RUSHING aft, Jeff dropped into a seat beside the motor. In another instant he had swung the speed on with his left hand, while his right grasped one of the rudder ropes.
Chug-chug! With the speed beginning, Jeff turned the launch in the shortest possible circle, then headed toward the people in the water.
“Yell!” he shouted. “Voices often scare ’gators!”
The Florida men in the rowboat won with the first yell by a margin of a second or so. Then everyone joined in.
The two who bent at the oars of the rowboat were putting in all their strength at a rapid, strong pull. One of the others crouched in the bow of the little craft, waiting until he should dare to fire.
Two of the alligators had slowed up, as if waiting to see what menace to them was conveyed by the chorus of wild yells. Then one of them sank below the surface.
The ’gator nearest Tom Halstead kept straight on, coming slowly, jaws moving and eyes blinking, as though the great reptile were figuring out the chances of successful attack.
“You just look out for Miss Silsbee, Joe,” warned Tom. “I’ll keep off this big fellow if I have to shove an arm down his throat!”
Ida Silsbee was wholly conscious. A brave girl, she had the good sense to realize how much depended upon her keeping cool and quiet, allowing her rescuers free hand to do what they thought best.
Tom Halstead had brought out his sailor’s clasp knife, opening the blade. He now held this weapon in his right hand, ready to strike, no matter how uselessly, as a means of attracting the attention of the nearest alligator.
In the launch Henry Tremaine watched, with a horrible fascination, for the alligator that had dropped below the surface. If hunters’ tales were true that vanished alligator was likely to try to drag down one of the helpless three from underneath.
Tom would not swim away from a straight line between Ida and the oncoming alligator. He watched, unflinchingly, the approach of the dangerous foe, wondering whether he could strike hard enough with his knife to make the ’gator retreat.
All this had occupied only seconds.
Now, Jeff Randolph had a chance to show what he meant to do. He drove the launch straight for the big alligator. The changed position of the boat gave Tremaine a possible chance to shoot without hitting any of those in the water.
“Don’t fire!” warned Jeff, quickly. “Wait, suh.”
Knowing that the Florida boy understood the points of the game vastly better, Tremaine removed his finger from the trigger.
As the launch sped up, the alligator from which most was to be feared veered slightly.
Jeff Randolph, however, was watchful and ready. He slightly veered the launch from its first course, then, as he had intended, drove the bow of the craft straight against the ’gator’s broadside.
The force of the impact almost capsized the launch. His hand on the reversing gear, Jeff shot the launch back a few yards, swinging around.
This changed position gave Tremaine a chance to fire—not at the alligator the launch had just struck, but at the other visible one. His rifle spoke out instantly, just before a shot came from the rowboat.
By this time the alligators had all they could do to attend to their own safety. The creature that Jeff had struck with the bow of the launch had rolled partly over, recovered its balance, and then lashed its way to greater safety. At this one, too, Tremaine now fired, hitting, while Oliver Dixon followed it up with another bullet that registered.
Half standing, and seeing how the day was going, Jeff Randolph now steered toward Joe and Ida. In a twinkling Dixon reached out for the girl. Tremaine helped him to haul her into the boat. Joe Dawson pulled himself in, with slight help from Tremaine. Joe’s first move was to lean over the opposite gunwale, and aid Captain Tom Halstead into the boat.
“Yo’ can get one of the ’gators, suh,” reported Jeff, pointing. “He’s hurt, but floating.”
Henry Tremaine again raised his rifle, sighted and fired. A second shot from him finished the ’gator.
“Two! That’s good enough sport for one day,” declared the host. “Ida, child, we’ve got to get you into something drier if possible, or you’ll have pneumonia. Didn’t you ladies bring some sort of extra clothing?”
“Yes; we’ve some makeshifts in the way of clothes that will make the child drier and warmer,” replied Mrs. Tremaine.
“Then we’ll run in to shore, disappear under the trees, and let you get Ida into those clothes,” replied the host, noting that his ward was already beginning to shake.
The launch was ran to the nearest land, the rowboat following. As soon as both craft had been made fast the men-folks stepped out. Tom lifted a service-worn telescope bag from under a forward seat, remarking:
“Joe and I carry a few extra things with us, too.”
The Florida men led the way over the bogs, watchfully alert for rattlers or other dangerous snakes. Jeff encountered one young rattler, and killed it with a few well-directed blows of a stick. Out of sight of the boat, Tom and Joe quickly shed their dripping garments, rubbing down and putting on dry clothing.
After waiting a sufficient length of time, Henry Tremaine shouted to his wife, receiving answer that the men might return.
They found Ida Silsbee reclining comfortably at the stern of the boat, wrapped in an overcoat and tucked in with steamer rugs.
“I’m as warm as toast,” she declared. Then, gratefully:
“I hope you boys are as well off.”
“Oh, we are,” Joe nodded. “We’re used to going overboard, or standing in pouring rains. We never go far without a clothes kit.”
The Florida men now devoted their attention to securing the second alligator and adding it to the tow behind the launch.
“Mo’ hunting, Mr. Tremaine?” inquired Jeff, coolly.
“Not to-day,” responded the host, with emphasis. “We’ve had very fair sport, not to speak of a miraculous escape for my ward. We’ve had quite enough excitement. I think the old bungalow at the head of Lake Okeechobee will look very cheery to us when we get there.”
Ida had already made some attempt to thank the young motor boat boys for their gallant conduct. Now, she tried to say much more. Mr. and Mrs. Tremaine and Oliver Dixon now started to overwhelm the boys with their gratitude, but Joe Dawson interposed quietly:
“The least said is soonest mended, you’ve heard, and I guess the same idea applies to thanks. We’re glad we could be useful, but there is no use in making a fuss about us.”
“That’s about right,” smiled Halstead. He turned to take his seat by the steering wheel, then observed the wistful looks of Jeff Randolph.
“I didn’t know, before, Jeff,” remarked the young captain, pleasantly, “that you knew anything about handling motor boats.”
“I won’t claim I do know a heap,” rejoined Jeff, modestly, “but I will say that there’s nothing I enjoy mo’ than taking the wheel of a launch or cabin cruiser.”
“Help yourself, then,” invited Halstead, moving back. “You surely do know more about these black waters than I’ll ever know.”
Jeff’s eyes gleamed with real pleasure as he seated himself at the wheel. He gave the engineer’s signals, and backed the launch out neatly, then headed northward.
“Say, you’ve been on boats a good deal,” remarked Skipper Tom, after watching him.
“Some,” admitted the Florida boy, quietly. “I reckon I’d rather be on a boat than anywhere else in the whole world.”
Jeff remained at the wheel until he had piloted them out of the Everglades and back into Lake Okeechobee. The two dead ’gators were rigged to the stern of the rowboat, in tow, and the small boat’s bow line made fast astern on the launch. In this order the start was made for the forty-mile trip up the lake.
“I’m going to spell you at the wheel a bit, now, Jeff,” said Tom Halstead. “But you can have the wheel again, whenever you want it.”
“That’ll be most all o’ the forty miles ahead of us, then, I reckon,” declared young Randolph.
It was slow work, indeed, getting back, not much more than seven miles per hour being possible. Supper, picnic-style, was served not long after dark. It was nearing the hour of ten when the boat at last rounded slowly in at the pier.
“Let me take her in,” begged Jeff Randolph, who was again at the wheel.
“Go ahead,” nodded Tom Halstead, good-humoredly. “I know you can do it.”
“Jeff,” laughed Henry Tremaine, “you ought to apply for membership in the famous Motor Boat Club of the Kennebec.”
“Wouldn’t I like to belong, though?” sighed the Florida boy.
“Would you?” queried Captain Tom.
“Don’t poke fun at me,” protested young Randolph.
“I’m not poking fun,” rejoined Halstead, soberly. “Did you ever have any experience out on deep water?”
“I’ve been on sailing craft a good deal, and out fo’ two trips on a motor cruiser,” answered the Florida boy, in a low voice.
“How’d you like to come out on the ‘Restless’ for a while?”
“Do yo’ mean it?” asked Jeff, anxiously.
“I certainly do. Still, at the same time, I must warn you that your duties on the ‘Restless’ would be mixed. You’d have to cook, be steward and take an occasional trick at the motors or the wheel.”
“I don’t care what it is,” retorted Jeff, stubbornly, “so long as it’s something on deep salt water, and on a motor boat at that.”
“Make a good landing then,” proposed Tom Halstead, smiling, yet serious, “and we’ll talk it all over on shore.”
Jeff Randolph laid the boat in at the pier without a scratch or a jar, with just enough headway and none to spare. Tom leaped ashore at the bow, Joe at the stern, and the little craft was made fast at her berth.
Ham Mockus was glad enough to see them back. He was hanging about at the land end of the pier. Though the black man’s faith in ghosts had received a severe knock, still, to be all alone about the place after dark—well, it was a bit fearsome, anyway!
“Have any ghosts called, Ham?” laughingly demanded Henry Tremaine, as he caught sight of his black servitor.
“No, sah; no, sah,” admitted the darkey, grinning sheepishly.
“Then the officers must have succeeded in keeping all the members of the ghost safely locked up in jail.”
“Ah reckon so, sah—unless——”
“Wy, sah, it jest might be, ob co’se, dat some restless fo’ks done take dem Eberglades trash out an’ hitch ’em to a tree, wid deir feet off en de groun’.”
“Oh, I guess it could not be as bad as that,” smiled Mr. Tremaine.
“What have you been doing all these hours, Ham?” inquired Mrs. Tremaine.
“Wy, Ah done ’low, ob co’se, dat maybe yo’ don’ feel much satisfied wid dat cold food yo’ done had erlong in de bo’t, so Ah’s done got some hot food up at de house—ef yo’ want it.”
“Ham,” cried his employer, enthusiastically, “you’re kind-hearted and proper. Lead us to that hot banquet.”
It was over the table, an hour later, that Mrs. Tremaine asked her husband:
“How many more days do you intend to remain here hunting?”
“Have you ladies had all you want of it?” queried the host, looking at his wife and his ward.
“More than enough for my part,” answered Mrs. Tremaine. Ida Silsbee added that she, personally, did not care to go alligator hunting again.
“You’ll both of you be more contented,” decided Mr. Tremaine, “if we run down to Oyster Bay and hoist anchor for Tampa. Up at Tampa you girls will have a chance to wear your pretty dresses. Jeff, can you start, before ten in the morning, and get the wagons back here to convey us to the coast?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then we’ll leave here to-morrow afternoon,” announced Mr. Tremaine. “We have alligator skins enough, anyway, to answer all purposes, including the making of an alligator leather bag for Halstead’s mother. I’ll have the bag made, Tom—a good, generous and handsome looking one.”
“Captain Halstead,” called out Jeff, following the young skipper away from table and speaking almost ceremoniously.
“You want to talk to me about going on the ‘Restless’?” asked the young sailing master.
“Yes. Yo’ wa’n’t fooling, were yo’?”
“Of course not,” rejoined Tom, heartily.
“And—and—would there evah be any chance fo’ me to get into the Motor Boat Club?”
“We’d be only too glad to have you for a Florida member,” replied young Halstead, “just as soon as you’ve shown that you can handle a boat of our kind.”
Then Halstead and Joe discussed with Jeff his pay in his new position, and the exact nature of his duties.
“I reckon it all seems too good to be true,” sighed Jeff Randolph, but he knew, just the same, that it was no dream, and he was happy.
“Now, I’ve got to keep mighty cool and lull any suspicions Dixon may have,” muttered Halstead to himself. “Of course he knows I received that letter from Clayton Randolph. Perhaps, until we get back to Oyster Bay, I can make Dixon feel that I don’t believe any such thing possible of him. Once we get there, and Clayton Randolph backs up what he wrote me, I’ll take the whole thing to Mr. Tremaine. Then, Dixon, if you are as big a scoundrel as I think you, your time will have come to pay back and take your medicine!”
“SO yo’ are Cap’n Tom Halstead. Yes, I reckon yo’ be,” assented the tall, lanky individual whom Tom and Joe found on the deck of the “Restless.”
These two motor boat boys had put off from shore some time in advance of the rest of the Tremaine party.
It had taken them the better part of two days, by carriage, to make the journey down to Tres Arbores, and Tom and Joe had put off at once, leaving Jeff to come out with the Tremaines, Miss Silsbee and Oliver Dixon.
Tom’s astonishment at meeting this stranger, instead of Officer Randolph, showed in his face.
“I’m Bill Dunlow,” volunteered the lanky stranger, thrusting a hand into one of his pockets. “Yo’ see, it was like this: Clayton Randolph had to go up into the interior after a prisoner——”
“Oh!”
