeff leaped upon the big stranger from behind. He wound his arms around
Cragthorpe's throat, then held on with all the strength he could summon.

Another oath escaped the wretch's lips. It was stopped by Halstead's
right fist landing across his mouth.

"This is a gentleman's boat--no profanity allowed," mocked Tom, sending
in another blow that struck his man in the region of the belt, causing
him to double up in torment.

Two more blows Tom drove in. Cragthorpe sank to the floor.

"Let go of him, Jeff. I can handle him," ordered Captain Tom. "Get to
the speaking tube and direct Mr. Costigan to send the extra deckhand
down here on the jump."

Cragthorpe lay on the floor. The fight was not by any means driven out
of him, but the wind was, for the moment, at least. Then steps were
heard. Mr. Costigan himself came in, followed by the extra deck-hand,
for Ab had relieved the third mate on the bridge.

"So that's what our new gentleman has been doing, is it, sir?" demanded
Mr. Costigan, his Irish quickness enabling him to guess much at the
first glance.

"Have you handcuffs with you, Mr. Costigan?" asked Tom.

"I have, sir."

"Then put them on this fellow."

With a right good will Mr. Costigan and the sailor rolled Cragthorpe
over, not very gently at that, and forced his wrists together, manacling
the wretch. Then they dragged him to his feet.

"Jupiter!" muttered Tom, staring hard. "I've seen this fellow somewhere
before. And now I have it! By Jove, he's the gallant fellow I had to
knock from the observation platform on the Overland Mail!"

"You needn't be quite so glad. We haven't quite evened our account yet,"
snarled the fellow. "But I'm not the man you think I am."

"Do you deny you're the fellow I struck on the observation platform of a
car of the Overland Mail the other day?" Tom Halstead snorted.

"I can't be. I've just come from Auckland," leered the fellow.

"We picked him up from a small boat that bore the name of the liner,
'Dolbear,'" interjected Mr. Costigan. "The 'Dolbear' is due about now
from Auckland."

"Then the boat was painted, as to her name, on board the 'Victor,'" said
Tom. "I understand we ran behind her a bit at one time this afternoon."

"Yes, sir."

"It's from the 'Victor' this fellow came, then, boat and all," declared
Captain Halstead, positively. "Now, bring the fellow up on deck and let
everyone have a look at him."

As it was time to call the new watch up, anyway, this was now done.
Cragthorpe tried to make a fight against being taken to the deck, but,
manacled as he was, he could put up no effective resistance.

The cabin passengers, too, were called. Tom and Jeff stated the case
against the fellow.

"Of course you're justified in locking this man up in the brig, if there
is one aboard," observed Mr. Jephson.

"Yes; there's a brig on board," Tom nodded, "and that's where a man goes
after trying to tamper with our engines on a chase like this."

The "brig" is a ship's prison. On the "Panther" it was a small room, not
more than five by seven feet, with two berths and two stools in it. The
door was an iron grating. Even on a yacht a brig is often needed, as a
place of confinement for a drunken or crazy sailor.

Dick Davis ascended to the bridge to stand the new watch.

"Take the fellow to the brig, Mr. Costigan, and see that he's securely
locked in. Collins, see that the man gets his meals three times a day."

"I'll make you mighty sorry for this, you boy skipper!" growled
Cragthorpe, as he was led away.

"That's the fellow I knocked from the train, isn't it, Joe?" demanded
Halstead, turning to his chum.

"He's not dressed as well, and he has a few days' growth of beard on his
face, but I'm positive he's the same fellow," answered Joe Dawson,
quietly.




CHAPTER XV

THE MIDNIGHT ALARM


"Still the sound of machinery," muttered Dick Davis, pacing the bridge
just before dark. "I imagine the skipper of that other craft wishes he
could have put a mute on his engines."

"He has even taken to blowing his fog-horn again," replied young
Halstead. "It's just sheer luck that he hasn't been run down by some
vessel coming from the opposite direction."

"I guess our fog-horn has protected him," suggested Dick. "We may have
passed some other craft whose fog-horns didn't carry sound as far as
ours. Hearing our fog-horn, such vessels might have given us such a wide
berth that the 'Victor' naturally escaped collision."

It was about eight o'clock, when Tom and Joe were finishing the evening
meal in the captain's cabin, that a sudden sharp blast came through the
bridge speaking tube.

"Right here at the other end, Mr. Davis," Captain Tom answered.

"I think you'll be interested in coming to the bridge, sir. The fog is
lightening a bit, and I can see a couple of stars overhead."

"Whew! That's good news! Do you still hear the 'Victor's' machinery?"

"Yes; I've been keeping very close to her."

Halstead quickly told the news to Joe Dawson. Both reached for their
ulsters, then ran out on deck. Tom's first discovery was that he could
hear, distinctly, the subdued clank-clank made by the invisible steam
yacht.

Yes; the fog was surely lifting. Overhead, especially, things were
clearing.

"We seem to be running out at the edge of the fog-bank, Mr. Davis," was
the young captain's greeting, as he climbed to the bridge, followed by
the young chief engineer.

For five minutes or more Tom Halstead stood there, watching the fog.

"I'm sure enough of the news, now, to go aft and tell Mr. Baldwin," he
declared, finally.

Tom found all the cabin passengers at table in the deck dining saloon,
aft of the owner's quarters. They were not more than two-thirds through
the meal, but the table became instantly deserted.

Twenty minutes later the watchers at the port rail made out, briefly, a
part of the hull of the "Victor." The two craft were but little more
than two hundred yards apart.

Ten minutes later both craft passed almost completely out of the fog. A
cheer went up from the deck of the "Panther." There was no answer from
the pursued craft.

Running up to the bridge, and snatching up a megaphone, Joseph Baldwin
bawled lustily:

"We're still with you, you pirates! You can't shake us!"

Still no sound of human voice came from the steam yacht. The answer was
of another sort. Great clouds of smoke began to pour from the "Victor's"
funnel.

"They're going to try a spurt," chuckled Halstead, gleefully. "Well,
let 'em. We don't even have to get up more steam for a spurt. All we
have to do is to feed in the gasoline quicker."

Within five minutes the "Victor" was racing along at more than twenty
miles an hour. On board the "Panther," however, Joe Dawson did not even
feel it necessary to go below to look at the motors. Jed Prentiss was
down there in the engine room, and Jed was a boy who knew what he was
doing. Second Officer Davis gave the speed orders from the bridge; Jed
carried out the orders. The "Panther," now widening the interval to four
hundred yards in this clearer atmosphere, ran along parallel with the
steam yacht.

"They may fool us yet," chuckled Halstead, turning around to the owner.
"But they'll have to do it with something better than speed."

"If they get away from _you_, Captain Halstead," replied the owner, his
face beaming, "I promise, in advance, to forgive you. It won't be your
fault. Lord, how you've hung to them! What a report I shall have to send
Delavan on the officers he sent me!"

Then, suddenly, Halstead thought of the prisoner down in the brig.

"Pass the word for Second Steward Collins," he directed, and that
yacht's servant soon reported.

"You didn't forget to feed the prisoner, Collins?"

"Oh, no, sir," and the steward rattled off the names of the dishes that
had been supplied the man in the brig.

"He seems to have fed nearly as well as we did," laughed Skipper Tom.
"Well, that's right; just because we lock a fellow up is no reason why
we should starve him. The prisoner had a good appetite?"

"Excellent, sir."

"He's locked in tightly?"

"Yes, sir."

Ten minutes later Captain Halstead took the trouble to go below to the
brig.

It was somewhat stuffy down there, but that couldn't be helped.

From the center of the ceiling a single incandescent lamp supplied the
illumination of the room.

As Tom Halstead peered in through the grating he saw Cragthorpe seated
on a stool in the far corner.

Tom did not speak. The fellow glared at him, then looked away.

"The door is locked tightly, all right," murmured Captain Halstead to
himself, after rattling the bars and examining the lock.

No sooner had he turned away, and stepped out of sight, than Cragthorpe
rose like a caged tiger. A leer expressive of the utmost cruelty parted
his teeth. He shook his fist menacingly after the departing young
skipper. He was able to do that much, for Mr. Costigan, following the
usual course in such cases, had removed the handcuffs after depositing
the prisoner in the brig.

"Perhaps you think I'm here, simply awaiting your pleasure, my young
salt water cub!" snarled Cragthorpe to himself.

Tom Halstead, however, gave the fellow little further thought. He was
too happy over the lifting of the fog. It is possible for two craft of
the size of these to run all day within two hundred yards of each other
through a fog, judging each other's positions only by sounds. The slow
speed of fog-time makes this possible. Yet it requires splendidly expert
seamanship on both craft. The ordeal is bound to be wearing on the deck
and watch officers. Tom and his three mates felt utterly tired after
their experience, but the passing out of the belt of the fog had brought
huge relief to them.

Up to ten o'clock that evening the "Victor" maintained her fast speed.
The air was now thoroughly clear in every direction. Tom could have
kept the other craft in sight even had the steam yacht shown no lights.
But the commander of the "Victor" had all his running lights going.

"You'll call us, if anything whatever happens that's worth our knowing,
won't you, Captain?" asked Joseph Baldwin, joining the young sailing
master, who stood close to the bridge steps on the port side.

"Yes, sir. Certainly."

"All of us chaps in the cabin are going to turn in soon," continued Mr.
Baldwin, with a slight yawn. "We're fagged, both from the lack of sleep
and the suspense. Now, however, our minds are easier. Yonder is the boat
that carries Frank Rollings and the millions he stole from the bank. Our
fuel will last as long as theirs will. We can follow as far as they can
go."

"Wouldn't it be a jarring surprise if it turned out that we've been
following a dummy, Mr. Baldwin?" Halstead asked. "What if we follow for
days and days, yet, and then learn that neither Rollings nor his plunder
is on board?"

Joseph Baldwin started, then retorted:

"Yes; but it won't happen, Captain. In the first place, the detectives
of the Bankers' Association found out positively that Rollings had gone
aboard, and that the yacht had then got under way at once. The captain
of that boat was expecting Rollings--was prepared for him--and has the
defaulter on board at this moment."

"I hope so, sir, for I'm satisfied that we're yet going to lay alongside
of that craft and search her."

"Of course we are. Good night, Captain."

"Good night, sir. I'm going to turn in, myself, for a while."

Half an hour later the young skipper was sound asleep. So, for that
matter, were all the officers and crew who were not on duty.

Sky and surrounding atmosphere continued clear through the rest of Dick
Davis's watch on the bridge. That young second mate was pacing back and
forth contentedly. The two yachts, now making about a fourteen-mile
speed, were close together, and Davis had little to watch save the
general handling of the boat.

Out of a hatchway forward a head was cautiously thrust up. Davis did not
happen to see that head. There was no reason why he should be looking
for it.

The owner of that head saw Davis turn and pace over to starboard.
Swiftly, and silently, the man sprang out of the hatchway, after
observing that the quartermaster's head was bent over the compass. The
sailor in the wheel house with the quartermaster was not looking in
Davis's direction at the moment.

So the prowler gained the port side of the deck-house, and stole aft
without hindrance. It was Cragthorpe, the late prisoner in the brig.
Now, besides being free, he carried a five-gallon can of gasoline that
he had found below deck.

Away back to the after deck he ran, crouching low. There he halted,
staring about him. An evil smile flickered over his lips. With little
conscience, he was also without fear for himself.

An instant later he began sprinkling gasoline about him. The task was
quickly accomplished. He drew out a box of blazer matches, striking one
of them and tossing it down where a pool of gasoline lay.

There was a flare, in a second, but Cragthorpe had vanished almost as
quickly as the flare appeared.

Dick Davis caught a glimpse of the glow.

"Quartermaster, send your man aft to investigate a blaze there. Let him
run!"

The blaze, however, was spreading and mounting so fast that the alert
young second officer did not have to pause to guess.

"Fire!" shouted the sailor, running forward. But Dick Davis had already
sprung to the alarm bells.




CHAPTER XVI

THE FIRE DRILL IN EARNEST


The sailor's cry of "Fire," the most dreaded that can rise at sea,
disturbed Captain Tom Halstead's sound rest. He half awoke.

