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Title: The Wrecking Master
Author: Ralph Delahaye Paine
Illustrator: George Varian
Release Date: May 19, 2020 [eBook #62176]
[Most recently updated: October 14, 2021]
Language: English
Produced by: Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WRECKING MASTER ***
Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by plus signs is in bold face (+bold+).
THE WRECKING MASTER
* * * * * *
BOOKS BY RALPH D. PAINE
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+Sandy Sawyer, Sophomore.+ Illustrated, 12mo $1.50
+The Stroke Oar.+ Illustrated, 12mo $1.50
+The Fugitive Freshman.+ Illustrated, 12mo $1.50
+The Head Coach.+ Illustrated, 12mo $1.50
+College Years.+ Illustrated, 12mo $1.50
* * * * *
+The Wrecking Master.+ Illustrated, 12mo $1.25
+A Cadet of the Black Star Line.+ Illustrated, 12mo $1.25
* * * * * *
THE WRECKING MASTER
[Illustration: "You're working for Jim Wetherly"]
THE WRECKING MASTER
by
RALPH D. PAINE
Author of "A Cadet of the Black Star Line," "The Fugitive
Freshman," "The Head Coach," etc.
Illustrated by George Varian
New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1911
Copyright, 1911, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
Published September, 1911
[Illustration: Logo]
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. A Skipper in Bad Company 3
II. The _Resolute_ Fathoms the Plo 21
III. The Race for the _Kenilworth_ 40
IV. Wicked Mr. Pringle in Collision 59
V. "All Hands Abandon Ship" 75
VI. Dan Frazier's Predicament 93
VII. A Fat Engineer to the Rescue 110
VIII. A Fog of Suspicions 128
IX. The Broken Hawser 149
X. Dan's Dreams Come True 168
ILLUSTRATIONS
"You're working for Jim Wetherly" _Frontispiece_
Facing page
And with Bill McKnight's assistance the derelict was hauled
aboard like a large and dripping fish 6
The _Sombrero_ sailed like a witch in the race 34
But for once that square-jawed uncle of his had dared too
much 84
Dan felt a new thrill of surprise and alarm 104
It was a pretty bit of old-fashioned boarding for the prosaic
twentieth century 120
"If you are going to call me a liar at the start, you won't
get very far!" 132
She looked as if she had laid her bones on the Reef for
good and all 150
THE WRECKING MASTER
CHAPTER I
A SKIPPER IN BAD COMPANY
"A thick night and no mistake, Dan. It's as black as the face of a
Nassau pilot. We ought to be nearing the coal wharf by now. Of course
they wouldn't have sense enough to leave a light on it to give us our
bearings."
Captain Jim Wetherly was growling through the window of the darkened
wheel-house to his deck-hand, young Dan Frazier, as the oceangoing tug
_Resolute_ felt her way up the harbor of Pensacola. She had towed a
dismasted bark into port after a long and stubborn tussle with wind and
sea, and her master was in haste to fill the empty bunkers and drive
her home to Key West, five hundred miles across the blue Gulf.
The mate and several of the crew had gone ashore for the evening, the
fat and grizzled chief engineer was loafing on the deck below, and
Captain Wetherly was somewhat consoled to have a sympathetic listener
in his youngest deck-hand. This Dan Frazier was his nephew, not long
out of the Key West High School, and trying his hand at seafaring
in the _Resolute_ as the first chance which had offered to ease his
mother's task of caring for him.
In the presence of any of the vessel's company, discipline was observed
between the two with a respectful "aye, aye, sir," or "no, sir," on
Dan's part, but now when they were alone on deck Dan felt free to reply:
"It's strange water to me, Uncle Jim. I shouldn't wonder if the old
_Resolute_ felt timid about poking around a crowded harbor on a thick
night. What she likes best is plenty of sea-room with a wreck piled
hard and fast on the Florida Reef and a fighting chance to pull it off.
I wish I could have been on board when you were taking hold of that big
Italian steamer last spring. The men say they thought the _Resolute_
was going to yank the engines clean out of her before you let go on the
last haul that dragged the wreck clear of the Reef. Is it true that
Bill McKnight clamped the safety-valve down and said it was up to
Providence to see that his boilers didn't blow up?"
Captain Wetherly chuckled. The flare of a match as he relighted his
pipe illumined a pair of steadfast gray eyes and a smooth-shaven chin
of such dogged squareness of outline that Dan's statements seemed to be
half-way answered even before his uncle said:
"Pshaw, boy, Bill McKnight is a good chief engineer, but if his engines
didn't get any more rest than that tongue of his, they would have
been in the scrap-heap long ago. I suppose he has been filling you up
with yarns of the wonderful things he has done with this boat on the
Reef. Come to think of it, he _was_ carrying some steam more than the
law allowed when we tackled that Italian wreck for the last time, but
we weren't there for our health. And wrecking isn't a business for
children, Dan. You'll find that out if you stick by me long enough
to get your mate's papers. Seems to me we must have run past that
confounded coal wharf by this time. I don't know whether that light
yonder is a lantern or a store up the street somewhere."
Dan went over to the side of the deck and peered into the shoreward
gloom while Captain Wetherly jerked a bell-pull. A mellow clang floated
from the engine-room, the _Resolute_ slackened way to half-speed, and
began to swing in toward the puzzling light. Dan Frazier thought he
heard the click of rowlocks somewhere off in the darkness and cocked an
ear to listen. The sound ceased and then he fancied he saw a shadowy
patch moving on the water almost in front of the _Resolute's_ bow. An
instant later Captain Wetherly shouted in alarm:
"Boat ahoy. Do you want to be run under?"
Angry, confused voices were raised from the blackness close ahead while
the tug quivered to the thrust of the engines as they strove to check
her headway. Panic-stricken profanity was volleyed from the water,
there was a slight shock and crash as of splintered planking, and the
tug slid over what remained of the blundering small boat.
"Great Scott!" cried Captain Jim. "The poor fools must have done it
a-purpose. When they come up and yell, stand by to fish 'em out, Dan.
Tell Bill McKnight to man a boat and be ready to lower it. Of all
the----"
The horrified Dan had already scampered down to the main-deck and,
snatching up a coil of heaving line, he sprang upon the guard-rail and
waited for a call for help from the castaways. The chief engineer was
bawling commands to a fireman and the cook who were fumbling with the
falls of a boat swung aft. The galley boy came rushing along with a
lantern and Dan held it over the side just in time to see a head bob to
the foaming surface with a gurgling lament:
"Aren't you going to haul me aboard your murderin' tow-boat?"
Dan tossed him a bight of the line into which he wriggled his shoulders
and with Bill McKnight's assistance the derelict was hauled aboard like
a large and dripping fish. They did not waste time in looking him over,
but asked in the same breath:
[Illustration: And with Bill McKnight's assistance the derelict was
hauled aboard like a large and dripping fish]
"How many more of you?"
"Only one, and he can't be far off," panted the victim of the
collision. "You'll hear him holler pretty soon unless you knocked his
brains out when you struck us."
The boat was ready by this time, and Dan and the cook, letting it
down by the run, scrambled in and shoved clear of the tug. They had
paddled only a little way astern when the lantern threw its wavering
gleam athwart the missing man, who was groaning as if hurt, while he
tried with feeble splashing to keep himself afloat. With great exertion
he was dragged over the gunwale and taken to the _Resolute_. He was
unable to stand on deck and blood was oozing from a ragged gash on his
forehead. The engineer helped carry him into his own state-room a few
steps away on the lower deck, where the wet clothing was stripped from
him and the bunk made ready.
Meanwhile, Captain Wetherly, relieved to learn that no lives were lost,
rang up speed and headed the tug for what he hoped might be the wharf
he was seeking. Presently Dan Frazier reported at the wheel-house door
and explained:
"You won't be any more surprised than I was to find out that the first
man we picked up is Jerry Pringle. Yes, it's old Pringle himself sure
enough, Uncle Jim. I didn't get time for a sight of him until just now.
What in the world is he doing so far from Key West, and how did he
happen to be run down in a boat at night in Pensacola harbor? It beats
me."
"What has he got to say for himself?" snapped Captain Jim with a note
of hostility and suspicion in his voice. "Is he sober? And Jerry
Pringle let a tow-boat waltz right over him! Um-mm, he must have been
mighty busy thinking about something else. Who is the other fellow?
Ever see him before?"
"No, sir. He's an Englishman, I think, a big, strong man with a brown
beard. He is pretty well knocked out and his wits were muddled by a
thump on the head. He talks flighty. Jerry Pringle is with him and says
he will fetch him around without our help and get him ashore as soon as
we land."
"Well, there's the coal-pocket looming up ahead, and you'd better get
aft to make a line fast, Dan," observed the captain. "As soon as we
dock, I'll step down and see what I can do for our passengers. They're
welcome to stay aboard overnight. Jump lively."
While the _Resolute_ was deftly laid alongside the head of the wharf,
Dan made a flying leap to the string-piece and dragged the hawsers to
the nearest pilings, bow and stern. Then he hurried back to the chief
engineer's room in quest of more information about the strange and
unwilling visit of Mr. Jeremiah Pringle of Key West.
Dan Frazier knew him as one of the most daring and successful wreckers
of the Florida Reef, that cruel, hidden rampart of coral which
stretches in the open sea for a hundred and fifty miles along the
Atlantic coast of southern Florida, on the edge of the great highway of
ocean traffic for Central and South America. Because the Gulf Stream
flows north along this crowded highway, the steamers and sailing craft
bound south skirt the Reef as close as they dare in order to avoid the
adverse current. Tall, spider-legged, steel light-houses rise from the
submerged Reef, but its ledges still take their yearly toll of costly
vessels, as they have done for centuries. When such disasters happen,
the wreckers flock seaward to try to save the ship and cargo.
Jerry Pringle was one of the last of a famous race of native wrecking
masters of Key West. His father and grandfather were wreckers before
him, and they had been hard and godless men, rejoicing in the tidings
of disaster on the Reef as a chance to plunder and destroy. Rumor had
said some curious things about this Jeremiah Pringle's methods as
a wrecking master, but Dan Frazier gave them careless heed, partly
because he had heard so many wicked tales of the by-gone wrecking days,
but more because young Barton Pringle, the only son of this man, was
his dearest chum and school-mate.
With very lively curiosity Dan halted in the doorway of the little
state-room which Captain Jim Wetherly had entered just before him.
Jeremiah Pringle was sitting on the edge of the bunk as if to shield
his comrade of the small boat from observation, and was gruffly
cautioning him not to exert himself by trying to talk. Captain Wetherly
was eying them both with the keenest interest reflected in his
determined countenance. He was saying as Dan came within earshot:
"Of course I am very sorry it happened, Pringle, but I don't see how
you can hold me responsible for the loss of your boat. My lights were
in order and the vessel was moving at half speed. I'm sure your
friend there, the master of the _Kenilworth_, lays it to your own
carelessness."
"Who said he was master of the _Kenilworth_?" spoke up Jerry Pringle.
"You seem to be taking a whole lot of things for granted. He's in no
shape to deny it, so call him what you please."
Mr. Pringle looked unhappy and not all at ease, nor had he any thanks
to spare for his rescue. Even Dan could perceive how thoroughly
disgusted he was over this unlucky meeting with Captain Wetherly who
replied:
"Oh, yes, it _is_ Captain Bruce of the _Kenilworth_, that big English
cargo steamer in the stream loaded with naval stores for London. He
was pointed out to me in the broker's office this afternoon. Were you
coming ashore from his ship when you ran under my bows?"
Hearing his name spoken, the man with the bandaged head tried to raise
himself in the bunk and muttered, as if his senses were still confused:
"Malcolm Bruce, if you please, bound home to London, then out to Vera
Cruz with a general cargo. Lost at sea, all stove up, and a black, wet
night. But I get well paid for losing the rotten old ship. How much is
it worth, Pringle? Ha, ha!"
Jerry Pringle's tanned cheek turned a shade or two paler and he forced
a hot drink between the other man's lips as if to shut off his speech.
The master of the _Kenilworth_ subsided and put his hands to his head
while Pringle explained to Captain Wetherly with nervous haste:
"He's jabbering about the loss of his boat that you made hash of. It
was nothing but a skiff. It was my fault, I guess. We were busy talking
and I kept no lookout. I'll pay him the cost of the boat, Captain
Wetherly. So forget it, won't you. If you'll send ashore for a hack I
can lug Captain Bruce up to a hotel right away."
"No hurry, is there? Let him rest," said Captain Jim. "Dan here will
sit up with him if you want to turn in. Of course you know Dan Frazier,
your boy's chum."
Mr. Pringle glanced up at the doorway and looked even more downcast
and sullen at recognizing Dan. He nodded at the interested lad and
returned:
"So many of us sort of crowd this state-room. I'll look after Captain
Bruce by myself if you don't mind clearing out, Captain Wetherly."
The dazed captain of the _Kenilworth_ showed signs of trying to break
into the conversation and managed to sputter excitedly:
"I get ten thousand dollars for this night's job."
At this, Jerry Pringle fairly begged the kind-hearted skipper of the
_Resolute_ to withdraw, and although the night was cool for September,
the rescued wrecking master wiped the perspiration from his face with
a wet shirt sleeve. Captain Wetherly gazed down at the man in the bunk
for a moment, nodded gravely, and tiptoed on deck with a parting remark:
"Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money to pay for a splintered skiff,
Pringle."
"Captain Bruce is ravin' crazy," grumbled Jerry Pringle as he shut the
state-room door.
"Go fetch a hack, Dan," ordered Captain Jim, "and help Pringle lug him
ashore. I tried to be decent to them, but my patience is frazzled. I
don't want 'em aboard any longer than I can help."
"But what are they doing together in Pensacola harbor?" asked Dan.
"There's something mighty queer about it all."
"Keep your guesses to yourself, and don't think too hard about it, or
you may go off your noddle like the Britisher in yonder," said captain
Jim as he went forward toward his own room. Dan wandered far and wide
ashore before he found a cruising hack and was able to return to the
wharf. Going aboard, he delayed to coil and stow a heaving line which
tripped him as he passed along the lower deck. From a near-by window
came the voice of Captain Bruce of the _Kenilworth_ in low-spoken
query, evidently addressed to his companion, Jeremiah Pringle:
"Did I say anything silly? I was a bit muddled, I know. I didn't bring
you into it, did I? There was nothing said about the _Kenilworth's_
next voyage, was there?"
"You said a heap sight too much," was the reply in a rumbling
undertone. "That Jim Wetherly is pretty keen when it comes to putting
two and two together. But he has a kind of mushy streak of sentiment in
him and he won't believe anything bad of a man till the evidence is
strong enough to hang him. It's been an unlucky night's work, and it's
time we were out of here."
Dan knocked on the door and, without even a "thank you," Jerry Pringle
brushed him out of the way and half-dragged, half-carried Captain Bruce
toward the gang-plank. The master of the _Kenilworth_ bade him halt,
however, and, grasping Dan by the hand, told him in a deep and pleasant
voice:
"You saved my life, youngster, and I won't forget it. Come aboard my
ship before sailing and let me thank you, won't you? I'll be fit and
hearty in a day or so."
Dan liked the looks and manner of the big, brown-bearded Englishman and
warmly replied:
"Pulling you out of the wet was the least we could do. I hope your head
will mend all right. Captain Wetherly will be glad to see you on board
again, sir."
Dan lent a hand as far as the hack and then sought Captain Wetherly's
room. The light was burning and the deck-hand dared to enter on the
chance of having a talk with "Uncle Jim," whom he found reading a
novel in his bunk. The boy had many questions to ask, but he was not
ready to go straight to the heart of the matter, and so began:
"Jerry Pringle acted kind of ugly and uneasy, didn't you think? I
suppose he was mad at getting spilled into the harbor. You and he never
did seem to be very fond of each other."
Captain Jim threw down his book and sat up in his bunk with a rather
grim smile as he replied:
"You're no fool, Dan, though you aren't more than half as old as me.
And you have lived ten of your years in Key West. I know you think
the world of young Barton Pringle. He is a fine, clean lad, the son
of his mother through and through. But there's a different strain in
that dad of his, and you know it. You want to find out what I think of
to-night's business, don't you? Well, I think the big Englishman might
have picked better company."
"But he said some things about getting ten thousand dollars for losing
his ship and so on, Uncle Jim, and I heard more than you did. He
was worried to death for fear he had talked too much. The wrecking
business in Key West is square and honest as far as I know, but ship
captains _have_ put their vessels on the Reef on purpose in the old
days and the wreckers helped plan it beforehand. And I can't help
wondering if Jerry Pringle came to Pensacola to fix up a deal with this
captain of the _Kenilworth_ to lose his ship on the next voyage out
from London to Vera Cruz. There would be rich salvage and loot in a
general cargo, wouldn't there? She's a mighty big steamer."
Captain Jim stroked his chin and was so long silent that Dan began
to fidget. Then, as if rousing himself from some very interesting
reflections, the elder man drawled in a tone of mild reproof:
"There isn't a bit of evidence that would hold water, Dan. I may have
my suspicions, but perhaps they are all wrong, and if we said a word
it might ruin a good ship-master with his owners. Jerry Pringle and he
must have been up to their ears in conversation when they let us run
'em under, and I wish the big Englishman could prove an alibi for the
time we had him, aboard. Better forget it."
Dan bit his lip and appeared so gloomy and forlorn that his uncle was
moved to ask what troubled him.
"It's Bart Pringle," said Dan, and his voice was not quite steady.
"When I meet him in Key West I'll have a secret to hold back from him,
and it's about his own father. Oh, I can't believe there's anything to
it. And there's Bart's mother! Well, I think I'll turn in, Uncle Jim.
Good-night."
Late in the next afternoon the _Resolute_ cast off from the coal
wharf and swiftly picked up headway as her powerful engines began to
urge her, with tireless, throbbing cadence, toward her distant home
port of Key West. Presently she surged past a long, deep-laden cargo
steamer from whose stern rippled the flaming British ensign. It was
the _Kenilworth_, and Captain Jim and Dan Frazier stared at her with
curious interest.
A tall, broad-shouldered, brown-bearded figure was leaning against the
railing of her bridge. A strip of bandage gleamed white beneath the
visor of his cap. He flourished an arm in farewell to the _Resolute_
whose deep-toned whistle returned a salute of three blasts.
Dan passed by the wheel-house door on an errand for the mate and could
not help saying aloud to himself:
"It must have been a nightmare. That Captain Bruce looks like too fine
a man to think of such a dreadful thing!"
Captain Jim Wetherly overheard the comment and seemed to echo this
verdict as he remarked in a reverent and sympathetic tone:
"Lead Captain Malcolm Bruce not into temptation, for Jerry Pringle is a
hard customer to have any dealings with, on or off the Reef."
CHAPTER II
THE "RESOLUTE" FATHOMS THE PLOT
As the _Resolute_ steamed into Key West harbor, Dan Frazier was on the
lookout for his friend Barton Pringle who almost always ran down to the
wharf when the whistle of Captain Wetherly's tug bellowed the tidings
of her return from sea. This time, however, Dan felt that a shadow had
fallen over their close comradeship which had been wholly frank and
confiding through all their years together. Dan could not forget the
events of the night in which Barton's father had behaved like a man
caught in the act of planning something dark and evil.
But the sight of Barton Pringle waiting on the end of the wharf to
catch the _Resolute's_ heaving lines and welcome him home, made Dan
wonder afresh if he had not been too hasty and suspicious. Barton's
honest, beaming face was in itself a voucher for his bringing up amid
sweet and wholesome influences. Nor was Dan ready to believe that a bad
father could have such a straight and manly son. Before the boys were
within shouting range of each other, Captain Wetherly sent for Dan and
told him:
"You can stay home until you get further orders. I don't expect to
leave port again for several days. Tell your mother that I will run in
for a little while after supper to-night."
Dan thanked him with a grin of delight and ran below to yell to Barton
Pringle on the wharf:
"Hello, Bart. Come aboard and help me scrub decks and get things
ship-shape and I'll be ready to jump ashore just so much sooner."
Barton made a flying leap aboard as soon as the lines were made fast,
and asked as he picked up a pail and broom:
"What kind of a voyage did you have, Dan? Anything exciting happen?"
"Nothing to speak of," replied Dan, and he felt his face redden with a
guilty sense of secrecy. He was about to say that he had met Barton's
father in Pensacola, without mentioning how or where, when the other
lad spoke up:
"I tried to get away for a little trip myself. Father went up the Gulf
on the mail steamer and I begged him to take me along. But he was going
only to Tampa to see about buying a couple of sponging schooners, and
he said he was in too much of a hurry to bother with me."
"Going only to Tampa," echoed Dan with a foolish smile. "Oh, yes, only
as far as Tampa. Sorry you had to miss it, Bart. How's everything with
you? Have you bent the new main-sail on the _Sombrero_?"
Barton plunged into an excited discussion about the fast little sloop
which the boys owned in partnership, while Dan tried to keep his wits
about him, for he was thrown into fresh doubt and uneasiness by the
news that Jeremiah Pringle had said he was going to Tampa instead of
Pensacola. Usually the two boys had so many important matters to talk
about that one could find a chance to break in only when the other
paused for lack of breath, but now Dan found it hard to avoid awkward
silences on his part. He was glad when old Bill McKnight, the chief
engineer of the _Resolute_, waddled up to them and announced with a
sweeping gesture toward the city streets:
"Back again to the palm trees and the brave Cubanos and the excitements
of a metropolis smeared over a chunk of coral reef so blamed small
that I'm scared to be out after dark without a lantern for fear I'll
walk overboard. I'm due to start a revolution in Honduras, and to-day
I enlist a few hundred brave and desperate Key West cigar-makers, Dan.