“So he done put me abo’d this boat. Told me jest what yo’ wanted in the way of a watchman, and he lef’ this note fo’ yo’.”
Tom looked over the note, in which Clayton Randolph informed the young captain of his protracted call to police duty, adding that Bill Dunlow was a “right proper man” to take his place.
“It’s all right,” nodded Tom. “I hope, Mr. Dunlow, you haven’t been too lonely out here on this boat.”
Halstead settled with the stranger, who then went ashore in the boat that was returning for the others of the party.
“What are you scowling at?” demanded Joe Dawson, looking keenly at his chum after the boat had left the side.
“Was I?” asked Tom, brightening. There had been reason enough for his scowl.
“Randolph isn’t here, so I can’t take Mr. Tremaine to him. Confound the luck. Off we go to Tampa, and the mystery of the vanished money isn’t cleared up. I wouldn’t attempt to tell Mr. Tremaine without being backed by Officer Randolph or a letter from him. As for going up to that other town, and getting confirmation from Randolph’s elder son, that would be out of the question. The young man wouldn’t say a word about the express company’s business, unless he had orders from his father. And Randolph is away, heaven alone knowing when he’ll be back here. Oh, I hope Randolph also left a note for Mr. Tremaine. But no such luck!”
No wonder Tom Halstead was agitated as he paced the deck from bow to stern. As long as the mystery of the vanished money remained not cleared up he would never feel easy about the stain that it left clinging to Joe and himself—principally to himself.
The boat was coming out again from shore.
“Everybody in it except Dixon,” discovered Halstead, with a start. “I wonder if that fellow has made an excuse to get away? Has he fled? Yet that doesn’t seem just likely, either, after all the attention he showed Ida Silsbee on the way down from Lake Okeechobee. I guess he figures that, if he can once marry Tremaine’s ward, then, no matter what leaks out, Tremaine will keep silent for Ida Silsbee’s sake.”
The boat was soon alongside.
“One passenger shy,” hailed Halstead, forcing himself to laugh lightly.
“Yes,” nodded Henry Tremaine, indifferently. “Dixon happened to think, at the last moment, to go up to the post office, to see if there was any mail for any of our party. Very thoughtful of the young man. We’ll send the boat ashore for him, and he’ll be out here on the next trip.”
Tom Halstead watched the shore closely enough, after that. However, at last, he had the satisfaction of seeing Oliver Dixon wave his hand from the landing stage, and then embark in the rowboat.
“Any mail, Oliver?” asked Mr. Tremaine, as the young man stepped up over the side.
“Two for you, sir, and one for Mrs. Tremaine,” replied young Dixon, handing over the letters. “None for Miss Silsbee, nor any for the crew.”
“None for me, eh?” asked Captain Tom, his tone pleasant enough, to mask his thoughts. “I hope you had some mail for yourself, Mr. Dixon?”
“A bill and two circulars,” nodded the young man, carelessly enough, though he shot a keen look back to meet Skipper Tom’s inquiring gaze.
“Is there anything to prevent our sailing at once, now, Captain?” asked the charter-man. “I know the ladies are keen to be on their way; to the delights of Tampa.”
“I shall have to hold up a little while,” replied Skipper Tom, pointing to the bridge deck chronometer. “I have discovered that it has been running slow while we were away. In navigation it is a matter of importance to have the chronometer just right to the second. But it ought not to take me long. If there’s a watchmaker in Tres Arbores, he can adjust the chronometer within half an hour. Then I’ll come right back, ready to sail.”
Henry Tremaine nodded. Oliver Dixon had gone below, of which fact the young skipper was glad. It gave him a chance to get ashore before Dixon could offer, on some pretext, to accompany him.
The chronometer that the young skipper took over the side with him actually registered twenty-two minutes behind standard time. Sly Tom! He himself had set the hands back while awaiting the coming of the Tremaine party.
Once on shore the young captain hurried to the post office, where he indited an urgent letter to Clayton Randolph. Tom informed the local officer that he had received the latter’s letter, but that it had disappeared before it could be put to use. Halstead urged Officer Randolph, on his return, to send to the captain of the “Restless,” at the Tampa Bay Hotel, another letter by registered mail.
“If you can enclose any other evidence it will be of the greatest value,” Tom wrote, also, by way of stronger hint.
Into the letter Halstead slipped a ten-dollar bill. After sealing the envelope, he handed it to the postmaster, saying:
“Register this, please. And don’t give it to any other than Clayton Randolph—not even to anyone authorized to receive his mail.”
That business attended to, Tom Halstead paid three bills against the boat, then hurried back to the water front, after having set his precious chronometer back to exactly the right time. Again he took boat out to the yacht, and bounding up on deck, his face was wreathed in smiles.
“Old Chronom. is all right, now,” he called to Henry Tremaine, who was seated in one of the deck chairs, smoking. “Now, we’ll start, sir, just as soon as we can get the anchor up.”
Jeff, who had found time to run home to his mother and inform her of his great luck, lent a strong hand in the preliminaries to starting.
“Do yo’ reckon, Cap’n, yo’d let me pilot the ‘Restless’ out o’ this harbor and some o’ the way down the bay?”
“Go ahead,” smiled Captain Tom, who was feeling unusually contented, at last. “Enjoy yourself all you like, Jeff, until it’s time to go below and turn to preparing the evening meal.”
So Jeff Randolph stood proudly by the wheel as the “Restless” pointed her nose down Oyster Bay, over a smooth sea, on her way to that great Florida winter resort, Tampa.
After their rest the twin motors ran, as Joe phrased it, “as though made of grease.” Everybody aboard appeared to be unusually light-hearted.
“It’s a pleasure to cruise like this,” murmured Henry Tremaine, lighting a fresh cigar.
Jeff, happy over his new vocation, put all his lightest spirits into the preparation of the evening meal. As a guide he had had much experience with cookery. The meal went off delightfully.
Dixon, stepping up the after companionway after dinner, a cigarette between his lips, encountered the young sailing master.
“Good evening,” Tom greeted, pleasantly.
“Oh, good evening,” returned Mr. Dixon, smiling and showing his teeth.
“Did you ever see a pleasanter night than this on the water?” asked Halstead.
“Not many, anyway. I hope the ladies will soon come up to enjoy it.”
“I hope so,” nodded Tom. “Somehow, this sort of a night suggests the need of singing and stringed instruments on deck, doesn’t it?”
He spoke with an affectation of good will that deceived even Oliver Dixon, who, after glancing keenly, at the young captain, suddenly said:
“Halstead, you didn’t seem to like me very well, for a while.”
“If I didn’t,” spoke the young skipper, seriously, “it may have been due to a rather big misunderstanding.”
“Of what kind?” demanded Dixon.
“Well, connected with that miserable affair of the missing money.”
“O—oh,” said Dixon, looking still more keenly at the motor boat skipper.
“I knew,” pursued Tom Halstead, “that I didn’t take the money. For that reason, I suppose, I wondered if you were the one who had taken it? Lately, I have had reason to see how absurd such a suspicion would be.”
“What reason?” demanded Oliver Dixon, his eyes almost blazing into Tom Halstead’s face.
“Why, from Mr. Tremaine I’ve gleaned the idea that you’re so comfortably well off in this world’s goods that taking his few thousands of dollars would be an utter absurdity for you. So the vanishing of that money is back to its old footing of an unexplainable mystery.”
“Did you say anything to Henry Tremaine about your suspicion?” inquired Dixon, looking searchingly at the boy.
“No,” retorted Tom Halstead, curtly. “I had only my suspicion of the moment—no proof. I always try to play fair—and I’m glad I did.”
The companionway door was being opened below. The ladies were ready to come up on deck.
Oliver Dixon held out his hand, as though by strong impulse.
“Halstead, you’re a brick!” he exclaimed. “You’re the right sort of young fellow. I don’t mind your first suspicion, since you realize how groundless it was. We shall be better friends, after this. Your hand!”
Tom took the proffered hand—not too limply, either.
“I hope I’ve lulled the fellow’s suspicion until I can strike,” thought the young sailing master.
While Oliver Dixon said hurriedly to himself:
“This fellow was dangerous, but now I begin to think he’s a fool. If I can keep him lulled for a few days more I may have all my lines laid. Then I can laugh at him—or pay someone to beat him properly!”
Diplomatic Tom! Crafty Dixon!
The ladies had come on deck.
DOWN at Port Tampa, out in the bay, lay the “Restless” at anchor.
Jeff Randolph was aboard the yacht, in sole charge. That Florida boy couldn’t have been coaxed on shore, no matter what the allurement offered. He was supremely happy in the realization of his great ambition.
For four days, now, the Tremaines and their friends, including Captain Halstead and Engineer Dawson, had been at the big, luxurious Tampa Bay Hotel, at Tampa proper, nine miles up from the port.
Both Tom and his chum had demurred mildly, when invited to go with the rest of the party to the hotel.
“Oh, come along,” said Henry Tremaine, genially. “It will do you youngsters good to get away from your yacht once in a while. Up at the hotel you will mix with people, and learn some things of the ways of the world that can’t be learned on the salt water.”
Borne right down in their mild resistance, the boys had yielded and gone with the party.
Nor did either Halstead or Dawson feel at all out of his element in the sparkling life of the great hotel. Both were self-possessed boys, who had seen much of the world. Both were quiet, of good manners, and their shore clothing, once their uniforms were discarded on board the “Restless,” were of good cut and finish.
Altogether, they did enjoy themselves hugely at this fashionable winter resort. Moreover, they made quite a number of pleasant acquaintances in Tampa, and found much to make the time pass pleasantly.
As for the Tremaines and their ward, they had met friends from the North, and were enjoying themselves. There were drives, automobile rides, short excursions, and the like. At night there was the hotel ball to take up the time of the ladies.
“It’s rather a new world to us, chum, and a mighty pleasant one it is too,” said Joe Dawson, quietly.
As for Halstead, though he remained outwardly cool and collected, these were days when he secretly lived on tenterhooks. He haunted the mail clerk’s desk all he could without betraying himself to Dixon.
When asking Randolph to write him at this hotel the young skipper had planned to run up each day from Port Tampa. Now, however, being at the hotel all the time, young Halstead chafed as the time slipped by without the arrival of the letter he expected.
This afternoon, realizing that there was no possibility of a letter before the morrow, Halstead slipped off alone, following the street car track up into the main thoroughfare of Tampa.
Presently, in the throng, Halstead found himself unconsciously trailing after Tremaine and young Mr. Dixon.
“By the way, you’re known at the bank here, aren’t you, Tremaine?” inquired Dixon.
“Very well, indeed,” smiled the older man. “In fact, I’ve entertained the president, Mr. Haight, in New York.”
“Then I wish you’d come in with me, a moment, and introduce me,” suggested the younger man.
“With pleasure, my boy.”
As they stepped inside the bank Halstead passed on without having discovered himself to either of the others.
Henry Tremaine, inside the bank, led the way to Mr. Haight’s office.
“Mr. Haight,” he said to the man who sat at the sole desk in the room, “my friend, Mr. Dixon, has asked me to present him to you. He’s a good fellow, and one of my yachting party.”
Mr. Haight rose to shake hands with both callers.
“I wish to cash a check for a thousand,” explained Dixon, presently.
“You have it with you?” inquired President Haight.
“Yes; here it is.”
“Ah, yes; your personal check,” said Mr. Haight, scanning the slip of paper. “Er—ah—er—as a purely formal question, Mr. Tremaine, you will advise me that this check is all right?”
Oliver Dixon laughed carelessly, while Henry Tremaine, in his good-hearted way, responded:
“Right? Oh, yes, of course. Wait. I’ll endorse the check for you.”
Nodding, Mr. Haight passed him a pen, with which Tremaine wrote his signature on the back of the check. With this endorsement it mattered nothing to the president whether the check was good or not. Henry Tremaine’s written signature on the paper bound the latter. Mr. Haight knew quite well that Tremaine’s name was “good” for vastly more than a thousand dollars.
“I’ll endorse anything that my young friend Dixon offers you,” smiled the older man, as he passed the check back to the bank president.
“With such a guarantee as that,” smiled Mr. Haight, affably, “Mr. Dixon may negotiate all the paper he cares to at this bank.”
“I may take you up, later on,” smiled the younger man. “I’ve taken such a notion to Tampa that I think I shall buy a place here, and spend a goodly part of my winters here.”
“In that case, if you’ll favor us with your account——” began Mr. Haight.
“That is exactly what I shall want to do,” the young man assured the bank president.
The money was brought, in hundred dollar bills, and Dixon tucked it away in his wallet. After handshakings all around, the two callers departed.
