At half-past nine in the forenoon the cutter swept past Bug Light and into the inner harbor. Hardly had the steamer swung with the tide at her anchorage before the captain's gig was proceeding briskly toward Commercial Wharf, two men rowing and the man of the faded blue cap at the helm. The antagonists in the strange duello sat back to back, astraddle a seat. At this hateful contact their hair seemed fairly to bristle.
"Now, gents," said Faded Cap, as they approached the wharf, "the skipper said he wanted fair play. No scrougin' to get out onto the ladder first. I'm goin' to land at the double ladder at the end of the wharf, and there's room for both of you. I'll say 'Now!' and then you start."
"You fellers are gettin' a good deal of fun out this thing," sputtered Cap'n Sproul, angrily, "but don't you think I don't know it and resent it. Now, don't you talk to me like you were startin' a foot-race!"
"What is it, if it ain't a foot-race?" inquired Faded Cap, calmly. "They don't have hacks or trolley-cars on that wharf, and you'll either have to run or fly, and I don't see any signs of wings on you."
Colonel Ward did not join in this remonstrance. He only worked his jaws and uttered a few croaks.
When the gig surged to the foot of the ladder, Colonel Ward attempted a desperate play, and an unfair one. He was on the outside, and leaped up, stepped on Cap'n Sproul, and sprang for the ladder. The Cap'n was quick enough to grab his legs, yank him back into the boat, and mount over him in his turn. The man of the faded cap was nearly stunned by Ward falling on him, and the rowers lost their oars.
When the Colonel had untangled himself from the indignant seamen and had escaped up the ladder, Cap'n Sproul was pelting up the wharf at a most amazing clip, considering his short legs. Before Ward had fairly gathered himself for the chase his fifteen-thousand-dollar check and the man bearing it had disappeared around a corner into the street.
But the squat and stubby old sailor stood little show in a foot-race with his gaunt and sinewy adversary. It was undoubtedly Colonel Ward's knowledge of this that now led him to make the race the test of victory instead of depending on an interpreter over the telephone. A little more than a block from the wharf's lane he came up with and passed his adversary. Men running for trolley-cars and steamboats were common enough on the busy thoroughfare, and people merely made way for the sprinters.
But when Colonel Ward was a few lengths ahead of the Cap'n, the latter made use of an expedient that the voiceless Colonel could not have employed even if he had thought of it.
With all the force of his seaman's lungs he bellowed: "Stop thief!" and pounded on behind, reiterating the cry vociferously. At first he had the pursuit all to himself, for bystanders merely ducked to one side. But earnest repetition compels attention, and attention arouses interest, and interest provokes zeal. In a little while a dozen men were chasing the Colonel, and when that gentleman went lashing around the corner into Congress Street he—by an entirely natural order of events—ran into a policeman, for the policeman was running in the opposite direction to discover what all that approaching hullabaloo was about.