I'm perishin' for a little war and tumult. Look out for my signal
rockets."
With that Mr. McKnight jauntily twirled his grizzled moustache and
ambled up the wharf. He had been engineer of the _Resolute_ when she
was running the Spanish blockade of Cuba, as a filibuster to carry arms
and ammunitions to the revolutionists, and his cool-headed courage
had fetched the tug out of some perilous places. The ponderous,
good-natured engineer was very fond of Dan and every little while
invited him, with all seriousness, to join some new and absurd scheme
for touching off a Spanish-American revolution, with dazzling promises
of loot and glory.
The boys laughed as they gazed after him, and Barton said:
"Filibustering must keep your hair standing on end, eh, Dan? I reckon
it beats wrecking, though you couldn't get an old Key Wester to admit
it. There hasn't been a wreck on the Reef for goodness knows how long.
Father promised to take me with him on the next wrecking job if it
isn't blowing too hard when the schooners go out to the Reef."
"Well, you can count on seeing Captain Jim Wetherly and the _Resolute_
on the job no matter how hard she blows," smiled Dan with a spark of
the rivalry which flamed high between the tow-boat and the schooner
fleet. Willing hands made short work of Dan's tasks, and he hurried
into his shore-going clothes while Barton swung his legs from the bunk
and retailed the latest news about ships, and the sponge market, and
the High School base-ball team which had won a match from the soldiers
of the garrison. They parted a little later, Dan eager to run home and
see his mother, and Barton anxious to make the _Sombrero_ ready for a
trial spin.
As Dan sped toward the cottage on the other side of the narrow island,
he said to himself with a puzzled frown:
"Everything Bart talked about made me think of the other night in
Pensacola: his father's going away, and the next wreck on the Reef, and
all that. And he thinks his father is the strongest, bravest man that
ever went to sea. Maybe he is, but I wish he wasn't related to Bart."
A slender, sweet-faced woman in black was waiting in a dooryard shaded
by tropical verdure as Dan rounded the corner. She had heard the
far-echoing, resonant whistle of the _Resolute_, and knew that her boy
was home again. Her husband, for many years employed in the Key West
Custom House, had died only two years before, and the love and yearning
in her eyes at sight of Dan would have told you that he was her only
child and her all-in-all if you had never seen them together before. He
was taller than she, and, as her sturdy son stooped to kiss her with
his arms about her neck, she said:
"I wanted to be at the wharf to meet you, Danny boy, but I couldn't
leave home in time. Bart Pringle's mother ran in to talk to me about
sending him away to school. I told her I wanted to do as much for you,
but the way wasn't open yet. They can afford it, and Bart is too bright
and ambitious to settle down in a Key West rut."
They walked to the wide veranda across which the cool trade-wind swept,
and Mrs. Frazier ordered Dan to take the biggest, easiest wicker chair,
after which she vanished indoors and almost instantly reappeared with a
plate laden with pie and doughnuts.
"You had breakfast in that stuffy little galley, I suppose," laughed
she, "but I know you are always hungry. You can stow these trifles away
as a deck-load, can't you?"
Dan confessed that he could carry any amount of cargo of this kind and
then, between bites of a home-made doughnut, spoke very earnestly:
"Bart ought to go North to school, mother, and I will tell him so and
back you up for all I'm worth. It will do him good to break away from
home. And Uncle Jim Wetherly will put up the same line of argument to
Mrs. Pringle whenever you say the word."
"Jim is my dearest brother, but I can't picture him as showing very
much excitement about Bart's education," she responded. "He thinks
there's no finer thing in the world than to be master and owner of a
sea-going tow-boat. Why do you think he will be interested, Dan?"
Her son took her hand in his hard, sun-burned paw and with a stammering
effort began his confession of all that he had heard and seen after
Jerry Pringle and the English ship-master had been run down in their
small boat. The mother listened with wide-eyed astonishment, and then
with something like indignation she cried:
"Why, Dan, you ought to be writing novels for a living! That poor
Captain Bruce of the _Kenilworth_ was out of his head, and you know
that Jerry Pringle has a sour, gruff way with him even when he's on dry
land. I can't believe it of Mary Pringle's husband. It is a dreadful
thing to suspect him of, plotting to wreck a fine, big steamer."
"That's just like a woman," declared Dan with a very grown-up air of
wisdom. "Mrs. Pringle hasn't anything to do with it. And you are like
Uncle Jim, always refusing to think other folks are a bit less square
and decent than you are. Ask him to-night what _he_ thinks about it,
but don't breathe a word to anybody else, will you?"
"I shall scold him for putting such silly ideas in your head," firmly
announced Mrs. Frazier. "You couldn't have pieced this plot together
all by yourself, even if you are as big and strong as a young tow-boat."
"All right," said Dan good-humoredly. "Only I hope Barton will go away
to school before the explosion happens. For if I'm right, Jerry Pringle
may be in disgrace before he's a year older. Captain Jim will never let
up on him if the _Kenilworth_ does happen to be stranded on the Reef."
When Captain Wetherly strolled in after supper, his sister began at
once to cross-question him. He evaded her as far as possible and
finally declared:
"I knew that Dan would tell you. I don't want him to keep anything from
his mother. But it must go no farther than this. I will say this much,
that when the _Kenilworth_ is due in the Florida Straits on her next
voyage outward bound, the _Resolute_ will be a good deal less than a
thousand miles away. And just for curiosity I have cabled to London to
find out if she is really chartered to Vera Cruz for her next voyage,
and what kind of a reputation her owners bear. They may be interested
in losing her, do you see?
"Speaking of cables, Dan," he continued; "I got orders this afternoon
to go to Charleston at once and tow that big suction dredge to
Santiago. We shall be able to get away in a couple of days. You had
better come aboard to-morrow night."
"Why, you'll be gone for weeks and weeks, Dan," sorrowfully cried his
mother.
"I won't waste any time, nor try to save coal on this voyage," said
Captain Jim with a grim smile. "I want to be a good deal nearer the
Reef than Santiago, about two months from now."
"It's a long, long while to have my boy away from me," Mrs. Frazier
murmured with a sigh. "But this tremendous conspiracy will be all blown
out of your heads before you come home again."
After a luxurious night's slumber in a real bed, Dan felt as if the
cobwebs had been brushed from his busy brain and that the bright world
held better employment than brooding over what might happen to somebody
else. He set forth to find Barton and arrange a match race between the
_Sombrero_ and a rival craft, to be sailed before Dan had to go to sea.
The challenge being accepted on the spot, there was much to be done
in a very few hours, and Dan heartily agreed with Barton's opinion
delivered from the cockpit of their rakish craft:
"It is a pity we have anything to do but sail boats for the fun of it.
What a bully sou'west breeze we're going to have this afternoon, Dan!
Can you coax old Bill McKnight to come along for ballast?"
"Yes, if we promise him to smuggle some rifles and dynamite in the
hold," laughed the other.
After dinner, Dan sauntered along the water front in the hope of
finding the mighty bulk of the chief engineer to serve as two hundred
and seventy pounds of desirable live ballast. The south-bound mail
steamer, from Tampa for Havana, had just landed her passengers, and
foremost among them loomed the tail and lanky figure of Jeremiah
Pringle. The wrecking master spied Dan and hurried to meet him in the
narrow street. His manner was no longer hostile and sullen, and Dan
was amazed to have a greeting hand stretched toward him and to hear a
cordial voice:
"How's the boy? You and Bart as busy as ever? I went up the Gulf to
buy a schooner or two, and I found a beauty. I need a mate for her,
Dan. You are young, but you know more about salt water than most men.
It means double the wages of a deck-hand on that sooty old tow-boat. I
want you to go to Tampa and help fetch her down right away, which is
why I spring the proposition on you kind of off-hand and sudden."
It was a chance at which Dan would have jumped a week before. Something
held him back, however, and, although he did not take time to reason
it out, he vaguely felt that Jeremiah Pringle was trying to bribe him
to keep his mouth shut. But he had a natural fear of making an enemy
of such a man as this, and he swiftly decided to make no mention of
the night in Pensacola. That was a matter for Captain Jim Wetherly to
handle. Dan was ready to stand by his guns, however, so far as his own
honesty was concerned, and he stoutly replied:
"That is a big thing to have come my way, Captain Pringle, and I ought
to thank you. But I don't care to take it. My mother wants me to stick
by Captain Jim Wetherly if I'm going to stay afloat, and she knows
best."
Jerry Pringle looked black, but forced a smile as he growled:
"One thing you've got from your Uncle Jim is a swelled head. Well,
we'll say no more about it; _nothing at all about it, understand_?"
The last words were spoken with a threatening earnestness, and Dan
understood what was meant. He nodded and went on his way, for once
anxious to get to sea, away from a situation in which he seemed to
become more and more befogged. He found Bart dancing jig-steps with
impatience, and trying to listen to a long-winded yarn delivered by Mr.
Bill McKnight who had been already kidnapped for the afternoon.
The _Sombrero_ sailed like a witch in the race, the live ballast
shifted himself with more agility than the boys had dreamed he could
display, and the match was won with the lee-rail under and the cockpit
awash. Mrs. Frazier watched the finish from a wharf and invited Bart
and the engineer to come home with Dan for a festive supper party in
celebration. There could be no long faces or heavy thoughts at such
a time, and Dan forgot the shadow and laughed himself into a state
of collapse along with his mother and Bart when Mr. McKnight, with a
wreath of scarlet ponciana blossoms on his bald head, danced Spanish
fandangos until the cottage shook from floor to rafters.
[Illustration: The _Sombrero_ sailed like a witch in the race]
They all escorted Dan down to the _Resolute_ in the starlit evening and
sat on the guard-rail while the chief engineer fished a guitar from
under his bunk and sang Cuban serenades, leading off with "La Paloma."
It was as merry as such a parting hour could be, but there were tears
in the mother's eyes when she kissed Dan good-night, and her voice was
not steady when she whispered, "God bless and keep you, my precious
boy."
When it came to saying good-by to Bart, Dan was more serious than usual
and, he held fast to his comrade's hand for a moment while he looked
him in the eyes and said:
"Blow high, blow low, you will find me standing by, Bart. Good luck and
lots of it."
Shortly after daylight next morning the _Resolute_ churned her way out
of the placid harbor and laid her coastwise course for Charleston. It
proved to be an uneventful run with pleasant weather and a favoring
sea. Captain Wetherly had nothing to say about the steamer _Kenilworth_
until they reached Charleston where he found a cablegram from London
waiting for him. He read it aloud to Dan as soon as they happened to be
alone.
"_Unable to send required information until later. Will communicate
your next port._"
"It might have cleared up this _Kenilworth_ business," said Captain
Jim. "However, we may get a message at Santiago."
But the _Resolute_ was not to see Santiago as soon as her master
expected. There was a week's delay in getting the great suction dredge
ready to begin the voyage. Then, when the _Resolute_ had taken hold of
the clumsy monster, for all the world like a bull-dog trying to drag a
dry-goods box, the captain of the dredge was hurt by a falling bolt and
there was more delay at anchor while a new skipper could be sent for.
When, at last, the unwieldy tow was got to sea, strong head-winds
buffeted her day after day and urged the panting, sea-swept _Resolute_
to her best efforts to keep up steerage way. She crept southward like
a snail, eating up coal at a rate which compelled Captain Wetherly to
put into Nassau, and again into the harbor of Mole St. Nicolas at the
western end of Hayti.
Twice the dredge snapped her hawsers and broke clean adrift. When
the weary tug and her tow crept in sight of the Morro Castle at the
mouth of Santiago harbor, Bill McKnight almost wept as he surveyed his
engines and boilers. Sorely racked and strained they were, and Captain
Jim tried to comfort him by declaring that no other fat engineer could
have patched and held them together to the end of the voyage. Making
temporary repairs was a costly and tedious undertaking, and the crew
of the _Resolute_ tired of the charms of Santiago and grew restless and
homesick for Key West.
While Dan, the captain, and McKnight were eating lunch ashore one day,
a swarthy, dapper clerk from the cable office sought the Venus Café
with a message which he had tried to deliver on board the tug. It was
for Captain Wetherly who read it with an air of mingled surprise and
chagrin. With a glance at the engineer who was blissfully absorbed over
his third plate of alligator pear salad, Captain Jim remarked as he
handed the sheet to Dan:
"It is from London. Well, the cat is out of the bag, and we might as
well let McKnight in. We are going to need him before we get through
with this job, and need him bad. I suppose I ought to have been more
suspicious, but it sounded too rotten to be true. Bill, you must have
that engine room in shape this week if it breaks your back. We are
going to make a record run home to Key West."
Dan read in silence before handing the cablegram to Captain Wetherly.
"_Kenilworth cleared for Vera Cruz. Heavily insured. General cargo.
Owners hard hit by recent losses. Will bear watching._"
Captain Jim hammered the table with his fist and tried to speak in an
undertone as he hotly exclaimed:
"This confidential report makes my suspicions fit together like the
pieces of a puzzle. I couldn't for the life of me understand how the
master of a big steamer could afford to ram her ashore and lose her,
and his berth and his reputation with it, for ten thousand dollars. But
if he knew that his owners would shield him and stand in with him, why,
of course, he might be tempted to clean up ten thousand dollars for
himself when a man like Jerry Pringle crossed his bows and passed him
a few hints. A lot of good it would have done for me to cable Captain
Bruce's owners and give them warning of what we heard that night in
Pensacola harbor. They would have laughed at me as a meddlesome idiot.
Cleared for Vera Cruz, has she? She does her ten knots right along, I
picked up that bit of information at Pensacola. Allow her twenty days
to the Reef."
Bill McKnight had dropped his fork and was purple with suppressed
excitement. When the captain fetched up for lack of breath, he blurted
in a hoarse whisper:
"It doesn't take a axe to drive an idea into my noddle. As near as
I can make out, though your bearings are considerably overheated,
Captain, there is scheduled to be a large and expensive wreck on the
Reef, assisted by her skipper and one Jeremiah Pringle. It sounds
like the good old times before the light-houses crippled the wrecking
industry. And we _Resolutes_ propose to be first on hand to pull her
off and disappoint certain enterprising persons?"
"Disappoint 'em!" fairly shouted Captain Jim. "If the _Kenilworth_
does go ashore, I'll fetch that vessel off the Reef if it tears the
_Resolute_ to kindling wood. I'll break their rotten hearts and show
them what honest wrecking is."
"I didn't throw away that clamp I made to hold the safety-valve down,
Captain," chuckled Bill McKnight. "And I ain't afraid to use it again,
either."
CHAPTER III
THE RACE FOR THE "KENILWORTH"
Chief Engineer Bill McKnight hoisted himself up the iron ladder that
led from the fire-room of the _Resolute_ and tottered on deck gasping
for breath. He was begrimed from head to foot, the sweat had furrowed
little streaks in the mask of soot and grease which covered his ample
countenance, and his eyes were red with weariness and want of sleep. He
had shoved the tug back to Key West at her top speed, and now he was
toiling night and day to make her ready for whatever summons might come
for a tussle on the Reef. Captain Wetherly found him slumped against
the deck-house with his head in his hands and exhorted him cheerily:
"Don't give up the ship, Bill. It is a great repair job that you've
done, and the worst is over. The new tubes are most all in, aren't
they?"
"The boilers will be as good as new," grunted McKnight, "but how about
my bronchial tubes, Captain? I can't plug them up and make steam same
as I plugged the boilers and fetched you back from Santiago. I'm so
full of cinders inside that I rattle when I walk. But give me another
week and the boat will be fit to hitch a hawser to this benighted
island of Key West and tow it out to sea. Anything new ashore?"
Captain Jim sat down beside the engineer and made sure that they could
not be overheard as he began:
"Dan has been watching Jerry Pringle's fleet of wrecking vessels for
me. Those two schooners he bought in the Gulf have come into port, and
it is mighty little sponging he intends to do with them at present,
Bill. They look fast and they can stow lots of cargo. And Pringle has
been overhauling his other schooners and has chartered three more in
Key West. He says he intends to send them out to join the mackerel
fleet."
"Anything doing in the tow-boat line?" asked McKnight with a new gleam
of interest in his damaged eyes. "If Pringle aims to tackle a certain
job that may be reported from the Reef pretty soon, he will have to
make a bluff at pulling the steamer off, won't he? There might be a
small fortune in salvage, besides looting the cargo out of her."
"He is dickering for some kind of a time charter on the _Henry
Foster_," snapped Captain Jim. "She couldn't pull a feather-bed off the
Reef without breaking down. And I understand he has been cabling up the
Gulf about another tug or two."
"Well, we can get all the tow-boats we need and good ones, can't we?"
beamed McKnight. "Maybe we can't handle most any kind of a wrecking job
ourselves! And there won't be any bluffs about it when _we_ take hold."
"I'm certainly sorry for Dan, poor boy," said Captain Jim with a sigh.
"He feels as if he were spying on Bart's father. And to make it worse,
Bart is going to sail with the old man for a while and the lad will
be mixed up in this nasty mess as sure as fate, and he will be on the
wrong side of it. Here comes our Dan now. Drop the subject, Bill. It
only makes the youngster more unhappy."
Dan Frazier had passed some restless nights since his return to Key
West, but his mind was too sunny and youthful to believe that things
were ever as bad as they might be. He found comfort in the hope that
Captain Wetherly would spoil the plot to lose the _Kenilworth_. He had
implicit confidence in his uncle's ability to win against any odds with
the stanch _Resolute_, and now that a fair and open battle against
Jerry Pringle was assured, Dan found himself eager for the fray. Barton
had told him that morning:
"Father and mother are talking of sending me North to school, but I'm
going to rough it at sea with father for a month or so. He said he
tried to get you to work for him. I knew you wouldn't leave Captain
Jim, but maybe we might have been lucky enough to work on a wreck
together."
"You can't tell, Bart. Perhaps we shall, but we may be working against
each other. I'll back Captain Jim Wetherly to be first man aboard the
next vessel that goes on the Reef."
"Captain Jim is a good man," declared Bart, "but it will be a cold day
when he lays alongside a wreck ahead of that daddy of mine."
The boys were busy with their unbeaten sloop _Sombrero_, and one day
slid into another while Dan employed much of his spare time in helping
his mother about the house and in painting the chicken-house, the
fences, and porch with great pride in the spick-and-span results.
Mrs. Frazier still professed to take no stock in the plot hatched by
"Barton's father and Mary Pringle's husband," but she was nervous and
absent-minded at times, and there was even more affection than usual in
her manner toward Bart.
Dan tacked a calendar at the head of his bed and crossed off the days
one by one, saying to himself when he awoke and looked at it:
"Twenty days out from London, as Uncle Jim figured it, and the
_Kenilworth_ is one day nearer the Reef."
Twenty-two days had been counted when Captain Jim called at the cottage
and told Dan to go aboard the _Resolute_ and stay there until further
orders. When the deck-hand reported for duty, he found all hands of
the crew either at work on board or within call on the wharf. Bill
McKnight had steam in his boilers and, although the fires were banked,
he had just finished stowing below a generous supply of resinous pine
wood, oil-soaked cotton waste, and a barrel of turpentine for use as
emergency fuel.
"I lost thirty-five pounds of weight in three weeks," snorted the
engineer, "but I mended the old hooker to stay mended. Ho, ho, there
goes the _Henry Foster_ to sea, Captain. Wonder if there's anything
doing so soon? Her engines sound like a mowing-machine trying to cut a
path through a brick-yard."
"Don't worry about her," muttered Captain Jim. "Pringle isn't aboard
her. We won't leave here until he gets uneasy. He is a good deal better
posted than I am about his infernal program and we----"
Captain Jim stopped short, for Barton Pringle unexpectedly appeared on
deck and announced to Dan:
"I'm going up the Hawk Channel with father at daylight to look for one
of our sponging vessels that's reported ashore near Bahia Honda Key.
Thought I'd say good-by."
Dan could not help glancing at Captain Jim as he replied with a quiver
of excitement in his voice:
"We may be running up the outside channel before you get back, Bart.
Perhaps we shall sight you. Hope you have a good trip."
Barton was in a hurry and jumped ashore with a wave of his hand to the
chief engineer. When he was out of ear-shot Dan observed with a long
face:
"I would give six months' wages if I could make Bart stay home. Do you
suppose his father is really going to sea at daylight, or is he just
using Bart to fool us?"
"I haven't been walking in my sleep," dryly responded Captain Jim.
"There's a hundred and fifty miles of the Reef between here and Miami
and I don't intend to follow any decoy ducks and fetch up at the wrong
end of it. I figure on getting a report of any disaster as soon as the
next man."
The next day passed without tidings. Jeremiah Pringle had vanished from
his haunts in Key West, and four of his schooners were not to be found
at their moorings. Another day dragged by, Bill McKnight was stewing
with impatience and Dan Frazier was losing his appetite while Captain
Jim Wetherly remained cheerful and unruffled.
