As word was sent below to bring the miner up, the number of men near by gradually increased to half a dozen, and half of these loafed around boldly, making no pretense at being occupied. They looked at Chanler and myself with hard, insolent eyes. They did not fancy the notion of going bone-hunting for wages while fortunes waited to be dug from the sands of the nearest shore.
I looked idly back over the yacht’s wake. On the horizon appeared what seemed to be a peculiar cloud. I watched it curiously, and saw that with each minute the cloud grew larger. It became a long smudge on the horizon, and I was about to call Chanler’s attention to it, when——
“City of Nome overhauling us, sir!” megaphoned Pierce from the wireless house. “They say: ‘Heave to. Have passenger for you.’”
“Ah, ha!” cried Chanler springing up, for the moment his blasé countenance flushing with life. “Never mind about the gold-hunter, cappy. We’ll have him another time. Just have Riordan shut down, will you, and lay to for our passenger?”
He started for his state-room, when, seeing the men lounging about, he added:
“Send ’em below, cappy. They look tough; they’d give any one a bad impression. Simmons! Come here.”
Not a man moved. No order was given as he had requested. Captain Brack laughed shortly and went forward to the engine-room telephone.
The men smiled with an evil showing of teeth at Chanler’s retreating back. When he had disappeared in his stateroom they spat generously upon the Wanderer’s immaculate deck, lounged over to the rail and stood looking back toward the rapidly approaching steamer. I stared at them with a sickening weakness at my knees.
I scarcely noticed the steamer. For what had just taken place told as plainly as words that Chanler no longer was master of his own yacht, that the men, and Brack, had thrown off the cloak and were in open revolt.
The City of Nome came to a stop a good distance away to port. A boat, well loaded with baggage, and with four oarsmen and an officer in place, was swung briskly out from the davits and dropped into the water. A slender, be-capped figure, sheathed in a coat that reached from chin to ankles, flashed down the ladder and leaped to a seat in the stern. Along the rail of the City of Nome ranged crew and passengers, waving and shouting farewells. The passenger in the boat stood up bowing, cap in hand, and at that a sharp-eyed seaman near me blurted out: