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.
"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.
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?"
"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!"
"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.
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'!"