He was like another man, however, when a message came to him at noon on
the fourth day of waiting. It was from the cable office and he had no
more than glanced at it before he darted on deck, ordered the mate to
get the crew aboard, shouted down a speaking-tube to Bill McKnight, and
took his station at the wheel. His keen-witted, masterful energy seemed
to thrill the _Resolute_ with life and action. Black smoke gushed from
her funnel as her stokers toiled in front of the furnace doors. The
engines were turning over when the last deck-hand leaped aboard, and as
the dripping hawsers were hauled in, the tug was moving out into the
stream.
Key West island was over her stern before Dan found time to run up to
the wheel-house. Captain Jim slipped a crumpled bit of paper into his
fist and motioned for him to keep it to himself. It was from the marine
observer at Jupiter Inlet, a hundred miles to the northward of the
Florida Reef:
"_Steamer Kenilworth southbound passed seven this morning. Signalled
steering gear disabled by heavy weather but able to proceed._"
Dan's faith in human nature, as it had to do with the master of the
_Kenilworth_, had been so severely shocked that he wondered whether
the report of her mishap could be true. He was not shrewd enough to
perceive, however, what Captain Jim whispered as he went below to see
how things were moving in the engine-room.
"Crippled steering gear, bosh. Her skipper has to fake up some excuse
for striking the Reef."
Dan could scarcely believe that the curtain had really risen on this
seafaring melodrama in which he was to be an actor. A stately ship was
moving blindly toward an ambush which might be the death of her. And
racing to find and befriend her was this lone tug whose throbbing heart
of steel shook her stout hull from bow to stern as she tore through
the long head-seas on the edge of the Gulf Stream. The afternoon was
already waning and night would overtake the _Resolute_ before she could
reach the upper stretches of the Reef. Captain Wetherly felt certain
that the _Kenilworth_ would not be rammed on the coral ledges in broad
daylight, and he foresaw a desperate game of hide-and-seek between
darkness and dawn. But he held to the doctrine that with anything like
even chances an honest man will win against a rascal in the game of
life, afloat or ashore.
The north-east wind was steadily freshening and the sky had become gray
with drifting clouds. As dusk crept over the uneasy sea a mist-like
rain began to drizzle. The master of the _Kenilworth_ might reasonably
lose his bearings if the night grew much thicker. Bill McKnight emerged
from his sultry cavern long enough to grumble to Dan:
"What's to hinder our running past that steamer before morning, I want
to know, hey, boy?"
"You wouldn't worry if you could watch Captain Jim hug the Reef,"
assured Dan. "It's like walking a tight-rope. I thought we were going
to climb right up into the American Shoal light-house."
"Well, this old tug is doing her fifteen knots, Dan, which is faster
than she ever flew before," chuckled the chief engineer, "and if we
touch bottom, you'll know it all right. Look up yonder at my fireworks."
Dan stared at a banner of solid flame that streamed from the funnel
which glowed red hot for a dozen feet above the deck. With a cry of
alarm he ran to the upper deck-houses which were built just fore and
aft of the funnel and found the wood-work charred and smoking. He
shouted down to McKnight who replied with a laugh:
"It isn't my affair if your superstructure burns up. My orders are to
make steam. Better mention it to the skipper."
Dan rushed to the wheel-house but Captain Jim received the news
as if it were the merest trifle. He was sweeping the sea with his
night-glasses and exhorting the mate at the wheel to "hold her as she
is and keep your nerve." To Dan he replied airily:
"Caught afire, has she? Good for Bill McKnight. He's delivering the
goods. Get some men with buckets and put the fire out. I've no steam to
waste in starting the pumps and putting the hose on it."
The deck force was taking turns at shovelling coal to reinforce the
stifled stokers, and those off watch followed Dan with cheers. They
knew that a race was on, and it lightened their toil to know that the
_Resolute_ was pounding toward her goal, wherever it was, with every
ounce of power in her. Captain Jim joined the fire-fighters long enough
to yell to them:
"Look out for rockets ahead. The first man to sight distress signals
from the Reef gets ten dollars and a new hat."
A brawny negro stoker wiped the sweat from his eyes as he bobbed on
deck and panted:
"When Cap'n Jim smell a wreck she's sure gwine be where he say. If he
wants to find 'stress signals he better look amongst us poor niggers in
the fire-room."
Midnight came and no one thought of sleep. The excitement had spread
even to the cook and the galley boy who thought they saw rockets every
time a match was lit up in the bows. Dan gazed out into the starless
night and listened to the clamor of the parting seas alongside with
frequent thoughts of Barton Pringle who was somewhere out here, proud
of his father's seamanship and daring, loyal to his interests,
trusting him as Dan trusted his Uncle Jim. Now like pawns on a chess
board, the two boys were to play their parts on the opposing sides of a
conflict which would be fought to the bitter end. Dan was aroused by a
hoarse shout from the bridge of the _Resolute_:
"Red rocket two points off the port bow."
Dan wheeled and looked forward while his breath seemed to choke him. A
second rocket soared skyward, like a crimson thread hung against the
curtain of night.
"Hold her steady as she is," shouted Captain Jim from his post on the
bridge. "The weather has cleared a bit and that signal was a long way
off."
There was an exultant ring to his strong voice as if he were glad to
have the climax in sight. He sent for Dan and told him to stay on the
bridge and look for answering signals.
"It's the _Kenilworth_, a thousand to one," said the captain of the
_Resolute_. "And if Jerry Pringle's schemes haven't missed fire, his
tug or one of his schooners will just happen to be within signalling
distance. Ah, by Judas, there goes his answer, a rocket way out to
seaward. Pringle was afraid to hug the Reef on a thick night. He missed
the _Kenilworth_ when she passed inside of him. It may possibly be a
merchantman that has seen the _Kenilworth's_ signals, but we take no
chances."
Captain Wetherly shouted the tidings down the tube to the engine-room
force, and the hard-driven tug tore her way through the heavy seas
in the last gallant burst of the home-stretch. Back through the
speaking-tube bellowed the voice of the chief engineer:
"I've just put the clamp on the safety-valve, Captain. She's carrying
thirty pounds more steam than the law allows, and if she cracks she'll
crack wide open. Hooray! Give it to her!"
As if the captain of the stranded steamer were content to know that
his message had been seen and answered, he sent up no more rockets,
nor did any more answering signals gleam out to seaward. It was a race
in the dark. The _Resolute_ and her rival, if such it was, must run
down two sides of a triangle whose apex was the unseen vessel on the
Reef. Captain Jim had taken the compass bearings of the _Kenilworth's_
rockets and, regardless of the risk he ran in driving his steamer along
the very fangs of the Reef, he held her in a straight line for her goal
and prayed that her bottom would not be ripped off or her straining
boilers blow her sky high.
Almost at the same instant that the excited deck force of the
_Resolute_ glimpsed a red light winking far off to starboard, they saw
the mast-head light of the stranded vessel almost dead ahead.
"That red light out yonder belongs to J. Pringle," muttered Captain
Wetherly, "And we must be pretty near the same distance from that
mast-head light on the Reef. It's going to be a whirlwind finish, all
right."
The _Resolute_ kept full speed ahead as if she intended to cut her
way through the stranded steamer. Not until a huge black shape dotted
with a row of cabin lights loomed a little to one side of her headlong
flight, did Captain Jim shift his course to round to in the deep water
beyond the Reef. His fists were clenched and his jaw was set hard as he
glared from the wheel-house door to find the oncoming boat which he
had sworn to beat. Her lights were no more than a quarter of a mile
away as the _Resolute_ crept under the quarter of the stranded cargo
steamer.
"If that's you out yonder, Jerry Pringle," growled Captain Jim to
himself, "you've slowed up to find out who the dickens we are. No
wonder you're worried. Come on and have it out, you hatchet-faced
pirate."
He seized the whistle cord and the _Resolute_ roared a long, sonorous
blast of greeting and defiance. Then he caught up a megaphone and
shouted toward the steamer stranded on the Reef:
"Ship ahoy! I'll stand by to put a line aboard at daylight. Are you
resting easy as you are?"
"What steamer is that?" came the answering hail from the darkness.
"The tow-boat _Resolute_ of Key West, first vessel to come to your
assistance. Who are you?"
"The deuce you are," and there was the most profound amazement in
the other voice. "This is the steamer _Kenilworth_ of London. A
crosscurrent set me on here but I can work off with my own engines,
thank you."
"You'll never work her off," yelled Captain Jim. "Your vessel will
break her back if it blows much harder. It's high-water two hours after
daylight. It's now or never to pull her clear."
There was no reply. It was evident that Captain Malcolm Bruce was
shocked and bewildered by the unlooked for presence of the _Resolute_
and was sparring for time until he could hail the other craft which by
this time was feeling her way nearer.
Captain Wetherly was in no temper for parleying. He moved the
_Resolute_ up abreast of the _Kenilworth's_ bridge and shouted sternly:
"I know your voice, Captain Bruce. My name is Jim Wetherly. This is the
only tow-boat within five hundred miles that's got the power to drag
you clear. And I must take hold on this next tide, before you begin to
pound and settle. We'll arrange terms afterward."
"I'll wait till daylight before taking any lines aboard," was the curt
response from Captain Bruce who had moved aft to hail the other tug
which had now dropped astern of the _Resolute_.
"This is the _Henry Foster_, in command of Jeremiah Pringle," came
back to him. "We answered your rockets. Shall we stand by?"
"I will let you know when daylight comes," answered the master of the
_Kenilworth_.
Captain Jim Wetherly stamped his foot and snarled at his puzzled mate:
"They must think I'm seven kinds of a fool. I'll block their game right
now. Oh, Dan Frazier, come here, on the jump."
He grasped Dan by the collar, dragged him into the chart-room, and
closed the door. With swift, emphatic utterance Captain Wetherly shot
these instructions into the boy's ear:
"Dan, I'm going to put you aboard the _Kenilworth_. I can't spare
anybody else, and you will be my agent, understand? If Captain
Bruce refuses to take my line, this business will be put up to the
underwriters from start to finish. And the crooked owners won't be able
to collect one dollar of insurance, I'll see to that. And I'll have you
as a witness to prove that the _Resolute_ was first on the spot. Come
along with me."
Captain Jim pulled Dan by the arm toward the lower deck. A boat was
lowered in a twinkling and, while the excited lad waited for a chance
to jump, Captain Jim told him:
"It's likely that Pringle has Barton with him on the tug, and they may
try the same trick. If they come aboard the _Kenilworth_, you remember
that you're working for Jim Wetherly, no matter if it means a scrap."
As the yawl danced away from the side of the _Resolute_, Captain Jim
shouted to the _Kenilworth_:
"Put a ladder overside, if you please, Captain Bruce. I'm sending my
nephew aboard to talk business with you."
"I will talk no business before daylight," roared Captain Bruce. "Call
your boat back."
"Oh, yes, you _will_ take him aboard," stormed Captain Wetherly. "_If
you don't, the underwriters will know the reason why._ Shall I tell
_you_ why?"
"Hooray! but that was a shot below his water-line," chuckled Bill
McKnight from the engine-room door. "But I don't envy Dan his job when
Jerry Pringle climbs aboard the _Kenilworth_."
CHAPTER IV
WICKED MR. PRINGLE IN COLLISION
In his cooler moments Captain Wetherly might not have ordered Dan
Frazier to board the stranded _Kenilworth_ before daylight, for a heavy
sea was running along the Reef. But he knew there was smoother water in
the lee of the stranded steamer and he had reason for confidence in his
boat's crew. He had been foolhardy in bringing his tug so close, but he
was in no mood to weigh risks; and he was ready to back Dan to play a
man's part in this game for high stakes.
Dan had learned to do as he was told without asking why, but as he
peered from his plunging yawl at the tall, black hulk of the helpless
_Kenilworth_, his hands were shaking and his lips were dry. Although
the seas did not break over the Reef because of the depth of water,
they threatened to smash the yawl against the steamer's side. Presently
a lantern crept down from the deck above like a huge fire-fly. It
was tied to one of the lower rounds of a swaying rope ladder, at the
sight of which Dan gathered himself for the ordeal. As the yawl rose he
jumped headlong, got a grip on the ladder, and hung on for dear life
while a frothing sea washed over him. Gasping for breath, bruised and
dazed, he fought his way up the side and fell over the bulwark of the
after well-deck.
Dan had not the slightest idea of what he was expected to do on board
the _Kenilworth_, but after two seamen had stood him on his feet he
limped forward in search of Captain Bruce. Oddly enough, he did not
feel in the least afraid of meeting the hostile ship-master whose
wicked plans had been spoiled by the coming of the _Resolute_. Dan
recalled the big, brown-bearded man with the deep voice and the kindly
eyes whom he had met in Pensacola harbor, and said to himself, as he
had said then: "He looks like too fine a man." But as Captain Jim's
agent, Dan braced himself to be stern and dignified while he clambered
to the bridge.
He found Captain Bruce standing in the light that fell from the
chart-room door.
"I am to stay aboard until further orders from Captain Wetherly, sir,"
announced Dan in the heaviest voice he could muster.
"Nobody asked you, so get away from my quarters," was the irritable
reply. Dan stepped forward into the light and Captain Bruce stared at
him with puzzled interest. Then his frown cleared and he exclaimed
heartily:
"Why, it's the lad that fished me out of Pensacola harbor. I ought not
to forget you, had I? Pardon my rude manners, but a man with his ship
in peril is poor company. Come inside. Well, upon my word, this is a
most extraordinary reunion all round."
The stalwart master mariner was trying hard to wear his usual manner,
but his words came out with jerky, nervous haste, his gaze shifted
uneasily, and he was twisting both hands in his beard. If his
conscience had been troubling him before, panic fear had now come to
torment him; fear of Captain Wetherly; fear even of this boy, for no
mere chance could have brought about this midnight meeting on the
Reef. In silence Dan followed him into the chart-room and waited while
Captain Bruce seemed to forget himself in gloomy reflection. With an
effort the master of the _Kenilworth_ looked at the boy and began to
explain:
"I hope Captain Wetherly did not take offence. I am responsible for
the safety of this ship, and until I can get in touch with my owners
my word is final. If I can get her off without help, it means saving
a whacking big salvage bill. She is making no water, and is in little
danger."
Dan knew enough of the ways of seafaring men to be surprised that this
captain should stoop to explain matters to the deck-hand of a tug. But
the captain's word did not ring true. He was trying to play a part, and
Dan saw through it and was sorry for him.
"You don't know the Reef," replied the boy. "You struck it in good
weather. And Captain Jim Wetherly is no robber. He would not stand by
if he thought you were not going to need him and need him bad. _We_
don't do any crooked business aboard the _Resolute_, sir."
Dan had not meant to deal this last home-thrust. He was one lone-handed
boy in the enemy's camp. Captain Bruce flushed and looked hard at Dan,
not so much with anger as with unhappy doubt and anxiety. He did not
reply and appeared to be struggling with his thoughts. Dan was so worn
out with excitement and loss of sleep that he had to blink hard at
the swinging lamp to keep his eyes open, and after several minutes of
silence, Captain Bruce's face seemed to waver in a kind of haze. Dan
aroused himself with a start when the master of the _Kenilworth_ spoke
the question that was uppermost in his thoughts:
"How did your tow-boat happen to find me to-night? What were you doing
out here, boy?"
Dan's drowsiness fled as if a gun had been fired in the room. What
could he say? If he told the truth he might be knocked on the head and
dropped overboard before daylight. Deeds as bad as this had been done
on the Reef, and he was the only witness to back up Captain Jim's story
of a plot to wreck the steamer. He could only stammer:
"We were running to the north'ard and saw your signals. Captain
Wetherly commands the _Resolute_. You must ask him."
"He threatened and bulldozed me to-night," exclaimed Captain Bruce. "I
let you come on board because he treated me kindly at Pensacola. I
will give him my answer at daylight."
Dan leaned forward with his elbows on the table and looked up into the
captain's face. Mustering all his courage, he began to say what was in
his heart, as if he were talking to one of his own friends who had done
something to be sorry for:
"Captain Wetherly is working for your interests, sir. He knows the
Reef better than any pilot out of Key West. If he says he can get your
steamer off, he'll do it. And--and--he wants to save you--your ship--no
matter what it costs him. It--it--isn't only to get ahead of Jerry
Pringle on a wrecking job, Captain. He likes you, and Barton Pringle is
my chum, and Mrs. Pringle is my mother's dearest friend, and Captain
Jim wants to get you clear and on your voyage again without--without
being forced to--to fight it out to a finish with you and Jerry
Pringle. It's for Bart and his mother, and for you, too, Captain Bruce."
The ship-master walked to the doorway and stood gazing out into the
night. Then he replied gruffly with a hard laugh:
"You are almost asleep, my boy. I can't make head or tail of what you
are driving at. I make my own bargains with tugs when I need them.
Lie down on the transom and take forty winks. I am going to start my
engines again and work my vessel off on this tide."
Dan nodded and promptly curled up on the leather cushions. Daylight
showed through the port-holes when he awoke and stepped out on deck.
A few cable-lengths to seaward rolled the _Resolute_. Astern of her
was the _Henry Foster_. Beating up the Hawk Channel inside the Reef
came two schooners under clouds of canvas. Other sails flecked the sea
to the southward, all hastening toward the _Kenilworth_. From among
the low islets to the westward the smaller craft of the "Conchs,"
or scattered dwellers on the Keys, were speeding toward the scene.
The _Kenilworth_ lay with a list to port, her bow shoved high on the
invisible Reef, her stern still afloat. It would have been hard to
convince a landlubber that this great steamer was in danger of going to
pieces. No seas were breaking around her. She looked as if she had come
to a standstill in mid ocean.
Dan Frazier had the love of the sea in him. The sight of this helpless
ship as he saw her by daylight appealed to him as tremendously sad and
tragic. He picked up a sounding lead and let it fall over the side to
find the depth of water amidships, for a glance at the chart-room clock
had told him that the tide was almost at the flood. The sound of voices
made him look aft. Captain Bruce was coming forward with Jeremiah
Pringle, and behind them was Barton. A moment later, Captain Jim
Wetherly threw a leg over the steamer's rail and shouted to his men in
the yawl to wait for him. He ran forward to Dan without speaking to the
others as he passed them, and shoving his nephew toward Captain Bruce
he exclaimed:
"Here's my man, aboard your ship hours ahead of Pringle. You'll have to
talk business with me first. And all I ask is a square deal."
Barton hung back and acted as if he had caught the spirit of the
hostile rivalry that threatened an explosion of some kind. He was more
highly strung and impulsive than Dan, less used to knocking about among
men, and he felt that Dan was somehow taking sides against him. Before
Captain Bruce could speak, Jerry Pringle strode up with an ugly scowl
on his lean, dark face and said:
"Let Wetherly talk terms. When he gets through, I will be ready to sign
a paper to take charge of the job for half the figure he names, I don't
care how low he goes."
"That ought to settle it. You can't do as well as that, Captain
Wetherly," put in the master of the _Kenilworth_. "If you are so sure
my ship can be pulled off, I see no reason why Captain Pringle isn't
the man to do it."
Captain Jim was trying to keep his temper under, but the fact that
these two men were trying to carry out their vile agreement right under
his nose was more than he could stand. He shook his heavy fist in Jerry
Pringle's face and declared:
"The _Resolute_ will make fast to this ship this morning. And if you
want the _Henry Foster_ to get action, it will be under my orders, and
at my terms. By Judas, this play-acting ends right here. I mean you,
too, Captain Bruce. I have been hoping that I could keep my mouth shut.
I'd rather cut off my right hand than drag certain other people into
it. I know why you brought your boy along with you, Jerry Pringle. To
put a stopper on my tongue, wasn't it? Hide behind women and children,
eh? Well, I'm in charge of wrecking this steamer, understand? Get back
to your tug. I've a good mind to----"
He felt a pull at his arm, and turned to look into Dan's imploring face
as the boy whispered:
"Don't say any more, Uncle Jim. Wait till Bart is out of the way,
please, oh please do."
Captain Jim rammed his hands in his breeches pockets and addressed
Captain Bruce:
"I've said my last word. My hawser will come aboard at once."
The master of the _Kenilworth_ wavered and looked at Jerry Pringle as
if appealing to the stronger will which had tempted and entrapped him.
The hapless ship-master had gone too far with the plot to let it go by
the board. Pringle muttered with a sneer:
"Who is master of this steamer, anyhow?"
Captain Bruce echoed the remark:
"I command this ship, Captain Wetherly, and the sooner you leave her
the better."
Wasting no more words, Captain Jim called to his boat's crew to stand
by to take him off, and said to Dan:
"Pringle is going back to his tug. You stay here. They won't dare to do
you any harm. Keep your eyes and ears open."
Presently Bart followed his father on board the _Henry Foster_. Dan had
found no chance to talk with him and he was not sorry. He was afraid
Bart would ask him what Captain Jim's angry speech had meant. Already
the stranding of the _Kenilworth_ had dragged the two lads into its
tangle of motives and events.
Dan was too absorbed in wondering what Captain Jim could do next to
dwell long with his own troubles and perplexities. He watched the
_Resolute_ steam nearer the _Kenilworth_, while Captain Wetherly's
deck-crew gathered around the huge coils of steel hawser on the
overhang. Soon the _Henry Foster_ wallowed closer and her men were also
busy making ready to pay out a towing hawser. Dan could not understand
how Captain Jim was going to get his line aboard the _Kenilworth_, and
he breathlessly awaited the next move.
On board the _Resolute_, Captain Wetherly was standing at the wheel and
watching the _Henry Foster_ with the light of battle in his gray eyes.
Jerry Pringle's tug had forged ahead until she lay square in the path
of the _Resolute_ which was thus prevented from getting into position
for taking hold of the steamer on the Reef.
Captain Jim pulled the whistle cord and the _Resolute_ clamored to the
other tug to move out of the way. But Mr. Pringle seemed determined to
remain exactly where he was. Again and again the _Resolute's_ whistle
was sounded, but the _Henry Foster_ refused to make room. Captain
Wetherly finally growled to the mate:
"He doesn't seem to have very good manners, does he? Maybe he ought
to be taught a lesson. Take the wheel while I go below and have a few
words with Mr. McKnight."
The chief engineer was leaning against a stanchion and muttering
insults at the balky _Henry Foster_, with special emphasis on the
shortcomings of Mr. J. Pringle.
"Are you going to sit here all day and let those _Henry Fosters_ laugh
at you, Captain?" asked McKnight.
"Not if you have steam enough to do as I tell you, Bill. All I want you
to do is to jump her ahead for all she's worth when I ring the jingle
bell. Then hold on tight and say your prayers."
"Going to push Pringle out of the way?" asked the engineer with a smile
of happy anticipation. "Well, there's steam enough to make the _Henry
Foster_ know she's been bumped. It's about time something happened."
The captain returned to the wheel-house and gave the signal to back
her. The _Resolute_ slipped very slowly astern until she was in a
position for a "running start." As a final warning her whistle was
blown, without reply from the _Henry Foster_. Then, with one long
blast like a war-whoop, the _Resolute_ moved straight ahead, gathering
headway until her rearing bow was flinging cascades of spray. The mate
gasped:
"Keep her off, Captain, or you'll be in collision."
Captain Wetherly grinned and nodded as he held his tug straight at
the after part of the _Henry Foster_ on board of which there was much
shouting and running to and fro.
Her crew had taken it for granted that the _Resolute_ would pass
astern of them until her tall cut-water loomed within a hundred feet
of their overhang. Then her engine-room bells ding-donged one frantic
signal after another, but she began to move too late. _Crash!_ and she
heeled far over from the shock of the collision. Like a keen-edged axe
through a soft timber, the bow of the _Resolute_, with her weight and
momentum behind it, sheared through the overhang and sliced a dozen
feet off the stern of the luckless _Henry Foster_. It was done and over
within a twinkling. The _Resolute_ ploughed on with headway almost
unchecked, and as her horrified mate rushed forward to see what damage
had been done to her own hull, Captain Jim Wetherly looked back and
remarked to himself:
"As neat a job as I ever saw. Her after bulkhead will keep her afloat,
but the _Henry Foster_ is surely shy her tail-feathers. I guess that
winds up her career as a tow-boat for some time. Jerry Pringle looks
kind of upset and agitated."
Mr. Pringle had picked himself up from the deck, where he had been
hurled headlong, and was wildly shaking his fist at the _Resolute_. The
crippled tug was drifting off broadside and was evidently helpless.
Presently a small boat put off from her and headed for the _Resolute_.
As soon as he was within shouting distance, Jerry Pringle rose in the
stern-sheets and yelled in a voice broken with rage:
"You'll pay for my vessel, Jim Wetherly. You run her down on purpose.
She'll founder or drift on the Reef if you don't tow me to Key West."
"You violated all the rules of the road," sung back Captain Jim. "And
you're so fond of wrecking other people's vessels, supposing you see
what kind of a job you can make of the _Henry Foster_. Tow you to Key
West? You're joking. I'm going to put my line aboard the _Kenilworth_
and I'll settle with you later."
Dan was dancing up and down on the _Kenilworth's_ deck as he stared at
this amazing collision. It might be a reckless and lawless thing to do,
but Dan saw that Jerry Pringle had brought the disaster upon himself,
and that it had given Captain Jim a clear field. Throwing his cap in
the air, Dan let out a series of shrill and joyous war-whoops. He had
forgotten all about Barton, but in the midst of his noisy jubilation
he caught sight of his chum standing aft on the _Henry Foster_ and
peering down at the havoc made by the collision. Dan's voice must have
carried across the water, for Bart turned to look at the _Kenilworth_
and shook his fist with every sign of rage and resentment. Dan
subsided, but the mischief had been done. He had made an enemy of
Barton, and he muttered with a sorrowful face:
"I can't blame him for getting mad as a hornet at me. I ought to have
kept still. I don't know how we can ever patch up this misunderstanding
either. He ought to hold his daddy responsible for thinking he could
monkey with Uncle Jim Wetherly and the _Resolute_."
CHAPTER V
"ALL HANDS ABANDON SHIP!"
Nobody was more dumfounded by the ramming of the tug _Henry Foster_
than Captain Bruce of the steamer aground on the Reef. In a twinkling
his wicked partnership with Jeremiah Pringle had been smashed beyond
mending. He could no longer refuse to accept help from the victorious
_Resolute_. This meant that Captain Jim Wetherly would take charge of
the wrecking of the steamer and try to save her and her cargo by every
means in his power. Jerry Pringle had been driven from the scene. He
was on board his shattered tug which was drifting to the southward,
in no great danger of going ashore, while several schooners were
clustering around to give her aid.
Dan Frazier paid no attention to Captain Bruce, but ran to the stern of
the _Kenilworth_ to watch the _Resolute's_ crew send its towing hawser
aboard. Captain Jim was at his best in such an undertaking as this,
and his men were obeying his shouted orders with disciplined skill and
haste. The hawser writhed after the yawl like a sea-serpent and was
dragged up the side of the stranded vessel by her own crew, who were
jubilant at seeing active operations under way. When the line was made
fast, Captain Jim bellowed through his megaphone:
"We have wasted time and lost the best of the tide, Captain Bruce, but
I'm going to pull for an hour anyhow. Set your engines going full speed
astern and throw your helm to port."
Captain Bruce obeyed with eager energy. He seemed to be coming to
himself and honestly anxious to get his ship afloat. His broad
shoulders were thrown back, and he held his head erect, while his deep
voice had a tone of masterful decision. If he had made a compact with
the Evil One, he acted like a man who regretted the bargain and wanted
to repair the damage already done. Fate had suddenly snatched him out
of the clutches of Jeremiah Pringle and perhaps he was glad of it. At
least, Dan Frazier was ready to look at it in this way, and as Captain
Bruce came aft to examine the hawser the lad said to himself with a
wisdom born of his own experience:
"Last night he kind of behaved like a boy that had done something he
was awful ashamed of, but was scared to own up to it. Now he looks as
if he felt the way I do when I've decided to tell mother all about it
and promise her I'll do the best I can to make things all square again."
Dan found time to take an anxious look at the weather, and a sweeping
survey of sea and sky told him why Captain Jim did not want to wait for
the next flood tide before beginning work. The ocean had turned from
green and blue to a dull gray. The clouds were low and far-spread and
the wind was seesawing in fretful gusts, now from the north-east, again
from the north-west. The barometer had sought a lower level overnight,
and all these signs declared that a gale was brewing. If it came out of
the north-west, the charging seas would drive the _Kenilworth_ farther
on the Reef and perhaps lift her clear across the coral barrier to
sink, with a broken back, in the deep water of the Hawk Channel.
The _Resolute's_ whistle signalled that she was ready to match her
power against the Reef. As she forged ahead, the sagging hawser
tautened and twanged like a huge banjo string, while the sea was
churned to froth in her wake. At the same time the _Kenilworth's_
engines lent their mighty strength to the task. Her hull vibrated as
if the rivets were being pulled from their steel plates, but the keel
did not move an inch. Dan's faith in Captain Jim's word was so implicit
that he expected to feel the steamer start seaward in the first ten
minutes. At the end of the hour, however, the _Resolute_ was still
tugging away without result, like a man trying to lift himself by his
boot-straps. Then she slackened up on the hawser as if to get her
breath for the next tussle.
The wind was blowing with more and more violence. It picked up the
white-topped seas and hurled them high against the _Kenilworth_, while
the tug rolled and plunged amid driving foam and spray. Gulls were
flying in from seaward to seek the shelter of the distant keys. But
it was not yet rough enough to daunt Captain Jim Wetherly and he was
evidently waiting to make a second attempt on the afternoon tide.
Dan had seen these northerly gales blow themselves out in a few hours
and he felt no uneasiness at being left in the _Kenilworth_, although
he muttered to himself as he felt the helpless steamer tremble to the
shock of the seas:
"I don't see why Uncle Jim left me here now that Pringle is out of the
way. I guess he hasn't time to remember that he is shy one deck-hand."
There was some truth in this surmise, for Captain Wetherly was having
all he could do to keep the _Resolute_ at her station and her propeller
clear of the hawser which he refused to let go because he feared the
weather might make it impossible to lower the yawl for another trip to
the _Kenilworth_. He knew what Captain Bruce was not aware of, that
the steamer had been shoved on a shelving slope of the Reef where she
could withstand a terrific pounding without having the bottom torn out
of her, and that if she once started to move astern she would quickly
slide off into deep water. Therefore Captain Jim was ready to take long
chances with his tug before he would run to Key West for refuge from
wind and sea.
In the afternoon, when the _Resolute_ whistled that she was about to
go ahead again on the hawser, the green billows were breaking over her
bow and flooding aft in booming torrents. Her funnel was white with
sea-salt from the spindrift as she plunged and reared like a bucking
bronco. Dan was watching the laboring _Resolute_ from the stranded
steamer's bridge when Captain Bruce put a hand on his shoulder and said
with hearty frankness:
"That skipper of yours is plucky, and he is a first-class seaman. But
he will lose his vessel if he stays out here much longer."
"He may have to give you a wider berth by dark," said Dan. "In ordinary
weather he could take the _Resolute_ over the Reef along here, but now
the seas would pick her up and drop her on the ledges. I guess he will
have to leave me aboard here overnight, Captain. There's no getting a
boat over to me now. And he can't take the _Resolute_ to leeward of
you, on the inside of the Reef, for there isn't a deep water passage
through, for miles and miles."
"You are welcome to stay aboard with me, lad," replied Captain Bruce.
"We may have a tough time of it ourselves before morning, and I fancy
your uncle is sorry he did not take you off with him. But that can't be
helped."
The _Resolute_ had begun to pull. It was a thrilling battle to watch.
The seas were so heavy that her power was applied in a series of
tremendous lunges which threatened to snap the hawser every time her
stern rose skyward. Dan held his breath and gripped the rail with
both hands as the tug surged ahead again and again. Her mate and two
deck-hands were crouched far aft, ready to cast loose the hawser
whenever the captain dared to hold on no longer. After a while Dan saw
the chief engineer waddle back to the overhang to take a look at the
situation. There was something cheering in the sight of this bulky,
stout-hearted veteran of many a desperate venture at sea. Bill McKnight
plucked off his cap and waved it in greeting to Dan, as if signalling
him that all was well.
"I guess he's clamped down his safety-valve long before this," said Dan
aloud as he flourished an arm at Bill McKnight.
"My word but you are a desperate lot," observed Captain Bruce, and a
smile lightened his anxious face and weary eyes. "I think we are safer
aboard the _Kenilworth_."
He turned away to talk to his own chief engineer and his first officer.
They had come up from below to report that the crew were beginning to
talk of quitting the ship, and that it was hard to keep them at their
stations. The news aroused Captain Bruce like a bugle-call to action.
If he had been weak in an hour of temptation he was now once more the
able, resolute ship-master, trained by long years at sea to face such a
crisis as this.
"Do the cowards want to abandon ship while we are trying to work her
off?" he thundered. "Look at that tug-boat out yonder. She isn't afraid
to stay by us in a bit of a breeze. Come along with me. I'll handle
them."
He hurried after the first officer, and Dan was left alone to gaze
at the brave struggle of the _Resolute_. It seemed impossible that
she could hold on much longer. Her hull was buried by one sea after
another, but she shook herself free and plunged ahead with dogged,
unflinching power. The afternoon was nearly spent. A stormy dusk was
beginning to steal over the tossing sea.
Dan perceived that Captain Jim was trying to stand to his task until
high water might help to lift the _Kenilworth_. But for once that
square-jawed uncle of his had dared too much. The _Resolute_ had
endured more than steel and timber could be expected to endure. Dan
yelled with dismay as he saw the massive timber framework of the
towing-bitts fairly jump out of the deck, splintered and broken, and
vanish in the sea astern while the hawser slackened and buried itself
in the waves. The mate and deck-hands were hurled this way and that. An
instant later the wind bore a terrific crashing noise to Dan's ears.
A gaping hole showed in her after deck as the _Resolute_ dove ahead,
suddenly released from her grip on the _Kenilworth_.
[Illustration: But for once that square-jawed uncle of his had dared
too much]
"Great Scott, she jerked the towing-bitts clean out of her," cried Dan.
"It was just like pulling the stem out of an apple. Now we _are_ done
for. Is anybody killed?"
His eyes filled with hot tears as he saw Bill McKnight rush aft and
help pick up the mate and deck-hands who lay sprawled in the scuppers.
The mate was huddled in a heap where he had been flung, and the
rescuers dragged him clear and carried him forward between them, his
legs and arms swaying limp.
"He looks dead," moaned Dan. "And it leaves Uncle Jim single-handed. He
can't run home before this sea with a hole in his after deck like that.
She'd swamp in no time. He'll have to buck into it and try to fetch
Miami. And we can't get any help to him."
The _Resolute_ steamed very slowly away from the Reef, fighting for
her life. Three long blasts from her whistle came down the wind as she
spoke her farewell. Before long her reeling shape was lost to view on
the shadowy sea; then her mast-head light gleamed for a little longer
before she wholly vanished from Dan Frazier's yearning gaze.
Captain Bruce had rushed on deck at the sound of her whistle and Dan
pointed to the dim outline of the beaten and crippled _Resolute_ while
in a voice broken with grief and excitement he explained what had
happened to the tug.
"Uncle Jim will have other tugs on the way as soon as he can wire for
them," added Dan. "I think he ordered a schooner to run to Miami this
morning with orders for more help to be sent you."
"They can't get out to us until this blow is over," said the captain.
"We are in for a bad night, my boy. I wish you were out of it. But
Captain Wetherly couldn't have taken you off to save his soul."
"I wouldn't have been here if you had been square--" Dan began to say
with a sudden rush of anger. But it seemed as though Captain Bruce had
not heard him, for he went on to say:
"If my boy had lived he would have been about your age now, Dan. He was
just your kind of a youngster, too. Go below and get some supper, and
some sleep if you can."
There was to be little sleep aboard the _Kenilworth_ through this
night. The gale had no more than begun to blow when the _Resolute_ was
forced to retreat. Long before midnight it was lashing the shoal water
of the Reef into huge breakers which assailed the _Kenilworth_ with
thundering fury. Her keel began to pound as she was lifted and driven
a little farther on the Reef by one shock after another. The decks
sloped more and more until it was not easy to keep a foothold. The
noise of the water breaking over her hull, the booming cry of the wind,
the groaning and grating and shrieking of her steel plates as the Reef
strove to pull them asunder, made it seem as if the steamer could not
hold together until daylight.
The grimy men from the engine-room and stoke-hole had fled to the
shelter of the steel deck-houses where they huddled with the seamen,
shouting to each other in English, Norwegian, and Spanish. Captain
Bruce and his officers finally gathered in the chart-room and discussed
the chances of launching the boats if matters should grow much worse.
Dan Frazier was doubled up in a corner chair, half-dead for sleep, but
fighting hard to keep his wits about him and tell the others what he
knew of the Reef and the water that stretched to leeward of the ship.
In answer to a question from Captain Bruce he said:
"This is the narrowest part of the Reef, Captain Wetherly told me, and
if you can get your boats away in the lee of the ship and keep them
afloat through the breaking water you will be in the Hawk Channel, only
three miles from a string of keys. The channels between the islands are
deep enough for a ship's boat. You don't need any chart to find smooth
water in those lagoons, sir."
"Her bottom plates are opening up," growled the chief engineer who had
just come up to report. "The sea is coming in fast. It has begun to
flood the fire-room, and I can't make steam to keep the pumps going
much longer."
"The bulkheads forward are twisting like so much paper," added the
first officer. "They can't stand up if she racks herself any worse.
Then she will be flooded fore and aft."
Captain Bruce jumped to his feet and gruffly broke into this dismal
kind of talk:
"Get all the men you can and come below with me. Her after part is
still afloat and tight, and if we can brace the midship bulkheads with
enough timbers and cargo, they may hold for a while yet."
It was a forlorn hope, but even the seamen and stokers were glad to
be doing something to save the ship, and most of them rallied to the
call of the captain and mate and followed them down into the gloomy
hold. Dan went along to try to do what he could, and also because he
remembered that Captain Jim had told him to "keep his eyes and ears
open."
"If we abandon the _Kenilworth_," thought Dan, "and I see Uncle Jim
again, the first thing he will ask me is what shape we left the steamer
in--had she begun to break in two, and how badly was she flooded, and
so on. I guess it's part of my job to find out all I can."
He picked up a lantern which had been overlooked and crept after the
men, down one slippery iron ladder after another. It was a terrifying
trip below decks where the angry ocean sounded as if it were about
to tear its way through the vessel's side, amid an awful hubbub of
shifting cargo, and breaking beams and plates. Dan hesitated more than
once and tried to choke down his fear. He was in strange quarters and
the men ahead of him, used to finding their way all over the vessel,
moved much faster than he. They had reached the engine-room and were
moving forward while he was still clinging to the last ladder. Then a
lurch of the ship dashed his lantern against the hand-rail. The glass
globe was smashed and the light went out.
The electric lighting plant had been disabled and the cavern of an
engine-room was in black darkness as Dan vainly searched his pockets
for matches. He heard faint shouts from somewhere forward and thought
he saw the gleam of lanterns. He tried to grope his way toward them,
but stumbled and fell against a steel column. With aching head he
staggered to his feet just as the whole hull of the ship seemed to be
raised bodily and let fall on the Reef with a deafening crash. Dan was
more frightened and confused than ever. A moment later his feet began
to splash in water. He thought the sea had broken into the engine-room,
and he tried, with frantic haste, to find his way back to the ladder
and regain the deck above. By this time he had completely lost his
bearings. He did not know whether he was going toward the bow or stern.
At length his trembling fingers clutched the rail of a ladder which
ran upward from a narrow passageway. It led him to another deck still
far down in the vessel's hold, where he could find no more ladders to
climb. After what seemed to him hours of feeling his way this way and
that, he bumped against a solid steel wall. Dan knew it was a bulkhead
of some kind, but it must be far from the toiling crew of the ship, for
he had long since ceased to hear or see them. He had never been in such
utter darkness nor so hopelessly lost and bewildered.
The frightened lad shouted for help, but his voice could not have been
heard a dozen feet away, so great was the din around him. He tried to
think, to get back his sense of direction, to feel his way along the
bulkhead in the hope of getting his hands on some object with whose
outline he was familiar, which might tell him into what part of the
ship he had wandered.
He was leaning against the steel wall of the bulkhead when it buckled,
sprang back, and then quivered as if it had been a sheet of tin.
There was a tremendous noise of crackling, rending timber and steel
above Dan's head. He whirled about and tried to flee as he heard the
collapsing bulkhead give way.
The boy could hear the cargo toppling toward him with the roar of a
landslide. He threw up his arms to shield his head, then something
struck him in the back and hurled him to one side. He fell across a
bulky box of some kind while other heavy boxes, a deluge of them,
thundered from above and crashed all round him. Dan cowered in a
frightened heap, expecting every instant to have his life crushed out.
But gradually the descent of the cargo ceased, and he was still alive.
He tried to move his legs and found they had not been smashed.
Struggling to turn over on his back he put up his arms and discovered
that a huge packing case had so fallen as to make a bridge over him and
keep clear the little space in which he crouched. But he was walled in
by packing cases on all sides and he struggled in vain to move them.
Until his fingers were torn and bleeding and his strength worn out, Dan
tried to make an opening large enough to wriggle through and escape
from this appalling prison.
When at length he lay still and panted aloud the prayers his mother had
taught him, there came the echo of hoarse shouts above the clamor of
the ship and the sea. Through a crevice between the boxes of freight
that penned him fast he glimpsed the gleam of moving lanterns. The
captain and crew were deserting the hold of the ship. Dan tried to call
to them but his cries were unheard.
The shouts ceased, the gleams of light vanished one by one, and Dan
was left alone in the flooded and shattered hold of the _Kenilworth_.
Far above him Captain Bruce and his crew were making ready their
life-boats, preferring to trust themselves to the storm-swept sea than
to the steamer which they believed doomed to be torn to fragments
within the next few hours.
"They must have given up the fight", moaned Dan between his sobs. "I
guess it means all hands abandon ship at daylight. And they will think
I've been washed overboard in the dark."
CHAPTER VI
DAN FRAZIER'S PREDICAMENT
Imprisoned as he was in the hold of the _Kenilworth_, and feeling sure
that the steamer was to be abandoned by her crew as a hopeless wreck,
Dan Frazier became almost stupefied with terror and exhaustion. As long
as there was any strength in his athletic young body he had pushed
and tugged at the mass of freight which penned him in, shouting in
his frenzy until his voice failed him and died away in hoarse, broken
weeping.
At length his benumbed senses lost themselves in heavy slumber. He
dreamed of being at home with his mother in the palm-shaded cottage and
she was holding him in her lap and stroking his forehead with her cool
hands. But nightmares came to drive away this sweet dream, and he awoke
with a choking cry for help.
Dan thought he must have been asleep for hours and hours. More
torturing than the realization of his dreadful plight was his burning
thirst. But his brain was clearer and he listened to the medley of
noises around him with a glimmer of hope. The water had not reached the
deck on which he had been trapped, although he could hear it washing
to and fro in the bottom of the hold below. The hull of the ship had
ceased to pound on the Reef. The breakers beat against her steel sides
and fell solid on her upper decks with a sound like distant thunder,
but Dan began to feel confident that the gale was blowing itself out
and the steamer was going to live through it.
He thanked God that he had not been drowned, at any rate, even
though he seemed likely to perish where he was for lack of food and
drink. Youth grasps at slender hopes and finds strength in dubious
consolations. Dan had expected to be overwhelmed by the sea without a
ghost of a chance to fight for his life. Now that this peril seemed
to be passing, his wits began to return, and he fished his strong
bladed sailor's clasp-knife from his trousers pocket. To hack away at
his prison walls was better than doing nothing. He twisted painfully
about until he had located the widest crevices between the sides of
the packing-cases and began to chip away at the stout planking. It
was a task tedious and wearisome beyond words. There was no light,
his nerves were unstrung, and he worked with unsteady, groping hand.
Rats scampered over him, or squealed in the darkness close by, and he
slashed at them savagely. They startled him so that more than once he
gave up the task and wept like a little child.
At length Dan cut through the planking of a box which was wedged fast
between two larger ones and his knife clinked against tin. He managed
to break off a splintered end of board and pulled out a round can of
some kind of provisions. This was unexpected good fortune, and he
carefully cut into the lid with a muttered prayer of thanksgiving,
hoping to find enough liquid to wet his parched tongue. The can proved
to be full of French peas, packed in enough water to supply a long
drink of cool, refreshing soup. Dan scooped up the tiny peas with his
fingers, emptied the tin, and eagerly drove his knife into another of
them. The nourishment made him feel like a giant. He returned to his
task with genuine hope of being able to whittle a way out of his trap.
But as the weary hours dragged by, and the strokes of the knife became
more and more feeble, the prisoner gave himself up to despair. His
strength had ebbed so fast that he slumped down and slept with his face
in his arms.
A great noise awoke him. The cargo was shifting and tumbling with
fearful uproar. From below came the rumble of coal sliding across the
bunkers. The deck rolled violently and pitched Dan to the other end
of his pen. He expected to be crushed by the cargo, and thought the
ship must be turning over. But the commotion gradually ceased and, to
his great astonishment, he was alive and unhurt. The deck seemed to
have much less slant than before. He raised his arms and they touched
nothing over his head. Unable to realize the truth, he scrambled to
his feet and stood upright. The great package of freight which had
roofed him over had slid clear, carrying along the boxes piled above
it. Frantic with new hope of release, Dan clambered upward, tearing his
clothes to tatters, plunging headlong from one obstacle to another,
bruising his face, hands, and knees against sharp edges and corners.
Scrambling over the disordered cargo until he had to halt to get his
breath, Dan gasped to himself:
"I can't get on deck through a freight compartment. The hatches will be
fastened down above. I must find out how I blundered in here as far as
the broken bulkhead."
A moment later he fetched up against solid tiers of cargo which had
not been dislodged and knew he must be headed wrong. This gave him a
clue, however, and with fast-failing strength he stumbled back over
the way he had come. At last he saw a streak of daylight filter down
from a skylight far above. Yes, there was a road to the upper deck.
Dan glimpsed the shadowy outline of a ladder. It was all he could do
to muster courage to attempt the long and dizzy climb. But he set his
teeth and clung like a barnacle to one round after another until he
fell against the iron door of a deck-house, fumbled with the fastening,
and tottered out into daylight.
Half-blinded and blinking like an owl, Dan Frazier covered his face
with his hands until his eyes could bear the dazzling reflection of
sea and sky which were flooded with glorious sunshine. The wind sang
through the shrouds and funnel-stays and the blue ocean upheaved
in swollen billows, but the gale had passed. Dan's bewildered gaze
fell upon the empty chocks, the dangling falls and the davits swung
outboard, where the steamer's life-boats had been. These signs were
enough to tell him that the ship had been abandoned. He was left alone
in her, and he went forward with a feeling of uncanny isolation. Water
to drink was what he wanted more than anything else, and before making
a survey of the ship he sought the tank in the chart-room and fairly
guzzled his fill. Then he made a ferocious onslaught on the cabin
pantry and carried on deck a kettle full of cold boiled potatoes, beef
and hard bread, and climbed to the battered bridge.
Looking down at the steamer from this lofty perch, Dan understood what
had caused the violent roll and lunge that set him free from his prison
below decks. The storm had driven her, head-on, far up the outer slope
of the Reef, where she had lain as if about to break in pieces, with
the seas washing clean over her. But while her forward compartments
had filled with water, her stern was still buoyant. When the gale had
subsided the ship was hanging over the deep water on the inner side of
the Reef, and the next high tide had lifted her stern so that she slid
bow-first, for half her length, down the opposite side of the shelf
which had held her keel fast. It looked like a miracle to Dan, but here
was the ship still solid under his feet. Gazing down from one end of
the bridge, he could see the inner edge of the Reef shimmering far down
through the clear water and the hull of the _Kenilworth_, hanging only
by the after part.
"Where, oh where, is Uncle Jim?" he thought. "He might patch up her
bulkheads, lift the water out with his wrecking pumps, and pull her off
yet. And I'll bet he'd keep her afloat somehow."
Then a stupendous thought flashed into Dan's mind. It was such a
dazzling, gorgeous idea that it made him dizzy with delight. Yes,
it was all true. The _Kenilworth_ had been abandoned by her captain
and crew as a wreck. She was like a derelict at sea. Whoever should
find and board her would have the right to claim heavy salvage on the
vessel and her cargo if they were saved and brought into port. It was
the unwritten law of the Reef that the first man to set foot on an
abandoned wreck was the wrecking master, to be obeyed as such, with
first claim on salvage.
Dan tried to arrange his thoughts in some kind of order, and at length
he said to himself with an air of decision:
"The wrecking master on this job is Daniel P. Frazier. I earned it all
right, and Key West will back me up whether Jerry Pringle likes it or
not. And I'm going to hold her down till Uncle Jim comes back. There
can't be any more question about who has the wrecking of her. General
cargo, too!--I'll bet it's worth several hundred thousand dollars!--and
a four thousand ton steel steamer. If we can save her, the owners will
have to give up fifty or a hundred thousand dollars in clean salvage
money."
The weight of his responsibility soon tamed Dan's high spirits. He
could make no resistance if a crew of hostile wreckers should happen
along to dispute his title in the absence of Captain Jim Wetherly. The
morning sun was no more than three hours high. He must watch and wait
through a long, long day, any hour of which might bring in sight the
sails of a fleet of wrecking schooners. Dan reckoned that he had been
penned below for about thirty hours and that this was the morning of
the second day after the wreck. Captain Jim must have a tug on the way
by this time. But, on the other hand, if Captain Bruce and his men had
been picked up and carried to Key West, their tidings would send Jerry
Pringle and his horde of wreckers flying seaward by steam and sail.
Every boy who plays foot-ball has dreamed of breaking through the line,
blocking a kick, scooping up the ball, and running down the field like
a whirlwind to score the winning touchdown with the other eleven vainly
pounding along in his wake. So most of us have dreamed of playing the
hero by stopping a runaway horse, saving the life of the prettiest girl
that ever was, and being splendidly rewarded by her millionaire father.
Dan Frazier's pet dream had a salt-water background. It was of being
the first to find an abandoned ship with a rich cargo, triumphantly
bringing her into port, and winning a fortune in salvage. At last he
had found his ship, but the lone hero had an elephant on his hands.
Dan was too weary in body and mind to roam about the steamer. He rigged
a bit of awning on the bridge, dragged a mattress up from below, and
lay gazing through the rents in the canvas weather screen until noon.
A mail steamer northward-bound passed close to the Reef, slowed down
to make sure the crew had left the wreck, and ploughed on her way. Dan
grew tired of looking to the southward for schooners beating up from
Key West and concluded that the head wind and heavy sea were holding
them in harbor. There was no black smudge of smoke to the northward to
show that Captain Jim was coming out from Miami in a tow-boat. Over
to seaward, however, in the east-north-east, three sails glinted like
flecks of cloud. They were close together, and Dan gazed at them idly,
thinking they might be coastwise merchant vessels hauling southward
before the piping wind. But as they lifted higher, he noticed that
they were shaping a straight course for the Reef instead of swinging
off to follow the track through the Florida Straits. They were
schooners coming with great speed and showing a reckless spread of
canvas.
Soon the low hulls gleamed beneath the towering piles of sail and Dan
jumped to his feet as he scanned the beautiful sea picture they made.
"Bahama schooners; I know their cut!" he exclaimed. "They've smelled a
wreck on the Reef as sure as guns. The news must have reached Nassau
by cable yesterday. And those pirates have got a clear field for once.
What _can_ I do? They won't listen to my story, not for a minute.
They'll swarm aboard like rats and be ripping the cargo out of this
vessel in a jiffy."
The youthful wrecking master was at his wits' end and his head began
to throb as if it would split, for he had little endurance left. He
remained in hiding on the bridge and tried to think out a plan of
action as the Bahama schooners swooped across the frothing sea, laying
their courses in a bee line for the _Kenilworth_. Dan's only hope was
that he might be able to stay aboard until Captain Jim should return
to enforce the law of the Reef with his crew of hard-fisted tow-boat
men to back him up. He thought of telling the wreckers that he was
a stowaway, left behind when the steamer's men deserted her, but,
although Dan Frazier was far from perfect, he hated the notion of lying
his way out of this tight corner. He was truthful by habit, for one
thing, and there was another reason which he muttered to himself:
"There's been lying enough on this job. The poor old ship has been
rotten with lies ever since her skipper first ran afoul of Jerry
Pringle. Even her grounding on the Reef was a lie. And I don't believe
Uncle Jim would lie to save the ship, or his own skin either. No, this
poor old vessel has been good to me so far. I got out of her hold by
good luck and I'll trust to luck to pull me out of this scrape."
Dan picked up a pair of glasses and looked at the nearest schooner
which had boldly crossed the Reef and was rounding to in the smoother
water of the Hawk Channel while a group of black-skinned, ragged
wreckers were shoving a boat over the side. Dan felt a new thrill of
surprise and alarm as he scrutinized a burly figure poised at the
schooner's rail. It was "Black Sam" Hurley, a Bahama wrecker of such
evil repute that he had been pointed out to Dan in Nassau harbor as one
of the notorious characters of the islands.
[Illustration: Dan felt a new thrill of surprise and alarm]
"There are plenty of honest wreckers in the Bahamas," said the lad to
himself, while his teeth chattered. "But they don't sail with 'Black
Sam.' And he was alongside the _Resolute_ at Nassau, talking to the
cook. He'd know me again. It's a good thing I chucked up that idea of
lying out of this. It's time for me to get under cover, all right."
Dan crept off the bridge along the windward side of the deck-house and
kept well out of sight of the schooners until he reached the shelter
of the funnel and the engine-room skylights. Then he slipped into the
nearest door and made his way to the flight of ladders up which he
had climbed in the morning. He had fled in a state of panic, but one
glance down into the black hold made him draw back and take measures
to provision himself against a long siege below. There was no need
for great haste, and Dan delayed to equip himself with a lantern,
matches, a jug of water, and a canvas bag, crammed with food, which he
slung about his neck. Then he made his way below with lighted lantern,
seeking to find as secure and comfortable a refuge as possible. The
Bahama wreckers would begin to loot the part of the cargo easiest
to get at and handle, he reasoned, and therefore he passed by the
uppermost cargo deck and explored the region below, slowly making his
way aft.
It was a dangerous and desperate journey, but Dan was thinking only of
keeping out of the way of "Black Sam" until Captain Jim should come
back and retake the ship which belonged to him.
"I'm what the lawyers call a vital document when they're arguing a
salvage case in the Key West Court," thought Dan with a half-hearted
grin. "And from all I've heard of 'Black Sam' Hurley, he'd chuck this
vital document overboard if he thought it might interfere with his
possession of the wreck."
In this game of hide-and-seek the advantage was with the lad in the
hold, and fear of discovery by the wreckers did not greatly trouble
him. After a long time he heard clamorous voices somewhere above and
he doused his lantern. The wreckers seemed to be exploring the upper
cargo decks. Some kind of a dispute arose and the sides of the ship
flung back the echoes of it as from a great sounding board. Dan could
not make out what the quarrel was about, but at length the sounds grew
fainter as if the wreckers had returned to the outside world above.
Dan had felt a gush of cool wind from somewhere over his head and
shifted his quarters to get beneath it and out of the reeking, stifling
atmosphere of the hold. He knew it must come from a pipe running to
one of the great bell-mouthed ventilators on deck and was glad that it
had been turned so as to face and catch the invigorating breeze. He
had not dreamed that the ventilator might serve as a speaking-tube.
While he waited, however, to learn what the wreckers intended to do
next, some one began to talk, and he heard every word distinctly. The
voice sounded so near his ears that he was as startled as if a ghost
had stepped out of the darkness. Dan jumped to his feet, his nerves
all of a quiver. He would have fled anywhere to get away from this
uncanny voice, but a stronger gust of wind struck his upturned face and
the mysterious voice sounded even louder. He thought of the ventilator
pipe, got a grip on himself, and scarcely breathed as he listened
to the odd intonations of the Bahama negro speech. "Black Sam" was
talking. Dan remembered the peculiar guttural cadence of his voice as
he had heard it in Nassau harbor. He must have been standing directly
in front of the ventilator on deck, for every word carried down the
pipe to Dan:
"Ah don't care nuffin' 'bout de ship. We ain't got no tow-boats to pull
her off. An' if we don't work quick an' soon them Key Westers'll be
a-scatterin' down an' run us back home--you heah me? Take a big bag o'
powdah an' blow de side outen her. Dat's what I say do. De cargo ports
is all jammed fas'. We can't open 'em nohow. An' we ain't got no steam
to hoist wid a donkey-engine. Blow de side outen her. She's hung fas'
on de Reef. She ain't gwine sink. When we'se done loaded our schooners
wid cargo we can strip the brasses in de engine-room. Blow her up.
Ain't I wrecked plenty vessels? Don't I know?"
Dan heard one of the other wreckers rumble: "Sam knows bes'. Cut de
fuse to burn ten minutes an' let us get back aboard our schooners. Hang
de sack o' powder 'g'inst the ship's plates inside an' let her go.
Reckon we'll blow a hole in her fit to run a tow-boat froo, Sam."
To Dan Frazier these last words sounded faint and confused, as if
something was the matter with his hearing. He had only time to mutter
"They are going to blow her up and me with her." Then he felt so giddy
that he put out his arms to steady himself. His knees gave way and he
sank down in a heap.
CHAPTER VII
A FAT ENGINEER TO THE RESCUE
Dan Frazier came to himself with the message from the ventilator pipe
surging in his confused brain. The Bahama wreckers were going to blow
up the ship. "A ten-minute fuse," he whispered as he began to crawl
forward to escape from the hold. How long had he been unconscious? The
explosion might come on the next instant. Dan was afraid to face "Black
Sam" Hurley and his lawless crew, but he was far more afraid to stay
below. His only thought was to gain the upper deck and jump overboard
in the hope that the wreckers might pick him up. Fear gave him strength
for the journey, fear such as he had never known before.
Losing his bearings in his headlong panic, Dan turned toward the side
of the ship, for he had not delayed to relight his lantern. A little
way in front of him a red spark glowed and sputtered. It burned a hole
in the gloom, and Dan stood stock-still and stared as if fascinated. It
was the fuse of the charge of powder. He wanted to run away from it but
his legs refused to carry him.
When he moved, it was not in flight but straight toward the sputtering
slow-match. It was not in the least a conscious act of bravery. Dan
felt sure that he could not regain the upper deck before the explosion
tore him to pieces. He turned at bay to fight for his life with the
instinct of a hunted animal.
Springing toward the terrible, winking spark with his fists doubled
as if to ward off an attack, Dan struck at it, tore the trailing fuse
free from its fastening, trampled it under his feet, and pulled it to
bits after the fire was dead. The explosive itself was also an enemy
which he must destroy. As if he were in a delirium, Dan whipped out his
knife, cut the lashing of the sack of powder, and dragged it after him
in his retreat. He came to a hatchway, let the sack drop, and heard it
splash in the water which flooded the lower hold. Then he clawed his
way toward daylight.
Dan no longer cared whether the wreckers saw him or not. No danger
could have forced him down into the hold of the ship again. It was
a place filled with horrors. When he came out into the sunshine and
wind it was a kindly chance which made him lie down in a corner of the
deck that was screened from sight of the wreckers' schooners. Dan had
forgotten all about them. He had come to the end of his rope, and all
he could think of was, "I want to go home. I want to go home."
"Black Sam" Hurley was impatiently awaiting the explosion which should
tear a gap in the _Kenilworth's_ side and allow his greedy wreckers to
begin operations. Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed, and there was a
great hubbub on board the Bahama schooners tossing at a safe distance
from the steamer. At the end of half an hour "Black Sam" ordered a
boat away and the crew crowded in pell-mell. They boarded the lee side
of the _Kenilworth_ with the agility of monkeys and their bare feet
slapped the deck as they ran to the hatch.
Dan heard them and realized that he must try to find a resting-place
where they would not discover him upon their return from below. He
might perhaps be unseen if he took refuge on the bridge which the
wreckers were not likely to ransack until later. He managed to drag
his aching, weary body forward and laid down on the mattress behind
the canvas weather screen. After a few minutes he heard the wreckers
come boiling out of the hold with cries of amazement, anger, and fear.
They had expected to find a faulty fuse, but fuse, powder, and all
had vanished. Some of them swore the ship was haunted and refused to
have anything to do with fetching another sack of powder. Their leader
bellowed and threatened, but he could not quell the riot. At last he
yelled that he would lay the second charge himself and stay aboard if
he blew up with it. Scoffing at the idea of ghostly interference, he
ordered his men to search the ship.
These plans were suddenly knocked all askew. Shouting arose on board
the schooners whose crews were waving their arms toward the north. The
wreckers on the steamer rushed to the side and discovered the cause
of alarm. The funnel and upper works of a tug were lifting from the
sea, beneath a trailing banner of smoke. Dan had been watching the
scene on deck with absorbed attention, and as he looked seaward and
caught sight of the tug his heart stood still. He squinted through
the glasses. There were two white bands around the funnel. Could it
be the _Three Sisters_ of Jacksonville, the big wrecking tug of which
Captain Jim's cousin was master? The streaked smoke-stack and the
stubby derrick-masts--the drab wheel-house--yes, these were things
which Dan remembered noticing when the tug was in Key West. And Captain
Jim must be in her. She was hurrying to find out what had become of the
_Kenilworth_. "Perhaps they are looking for me," thought Dan. "And I'm
still wrecking master if 'Black Sam' doesn't see me first."
The Bahama wreckers were very busy with their own affairs. The sight
of the on-coming tug had altered their campaign in a twinkling. "Black
Sam" was now determined to keep possession of the wreck at all hazards,
acting on the theory that he was the wrecking master by the law of the
Reef. He told his men to stay where they were and slid down the side of
the steamer to pull off to the schooners and muster reinforcements. A
score of stalwart negroes rallied to his summons and tumbled into their
boats.
A picturesque and piratical looking force they were as they scrambled
over the _Kenilworth's_ bulwarks and scattered along her sea-scarred
decks. "Black Sam" showed his teeth in a snarl as he yelled to them:
"Dey ain't gwine be no argifying 'bout dis yere wreck. We'se heah an'
we stay heah. If dem tow-boat folks tries to come aboard, keep 'em busy
wid dem belaying-pins yondah an' yo' knives--yo' heah me?"
The _Three Sisters_ was rapidly nearing the scene. From his ambush Dan
watched her with yearning, happy eyes. He was not yet out of trouble,
but Captain Jim would somehow rescue him in the nick of time. He saw
the powerful tug sweep around to leeward of the Bahama schooners
and slow down as if her people were trying to fathom the situation.
Captain Jim Wetherly was standing by the wheel-house door, shading his
eyes with his hand. Dan wanted to call to him, but he dared not show
himself. The tug crept nearer, and Dan rejoiced to discover that most
of the _Resolute's_ crew were clustered along the lower deck, including
the portly chief engineer, Bill McKnight, who loomed like a whale among
minnows.
Presently Captain Jim sung out:
"What are you Bahama niggers doing aboard that steamer? She belongs to
me. I had hold of her once and am in charge of wrecking her. Clear out
before I put my men aboard."
A row of black heads bobbed in violent agitation along the
_Kenilworth's_ bulwarks, and "Black Sam" Hurley shouted back with a
loud laugh:
"Go back home, white man. We foun' dis yere wreck 'bandoned. I'se
wreckin' marster--yo' heah me? If you all wants her, come aboard an'
take her."
Dan saw Bill McKnight waddle aft in great haste, dive into his room,
and beckon to a _Resolute_ deck-hand. Presently the two reappeared
dragging a long, heavy box which the engineer began to break open with
furious blows of a hatchet.
"It's the case of Mauser rifles Bill stowed away from the last
filibustering cargo he ran over to Cuba," murmured Dan. "He said
he was saving 'em to start another revolution with. Hooray! hooray!
there'll be something doing."
Bill McKnight was passing the rifles out to the eager crew of the
_Resolute_ who looked as if they were about to earn their passage
aboard the _Three Sisters_. Captain Jim made one jump from the upper
deck, without delaying to find the stairway, and caught up a rifle and
a handful of cartridges. Once more he shouted to the wreckers on the
_Kenilworth_:
"If you want trouble we'll give you plenty. Are you coming off?"
"We ain't scared by dem guns," yelled "Black Sam." "You ain't got no
rights in dis vessel. You all don't dare to do no shootin'."
"I've got the underwriter's agent aboard this tug, and he knows the
facts," returned Captain Jim. "You are pirates and I intend to have no
monkey-business. I know all about you, Sam Hurley."
"Show yo' claim on dis wreck. We'se heah. You ain't," replied the negro.
Dan could hold in no longer. He poked his head above the canvas screen
of the bridge, waved both arms over his head, and yelled at the top of
his voice:
"You bet we're here, Uncle Jim. And I'm wrecking master and it is your
job."
The men on the _Three Sisters_ dropped their rifles and stared in
silence, with mouths agape. It was a voice and a vision from the dead.
"Black Sam" and his wreckers stood poised in their various threatening
attitudes as if petrified. It was a strange tableau. If Dan had
hopped off a passing cloud he could not have caused a more breathless
sensation. The spell which his appearance cast on all who beheld him
was broken by the jubilant voice of Captain Jim:
"It's Dan Frazier sure enough. Thank God you're alive and kicking, boy.
Captain Bruce reported you drowned, and nobody's dared to tell your
mother till I could get out to the wreck. Hold your nerve. We're coming
after you."
The words awoke "Black Sam" Hurley to swift action. He was beside
himself with rage at the boy on the steamer's bridge who had spoiled
the explosion and then made a jest of his claims as wrecking-master.
The desperate negro had only one idea in his head--to square matters
by getting his hands on Dan. He ran toward the bridge with several of
his men at his heels, and Dan hastily climbed on the rail ready to jump
overboard as the only way of escape. But before the wreckers had gained
his refuge, he heard Captain Jim cry:
"Hold on, Dan. Don't jump. Duck and lie flat where you are."
The boy flopped full length on the bridge an instant before several
rifles barked on the _Three Sisters_ and bullets came singing over the
_Kenilworth_. The wreckers halted, huddled in confusion, and ran for
the shelter of the nearest deck-house. "Black Sam" delayed to hurl an
iron belaying-pin at Dan's head and paid dearly for the act. It was
Bill McKnight who drove a bullet through his arm and made him fly for
cover with blood trickling from his fingers. Then the clarion tones of
the fat chief engineer sounded across the water as if he had taken full
command of the expedition:
"Half a dozen of you men stay here to sweep the _Kenilworth's_ bulwarks
with your guns and give us a chance to climb over. The rest follow me
to board her. _A la machete!_ Out cutlasses. _Viva Cuba!_ Hip, hip,
hooroo!"
Two boats were fairly thrown into the water from the _Three Sisters_
and the cheering _Resolutes_ fell into them, grabbing capstan bars
and coal shovels, or clubbing their rifles. The Bahama wreckers had
no intention of being driven from their prize without making a fight
for it. Several of them pulled revolvers from inside their shirts and
popped wildly away at the approaching boats while "Black Sam" led a
crowd of his followers behind the tall bulwark where they crouched,
sheltered from rifle fire, and ready to receive the boarders as they
came over the side. Captain Jim was in the bow of one boat, the chief
engineer in the other. The wreckers had been unable to cut away the
dangling boat ropes and bowlines by which they had climbed on board,
and the attacking party ascended like so many acrobats. Bill McKnight
was boosted and hauled part way, but as soon as he found a secure
purchase for his fingers and toes, he dove over the bulwark like a
landslide and pranced into action like a cyclone.
It was a pretty bit of old-fashioned boarding for the prosaic
twentieth century. The _Resolutes_ suffered some cracked heads and
bloody faces before they gained foothold and swept forward. Try as
he would, Captain Jim could not keep the terrific pace set by Bill
McKnight who was swinging his rifle like a flail and clearing a wide
path while he grunted maledictions at the foe.
[Illustration: It was a pretty bit of old-fashioned boarding for the
prosaic twentieth century]
"You're blockin' my way, you google-eyed thief. _Bing!_ there's one on
the cocoanut," he panted with a cheerful grin as he smote a stalwart
wrecker and sent him spinning.
"We're a-coming, Dan. Keep your reserved seat," he bellowed to the
bridge as he wiped the sweat from his eyes. "Black Sam's" men could not
withstand the determined and disciplined onslaught and began to leap
overboard, _plop! plop!_ into the green sea over which the boats from
their schooners were racing to pick them up. Only their leader stayed
behind, sullenly nursing his wounded arm. Captain Jim halted long
enough to tell him:
"My men will take you aboard the tug and patch you up from my medicine
chest. Then you'd better make sail for home. The Reef isn't healthy
for your breed of Nassau wreckers. Better pass the word among your
friends."
Then Captain Jim ran to the bridge, but Bill McKnight was already
hugging Dan and fairly blubbering over him. The boy was too weak to
struggle out of this crushing embrace, but he waggled a free hand to
Captain Jim and stammered:
"W-wow, ouch. Glad to see you aboard."
"Glad to see us aboard, you rascal," laughed his uncle as he yanked the
engineer away and thumped Dan on the back. "_Well_, we're tickled to
death to see _you_ aboard. How in the--, of all the-- Whew, what are
you doing here anyhow, Dan?"
His nephew made a brave attempt to answer him. Now was the time to play
the hero, to tell how he had stuck to the ship and saved her. But Dan
Frazier was no hero. He was just a stout-hearted lad who had weathered
one cruel ordeal after another with the Almighty's aid, and he had
hung on to himself as long as he could. Now there was no more call for
courage. He was safe and the ship had been restored to Uncle Jim. Tears
streamed down Dan's face and he swayed against Bill McKnight who put a
steadying arm around him.
"I--I'm just tired out, I--I guess," he sobbed. "Please take me home,
Uncle Jim. I--I want my mother."
Bill McKnight coughed and wiped his eyes as he lifted Dan's feet clear
of the deck, while Captain Jim lent his sturdy arms to the task of
carrying the boy to the ship's side and lowering him into a boat.
They got him aboard the _Three Sisters_ without mishap, took off his
tattered, grimy clothing, and tucked him in the captain's bunk.
"The boy is bruised and scratched from head to foot," said the master
of the tug, Captain Jim's cousin. "We'd better sponge him down with hot
water and arnica. He must have had a tougher time of it than most grown
men could live through, Jim. See here, these are fresh burns on his
hands. Now, where did he get those?"
"The Lord only knows," said Captain Jim as he patted Dan's flushed
cheek. "Don't pester him with questions now. He's got some fever and
his eyes look bad to me. I'm going to leave McKnight on the wreck with
some of my men to stand off any other kinky-headed pirates that may
light on the Reef. And we're going to take this boy home to his mother
as fast as you can poke this old hooker of yours into Key West."
Dan opened his eyes and smiled at Captain Jim who motioned him to be
quiet. But Dan was already restless with fever and he had a hundred
things to talk about if they would only stop whirling around in his
head long enough to be laid hold of. He looked at his scorched fingers
which were pecking at a corner of the blanket and said in a voice so
weak that it sounded foolish to him:
"They tried to blow her up--to blow Jerry Pringle up--no, I don't mean
that. It was 'Black Sam' Hurley--he lit the fuse, Uncle Jim--and I put
it out--all alone down in the hold. You never saw such big rats--with
sacks of powder tied to their tails--and eyes like sparks."
Captain Jim soothed Dan as best he could and whispered to his cousin:
"Did you get that? It's all true, I reckon. That's an old trick of the
Bahama wrecking gangs. Ask Mr. Prentice to come in. The underwriters
ought to be interested in the boy."
Mr. Prentice, the Florida agent of the English marine insurance
companies, was a sharp-featured, elderly gentleman of few words. He had
a great deal of confidence in Captain Wetherly's ability to handle such
a bad business as a costly steamer high and dry on the Reef, but he was
not prepared to hear such an astonishing tale as was whispered to him
in the doorway of the captain's state-room.
"Mind you, we don't know a quarter of it yet," added Captain Jim. "But
it looks as if you'll have to thank Dan Frazier, not me, for saving the
steamer out yonder."
"U-m-m. Bless me, but it's most extraordinary," murmured Mr. Prentice.
"I must go aboard at once and look for confirmation. It's a very
unusual wreck, Captain Wetherly," and the underwriter's agent shot a
keen glance from under his gray brows. "I shall be much interested in
getting Captain Bruce's version. Jeremiah Pringle was off here, also,
the night the _Kenilworth_ went ashore, was he not? I understand you
were in collision with him next day."
Mr. Prentice had slightly raised his voice. It carried to Dan's ears
and he raised himself on his elbow and cried out in excitement:
"We'll pull her off, Uncle Jim, and Barton won't know. And his mother
won't know. Don't let them know. The captain is sorry. We can handle it
all by ourselves."
"The lad is off his head, and no wonder," said Captain Jim, addressing
the keen-eyed underwriter's agent. "Come outside, if you please."
"What are you holding back?" asked Mr. Prentice severely as they moved
away from the door. "I intend to get to the bottom of this, you know.
There is some mystery about it that is eating that lad's heart out."
"I haven't time to talk," was the reply. "But I'm going to get that
ship off for you, thanks to the boy in there. And if we _are_ holding
anything back, it will have to stay hid and hawsers couldn't pull it
out of me."
He went aft to meet Bill McKnight who had come over from the
_Kenilworth_ to get his orders.
"How's the boy?" anxiously asked the engineer.
"Pretty sick, I'm afraid, Bill. But home will cure him if anything
will. He's talking wild and saying too much."
Captain Jim jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Mr. Prentice and
went on, "It's the mysterious ways of Providence, Bill. Captain Bruce
gave the dirty business away when he was queer in his head aboard the
_Resolute_ at Pensacola, and Dan has put that gimlet-eyed agent on the
track by going daffy here. You can peek in at the boy, and then you
hustle your dunnage and pick your men and go to the _Kenilworth_. I'll
be back to-morrow, and more tugs and lighters will be on the way. Take
Mr. Prentice along with you. Good luck."
The engineer tiptoed into Dan's room and laid his rough hand on the
pillow. He looked down in silence while his gray moustache quivered
as if strong emotion was held in check. Then he lumbered on deck and
prepared to quit the tug. A few minutes later the "jingle bell" rang
boisterously and its clamor was borne to Dan. He smiled at Captain Jim
and murmured:
"Full speed ahead! And mother will come down to the wharf when she
hears our whistle off the red buoy."
CHAPTER VIII
A FOG OF SUSPICIONS
It was not until a fortnight after Dan Frazier had been taken home to
Key West that he was allowed to leave his room and lounge in a wicker
chair on the cottage porch. His face and hands were thinner and the sea
tan could not hide the pallor caused by fever, but he looked at the
glad, green world with bright eyes and clamored for food like a young
cormorant. His mother, who fluttered about him with fond anxiety, had
tried to banish all mention of the _Kenilworth_, but now that he was
able to be outdoors he fairly bullied her with questions which had been
disturbing his days and nights of illness.
"I am sure Barton is as fond of you as ever," said she. "He may have
been angry at first, but he has been here to ask about you almost every
day. He told me you had nothing to do with his father's tug being cut
in two by brother Jim, but he said you hooted at him when it happened.
That wasn't like my Dan."
Her son tried to look repentant, but his eyes twinkled and he grinned
as he replied:
"It wasn't nice of Bart to laugh at me while his cantankerous old
daddy's tug was keeping the _Resolute_ away from the wreck. How did
Bart explain the smash-up?"
"He as much as said that Jim Wetherly behaved like a pirate and a
lunatic, though of course Barton is too polite to put it in so many
words," confessed Mrs. Frazier with a sigh. "It has made a lot of talk
in Key West. Mr. Pringle swears he is going to take it into court. He
declares he had made a contract with the captain of the _Kenilworth_
when along came Jim and rammed him to get the job away from him."
"Made a contract with the _Kenilworth_! I should say Jerry Pringle
did," snorted Dan with rising color. "He made his rotten contract in
Pensacola, months before the ship was wrecked. He didn't get half
what's coming to him. I wish Uncle Jim had sunk the _Henry Foster_.
What else has happened?"
"Captain Bruce has called twice to see you. And since meeting him I am
more skeptical than ever about your conspiracy story, Dan."
"Captain Bruce been here? So you like him, too, do you?" exclaimed Dan.
"Were all hands saved from the wreck?"
"They got away from the ship in their boats at daylight," answered Mrs.
Frazier. "Captain Bruce had some ribs broken by being dashed against
the side, and two boats were swamped. But they reached the keys with
all hands and were picked up a day later by a sponger and brought down
the Hawk Channel to Key West. Captain Bruce was broken-hearted over
losing you, and when he heard you were still alive he insisted on
leaving the hospital and coming up here, broken ribs and all. He seems
very moody and depressed. I suppose he is unhappy about losing his
ship."
"He is thinking about several things, I reckon," said Dan. "That ship
has made everybody unhappy. She is loaded with trouble. Captain Bruce
is sorry he ever clapped eyes on Jerry Pringle for one thing. And he
hates himself even worse for not sticking to his vessel. And he quit
her and left me on board to come through the gale all right with the
ship still under me. What is he planning to do now?"
"Wait, and take the _Kenilworth_ again if she is floated," replied Mrs.
Frazier. "He is going up to the Reef as soon as the doctor will let
him."
She walked to the end of the porch and brushed aside the tangle of
vines which partly screened her view of the street. Then she turned and
said to Dan:
"Here comes Mr. Prentice and I think he intends to call here. What a
very stiff and formal looking person he is!"
The underwriters' agent opened the gate with a courtly bow to Mrs.
Frazier. His greetings were most polite, but he lost no time in coming
to the point. Mrs. Frazier was about to withdraw, but Dan spoke up
sharply:
"If it's about the _Kenilworth_, Mr. Prentice, I want my mother to
stay. I keep no secrets from her."
Mr. Prentice bowed gravely and seated himself facing Dan, who could not
help feeling that this elderly gentleman was unfriendly to him. The
underwriters' agent opened fire without further warning:
"I am pleased to note your rapid recovery from a very trying
experience, Mr. Frazier. As you may know, I represent English insurance
interests which wrote a total of a hundred thousand pounds sterling
on the _Kenilworth_ and her cargo. If the efforts to float the vessel
prove successful, the loss may be comparatively small."
Mr. Prentice adjusted his glasses, cleared his throat, and resumed with
emphatic earnestness:
"You hinted at having prevented a disastrous explosion in the steamer's
hold, Mr. Frazier. You may not recall the words you used. It was after
you were taken on board the tug _Three Sisters_. I have made the most
thorough examination of the _Kenilworth_ and failed to find any traces
of explosives."
"If you are going to call me a liar at the start, you won't get very
far," hotly cried Dan. "Do you think I cooked up that yarn to get
a reward out of the insurance companies? Did you fish in the water
amidships for a sack of powder? Wait till the ship is pumped out and
I'll find it for you fast enough."
[Illustration: "If you are going to call me a liar at the start, you
won't get very far!"]
Mrs. Frazier laid her hand on the lad's shoulder, whispered in his
ear, and he sank sulkily back in his chair while the unruffled Mr.
Prentice asked:
"Why did you dump the powder down the hatch instead of letting it stay
where it was as evidence of the dastardly attempt of the wreckers?"
"I didn't know what I was doing," exclaimed Dan in a flare of
impatience. "I was scared clean out of my wits. I was afraid to turn my
back on that bag of powder. Maybe you wouldn't have been as cool as an
ice-chest, either, and thinking about _evidence_. What the dickens are
you driving at anyhow?"
"I will drop this matter for the present," said Mr. Prentice, fishing
out a small note-book as if to confirm his recollection before he
declared:
"I heard you say on board the _Three Sisters_, '_Don't let them know.
Keep it dark. We can handle it all by ourselves. The captain is sorry
he did it._' What did you mean, Mr. Frazier? This wreck is to be
investigated. I am already convinced that certain persons on board
the tug _Resolute_ had advance information of the intended loss of
the _Kenilworth_. Your tug had steam up and her crew on board for
several days before the disaster. Captain Wetherly started for sea in
a tremendous hurry after getting a cable message that the _Kenilworth_
had passed Jupiter Light. I have copies of the message he sent asking
for this information and the reply from the Government signal station.
Then, as if to prevent interference with a bargain made in advance,
Captain Wetherly deliberately cut down and disabled the tug _Henry
Foster_. I believe you know the truth. What did you mean by '_Don't let
them know? Keep it dark?_'"
Dan looked bewildered for a moment and stared at Mr. Prentice who
seemed to be talking the sheerest nonsense. Then, as the meaning of
these suspicions filtered into the boy's mind, his face became red
with wrath and astonishment. His world was turning topsy-turvy. The
underwriters' agent was actually accusing Captain Jim Wetherly and the
_Resolute_ of the wicked deed which they had been trying to mend--of
plotting to put the _Kenilworth_ on the Reef! Why, this was like one of
the dreams of Dan's weeks of fever. At length he pulled himself to his
feet and fairly shouted:
"I know who started this crazy story of yours, Mr. Prentice. Jerry
Pringle must be at the bottom of it. Do you mean to say you have
listened to such infernal lies about a man like Captain Jim Wetherly?
You didn't understand what I was talking about on board the _Three
Sisters_. And do you think _we_ had anything to do with the stranding
of Captain Bruce's steamer? Do you want to know the truth? I'll tell
you the truth--No, I won't. Captain Jim is my skipper and I must take
my orders from him. He told me to keep my mouth shut, and I can't say
anything until he gives me the word."
Mrs. Frazier was wringing her hands as she stood between Mr. Prentice
and Dan, as if trying to shield her boy from harm. "Dan must not talk
to you another minute," she exclaimed indignantly. "He is all of a
tremble now. It is cruel of you to torment and bully him, Mr. Prentice."
The underwriters' agent apologized and tried to explain his errand in
more detail.
"I like your boy, Mrs. Frazier. He is a manly fellow. I am inclined
to believe that he is prompted by good motives. He is loyal to
Captain Wetherly and the _Resolute_, which is quite natural. But this
_Kenilworth_ affair looks like a bad business from start to finish.
Something was in the wind before the steamer went ashore, and it is my
duty to get at the facts without sparing any one's feelings. I want Dan
to think it over and I shall have another talk with him when he feels a
bit stronger."
"Why don't you tackle Captain Bruce and make him tell what he knows?"
burst out Dan. "What does he say about it?"
"The case of Captain Bruce will be disposed of in London," answered Mr.
Prentice; "but the evidence must be gathered in Key West."
He reluctantly took his departure and, as his tall, spare figure
moved down the street, Dan followed Mrs. Frazier into the cottage and
declared:
"This notion of fighting to keep disgrace and exposure away from Bart
Pringle and his mother has gone about far enough. Do you suppose I am
going to have you dragged into it, all because Jerry Pringle is smart
enough to cover up his tracks and shift the suspicion to Uncle Jim? Not
in a thousand years. Uncle Jim will have to come to Key West and clear
himself somehow."
A heavy footfall sounded on the porch and the spoon on Dan's medicine
glass jingled as the ponderous presence of Bill McKnight filled the
outside doorway while he raised his big voice in "Ship, ahoy? Is Dan
aboard?"
"The very man I want to see. Come in," called Dan. "He won't excite me,
mother, he'll be just like a hogshead of soothing syrup."
The chief engineer advanced cautiously, as if not quite certain how to
handle himself in a sickroom, and whispered hoarsely:
"Keep perfectly cool and calm, my boy. We'll say nothing at all about
wrecks, riots, and revolutions, will we, Mrs. Frazier? Birds and
flowers and how's the weather, eh? They're the topics."
"Oh, shucks," was Dan's rude comment. "I want to know all about
everything, don't I, mother? Where is the _Resolute_? What's the news
from Captain Jim?"
Mr. McKnight turned to Dan's mother and waited for orders. She nodded
her assent, and the visitor set himself down in a chair which creaked
and groaned. Then he extracted a package from his white duck coat and
removed the paper wrapping. A glass jar was revealed which Mr. McKnight
placed on the table with the explanation:
"Calf's-foot jelly, ma'am. I had to cable for it. There's a poor crop
of calves in Key West. I've never been sick myself, except when I got
my head busted, or broke an arm or leg, or got shot up. But we fished
a box of books out of an English wreck one time, and they were mostly
novels. We dried 'em out in the engine-room and all hands read 'em. And
whenever anybody in them yarns took sick, I'm blessed if the vicar's
wife, or the squire's daughter, or the young ladies next door, didn't
trot in with this here calf's-foot jelly. They used tons of it in every
novel, ma'am. I reckon it'll put Dan on his pins."
The chief engineer wiped his face and fixed a pair of spectacles on his
ruddy nose, after which he gazed searchingly at Dan as if to satisfy
himself that the boy was all there. Bashfully waving his paw as if to
ward off Mrs. Frazier's laughing thanks, he went on to say:
"The _Resolute_ is almost ready for sea and your berth is waiting for
you, Dan. Captain Jim jerked the life out of her when he fetched away
the towing-bitts. She was most as sad a sight as the _Henry Foster_.
I've just come down from the Reef to see that the repairs are all
ship-shape and run her to sea in three or four days."
"Can't I go in her, mother?" begged Dan. "I won't do any work. Tell the
doctor the air will do me good. I've simply got to see the wreck. How
about it, Mr. McKnight? Is she really going to come off?"
"You'd think so, if she brings a chunk of the Reef along with her,"
chuckled the engineer. "Captain Jim has built two coffer-dams in her,
where her bottom was ripped out. He'll begin to pump 'em out next week.
That will lift the bulk of the water out of her. And the wrecking pumps
can handle the rest of the leaks. He's a terrible man is Captain Jim,
when he gets a full head of steam in his boilers. He's patching up
the bulkheads, lightering the cargo, got a force of mechanics in the
engine-room, and so on till she hums like a beehive. Good weather,
Reef like a mill-pond, and two chartered tugs waiting to hook on to
her, not to mention the _Resolute_."
"That beats doctors and calf's-foot jelly for putting me on my toes
again," was Dan's jubilant comment. "Have you heard anything ashore
here about her going on the Reef?"
Mrs. Frazier tried to head off this agitating topic, but Mr. McKnight
failed to comprehend her manoeuvres and briskly replied:
"No, I just come away from the Reef and hustled straight up here from
looking over the _Resolute_. There's nothing leaked out, has there? I'd
like to see somebody punished, you understand, but Captain Jim told me
to shut up and stay shut up."
"Well, _we_ are accused of putting up the _Kenilworth_ job," exclaimed
Dan. "Don't mind mother. She's one of us. If you're going to have a
fit, please go outside. This house isn't big enough."
Mr. McKnight was too taken aback to display any violent emotion. He
wiped his spectacles with great care, as if they had something to do
with his hearing, and asked Dan to "say it again, and say it slower."
Dan told him all about the visit of the underwriters' agent, whereupon
Mr. McKnight raised both hands and exclaimed:
"Hold on, boy. It all sounds plumb raving crazy to you, but there may
be a heap more in it than you think. Who knew Jerry Pringle was aboard
the _Resolute_ that night in Pensacola harbor? You and me and Captain
Jim, and the cook and galley boy. The rest of the crew was ashore or
down below. Did you know that the cook and the galley boy quit the
_Resolute_ last week and went up the Gulf to ship on a Central American
fruiter? They may be mighty hard to find if Jerry Pringle had anything
to do with getting them out of the way. Where are our witnesses, eh?
And you tell me old man Prentice has copies of the cable messages that
prove Captain Jim was waiting for the _Kenilworth_? They may be mighty
hard to explain."
"How about Captain Bruce?" asked Dan with a very sober face. "He is the
only man that can clear it all up in a jiffy."
"I can't quite fathom him, Dan. Sometimes I think he only needs a good
strong shove to make him own up to it all and take his medicine like a
man. But supposing Pringle offers him the ten thousand dollars anyhow
to saddle the job on us _Resolutes_? It's worth that to Jerry to save
his own skin."
"Captain Jim must get after Captain Bruce and make him tell the truth
if he has to choke it out of him," cried Dan in great excitement. "As
soon as we pull the _Kenilworth_ off the Reef there is going to be a
fight to a finish."
"You ain't quite fit for wrecking or fighting, and your mother will
scold me directly for getting your bearings hot," quoth Mr. McKnight.
"You just sit tight and maybe you can go up to the Reef in the
_Resolute_ with me."
With this the chief engineer departed under full steam, evidently
afraid of facing Dan's mother. The patient suffered no relapse,
however, and felt so much stronger next day that Mrs. Frazier suggested
a walk as far as the parade-ground of the artillery barracks, hoping
to give him a respite from any more disturbing visitors. They strolled
slowly through quaint crooked streets of the sea-girt town, into the
shaded plaza of the garrison which faced an expanse of green lagoon
and low mangrove-covered keys. A wharf ran out from the seawall in
front of them and they walked idly toward it to look at the schooners
beating up to the town.
Dan delayed to watch a distant sail which was scudding in from one of
the near-by keys. Presently he called out:
"Don't wait for me, mother. That's the _Sombrero_ yonder, and she will
pass within hail of the wharf. I'm going out there and catch Bart
Pringle as he scoots by."
The boys had not met since Dan's return from the Reef, and Dan was a
trifle surprised that Bart had let the last three days pass without
calling to see him. "I want to beg his pardon for laughing at him when
the _Henry Foster_ was stood on her ear," reflected Dan as he walked
toward the end of the wharf. "We have a pack of things to talk about,
and I must be awful careful not to say a word against his father. But
there's due to be a rumpus before long."
The _Sombrero_ tore past with a free sheet, fluttered into the wind,
and slid gracefully up to the wharf. Dan jumped onto the bowsprit and
footed it aft with a cheery greeting to Bart who was busy with sheets
and tiller.
"Hello, Dan. Glad you feel so spry. Want to run down to the fort and
back?" said Bart without his usual smile. His manner was so glum, in
fact, that Dan spoke up rather sharply:
"What in the world has happened to you? Has the _Sombrero_ been beaten
while I was laid up? My goodness, I thought you'd be glad to see me."
Bart rubbed his head, scowled at the main-sail, and sighed before he
responded with an effort:
"I've got to tell you, Dan. Mind you, I don't take any stock in it, but
I hate myself for letting it worry me. It's about the _Kenilworth_.
It's too tough to repeat, really it is, but you ought to have a chance
to come out and nail it as a lie. They say Captain Jim Wetherly knew
she was going on the Reef, and that you knew it, too. I wish----"
"And you listened to such stuff?" Dan fiercely broke in. "Who told it
to you?"
"Mr. Prentice asked me a lot of questions and I couldn't help seeing
what he was trying to prove, Dan. I asked my father about it and he
seemed to think things looked pretty black for Captain Jim. And father
is mighty seldom fooled about anything that goes on along the Reef. I
want to tell him that you say it's all foolishness. He would be mighty
glad to have it cleared up all right for Captain Jim Wetherly. And he
knows how chummy I am with you."
"Y-you asked your f-father about it?" stuttered Dan and his eyes were
blazing. "Bart Pringle, you make my head dizzy. Look here, I'll tell
you one thing that's straight goods. I wouldn't believe _you_ were
guilty of a murder, not if they had a million witnesses, unless I saw
you do it with my own two eyes. And as for the _Kenilworth_, whether
Captain Bruce meant to put her on the Reef or not, Captain Jim Wetherly
had nothing to do with it. And that's all I can tell you. Of course
that lets me out."
Dan's heart was sore that his chum's loyalty should have been shaken in
the slightest degree, but he tried to be fair, and added in a milder
tone:
"Mr. Prentice got things all snarled up somehow, but it's sure to come
out right. Maybe I ought not to blame you for being worried, Bart.
Things have been happening mighty fast for all hands concerned."
By this time Barton was honestly ashamed of himself and could think
of nothing to say but a stammering apology which Dan accepted with a
rather gloomy nod. It was the nearest their friendship had ever come
to a break, and both boys would have preferred an open quarrel to this
cloud of aggrieved misunderstanding. There was little more talk between
them while the sloop crashed into the long seas of the outer roadstead.
After they had put her about and were heading homeward, Dan exclaimed:
"There's the good old _Resolute_ at her dock, and she is getting up
steam. She must be 'most ready to go to the Reef. Put me alongside,
Bart. I want to look her over. I'll walk home from there."
As Dan sprang up the deck of the tug he was hailed by the chief
engineer. Leading the way to his state-room, Mr. McKnight picked Dan up
bodily, tossed him on the bunk, locked the door, and spoke as follows:
"Things are a-popping red-hot, my boy. Captain Jim landed from the
Reef an hour ago. I told him all I knew about his being suspected of
the crooked job, and what does our busy skipper do then? He promptly
lays for Jerry Pringle. Does he beat him to death, same as I figured
on doing sooner or later? No, Captain Jim, as usual, does what you
least expect. He tells Pringle that he needs help on the _Kenilworth_
wreck. Weather looks unsettled; must lighter more cargo out of her
quicker than blazes; needs all the schooners he can lay his hands on,
and is in a desperate hurry for another tug. Then he up and offers J.
Pringle a contract to take all his vessels up to the _Kenilworth_ and
go along himself as assistant boss on the wreck. Jerry hems and haws,
but Captain Jim looks him square in the eye and tells him to have that
Tampa tug of his ready for sea at daylight to-morrow. And Jerry agrees
as meek as Moses and goes off to find the skipper of his vessels."
"But why and what for?" exclaimed Dan. "Jerry Pringle working for
Captain Jim on the _Kenilworth_! It's too much for me to fathom."
"For one thing, Captain Jim needs his help to get the steamer off,"
returned Bill McKnight. "There isn't a smarter wrecker on the coast
than this same Pringle. The love of wrecking is in his blood, and
it fairly kills him to be idle with a fine, big ship on the Reef.
Now that his plot to lose the _Kenilworth_ is spoiled, why shouldn't
he win a nice pot of money by helping save her? Then, again, maybe
Captain Jim wants to heap coals on his head till he hollers for a
fire-extinguisher. There is going to be something doing on the Reef,
Dan. Better come along with us. You will be plenty strong enough if you
have eaten up all that calf's-foot jelly I lugged up to you."
"Where does Captain Bruce come in?" asked Dan. "Will he be on the
_Kenilworth_, too?"
"He goes up in the _Resolute_ with us, but Jerry Pringle doesn't know
it," answered Mr. McKnight with a solemn wink. "Everybody that has
played a hand in this game is going to round to on the deck of that
unfortunate steamer in a couple of days from now, and I'm a poor
guesser if it don't turn out to be a lively reunion before she comes
off the Reef."
CHAPTER IX
THE BROKEN HAWSER
The battered _Kenilworth_ lay heeled far over to one side, looming
forlornly from the Reef in the midst of a smooth and sparkling sea.
Her sides were gray with brine and streaked red with rust, her grimy
decks strewn with a chaotic litter of cargo, timbers, and rigging.
The once trim, seagoing steamer made a most distressful picture as
seen from the _Resolute_ which was bearing down from the direction of
Key West. Captain Bruce was standing in the bows of the tug. Gazing
at his helpless ship, he found it very hard to realize that he had
deliberately placed the _Kenilworth_ in this pitiful plight.
She looked as if she had laid her bones on the Reef for good and all,
but it was plain to see that the wreckers did not think so. Cargo
was tumbling from her ports into lighters strung alongside, tugs
hovered fussily near-by, and groups of active men toiled at capstans,
derrick-booms, and donkey-engines.
[Illustration: She looked as if she had laid her bones on the Reef for
good and all]
"It looks like trying to float her before long," Captain Wetherly sung
down from the wheel-house of the _Resolute_. "Come up here, Captain
Bruce. I want to show you something."
The master of the _Kenilworth_ mounted the ladder with an air of
reluctance, for it hurt him even to talk about the ship. He looked worn
and haggard and he could not rid himself of a great dread lest the
_Kenilworth_ might not be floated after all.
He was cheered, however, by the buoyant confidence of Captain Jim
Wetherly who exclaimed with a note of mirth in his voice:
"There's a sight to make you rub your eyes, Captain Bruce. That is
Jerry Pringle's tug from Tampa on the port quarter of the _Kenilworth_.
And there he goes up the side. Hooray! see him chase that gang of his
down the hatch. He is surely shoving the job along for all he's worth.
That's his way when he once buckles down to it."
"But you were fighting each other alongside my ship not long ago. I
don't understand it," commented Captain Bruce.
Captain Jim led the other man out of ear-shot of the wheel-house and
told him with a grim smile:
"Jerry Pringle expected to work on this wreck. You know that even
better than I do. I upset some plans of his, and yours. Now he has to
do the job _my_ way--understand? Do you know that I am suspected of
plotting with you to put this ship on the Reef, Captain Bruce? You
haven't heard it from Mr. Prentice? Um-m; well, you will hear a whole
lot more about it from me before this ship of yours slides off into
deep water."
The master of the _Kenilworth_ winced at the threatening tone of these
words, and his face was very red as he tried to bluster it out:
"What rot! That Prentice is a doddering old fool. Talking behind my
back, is he? Of all the wicked, silly nonsense! Well, upon my word!"
"That will do for you," was Captain Jim's curt reply. "_You_ are going
to clear me. I kept my mouth shut to shield some innocent people, women
and children, friends and kinfolk of mine--do you see? I expect to
give your ship back to you. And you are going to do the square thing
by me. Think it over and think hard."
Captain Wetherly faced about and left the other gazing with a troubled
frown at the _Kenilworth_. Presently Dan hailed his uncle:
"Bart Pringle came along with his father, sir. I'd like to go aboard
the wreck and see him if you don't mind, sir."
"Go ahead, Dan. Last time you two lads met on that deck you bristled
at each other like two terrier pups. But I don't expect to cut his
dad's tow-boat in two this trip, so I reckon you'll be glad to see each
other."
Dan followed Captain Bruce up the steamer's side and found Barton
dangling his legs from a heap of hatch-covers.
"Why don't you get busy? I want you to know that I am the real
wrecking master of this vessel," cried Dan as he thumped his friend on
the back with a generous impulse to forgive and forget their recent
misunderstanding. "I never saw a Pringle that was willing to loaf ten
seconds on a wreck. Gracious, look at your father. You can't see him
for dust."
Mr. Jeremiah Pringle was, indeed, making good his surprising contract
with Captain Jim Wetherly. He viewed a difficult task of wrecking as a
personal battle between the Reef and himself; his brains, brawn, and
courage matched against the perils of the sea. While the boys watched
him drive his crew of hardy wreckers, Bart remarked:
"I thought father and Captain Jim were red-hot at each other over
the _Henry Foster_ business, didn't you? They must have patched it
up all right, and that's enough to show how silly those stories were
about--about the wreck and Captain Jim. Father wouldn't lend a hand in
a crooked job for any money. I have been feeling meaner than a yellow
pup for ever bothering my head about those rumors that lugged you into
the dirty work, Dan. Will you really forgive me?"
"I was mean and nasty to you when the _Henry Foster_ was split wide
open, so I reckon we are quits," confessed Dan. "Let's shake hands and
forget it."
"I'd trust you as I would trust my own father," earnestly exclaimed
Bart. "Right down in my heart I would no more dream of your being
mixed up with a crooked wrecking job than I would think of suspecting
him. That's as strong as I can put it. You won't hold it out against me
any more, will you, honest?"
Jeremiah Pringle had come out of a forward hold and was making his
way aft along the ship's side to release a fouled guy-rope. The boys
did not see him pass behind them, and as Bart waxed earnest his voice
carried to his father's ears. The stern-visaged wrecker halted and
listened with the most intense interest. He heard his own son say:
"_I'd trust you as I'd trust my own father.... That's as strong as I
can put it._"
Jeremiah Pringle had been dealt a blow from a quarter so unexpected
that he was quite staggered. Moving stealthily out of sight of the two
lads, he went about his duty but his mind was painfully active with
emotions which were as novel as they were disturbing.
It had never before occurred to him that his boy's life was anywhere
linked with his own. He did not intend to set him a bad example, nor
bring disgrace on the name he bore. But now Barton had accused and
condemned him, not by doubting but by believing in him. It was brought
home to him from a clear sky that his son was shaping his own course by
what he believed his father to be. As Jeremiah Pringle sweated through
the long day, he sullenly reflected:
"I can't argue it out with the fool boy. And what gets under my skin,
too, is the way Dan Frazier has handled himself since that night in
Pensacola. He must have got wind of the _Kenilworth_ job then. I hate
to be under obligations to anybody, and Jim Wetherly and that boy
have been keeping it all back from my boy. Why? So Barton wouldn't be
ashamed of his daddy. That's a cheerful notion to take to bed with me."
He had begun to feel that it might be unfair to his son's faith in him
to engage in any more shady wrecking operations, and he was nearer
being ashamed of himself than he had been in many years. It seemed as
if Captain Jim Wetherly read his thoughts, for he halted him next day
long enough to say:
"You have taken hold in great shape. It helps square matters, Jerry.
It is your duty to get this ship off the Reef; you know that. And you
will never be able to look that boy of yours in the eye until the
_Kenilworth_ is towed into port and made ready for sea again."
Mr. Pringle was in no mood to have his sins or his duty flung in his
teeth, and he retorted savagely:
"Don't preach at me, Jim Wetherly. I break even with you by helping
you get this vessel afloat. And I won't make you pay for smashing the
_Henry Foster_. That squares all debts between us."
Meanwhile Dan and Barton had explored the _Kenilworth_ from end to
end, Dan telling at great length the story of his imprisonment among
the cargo in the hold. When he came to the chapter dealing with the
visit of the Bahama wreckers, he hurried Bart to the spot where he had
found the lighted fuse and sack of powder. Alas, even the fragments
of the fuse had been swept away in the task of lightering the cargo.
Dan headed for the nearest hatchway to search for the powder. The
compartment into which he had thrown it was cleared of water, the
débris shovelled out, and the shattered bottom plates covered deep with
cement and timber bracing.
"Our wreckers didn't find the powder bag, or Captain Jim would have
told me," mourned Dan. "The canvas may have ripped open or rotted where
it fell. You believe it all, don't you, Bart? But that hatchet-faced
old Prentice as much as called me a liar. And I won't be happy till I
can make him take it back. He thinks I was trying to pull his leg with
the explosion yarn. Why, I couldn't have made up a story like that in a
thousand years."
"Don't you care. Of course it's true. And it was splendid. I am
certainly proud of you," declared Bart who was anxious to make amends
for the rift in their friendship. "You and I will back old Prentice
into a corner first chance we get and make him apologize--won't we?"
The underwriters' agent came on board two days later and had a long
interview with Captain Jim behind the locked door of the chart-room,
after which Captain Bruce and Jeremiah Pringle were singly summoned for
more mysterious conferences. But no attention was paid to Dan who felt
that he moved in a cloud of suspicion and dismally reflected:
"Old Prentice has set me down as a liar and won't even give me a
chance to deny it. I wish I could have kept that fuse to hitch to his
coat-tails. I won't save another ship for him,--that's one thing sure."
At length the day came when Captain Jim Wetherly announced that he
intended pulling on the stranded steamer with all four tugs at high
water in the afternoon. They might not be able to start her, but it was
worth trying, for the spell of fair weather could not be expected to
last much longer. Dan was still grumbling to himself as he went off to
the _Resolute_ which had signalled for all hands to return.
One by one the tugs got into position for a "long pull, a strong pull,
and a pull all together." Captain Wetherly stayed in the _Kenilworth_
to direct operations and took his station up in the bows. To Jerry
Pringle was entrusted the important duty of properly making fast the
hawsers from the tugs. It amused Captain Jim to hear him fiercely
shouting orders to the crew of the _Resolute_ who glared at their
former foeman as if they would like to muster a boarding party and
attack him.
The men in the yawls and on the rolling decks of the tugs worked with
more caution than usual. They did not mind falling overboard or being
upset by an obstreperous hawser as part of the day's work. But the
dumping overboard of damaged cargo, including smashed cases of salt
meats and other provisions, had lured scores of huge sharks which
hovered in the clear, green depths at the edge of the Reef or rushed to
the surface at the splash of box or barrel. All hands breathed easier
when the hawsers had been passed aboard without mishap.
When all was in readiness to begin the tug-of-war between the tow-boats
and the Reef, Captain Wetherly's nerves were tingling with excitement.
The hour had come to put his faith and his works to the crucial test.
It meant more to him than salvage, for he was also seeking with might
and main to undo a wrong of which this ship had been the victim.
"The old _Resolute_ will pull her heart out before she quits," he
muttered. "I've given her the hardest berth, for she knows we can't
afford to lose this ship."
Slowly the tugs forged ahead until they were straining at their
hawsers like a team of well-handled horses, each using every bit of
its strength to the best advantage. Then it was "full speed ahead,"
and they buckled down to their task as if no odds were great enough to
daunt them,--_Resolute_, _Three Sisters_, _Fearless_, and _Hercules_.
Soon the rusty, high-sided _Kenilworth_ was veiled in the black clouds
of smoke which drifted from their belching funnels. Captain Jim moved
to leeward to get a clearer view and observed that Jeremiah Pringle
was standing within a few feet of the vibrating steel hawser of the
_Resolute_, where it led in over the bows of the _Kenilworth_.
"That is a brand-new line, but it isn't healthy to get so near it," he
called out. "That tow-boat of mine has busted them before this, Jerry."
"Always bragging of those engines of yours. You are as bad as Bill
McKnight," Pringle shouted back.
He looked down at the ponderous steel cable with a careless laugh. A
moment later Captain Jim forgot his own warning and ran to the side to
shout an urgent order to one of the tugs. He stood for a few seconds
almost on top of the hawser where it led inboard and was about to
retreat to his former station when the huge line twanged with a rasping
note as if its fibres were overstrained. He wasted a precious instant
in looking down to find out what the trouble might be, heard the steel
cable crack and give, tried to flee, and caught his toe in a ring-bolt
screwed to the deck.
Just then Jerry Pringle lunged forward and knocked Captain Jim flat
with a sweep of his powerful right arm. This deed, done with lightning
speed and rare presence of mind, sufficed to put Captain Jim out of
harm's way, but it used the precious second of time in which Jeremiah
Pringle might have saved himself.
