CHAPTER XX THE FIND IN THE FOREHOLD
Ted Dyer's place was quickly determined upon.
Bickson, the chief quartermaster, who attended to the general "policing" of the yacht—that is, the cleaning up and the sanitary care of the boat, had one seaman assigned to help him. Ted was added as an extra hand in this line, being placed at once under the orders of the quartermaster who was acting in Bickson's place while the latter was out in the launch.
"It looks, now, as though Dyer is all right, from the ground up, quartermaster," Captain Tom said, in a low voice. "At the same time, of course, you'll keep a general eye on the youngster?"
"I certainly will, Captain."
"Above all, don't let him get anywhere near the prisoner in the brig. Don't permit any possibility of communication between Dyer and Cragthorpe."
"I understand, Captain."
Before he had been at work for an hour Ted Dyer was earning golden good opinions from the acting chief quartermaster. Not the slightest curiosity did the new member of the crew display about anything that didn't concern him. As a worker Ted Dyer was number one.
About three o'clock the evidence of a new game on the part of the enemy came to notice. The steam launch of the "Victor" ceased sounding her whistle off at the starboard of the "Panther." Tom Halstead, who was on deck, ready to note the slightest sign, became instantly suspicious.
"Mr. Davis," he called, "sound the agreed-on signal from our own fog-horn for Bickson to come in, post-haste with our power boat."
From the "Panther's" fog-horn sounded four short blasts.
Just a few minutes later Tom Halstead, listening at the rail, heard the "Victor's" machinery moving at faster rate.
"There they go, stealing away from us," muttered the young skipper.
"And not sounding their fog-horn any more, either," commented Joseph Baldwin.
"It won't take 'em long to get out of our hearing, if our tender doesn't get in," predicted Halstead.
"Confound Bickson! Where is he? What's he doing?" demanded the "Panther's" owner, impatiently.
Barely thirty seconds later, however, the "Panther's" power tender shot in alongside. The falls and tackle were lowered swiftly. The instant when the hoisting began Halstead called sharply:
"Mr. Davis, start us forward on the jump. Don't let those tricksters slip us in that fashion."
Second Officer Davis gave the order for increased speed. Then, before it could be carried out, he cried, excitedly:
"What has become of the 'Victor,' sir? Can you hear her machinery, now?"
Tom Halstead listened intently, growing paler. Barely forty-five seconds before he had had the enemy within sound. Now, not a single trace of noise came to him over the waters.
"By Jove! they've slipped us," he groaned, uneasily.
"That's what," confessed Dick, in a hushed, scared voice.
Joseph Baldwin's face was a study in intense anxiety.
"I'm afraid the steam yacht has gotten away from us, Captain," he remarked. "If that really has happened, I don't blame you. The chances, in a game of this sort, and under these conditions, are all with the fugitive."
"Perhaps it isn't a matter of blame," muttered Skipper Tom, his face chalk-white, his hands nervously gripping at the port deck rail. "But I'm chagrined—ashamed, just the same. What have those rascals done? Have they stopped speed altogether? Are they drifting, so that, if we go ahead, we are drawing further away from them all the time? Or did they shoot well ahead of us, then succeed in running with almost no noise, and on a new course, so that they are slipping further away from us every minute? Shall we stop and drift? Or, if we go ahead, what speed and which course shall we take? Confound the wretches!"
"It is a big problem," admitted Joseph Baldwin, his own face as white as that of the young skipper.
"Have you any orders, sir?" asked Halstead, quickly.
"No," replied Joseph Baldwin, slowly. "All I can do is to guess. That's all you can do, either, Captain Halstead; but your guess is just as likely to be the right one as is my own."
The "Panther" was now traveling at a speed of twelve miles, sounding her fog-horn twice in the minute.
"The worst of it is that our horn betrays us to the enemy," muttered Tom. "They have no respect for the laws of the sea, so that we give them guide, while they give us nothing in return."
"We won't quite give up hope," uttered Mr. Baldwin, dispiritedly. "At the same time, I fancy we're now as good as whipped. I don't see any chance for us."
"The only chance that's left," replied Skipper Tom, "is the chance of luck. Until you give other orders, sir, I shall keep to the same course, and at the same speed."
Baldwin nodded, turning away. Somehow, the depressing news had passed around. The cabin passengers came pouring out on deck, asking well-nigh innumerable questions of the young captain and of the sadly perplexed owner.
"All I can say," replied Mr. Baldwin to his questioners, "is that we must depend upon the slender chance of—luck."
"And all I can say," added Captain Tom Halstead, "is—wait!"
Gaston Giddings, who, in the morning, had been so insistent on having Cragthorpe set at liberty, now underwent a complete change of feeling in the matter.
"That wretch in the brig could tell us something about this latest trick," declared the young bank president, quivering with wrath. "Mr. Baldwin, why don't you have the fellow brought on deck and made to confess whatever he may know about the plans of the Rollings crowd on the 'Victor'?"
"Even if Cragthorpe should know all about the enemy's plans," demanded the owner, "how could I make him confess if he didn't want to?"
"Torture him, if you have to, until he talks freely," snarled Gaston Giddings.
"That wouldn't do," negatived Baldwin. "This is the twentieth century, and we live under laws. We can't put men to the torture nowadays."
"Then let me go down and see Cragthorpe," cried Giddings, nervously. "I'll find a way to make him talk! Give me the key to the brig."
To this proposition Captain Halstead returned a most emphatic refusal.
"Whoop!" sounded a jubilant voice from below. "Whoo-oo-oopee!"
"Who on earth is that?" demanded Mr. Ross.
"Ted Dyer, the last castaway we picked up out of the ocean," responded Captain Halstead.
"What on earth can he find to be so joyous——"
"Whoo-oop!" interrupted Ted himself, appearing on deck at that instant. His eyes were snapping with excitement, his face fairly glowing with delight.
"Say, do you know what's down in the forehold, sir?" he demanded, facing Captain Tom Halstead.
"No; and how do you?" broke in Joseph Baldwin, interrupting.
"Quartermaster Bickson set me to tidying up there," explained Ted. Then, turning to the young skipper, the San Francisco boy rattled on:
"There's a case there, under a lot of other stuff, marked 'shotguns,' and another case marked 'rifles.' Then there are other boxes labeled 'ammunition.'"
"Great Scott! I had forgotten that stuff—didn't know it was on board, in fact," exclaimed the owner.
"I heard you tell," Ted hastened on, speaking to Tom Halstead, "how you were handicapped, when right alongside the 'Victor,' by not having any firearms except the two revolvers of the deputy marshals. But, now! You've got an arsenal if those boxes are labeled straight."
"I believe the boxes are labeled all right," replied Joseph Baldwin, smiling sadly. "Yet, now that we know we have weapons enough at hand we haven't any steam yacht to board!"