"At three o'clock in the afternoon a low hissing was heard in the caisson, and with a quick flicker the candles first burned low, then flamed anew, the color of the flame a lambent green. For a few moments none of the men realized what had happened, and stood there, stupefied and staggering. An acrid burning sensation gripped the men by the throat and they were stricken blind. Suffering terrible agony, every man managed to climb the long ladder, each step of which seemed an eternity, and entered the air-lock. Ten hale and hearty men had entered the caisson, ten wrecks emerged, the flesh of the inside of their throats raw and their eyes swollen and reddened beyond recognition.

"A telegram was sent to the Lighthouse Inspector of the district, and the doctor attached to the building party sent for medical help. Next day the inspector came down, with assistants, and accompanied by another physician and a nurse. They found that the caisson workers had tapped a vein of sulphuretted hydrogen, probably due to the decay of some deep beds of vegetable matter, such as sea-weed. One of the assistants to the inspector, who was a clever young scientist, suggested that after a day or two it might be possible to enter the caisson again, but that it would be necessary to proceed with extreme care, as another pocket might be tapped, with a recurrence of the danger.

"Although before them, in their bunks, lay their ten comrades, when Father called for volunteers, fourteen men came forward. They knew, they could not help knowing, that they were not only going into possible danger, but into absolutely certain torture. Their comrades lay there—it was not certain that some of them would ever see again, it was not certain that some of them would recover. Absolute agony of the most horrible kind awaited them. But the lighthouse had to be built. It is easy to make a problematic sacrifice of life, it is hard to walk without shrinking into a chamber of awful pain. From this ordeal these fourteen men did not shrink.

"They were headed by Griffin, the old caisson foreman, who had a record of having withstood the greatest pressure possible, a pressure of eight and a half atmospheres. They went down at nine o'clock in the morning. The pain must have been fearful, but they stuck to it to the end. One man went through the air-lock and got food, returning to his comrades. He had been down four hours, and his condition was so terrible that the doctor ordered him to stay out of the lock.

"'I'm not that breed,' he said in a horrid whisper over his raw and swollen throat, 'I'm goin' to see it through.'

"'Better keep away, my man,' the doctor said; 'I won't answer for what will happen to you if you go back.'

"'I ain't no quitter,' was the answer. 'I'm a Boston wharf-rat, I am, an' I stays wid de gang!'

"That doesn't sound like a heroic speech, Eric," said the first lieutenant, "but it looks to me like it's the real stuff."

"It surely is," agreed the boy.

"He went back with a bite of food for all the men below and they worked on steadily. By the way the stuff came up the pipe they must have worked like demons. Every ear was keen for sign or sound of trouble, but the afternoon wore on, the sand came hurtling from the pipe and the caisson sank lower and lower.

"'How much further?' I asked Father, just as the evening was beginning to draw in.

"'Not more than an inch or two,' he said triumphantly. 'I tell you what, I envy those fellows down there. They're real men. I doubt if I'd have the nerve to do it myself.'

"Suddenly there came a muffled roar below.

"'There it is!' cried the young scientist, and he made a bolt for the air-lock.

"Father was not more than a second behind him, waiting only to make sure of the point to which the structure had been sunk. The caisson was within three quarters of an inch of the required depth!

"Meantime, down in the caisson, the feared disaster had occurred. The gas had come up with a rush, almost like an explosion. In the green glare of the candles, burning sulphur and hydrogen flames instead of oxygen, the men were staggering, here and there, unable to find the way out.

"Griffin took charge. It was his hand that led every man to the ladder. Nine men crawled up.

"As the minutes passed, the anxiety at the head of the shaft grew intense. No more workers came. Fourteen men had gone down; only nine had returned. There were then five men still unaccounted for. First one rope was dropped without result, then another. This time some groping hand—it proved to be Griffin's—encountered the rope, and found a sufferer. He tied the rope around his comrade and the man was hoisted up. Four times this was done, but the fourth was a huge, powerful Irishman, called Howard. When he was pulled up, entirely unconscious, he stuck fast in the hole and could not be pulled out.

"By an exertion of self-control and endurance, that no one ever has been able to understand, Griffin climbed that ladder into the top where the gases were at their foulest. Though all his comrades had been too far gone for several minutes to move, even to help themselves, he succeeded in pushing and pulling Howard's unconscious body until it passed through the hole.

"A hand was stretched down to reach Griffin and bring him to life and safety, when the overwrought system gave way. He loosed his handhold on the ladder and fell.

"A groan went up from those above. It was a thirty-foot fall. Had the rescuer, the hero, been killed? Scarcely could a man fall in such a way in an air shaft and live.

"There was no need to ask for volunteers. Two men, one of those who had been in the caisson all day and was one of the first rescued, and another, who had not gone down at all, leaped for the ladder. The doctor caught the first by the shoulder and thrust him aside. The other descended a few feet and then came up again, to fall unconscious at the edge of the shaft. Another sprang forward, and yet another, clamoring for leave to go down.

"Just at that moment there was a faint tug at the rope, the first rope, which had been left hanging down in the pit. Hardly expecting anything, one of the men started to haul it in.

"'Come here, boys,' he cried; 'Griffin's on!'

"With their hearts in their mouths, the men hauled in, and the limp and apparently lifeless body of the foreman came to the surface. How he had ever managed to fasten the rope around him was a mystery. His hands, with the flesh rubbed from them to the bone, showed that when he had lost hold on the ladder he had still retained presence of mind enough to grasp the sides and had slid to the foot. There he had found the end of the rope hanging and in a last flicker of understanding had tied it around himself."

"Did he get all right again?" asked Eric eagerly.

"He was blind for six weeks, but finally recovered. Two of the men were seven months in hospital, and one became permanently insane. Four got 'bends,' that fearful disease that strikes caisson-workers, but happily, none died from the terrible experience."

"And the three quarters of an inch still lacking?"

"The cylinder settled just that much and no one ever had to go down the shaft again. The caisson was filled with concrete and the air-shaft sealed."

"And that was the final effort of the sea?"

"Not quite. A month later a storm came up and drove the steamer against the cylinder with such force that eight of the plates—though an inch thick and braced with rigid solidity—were crushed in. Father had taken precautions against such an accident by having had a number of extra plates made, and the lighthouse was finished and turned over to the government three days before the expiration of the time required by the contract. It was a case of man's struggle with the elements, and man won."

"But the honors are with the caisson-men," suggested Eric.

"Yes," agreed the other, "the hero of Smith's Point lighthouse is Griffin, the caisson-man."

CHAPTER X
ADRIFT ON A DERELICT

"You're a hopeful prophet, you are," retorted his chum. "I'm not aching to feed the fishes yet awhile."

"Well, we might bump, just the same. Then the Seminole would have a chance to hunt us as a derelict, and Van Sluyd—he's on her now, you know—would have the time of his young life."

"I don't think you need to worry about sending a message to Van Sluyd yet awhile," the other answered; "after all, the Miami is still above water."

"She is, once in a while," Eric commented, as the cutter "took it green" and the water came flooding down the deck. Homer, seeing the wave coming, scuttled for the companion hatchway and went below.

As Eric had said, it seemed difficult to try to locate a derelict in a half a gale of wind. Yet, so dangerous to navigation was the floating wreck which the Miami was seeking, that the risk was worth taking. When he remembered what the lieutenant of the Bear had said to him once about derelicts, he realized the terrible importance of the quest.

"Every year," he had said, "hundreds of vessels, both sail and steam, leave their home ports for foreign shores, or start from foreign ports for home. The day of the expected arrival comes and goes, two or three days drag by, and still there is no sign of them. Anxious relatives and friends besiege the shipping offices daily for word, and no word comes. When suspense has passed into assured disaster, the underwriters inscribe against that vessel's name the one word, "Missing!" An average of a vessel a day is the toll of the Seven Seas upon the world's shipping. And the principal cause is—derelicts."

As the Miami plowed her way through the water, dipping her nose into the waves raised by a stiff southeaster, Eric thought of the suddenness of the catastrophe if the Coast Guard cutter, in the darkness, should strike one of those abandoned hulks, floating almost level with the water, and scarcely visible from the vessel's decks.

