The boats were half-way across to the steamer, where there was a sudden cessation of the fighting, and over the side of the vessel the wreckers came swarming like rats leaving a sinking ship. But the Miami's men had been too quick for all to escape and more than a dozen of the natives were pinned on board.
As soon as the wreckers had heard the Miami's guns and fled, the tide of battle turned, and on the dozen which remained, the crew of the steamer had taken a swift vengeance. None of them was seriously hurt, but they had been beaten up in a way that they would remember to the end of their days. Captain Jorgsen, who had been in the thick of the fight, was to the front when the cutter boats landed.
"I wish you'd put a hole in every one of those thieving boats," he growled.
"They deserve it, all right," the Coast Guard officer answered, "but I doubt if the Department would approve."
"If I had a gun like yours," said Captain Jorgsen, grimly, "I'd fire at 'em an' keep firing until I didn't have a shot left in the locker."
"I'm afraid we can't very well send you over one of our six-pounders," said the other, "but it seems to me you have a right to protect yourself from being boarded in this way. I'll send over some small-arms and ammunition in the morning and we'll stand by you and keep these black rascals in order. But I wanted to ask you, Captain Jorgsen, how did you come to be so far out of your course?"
"I was right on my course," the skipper growled. "That's what makes me so sore. But when I passed Cross Keys light, I thought I must have figured wrong. I never stopped to think why the light was nearly a quarter of a degree from where she should have been by my reckoning, and I changed my course by that."
"Well?"
"One of my men heard those chicken-livered black-hided cowards laughing to themselves about the way they fooled vessels with their 'patent light.'"