On coming out of the bank Oliver Dixon trod as though on air. He was beginning to feel the importance of a man who is “solid” at a bank.
Having turned back along the main thoroughfare, Halstead met the pair as they came out of the bank.
“You look rather aimless, Captain,” observed Tremaine, halting and smiling.
“I’m just strolling about taking in the sights of this quaint little old place,” replied Tom.
“And I’ve been making Dixon acquainted at the bank, so that he can cash his checks hereafter without difficulty,” replied Mr. Tremaine. “As I am in a position to know that the young man has a good deal of money about him, I think we ought to require him to lead us to the nearest ice cream place. Eh?”
“He’ll do it,” laughed Tom, easily, “if he’s as good natured as he is prosperous.”
Nodding gayly, young Mr. Dixon wheeled them about, piloting them without more ado in the right direction.
The night’s dance was on at the Tampa Bay Hotel. The strains of a dance number had just died out. Out of the ball-room couples poured into the great lobby of the hotel, rich and fragrant with the plants of the tropics. Doors open on the east and west sides of the lobby allowed a welcome breeze to wander through. Women wore the latest creations from Paris; the black-coated men looked sombre enough beside their more gayly attired ball-room partners. All was life and gayety.
Tom Halstead, who did not boast evening clothes in his wardrobe, had dropped into a chair beside a window in one of the little rooms off the lobby. The breeze had blown the heavy drapery of the window behind his chair, screening him from the gaze of anyone who entered the room—a fact of which the young skipper was not at that moment aware.
Into this room, with quicker step than usual, came a young woman. Into her face had crept lines of pain. She looked like a woman to whom had come a most unwelcome revelation.
At her side, pale and over-anxious, stepped a young man. Yet his face was strongly set, as the face of a man who did not intend to accept defeat easily.
The young woman wheeled abruptly about, looking compassionately at her escort. Then she spoke; it was the voice of Ida Silsbee:
“I can’t tell you how wretched this has made me feel, Mr. Dixon,” she said, in a low voice. “So far, I have given no thought to marriage.”
“Do—do you love anyone else?” he inquired, huskily.
“No,” she answered, promptly. “I am heart-free—utterly so.”
“Then why may I not hope?” he demanded, eagerly.
“No, no; it would be worse than unkind for me to let you even hope that I might change my answer. I do not care for you in the way that a woman should love her husband.”
“Have you any real objection to me?”
“Yes,” she answered, clearly, steadily, meeting his eyes. “My objection is not one that should cause you any humiliation, Mr. Dixon. It is simply that you do not combine the qualities that I would expect in the man I married.”
“But you have not known me long. Perhaps——”
“I have seen enough of you, Mr. Dixon, to feel certain that I should never feel a deep affection for you.”
“If you have discovered anything about me,” he pleaded, intensely, “I might be able—would be able—to change for your sake.”
“That, of all, is least likely,” she replied, honestly, seriously. “If you were the man to win my heart, Mr. Dixon, you would already have shown the traits, the characteristics, that would interest me in a man.”
“And I have not shown those traits?”
“You have not.”
“Then wait! Perhaps——”
Ida Silsbee laid an appealing hand on the arm of the pallid-faced young man.
“Do not hope. Do not give this unhappy fancy any further encouragement, Mr. Dixon. To say what I am saying now gives me the greatest pain I have felt in many a year. But, believe me, there is absolutely no hope that I can ever love you. My own heart tells me that most positively. You understand, don’t you? It will be worse than folly ever to think of repeating our talk of these last few minutes. I am heartily sorry, but I do not love you, Mr. Dixon, and I am wholly certain that I never shall. Now, please lead me among others that we may be certain not to carry this wholly unpleasant, impossible conversation any further.”
It was said in all gentleness. Yet, as he watched her while she was speaking, Oliver Dixon realized that this young woman knew her own mind thoroughly. He saw, and believed, that he could never be anything to her.
“A heart’s Waterloo, then,” he sighed, with a bitter smile. He bowed, offering her his arm. “I shall not distress you again, Miss Silsbee.”
They turned, passing from the room, joining the throng in the lobby.
Tom Halstead? He had heard every word. Too honorable to play the eavesdropper, he had risen at once. Then he had halted for a brief instant, that he might think what best to do in the circumstances.
From the first word the conversation had told its own story swiftly. Captain Halstead, at the very moment of impulse to step from behind the draperies and proclaim his presence, drew back. By showing himself was he not far more likely to bring great annoyance upon Ida Silsbee?
The scene had passed swiftly. While Tom Halstead was rapidly trying to make up his mind whether he would annoy Miss Silsbee more by showing himself, the pair turned and left the room.
“That makes me feel like a mean hound!” Tom Halstead muttered, indignant with himself, though he was not at fault. “I had no notion of playing the spy, yet I’ve done it. Confound it, there’s only one reparation I can make, and that is to hold my lips padlocked!”
He waited but a decent interval, then stepped from the room, afraid that, if he lingered in his former seat, he might be forced to be a witness to more such scenes. Though Halstead had no means of knowing it, that little room had been the scene of hundreds of proposals of marriage.
“Yet, now that I do know what I had no business to find out in that way,” murmured Skipper Tom to himself, “I’ve got Mr. Tremaine’s interests to think about a bit. If Oliver Dixon knows that he has been defeated, then he’ll be likely to get away in a hurry, and without leaving any address behind, for he has at least the money he stole from Tremaine. That is, if he did steal it. Of course he did.”
Hearing the music and the soft, rhythmic swish of feet over the waxed floor, young Halstead presently glanced in through one of the entrances to the ball-room. Dixon was there, dancing with Mrs. Tremaine. The young man had recovered much of his usual self-possession, even forcing a smile. Then Ida Silsbee, still looking pained, glided by, directed by the arm of Henry Tremaine.
“Does Dixon mean to fly?” Tom wondered. “After all, why should he? He’s having a good time, and he doesn’t fear being found out. Besides, he’s very likely a big enough egotist to imagine there’s still a chance of winning Miss Silsbee. No; I hardly think he’ll run away for a while yet.”
None the less the young motor boat captain determined to keep a close eye over the movements of Oliver Dixon.
“JOE, you can keep yourself so easily out of sight, somehow, that I’m going to use you to play the spy to-day,” hinted Captain Tom to his chum, after the two had had an early breakfast together.
“I’m not afraid of anything you use me for,” Dawson retorted.
“You must have a better opinion of me than I have of myself sometimes,” retorted the motor boat captain, thinking of his unintentional eavesdropping of the night before.
“What do you want me to do?” Joe Dawson asked.
“You know the morning train that leaves here, for Washington and New York?”
Joe nodded.
“Get aboard that train as soon as it comes in on the spur. If Oliver Dixon is aboard of it, and doesn’t leave when the Tampa station is reached, then jump out and telephone me here.”
“And then——?”
“Hustle aboard again, keeping Dixon in sight, but try to keep yourself out of his line of vision.”
“Something must be in the wind,” commented Joe.
“Something is in the wind,” his chum admitted. “If Oliver Dixon tries to leave here to-day, then I shall go to Mr. Tremaine, and he’ll very likely decide to have the authorities telegraph ahead to have Dixon arrested. If that should happen, you’ll be there to see that the officers don’t get someone else by mistake.”
“But Dixon might go around through the town of Tampa, instead,” objected Joe. “He might be too smart to take the northbound train here at the hotel.”
“Yes; or he might go through the town and take the Florida Central train,” assented Halstead. “If he doesn’t leave here by the train, but goes up through Tampa, then you, on board the train, will see him if he gets aboard at the Tampa station. If he doesn’t go by that train, you’ll be here in season to shadow him away in case he tries to leave by the Florida Central. So he can’t start north to-day without our knowing it. It’s best for you to do this work. Then, if Dixon is watching me, he’ll find me sitting on one of the porch chairs from which I couldn’t see him take the train. That will do a lot to throw him off his guard.”
“I know my part, then,” agreed young Dawson. “I’ll do it, too.”
One of the railroads that enter Tampa goes on down to Port Tampa, nine miles below. This road also maintains a spur entering the hotel grounds. All through trains by this road arrive and depart on the spur.
Dixon, however, appeared about the lobby and the verandas that forenoon, looking as though anything but flight was in his mind. Much of his time he spent in the company of Henry Tremaine, and appeared unusually lively and contented.
“No get-away for him,” decided Halstead, later. “He’s going to stay and have some more tries at his luck with Miss Silsbee. Anyway, it’s too late, now, for him to take the morning train north by either railway.”
Joe went as far as Tampa, of course without result. He took the street car back to the hotel, reporting to Tom, by a mere signal, as he passed, the fruitlessness of his mission. Then Joe hung about, in the background, until after the time for the morning train to leave over the Central road. At that time Dixon was chatting with Mr. and Mrs. Tremaine and Ida Silsbee.
Further vigilance, for the present, therefore, seemed unnecessary. Leaving Dixon with the other members of the party, the two motor boat boys hurried over to the bathing pavilion for their morning salt water swim.
It was just after one o’clock when the chums returned through the hotel office.
“Captain Halstead!” called the clerk.
Tom hastened over to the desk.
“You’re just in time, Captain. Here’s a letter registered for you, and under special delivery stamp. The young man just came in with it.”
“Let me have it quick, then, please,” Tom begged, turning upon the messenger from the Tampa post office.
“Sign, first,” requested the messenger.
This Tom did in a hurry, then seized upon his letter. It was postmarked at Tres Arbores, and the boy remembered the writing. The letter was from Clayton Randolph, and repeated, in a more emphatic manner, the news that the officer had already sent Halstead while he was at the lake.
“I’m sending this just as you ask,” Randolph ran on, “though I don’t suppose it’s necessary, because at the same time I sent you the other letter, I dropped one for Mr. Tremaine in the Tres Arbores post office. Of course he got it on his return to this town.”
“Of course he didn’t!” blazed Tom inwardly. “Oliver Dixon got the mail there, and he was smart enough to keep Randolph’s letter from ever reaching Mr. Tremaine.”
“Something interesting that you have?” smiled Joe, watching his chum’s face.
“Interesting?” palpitated Tom Halstead. “Well, rather! Now, where’s Mr. Tremaine?”—as the boys turned away from the desk.
“Speaking of angels,” returned Joe Dawson. “There he is coming in through the doorway yonder.”
“I’ve got to see him on the jump, then. Come along.”
“What’s this?” demanded Henry Tremaine, as Tom almost breathlessly thrust into his hands the letter just received.
“Read it,” begged Captain Halstead.
This the charter-man did, his face changing color as soon as he began to understand.
“Dixon?” he faltered. “Oh, impossible! Yet—confound it! The case does look black, doesn’t it? I must see Dixon, anyway. If this is injustice, then he must have a chance to prove his innocence at once.”
“Do you know where he is?” Halstead inquired.
“No; the ladies have just passed through to luncheon, and they sent me to find the young man. Now, I’m more than ever anxious to find him.”
Henry Tremaine looked worried, though he was not yet ready to believe Dixon certainly guilty. Tremaine’s nature was a large one; he was unsuspicious, usually. He hated to believe anyone guilty of real wickedness.
“Ah, good morning, Mr. Tremaine,” came, cordially, from Mr. Haight, the president of the bank, as that gentleman stepped inside from the porch.
“How do you do, Mr. Haight?” returned the perplexed Tremaine.
The bank president started to pass on, then turned.
“Oh, by the way, Mr. Tremaine, I was very glad to attend to your note this morning——”
“My note?” demanded Tremaine.
“That is to say, the one you endorsed.”
“The note I endorsed?” gasped Henry Tremaine, paling. “Great Scott, man, who presented it?”
“Do you mean to tell me, sir, that you don’t know of a note presented to-day with your endorsement?” demanded President Haight, in great agitation.
“Great Scott, man, I don’t!” cried Henry; Tremaine. “And I’m still trying to find out who presented it.”
“Oliver Dixon,” rejoined Mr. Haight, in a sepulchral voice.
“Dixon? For how much?”
“Fifty thousand dollars.”
“Did he get the cash?”
“Good heavens, yes!” gasped Mr. Haight, now fully understanding that the whole transaction had been wrong.
“In real money?” insisted Tremaine, on whose forehead the cold ooze now began to stand out.
“Yes, sir; in banknotes. Don’t tell me, Tremaine, that your endorsement was forged.”
“But it was! I have endorsed no notes for anybody.”
“Yet, if it wasn’t your signature, it was as good as a photograph of your writing,” gasped Mr. Haight.
