Dickie Lang nodded sagely in the darkness, while Bronson volunteered:
"I think I know the one that nearly run us down too. Running dark's her long suit." For a moment he hesitated, then he added: "She looked a whole lot like the Gray Ghost."
"Interesting, if true," muttered Hawkins, sliding nearer to the operator. Then he asked aloud: "Who's the Gray Ghost?"
Bronson noted the suppressed eagerness of the man's tone. Then he remembered that Hawkins was a newspaperman. Reporters were a nosey class as a rule. Perhaps it would be as well to keep still. After all, what did he, Bronson, know about the Gray Ghost? What did anybody really know about her, for that matter?
"The Gray Ghost is a fishing-boat," he said quietly, "that was built by Al Stevenson. She's bigger and quieter than the average. She's supposed to be about as fast for her size as any of them. I heard the other day she was owned by a fellow by the name of——" He stopped abruptly. "I can't remember the man's name," he concluded.
Hawkins knew Bronson was lying. Straightway he decided to find out what he could about the ownership of the Gray Ghost. Of the vessel herself, he had some knowledge though he gave no intimation that he had ever heard the name before.
"Mascola must own the Gray Ghost himself, the way he's sticking around her," observed Dickie Lang. "He must have been waiting in there for her or he'd have been scouting around before this."
Gregory agreed.
"Tom said they were pretty well fished out down below," he contributed, "and Mascola hadn't given them a new location. He's evidently got something on his mind that's more important to him than fishing."