Mr. Prentice had slightly raised his voice. It carried to Dan's ears and he raised himself on his elbow and cried out in excitement:
"We'll pull her off, Uncle Jim, and Barton won't know. And his mother won't know. Don't let them know. The captain is sorry. We can handle it all by ourselves."
"The lad is off his head, and no wonder," said Captain Jim, addressing the keen-eyed underwriter's agent. "Come outside, if you please."
"What are you holding back?" asked Mr. Prentice severely as they moved away from the door. "I intend to get to the bottom of this, you know. There is some mystery about it that is eating that lad's heart out."
"I haven't time to talk," was the reply. "But I'm going to get that ship off for you, thanks to the boy in there. And if we are holding anything back, it will have to stay hid and hawsers couldn't pull it out of me."
He went aft to meet Bill McKnight who had come over from the Kenilworth to get his orders.
"How's the boy?" anxiously asked the engineer.
"Pretty sick, I'm afraid, Bill. But home will cure him if anything will. He's talking wild and saying too much."
Captain Jim jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Mr. Prentice and went on, "It's the mysterious ways of Providence, Bill. Captain Bruce gave the dirty business away when he was queer in his head aboard the Resolute at Pensacola, and Dan has put that gimlet-eyed agent on the track by going daffy here. You can peek in at the boy, and then you hustle your dunnage and pick your men and go to the Kenilworth. I'll be back to-morrow, and more tugs and lighters will be on the way. Take Mr. Prentice along with you. Good luck."
The engineer tiptoed into Dan's room and laid his rough hand on the pillow. He looked down in silence while his gray moustache quivered as if strong emotion was held in check. Then he lumbered on deck and prepared to quit the tug. A few minutes later the "jingle bell" rang boisterously and its clamor was borne to Dan. He smiled at Captain Jim and murmured: