CHAPTER III THE RACE FOR THE "KENILWORTH"
Chief Engineer Bill McKnight hoisted himself up the iron ladder that led from the fire-room of the Resolute and tottered on deck gasping for breath. He was begrimed from head to foot, the sweat had furrowed little streaks in the mask of soot and grease which covered his ample countenance, and his eyes were red with weariness and want of sleep. He had shoved the tug back to Key West at her top speed, and now he was toiling night and day to make her ready for whatever summons might come for a tussle on the Reef. Captain Wetherly found him slumped against the deck-house with his head in his hands and exhorted him cheerily:
"Don't give up the ship, Bill. It is a great repair job that you've done, and the worst is over. The new tubes are most all in, aren't they?"
"The boilers will be as good as new," grunted McKnight, "but how about my bronchial tubes, Captain? I can't plug them up and make steam same as I plugged the boilers and fetched you back from Santiago. I'm so full of cinders inside that I rattle when I walk. But give me another week and the boat will be fit to hitch a hawser to this benighted island of Key West and tow it out to sea. Anything new ashore?"
Captain Jim sat down beside the engineer and made sure that they could not be overheard as he began:
"Dan has been watching Jerry Pringle's fleet of wrecking vessels for me. Those two schooners he bought in the Gulf have come into port, and it is mighty little sponging he intends to do with them at present, Bill. They look fast and they can stow lots of cargo. And Pringle has been overhauling his other schooners and has chartered three more in Key West. He says he intends to send them out to join the mackerel fleet."
"Anything doing in the tow-boat line?" asked McKnight with a new gleam of interest in his damaged eyes. "If Pringle aims to tackle a certain job that may be reported from the Reef pretty soon, he will have to make a bluff at pulling the steamer off, won't he? There might be a small fortune in salvage, besides looting the cargo out of her."