"They use a couple of greyhounds and two or three heavy dogs, like bulldogs or Airedales or wolfhounds. The wolf can easily outrun the heavy dogs, but when it comes to real speed he isn't in it with a greyhound. The greyhounds overtake Mr. Wolf in less than no time, nip at him, worry him, anger him until he turns on them. They won't even try to fight and he hasn't a chance of catching them. Meantime, the heavy dogs, following up the scent, come pounding along the trail. The wolf sees them and lopes off again, the greyhounds after him. They badger and worry him again, and again he turns. By the time this has happened three or four times, the heavy dogs have caught up to their quarry, and the fight is on. Two or three minutes and it's all over, and there's one wolf the less to harry the flocks of sheep."
"Well?"
"That's just about what would happen to this pirate of yours. Suppose he did stop an Atlantic steamer, suppose he did board her successfully, suppose he got his coal bunkers full, suppose he carried a heap of treasure to his own vessel flying the Jolly Roger and got away with it. He'd have the other ships around, wouldn't he?"
"I suppose he would," Eric admitted.
"You can bet your last dollar he would. And their wireless would be working overtime, wouldn't it?"
"Of course."
"Piracy is a matter that every maritime nation is interested in. The newspapers of the world would have the story by wireless the next morning, the governments of the world would know almost as quickly. By noon the next day half a dozen warships would be steaming from different directions in search of the pirate, led as straight as a magnet to the pole by the radio information constantly being sent from the light passenger steamers that were pursuing. If the naval fleet included a destroyer with a thirty-knot speed, where would your pirate get off at?"
Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.