It was a night calculated to shake the nerve of a youngster who knew that this deadly menace to the life of every one on board might be suddenly lurking in the trough of any one of the waves, that came shouldering their vengeful resentment against the sturdy little vessel that defied them. They had nourished their grudge against Man, the violator of their ancient domain, over a thousand leagues of sea, for the Miami was a hundred miles to the eastward of the Lookout Shoal, though westward of the limit of the Gulf Stream. The billows thus had a stretch of unbroken ocean from the frozen continent of Antarctica. Of this they made full use, and staunch little vessel though the cutter was, she was making bad weather of it.

The fog was dense and the gale whipped the spray into a blinding sheet. This was varied by squalls of sleet and hail and for three hours a blinding snowstorm added to the general discomfort. Less than thirty miles to the eastward lay the Gulf Stream, where the water was over 70° and where no snow could ever be, but that gave the crew of the Miami little comfort.

It was not a coast on which vigilance could be relaxed, and Eric was glad when the search for the Madeleine Cooney was abandoned for a while. It was time, too, for the Miami had all she could do to take care of herself. The Coast Guard vessel was midway between the Frying Pan and the Lookout Shoals, two of the most famous danger points on the Atlantic coast, and the wind had risen to a living gale. The first lieutenant was on the bridge a great deal of the time. For forty-eight hours there had been absolutely no sign of the sun or any star. There was no way to determine the vessel's position except by dead reckoning—always a dangerous thing to trust when there is much leeway and many cross-currents. The lead was going steadily, heaved every few minutes, while the Miami crept along cautiously under the guidance of that ancient safeguard of the mariner.

It was the evening of the second day after the worst part of the blow started that the Miami dropped her anchor in eight fathoms of water off the North Carolina coast. Steam was kept full up, although the position of the cutter in the lee of a point of land precluded the immediate possibility of her dragging her anchors.

Almost exactly at noon the next day, the wireless operator intercepted a message from the Norfolk Navy Yard that the steamer Northwestern was anchored 55 miles southwest of Lookout Shoals, with her propeller gone. As this position, pricked on the chart, showed the steamer to be in a dangerous and exposed position, and as, moreover, she was a menace to navigation, being full in the path of vessels, the Miami got under way immediately.

As soon as the Coast Guard cutter reached the bar, a snowstorm, which seemed to have been waiting around, as if for that very purpose, struck down upon the water and the Miami clawed out over the bar in a blinding smother. There was a nasty, choppy sea, the wind having hauled round to the westward, though it was not as violent as the day before. At two o'clock in the afternoon the radio operator received a storm warning for a nor'wester.

A passing vessel spoke the Miami by wireless and stated that she had sighted the Northwestern, but gave her position twelve miles to the westward of the point first quoted. It was evening before the steamer in distress was sighted. The Coast Guard cutter ran up under her stern, and asked if she could hold on for a while. The captain of the steamer answered that he could.

"I'm all right, so far," he shouted back through the megaphone; "it's that blithering bally-hoo of a propeller!"

His language was picturesque, fluent, and convincing, and everybody on board the cutter grinned while the old sea-dog expressed a highly colored opinion of the whole tribe of ship-fitters, machinists, and mechanics generally. After ten minutes of descriptive shouting, during which he never repeated an adjective twice, he wound up by saying that he considered "an engine-room an insult to a seaman's intelligence," and said that "he'd like to pave the bottom of the sea with the skeletons of engineers diving a thousand fathom for his lost propeller!" Following which, he seemed to feel better, and discussed what was best to be done with his ship.

The situation was dangerous. The sea was far too rough for the lowering of a boat, no matter how well handled. The gale was such that it was unsafe for the Miami to anchor. In the case of the Northwestern, anchoring had been her last resort. There was fully twenty fathom of water, and fortunately the steamer's anchors held. The captain had put ninety fathom of chain on each anchor, and though the weight pulled her nose into the water, so that she snubbed into the sea like a ram trying to butt down a wall, still everything held. The Miami stood by all night, keeping close to the imperilled vessel.

Next morning the conditions were no better. The advantages of daylight were more than overcome by the increased fury of the sea. The Northwestern lay in an angry rip, for the gale had come on in full force and was countering the long rollers from the southeast that had been blown up by the storm of two days before, the same which had driven the Miami to shelter and which had crippled the big steamer, twice the size of the revenue cutter. The Miami stayed near by, hove to, waiting for the storm to abate. But of this there were no signs. The force of the gale increased steadily through the day.

It was then nearly half past four o'clock, and fortunately there was just a slight lull in the storm. Swinging across the Northwestern's bow the gunner shot a line into her rigging. The steamer's crew were on the alert—they had good men aboard that craft—and tailed on to the line. The Miami forged ahead and dropped anchor with sixty fathom of chain on the disabled steamer's starboard bow.

The Northwestern had got enough steam up for the donkey engine. It did not take long for them to get first a strong rope and then the big hawser aboard, and make fast. As soon as the hawser was aboard, the Northwestern began to heave up to her anchors. Closely watching, the Miami hove up to hers, ready to break at the same instant that the steamer broke free. The instant the larger vessel's anchor raised, the Miami swung hers free, to avoid fouling, for in so fierce a gale the merest touch would have been fatal to one or both vessels.

The Northwestern swung down broadside to the sea and stood a fair chance of being swamped. The Miami, however, going ahead at full speed, just managed to bring the strain on the tow-line in time to swing the steamer clear into the crest of a huge comber which struck her bow harmlessly instead of hurling its tons of water on her unprotected deck.

The strain on the Miami was extremely great, but the hawser held well, although the Northwestern yawed frightfully. She would run up on the line, and the sea would strike her bow, throwing her off, tightening the tow-line suddenly with a jolt that shook the Miami from stem to stern. It was an awful night's tow, but just at eight bells of the middle watch the cutter and the rescued vessel passed the Frying Pan Shoals Lightship, and as soon as they got within lee of the shoals they met a smoother sea. At nine o'clock the next morning the Northwestern was safe and sound in a good anchorage in Southport at the mouth of the Cape Fear River.

When Eric came on deck again, he found the Miami on her way south again on the search for the derelict, Madeleine Cooney, this time reported by the United States Army mine planter, Schofield. Two days afterwards in latitude 27° 52' N., longitude 84° 34' W., a vessel was found in 65 fathom of water, with her anchor down, burned to her main deck and on fire aft. She was dismasted and her bowsprit had gone. Eric was sent in charge of one of the boats to run a line. The sea was comparatively smooth, so that the Miami made fast alongside her stern and put two lines of hose aboard. The cutter's heavy pumps were attached and in fifteen minutes the fire was out.

The anchor chain was fouled, so the first lieutenant gave orders that the cable should be slipped. Some of the cutter's men worked around the masts floating alongside and the entangled rigging, and cut away enough of the rigging to make a heavy wire bridle which was passed through the hawse-pipes in the burned vessel's bow. This was necessary as none of the upper works of the ship remained to which a tow-line could be attached. To this bridle was bent the ten-inch hawser of the Miami, and the derelict was towed into Tampa Bay.

On the way, however, rough weather came up and the masts and spars broke adrift. As they were right in the path of traffic, the Miami went back to destroy these. The spars were separated and allowed to drift, as the set of the current would soon take them ashore out of harm's way. This got rid of everything except the lower part of the mainmast. As this heavy spar itself might be the means of sinking a vessel if left adrift, tossing on the waves, the Miami parbuckled the big timber on board, chopped it into small pieces—none of them large enough to do a vessel any damage—and set them afloat.

The weather continued squally as the Miami ran down the coast, the tag end of the gale blowing itself to tatters on the stretch from Cape Hatteras to Cape Fear. Little though Eric realized it then, before the year was out, he was destined to know that coast from painful experience and every curl of those hungry breakers was going to be imprinted on his brain.

The Miami was off Cape Canaveral when a radio message was received that there was a derelict bark two hundred miles to the westward of Abaco Island, the northernmost of the Bahamas. In less than three minutes after the receipt of the message over the wireless, the captain had been advised, the course changed and the Miami was headed for the derelict at full speed. She had been running for a little over an hour when a second radio was received from a land station, relayed from a steamer.

"Schooner Marie-Rose reports passing water-logged vessel 23° 40' N. and 73° 10' W. Signs of distress observed. Marie-Rose, crippled and running before gale, could not heave to. Not known whether any one on board."

