Forget what? It was like a bad dream without head or tail, that such a thing could happen on the deck of a liner in port. Twisting desperately, for he was both quick and strong, David managed to sink his teeth in the arm nearest him. The grip on his throat weakened and he yelled with a volume of sound of which the whistle of a harbor tug might have been proud. The assailant pulled himself free, kicked savagely at the boy's head, missed it, and closed with him again as if trying to heave him overboard. But he had caught a Tartar, and David shouted lustily while he fought.

It was Captain Thrasher who came most unexpectedly to the rescue. He was on his way back from an after-theatre supper party ashore, and he launched his two hundred and thirty pounds of seasoned brawn and muscle at the intruder before the pair had heard him coming. Then his great voice boomed from one end of the ship to the other:

"On deck! Bring a pair of irons! Are all hands asleep? What's all this devil's business?"

The watch officer came running up with a quartermaster and two seamen. Without waiting for explanations they fell upon the captive whom Captain Thrasher had tucked under one arm, and handcuffed him in a twinkling. Swift to get at the heart of a matter, the captain snapped at David:

"How did it happen? Anybody with him? I know the face of that dirty murdering scoundrel."

"I was just going to report a boat alongside," gasped David.

Captain Thrasher sprang to the rail. The fog had begun to lift, and a black blotch was moving out toward the middle of the river.

"After 'em, Mr. Enos," roared the captain to the fourth officer. "Jump for the police patrol. It's the Antwerp tobacco smuggling gang. I thought we were rid of 'em."

The officer took to his heels, and in a surprisingly short time the captain saw a launch dart out from the pier beyond the Roanoke, her engines "chug chugging" at top speed. Making a trumpet of his hands, Captain Thrasher shouted:

"I just now lost sight of them, but the boat was headed for the Hoboken shore. They can't get away if you look sharp."

Then the captain ordered his men to lock the captive in the ship's prison until the police came back. The chief officer was roused out and told to search the ship and to put double watches on the decks and gangways. Having taken steps to get at the bottom of the mischief, Captain Thrasher fairly picked up David and lugged him to his cabin. Dumping the lad on a divan, the master of the liner pawed him over from head to foot to make sure no bones were broken, and then remarked with great severity:

"You are more trouble than all my people put together. Disobeying orders again?"

"I guess I was, sir," faltered the cadet. "Mr. Enos told me not to budge from the gangway, and I went over to see what was going on."

"What was it? Speak up. I won't bite you," growled the captain. David told him in detail all that happened, but he did not have the wit to put two and two together. This was left for the big man with the wrathful gray eye, who fairly exploded:

"Mr. Enos is a good seaman, but his brain needs oiling. It is all as plain as the nose on your face. That row on the dock was all a blind, put up by two or three of those fire-room blackguards from Antwerp, who stand in with the gang of tobacco smugglers. They figured it out that all hands on deck would be pulled over to the port side and kept there by their infernal row, while their pals dumped the tobacco out of the starboard side. It was hidden in the coal bunkers, wrapped in rubber bags. And because the police patrol boat berths close by us, they even decoyed the whole squad away for a little while. Oh, Mr. Enos, but you were soft and easy."

The captain was not addressing David so much as the world in general, but the cadet could not help asking:

"How about the man that jumped on top of me?"

"He was one of them, the head pirate of the lot," said the captain. "He sneaked up from below as soon as the coast was clear, to signal his mates if anybody caught them at work with the boat."

It was worth being choked and thumped a little to be here in the captain's cabin, thought David, and to be taken into the confidence of the great man. The guest risked another question:

"Did they ever try it before, sir?"

"Every ship in the line has had trouble for years with these tobacco-running firemen. But this is the biggest thing they ever tried. Do you expect me to sit here yarning all night with a tuppenny cadet? Go to your bunk and report to me in the morning. You are a young nuisance, but you can go ashore to-morrow night, if you want to. Punishment orders are suspended. Get along with you."

David turned in with his mind sadly puzzled. One thing at least was certain. There was more in the life of a cadet than cleaning paint and brass, but was he always going to be in hot water for doing the right thing at the wrong time? Before he went to sleep he heard the police launch return, and stepped on deck long enough to see four prisoners hauled on to the landing stage.

When David went on duty next morning he noticed a little group of ill-favored and unkempt-looking men talking together on the end of the pier. One of them made a slight gesture, and the others turned and stared toward the cadet. Then they moved toward the street without trying to get aboard ship. Mr. Enos called David aft and told him:

"The police are watching that bunch of thugs. Two of them used to be in our fire room. All four ought to be in jail. They had something to do with the ruction last night, but they can't be identified. The bos'n tells me he thinks they got wind that you were the lad who spoiled the game for their pals. If you go ashore after dark, keep a sharp eye out. They'd love to catch you up a dark street."

David looked solemn at this, but it was too much like playing theatricals to let himself believe that he was in any kind of danger along the water front of New York. It was early evening before he was free to get into his one suit of shore-going clothes and head for Brooklyn to look for his friends, Captain Bracewell and Margaret. The bridge cars were blockaded by an accident, and after fidgeting for half an hour David decided to walk across. There was more delay on the other side in trying to find the right street, and it was getting toward nine o'clock before he rang the bell of a small brick house in a solid block of them so much alike that they suggested a row of red pigeon-holes. A sturdy man with hair and mustache redder than his house front opened the door, and to David's rather breathless inquiry answered in a tone of dismay:

"Why, Captain John and the little girl left here this very afternoon. Bless my soul, are you the lad from the Roanoke they think so much of? Come aboard and sit down. No, they ain't coming back that I know of. My name is Abel Becket and I'm glad to meet you."

David followed Mr. Becket into the parlor, feeling as if the world had been turned upside down. The sympathetic sailor man hastened to add:

"They didn't expect to see you this voyage and they was all broke up about it. The old man is kind of flighty and I couldn't ha' held him here with a hawser. They could have berthed here a month of Sundays, for he has been like a daddy to me."

"But where did they go?" implored David.

"All I know is," said Mr. Becket, rubbing his chin, "that the old man came home this noon mighty glum and fretty after visitin' some ship-brokers' offices. He told me that he heard how an old ship of his, the Gleaner, had been cut down to a coal-barge. He was mighty fond of her, and it upset him bad. And I think he was sort of hopin' to get her again. Then he said he was going to move over to New York to be close to the shipping offices in case anything turned up, and with that him and Margaret packed up and away they flew."

