"Speaking of cables, Dan," he continued; "I got orders this afternoon to go to Charleston at once and tow that big suction dredge to Santiago. We shall be able to get away in a couple of days. You had better come aboard to-morrow night."
"Why, you'll be gone for weeks and weeks, Dan," sorrowfully cried his mother.
"I won't waste any time, nor try to save coal on this voyage," said Captain Jim with a grim smile. "I want to be a good deal nearer the Reef than Santiago, about two months from now."
"It's a long, long while to have my boy away from me," Mrs. Frazier murmured with a sigh. "But this tremendous conspiracy will be all blown out of your heads before you come home again."
After a luxurious night's slumber in a real bed, Dan felt as if the cobwebs had been brushed from his busy brain and that the bright world held better employment than brooding over what might happen to somebody else. He set forth to find Barton and arrange a match race between the Sombrero and a rival craft, to be sailed before Dan had to go to sea. The challenge being accepted on the spot, there was much to be done in a very few hours, and Dan heartily agreed with Barton's opinion delivered from the cockpit of their rakish craft:
"It is a pity we have anything to do but sail boats for the fun of it. What a bully sou'west breeze we're going to have this afternoon, Dan! Can you coax old Bill McKnight to come along for ballast?"
"Yes, if we promise him to smuggle some rifles and dynamite in the hold," laughed the other.
After dinner, Dan sauntered along the water front in the hope of finding the mighty bulk of the chief engineer to serve as two hundred and seventy pounds of desirable live ballast. The south-bound mail steamer, from Tampa for Havana, had just landed her passengers, and foremost among them loomed the tail and lanky figure of Jeremiah Pringle. The wrecking master spied Dan and hurried to meet him in the narrow street. His manner was no longer hostile and sullen, and Dan was amazed to have a greeting hand stretched toward him and to hear a cordial voice:
"How's the boy? You and Bart as busy as ever? I went up the Gulf to buy a schooner or two, and I found a beauty. I need a mate for her, Dan. You are young, but you know more about salt water than most men. It means double the wages of a deck-hand on that sooty old tow-boat. I want you to go to Tampa and help fetch her down right away, which is why I spring the proposition on you kind of off-hand and sudden."