Then it sounded again:

"Fire!"

In prompt confirmation of the cry, the electric bell began ringing in
his room. Directly over it glowed an electric light in a red bulb--the
fire signal to the cabin.

Tom Halstead fairly leaped from his bed. He got on all the clothing
needed with the speed of a fireman.

Dick Davis's hand had come, first, to the bell rousing the watch below.
He rang that first, but Halstead's bell immediately afterward.

As Halstead burst open the door of his cabin the red glow was in his
face.

Down in the mates' and crew's quarters the fire-bell was ringing
steadily. Officers and men came tumbling up the stairs.

"Stand by the handling of the ship, Mr. Davis!" roared the young
captain from the deck. "I'll have men enough for the fighting of the
fire."

As the first heads showed from below, Halstead roared:

"Mr. Perkins, the starboard hose. Mr. Costigan, the port! Two men each
and yourselves to a hose. The rest report to me."

The hose lay in butts from which they were lifted and fastened to the
deck hydrants. While one man was securing each hose to a hydrant, a mate
and another sailor ran aft with the line along either rail.

"The rest of you get fire axes," shouted Captain Halstead. "Jump up onto
the bridge and go aft over the deck-house. Mr. Davis, instruct Mr.
Prentiss to connect the pump in the engine room. Tell him to give us
instant pressure."

Though he had heard the fire call, Jed was too dependable to allow
either curiosity or fear to take him from his post. When the order came,
through the speaking tube, young Prentiss was standing by, ready to
connect the pump with one of the motors.

Through the two lengths of hose the water leaped almost instantly.

Captain Tom had run with his axe-men over the deck-house.

He found the after deck ablaze, and also the sides of the deck-house
aft.

How it had all happened the young sailing master did not trouble himself
to ask, at first. It was more than enough for him to know that there was
a fire aboard, and to know where it was located.

"Get up close, Mr. Perkins and Mr. Costigan!" he shouted, from the top
of the deck-house. "Let the flames have the water at full, direct
pressure. Steady, now! Throw in every drop of water where it will hit
the hottest, highest flames."

Seldom had fire-drill at sea been more promptly or intelligently carried
out. It was fortunate, at the very outset, that the blaze had started so
near the time for the changing of the watches. The men were rested and
ready for prompt rising.

The slight rolling of the boat carried gasoline along the decks, bearing
the flames with it. A pitching at the bow, slight though it was, brought
these running streams of flame down upon the crews with the hose. They
had to depress the nozzles almost at their feet, in order to assure
themselves of safe standing room.

"Give me one of those axes," shouted Halstead, taking the implement from
a sailor. "Now, two of you jump down aft with me on the deck. Never
mind the fire! Remember, we've got to fight it for our lives anyway!"

Down into the clearest spot he could find young Halstead leaped. Ab
Perkins, seeing him, turned the stream full on the blazing deck around
the young sailing master. That was all that saved Halstead from
perishing. The water kept the flames down so that he was able to lay
about him, loosening several of the deck planks.

One of the sailors had landed close beside the young skipper. He, too,
laid about him. The second seaman, however, ran over to the other side
of the deck-house, looking for some spot where he might work protected
by the other hose.

The hoarse shouting of orders, the running of feet overhead and the
sharp, sinister hiss of water coming in contact with fire, all combined
to arouse the owner of the imperiled yacht.

Joseph Baldwin sprang from his bed, dashed aside the starboard curtains,
and caught a reflection of the glow.

"Fire!" he gasped, turning pale. "Halstead and his comrades surely have
enough to handle this time."

Then, with frenzied haste, the owner fell to pulling on his clothes. He,
too, broke some of his own records in the matter of dressing. In a very
few moments he was outside, and climbing the bridge steps. Then he
dashed aft.

The breeze that was blowing was unfavorable to the fire fighters. The
factors in their favor, however, were the prompt discovery of the
trouble and the thinness with which the gasoline was spread.

The blaze was at its worst in the middle of the after deck. It was the
realization of this fact that had caused young Captain Halstead to take
the desperate leap and make the bold effort that now stood to his
credit.

"That boy has no sense of fear," cried Mr. Baldwin to himself.

As a matter of fact, Halstead had escaped unscorched. His promptness,
good judgment, and the protecting streams from the hose had saved him
from disastrous consequences that might be expected to follow such a
hazardous act.

By now the hosemen were able to get far enough aft to wet down the
blazing parts of the wall of the after deck-house.

Within five minutes from the time it started the blaze was brought down
to where it required only persistent hosing to drown it completely.

From time to time a sudden gust of the light breeze fanned up the fire
briefly at some point, but the fire fighters no longer feared for their
safety.

Mr. Ross and Dr. Gray had been aroused by the sounds of fire-fighting;
the others in the cabin staterooms slept on, for Dick Davis had wisely
refrained from touching the button that would have sounded the heavy
gong in the main cabin.

"How could the thing have started!" asked Mr. Ross, bewilderedly.

"It was set, by someone," replied Tom Halstead, joining Mr. Baldwin and
the latter's friends. "It was a gasoline blaze, pure and simple."

"Who could have----" began Dr. Gray.

"I saw myself that the prisoner was safely locked in," broke in the
young skipper. "Yet he's the only one I could suspect."

Almost at a run Halstead started forward, followed by Ab Perkins.

Down below, these two investigators found the door of the brig open. The
lock had been picked. On the floor of the brig Tom found what was left
of a steel table fork such as the crew used.

"He forced the tines and shank out of the handle, and worked it over
into a pick-lock," muttered the young skipper. "I respect the fellow's
ingenuity, if nothing else."

But where was Cragthorpe himself? Two searching parties, one under Ab
and the other commanded by Third Officer Costigan, searched until Dick
Davis, still on the bridge past his hour, broke in with:

"Why, Captain, you can guess what became of the fellow? When our blaze
was under way the 'Victor' turned and steamed nearer to us. The rascal
jumped overboard, of course, swam back and was picked up. It must have
been all part of a plan. At any rate, when the watch officer on the
steam yacht saw the blaze on board this craft, he knew well enough what
it meant, and stood by to rescue the Cragthorpe fellow."

"That's what has happened to him," nodded Mr. Baldwin. "He's safe again
with the other rascals."

So the searching parties were recalled, the new watch was set, and quiet
at last settled down over the yacht.

It was two o'clock in the morning when Tom Halstead again sought his
rest. That fire had stirred him up so that he did not at once feel
drowsy. A fire at sea, on a gasoline motor yacht, is a trebly serious
affair. If the flames ever get close to the gasoline supply the blaze is
almost certain to wind up abruptly in a fearful, devastating explosion.

"I've had some lively times at sea, before this," the young skipper
muttered, "but this voyage has already gone ahead of anything I've ever
had happen at sea. I hope we're through with visitors from the
'Victor.'"

At last he closed his eyes and slept, for Halstead was not a highly
nervous youngster. When he was free from the demands of duty, and
physically tired, he was not usually long in finding his rest.

Even in his sleep the lad did not lie quietly. He began to toss and
thrash, dreaming that he was fighting it out again with Cragthorpe. It
was like a nightmare, for, in his dream, the young captain of the
"Panther" felt himself to be getting the worst of the struggle.

Then, all of a sudden, Tom Halstead awoke, roused by a sensation of
choking. A man knelt over him in his bed. Halstead's hands were lashed,
while a rope was noosed about his neck.

On the front wall of the cabin was a ship's clock. A shaded light burned
near the dial of the clock, giving illumination to enable one to read
the clock's dial from the bed.

That light also showed Tom the face and figure of his present
oppressor--Cragthorpe, in the flesh!

"Now, we're going to have a chance to talk over the other side of this
question!" chuckled the wretch, in Tom's ear. "I remained aboard--risked
everything--in order to have this precious meeting. Just us two
here--fine, isn't it?"




CHAPTER XVII

CRAGTHORPE INTRODUCES HIS REAL SELF


"Now, if you find you've anything to say," continued Cragthorpe, in the
same low voice, "you can say it when the time comes. But don't try to
call out, and don't attempt any impudence, or I'll pull this noose
tight. You know what that will mean!"

Undeniably Tom Halstead paled. Upon his feet, with at least a fighting
chance, the young motor boat captain, while he might have feared death,
would not have run away from it. He had a record for showing grit.

But this was a time when no amount of courage could give him a chance.
He read it in Cragthorpe's eyes that the fellow intended to keep the
upper hand, and to abuse it, to the end.

"You felt fine and important when you told that big Irishman to lead me
off to the brig, didn't you!" began the tormentor.

"What else could I do!" demanded Halstead, in a low voice. "Wouldn't you
have done the same by me, if the boot had been on the other foot!"

"And you struck me that cowardly blow over at Oakland the other day,"
cried Cragthorpe, who seemed to have nursed his wrath until it angered
him to the striking point.

"When you went to school," mocked Tom, his coolness returning rapidly,
"you studied out of a different book of definitions from the one I had.
I was never taught that it was cowardice to defend a woman."

"What call had you to defend her?" insisted Cragthorpe, with a show of
increasing anger. "Was it any of your affair?"

"Yes; the fact that the young woman was annoyed by you was excuse enough
for my act."

"You spoiled my last chance with her when you humiliated me by a blow
that I didn't get a chance to return at the time."

"I'm glad to hear that," retorted Tom, candidly.

"Oh, you are, are you?"

The working of passion in Cragthorpe's face was a fearful sight to see.

"And a fine thing you did for the young woman!" hissed the fellow. "I
wanted to marry her. She has money enough to make her a prize," sneered
the wretch. "Her brother is to go on trial for his life in a few days,
and I am the only witness who could save him from the chain of evidence
that the authorities are weaving about him. I made the offer to the girl
to save her brother if she would wed me."

"You cowardly--cur!" uttered Tom Halstead, in cool disdain.

Cragthorpe started; then deeper lines of passion graved themselves in
his features.

"Yes," continued Tom, scornfully, "you're about the lowest sort of cur
that could possibly breathe. To charge a woman such a price for her
brother's life and good fame!"

Cragthorpe suddenly restrained his growing anger. He leered down into
the face of his straightforward young enemy.

"However, I am to make money in another way," he continued, cheerfully.
"Frank Rollings is my cousin. After my failure with the girl he found me
so desperate and ugly that, without telling me what he was about to do,
he enlisted me in his present fine enterprise."

"Took you along with him to help him guard his stolen treasure, did he!"
jeered Captain Tom Halstead.

"Yes, if it interests you," snarled Cragthorpe.

"It'll interest your precious cousin a lot more, before he gets through
with you," sneered Halstead. "He'll be lucky if you don't make away with
him and try to secure all the stolen money for yourself!"

Cragthorpe started, almost as though the young skipper had hit on the
head the nail of his intentions.

"Here! Chew on this, instead of words!" flashed the wretch.

He suddenly forced the young skipper's mouth open, wedging in a crumpled
up handkerchief. This he followed with another, gagging his victim.

Scenting more dastardly work to come, Tom Halstead fought furiously with
the little chance that was left to him. His hands were secured, in front
of him, but his feet and legs were free. He struggled with all his
might, trying to use his bound hands, together, on the head of
Cragthorpe, as that wretch again bent over him.

In his struggles Halstead rolled over on his side. His lashed hands
reached briefly under the edge of the bed. In this way he hoped to gain
purchase enough to pull himself free and yank himself to his feet. It
was a slight hope, yet the only one the motor boat boy could see.

In the brief interval before Cragthorpe seized him roughly, hurling him
back into the middle of the bed, Tom's hands touched something on the
under side of the frame. He didn't know what it was he had touched.

In that brief though furious struggle Halstead had succeeded in working
out the handkerchiefs. His oppressor caught up one of them.

"I'll gag you in better shape, this time," he proposed.

At that instant the door of the cabin opened. Cragthorpe, busy with his
scheme of revenge, did not hear it. But Halstead lay so that he saw the
door move ajar; he saw the head of the sailor who, with this watch,
served in the wheel-house.

Over the seaman's face swept a look of the most intense amazement. He
darted back into the darkness, for an instant, then returned.

"One moment--wait!" spoke Tom Halstead, sharply.

"Confound you--not so loud, if you value your safety!" warned
Cragthorpe.

