Meanwhile, Captain Wetherly, relieved to learn that no lives were lost, rang up speed and headed the tug for what he hoped might be the wharf he was seeking. Presently Dan Frazier reported at the wheel-house door and explained:
"You won't be any more surprised than I was to find out that the first man we picked up is Jerry Pringle. Yes, it's old Pringle himself sure enough, Uncle Jim. I didn't get time for a sight of him until just now. What in the world is he doing so far from Key West, and how did he happen to be run down in a boat at night in Pensacola harbor? It beats me."
"What has he got to say for himself?" snapped Captain Jim with a note of hostility and suspicion in his voice. "Is he sober? And Jerry Pringle let a tow-boat waltz right over him! Um-mm, he must have been mighty busy thinking about something else. Who is the other fellow? Ever see him before?"
"No, sir. He's an Englishman, I think, a big, strong man with a brown beard. He is pretty well knocked out and his wits were muddled by a thump on the head. He talks flighty. Jerry Pringle is with him and says he will fetch him around without our help and get him ashore as soon as we land."
"Well, there's the coal-pocket looming up ahead, and you'd better get aft to make a line fast, Dan," observed the captain. "As soon as we dock, I'll step down and see what I can do for our passengers. They're welcome to stay aboard overnight. Jump lively."
While the Resolute was deftly laid alongside the head of the wharf, Dan made a flying leap to the string-piece and dragged the hawsers to the nearest pilings, bow and stern. Then he hurried back to the chief engineer's room in quest of more information about the strange and unwilling visit of Mr. Jeremiah Pringle of Key West.
Dan Frazier knew him as one of the most daring and successful wreckers of the Florida Reef, that cruel, hidden rampart of coral which stretches in the open sea for a hundred and fifty miles along the Atlantic coast of southern Florida, on the edge of the great highway of ocean traffic for Central and South America. Because the Gulf Stream flows north along this crowded highway, the steamers and sailing craft bound south skirt the Reef as close as they dare in order to avoid the adverse current. Tall, spider-legged, steel light-houses rise from the submerged Reef, but its ledges still take their yearly toll of costly vessels, as they have done for centuries. When such disasters happen, the wreckers flock seaward to try to save the ship and cargo.
Jerry Pringle was one of the last of a famous race of native wrecking masters of Key West. His father and grandfather were wreckers before him, and they had been hard and godless men, rejoicing in the tidings of disaster on the Reef as a chance to plunder and destroy. Rumor had said some curious things about this Jeremiah Pringle's methods as a wrecking master, but Dan Frazier gave them careless heed, partly because he had heard so many wicked tales of the by-gone wrecking days, but more because young Barton Pringle, the only son of this man, was his dearest chum and school-mate.
With very lively curiosity Dan halted in the doorway of the little state-room which Captain Jim Wetherly had entered just before him. Jeremiah Pringle was sitting on the edge of the bunk as if to shield his comrade of the small boat from observation, and was gruffly cautioning him not to exert himself by trying to talk. Captain Wetherly was eying them both with the keenest interest reflected in his determined countenance. He was saying as Dan came within earshot:
"Of course I am very sorry it happened, Pringle, but I don't see how you can hold me responsible for the loss of your boat. My lights were in order and the vessel was moving at half speed. I'm sure your friend there, the master of the Kenilworth, lays it to your own carelessness."