"But why didn't they stay here with you, Mr. Becket? I can't understand it."

Mr. Becket laid a large hand on David's knee and exclaimed:

"Captain John is a sudden and a funny man. For one thing, I suspicion he was afraid of being stranded, and that I'd offer to lend him money or something like that. He is that touchy about taking favors from anybody that it's plumb unnatural. I'm worried that he will go all to pieces if he don't get afloat again. I wish I could drag him back here so as to look after him."

"And how about Margaret?" David asked.

"Oh, she's feelin' fairly chirpy, and she went off with granddaddy as proud and cocksure as if they were expectin' to be offered command of a liner to-morrow."

Despite Mr. Becket's explanations, the flight of Captain Bracewell remained a good deal of a mystery to David. He could not bear to think of them adrift in New York, and he declared with decision:

"If you will give me their address, I'll look them up to-night."

"Bless my stars and buttons, I'll go along with you and make my own mind easy," announced Mr. Becket. "I won't sleep sound unless I know how they're fixed. I'm so used to thinkin' of Cap'n John as fit and ready to ride out any weather, that I don't realize he's so broke up and helpless. And I've got to go to sea before long."

The twisted streets of old Greenwich village in down-town New York proved to be a puzzle to this pair of nautical explorers, partly because Mr. Becket had so much confidence in his ability to steer a straight course to Captain Bracewell's new quarters that he positively refused to ask his bearings of policemen or wayfarers. After they had lost themselves several times, the red-headed pilot of the expedition announced with an air of certainty:

"It's here or hereabouts. I saw the name of the street on a corner sign three or four years ago, and my memory is a wonder."

This was more cheering than definite, and David meekly suggested that he inquire at the next corner store.

"Do you think I'm scuppered yet?" snorted Mr. Becket. "Not a bit of it. Bear off to starboard at the next turn."

But once again they fetched up all standing, and Mr. Becket was obliged to confess as he meditated with hands in his pockets:

"They've gone and moved the street. That's what they've done. It's a trick they have in New York."

"You wait here and I'll go back to the cigar store around the last corner," volunteered David.

Mr. Becket was left to shout his protests while David ran up the dark and narrow street. But the cigar store was not where he expected to find it, and certain that it must be in the next block beyond, he hurried on. Two crooked streets joined in the shape of the letter Y at the second corner, and the cadet failed to notice which of these two courses he had traversed with Mr. Becket. Without knowing it, David began to head into a district filled with sailors' drinking places and cheap eating-houses. As soon as he was sure that the street was unfamiliar he slowed his pace, looked around him, and not wishing to enter a saloon, went over to a gaudily placarded "oyster house."

There were screens in front of the tables, and finding no one behind the cigar-counter David started for the rear of the room. Three rough-looking men jumped up from a table littered with bottles, and one of them cried out with an oath:

"It's the very kid himself. Leave him to me."

David dodged a chair that was flung at him like lightning, and fled for the street amid a shower of dishes and bottles. He had recognized the unlovely face of the man who yelled at him as that of one of the Roanoke firemen who had stared at him from the pier in the morning. He knew he could expect no mercy at the hands of these ruffians.

The three men were at his heels as he blindly doubled the nearest corner, hoping that Mr. Becket might hear his shouts for help. But the silent, shadowy street gave back only the echoes of his own voice and the sound of furious running. The fugitive had lost all sense of direction. He was still stiff from the bruising ordeal of the Pilgrim wreck, and his legs felt benumbed, while the panting firemen seemed to be overhauling him inch by inch. One of them whipped out a revolver and fired. The whine of the bullet past his head made David leap aside, stumble, and lose ground. Were there no policemen in New York? It was beyond belief, thought David, that a man could be hunted for his life through the streets of a great city.

Far away David heard the rapping of nightsticks against the pavement. Help was coming, but it might be too late, and where, oh where, was Mr. Becket? To be stamped on, kicked, and crippled by the boots of these ruffians—this was how they fought, David knew, and this was what he feared.

Two of his pursuers were lagging, but the pounding footfalls of the third were coming nearer and nearer. The street into which he had now come was lined with warehouses, their iron doors bolted, their windows dark. There was no refuge here. He must gain the water front, whose lights beckoned him like beacons. Then, as he tried to clear the curb, he tripped and fell headlong. He heard a shout of savage joy almost in his ear, just before his head crashed against an iron awning post. A blinding shower of stars filled his eyes, and David sprawled senseless where he fell.

CHAPTER IV MR. COCHRAN'S TEMPER

David Downes stared at the ceiling, blinked at the long windows, and squirmed until he saw a sweet-faced woman smiling at him from the doorway. She wore a blue dress and white apron, but she was not a Roanoke stewardess nor was this place anything like the bunk-room on shipboard. The cadet put his hands to his head and discovered that it was wrapped in bandages. Then memory began to come back, at first in scattered bits. He had been running through dark and empty streets. Men were after him. How many of his bones had they broken? He raised his knees very carefully and wiggled his toes. He was sound, then, except for his head. Oh, yes, he had banged against something frightfully hard when he fell. But why was he not aboard the Roanoke? She sailed at eight o'clock in the morning. He tried in vain to sit up, and called to the nurse:

"What time is it, ma'am? Tell me, quick!"

"Just past noon, and you have been sleeping beautifully," said she. "The doctor says you can sit up to-morrow and be out in three or four days more."

"Oh! oh! my ship has sailed without me," groaned David, hiding his face in his hands. "And Captain Thrasher will think I have quit him. He knew I had a notion of staying ashore."

"You must be quiet and not fret," chided the nurse. "You got a nasty bump, that would have broken any ordinary head."

"But didn't you send word to the ship?" he implored. "You don't know what it means to me."

"You had not come to, when you were brought in, foolish boy, and there were no addresses in your pockets."

"But the captain probably signed on another cadet to take my place, first thing this morning," quavered the patient, "and—and I—I'm adrift and dis—disgraced."

The nurse was called into the hall and presently returned with the message:

"A red-headed sailor man insists upon seeing you. If you are very good you may talk to him five minutes, but no more visitors until to-morrow, understand?"

The anxious face of Mr. Becket was framed in the doorway, and at a nod from the nurse he crossed the room with gingerly tread and patted David's cheek, as he exclaimed:

"Imagine my feelin's when I read about it in a newspaper, first thing this morning. They didn't know your name, but I figured it out quicker'n scat. You must think I'm the dickens of a shipmate in foul weather, hey, boy?"