Had not the rascal been so intensely absorbed he would have felt and
noted the light breeze that blew in with the opening of the door. But
Cragthorpe was passion-ridden at the moment. The door closed, with the
sailor and Third Officer Costigan in the room.

That "one moment--wait!" Mr. Costigan and the sailor had the presence of
mind to understand was directed at them.

"That girl--and her brother--you were lying to me about them," taunted
Halstead. "You can't tell me their names."

"I can't--eh?" sneered Cragthorpe, harshly. "The girl's name is Rose
Gentry, and her brother's name Robert Gentry."

"And the brother is accused of murder, and you could prove him
innocent? Yet you refused to save the brother because Rose Gentry would
not marry you and let you own her fortune! It's a lie!"

"It's the truth," snarled Cragthorpe, hotly. "And you helped doom the
brother when you struck me down before Rose Gentry. You made her despise
me the more."

"She did well to despise you," retorted Tom Halstead, bluntly. "_You
ought to be clubbed_!"

[Illustration: "You Ought to Be Clubbed!"]

That was exactly what happened, ere Cragthorpe could open his mouth. The
seaman had been crouching behind the fellow, a belaying-pin in his right
hand. At the word from Halstead the sailor struck, and Cragthorpe fell
to the floor, stunned.

Leaving the sailor to attend to Cragthorpe, Mr. Costigan now bounded
forward to free the young captain's hands.

"How on earth did this happen, sir?" demanded the third officer, as he
cut away the cord from the boy's wrists.

"I dreamed I was fighting the fellow," laughed Tom, "but woke up to find
he had slipped my hands into that noose. He had this other noose around
my neck, threatening to draw it uncomfortably tight if I tried to make
any outcry."

Tom was now able to slip out of bed and pull on his trousers, while Mr.
Costigan turned on a stronger light.

"But how on earth did you two happen to come to my relief just at the
right time?" the young skipper demanded.

"Why, you sounded the call to the bridge," retorted the third mate.

"I sounded the----wait a second."

Tom bent over the edge of his bed, feeling underneath along the frame.

"Why, there's a button here. Does that call to the bridge?" demanded the
motor boat captain.

"It certainly does," retorted the third officer.

"I didn't even know the button was there," gasped the young sailing
master. "In my struggles I touched it by accident."

"I sent Oleson, the sailor, to see what you wanted, sir," continued Mr.
Costigan. "The next thing I knew Oleson backed out of your cabin,
grabbed up a belaying-pin, and signaled to me. I came quick and
soft-like, sir. And now, Captain, if you've no further orders for me,
sir, hadn't I better be traveling back to the bridge? The quartermaster
of my watch is running the ship at this minute."

"Go, then, Mr. Costigan, and thank you; but send the extra deck-hand of
this watch."

In another moment the third mate's whistle was sounding shrilly. It
brought the extra man of the watch on the run.

"Put these handcuffs on the fellow before he comes to," ordered Tom,
going to his desk and taking out a pair of manacles. "There, now he
won't do much harm if he does come out of it suddenly. But I'm going
with you to the brig, and want to see leg irons put on the rascal, too.
He won't have the use of his hands again, on this yacht. The second
steward will have to feed the fellow his meals."

Tom quickly finished his dressing. Just as he had done so Cragthorpe
uttered a deep sigh and opened his eyes. He was still a bit dazed.
Halstead waited for some moments before speaking.

"If you were telling the truth, fellow, about Rose Gentry and her
brother," taunted Tom, "your silence won't do you so much good, now. My
third officer and one of these sailors overheard your declaration of
your infernal villainy. They can testify in court in behalf of young
Gentry. They'll help the case quite a bit, I guess."

Cragthorpe was enough himself, by this time, to understand. He scowled
blackly, but refused to speak.

"Take him along down below to the brig, now," ordered Captain Halstead.

As the three navigators and their captive stepped out forward of the
pilot house, Tom pointed over to port.

"There's the boat of your friends, my man," laughed the young motor boat
skipper. "You've told me, too, that Frank Rollings _is_ aboard of her,
and that he has the stolen funds with him. Oh, one way and another, you
told me a lot this night that I'm glad to know!"

Cragthorpe uttered some savage language under his breath as he was
dragged below. Once again he found himself in the brig, and the door
locked, after the leg-irons had been fitted. This time, to make doubly
sure of his man, Halstead put on a double lock by means of a chain and
padlock, the latter being of a pattern that could not be picked.

"In one way I almost feel badly at doing this to you, Cragthorpe," Tom
said to the fellow, through the grating. "You'll think I'm crowing over
you, and abusing my power. I'd be easier with you--but it wouldn't be
safe for anyone aboard the yacht."

Halstead then returned to his cabin, where, at his desk, he wrote a note
to Mr. Baldwin, advising the latter of what he had learned from the man
who was once more in the brig.

This note he turned over to Mr. Costigan.

"Hand it to him if he comes on deck in the morning before I do,"
requested the young skipper. "Add anything you please, out of what you
saw and heard to-night."

Then the motor yacht captain walked over to the port rail for one more
look at the "Victor." The "Panther" was still keeping abreast of her,
less than four hundred yards away. These two craft appeared to have the
sea all to themselves.

"When, where and how will this all end?" wondered Tom Halstead.

Then he turned in once more, this time hoping for some real rest.




CHAPTER XVIII

A TRICK MADE FOR TWO


Just before eight o'clock in the morning Tom Halstead rolled over
luxuriously in his broad bed.

"One more catnap wouldn't feel half bad," he muttered to himself.
"However, I reckon I feel about right. I've had some of the sleep that
was coming to me."

Then:

"I wonder how my friend Cragthorpe is this morning? It's quite plain he
hasn't found some other trick for getting out of the brig."

Tom yawned a couple of times, stretched, and finally decided that he
felt like getting up.

While he was coming to this conclusion the whistle sounded in the
bridge speaking tube.

Springing out of bed, Tom took up the mouth-piece.

"Well?" he called.

"The 'Victor' is putting about, sir."

"What's her new course?"

"Going right back over the course she came out on, sir. Shall I turn and
follow?"

"What else? The only thing we're living for now, Mr. Costigan, is to
keep close to that steam yacht. Follow her, without further orders, even
if she starts to steaming in circles. I'll be out soon."

"Very good, sir."

Tom looked slowly about him, then headed for the bath-room. He took
plenty of time in the warm water, finally dressing. Mr. Costigan's watch
had gone below, the third officer having left Tom's letter with Dick
Davis, to be handed to Mr. Baldwin when the latter should appear. But,
so far, none of the cabin party had yet turned out.

"All our people are still abed, I think, sir," smiled Davis, when the
young motor boat captain appeared on deck.

"They've been worn out, by the suspense as much as by their short hours
of rest," Halstead replied.

"Now, you guess why the steam craft has put about, don't you?" asked
Halstead, after pacing the bridge for some moments while he studied the
weather.

"I'm not sure that I do, sir," Dick admitted, after a moment's thought.

"Within three or four hours, I'm willing to wager you a night's rest,
we'll be back in the fog belt," Tom replied, pointing ahead. "Now,
Rollings and the captain of the 'Victor' have felt that they were
getting too far off the course to their real destination, with us
tagging right alongside all the way. They knew that the fog bank was a
few hours astern of them as they lay on the other course, so they're
putting back to get into it."

"For what purpose?" asked Dick.

"Why, I suppose they've figured on some plan for losing us in the fog
this time. That's the way their hopes run, anyway."

"I can't see any fog ahead of us, sir," proclaimed Dick. "And I thought
a fellow raised on the Maine sea-coast knew all about fogs."

"There's Ab just coming up for the day's work," whispered Tom, as the
young first officer appeared through the companionway forward. "Just
hear what he says."

Leaning forward over the bridge rail, Halstead called:

"Mr. Perkins, what sort of weather do you think lies ahead of us?"

Ab halted, looking all about him, then peering out for some moments past
the bow of the "Panther."

"I think, sir," came the first officer's report, at last, "we're heading
back towards another real old San Francisco fog."

"I surrender, then," nodded Dick Davis.

"We'll be in it by noon, or before," Tom Halstead predicted.

"And then, the folks on that craft yonder have it all figured out to
give us the slip, sure and easy this time," muttered Ab, as he climbed
the steps to the bridge.

Out of the owner's quarters stepped Joseph Baldwin and came forward,
stretching and inhaling deeply the outdoor air. Captain Tom Halstead
stepped down from the bridge to meet him.

"Haven't the other crowd changed their course a bit?" asked Mr. Baldwin.

Halstead explained the new move on the part of the navigator of the
"Victor."

"Going to try to lose us, are they?" chuckled Baldwin. "If they do,
Captain, they are clever people. If they can get away from _you_ I'm
positive it won't be your fault."

Then, stretching like a man who has had a fine, long sleep, and who
isn't yet over the enjoyment of it, the owner added:

"Thank goodness, nothing happened during the night!"

"Nothing happened in the night, eh? I'm glad it was all carried off so
quietly, sir, that you weren't disturbed by it."

"Why, _did_ anything happen?"

"The fire, in the first place----"

"Of course; but I meant, nothing after I turned in again."

"Something certainly did happen," laughed Halstead. "I left a note for
you with the watch officer, in case you came on deck before I did. Now,
however, I can tell you about it."

And that Tom Halstead proceeded to do. While he was still engaged in the
narration Mr. Ross came up on deck, and had to hear the tale. Just at
its finish Dr. Gray appeared, followed by Gaston Giddings. The latter
young man, though wholly out of the influence of morphine now, looked
seedy and sullen. Plainly, he resented his enforced abstinence from
drugs.

"I want to see that infernal rascal, Cragthorpe," muttered Mr. Baldwin.
"Captain, won't you be good enough to have him brought on deck?"

So Ab was summoned, and instructed to take the extra seaman of the
watch, as well as Quartermaster Bickson, and bring the prisoner to deck.

"Bring him by force, if you have to," added Captain Tom, dryly.

In a short time the quartermaster and seaman appeared, all but dragging
Cragthorpe, while Ab Perkins brought up the rear of the procession,
giving the doubly manacled fellow an occasional shove.

It was the first time that Gaston Giddings had seen the prisoner. The
instant he did so, now, the young bank president looked suddenly angry.

"Mr. Baldwin," demanded Gaston Giddings, "why is this gentleman under
such restraint?"

"_Gentleman?_" demanded Baldwin, with withering scorn. "Why, my boy,
about whom are you talking?"

"Why is Mr. Cragthorpe ironed, on board this yacht?" insisted Giddings,
his face now white and stern with increasing anger.

"Well, then, I'll tell you," sniffed Joseph Baldwin. "That fellow is in
irons because he joined us from the 'Victor.' His first enterprise on
board was to try to put one of our motors out of the running. His next
effort was to set this yacht on fire, last night. After that, he broke
into Captain Halstead's cabin, presumably with the intention of killing
the navigator of this yacht; at any rate, he meant to injure Captain
Halstead severely. Those are some of the reasons, Giddings, my boy, why
Cragthorpe is now guarded as carefully as a mad dog might be if we
didn't possess the right to kill it."

While speaking, Joseph Baldwin studied the young bank president's face
keenly. After a pause, the older man went on:

"And now, Giddings, if you concede that I have any right to be curious,
in turn, I'd like to ask you why you are so intensely interested in this
scoundrel?"

From the instant Cragthorpe had caught sight of the face of Gaston
Giddings, the man in irons had stood more at ease, a sneer on his face.

"Cragthorpe is a friend of mine," replied Giddings, stiffly.

"Indeed? Then I regret to say that I can't congratulate you on your
choice of friends."

"I demand that you set Mr. Cragthorpe free!" cried young Giddings, in a
voice passionate with anger.

"That's a request, my boy, that I'm not at all inclined to grant, even
had I the power," retorted Baldwin, coolly, yet speaking as though he
did not wish needlessly to further rouse the anger of Giddings. "You
see, I haven't any power to give the order."

"No power?" snorted Giddings. "Don't you own this yacht?"

"I do; but Halstead is her captain. It is one of the rules of the sea
that, after a vessel leaves her anchorage, her captain commands her
absolutely until port is again reached."

"Do you mean to say that this boy would refuse to free Cragthorpe, if
you commanded it?" demanded Giddings, hotly, a flushed spot burning in
either cheek.

"What would you say, Captain Halstead, if I demanded the release of the
prisoner?" asked Baldwin, facing the young motor boat skipper with
smiling eyes.

"I'd refuse, sir," Tom replied, promptly. "In my opinion the 'Panther'
isn't safe a minute when Cragthorpe is out of the brig. Take the
prisoner back to the brig, Mr. Perkins."

Gaston Giddings, with a wrathful cry, started forward, but Tom blocked
his way.

"You know you're pleasing the owner you sail for, or you wouldn't dare
do this thing," choked the young bank president.

The prisoner was speedily taken below.

Gaston Giddings stamped angrily aft, while Joseph Baldwin's eyes
followed the young man with a wondering look.

"Mr. Perkins," directed Tom, when Ab came back on deck, "lock the door
of the passage leading to the brig, and leave the key with the watch
officer, with instructions to turn it over to his successor on the
bridge." Tom's order was given for the purpose of preventing Giddings
from making any attempt to reach and aid Cragthorpe.

"I'm going to have Doc Gray try to find out what part Cragthorpe has
been playing in the life of our young friend, Giddings," Mr. Baldwin
confided to the young skipper. "I've a suspicion, already, though."

"May I ask, sir, what you suspect?"

"Well, since Giddings has become a confirmed 'hop-fiend,' and Cragthorpe
comes to us from the Rollings crowd, I think it most likely that
Rollings has been employing Cragthorpe to cultivate Giddings's
acquaintance and lure him on into the opium habit. Such drugs destroy a
man's will, his sense of justice--they rot his very soul!"

"So, then, sir, you think Rollings has been, for some time, engaged in a
deliberate plot to acquire an ascendancy over Mr. Giddings and ruin
him?"

"That's my suspicion, stated in a few words, Captain."

Through the forenoon the chase on the course back to San Francisco
continued without change. By eleven o'clock both yachts were moving
through occasional light blotches of fog, though the two craft still
moved in sight of each other. An hour later, however, the two yachts,
with speed now down to eight miles an hour, entered a dense, white gloom
in which they were soon shut out from sight of each other. Now, Captain
Tom was reduced to the old trick of going by sound.

Fortunately, the "Victor" sounded a fog-horn at regular intervals of
sixty seconds, as did the "Panther."

"I'm not going to take any chances, however, sir," Tom confided to the
owner. "I'm going to keep close enough to hear her machinery, too."

Passing through the fog, the unseen "Victor" was off the better part of
three hundred yards to port of the "Panther."

Of a sudden, however, there came a note that was new. Tom and Joe, in
the captain's cabin, heard it, and ran out on deck. Davis was bending
over the starboard rail of the bridge in his effort to comprehend the
new sound.

"Too-whoo-oo!" Nearly abeam, and some three hundred yards off to
starboard, that new sound came--a fog-horn identical with the
"Victor's."

"What on earth is the trick, now?" wondered Joe Dawson.

"I'd be willing to give a day's pay to guess it all at once," responded
the young skipper.

"Too-whoo-oo!" sounded the "Panther's" fog-horn. "Too-whoo-oo!" came the
answer, from port, presumably from the "Victor's" fog-horn.
"Too-whoo-oo!" came like an echo from starboard.

"It sounds like the first move in a game to mix us up," muttered Tom
Halstead, shrewdly.

"But what craft can be off at starboard?" questioned young Dawson.

"Probably a steam launch, put off from the 'Victor,' with a similar
fog-horn," rejoined Captain Halstead.

"Or a motor launch," suggested Joe.

"No; I don't believe that. If it were a motor launch we'd hear the
chug-chug of her exhaust. It must be a steam launch. A steam craft of
small size can be run more quietly."

"That's true," assented young Dawson. "Still, our power tender has a
pretty silent exhaust."

"Great scheme!" grinned Tom, suddenly.

"What?"

"I'm going to play a return trick on Rollings's captain."

"How?"

"We have two reserve fog-horns that are identical in sound. I'm going
to rig one of 'em on the 'Panther,' using it in the place of the one
we're now sounding."

"Yes----"

"And rig the other fog-horn on the power launch," chuckled Tom. "Then
we'll put Bickson and his own deckhand in the power launch and send 'em
around to cruise to port of the 'Victor.' Thus we'll keep those fellows
guessing, too, what's in the wind."

Joe chuckled, but he added:

"Tom, you'd better ask Mr. Jephson to send one of his deputy marshals
along, armed, or something might happen that our power launch and two
men would be bagged."

"That's a sound idea, too," Captain Tom nodded. Half an hour later the
"Panther's" power launch, containing Bickson, a seaman and a deputy
marshal, stole as noiselessly as possible around to the port side of the
"Victor" in the great, thick fog. Now, there were four fog-horns,
sounding all at once. The four power craft were moving practically in
one line.

"Say, that's a funny stunt, surely," chuckled Joseph Baldwin, when he
heard the four fog-horns almost at once, and understood what the move
meant.

"It may have another good effect," suggested Halstead.

"What?"

"Any sailing vessel headed our way, hearing four horns, is likely to
steer well out of the way of the whole fleet, thus lessening the danger
of collision."

Barely two minutes later another sound intensely interested the watchers
aboard the "Panther."

Out of the white gloom ahead, some hundreds of yards, and almost bow-on
from the "Panther," came the long-drawn-out hail:

"He-e-elp!"

"What's that?" demanded Joseph Baldwin, starting.

"He-elp!" came the appeal once more.

"Sounds like the latest trick from our friends on the 'Victor,'" grinned
Captain Tom Halstead.

Ab Perkins, with the megaphone in his hand, had pushed his way up to the
very peak of the bow.

"Ahoy!" he bawled, lustily, through the voice-carrier. "Who's in need of
help?"

Back came the answer, faint, yet distinct:

"A castaway in a dory! For heaven's sake, pick me up!"

"Not a thing happened after we picked up the last castaway in a small
boat," uttered Joseph Baldwin, sarcastically.

"That hail sounded like a boy's voice," muttered Tom.

"If you pick _anyone_ up in this fog, be careful!" cautioned the owner.

"Oh, won't I be careful, though?" retorted Skipper Tom. "Yet I've half a
mind to pick this chap up, just to see what the game is. My curiosity is
working over-time. I'm anxious to see the newest trick from the hands
that steer the 'Victor'!"




CHAPTER XIX

TED DYER, SAILOR BY MARRIAGE


Still Ab continued to hail from the bow of the motor yacht, young
Captain Tom having gone forward to stand by him and give directions.

"We'll take you aboard, and have a look at you, anyway," Ab called
through the megaphone. "That is, if you make us closely enough to catch
a rope from us. But we won't change our course, or stop ship."

"Sa-ay, that's hardly fair!" came the indignant protest.

"If you want to get aboard this craft, do as we tell you," Ab Perkins
retorted, doughtily.

"A-all right! I can't stay out on the ocean alone any longer, anyway!"
came back the answer, with a new note of determination in it.

"Then stop talking," directed Ab, "and get down to your oars, so as to
run just alongside of us. And stand by to catch the line that'll be
thrown to you."

"Aye, aye, sir!"

Catching up a coil of line, Perkins ran down nearer the waist of the
ship. A seaman stood by with the ship's end of a rope boarding-ladder
made fast. Captain Tom remained up in the "Panther's" bow.

Then, out of the fog, shot a dory into sight. In it sat a boy of about
sixteen, wearing only a ragged shirt and hardly less ragged trousers. He
bent at a pair of oars, his glance cast backward over one shoulder as he
guided the craft so as to pass the "Panther" without being engulfed by
her.

It was close work, and required rather fine seamanship on the part of
the boy in the boat.

Had the "Panther" been going at anything like her full speed the effort
to lay alongside would have ended in disaster. Even as it was, Captain
Tom Halstead watched with not a little anxiety.

"Ready--catch the line!" sang Ab Perkins. The young executive officer
of the "Panther" possessed fine judgment and a straight eye for such
work. As the coil left Ab's hand it went whirling, uncoiling, through
the air. The line landed fairly across the shoulder of the other boy
below. He caught the rope, then sank down to the middle seat of the
dory, bracing himself and holding on hard.

As the line became taut the bow of the dory was yanked about. The little
craft heeled a bit, then righted, bumping in against the larger hull,
then gliding off and riding rather easy.

The seaman at Ab's side now dropped the rope boarding-ladder overboard
so that its lower end rested fairly in the dory.

"Swing onto the ladder, and kick the dory loose," directed Ab Perkins,
steadily. "I reckon you can do it."

"Don't you want to recover the dory, to pay for my passage to land?"
inquired the boy below.

"Not a bit of it," uttered Ab. "Too much truck aboard now."

"Then here comes--not much of anything," laughed the boy, in a clear,
cool voice, as he seized the rope ladder, and sprang up onto it. As he
left the dory that little craft drifted astern, soon to be lost to sight
in the great fog.

In another moment the boy was aboard. No stranger was he to the sea.
That much could be told by the neat, seaman-like way in which he came up
the rope boarding-ladder.

"I've come on board, sir," laughed the stranger, touching the make-shift
for a cap which he wore.

"So I see," nodded Tom Halstead, coming aft from the bow. "What's your
name?"

"Ted Dyer."

"Hailing port?"

"'Frisco."

"Sailor, by trade?"

"No," laughed Ted, his eyes twinkling; "a sailor by marriage."

"What's that?" demanded Halstead, almost sharply. He almost suspected
that the other boy was making game of him. If Dyer came from the
"Victor," such levity was misplaced.

"My mother's sister married a captain of a freight schooner," Ted
explained, more soberly.

"Oh. So you, so to speak, ran away to sea with your uncle?"

"No; he ran away from me _at_ sea," answered young Dyer, more soberly.

"How long has your uncle been captain of the 'Victor'?" Halstead
demanded, swiftly, hoping to catch this other boy off his guard.

"The 'Victor'?" repeated Ted, opening his eyes wide. If he was
shamming, then it was a fine bit of acting.

"Didn't you come from the steam yacht 'Victor'?" demanded Captain Tom,
looking hard at the boy.

"Never heard of the craft before," declared Ted. Then: "Hold on, though.
I'm lying without meaning to, it would seem. Yes; I know the 'Victor.'
She's a hundred and twenty-two foot steam yacht, fine and fast."

"That's the 'Victor' just over to port," went on Tom, still eyeing the
other youth, closely.

"Is it?" asked Ted Dyer. "Then your eyesight is sharper than mine."

"Don't try to get funny," warned Halstead.

"I don't want to," protested Ted. "You all strike me as first-rate
fellows. And, anyway, you've fished me up out of the vasty deep, so to
speak. Where's your captain?"

"You're looking at him," replied Halstead.

"Again," laughed Ted, "you're crediting me with finer eyesight than I
possess."

"I am the captain," Tom replied, struggling against an inclination to
like this boy. Ted was so brimming over with good humor, that it seemed
almost wicked to suspect him of anything worse than being hungry.

"You're the captain?" demanded Ted, taken aback, and staring hard. Then,
as he took in the details of Halstead's uniform, and noted the looks on
the faces of the others about him, he became convinced.

"Captain----" began Ted.

"Halstead," supplied Tom.

"Captain Halstead, as I'll have to dead-beat my passage back to San
Francisco, I shall be mighty glad if you'll assign me to some work to
do."

"On your word of honor you didn't come off the 'Victor'?" insisted the
young skipper, still looking hard at the new arrival on board.

"On my honor I didn't. Why? Is it a crime to come on board from the
'Victor'?"

"Very nearly," Halstead replied, dryly. "We've got one fellow in the
brig on board, charged with that very offense."

"Whew!" muttered Ted, looking grave. "Then what's the sentence for
coming on board from a dory?"

"How did you come to be in that dory?" pressed the young skipper of the
"Panther."

"You might call it mainly my uncle's offense," replied Ted Dyer, more
gravely. "You see, my parents are dead. They left me a little money, and
put me under the guardianship of my uncle. He put the money into the
freight schooner, 'Nancy.' However, even at that, some of the earnings
of the schooner had to be put aside as belonging to my estate. So my
uncle, being a bright man, conceived the idea, night before last, of
putting me adrift in the dory you fished me out of. At the time he had
only a drunken sailor named Griggs on deck with him. Griggs is a fellow
my uncle, Captain Dalton, by name, can depend on. Uncle got me to go
into the dory that was towing astern. Made believe he wanted me to see
if anything had fouled the rudder. Then he cut the line and left me
adrift. I guess he figured that there was a storm coming; that I'd never
be heard from again, and that he'd get the schooner all for himself."

"The infernal scoundrel!" breathed Halstead, indignantly. Then,
remembering his first suspicions, he shot in, closely:

"So your uncle isn't captain of the 'Victor'?"

"What's the joke?" demanded Ted, gazing at those about him, a look of
wonder in his innocent blue eyes.

Tom Halstead was beginning to soften. Despite the grave need of caution
and suspicion, Ted's honest good nature was infectious. Besides, as both
the yachts were going at eight miles an hour, and the "Victor" was
traveling only abeam, anyway, how could a boy in a dory put off from the
steam yacht be so far ahead of the position of either boat as to come
down upon the "Panther" in the fashion Ted had done? Altogether, Captain
Tom felt that he might do well to drop some of his suspicions. That same
idea was occurring to some of the others who listened. It was Joe
Dawson, however, who first gave voice to this new idea.

"I reckon Ted is all right, Captain," spoke up the young chief engineer.
"At any rate, I feel willing to go bail for his good behavior on this
craft."

"I guess this youngster is all right, Captain," spoke Joseph Baldwin,
next stepping forward. "I'll take a chance with him, if you're willing."

Ted Dyer, meanwhile, was looking from one face to another, as though he
wondered what kind of a crowd he had encountered.

"You may think us a bit strange, Dyer," spoke Tom, with a quiet smile.
"The truth is, we have the best of reasons for being suspicious of the
other yacht you've heard us talking about. You can stay aboard, and
we'll try to make you comfortable."

"I haven't anything else to do, sir," said Joe, turning once more to the
young captain. "I'll take Dyer in hand if you say so."

"Go ahead," assented Halstead. "First of all, take him below, Mr.
Dawson, and introduce him to the cook. I imagine that will be
agreeable."

"You're good at guessing, Captain," laughed the San Francisco boy,
saluting.

"Come along then, Ted Dyer," proposed Joe, taking him by the arm with a
friendly grip. "You can come below to my cabin and chat while you eat."

"I guess I can do a lot of both," admitted the San Francisco boy, going
along with Joe after making a bow that was intended to include everyone.

Joe, however, did not at first press the other boy to talk much, but was
delighted at seeing Dyer able to stow away so much satisfying food.

"Now," demanded the newcomer, pushing his chair back from the table,
"what am I going to do aboard this craft to earn my way?"

"What do you know best how to do?" asked Dawson.

"You said you are the chief engineer?"

"Yes."

"If there's anything I'm crazy about," confessed Ted Dyer, "it's
machinery. Why couldn't I go to work in your engine room?"

"That's a rather unfortunate question," returned Joe, feeling a bit
uncomfortable. "You see, the fellow who really _did_ come aboard from
the 'Victor' got into the engine room and tried to put our machinery
into a useless condition. So you can understand why Captain Halstead
would stare if I told him I had put you in the engine room."

"What's all this business about the 'Victor,' anyway?" demanded Ted
Dyer, curiously.

So Joe told him enough to enable the other boy to understand, including
the fact that a United States assistant district attorney and two deputy
marshals were aboard intent upon arresting a bank absconder believed to
be on board the "Victor."

"And that boat is trying to lose you in the fog, so that Mr. Absconder
can get away?" asked Ted Dyer, understandingly.

"That's the case, Dyer."

"Then I can understand why it wouldn't look well for me to ask for a job
in the engine room," pondered Ted, thoughtfully. "I suppose, though, I
could go in and help the cook. I couldn't do any harm there. Yes, I
could, though; I might poison the dishes or the food."

Joe Dawson gave a hearty laugh, so completely was he disarmed of
suspicion of the other boy.

"I guess perhaps we'd better leave it all to Captain Halstead," proposed
Joe Dawson. "He's a fine, splendid fellow, as you'll find."

"Fine and suspicious," retorted Ted, with a grimace.

"He has to be, on a strange cruise like this. But you'll find Captain
Tom Halstead as good as fine gold, Ted. Halstead is my chum."

"If he's your chum," vouchsafed Dyer, heartily, "then I'll take my oath
he's all right."

"Come up on deck," nodded Joe, moving toward the companion way.




CHAPTER XX

THE FIND IN THE FOREHOLD


Ted Dyer's place was quickly determined upon.

Bickson, the chief quartermaster, who attended to the general "policing"
of the yacht--that is, the cleaning up and the sanitary care of the
boat, had one seaman assigned to help him. Ted was added as an extra
hand in this line, being placed at once under the orders of the
quartermaster who was acting in Bickson's place while the latter was out
in the launch.

"It looks, now, as though Dyer is all right, from the ground up,
quartermaster," Captain Tom said, in a low voice. "At the same time, of
course, you'll keep a general eye on the youngster?"

"I certainly will, Captain."

"Above all, don't let him get anywhere near the prisoner in the brig.
Don't permit any possibility of communication between Dyer and
Cragthorpe."

"I understand, Captain."

Before he had been at work for an hour Ted Dyer was earning golden good
opinions from the acting chief quartermaster. Not the slightest
curiosity did the new member of the crew display about anything that
didn't concern him. As a worker Ted Dyer was number one.

About three o'clock the evidence of a new game on the part of the enemy
came to notice. The steam launch of the "Victor" ceased sounding her
whistle off at the starboard of the "Panther." Tom Halstead, who was on
deck, ready to note the slightest sign, became instantly suspicious.

"Mr. Davis," he called, "sound the agreed-on signal from our own
fog-horn for Bickson to come in, post-haste with our power boat."

From the "Panther's" fog-horn sounded four short blasts.

Just a few minutes later Tom Halstead, listening at the rail, heard the
"Victor's" machinery moving at faster rate.

"There they go, stealing away from us," muttered the young skipper.

"And not sounding their fog-horn any more, either," commented Joseph
Baldwin.

"It won't take 'em long to get out of our hearing, if our tender doesn't
get in," predicted Halstead.

"Confound Bickson! Where is he? What's he doing?" demanded the
"Panther's" owner, impatiently.

Barely thirty seconds later, however, the "Panther's" power tender shot
in alongside. The falls and tackle were lowered swiftly. The instant
when the hoisting began Halstead called sharply:

"Mr. Davis, start us forward on the jump. Don't let those tricksters
slip us in that fashion."

Second Officer Davis gave the order for increased speed. Then, before it
could be carried out, he cried, excitedly:

"What has become of the 'Victor,' sir? Can you hear her machinery, now?"

Tom Halstead listened intently, growing paler. Barely forty-five seconds
before he had had the enemy within sound. Now, not a single trace of
noise came to him over the waters.

"By Jove! they've slipped us," he groaned, uneasily.

"That's what," confessed Dick, in a hushed, scared voice.

Joseph Baldwin's face was a study in intense anxiety.

"I'm afraid the steam yacht has gotten away from us, Captain," he
remarked. "If that really has happened, I don't blame you. The chances,
in a game of this sort, and under these conditions, are all with the
fugitive."

"Perhaps it isn't a matter of blame," muttered Skipper Tom, his face
chalk-white, his hands nervously gripping at the port deck rail. "But
I'm chagrined--ashamed, just the same. What have those rascals done?
Have they stopped speed altogether? Are they drifting, so that, if we go
ahead, we are drawing further away from them all the time? Or did they
shoot well ahead of us, then succeed in running with almost no noise,
and on a new course, so that they are slipping further away from us
every minute? Shall we stop and drift? Or, if we go ahead, what speed
and which course shall we take? Confound the wretches!"

"It is a big problem," admitted Joseph Baldwin, his own face as white as
that of the young skipper.

"Have you any orders, sir?" asked Halstead, quickly.

"No," replied Joseph Baldwin, slowly. "All I can do is to guess. That's
all you can do, either, Captain Halstead; but your guess is just as
likely to be the right one as is my own."

The "Panther" was now traveling at a speed of twelve miles, sounding her
fog-horn twice in the minute.

"The worst of it is that our horn betrays us to the enemy," muttered
Tom. "They have no respect for the laws of the sea, so that we give them
guide, while they give us nothing in return."

"We won't quite give up hope," uttered Mr. Baldwin, dispiritedly. "At
the same time, I fancy we're now as good as whipped. I don't see any
chance for us."

"The only chance that's left," replied Skipper Tom, "is the chance of
luck. Until you give other orders, sir, I shall keep to the same course,
and at the same speed."

Baldwin nodded, turning away. Somehow, the depressing news had passed
around. The cabin passengers came pouring out on deck, asking well-nigh
innumerable questions of the young captain and of the sadly perplexed
owner.

"All I can say," replied Mr. Baldwin to his questioners, "is that we
must depend upon the slender chance of--luck."

"And all I can say," added Captain Tom Halstead, "is--wait!"

Gaston Giddings, who, in the morning, had been so insistent on having
Cragthorpe set at liberty, now underwent a complete change of feeling in
the matter.

"That wretch in the brig could tell us something about this latest
trick," declared the young bank president, quivering with wrath. "Mr.
Baldwin, why don't you have the fellow brought on deck and made to
confess whatever he may know about the plans of the Rollings crowd on
the 'Victor'?"

"Even if Cragthorpe should know all about the enemy's plans," demanded
the owner, "how could I make him confess if he didn't want to?"

"Torture him, if you have to, until he talks freely," snarled Gaston
Giddings.

"That wouldn't do," negatived Baldwin. "This is the twentieth century,
and we live under laws. We can't put men to the torture nowadays."

"Then let me go down and see Cragthorpe," cried Giddings, nervously.
"I'll find a way to make him talk! Give me the key to the brig."

To this proposition Captain Halstead returned a most emphatic refusal.

"Whoop!" sounded a jubilant voice from below. "Whoo-oo-oopee!"

"Who on earth is that?" demanded Mr. Ross.

"Ted Dyer, the last castaway we picked up out of the ocean," responded
Captain Halstead.

"What on earth can he find to be so joyous----"

"Whoo-oop!" interrupted Ted himself, appearing on deck at that instant.
His eyes were snapping with excitement, his face fairly glowing with
delight.

"Say, do you know what's down in the forehold, sir?" he demanded, facing
Captain Tom Halstead.

"No; and how do you?" broke in Joseph Baldwin, interrupting.

"Quartermaster Bickson set me to tidying up there," explained Ted. Then,
turning to the young skipper, the San Francisco boy rattled on:

"There's a case there, under a lot of other stuff, marked 'shotguns,'
and another case marked 'rifles.' Then there are other boxes labeled
'ammunition.'"

"Great Scott! I had forgotten that stuff--didn't know it was on board,
in fact," exclaimed the owner.

"I heard you tell," Ted hastened on, speaking to Tom Halstead, "how you
were handicapped, when right alongside the 'Victor,' by not having any
firearms except the two revolvers of the deputy marshals. But, now!
You've got an arsenal if those boxes are labeled straight."

"I believe the boxes are labeled all right," replied Joseph Baldwin,
smiling sadly. "Yet, now that we know we have weapons enough at hand we
haven't any steam yacht to board!"




CHAPTER XXI

ON A BLIND TRAIL OF THE SEA


"Those guns were put aboard six months ago, when I was planning to run
the 'Panther' down to Guatemala on a jaguar-hunting trip," explained Mr.
Baldwin. "Afterwards, when the trip was abandoned, the guns were taken
ashore. I'll admit I didn't know the arms were now on board."

"We may catch up with those rascals again, sir," suggested Ted Dyer,
hopefully.

"I wish I had your enthusiasm, and your belief in the future, young
man," remarked Mr. Baldwin, with a shake of his head.

"Anyway, since the weapons have been found," interjected Halstead, "they
may as well be taken out of their cases and cleaned, and the ammunition
sorted over. We should have such things where we can get at them in a
moment, at need."