Then the wireless began to be busy. Within twenty minutes the same message was received from Washington, from the station at Beaufort, N. C., from Fernandina, Fla., from Key West and from Nassau. Then by relays from vessels on the coast, from the Seneca, the Coast Guard's great derelict destroyer, far out on the Atlantic; from the Algonquin, stationed at Porto Rico; from the Onondaga patrolling the coast north of Cape Hatteras and from the Seminole in port at Arundel Cove undergoing repairs, came orders from the Coast Guard Headquarters. The Miami was instructed to proceed at once to the point indicated, to rescue survivors if such were to be found and to destroy the derelict which was floating into the trade route and was a menace to navigation. Meanwhile, the long harsh "buzz" of the answer sounded all over the ship from the wireless room as the operator answered the various calls with the information that the Miami was already proceeding under full speed.

"Van Sluyd will be sore," said Eric to Homer, as the message from the Seminole was received; "she'd be sent instead of us if she weren't in dock. When he hears that we're going on this chase instead of his own craft, he'll be green with envy."

"He'll get over that," said his friend; "he's under a good man. There's very little gets by the Seminole that is possible of achievement."

Dawn was breaking as the Miami neared the spot indicated by the wireless messages as the location of the derelict bark. Using this point as a center, the navigating officer of the Miami plotted a chart of the U-shaped course which would enable her to cruise and cover the greatest amount of space without doubling. At about four bells in the afternoon watch the speaking tube on the bridge whistled.

"Something that looks like a derelict, sir," came the message from the man in the crow's-nest, "bearing about a point and a half for'ard of the port beam."

The officer of the deck gave a sharp order to change the course and the Miami swung round. The captain was on the bridge at the time.

"Observed anything, Mr. Hamilton?" he queried.

"Lookout reports an object, now right ahead, sir," was the reply. He picked up the tube again.

"Can you see the derelict now?"

"Yes, sir," came the reply; "we're a-raisin' her fast."

"She must be nearly flush with the water," said the officer of the deck, handing the glass to the captain; "I don't see her yet."

In half an hour, however, there was no doubt that this was the derelict that had been reported by the Marie-Rose. As the Miami neared her it was evident that she was heavily water-logged. Her bow was deep under water, only her stern appearing above the surface. On the poop rail had been hung a shirt, the white gleam of which might have been the distress signal referred to in the message of the Marie-Rose. The Miami slowed up as she neared the derelict to survey the wreck. Suddenly there came an order,

"Clear away both cutters! Lively now, lads!"

The men sprang to stations at the word.

"Lower away together! Easy now! Let go all!"

And with the routine of clockwork two of the Miami's boats were in the water and off for the derelict. The sea was choppy but not high, and the water-logged bark lay so heavily that she scarcely moved. The waves came up and dashed over her almost like a rock. One of the second lieutenants, who was in charge of the large boat, was first to round the derelict. From the lee side, he pointed with his finger.

"There must be somebody aboard her," said Eric, rightly guessing the meaning of the gesture. Then, noting the manner in which the other boat kept away, he realized that the wreckage was on that side. Wrenching the tiller round, he called,

"Back starboard!"

The boat spun round like a top, sweeping right under the vessel's stern.

"Give way to starboard! Easy port!"

The boat slid up alongside the derelict as though coming to a landing place. The men trailed their oars, the bow oar grappled with a boat-hook and Eric leaped for the poop rail of the vessel, and swung himself aboard. The deck was pitched forward at an angle of 30 degrees, but evidently the vessel had floated in that condition for some time, for a sort of barricade had been made, with the right angle of the half-sunk cabin companion hatchway as a base, and on this three bodies were lying. A keg of water and a maggoty ham—the latter exposed to the full sunlight of the tropics—was all the food in sight.

Eric slid down the deck to this barricade. The first man seemed to be dead, the heart of the second was beating feebly, but the third, a white-haired old man, appeared only to be asleep, the deep sleep of exhaustion. When the boy put his hand on his shoulder, the old man opened his eyes wide.

"So you have come the third time," he said, in a queer far-away voice, "but it is too late."