"You couldn't help it, Mr. Becket, and I'm tickled to death to see you. Please tell me what happened to me. I feel as if I was somebody else."

"Well, it was quick work, by what I read," began Mr. Becket. "And as close a shave as there ever was. Accordin' to reports, you, being a well-dressed and unknown young stranger, was rescued from a gang of drunken roustabouts by two policemen, a big red automobile, and a prominent citizen whose name was withheld at his request, as the bright reporter puts it. The machine was coming under full power from a late ferry, and making a short cut to Broadway. It must have bowled around the corner, close hauled, just as you landed on your beam ends, and it scattered the enemy like a bum-shell. They never had a chance to see it coming. The skipper of the gasolene liner, he being the aforesaid prominent citizen, hopped out to pick you up, and had you aboard just as the police came up. So you came to the hospital in the big red wagon, the gentleman taking a fancy to your face, as far as I can make out. And so you've been turned into a regular mystery that ought to be in a book."

"But did you find Captain Bracewell?" was David's next spoken thought.

"Of course I did, after I got tired waitin' for you," and Mr. Becket's tone was aggrieved. "It was mistrustin' my judgment that landed you in a hospital. Captain John and Margaret will be over to pay their respects as soon as the doctors will let 'em pass the hospital gangway. I just came from telling them about you."

But David's mind had harked back to his own ship, and his face was so troubled and despairing that Mr. Becket tugged at his red mustache and waited in a gloomy silence.

"I've lost my ship," said David at length. "Captain Bracewell and I are on the beach together."

"Why didn't I think to telephone the dock as soon as I guessed it in the newspaper?" mourned Mr. Becket, beating his head with his fists. "But Captain Thrasher or some of 'em aboard will read it."

"They won't know it's me," wailed David. "All I can do now is to report to the dock as soon as I can, but I am afraid it will do no good."

The boy's distress was so moving that Mr. Becket had to look out of the window to hide his own woe. Then he spun around and announced with a shout that brought nurses and orderlies hurrying from the near-by wards:

"I have it, my boy. Abel Becket's intellect is on the mend. Send old Thrasher a wireless, do you hear? Get the hospital folks to sign it."

With that Mr. Becket jerked a roll of bills from his waistcoat and demanded a telegraph blank with so commanding an air that an orderly rushed for the office. The sailor-man and David put their heads together and composed this message to the Roanoke, which was speeding hull down and under, far beyond Sandy Hook:

Cadet Downes hurt on shore leave. Unable report because senseless. Anxious to rejoin ship.

"No, that doesn't sound right," objected David. "He thinks I have no sense anyhow. I can just hear him saying that he isn't in the least surprised. Try it again, Mr. Becket."

"Time is up," put in the nurse. "And I ought to have cut it shorter, with your friend bellowing at you as if he were in a storm at sea."

Mr. Becket looked repentant, as he whispered to David:

"Sit tight and keep your nerve. I'll get the wireless off all shipshape. Good-by, and God bless you."

The patient soon fell asleep. It was late in the afternoon when he awoke, hungry and refreshed. The nurse informed him:

"A dear old man and a sweet mite of a girl called to ask after you, and I told them to come back in the morning and they might see you. Mr. Cochran had you put in this private room and left orders that you were to be made as comfortable as possible. So we will have to stretch the rules a bit, I suppose, and let your friends call out of visiting hours to-morrow."

David asked who the mysterious Mr. Cochran might be, but he could learn nothing from the nurse, except that he was the wealthy gentleman who had brought him to the hospital in his automobile. David tried to be patient overnight, and was mightily cheered by the arrival of a wireless message, which read:

S.S. Roanoke. At sea.

Have cadet repaired in first-class shape to join ship next voyage. He is a nuisance.

Thrasher, Master.

The news that he still belonged in the liner braced David like a strong tonic. What did a cracked head-piece amount to now? Being called a nuisance only made him smile. It was Captain Thrasher's way of trying to cover every kindly deed he did. Next forenoon he was rereading this message for something like the tenth time when Captain Bracewell was shown into the room. Margaret followed rather timidly, as if she feared to find her hero in fragments. The skipper looked even older than when he had left the Roanoke, but the "little girl" looked more like a June rose than a white violet, so swiftly had her sparkling color returned. She had both her hands around one of David's as she cried:

"Are you always going to get banged up, you poor sailor boy? And we were to blame for it again, weren't we?"

"You had no business to run away from me," returned the beaming patient. "The worst of it was that I almost lost my own ship."

These were thoughtless words said in fun, but they stung Captain Bracewell with remembrance of his own misfortune, and he stood staring beyond David with troubled eye. Margaret was quick to read his unhappiness, and brought him to himself with a fluttering caress. The derelict shipmaster smiled, and said to David:

"Glad to find you doing so well, boy. You just take it that you are one of our family while you are ashore. There is an extra room in our—in our—" He hesitated, and a bit of color came into his leathery cheek as he finished: "We can find a room for you close by us."

"He means that just now we can't afford to hire more than three rooms to live in," explained Margaret without embarrassment. "But it will be different when we get our ship."

They chatted for a few minutes longer and David promised to find a room as near them as he could, while he waited for the return of the Roanoke. It was easy to see that they wanted to take care of him, but, for his own part, he felt a kind of guardian care for the welfare of the two "Pilgrims," and he was very glad of the chance to be with them at a time when Captain Bracewell was so pitifully unlike his reliant self. After they had gone, David fell to wondering anew about this unknown Mr. Cochran who had so lavishly befriended him. It was enough to make even a sound head ache, and when the nurse brought his dinner, David begged her:

"If you don't tell me something more about Mr. Cochran, I'll blow up."

"He telephoned about you this morning," she answered, "and wanted to call, but you had visitors enough. The doctors have told him who you are, of course, and he seemed very much interested. He said he would bring his son to see you this afternoon. No, not another word. What must you be when you are well and sound? I'd sooner take care of a young cyclone."

Some time later the motherly nurse came in to say, with an air of excitement that she could not hide:

"Mr. Cochran and his boy to see you. It is the great Stanley P. Cochran. I knew him from his pictures in the newspapers and magazines."

The portly gentleman with the bald brow, gold-rimmed glasses, and close-cropped gray mustache who entered the room with quick step looked oddly familiar to David. Why, of course, he had seen his portrait and his name as the head of a great Trust, and a director in railroads, banks, and corporations by the dozen. He spoke with curt, clean-clipped emphasis, as if his minutes were dollars:

"Pretty fit for a lad that looked as dead as a mackerel when I picked him up. Sailors have no business ashore, but they are hard to kill. Lucky I was so late in getting back from my country place the other night. Wish I'd run over the scoundrels, but the police got two of them. This is my boy, Arthur."

The delicate-looking lad, who had been hanging back, shook hands with David and smiled with such an air of shy friendliness and admiration that David liked him on the spot. He looked to be a year or two younger than the strapping cadet, and lacked the hale and rugged aspect of which his illness had not robbed him. Mr. Cochran resumed, as if expecting no reply:

"I liked your looks and there was no sense in waiting for the confounded ambulance. I told them to treat you right. If they haven't, I'll get after the hospital, doctors, nurses, and all. When I found out that you were a cadet from the Roanoke, my boy had to come along. He is crazy about ships and sailors. Reads all the sea stories he can lay his hands on. Well, I must be off. Arthur, you may stay, but not long, mind you."

Mr. Stanley P. Cochran clapped on his silk hat and vanished as if he had dropped through a trap-door. His son said to David, with his shy smile:

"He is the best father that ever was, but he never has time to stay anywhere. I wish you would tell me all about your scrape. It sounds terribly interesting. Will it make your head hurt?"

The cadet had forgotten all about that hard and damaged head of his, and he plunged into the heart of his adventure without bringing in Captain Bracewell and Margaret. Their fortunes were too personal and intimate to be lugged out for the diversion of strangers. Arthur Cochran followed the flight from the sailors' eating-house with the most breathless attention, and when David wound up with his head against the iron post and a ship's fireman about to kick his brains out, his audience sighed:

"Is that all? Things never happen to me. I am not very strong, you know, and they sort of coddle me, and trot me around to health resorts like a set of china done up in cotton. It makes me tired. Tell me all about being a cadet."

David fairly ached to spin the yarn of the Pilgrim wreck, but the cruel nurse cut the visit short, and Arthur Cochran had to depart with the assurance that he would come back next day "to hear the rest of it."

He was true to his word and found David so much stronger that the unruly patient was sitting up in bed and loudly demanding his clothes. It was the patient's turn to ask questions this time, and he was eager to know all about the occupations of a millionaire's son. The heir of the Cochran fortune had to do most of the talking. David demanded to know all about his automobiles, his horses, and his yacht, his trips to Florida and California, his private tutors, and his several homes among which he flitted to and fro like an uneasy bird. Before they realized how time had fled Mr. Cochran came to take Arthur home. The Trust magnate was in his usual hurry, and he volleyed these commands as if argument were out of the question:

"I have looked you up, Downes. The Black Star office speaks very well of you. Also the store in which you used to work. I sent a man out this morning. My boy has taken a great fancy to you. He seldom finds a boy he likes. I think it might do him good to have you around. I have told the people here that you are to be moved to my house to-night. You will stay there until you feel all right. If you wear well, and you are as capable as you look, I shall find something better for you to do than this dog's life at sea. Come along, Arthur. You shall see David this evening."

David's head was in a whirl. A gentleman who belonged in the "Arabian Nights" was bent upon kidnapping him. It seemed as rash to question the orders of this lordly parent as to disobey Captain Thrasher, but there was a look of stubborn resolution in the suntanned jaw of the young sailor and he was not to be so easily driven. He wavered in silence for a minute or two while Mr. Stanley P. Cochran eyed him with rising impatience. Visions of an enchanted land of wealth and pleasure danced before David's eyes, but even more clearly he saw the appealing figures of Captain Bracewell and Margaret. They needed him and he had promised to go to them. He looked up and shook his head as he said with much feeling:

"I don't know what makes you so good to me, sir. I never heard anything like it. But I can't accept your invitation. I can never thank you enough, but I belong somewhere else."

"You have no kinfolk here. I found out all that," exclaimed Mr. Cochran with a very red face. "Why can't you do as I tell you? Of course you can. Not another word! Come along, Arthur."

"I mean it," cried David. "I promised to stay with friends I met on shipboard."

He wanted to tell him about these friends, but the manner of Mr. Cochran stifled explanation. The magnate was not used to such astonishing rebellion, and it galled him the more because he felt that he was stooping to do an uncommonly good deed.

"I seldom urge any one to enter my home," said he. "Nor will I waste words with a boy I picked off the streets; no, not even to humor my own son's fancies. Yes, or no!"

"No, it is," answered David, "but you mustn't be angry about it. You don't understand it at all. Give me a chance to tell you why."

Arthur tried to put in an anxious plea, but his father brushed him aside with the gesture of a Napoleon. "I never spoil an act of charity, Arthur," said the captain of industry. "The lad shall stay in the hospital until he is able to shift for himself, and I will pay his bills. But nothing more! He is ungrateful and contrary. Come along, Arthur."

David's wrath had risen to match the mood of the hot-tempered Mr. Stanley P. Cochran.

"I will get out of here to-night," cried the cadet. "And I'll pay you back every cent it has cost you as soon as I can save it out of my wages. Good-by, Arthur. I am just as grateful as I can be, don't forget that."

Arthur had little time to express his surprise and sorrow, for his domineering parent was towing him down the hall under full steam. David was left to puzzle his wits over his first acquaintance with a millionaire. Of one thing he was sure. He must leave the hospital and have done with Mr. Stanley P. Cochran's singular charity as soon as ever the doctor would let him. But when he tried to rise, his head was very dizzy and his legs were oddly weak. To make his way alone to Captain Bracewell's lodgings was a task beyond his strength to attempt. He must wait another day, and fretting at the thought of Mr. Cochran's hasty misjudgments, the cadet's night was restless and slightly fevered.

Although Arthur Cochran sent him a cheery message by telephone next morning, it hurt David to know that the boy had been forbidden to visit him again. He longed for the sight of a friendly face, and his joy was beyond words when the flaming thatch of Mr. Becket burst upon his sight and dispelled the gloom like the sun breaking through a cloud. David at once began to tell the wonderful tale of Mr. Stanley P. Cochran before the seafarer could edge in a word. The listener chewed the ends of his mustache for a while, and then his chin dropped and his mouth stayed open in sheerest amazement. Before David had reached the climax, Mr. Becket broke in:

"Mr. Stanley P. Cochran asked you to bunk in his house, to be mess-mates with him and his only boy? Pro-dig-io-ou-s! I'd let any gang of roustabouts knock my head off, close behind the ears, for a gorgeous chance like that. You are the makin's of a first-class sailor, Davy, because you are so many kinds of a stark, starin' fool ashore."