"Right enough," nodded the owner.

"I'll go down and have a look at the things," proposed the young
skipper. "Lead the way, Dyer."

Ted went below, jubilantly enough, pointing out the cases, which he had
dragged out from under other supplies. Then Dyer went to the engine room
for hammer, cold chisel and screwdriver, after which the cases were
opened.

"Ten splendid repeating rifles, the same number of dandy shot-guns, and
ammunition enough to keep these guns firing for a week," muttered
Halstead when half an hour's work had resulted in displaying all the
contents of the cases. "Oh, if we had only had these the other night, or
at any time when we were out of the great fog and in sight of the
'Victor'!"

Regrets were, however, utterly useless.

All of the weapons were taken on deck. Some were stacked in the wheel
house, others in Tom's cabin and some in the owner's suite. Boxes of
cartridges and shells were also placed with the guns.

"I shall hate these things every time I see them," muttered Joseph
Baldwin. "I should have remembered, and have had a search made. But it's
no use fussing now."

"Oh, if we only could meet up with those fellows, now!" sighed Tom.

"Humph! If hens would only lay eggs of solid gold," snorted Mr.
Baldwin, "there'd be no sense in a bank cashier running away with the
stuffing of the bank's vault! Captain Halstead, we won't pick that steam
yacht up again in this fog."

"Then, sir, we may do it when the fog lifts," predicted Halstead,
hopefully.

Baldwin shook his head.

"All we can do, young man, is to keep on in a general course toward San
Francisco, as we're doing. This fog will probably hang to us all the way
to our anchorage off Market Street. If the fog should lift before that,
there isn't one chance in a thousand that we'll find the 'Victor' in
sight."

"I'm on this cruise, sir," rejoined the young captain, "with the notion
that the cruise can't end until we've run alongside the 'Victor'
somewhere. It may be that we'll sight some other vessel that has seen
the steam yacht. In that way we may get the news that will send us
hustling down the coast to Mexico, or across the ocean to Japan."

Joseph Baldwin grinned wistfully.

"Well, one thing, Captain; we have enough gasoline to go 'most anywhere.
My friends thought I was almost crazy to have such big tanks put aboard
to hold gasoline. But I replied that, when we didn't need the extra
oil, it would serve as ballast. If we have to burn that oil we can fill
the tanks with salt water and still keep ballasted."

"In any clear weather we can use the sails a good deal, and save oil at
that, sir," suggested the young skipper.

However, they continued on through the fog the rest of that afternoon,
and through the night, without discovering a sign of any other craft.
The loneliness of that great ocean about them began to get somewhat on
the nerves of some of the passengers. Gaston Giddings, suffering
infernal tortures for want of the drug to which he had become such a
pitiful slave, kept to the cabin.

Through the long night the "Panther" kept plodding on her way, rolling a
good deal in the sea. Tom spent much of his time on the bridge with the
watch officer. So morning came around again, and it was Third Mate
Costigan's deck watch.

Tom, who had been below in his cabin for the last three hours, came on
deck again at about nine in the morning. Somehow, he could not sleep.
The sense of failure preyed upon his nerves.

For some minutes Captain Tom stood at the bridge rail, one hand at his
ear. He was trying to catch even the faintest sound of another foghorn
than the "Panther's."

At last he started.

"Did you hear that, Mr. Costigan?" he demanded.

"I heard nothing, sir."

"Then keep perfectly quiet, and listen hard."

Within two minutes both officers were sure they heard a fog-horn.

"But it's the fog-horn of a sailing vessel," muttered Tom,
disappointedly.

"Coming this way, too, sir," replied Mr. Costigan.

"The people on the 'Victor' wouldn't hesitate to use a sailing vessel's
signals in order to fool us," muttered Halstead.

"Shall I pass well to starboard of the sailing craft, sir?" asked the
third officer.

"No; get in her path. When we're near enough, signal that we want to
speak the other vessel," Halstead answered.

Within seven or eight minutes the "Panther" was signaling the other
craft by sound for the desired marine interview. The "all right" signal
came back. Then the two vessels were cautiously manoeuvred to meet each
other without collision.

At last a big bowsprit loomed up out of the white gloom, close at hand.

"Put your helm hard-a-starboard!" roared Mr. Costigan through the wheel
house speaking-tube. Then, after some further manoeuvring, during which
the "Panther's" propellers reversed, the two craft lay hazily in sight
of each other.

The stranger proved to be a long, low, white schooner yacht hailing from
San Diego as the home port, but now bound for Hawaii.

"Do you know the steam yacht 'Victor' when you see her?" Tom shouted
over the "Panther's" rail.

"Yes," came back the testy answer. "And sometimes we see too much of
her. We did this morning."

"You did?" Halstead demanded, excitedly. "Where?"

"Back on our course. She came along through the fog like a thief,
without signaling. If my first mate hadn't been in the bow at the
moment, and able to pass the order back like lightning, that infernal
steam yacht would have sunk us."

"How far away do you think the 'Victor' is now?" Tom demanded.

"At a good guess, say twelve miles ahead of you, on a pretty straight
course for the Golden Gate."

"Thank you, Captain!"

"You're welcome."

As the schooner yacht's sails filled, and she bore away on her course,
a dozen people on the "Panther's" deck let up a wild cheer.

"Fog or no fog, we'll catch up with the 'Victor' if we have luck,"
declared Captain Tom Halstead. Then his face took on a troubled look.

"I forgot," he muttered. "The captain of the 'Victor' will hear our fog
horn, and--oh, confound a fog-horn on a chase like this!"

"Perhaps this is where a lawyer can help you out," smiled Mr. Jephson.
"You're now a dozen miles behind the 'Victor.' Well, Captain, if you
tone down your fog-horn so that it can't be heard for more than half or
three quarters of a mile, it will still make noise enough to warn any
innocent craft out of your path. Can't you tone down the horn?"

"Yes," answered Tom, rather dubiously, "if it will be strictly
straightforward and legal."

"As a representative of the United States courts, I'll take all the
responsibility," Mr. Jephson pledged himself. "I know," he added, "that
I haven't, really, a legal right to authorize you to go forward without
signals. That right belongs to the Navy, and to revenue cutter
commanders. But I'll take the responsibility upon myself, Captain
Halstead. All innocent vessels proceed under regular signals, anyway,
and that does away with the risk of collision."

The young motor boat captain needed no further urging. He called Joe on
deck. Together the two chums worked over the fog-horn until the hail it
sent forth would not carry more than a half mile.

In the meantime, Third Officer Costigan, on the bridge, had been making
use of his arithmetic. Figuring that the "Victor" was twelve miles ahead
of the "Panther" and still following the same course at the same speed,
the third mate had to calculate the time that would elapse before the
motor yacht would be just two miles astern of its quarry.

At the same time Ab Perkins was briefly busy, at least. It fell to his
share to see that the power tender was all in trim for lowering over the
side. Provisions and water, a compass and a fog-horn had to be added to
the usual equipment of the boat. Firearms were stocked aboard, as well,
and a greater supply of lines than the tender usually carried.

Meanwhile, of course, the "Panther" was traveling at increased speed,
this speed being carefully regulated to fit in with the problems that
Third Officer Costigan was so carefully solving.

For the next two hours Captain Tom Halstead strolled nervously about,
Mr. Jephson, Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Ross and a few others were observed to be
similarly afflicted with restlessness.

Just before noon Tom Halstead climbed the stairs to the bridge,
consulting Mr. Costigan's figures carefully.

"Slow down the speed," Halstead ordered, after a few moments of
listening that brought to them no sound showing another vessel to be
near. "Mr. Perkins, stand by and lower the tender."

As the "Panther" slowed up there was a rush to the port rail, for the
tender was to carry a goodly crew. When the little power boat lay in the
water alongside, Captain Tom Halstead was the first to go over the side.
He was followed by Jed Prentiss, who was to act as engineer officer of
this expedition. Then came Mr. Jephson and his two deputy marshals. Next
followed Joe Dawson, who did _not_ go in the capacity of engineer.
Messrs. Baldwin and Ross next followed, then two of the "Panther's"
seamen, and, last of all, Ted Dyer. Quartermaster Bickson had been in
the power boat when it was lowered, thus making twelve altogether in the
party.

"Cast off," called Tom, sharply, while Joe, already at the steering
seat, threw the wheel over to port. "Mr. Perkins, you're in command of
the yacht."

"Any signals to arrange with us, Captain?" called the young first mate.

"No! I don't believe you'll see us again in a hurry," Tom replied, as
the power launch darted away, "unless we come back on board the
'Victor!'"

From the yacht's rail came a subdued cheer. Halstead waved his hand to
his first mate.

A few bucketfuls of water slopped over into the tender. The sea was
running high for such a small craft. Those in the launch, however,
thought of nothing but the goal ahead.




CHAPTER XXII

A STERN LOOMS UP IN THE FOG


Joe Dawson, at the wheel of the power tender, bent grimly over the
compass.

There was little need for him to look about him, anyway, since it was
not possible to see anything distinctly at a greater distance than three
boat-lengths away.

Almost immediately the "Panther" dropped back out of view. The big motor
yacht was now to go along only at her slow cruising speed, but the
launch was to make greater haste.

Tom Halstead had taken his post well up in the bow of the rolling little
craft. He was listening intently for any betraying sounds ahead in
their course.

"This is hardly a big enough boat for a sea like this," grumbled Mr.
Jephson, who had taken up his post close to the young captain.

"The sea _is_ a good deal on the roll to-day," Halstead assented,
briefly.

"Why, this little craft acts as though she'd turn over and dump us all
in the ocean," muttered the assistant district attorney, uneasily.

"The crowd we have aboard makes her sit lower than usual in the water,"
Tom explained.

"Is there any _real_ danger of our tipping over, Captain?" insisted Mr.
Jephson.

"Why, it might happen, of course, sir."

"Do you think it is _going_ to happen?" demanded Mr. Jephson, anxiously.

There are many men, brave enough elsewhere, who are cowards on a heavy
sea with only a small boat between themselves and the water. Back on the
"Panther" the district attorney's representative had felt no sense of
danger.

"Why, I don't know whether the boat is going to heel over, or not," Tom
replied. "You are right in supposing that it isn't quite a large enough
craft for the job in hand, but it was the only thing we had."

"I can't swim, but I'll try to keep my nerve," grimaced Mr. Jephson.

Whatever the others thought of their chances of being pitched into the
ocean, none of them said anything.

Halstead looked back, presently, to inquire:

"Mr. Prentiss, can't you deaden the noise of our exhaust still more?"

"I'm trying to," replied the young assistant engineer. "Think I'm going
to succeed, too."

After a few moments the tender ran along all but noiselessly. Though the
exhaust still gave forth some little sound, it was wholly likely that
this reduced noise would not be heard above the machinery running on the
"Victor" if the expedition in the tender should be so fortunate as to
catch up with the steam yacht.

The twelve men sat huddled there in the cramped space, trying to blind
their minds to the danger of capsizing in the rolling sea. For more than
half an hour the tender ran ahead at nearly its best speed, ere Tom
Halstead called back:

"Joe, take my signals. I think we're getting in closer--to something!"

Eagerly all bent forward to listen. After a minute or two more it seemed
to them that they really could hear, faintly, the rather distant sound
of the moving machinery of some steam craft. Yet this noise, none too
distinct, was muffled still more by the ceaseless wash of the rolling
sea, whose waves broke in white crests everywhere about them.

Halstead, whose ears were perhaps the keenest on board, listened and
occasionally signaled for the launch to be veered a little either to
port or starboard.

Surely, they were creeping up on something that ran by machinery, though
through the curtain of white no eye could make out the form of a vessel.

Somewhere, away to starboard, a great, deep note boomed out.

"That's some big vessel, like a liner," Tom whispered to Jephson. Then,
from away off to port sounded the tolling bell of a sailing vessel. Both
appeared to be headed toward the "Panther" launch.

"They seem to be about half a mile apart," Halstead whispered. "The
'Victor,' I think, will pass between the two craft. While that deep
whistle and solemn bell are going the people on the steam yacht are not
so likely to hear us. Pass the word to Mr. Prentiss to increase speed a
little, if he can do so without making more noise at the exhaust."