Eric slipped his hand into his coat pocket and brought out a small phial of restorative he had provided just before leaving the cutter. He gave the survivor a few sips. The old man changed not a muscle, only repeated in the same dull and far-away voice,

"So you have come the third time, but it is too late!"

Perceiving that the sufferer regarded him as an apparition and that in his hallucinations born of exhaustion and exposure he must have believed he saw rescuers before, Eric picked the old man up bodily and, half crouching, half climbing on the sloping deck, carried him to the derelict's side. Two of the sailors climbed up and helped him lower the old man to the boat.

Meantime the other boat had made fast and the second lieutenant joined him. He was a man of considerable experience, and while Eric was quite proud of his knowledge and skill as a life-saver, he was amazed at the deft handling of his superior officer.

The boats raced back to the ship and the survivors were handed up to the Miami where the surgeon immediately took charge. All preparations had been made, meanwhile, for the placing of mines and Eric was told off in the boat under the second lieutenant to see to the placing of the charges.

This was work to which Eric was unaccustomed and he watched with considerable interest the gunner's handling of the mines. It was easy enough to place the charges in the upper works of the stern where they would be sure to blow that part of the ship to pieces, but so much of the forward portion of the hulk was under water that the problem there was more difficult. In order to make sure of the job, five mines were set and connected with each other by electric wiring. A long strand of insulated wire was then carried to the boat, over a hundred feet in length.

At a signal given him by the lieutenant, Eric pressed the button. There was a tremendous roar as a waterspout shot up from the surface of the sea. As though some vast leviathan had passed underneath the old bark and shouldered her out of the water, the long black hull heaved herself up slowly. She seemed to hang poised for a fraction of a second on the surface of the water as if, in her death agony, she had for a moment thought of her old life when, under press of sail, she flew bounding over the billows, defying the very elements which at last had worked her ruin. Only for a moment she hung there, then with a dull crash she broke her back. The bow plunged downward with a sullen plunge, but the stern still held poised. Then, quite suddenly, the air imprisoned in the hull broke free and slowly, almost, it seemed, with dignity, the remainder of the vessel sank forever beneath the surface of the waters.

It was the end of the Luckenback and somewhere at the bottom of the sea her distorted steel plating marks the spot where rest the nine members of her crew lost before the rescuing Coast Guard cutter hove in sight.

CHAPTER XI
THE WRECKERS OF THE SPANISH MAIN

"Certainly," his friend answered. "Don't you remember how the old bos'n of the Itasca used to tell us about the early days of the Revenue Cutter Service when chasing pirates was a regular part of its duties? Officially it is still, I suppose, but there aren't any more pirates to chase."

"What has put them all out of business?" Eric said thoughtfully. "I've often wondered."

"Steam, mainly," his friend replied, "that 'insult to a seaman's intelligence,' as our friend the fluent skipper of the Northwestern called it."

"But I don't see why," persisted Eric. "After all, in the days of sailing ships, the pirates only had sailing ships—and they weren't always such an awful lot faster. Why couldn't pirates to-day have steamships, just as fast in comparison to the steamers of to-day as their clippers were to the sailing ships of old? They'd get much bigger hauls. Why, one good hold-up of an Atlantic steamer would make a pirate crew rich for life!"

"You'd better take to the trade," suggested his companion.

"I'd sooner do the chasing," replied the boy; "it's much more fun, anyway, and I'd rather be on the right side, every time. But don't you think that there really would be a chance for a big Atlantic greyhound pirate?"

"I don't think so," the other answered meditatively. "For one thing, we'd have pirates if there was any such chance. After all, Eric, you've got to remember that a pirate was successful because of his own personality. They were a mighty forceful lot—Kidd, Blackbeard, Lolonnois, and all those early pirates. On a big steamer, the pirate captain wouldn't have the same sort of chance. There's too many in a crew, for one thing. Then he'd be practically at the mercy of his engineers and engine hands. In a mutiny, he'd be up against it for fair."

"But if a pirate captain could bluff a couple of mates and forty sailors in his crew, I don't see why he shouldn't he able to bluff a couple of engineers and fifty stokers," suggested Eric.

"Even supposing he did," said the other, "suppose he had every man on board terrorized, or so heavily bribed that they would obey him to the letter, still his troubles would have hardly begun. In the old days, as long as there was food and water aboard, a sailing ship could cruise around for months at a time. A steamer needs coal."

