"You're working for Jim Wetherly"[Frontispiece]
Facing
page
And with Bill McKnight's assistance the derelict was hauled
aboard like a large and dripping fish		[6]
The Sombrero sailed like a witch in the race[34]
But for once that square-jawed uncle of his had dared too much[84]
Dan felt a new thrill of surprise and alarm[104]
It was a pretty bit of old-fashioned boarding for the prosaic
twentieth century		[120]
"If you are going to call me a liar at the start, you won't
get very far!"		[132]
She looked as if she had laid her bones on the Reef for
good and all		[150]

THE WRECKING MASTER

THE WRECKING MASTER

CHAPTER I A SKIPPER IN BAD COMPANY

"A thick night and no mistake, Dan. It's as black as the face of a Nassau pilot. We ought to be nearing the coal wharf by now. Of course they wouldn't have sense enough to leave a light on it to give us our bearings."

Captain Jim Wetherly was growling through the window of the darkened wheel-house to his deck-hand, young Dan Frazier, as the oceangoing tug Resolute felt her way up the harbor of Pensacola. She had towed a dismasted bark into port after a long and stubborn tussle with wind and sea, and her master was in haste to fill the empty bunkers and drive her home to Key West, five hundred miles across the blue Gulf.