“Oh, Dixon has seen enough of my signature. He had no difficulty in getting plenty of material in that line to copy. Oh—the miserable scoundrel!”
Tom and Joe had heard this conversation quite unnoticed by either of the distracted gentlemen.
“One thing,” cried Tremaine, hoarsely; “I don’t believe the fellow can get far away from here before we can overtake him. This early discovery is most fortunate!”
“He can’t get a train away before four o’clock,” broke in Tom Halstead, energetically. “But he might get some kind of a craft out of Port Tampa. Hadn’t you better get on the ’phone, quickly, and inform the police! Also, you might inquire of the two station agents whether Dixon has bought a ticket away from Tampa.”
“Yes! And you and Joe Dawson hustle over the hotel! We must get hold of this precious, unmasked rascal! Come along, Haight!”
“I guess Dixon stock has dropped,” uttered Joe, grimly, as the two motor boat boys hurried away.
As they were passing the entrance to the dining room they encountered Mrs. Tremaine and Ida Silsbee coming out.
“We couldn’t wait for the rest of you,” confessed Mrs. Tremaine. “We’ve lunched. But—what on earth——?”
“Oliver Dixon,” spoke Tom, in a cautious undertone, “has presented a note for fifty thousand dollars at the bank, with Mr. Tremaine’s endorsement forged on the note. It is feared he has gotten away with the money.”
Joe, not caring to lose any time, had darted on ahead.
“Why—I—I—never believed him such a scoundrel,” gasped Mrs. Tremaine, paling. She sank into a chair, trembling.
“The villain had the audacity, last night, to ask me to marry him,” murmured Ida, in a low tone, clenching her hands tightly.
“I know it,” confessed Tom, bluntly. “I was in that room, behind the draperies. I meant to reveal myself, but it was all out, and you two turned from the room before I could decide what to do. Oh, I felt miserably ashamed of myself for my eavesdropping.”
“You couldn’t help it, and you needn’t be ashamed,” retorted Ida Silsbee. “Tom, I’m heartily glad I had a witness to my good judgment.”
“I’ve got his trail,” called Joe, softly, running back to join them. “Dixon left twenty-five minutes ago, on a train going out from the spur at this hotel.”
“Then he must have gone to Port Tampa,” breathed Tom, tensely.
“Yes—to the port,” Joe Dawson nodded.
“Then we’ve got to find Mr. Tremaine like lightning. There’s a speed cruiser for charter down at the port. Dixon may even now be hustling away on her,” cried Captain Halstead, springing away. “If he has done that he can land on some wild part of the coast of Mexico, or transfer to some ship bound for South America. The earth may swallow him up—him and his booty!”
Leaving the ladies where they had first met them, the boys raced to the telephone exchange. Here they encountered Tremaine and the bank president.
“There’s just one thing to do, then,” responded Henry Tremaine. “I’ll arrange for a special engine on the jump. Haight, you get a couple of local officers here in a hurry. This is a felony charge, so they won’t have to wait for warrants.”
In a few moments the local railway and police officials were busy. A locomotive was quickly awaiting the party on the siding, where it was coupled to a day coach. Two policemen in plain clothes arrived in an automobile.
“Remember, I’m going with you,” cried Mrs. Tremaine, with more energy than she had shown in years. “So is Ida. The poor child can’t be left behind to wonder what luck we’re having.”
There wasn’t even time to object to taking the ladies along. They hurried into the car, and the locomotive started, with a clear track ahead.
“One little detail I haven’t found time to tell you, yet,” panted Mr. Haight, after the engine had started down the single track to Port Tampa. “Dixon also cashed with me a check for nine thousand dollars.”
“On the Ninth National, of New York?” Halstead asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I guess the check part is good, as far as you’re concerned,” nodded Tremaine. “The nine thousand is probably part of the ten thousand that the fellow stole from my stateroom on the ‘Restless’ and sent to New York. Halstead has just put me straight on that matter.”
“Then he stole that money from your trunk?” asked Mrs. Tremaine, opening her eyes very wide.
“Yes, my dear; we’ve every reason to think so. But tell me, Haight, how did you come to cash that note so promptly—so—er—easily?”
“Why, you told me, only yesterday, my dear Tremaine, that you’d cheerfully endorse any commercial paper that Dixon had or chose to present,” replied the bank president.
Henry Tremaine groaned.
“That’s what comes of my being so cursed good-natured and obliging,” he muttered, with a ghastly smile. “Now, see here, Haight, if it comes to the worst, and your bank is up against a big loss, I’ll stand by what I said yesterday. But I’m fairly itching to lay my fingers on Oliver Dixon. The——”
He stopped immediately, aware of the presence of the ladies.
“I beg your pardon, my dear, and Ida,” said Tremaine. “I’m so angry that I almost let violent language escape me.”
As the train sped along, with a clear track ahead and no stops necessary, Mr. Haight went on to explain:
“Dixon told me he had closed negotiations for a fine place a little way outside of Tampa; that he needed some of the cash for paying for the place, and the rest to turn over to a contractor so that improvements on the place could start at once. It all sounded fearfully plausible; and, with your ready and extensive guarantee for young Dixon——”
“Please don’t remind me of my idiocy again until I’ve had time to pull up a notch,” begged Tremaine.
The two Tampa officers had seated themselves together at the forward end of the car. They were lean, quiet men, of undying nerve, and crack shots in the moment of need.
It did not take long to haul the one-car special down to the port. As the train began to run out onto the long mole, all hands in the car crowded at the forward doorway.
Before the engine came to a full stop Tom Halstead and Joe Dawson were off and running at a great burst of speed for the extreme end of the mole. Halstead was the first to gain it.
“The ‘Buzzard’ is gone from anchorage,” he cried, as his gaze swept the harbor.
“That little bit of hull we can see away down past the harbor looks like the ‘Buzzard’ heading south,” declared Joe.
“It must be,” nodded Tom Halstead. “But Jeff will very likely know.”
A busily-throbbing little naphtha launch was hovering close in the water.
“Hurry in for a fare, can you?” shouted Captain Halstead, framing his mouth with his hands.
The launch turned in at the float, and by this time the other members of the party had hastened up.
“Out to the ‘Restless’, and give your whistle head enough so that our man on board will hear you,” cried Tom, as the launch cast off.
In response to the screeches of the whistle Jeff Randolph soon appeared on the deck of the motor cruiser, waving his arms in answer.
“Get everything ready for a lightning start!” yelled the young skipper over the water. This Joe supplemented with some strenuous signals.
“Do you know whether that’s the ‘Buzzard’ vanishing to the southward?” demanded young Captain Halstead, the instant he clambered over the side.
“Yes; it is,” nodded Jeff, promptly.
“DID you see what passengers she carried?” added Tom Halstead, breathless with suspense.
“A young man. I didn’t note him particularly at the distance,” Jeff Randolph drawled.
“Could it have been Oliver Dixon!”
“Why, yes, about his build, though the distance was considerable, and the fellow’s back was turned this way as he went on board.”
“Just one passenger went to the ‘Buzzard’, eh?” broke in Henry Tremaine.
“All I noticed,” confessed Jeff. “I wasn’t paying particular attention.”
Joe, in the meantime, had made a straight break down into the motor room. Now his engines were running.
“Lay out forward, here, Jeff, to help me stow the anchor away,” called the youthful skipper. One of the Tampa officers also aided.
“Crowd the speed on, Joe, as fast as you properly can,” shouted down Halstead as he took his place at the wheel.
Almost with a jump the “Restless” started. The boat supposed to be the “Buzzard” was now about hull-down. Her solitary signal mast would be a hard thing to keep in sight across an interval of several miles.
By this time Jeff Randolph was in possession of the main facts. He knew they were in frenzied pursuit of Oliver Dixon, who was believed to carry with him some sixty thousand dollars, in all, that Henry Tremaine stood to lose.
Now that President Haight knew his bank did not stand to lose a large sum, because of Tremaine’s unfaltering guarantee, the bank man was no longer near a state of collapse. Still, he keenly felt Tremaine’s suspense.
“I’ll never be such a fool again,” muttered Tremaine, to his wife. “I’ll never go security for anyone after this—not even my brother.”
“I can’t understand why you were so easy over the loss of the first ten thousand dollars,” murmured his wife.
“That was because I believed the whole matter would come out presently. I didn’t want to suspect Halstead, and I didn’t want to suspect young Oliver Dixon. So I didn’t know where the lightning might hit. Rather than stir up trouble I preferred to wait and see what the developments would be. Ten thousand dollars I could stand the loss of, if I had to, but sixty thousand——”
The “Restless” was kicking the water at a furious gait, now, but Captain Halstead groaned when he realized that the “Buzzard” had succeeded in taking her hull wholly out of sight.
“Mr. Tremaine, I’ll have to press you into service,” called the young sailing master, firmly.
“Yes; do give me something to do,” begged the charter-man, stepping up beside the wheel.
“The ‘Buzzard’ is now so far away, sir, that I’m not quite sure whether I can see her signal mast or not. Sometimes I think I do; at other times I’m in doubt. You might take the marine glass, sir, and see if you can pick up that mast and keep it in sight.”
“Indeed, I will,” breathed Tremaine, anxiously.
“Joe,” Captain Tom called down through the forward hatchway, “kick on every bit of speed you can crowd out of the motors. We’ve got to hump faster.”
“If I go much faster,” called Joe, dryly, “I’ll blow out a cylinder head.”
“Take a chance,” Halstead urged. “We’ve got to crawl up on that other craft.”
“I can make out her signal mast,” announced Henry Tremaine.
“Then keep that stick in sight, sir. There’s one nasty trick the ‘Buzzard’ might play on us if she got far enough in the lead,” explained the young skipper.
“What trick is that?”
“If she’s running close enough to shore, she might succeed in putting Dixon on land, then the ‘Buzzard’ could head out on her cruise again. If that happened, every throb of our propellers would be carrying us further and further from Oliver Dixon and his booty.”
“Good heavens, yes!” agreed Tremaine. “Well, I’m holding that signal mast steadily.”
“Does she seem to be nearing land?”
“Not yet. I judge her course to be southward.”
“Let me have the glass a second,” begged Halstead, jamming the wheel spokes with his knees as he reached out for the glass.
He took a long, intent look.
“Yes; she’s holding her southerly course,” Tom declared.
“Are we going to catch up with her!”
“I don’t know, yet,” Halstead admitted. “The ‘Buzzard’ is a fast boat. Whether we can catch up with her only the next two hours can tell. We’ve got a mighty good boat under our feet, Mr. Tremaine.”
“We need one!” cried that gentleman.
It being none of their affair, particularly, for the present, the two Tampa officers were lounging in deck chairs aft, smoking quietly. The ladies, however, stood just behind the men, as close to the bridge deck as they could keep without interfering with the handling of the craft.
“Let me have the glass again, please,” begged Halstead, ten minutes later. “Yes, I thought so,” he continued, after looking. “That line on the water near the horizon is the ‘Buzzard’s’ hull showing once more. Then we must be creeping up on her.”
“Want me to take the wheel, Cap’n, for a spell?”—hinted Jeff Randolph.
“Not just now,” vouchsafed Tom Halstead. “Just now straight steering counts for as much as the speed of the propellers. You may be a better helmsman than I, by a good deal, but I can’t take a single chance for the next hour.”
In the next half hour, during which the Tampa harbor was left far behind, the hull ahead loomed up no larger. It remained an all but indistinct line on the horizon.
“If Mr. Dixon is on that boat, do you think he knows we’re after him?” Ida Silsbee asked.
“He must have more than a suspicion,” Tom Halstead grinned.
“What an awful feeling his must be, then!” exclaimed the girl, shuddering.
“Are you sorry for him!” asked Mrs. Tremaine, slowly.
“Only in the sense that I’m sorry for any man who yields to the temptation to turn thief,” replied the girl, slowly.
As Joe Dawson thrust his head up through the hatchway his chum at the wheel could see that the young engineer was much disturbed.
“Are we crowding your motors too hard, Joe?” inquired Halstead.
“They’re mighty warm,” Dawson admitted.
“Any danger of exploding a lot of gasoline gas?” demanded Henry Tremaine.
“I won’t just say that,” replied Joe, hesitatingly. “But——”
“But what?”
“If I keep up this overheating one or both of the motors may be put out of business.”
“Is that all?”
“It would ruin a pair of good engines.”
“If that’s all, boys,” responded Tremaine, “don’t let it worry you. If you hurt any engines, or damage your boat in any way, I’ll make good for it. I want to catch Dixon, and get that stolen money back. But, above money and every other consideration—at no matter what expense—I feel that I must overtake and punish the man who so fearfully abused my confidence and trust!”