"She could take the coal from the bunkers of the ships she held up," suggested the boy.

"It would be a good deal more of a job than you reckon," the other answered. "She couldn't do it at all if there was any sea running, and even on a calm day, it's a tricky proposition. If you've ever seen a man-o'-war on a sea cruise trying to coal from a naval collier, that's built just for that very purpose, you'd get an idea how hard it is. Meantime, what would the crew and passengers of the liner be doing?"

"Putting in coal, or getting shot down if they resisted."

"You've a bloodthirsty turn of mind," his friend rejoined. "I know the idea, 'scuppers pouring blood,' and that sort of business, eh?"

"Sure," answered Eric.

"You're forgetting a lot of things," the other said. "An old time sailing-ship just had the one deck. When a boarding pirate crew had won the deck, they were masters of the ship. But a modern steamer is like a building with several floors, one on top of the other. A pirate crew which could put aboard a steamer as many men as the steamer itself carried, and still handle itself, would be a small army. What's more, on a modern steamship, with half a dozen stairways and the whole inside a labyrinth of rooms, the pirates would be ambushed like rats in a trap a dozen times over."

"Yes, there's something in that," the boy agreed.

"Then there's the wireless," continued Homer. "Supposing a pirate steamer hailed a craft. Long before the first boatload of men could board, or before the ships could have grappled, the wireless operator would send an 'S O S' call, with a description of the piratic vessel and the latitude and longitude. The pirate couldn't get coal aboard in less than twelve hours, and by that time half a dozen vessels would be steaming at full speed to the spot."

"What difference would that make?" said Eric. "If the pirate were armed with heavy guns, she could stand off a fleet of commercial vessels that didn't have any armament."

"Your imagination is working in great shape, Eric," his engineer friend replied. "It's a pity you don't think far enough ahead."

"How's that?"

"I suppose you'd have your pirate vessel chosen for speed?"

"Of course," the boy answered. "She'd have to be fast in order to make a getaway."

"Here's where you're forgetting your ship-building," his friend warned him. "Could she have speed if she were armed with heavy guns? Wouldn't she necessarily have to be partly the build of a man-o'-war, say a cruiser?"

"Perhaps she would," said the boy thoughtfully.

"And if she had the build of a cruiser, would she have the speed of an Atlantic greyhound?"

"That's true," admitted Eric, "she wouldn't. Still that wouldn't matter, if the only craft that could chase her was a craft without guns."

"Wouldn't it?" his friend queried. "Do you know how they chase wolves in some parts of Western Canada?"

"No."

"They use a couple of greyhounds and two or three heavy dogs, like bulldogs or Airedales or wolfhounds. The wolf can easily outrun the heavy dogs, but when it comes to real speed he isn't in it with a greyhound. The greyhounds overtake Mr. Wolf in less than no time, nip at him, worry him, anger him until he turns on them. They won't even try to fight and he hasn't a chance of catching them. Meantime, the heavy dogs, following up the scent, come pounding along the trail. The wolf sees them and lopes off again, the greyhounds after him. They badger and worry him again, and again he turns. By the time this has happened three or four times, the heavy dogs have caught up to their quarry, and the fight is on. Two or three minutes and it's all over, and there's one wolf the less to harry the flocks of sheep."

"Well?"

"That's just about what would happen to this pirate of yours. Suppose he did stop an Atlantic steamer, suppose he did board her successfully, suppose he got his coal bunkers full, suppose he carried a heap of treasure to his own vessel flying the Jolly Roger and got away with it. He'd have the other ships around, wouldn't he?"

"I suppose he would," Eric admitted.

"You can bet your last dollar he would. And their wireless would be working overtime, wouldn't it?"

"Of course."

"Piracy is a matter that every maritime nation is interested in. The newspapers of the world would have the story by wireless the next morning, the governments of the world would know almost as quickly. By noon the next day half a dozen warships would be steaming from different directions in search of the pirate, led as straight as a magnet to the pole by the radio information constantly being sent from the light passenger steamers that were pursuing. If the naval fleet included a destroyer with a thirty-knot speed, where would your pirate get off at?"