"Not yet," replied Mr. Gibney as he rolled out of bed, "but eggs is always stimulatin', and I don't give up hope on a full stomach."
An hour later they were tied up under the coal bunkers, and at Mr. Gibney's suggestion some twenty tons of sacked coal were piled on top of the fo'castle head and on the main deck for'd, in case of emergency. They lay in the harbour all day until about four o'clock, when Mr. Gibney, by virtue of his authority as supercargo, ordered the lines cast off and the Maggie steamed out of the harbour. Off Point Loma they veered to the south, leaving the Coronado Islands on the starboard quarter, ten miles to the west. Mr. Gibney was below with Captain Scraggs, battling with the problem that confronted them, when the mate stuck his head down the companion-way to report a large power schooner coming out from the lee of the Coronados and standing off on a course calculated to intercept the Maggie in an hour or two.
Captain Scraggs and Mr. Gibney sprang up on the bridge at once, the latter with Scraggs's long glass up to his eye.
"She was hove to under the lee of the island, and the minute we came out of the harbour and turned south she come nosin' after us," said the mate.
"Hum!" muttered Mr. Gibney. "Gasoline schooner. Two masts and baldheaded. About a hundred and twenty ton, I should say, and showin' a pretty pair of heels. There's somethin' up for'd—yes—let me see—ye-e-es, there's two more—holy sailor! it's a gunboat! One of those doggoned gasoline coast patrol boats, and there's the Federal flag flying at the fore."
"Let's put back to San Diego Bay," quavered Captain Scraggs. "I'll be durned if I relish the idee o' losin' the Maggie."
"Too late," said the philosophical Gibney. "We're in Mexican waters now, and she can cut us off from the bay. The only thing we can do is to run for it and try to lose her after dark. Tell the engineer to crowd her to the limit. There ain't much wind to speak of, so I guess we can manage to hold our own for a while. Nevertheless, I've got a hunch that we'll be overhauled. Of course, you ain't got no papers to show, Scraggs, and they'll search the cargo, and confiscate us, and shoot the whole bloomin' crowd of us. I bet a dollar to a doughnut that fellow Lopez sold us out, after the fashion of the country. I can't help thinkin' that that gunboat was there just a-waitin' for us to show up."
For several minutes Mr. Gibney continued to study the gunboat until there could no longer be any doubt that she intended to overhaul them. He made out that she had a long gun for'd, with a battery of two one-pounders on top of her house and something on her port quarter that looked like a Maxim rapid-fire gun. About twenty men, dressed in white cloth, could be seen on her decks.
Presently Mr. Gibney was interrupted by Captain Scraggs pulling at his sleeve.
"You was a gunner once, wasn't you, Gib?" said Captain Scraggs in a trembling voice.