CHAPTER XXIII.
A TIMELY SHOT.
The girl had made a foolish mistake in throttling her engine, for the current was carrying her down to meet the desperate swimmer.
Nick’s men gasped involuntarily as they saw that Grantley could not fail to reach the power boat before the tug could overtake him, unless the frightened girl came to her senses and forged ahead again.
“Run for it, or he’ll board you!” shouted Chick through his cupped hands.
But the girl’s presence of mind seemed to have deserted her, or else she was torn between the desire for flight and some feminine notion that Grantley might be in distress and needed her help.
At any rate, she looked as if she did not know what to do, and she made no attempt to start the boat.
“Go, child, before it’s too late!” Nick called apprehensively. “If he gets control of your boat we can’t catch him—and he’s a fugitive from justice, who deserves nobody’s sympathy.”
But still she hesitated and looked about her wildly, while Chick and Jack Wise called to the police boat to hurry.
Grantley was within a few strokes of the power boat now, and both were too far from the detectives for the latter to do any good by jumping in.
“That’s a Simcoe Express,” Nick muttered to his first assistant, “and it’s good for at least twenty-five knots an hour to the police boat’s twelve or fourteen. We must go——”