Before Pringle could drop on deck or leap for shelter, the hawser
snapped in twain with a report like that of a cannon. The ragged
ends whizzed through the air with the speed and destructiveness of
projectiles. One of them crashed against a metal stanchion, cut it
clean in two, and knocked a pile of timber braces in all directions.
These obstacles saved Jerry Pringle from being sliced in twain, but he
was swept up in the flying debris and sent spinning overboard as if he
were a chip caught in a tornado.
The accident happened with such incredible swiftness that Captain
Wetherly scrambled to his feet and stood blinking at the spot from
which Pringle had vanished as if he were blotted out of existence.
Then, pulling himself together, with a yell of horrified dismay he
rushed to the side of the ship and stared down into the sea which was
seething with the foamy wash from the screws of the nearest tugs. He
saw a black object rise to the surface, drift toward the stern, and
then slowly sink from sight. Running aft where the water was clear, he
caught a glimpse of the body of Jerry Pringle settling toward the white
coral bottom.
Two of the tugs were hastily manning boats. Captain Jim glanced toward
them and knew their help would come too late. He thought of the sharks
which had been flocking around the ship. They could not have been
driven very far away by the tumult of the tugs. While he wavered,
Captain Jim said to himself:
"He didn't figure on the odds when he bowled me out of danger before he
tried to save himself. Here goes."
Springing upon the bulwark, he jumped clear and sped downward with feet
together and arms stretched above his head. It was a thirty-foot drop
to the water and he shot into it as straight and true as a dipsey lead.
His impetus carried him far down into the cool, green sea and, opening
his eyes, he dimly discerned the shadowy form of the man he sought
drifting above him. As Captain Jim rose he grasped the other by the
shirt and struck out with his free arm. Pringle might be dead for all
he knew, but he hung to him like a bull-dog, fighting his way upward to
reach the blessed air and ease his tortured lungs.
A boat was pulling madly toward the scene, the crew yelling and
splashing to hold the sharks at bay. Most clamorous of the party was
the chief engineer of the _Resolute_ who was roaring with tears in his
eyes:
"Wow--wow--wow, keep a yellin', boys. It's Captain Jim they're after.
Jerry Pringle's too tough for 'em."
A black fin skittered past the boat and Bill McKnight blazed away at it
with a rifle which he had caught up on the run. A few more desperate
strokes and they slackened speed and beat the water into foam with the
flat of their oars. A long, sinister shadow slid swiftly under the
boat and the men yelled as they saw it veer toward the stern of the
Kenilworth. But this hastening shark had overrun its prey. Captain Jim
and his burden rose within an oar's length of the yawl and were grasped
by a dozen eager hands before they could be attacked.
Dan Frazier was not in the boat. He had not recovered his wits until
his comrades had shoved clear of the _Resolute_. He stood as if
paralyzed and watched the rescue. When the two dripping figures were
hauled into the yawl and he saw Captain Jim sit up and shake himself
like a retriever, a wordless prayer of thanksgiving welled from the
depths of his heart.
Then he saw the boat move toward Jerry Pringle's tug which lay on the
other side of the _Kenilworth_, screened from view of the rescue. Bart
had gone on board this tug earlier in the day, and Dan felt his knees
tremble as he saw the body of Jeremiah Pringle hoisted over the low
bulwark. It seemed an age before the yawl returned to the _Resolute_
and Captain Jim leaped on deck, followed by the chief engineer. Their
faces were very solemn and they spoke with evident effort:
"Were--were you too late, Uncle Jim?" stammered Dan.
"Yes, he must have been dead when he struck the water," slowly returned
Captain Wetherly. "But I'm glad I went after him. He made a brave man's
finish. It's awful tough on Bart, but he is standing up under it like a
thoroughbred. Jerry Pringle staked his life and lost it for me."
Captain Jim wiped his eyes and coughed. Bill McKnight ventured to say
to Dan:
"He'd have done the same trick to save one of his own deck-hands. Jerry
Pringle was a brave and ready man, we all know that. It was instinct.
He didn't have time to figure it out. But I reckon God Almighty will
give him plenty of credit and square accounts for whatever he did
wrong. Whew! I can't realize it a little bit."
"The tug will take him down to Key West right away," said Captain Jim.
"I'm going along with Jerry Pringle on his last voyage. Want to come,
Dan? It will do Bart a whole lot of good to have you as a shipmate
and you can tell him that his father was a man to be proud of. We'll
forget everything that happened before to-day. You come aboard the
_Kenilworth_ with me and I'll leave orders for my men. I'll have to be
back here to-morrow if this steamer is to come off the Reef. I have a
notion that Jerry Pringle was sorry he ever helped to put her on there.
And from watching him lately I believe we couldn't please him any
better than by getting the _Kenilworth_ off and mending the wrong he
planned to do."
As they boarded the _Kenilworth_ Captain Bruce met them and asked in a
voice hoarse with emotion:
"They tell me he has slipped his cable. If my ship had not stranded it
would not have happened."
"What are you going to do about it? Let _me_ be accused of helping
to wreck your steamer?" sternly replied Captain Wetherly. "Jeremiah
Pringle has squared his accounts and made _his_ record clean. But how
about you?"
CHAPTER X
DAN'S DREAMS COME TRUE
The first pull on the stranded steamer had been halted by the tragedy
of Jeremiah Pringle's heroic death. As soon as possible Captain Jim
Wetherly hastened back from Key West to the Reef and Dan rejoined his
shipmates in the _Resolute_. They were very loth to leave the widow
and the son of the wrecking-master who, with all his faults, had died
as he had lived, unflinching in the face of the perils of the sea. But
Duty sounded a trumpet-call to save the _Kenilworth_, and with flags at
half-mast the tireless tugs again hovered about her under the vigilant
direction of Captain Wetherly.
Meanwhile the wreckers had been toiling in night and day shifts, taking
out more cargo. When at length the tugs were summoned for another
titanic tussle, every man felt that the supreme moment was at hand. It
was now or never. Captain Wetherly voiced the feelings of all with
passionate energy:
"She has _got_ to go. That's all there is to it."
The tugs had been pulling a scant hour when Captain Jim felt the keel
of the _Kenilworth_ grind on the coral bottom. It was no more than a
slight shock which made the ship tremble as if she felt a thrill of
returning life and freedom. Then she hung fast for a long time, moved
again, and perceptibly righted herself. Another interval of futile
effort, and at last the steamer slid forward with a dull, harsh roar as
her broken keel ripped through the coral and ploughed slowly down the
sloping shelf into the deep water on the landward side of the Reef.
The frantic tugs behaved as if they could not believe the _Kenilworth_
was actually afloat. They refused to stop pulling with might and main
until their prize was trailing after them down the fairway of the Hawk
Channel. Their whistles bellowed jubilation while Captain Jim signalled
the _Resolute_:
"Keep her going for Key West."
The panting tugs led the sluggish, battered steamer out through the
nearest gap in the Reef, and she rolled solemnly in the swells of
the open sea where she belonged. Captain Bruce was pacing the bridge
of his ship, nervous, absorbed in his own thoughts, and oblivious of
the general rejoicing. Above the stern of the _Kenilworth_ the British
ensign still flew at half-mast and served to recall a tragedy which
Captain Bruce wanted to forget. His partnership with Jerry Pringle
had been ill-fated from the start. In a flash of splendid manliness
Pringle had given his life to save the man who had smashed the evil
partnership. And was he, Malcolm Bruce, ship-master, willing to let
this Jim Wetherly stand accused of the crime planned in Pensacola
harbor? No, he had not come to such depths of degradation as this.
He had fought it out with himself and he was ready to take the
consequences. Dan Frazier came on board the _Kenilworth_ for orders
when the tugs slackened way to shift their hawsers, and Captain Bruce
beckoned him to a corner of the bridge where Captain Wetherly was
standing. The haggard ship-master placed his hand on the lad's shoulder
as he began to speak:
"I want Dan to hear what I have to say, Captain Wetherly. He came
aboard my ship when she went on the Reef and refused to believe the
worst of me, though he knew it all the time. I abandoned the ship and
left him on board instead of sticking by her as I honestly intended to
do. But I see now that my will had been undermined. There was a rotten
spot in my heart."
"You didn't mean to abandon me, sir," spoke up Dan. "I never held that
against you."
"I am glad you have a decent word for me," replied Captain Bruce with
the shadow of a smile. "The long and short of it is that I am going to
make a clean breast of it to the underwriters' agent, Mr. Prentice,
when we get to Key West. It seems to be the only way to clear you,
Captain Wetherly. Of course I never dreamed that circumstances could be
twisted about to fetch you into this miserable business. But Pringle
has gone, and I am not quite enough of a cur to dodge my share of
the punishment. I make no defence, but my record was fairly clean
until--well, you know when. My owners are shrewd, tricky, close-fisted
men who got me into their way of doing business a little at a time.
My ideas of right and wrong were warped by degrees. Men don't go bad
all at once, Dan. Don't ever forget that. A ship's timbers don't rot
overnight and let her founder in the gale that tests her strength. The
first speck of rot is almost too small to see, but it grows. At last
these people had me fit for their work, and three voyages ago they
put it at me that there would be no great sorrow if the _Kenilworth_
met disaster. I should have quit them on the spot, but I took the
temptation to sea with me. And in the next voyage I ran afoul of
Jeremiah Pringle in Pensacola. He found me willing to listen. Five
years ago I would have kicked him out of my cabin. You know the rest of
it. Ten thousand dollars was the price if he could have the vessel to
wreck. And my owners were ready to give me a bigger, newer ship if I
lost her for the insurance. But you spoiled all that, and I am glad you
did. I seem to have been a weak-kneed kind of a rascal."
"Bully for you," cried Captain Jim. "Shake hands on it. Dan here was
sure you were sorry you ever got into this mess, the first time he met
you. But this is mighty serious business for you, Captain Bruce. The
underwriters will make an example of you, as sure as guns. Are you
going back to England to face the music?"
"It means that I am in disgrace and will command no more ships, I
suppose," was the reply. "And I suppose it means a dose of prison, but
I don't mean to veer from the course I have charted. There isn't any
other way out of it. I would rather be dead along with Jerry Pringle
than to go on hating myself and living in a hell of my own making."
"I reckon you are right," said Captain Jim after a long silence. "It
pays to go straight, and every man must work out his own salvation."
"Anyhow, you would feel a heap worse if your ship had gone to pieces,"
Dan ventured to suggest in his effort to find a ray of sunshine in the
cloud.
"Right you are, my lad. It has been a great fight, and a man couldn't
work alongside this uncle of yours very long without wanting to live
straight and clean. You helped save the _Kenilworth_, Dan. I haven't
forgotten that."
"But you can't square me with old man Prentice," sadly returned Dan. "I
think it's great of you to stand by Captain Jim, but it doesn't help
my case. I am still left high and dry as a liar."
"Things will straighten themselves out now. Don't worry," smiled
Captain Bruce. "Mr. Prentice will be easier to handle after he knows
the facts in my case."
"How about salvage? Don't I come in on that?" anxiously asked Dan who
was not old enough to appreciate the sacrifice involved in Captain
Bruce's confession.
"I expect to be paid my towing and wrecking bill to cover my time and
expenses," said Captain Jim. "But I don't want any more salvage than
that. I won't take blood-money, not even from the pockets of those
scoundrelly owners of yours, Captain Bruce. They won't be able to
collect a cent of insurance after you make your statement, and the
repairs will cost them a small fortune. The underwriters will make it
hot enough for them. Trust Prentice for that."
Dan raised his voice in most lugubrious accents:
"But won't there be any salvage for me after all I went through in this
beastly ship? Why, I have been expecting to get rich from it, to go
North to school and college with Bart, and buy a bigger yacht, and give
mother a spree in New York and--and all I get is to be called a liar by
old man Prentice."
Dan's disappointment was so keen that Captain Jim hastened to console
him. "I kind of overlooked your case. Sure enough, I've robbed you of
your rights, haven't I? I suppose if you could go North to school, you
and your mother would feel that you had your share of salvage, wouldn't
you?"
"Yes, indeed. That would clear up the account in great shape," cried
Dan. "But where is the money coming from? You can't charge it up
against the _Kenilworth's_ owners, can you?"
"Well, if those Bahama niggers had blown up the steamer, the owners'
bills might be a good deal bigger," smiled his uncle. "Just let your
salvage claim rest for a day or so. I promise you it will be worked out
somehow."
Early in the morning the _Kenilworth_ moved slowly to an anchorage in
the inner harbor of Key West, at last in a friendly haven. Her escort
of victorious tugs whistled a glad alarm as they cast loose and steamed
toward their several wharves. Dan was on board the _Resolute_, and as
she neared the shore he saw his mother hastening down to the landing
place.
"You will be all the salvage she wants out of this job," said Captain
Jim as Dan waved his cap for an answering signal to the fluttering
handkerchief. A little later mother and son walked homeward together
and she learned of Captain Bruce's manly decision to make atonement.
Her tender heart was moved with pity for his plight and she spoke up
impulsively:
"I knew there was a great deal of good in him, Dan. And think how
forlorn and unhappy he must feel. He needs friends. Ask him up to see
us. I am very sorry for him."
"All right, mother. He has shown himself to be a pretty good sort of a
man, after all. How is Bart Pringle? Is he all broken up? He's been on
my mind most of the time since I went back to the Reef."
"It was a dreadful shock to Mary Pringle and her boy," replied Mrs.
Frazier. "But they will be happy again after a while. Jerry Pringle
was a hard man, Dan, and he never really knew his own family. He was
the richest man in Key West and of course they have no worries about
money. They fairly worship his memory because he died a hero's death.
But it is as if they were admiring some noble character in a book, not
a real, live man who was a part of their daily lives. They never knew
him well."
"Perhaps it was all for the best," sighed Dan. "Bart will never know
anything else about his father and he has a memory to live up to that
is a better inheritance than all the money that was left behind. Oh,
but it was worth while fighting hard to keep the truth from Bart and
his mother."
In the afternoon Dan went back to the _Resolute_ to invite the chief
engineer to supper. Mr. McKnight announced as he staggered the boy with
an affectionate blow between the shoulders:
"Old Prentice was aboard looking for you not an hour ago, and said he'd
come back if he didn't find you at home. I told him that if he had a
notion of calling you a liar some more, I was your proxy and he could
say it to me. I began to roll up my sleeves and he plumb near backed
himself overboard."
"I wish he had," returned Dan. "What on earth does he want now? The
_Kenilworth_ affair is all cleared up."
"Well, he was dying to see you, Dan. Better wait aboard. The old
icicle will wander back after a while. I hear we are going to tow the
_Kenilworth_ to Jacksonville to be docked for repairs. Do you know
when?"
"Captain Jim said in about a month," replied Dan. "As soon as she can
be patched up to stand the voyage. But maybe I won't be with you, then.
It depends on whether I win my salvage case."
"Too much sun. Gone a bit queer in the head," murmured Mr. McKnight.
"We surrendered all claim to salvage--you know that. It's an outrage,
too. When I was wreckin' on the coast of-- Hello, here comes old
Prentice now."
The underwriters' agent was advancing with almost undignified haste,
and as he came down the gang-plank he extended his hand to Dan and
exclaimed in most friendly fashion:
"Delighted to find you, Mr. Frazier. You will be good enough to sit
down aft with me for a few minutes? I wish to show you a document
which has just reached me."
Brushing past the glowering chief engineer, Mr. Prentice fumbled in his
breast pocket and brought forth a large, official-looking envelope.
His manner was really sheepish as he hemmed and hawed, flourished the
envelope, and said:
"I wish to offer you an apology, Dan, which you are manly enough to
accept, I am sure. I find myself in--er--a rather painful position. The
fact of the matter is that I have been guilty of an error of judgment.
I have in my hands a letter sent to me in care of the British consul
in Key West. Attached to it is an affidavit which you may examine at
your leisure. To make a long story short, these documents come from
Nassau. While investigating the _Kenilworth_ disaster, it occurred to
me to make some inquiries concerning one Hurley, known as "Black Sam,"
who had possession of the steamer when you were rescued from her.
Your story of preventing an explosion seemed improbable to me, partly
because I could find no proof, and also because I held certain other
suspicions, now removed, I am glad to say. I made an effort to locate
this Hurley person. There was not one chance in a thousand that he
would confirm the truth of your story, if found. But, by extraordinary
good luck, he was recently arrested for cracking the skull of one of
his crew. And while in jail he was visited by my agent in Nassau.
You will be surprised to learn that he readily consented to sign an
affidavit describing his attempt to blow up the _Kenilworth_, and your
part in the episode. The fellow has a rude sense of humor, it appears,
and had come to regard it as a good deal of a joke on him."
"It is great news for me," exclaimed Dan. "I hated to have you think
what you did."
"I have something more to say," resumed Mr. Prentice with a smile.
"Captain Bruce and Captain Wetherly came to see me to-day. It was a
strange interview, as you may perhaps guess. Captain Bruce confessed
that he had tried to lose his ship on the Reef. My suspicions were
wrong from start to finish, and I have apologized to Captain Wetherly.
In fact, I seem to be a walking apology. But the chapter is closed.
The steamer is to be made fit for sea by her owners, without a penny
of cost to the underwriters, and her master will go to England to face
the consequences of his confession. The owners will also have to settle
for damages to cargo. Under the circumstances, I am of the opinion that
the underwriters are deeply indebted to you for preventing the total
loss of the _Kenilworth_. They can well afford to do the handsome thing
by you, my boy, not as salvage, but as a gift, a reward for a heroic
deed. Such gifts have been bestowed on several ship-masters within my
recollection. Captain Wetherly informs me that you are ambitious to get
an education. I pledge you my personal word that you can count upon
receiving a sum of several thousand dollars to assist that praiseworthy
ambition. I expect to go to England shortly, and will look after the
matter myself."
While Dan struggled between gratitude and amazement to find words
to fit the occasion, Mr. Prentice patted his shoulder with fatherly
affection and added:
"I know the story of your loyalty to your friend, young Barton Pringle.
It seems right and proper that you should go away to school together,
without a shadow between you any longer."
Mr. Prentice left the Nassau documents with Dan and took his departure,
leaving the lad to stammer the wonderful tale to Bill McKnight who
found an outlet for his own emotion by announcing:
"I'm going to hustle right ashore, Dan, and hire the Key West brass
band to serenade old Prentice to-night. I've got money in the bank,
boy, and I'm going to turn it loose."
While this rash declaration was being argued, Captain Wetherly came
aboard and added his congratulations to the tumultuous celebration.
When Mr. McKnight became quieter for lack of breath, Dan spoke up with
a sudden shock of unhappy recollection:
"But how about Captain Bruce, Uncle Jim? It doesn't seem fair for him
to be left all alone to go back to England and be in disgrace among his
own people. Why, if he stands by his guns, he will be sent to prison."
"I had a long talk with him an hour ago," replied Captain Wetherly.
"He can't be budged from his resolution to take all the blame for
the disaster. And of course his owners will try to shift it all onto
him and they may be able to clear themselves in court. I can't help
admiring his pluck. But he may come back here later, Dan. I have just
landed a big Government contract for towing and dredging work, to last
for several years. And I need more help with the business I have now.
I asked Captain Bruce to come back to Key West when he gets clear of
his troubles in England. I told him that he would be with friends here,
with folks who believed in him. I would trust him as a partner. He will
never go wrong again."
"What did he say?" asked Dan and Bill McKnight in the same breath.
"He was considerably touched. Said he would think it over, and thanked
me, and went off to tell Prentice about it. He will come back to work
with me some day, I am pretty sure."
A few weeks later Dan Frazier and Barton Pringle were waving their
farewells to Key West from the deck of a mail steamer, northward bound
to enter a preparatory school. Their mothers were standing together
on the wharf and behind them towered the rugged figure of Captain
Jim Wetherly. As the steamer drew away and the last "good-byes" were
shouted across the water, Bart sighed and murmured to his friend:
"Father ought to be there to see me off. I can't realize it yet, Dan.
But I must try to live up to the example he set for me. I am so glad
he and Captain Jim became good friends. It was the _Kenilworth_ that
brought them together. I reckon they were the same breed of men, only
it took them a long time to find it out."
Dan looked across the harbor at the rusty _Kenilworth_ which was almost
ready to be towed away to a dry-dock. The sight of her thrilled him
with memories of the hardships, dangers, and tragedy of the weeks of
hard-fought battle on the Reef. It came over him that while he had won
his salvage and his fondest dreams were coming true, perhaps Barton
Pringle had won even richer and more enduring salvage in the bright
memory of his father's last deed, a memory and an inspiration unmarred
by the knowledge of anything less worthy.
"I am proud of Uncle Jim," said Dan at length. "And you can always be
proud of your father, Bart."
Presently the steamer passed the _Resolute_ which lay at her wharf
ready for sea. The chief engineer hurried into the wheel-house and
pulled the whistle cord for all he was worth. The tug roared a hoarse
farewell, and Dan gazed at her and the burly figure of Bill McKnight
with glad affection in his eyes. They stood for something worth while
to the boy who was leaving his shipmates to venture into strange waters
and chart a new career. He had toiled among men who were fitly called
"the Resolutes," and the lessons of duty he had learned afloat would
not be soon forgotten ashore. Dan was thinking aloud as he said while
he waved his cap at the powerful, seagoing tug in which he had played
his part as a humble deck-hand:
"I don't know what this preparatory school up north is going to be
like, but I reckon if I can play the game so the _Resolute_ won't be
ashamed of me I'll come out all right."
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