A little faster spurted the power tender, and a little worse became the
tossing in that rolling sea. All the members of the party were in
drenched clothing by this time. The water came aboard faster under this
burst of speed; the two seamen began to bail it out.

"If I ever get out of this boat alive, large yachts will be small enough
for me in the future," Mr. Jephson told himself, nervously.

Tom Halstead was paying no heed to the incoming water. That was Joe's
affair, since Joe Dawson was handling the craft.

"Pass the word to Jed to watch for signals from me," whispered Tom
Halstead, tensely, a few minutes later.

"Then you think----" began the district attorney's assistant eagerly.

"Pass the word for me, please," Tom broke in.

In the gray fog ahead some craft was moving by steam power. Those in the
launch could now hear the regular thump-thump, soft though it was, of
machinery ahead.

Yet, to most of the silent watchers it came as something of a shock
when, out of the mist ahead, there suddenly loomed, indistinctly, the
stern of a hull.

Away to starboard sounded the deep whistle of the big steamship, while
over to port the bell of that sailing vessel tolled. The noise enabled
Halstead to creep in more closely with less dread of being discovered
too soon.

A moment's breathlessness, then "Victor--San Francisco" stood out boldly
before the eyes of the people in the launch as that boat shot in by the
yacht's stern.

They were taking grave chances, now, of being swamped at the very door
of success. None knew this better than Tom Halstead and Joe Dawson as
they jointly manoeuvred to run the tender up stealthily, while Jed
Prentiss, trembling inwardly, kept his hand on the lever, ready to obey
the slightest signal for speed.

Then, swiftly, Tom Halstead, a rifle strapped over his back, rose in the
bow. In one hand he held a line to the other end of which was attached a
grappling hook.

With a practiced eye and hand he measured the distance, poising the coil
for a throw. Just as the tender stole in closer he made the throw.

All hands watched breathlessly for a second or two. Then, as straight
and true as a well-aimed bullet, the grappling hook fell and caught at
the "Victor's" stern rail.

Not an instant did the young motor boat skipper lose. There was no time
to inquire whether someone else wanted to go first. Tom Halstead seized
the tautening line with both hands, and began to climb as only a sailor
_can_ go up a rope.

His head quickly appeared above the steam yacht's stern rail. Tom
Halstead slipped onto the deck just in time to see two men walking
slowly aft. One of them was in uniform--perhaps he was the captain of
the steam yacht. But the other, in civilian dress, the young motor yacht
captain knew instantly from the description of him which he had heard.

"Frank Rollings, the absconding cashier!" flashed through Tom's mind.




CHAPTER XXIII

ROLLINGS'S LAST RUSE


Both approaching men were regarding the deck, talking in earnest tones
as they came astern.

"If we should pass out of this fog," Rollings was saying, "and if the
'Panther' should prove to be close to us----"

Just at this point the speaker stopped. He panted, then staggered back,
clutching at his uniformed companion.

In almost the same instant both caught sight of lone Tom Halstead.

Though not quite alone, either, for Tom had succeeded in unlimbering his
rifle, and both strangers now found themselves staring down into the
muzzle.

"Don't stir, please!" mocked Tom Halstead, coolly.

"How in the world _did_ he get on board?" faltered Rollings, hoarsely,
his face ashen with terror.

The uniformed man with him saw the grappling hook resting over the stern
rail, and did not need to ask.

At this instant Tom Halstead felt himself being pushed from behind, and
took a step forward. Then Ted Dyer bounded onto deck beside him,
bringing another rifle into play.

"They're boarding us!" gasped Rollings, in the voice of a man who felt
himself dying from fright.

The uniformed man with him did not move; neither did he show any signs
of fear, though he was facing the business ends of two rifles.

Joe Dawson was on deck, now. Joe turned long enough to toss down a light
line. It came up again, carrying the hooks of a boarding-ladder. Joe
dropped this into place, then, with a quiet grin, turned to inspect the
scene on deck.

Suddenly the man in uniform turned and ran, defying possible shots.

"Turn out the whole crew!" he bawled. "A posse is coming on board. Stand
by to fight!"

"Shall I drop the fellow?" quivered Ted.

"No," came Halstead's quick answer. Then, as Frank Rollings summoned the
strength to wheel about as if to bolt, Halstead shouted, warningly:

"Rollings, if you try to move, you won't get three steps away!"

At this instant one of the United States deputy marshals came up over
the rail.

"Officer," called Tom, "there's the man you've cruised so far to
arrest."

Though he had a rifle strapped over his back, the marshal drew his
revolver as he ran forward.

"Frank Rollings, you're a United States prisoner. Put up your hands!"

With a moan that was half a scream, Rollings, instead, sank to the deck
in a huddled heap.

[Illustration: Rollings Sank to the Deck in a Huddled Heap.]

"A man with no more nerve than you have should not try to loot a bank,"
growled the officer, as he snapped handcuffs onto the wrists of the
seemingly palsied wretch.

The other deputy was on board, by now, and other members of the boarding
party were coming up fast. Mr. Jephson was among the foremost of them.

"Come forward to the bridge," he called, now taking charge. "We'll take
command of this whole craft. Deputy, make it your whole business to
prevent your prisoner from getting away. Hold on to him, but come
forward with us."

The same uniformed, bearded man appeared suddenly around the pilot house
as the party swept forward along the port side of the yacht. Rollings,
his knees doubling under him, had to be dragged.

The uniformed man suddenly raised a rifle, shouting:

"Stand by, men! We'll put a stop to this nonsense!"

"Drop that gun, or we'll open fire on you!" shouted Mr. Jephson,
sternly.

The boarding party moved swiftly forward. Behind the captain stood a
mate and four or five seamen, all looking irresolute. Of a sudden the
mate wheeled, throwing a rifle over the rail at starboard. The seamen
with him instantly followed his example.

Even the bearded captain had lowered the muzzle of his rifle. It is
easier to be brave on the side of the law than against it.

"Put that captain in irons," Mr. Jephson ordered the marshal who had no
prisoner to cumber him.

Sullenly, the captain of the "Victor" submitted to being handcuffed.

"All of the rest of the officers and crew muster up in the bow," called
Mr. Jephson. "Captain Halstead, I call upon you to take command of this
yacht for the present. The quartermaster of this craft may remain in the
wheel house if he'll take orders straight."

"Aye, aye, sir," the quartermaster called, briefly, through one of the
lowered windows of the pilot house.

Tom Halstead, still carrying his rifle and holding it ready, ran up to
the bridge.

Stepping over to the signaling apparatus, Halstead rang for speed enough
to furnish bare headway.

"Quartermaster," the new commander of the "Victor" called down through
the wheel house speaking-tube, "you'll keep to the same course you've
been following, and sound the fog whistle every thirty seconds."

"Captain," called Mr. Baldwin, a few moments later, "can you put one of
your party up there on the bridge? We have yet other duties to perform
here."

"Take the bridge, Mr. Prentiss," called Tom, for he understood instantly
what other work was likely to be on hand, and he knew that Joe Dawson
would want a hand in it.

Aft of the captain's quarters there was a main deck house. Into this
cabin Rollings and the captain of the steam yacht were taken. Mr.
Jephson was now talking to the two prisoners as solemnly as though
holding actual court.

"Do you think the 'Panther' will overtake us here, out on the high seas,
Captain?" questioned Mr. Baldwin, just as they entered this cabin.
"That is, will he recognize the 'Victor's' fog-whistle?"

"He'll make a good guess at it, I think," laughed Halstead. "I've just
directed Mr. Prentiss, in ten minutes more, to begin sounding whole
bunches of blasts in quick succession. Ab will be clever enough to guess
that it is our crowd celebrating a capture."

"Now, then, Rollings," declared Mr. Jephson, sternly, "it is time for
you to tell us where the money stolen from the Sheepmen's Bank is hidden
aboard this craft?"

"You won't find five hundred dollars on board," replied the cashier,
with a ghastly smile.

"My man, it may save you some years on the sentence that is coming to
you if you tell us promptly where to find the stolen money," warned the
United States assistant district attorney, sternly.

"I've said all I'm going to say," returned Rollings, sullenly.

"Captain Blake," asked Jephson, turning toward the bearded one, "you
also have much to answer for in the courts. Do you desire to win any
leniency by telling us, now, what you can?"

"All I've anything to do with here," retorted Captain Blake, "is the
running of this yacht. That work you've taken from me. So I've nothing
to do, and nothing to say."

Mr. Jephson, however, continued to question first one prisoner, then the
other, though in vain, until Mr. Baldwin broke in:

"Jephson, you can't make these fellows talk. They're afraid they'd only
run their necks further into the noose of the law. Besides, this rascal,
Rollings, hopes that, if you can't find the money, he'll win complete
pardon in the matter by restoring most of it later on. It'll save a good
deal of time, I imagine, if you place both these fellows under close
guard by one of your deputies, then lead us in a search through this
craft."

By this time Jed Prentiss, following orders, had begun to turn loose on
the fog-horn, sounding it so rapidly that Ab Perkins, somewhere behind
in the mist with the "Panther," must be able to guess what had happened.

One of the deputies now guarded Rollings and Captain Blake, while the
other had gone below to the engine room. There the engineer's crew had
agreed to serve faithfully under the new command, but the deputy was
there to see to it that they didn't change their minds. Quartermaster
Bickson and one of his seamen had driven the crew of the "Victor" to the
forecastle, and mounted guard over them.

The searchers, comprising Mr. Jephson, Mr. Baldwin and the latter's
captain, Halstead, were joined by Mr. Ross, Joe Dawson and Ted Dyer.

"There are enough of us here," laughed Mr. Baldwin, "to turn this craft
inside out in another half hour."

First of all, Frank Rollings's own quarters were searched, as a matter
of course. It had been learned, since coming aboard, that the absconding
cashier was now the owner of the "Victor," having bought her secretly
three days before his flight.

There was no safe in the owner's cabin. The desk stood wide-open, with
hardly a scrap of paper in it. The mattress was yanked from the bed,
ripped and thoroughly searched, but not a trace of the stolen money was
found. The pillows were served in the same fashion, with no better
results. Other nooks and corners of the cabin were explored, without
success. Nor were any better results achieved in the captain's cabin.

Cabin, dining room and state-rooms below were explored. By this time the
searchers had broken up into smaller parties. The more they searched the
more dispirited did the hunters become.

"We're not going to find the missing money with ease," announced Mr.
Jephson, when he had rounded up all his searching force on deck.

"We've looked in about every possible place except the forecastle, the
water butts and the coal bunkers," declared Jason Ross, disgustedly.

"The money isn't likely to be in any of those places," declared Mr.
Jephson, shaking his head. "Hullo, what's that racket?"

Off in the fog a horn was sounding frantically.

Tom Halstead laughed.

"You ought to know that tune, Mr. Jephson. You've heard it days enough.
That's the 'Panther' coming up with us, with Ab Perkins in command. He
understood our signal, as I thought he would. He'll be hailing us within
two minutes."

"But that won't be finding the money," broke in Joseph Baldwin,
impatiently.

"Nor do I believe we're going to find it--not immediately, anyway,"
answered Mr. Jephson. "This boat doesn't seem to be full of hiding
places, and I believe we have done all the searching we can do out here
at sea. We shall have to run the 'Victor' in at anchorage at San
Francisco, then put aboard a force of officers under experienced
detectives, and leave the search to them."

"Confound it," growled Jason Ross, "I know, as well as I know I'm
standing here, that there are three million dollars in actual cash
somewhere within a hundred feet of us. It makes me almost frantic to
think that we can't put our hands right on it."

"Ahoy, there!" roared a voice off in the fog.

Though the other craft was invisible, and though the voice came through
a megaphone, the hearers knew it was Ab Perkins's voice. Jed snatched up
a megaphone to shout back:

"Ahoy, 'Panther'!"

"Ahoy! Then you've found the 'Victor'?"

"Aye, and captured her."

"Did you find Rollings!"

"He's a prisoner, under close guard."

"And the money?"

"That's what we all want to know," Jed admitted, sadly.

"You can't find it?"

"Not even a dollar bill!"

