Then, as they sailed, and the search-light pointed a long ray far up the river, like a giant finger, the glare fell on a white object flitting down stream like the ghost of a vessel. The rays of the light were thrown full upon it, and the schooner Folly was revealed, returning from its unsuccessful pursuit of the poacher.
A single bell jingled in the engine-room, and the steamer slowed down; then, as the schooner came close, another bell, and the steamer lay motionless in the river.
The captain leaned far out of the pilot-house, as the schooner came within hailing distance.
“There’s a fellow poaching just below Forrest’s,” he called. “I saw him with the light, as I came up. I’m sure he was dredging. You may pick him up on the way down. I couldn’t see who he was, though.”
The captain of the Folly uttered an exclamation of disgust.
“It’s one of the two I chased, coming up, I guess,” he replied. “That’s the way they work it. The other fellow dodged me, too, up the river here, somewhere. I suppose he’s turned and gone down again by this time. I tell you we can’t do much with one vessel against that crowd. Much obliged, captain; I’ll have an eye out going down.”
Some time after midnight, the bug-eye Brandt, poaching near the mouth of a small creek, was doing great harvesting. It was easy work; for the oysters, planted with care, came up clean and fat, and free from waste shells. The crew sweated at the winders. Jim Adams, alternating between one and the other winch, kept the tired men up to their work. Hamilton Haley, losing somewhat of caution with the richness of the yield, and assisting in the stowing away of the ill-gotten harvest, had relaxed a little of his usual vigilance.
It was nearly fatal to him. Out of the blackness of the river bank, there poured suddenly a thin stream of fire, and immediately another. A rifle bullet passed so close to Haley’s head that for an instant it dazed him. The bullet chipped a piece out of the main boom and went, zing, across the river. The other bullet struck the hull of the bug-eye and bedded itself in the oysters, near the deck. At the same time, a volley of imprecations came from the thicket on shore, from the angry owners of the oyster bed.
And now a strange coincidence added to the excitement and to the peril of Haley and his craft. Almost immediately following the firing from shore, there came another shot from the direction of up the river. Captain Hamilton Haley, taken all by surprise, and giving one quick, frightened glance to where the third shot had come from, beheld, to his consternation, the vague outlines of the schooner Folly bearing down upon him at full speed.
Haley was all things bad; but he had his merits as a sailor, and he had the qualities of command that should have won him success in better employment. Now he showed what he was made of. Darting across the deck, he seized Jack Harvey by the shoulder, spun him around and sent him flying toward the wheel.