"But I had to look after the 'Pilgrims,'" protested David.

"You aren't in shape to look after yourself, you poor idiot," cried Mr. Becket. "You ought to see yourself in the glass, with your head all tied in a sling. You look after anybody? Shucks! You turned down Mr. Stanley P. Cochran? Why, he would ha' made you for life. Oh, my! Oh, my!"

"But I couldn't feel right if I didn't stand by Captain John and Margaret, Mr. Becket. I'll never be happy till he gets another ship."

Mr. Becket buried his face in a pillow and appeared to be wrapped in hopeless dejection. When his florid countenance emerged from its total eclipse he groaned twice, heaved a sigh that fairly shook him, and glared at David with speechless reproach.

"What in the world has happened to you now?" peevishly quoth the patient. "You don't come into this. And I haven't done anything to be sorry for."

"I hadn't ought to tell you, Davy, and you sick in bed," confessed the dismal Mr. Becket. "It's rubbin' it in too hard. Mr. Stanley P. Cochran has just bought out the Columbia sugar refineries, hook, line, and sinker. I read it in the Shipping Gazette last week. And that included the whole fleet of square-rigged ships that fetches their cargoes from the Far East. He controls 'em all now, does Stanley P. Cochran."

"You mean that I might have helped to get a ship for Captain John?" David piteously appealed.

"Easy as robbin' a sailor," solemnly answered Mr. Becket. "That boy of his can have anything on earth, up to a herd of white elephants, for the simple askin'. And you could ha' had anything you wanted through the young hopeful. It was a direct act of Providence that you had to go and monkey with."

David was in the torments of regret. Yes, Arthur Cochran was just the kind of a boy to feel an affectionate interest in the fortunes of Captain John and Margaret, once he had a chance to know them. But the opportunity was past and dead. Mr. Becket looked a little less hopeless as he exclaimed:

"Is it too late to patch it up? Can't we charter a hack and overhaul Stanley P. and tell him the prodigal is ashamed of the error of his ways?"

"He is not that kind," said David. "He will never speak to me again. I jolted his pride and he is done with me for good. Oh, but I did try to do what was right. And I've done wrong to my best and dearest friends."

"I begin to think you were born to trouble as the sparks fly upward," was Mr. Becket's dreary comment.

CHAPTER V MID FOG AND ICE

A year had passed since David Downes lay grieving in the hospital over the great chance he had let slip to help mend the fortunes of Captain Bracewell and Margaret. The cadet no longer dreamed of giving up his life's work on the sea. He had sailed twelve voyages in the Roanoke, which every month ploughed her stately way across the Atlantic and return, through six thousand miles of hazards. Cadets had come and gone. Few of them who sought to make their careers in this way had the grit and patience to endure the machine-like routine in which advancement lay years and years ahead. But David had begun to understand the meaning of this slow process by which his mind was being taught to act with sure judgment, and he saw how very much there was to learn and suffer before a man could win the mastery of the sea.

Because he was strong, quick, and obedient, the navigating officers took a genuine interest in his welfare. They had begun to teach him the uses of their instruments and books. He knew the language of the fluttering signal flags by day and the sputtering Coston lights and winking lamps by night. The taffrail log and the Thompson sounding machine were no longer blind mysteries, and much of his leisure was spent in the chart room. The bos'n taught him what few tricks of old-fashioned seamanship were left to learn in a vessel whose spars were no more than cargo derricks. The cadet had begun to know the liner, the vast and intricate organization, whose ever-throbbing life extended through eight stories that were like so many hotels, machine shops, and factories. And he realized what it must mean to be that calm and ever-ready man in the captain's cabin, whose mind was in touch with every one of these myriad activities by night and day.

Meanwhile David had become more and more fond of and intimate with his sea waifs of the Pilgrim. Every time the Roanoke wove her way back to New York, like a giant shuttle plying over a vast blue carpet, the cadet was with Margaret and her grandfather as often as he was allowed ashore. Captain Bracewell had not found the ship for which he yearned, but his former owners had given him a berth as stevedore on their wharf, and in faithful drudgery he earned a living and a home for Margaret.

He had never become his old self again. He was like one of the splendid square-rigged ships which had been degraded to spend its last days as a coal barge. But he had learned to keep his sorrows and regrets to himself, and, gray-haired hero that he was, lived and toiled for the "little girl," who was the one anchor to hold him from drifting on the lee shore of a broken and useless old age.

David Downes had grown very close to the ship-master's heart. His young strength and his hope and pride in his calling were like a fresh sea-breeze. Nor did anything have quite as much power to kindle Captain Bracewell's emotions as David's confidence that somehow and some day the message would come that a master was needed on the quarter-deck of some fine deep-water sailing ship. Even the bos'n of the Roanoke, to whom David had told his dreams, took a lively interest in the matter and went so far as to declare:

"The very first Christmas what I makes my fortunes I vill put a four-masted Yankee ship in your stockings, boy, mit stores and crew ready for sea, and this granddaddy of yours walkin' up and down the poop, so?"

When the Roanoke was ordered into dry-dock at Southampton, at the end of David's first year in her, she missed a voyage and the cadet had to be content with letters from his friends in New York. In the first packet of mail was a surprising lot of news from Margaret, which read as follows:

Dear Brother Davy:

It is awful lonesome without you for seven whole weeks. Grandfather misses you more than he thinks he lets me see, and he is almost as fidgety as when we landed from the dear old Pilgrim. Mr. Becket is in port and is the cheerfulest of us all though he ought to be the saddest. After being chief officer in that coastwise steamer for three years, he was silly enough to play a joke on his skipper in Charleston last week. And, of course, the old man found it out. Mr. Becket is a perfect dear, but he hasn't much sense when he gets one of his fits of the do-funnies. The captain was in a barber shop ashore, getting his whiskers cut off for the summer season. And Mr. Becket paid two hackmen to walk in as if they just happened there, and begin to talk to each other about the fire on the wharves. Of course, the captain pricked up his ears, and then one of the men said:

"They tell me it blazed up just like an explosion and is right smack alongside the Chesapeake."