There was a pause, during which those on board the steam yacht knew that
their friends on the motor yacht were discussing this chilling news.

"What are Captain Halstead's orders?" shouted Ab, finally.

Jed bent over the bridge rail to talk with Captain Tom, then answered:

"Keep about abreast of us, and a quarter of a mile off. Proceed with
us, straight for the Golden Gate. Keep your fog-horn sounding at
intervals of one minute, or at such other intervals as you may hear us
sounding. Three sharp blasts of the whistle will mean for you to stand
by to find out what we're doing in the fog."

"Aye, aye," answered Ab Perkins. "Is that all?"

"That's all, Mr. Perkins."

The "Victor" now proceeded on her way to the home port at about eight
miles an hour. Though no one on board could see the "Panther," the sound
of the latter's fog-horn was always with them.

"The prisoner, Rollings, wants to see you, Mr. Jephson," called the
deputy marshal from the deck-house cabin.

Jephson went back.

"Well, Rollings, have you come to your senses? Are you going to tell us
where the missing money is?" demanded the assistant district attorney.

"I know nothing about any missing money," replied the bank cashier,
doggedly. "See here, man, what I want to ask is: Do you intend to
torture me needlessly?"

"No; what do you want?"

"Let me go to my own cabin, and let me have these handcuffs off,"
pleaded the prisoner. "I need rest; I'm nearly a wreck."

"I can let you go to your cabin, and even remove the handcuffs," agreed
Mr. Jephson. "But I'll have to place a guard in there with you.

"All right, then," sighed the prisoner.

He was taken to his own cabin, the handcuffs removed, and the cashier
threw himself upon his bed, while the deputy marshal took a seat where
he could watch his man.

Captain Blake begged a similar privilege, which was refused. He was made
to go out on deck where he could be watched by all hands.

For half an hour Rollings lay on the bed, his eyes closed, as though
asleep. Occasionally he twitched, or made some slight movement. That was
all. The deputy seated opposite began to find the situation a dull one.
At last the prisoner half sat up, to take off his shoes.

"My feet are burning," he complained, as he dropped the shoes at the
foot of the bed, then sank back on the pillow.

"You're nervous; that's why your feet trouble you," observed the deputy,
with a knowing smile.

Then Rollings began to breathe heavily; bye and bye two or three snores
escaped him. The deputy, finding it duller and duller, unintentionally
allowed his eyes to close. Instantly the cashier's own eyes opened a
trifle. At last, smiling cunningly, the cashier moved slightly, securing
one of his shoes. He poised it, aimed and threw. The heel of the shoe
struck the deputy on the head, causing him to drop forward out of the
chair and lie apparently senseless on the floor.

Suppressing a cry of exultation, Frank Rollings leaped from the bed.
There was now the light of mania in his eyes. This thief, disgraced,
about to be despoiled, and presently to be sent to prison for a long
term, preferred to die.

This he might have accomplished with the deputy's revolver, but that
would not enable him to carry out all of his purpose. On one wall of the
cabin stood a rack containing a water-bottle and two glasses.

Over to this rack stole the captured thief. He swung the rack to one
side, then pressed a certain nail in the wood-work there. Instantly a
door in the wall swung open.

Rollings's eyes eagerly peered into the recess thus laid bare. Then,
with a nearly inarticulate cry of joy, he drew out a small though
heavy-looking iron box.

"Neither me nor the money shall they have!" uttered the wretch, in
insane joy.

With a last look at the still unconscious deputy, Frank Rollings threw
his cabin door open.

As he sprang to the deck three or four watchers saw him.

"Look out! There's the prisoner trying to escape!" shouted Joseph
Baldwin.

There was not time for anyone to reach Rollings ere that crafty,
unbalanced wretch, clutching desperately at the iron box, bounded to the
rail, stood there tottering for an instant, and then leaped far out into
the water.

It was Tom Halstead who first saw the iron box and comprehended the
meaning of the scene.

"There he goes!" yelled Halstead. "And the box with the three millions
in it will sink like a stone!"




CHAPTER XXIV

CONCLUSION


Never slow to act, Captain Tom darted aft, intent on leaping overboard
also.

Ted Dyer, however, chanced to be standing close to the stern. Ted saw
Rollings when the latter first leaped to the rail.

As quickly as it flashed upon Dyer what was happening, the San
Francisco boy scrambled to the rail. Almost at the instant that Rollings
jumped Ted's own feet left the rail. The two struck the water within
thirty feet of each other.

Nothing but the slow speed of the steam yacht, perhaps, saved both from
being dragged under by the force of suction. In a moment or two the pair
were left astern.

Feeling the shock of the cold water, Rollings's first instinctive act
was to try to keep himself afloat. Curiously, he would not, at first,
let go of the iron box, which, with its contents, weighed many pounds.

Now, over the top of a rolling wave Ted Dyer's head appeared. All this
had taken place in a few seconds.

"You want to catch me--you want the money!" sputtered Rollings,
expelling a spray of water from his mouth. "You shall do neither!"

Clutching tightly at the box as an aid to his own drowning, Frank
Rollings let himself go beneath the surface.

Promptly Ted went down after him, swimming straight and lustily.

Another figure sprang forward and downward, shark-like, through the
water. This was Tom Halstead, who, with his stoutest strokes, had just
reached the scene.

Between them Tom and Ted succeeded in seizing the box. By a common
impulse, for they could not talk, they forced it from Rollings, rising
to the surface.

"Blub-bub-bub--whew!"

Rollings, rising to the surface, made that noise as he fought for
breath. The cashier, an excellent swimmer, saw the two boys, a dozen
feet away, swimming and holding up the box.

"Neither me nor the money shall you have!" he roared, striking out at a
strong overhand swimming gait. He was almost upon them like a flash.

But there was another there, too. Joe Dawson had also leaped over from
the rail of the motor yacht. Joe got along just in time to swim between
Rollings and the two boys who were doing their best to keep up and hold
the iron box, too.

"Back for yours! Go away back and float!" cried Joe, pushing one of his
fighting hands against the cashier's face.

"I'll take _you_ down, then, or the box!" screamed Rollings.

"Oh, all right, then. Take me," mocked Joe. "I'm used to it."

Furiously the pair fought in that rolling sea. Joe devoted every
energy, first of all, to keeping the cashier from winding his arms
around him.

Presently Rollings gave up that effort, trying to dodge around Joe and
get at the other pair, who, swimming slowly, were at the same time
managing to keep that precious iron box afloat. This latter task, easy
at first, soon became difficult. As the minutes passed the box became
more and more of a burden, until it threatened to drag both swimmers
under. Yet they hung to it manfully.

Up on the bridge of the "Victor" Jed Prentiss had his own hard task to
perform.

Almost at the outset the swimmers had vanished in the fog astern. Jed
Prentiss instantly gave orders for the steam yacht to stop and reverse
the screw. At the same time he ordered the "Victor" to go around
hard-a-port. Even this circle had to be one of large diameter.

"No hails down there on the deck!" rang Jed's voice, sternly. "No
confusion of calls. Let me do all the hailing."

Megaphone in hand, young Prentiss stood at the port bridge rail.

"Ahoy!" he roared, through the megaphone.

Again and again he repeated the call. At last he thought he heard an
answer out of the deeps.

"Louder!" he roared. "Give us your position."

Suddenly, some sixty feet off the rail, Jed just made out the heads of
Joe Dawson and Frank Boilings.

The cashier was floating, now, making no resistance, for Joe had struck
him a blow across the head with his clenched fist. Rollings, stunned,
floated unresistingly, supported by Dawson.

"We'll have a boat to you in a jiffy!" shouted Jed, while Bickson threw
a life preserver with almost perfect aim.

Now, the "Victor," whose speed had been slowing down, was stopped.

Joe and his charge had drifted just out of sight, but a boat was quickly
lowered, under command of Bickson, and reached the pair, after hailing.

"Where's the captain?" demanded the quartermaster, as Joe and Rollings
were hauled in.

"Hail 'em. They're close at hand," Joe replied.

The first hail brought an answer. In a few moments more the iron box was
carefully brought over the side into the small boat. Finally Tom and Ted
nimbly joined the others.

"Get back to the yacht as quickly as you can. Rollings may come to, and,
fighting in a small boat like this, he could make it unsafe--for the
money," Captain Tom Halstead added, with a wan grin.

Little time passed before strong hands bore the iron box up over the
side of the "Victor." Then Frank Rollings, just beginning hazily to come
to, was carried up. This time he was handcuffed, to remain so until San
Francisco should be reached.

It was an anxious conference that gathered in the main cabin as
Assistant District Attorney Jephson proceeded to force the iron box that
had come within a hair's breadth of going to the bottom of the ocean.
The three boys who had gone overboard after it stood by in their
dripping garments.

As the lid of the sheet-iron box went up, a subdued cheer arose. This
increased in volume to a din as Mr. Jephson swiftly tore the paper
wrappings from one of the packages that he had lifted out. The first
tightly-packed bale of crisp, new thousand-dollar bills was in view.

"All of the stolen money--the whole three million dollars--appears to be
here," announced Mr. Jephson, presently, as he began placing the bales
back in the iron box, which, now that it was open, proved not to be as
thick or solid as it looked when closed.

"Then I'm off to where I can get dry and warm," muttered Tom Halstead.
"Come along, fellows."

It was all over but making the anchorage at San Francisco. There was a
somewhat long, though uneventful cruise, through fog that lasted to the
end. With the "Panther's" crew divided up between two boats, the work
was hard, indeed. It was a welcome hour to all when anchorage was
finally made not far from the foot of Market Street, San Francisco.

Frank Rollings was afterwards tried, convicted, and sentenced to twenty
years' confinement, which he is now serving.

Captain Blake was convicted of firing upon the "Panther," of running
without lights or signals, and of attempting to resist United States
officers. He was sent to prison for twelve years. Blake confessed that
the idea in turning back on the course was to elude the "Panther," and
then seek a lonely point on the coast of Mexico for landing.

Nor did Cragthorpe escape, his sentence being ten years for the part he
had played. Yet, before he was sent away, this wretch gave the evidence
which cleared Robert Gentry of the crime of which the latter stood
accused. Young Gentry was released, exonerated, and Rose Gentry, whom
Tom Halstead had briefly befriended on the Overland Mail at Oakland,
wedded her own heart's choice, the broad-shouldered young man who had
met her at the San Francisco ferry mole.

Cragthorpe, as it was afterwards learned, had been serving Rollings for
some time, and Cragthorpe it was who, having made the acquaintance of
Gaston Giddings, lured the latter into the opium dens of Chinatown. Had
Cragthorpe succeeded in wedding Rose Gentry--and her fortune--he might
have discarded Rollings. As it was, he participated deeply in Rollings's
crimes, and had absconded from San Francisco with him on board the
"Victor" as a fighting man and trusted agent.

Gaston Giddings has been broken of the fearful curse of the opium habit,
but he is no longer president of the Sheepmen's Bank. He is naturally
too weak-willed for prominent service in the financial world.

Ted Dyer, you may be sure, became a member of the Motor Boat Club, going
into its engineer squad. Ted's worthless, heartless uncle was arrested
on his return to San Francisco, and a new guardian, who was appointed
for Ted, secured the young man's full inheritance back out of the
property of the uncle.

All of our young Motor Boat Club friends remained aboard the "Panther"
for the balance of the winter and well into the spring. They had many
enjoyable cruises, though none as exciting as the one just closed.

The reward that the directors of the Sheepmen's Bank voted to all hands
for the recovery of the three million dollars, made the bank accounts of
these sturdy, brave young navigators swell considerably. Not, however,
that any of Captain Tom Halstead's comrades needed money, for they have
that which is worth far more--the power that strong hands, brave hearts
and fearless, truthful eyes bring to any human being when rightly
employed.

It is possible, even very likely, that we may yet again meet up with
these splendid young fellows, who stand for the new type in American
power of the seas in the twentieth century.

In the meantime, let us hail Tom Halstead, Joe Dawson, and all the other
resourceful, capable and brave lads with their own famous club yell:

"_M. B. C. K.! M. B. C. K.! Motor Boat Club._ WOW!"


[THE END.]







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