“See that haze over there to the northward? We’re steaming into fog.”
“You think that even if the Stamford catches up to within firing distance we might be able to elude her after all?”
“That’s the big idea. In about half an hour we won’t be able to see ten feet over the side.”
“Well, maybe we’ll run through it by this afternoon. The Stamford won’t catch up to us for some hours yet.”
“Maybe so,” replied Bill. “We’ve done all we could, anyway. From now on, the job’s up to the Navy.”
“Hello!” cried Osceola, as they swung round the end of the superstructure and into the long stretch of deck on the port side. “Look off yonder! What do you make that out to be?”
Bill shaded his eyes. The glare of the smooth ocean was dazzling in the sun. Away to the northeast a ship was nosing out of fog banks that lined the northern horizon.
“That looks to me mighty like a warship!” said the chief excitedly. “She certainly is humping it, brother. But I thought the Stamford was to the south of us—and when she came, she’d come from behind!”
“You’ve certainly got a pair of eyes—and she certainly is a warship. I can’t make her out very well at that distance, but she looks to me like a first class cruiser of the Plymouth type. Dollars to ditchwater the Stamford wirelessed her! She’s heading for us all right, all right. Oh, boy—there’s going to be something doing aboard this packet in two shakes of a lamb’s tail!”
“Thar she blows!” sang out the chief, as the gong and bugle sounded for action.