That was Mr. Becket's steamer, you know. One side of the captain's whiskers was off and the other wasn't, and he made a jump from the chair, took one of the hackmen by the neck, shoved him through the door, and threw him up on the box of his carriage. Then the captain hopped inside and told the man to drive to the wharf like fury. Of course, the hackman had not expected to be caught this way, but he had to go or else the captain would have broken his neck for him, at least that is what he said he would do.

And when they got to the wharf the captain flew out of the cab and down to his ship. The deck was full of passengers and they laughed till they cried, for the captain must have been a sight with only half his whiskers on. Mr. Becket says they were a fathom long, but he is a terrible exaggerator, as you know. Then the captain ran back after the hackman and caught him and scared him so that he told on Mr. Becket. Wasn't it a shame? Anyhow, he was a horrid captain to his officers and Mr. Becket says he is going to wait for the ship you expect to build for grandfather and me. Write soon and come home as quick as you can to

Your Most Affectionate Little Sister,

Margaret.

David tore open an envelope that bore the marks of Mr. Becket's ponderous fist, hoping for more light on this family tragedy. The luckless mate had no more to say, however, than this:

Dear Davy:

Do you need a strong and willing seaman in your gilt-edged packet? The coasting trade don't agree with my delicate health. I have left the Chesapeake owing to one of them cruel misunderstandings that makes a sailor's life as uncertain as the lilies of the field which are skylarkin' to-day and are cut down and perisheth to-morrow. It is too painful to bother your tender young feelings with. Hold on, I don't think I want to ship with you. Your skipper wears a fine crop of tan whiskers. They would be sure to fill me with sad and tormentin' memories. All's well, and they can't keep a good man down. Your shipmate,

Abel Y. Becket.

David read the letter to the bos'n, expecting sympathy, but that hard-hearted mariner laughed boisterously, and said:

"He got vat was comin' to him, the red-headed old sundowner. I know that Becket man. I wish he shipped as a seaman mit me. I make him yump mit a rope's end. He, ho, ho!—the old man mit his whiskers carried away on the port side. I give a month's wages to see him."

David grew a little hot at such callous treatment of a friend in distress, but could not help smiling as the bos'n trudged off about his work, wagging his head and muttering:

"Mit his whiskers under jury-rig. The red-headed old sundowner! He is a rascal, is that Becket man!"

"I am going to find out whether this line needs any more junior officers," sighed David to himself. "It seems as if all my family is hoodooed about keeping their berths afloat. I wish I was big enough to spank Mr. Abel Y. Becket."

A few days after this the Roanoke was ready for sea and all hands resumed their routine duties. The liner slid out into Southampton Water, and swung up Channel toward the North Sea and Antwerp to pick up her passengers and cargo for the homeward voyage. Clean and tuned up after her overhauling, the crack ship of the Black Star Line was fit for a record run across the Atlantic.

Nor had Captain Thrasher ever felt more pride and confidence in the power, speed, and seaworthiness of the Roanoke than when he dropped the Dutch pilot off Flushing a few days later and signalled "full speed ahead," with Sandy Hook a week away and waiting wives and sweethearts "hauling on the towline." Nor were any of the passengers who flocked along the rail in cheerful groups more eager to get home to their own than the stalwart cadet who tramped the boat deck and watched the Channel shipping sweep past like a panorama. An older cadet, with whom David had formed a fast sea friendship, listened with kindly interest to his hopes and anxiety that all was well with Captain John and Margaret. In David's thoughts the "little girl" was still the helpless child of the Pilgrim, who needed the constant and protecting care of a big brother. Margaret was fourteen now, on the threshold of her fair girlhood, but in her devotion to David there was no sentiment, save that of a sister's trusting and adoring affection.

Captain Thrasher had come to know these friends of David's through their occasional visits on board, when the ship was in port, and his manner toward them was always most cordial. Now and then he unbent a trifle at sea and asked David if Captain Bracewell had found another ship. David was not frightened, therefore, when the master of the liner beckoned him, while passing down from the bridge to supper. The cadet followed the bulky, resolute figure in blue into the sacred precincts of the captain's quarters, and stood silent, cap in hand. In his eyes, Captain Stephen Thrasher was the most enviable man alive, far outshining presidents and kings.

Perhaps because he had been longer away from his home than usual and was thinking of his own lads in school, the masterful captain of the liner addressed David almost as if he were a friend:

"Are you getting on all right, my boy? Do you peg away at your books off watch?"

"Yes, sir. The chief officer thinks I have a turn for navigation. That is, sir, he said that whatever once got inside my thick head was pretty sure to stick there."

Captain Thrasher chuckled, and looked the boy over from head to foot before he resumed:

"How is that stranded friend of yours, Captain Bracewell and his pretty granddaughter?"

"They are well, sir, but Mr. Becket has lost his—his—" David bit his tongue. He had almost said too much. The captain did not know Mr. Becket from a marline-spike, and his affairs must not be dragged in unless asked for. But Captain Thrasher showed no interest in whatever it was that Mr. Becket had lost, and abruptly ended the interview with:

"You will be put on the ship's papers as an able seaman next voyage. But you will berth with the cadets, understand? Don't thank me. You have earned promotion. That's all. You are a nuisance. Get out."

David saluted, and his radiant face expressed his thanks which the captain had forbidden him to put in words. Once on deck, the new-fledged able seaman danced a shuffle and cracked his heels together. His wages would be doubled, and he had left one round of the long ladder behind him. For the next three days he went about his duties in a kind of blissful trance, but he was none the less determined to earn another step in promotion hour by hour, one task at a time, done as well and faithfully as he knew how.

The voyage which had begun so brightly was fated to test the mettle, not only of David Downes, but of every man of the ship's company. The fog, which shut down on the third day like a gray curtain, made navigation a perilous game of hide and seek. Captain Thrasher took his post on the bridge, to stay there until the fog should clear. Far down in the clanging engine rooms the chief engineer and his army of toilers were alert to respond to signals on the instant. The safety of thousands of lives and millions of property was in their keeping also. They were like bold and resourceful pygmies among the mighty monsters of clanging steel which they were ready to tame and check at the call from above.

Through a long night the Roanoke groped her way over a shrouded sea on which the fog hung so thick that the ghostly figures on the bridge could not see the bow of their own ship. It was no better when daylight wiped the blackness from the fog. The steamer was wrapped in a blind world in which there was no sound except the bellowing of the automatic whistle.

David had seen Captain Thrasher pick his sure way through days and nights of such weather as this, but now the master appeared to be more cautious and absorbed in his great responsibility than ever before. Some unusual strain and uneasiness were picking at his nerves, and his officers were aware of it, but they kept their thoughts to themselves. Nor would David have guessed the truth so soon had not Captain Thrasher tossed away a wireless message slip instead of tearing it up. David caught it as it fluttered past the wheel-house and began to read without thinking it to be more than a greeting from some passing vessel. Beneath the figures of latitude and longitude was written:

S.S. Hanoverian.

Dense fog clearing. Many large icebergs in sight just to the northward of us. Most unusual southerly ice drift directly in west-bound track. If you are in fog advise great caution. Please repeat warning to any other vessels behind you.

Greenfelt, Master.

David let the bit of paper blow overside and slipped into the chart room to calculate the position of the Hanoverian. The chart showed him that she was a hundred and fifty miles west and considerably to the southward of the Roanoke when the message was sent. When David returned to the deck an officer was already making reports of the temperature of the water, and Captain Thrasher was standing with head cocked and a hand at his ear, listening, on the chance that the clamor of the fog-whistle might fling back a telltale echo from some hidden mountain of ice that lay in ambush.

Before long David was ordered to stand by the wireless operator's room and fetch to the bridge any messages that might leap from his rattling, sparking instruments. But the Roanoke was left to work out her fate alone. Even the Hanoverian, having picked up her speed with clearing weather, had hurried beyond calling distance of the slow-creeping Black Star liner.

The second night of the fog stole softly around the ship. As the chill and dripping air changed from pearly gray to starless gloom, the hoarse and frequent whistle seemed to be appealing for guidance on this sightless sea. Bridge, deck, and engine room were unceasingly vigilant. Their first warning of deadly peril came when a blast from the whistle was hurled back in a volley of echoes from somewhere dead ahead. Captain Thrasher leaped to the engine-room indicator and signalled full speed astern, with both screws.

The Roanoke shook herself as if her rivets were pulling out, as the engines strove to hold her back, but the momentum of the vast bulk could not be checked on the instant. Then there came a far more violent shock, a grinding roar, and the sound of rending steel and timber. Every man on deck was pitched off his feet. The stricken steamer listed heavily to port and then slowly righted, as the masses of ice dislodged from the berg by the collision slid off her fore deck.

What Captain Thrasher most dreaded had come to pass. In spite of his utmost care his ship had crashed into the ice that lay hidden in the fog and night. But every man of his crew knew that if his ship should go down, he was ready to go down with her. He stood on his bridge without sign of alarm or excitement, shouting swift, clean-cut orders. Before the steamer had ceased to grind against the pale and ghastly ice that towered above her, the water-tight doors in the scores of bulkheads were being closed by men who knew their stations in such a time as this.

Stewards were hastening among the cabin passengers to quiet their panic. Down in the steerage quarters hundreds of hysterical immigrants were running to and fro with prayers and screams, but a squad of hard-fisted seamen soon herded them like sheep and threatened death to any who should try to force a way to the boat deck. The chief officer and the carpenters were forward with lanterns, and other men were in the holds seeking to find how much damage had been done.

The order came from the bridge for the boat crews to stand by, ready to abandon ship if need be. David took his station as he had been taught to do in the boat drill of voyage after voyage. It was very hard to wait in the darkness, but, far more than the cadet knew, his year of training under the relentless rule of the captain's discipline had been fitting him for the test.

The decks had begun to slope downward toward the bow. The forward compartments were filling, and the fate of the Roanoke hung on the strength of the collision bulkhead just aft of the wound the ice had made. David heard the chief officer sing out to the bridge:

"She's flooded to the first bulkhead, sir, but I think she will stay afloat. Will you come and see for yourself? The whole bow of her is stove in below the water line."

The Roanoke was slowly moving astern to try to go clear of the iceberg against which the long swells could be heard breaking as on a rock-bound beach. It seemed an eternity to David before Captain Thrasher returned to the bridge and shouted to an officer:

"Tell the people below we are in no danger before daylight. Better put it stronger than that. Tell them we will make port."

Up in the darkness they listened to the frantic cheers that rose from cabins and steerage, but the passengers had not heard the captain's grim comment to himself:

"If it comes on to blow, there may be another story to tell."

When daylight came the liner made an astonishing sea picture. The fog had lifted a little and the sombre sea was visible for a few lengths away. The steamer's bow was gone. In its place was a jagged cavern of twisted, crumpled steel, into which the waves washed and broke with the sound of distant thunder. The captain dared risk no more pressure against his straining bulkhead which kept the vessel afloat, and the Roanoke lay motionless, while all hands that could be mustered for the work were bracing the inside of the bulkhead with timbers and piles of heavy cargo. There could be no driving the ship ahead against the tremendous weight of the sea until this task was done.

The barometer had risen overnight and the liner's chances were slightly more hopeful. Her wireless instrument was chattering to the world beyond the sky line that she was in sore straits, but if any steamers passed within unseen hailing distance they were not equipped to talk through the air. The Roanoke was left to make the best of her plight.

David Downes had little thought for the fears of the passengers. His confidence in Captain Thrasher was supreme, and he knew that if it should come to the worst, the boats would be got away with orderly promptness. As for the crew, David hoped there might be room for him, and there was a lump in his throat and his breath seemed choked when he thought of being left to struggle and drown, but he felt himself to be a full-fledged American seaman, and he was proud of it. Whatever fate might befall Captain Thrasher was good enough for him.

David was musing in this fashion as he hastened with urgent orders between the fore-hold and the bridge. On one of these trips he found the captain and the senior second officer poring over one of the yellow sheets on which the wireless messages were written.

"Some vessel is within helping distance," thought David, with a thrill of joy, and lingered, hoping to hear the good news.

Presently the captain went to his room, and the officer, taking pity on the youngster's open curiosity, confided:

"Here is a pretty kettle of fish. Those people are asking us to come to their assistance. That's the way it goes. Disasters always run in twos and threes. We can't make head or tail of the message except 'Help' and 'No hope of gaining control.' It sounds like fire, to me."

CHAPTER VI THE MISSING BOAT

There was nothing to be done except to wait for another wireless call for help from the unseen vessel in distress. The first message included some figures which seemed like a frantic attempt to give the latitude and longitude of the stranger, but they were as puzzling as the rest of it.

"That wireless operator must be rattled, whoever he is," said one of the liner's officers. "Maybe his coat-tails are on fire."

Beckoning David to follow him to the chart room he added, with a gesture of dismay:

"Here we are, and I'm blessed if his figures don't put him somewhere in the middle of Canada, high and dry on a mountain range. As if we didn't have troubles enough!"

Captain Thrasher was irritable for the first time in this ill-fated voyage of the Roanoke, as he exclaimed from the bridge:

"I can't go in search of the confounded lunatic even if he is afire. What right has he to ask help of me when my bows are caved in like an old hat, with no chance at all of getting under way before night, and my ship half full of water? I'm trying to find help myself."

It was perhaps a half hour later when another message came winging its way through space. Captain Thrasher read it aloud, with frowning earnestness:

Fire spreading aft. Must abandon ship before long. Lives in danger. Help! Help!

The figures of latitude and longitude were repeated at the end of the message, and the previous mistakes corrected. The chart showed that the burning vessel lay about forty miles to the south-east of the helpless Roanoke.

"Why doesn't he say who and what he is?" growled Captain Thrasher. "If he is a big passenger steamer he is in a bad fix and no mistake. Tell the operator to ask him more about it, quick. And tell him we are in no shape to go after him. My own people have to come first."

Captain Thrasher was more anxious than surprised. He had long since learned that nothing was too improbable to happen at sea, and he took it almost as a matter of course that collision and fire should occur fifty miles apart in the same twenty-four hours. It went sorely against his training to leave these other victims of disaster to shift for themselves, and he walked the bridge with restless tread until a third message was brought to him. It read:

Yacht "Restless." New York for Cherbourg. Owner on board. This may be last message. No hope of saving vessel. For God's sake pick us up.

"I have seen that steamer somewhere in port," said Captain Thrasher. "She must carry a crew of forty or fifty men. Well, I can't pick 'em up if the gilt-edged owner sends me a million dollars by wireless. Give them our position again and tell them we will keep a sharp lookout for their boats till nightfall and maybe longer."

As if in answer to the captain's words a final call came from the Restless:

Owner give you million dollars to come at once. Good-by. I'm off.

"He's a cheerful sport, that wireless gentleman," observed Captain Thrasher. "But I wonder if he got our position. I'm afraid not. I pray the good Lord their boats got away in time."

While the liner was by no means out of danger, the situation of the Restless people fairly tore at the captain's heartstrings. He was not a man to confess himself beaten in any crisis without trying to find a way out. He pored over the charts, studied the weather signs, tugged at his beard, and muttered savagely to himself. But he did not decide to act until the fog had vanished before a pleasant breeze in the early afternoon. The sun came out and the sea danced blue to the far horizon.

Then the captain delivered his orders with stern directness. Calling the third officer, he said:

"Mr. Briggs, you will take the number three boat and stand about fifteen miles to the sou'-east. If the Restless boats are heading for us, you should be able to pick them up before nightfall and show them the way. Otherwise they may miss us. I shall expect you aboard by nine o'clock, at the latest. Watch for our rockets."

Mr. Briggs saluted, and mustered his crew. David Downes belonged in the number three boat, and Mr. Briggs grinned as the lad hurried up. He had not forgotten the trip to the wreck of the Pilgrim. As the boat was lowered, Captain Thrasher gazed grimly overside, realizing that he might need all his men and boats before night. But he had staked his judgment on being able to keep the liner afloat, and he was ready to face results without flinching.

The breeze dimpled the lazy swells and sail was hoisted in the boat. The men lounged on the thwarts while the stout craft bore away to the southward, and David fell to thinking of that other rescue during his first voyage. This was like a summer pleasure cruise with no danger in sight. Mr. Briggs at the tiller took a different view, which was colored by his arduous years at sea.

"There's nothing as bad as fire," said he, as if talking to himself. "A crew thinks it can master it until it is too late to get away in any kind of shape. I was in a bark that burned and my boat was adrift a week, without food or water to speak of. We never thought of quitting ship till the decks blew up and we had to go overboard, head first."

"This wireless is like talkin' to the bloomin' ghosts of dead men," muttered an English seaman. "You cawn't make me believe there's any burnin' vessel out 'ere till I sees it. We might as well go chasin' a bad dream, that's wot it is."

The crew became silent, while the boat hissed through the long seas, and the black hull of the Roanoke dropped lower and lower behind them. Wireless telegraphy was too recent an aid to sea-faring to seem real to these simple sailors; this was the first time its workings had touched their lives, and they were not ready to take the burning yacht on faith unseen.

After three hours had slid past Mr. Briggs began to sweep the sea with his glasses, standing in the stern-sheets, with the tiller between his knees. He had run down his fifteen miles of southing, but the blue horizon line was without a speck to mar it.

He decided to risk stretching his orders a bit by keeping on his course for another hour or so. The breeze still held and he could stand back for the Roanoke with free sheets and oars out. He knew that if the boats of the Restless should drift beyond the steamer lanes or trans-Atlantic routes, days and even weeks might pass without their being sighted or picked up.

The perplexed officer was on the point of giving up the search when his keen eye caught sight of a faint smudge between sea and sky. It looked like a tiny fragment of cloud, but it might be smoke. He ordered his men to their oars, and the boat increased her speed.

"If it is a steamer's smoke she may have rescued them," said he; "if not, it may be the yacht, still afloat."

The ashen-colored smudge of smoke grew in size as they steered toward it until it became a trailing banner.

"No funnels could make all that mess," shouted Mr. Briggs, as he flourished his glasses. "That is the bonfire, and it must be pretty near the end of it. I'm surprised that she's stayed afloat this long."

He was a good prophet, for while he stared, the smoke suddenly spread skyward like a huge fan, hung for a moment, and then vanished, except for tattered fringes of vapor that drifted slowly to leeward.

"That's the end of her," cried Mr. Briggs. "She blew up and sank with one big puff. Her boats ought to be sighted before long."

There was no more thought of returning to the Roanoke empty-handed. The men rowed like mad, as if they were matched in a race for life, not realizing that the smoke had been sighted a good ten miles away. It was near sunset when Mr. Briggs had a glimpse of a white dot far ahead which he took to be a boat. As they pulled nearer, he saw that it was a life-raft covered with men who were paddling with oars and bits of plank. It was easy work to get alongside and pass them a line in such calm weather as this.