As the Sprite came closer and closer to the house boat Ping was able to see two figures on the upper deck.
Were they Motor Matt and McGlory? He guessed they were not, while hoping that they were. Anyhow, he would have to stop. His nerves fluttered as he wondered if he would be able to stop.
He had watched Matt as he brought the Sprite alongside the San Bruno. As he remembered it, Matt had begun to play with the levers before the launch was very near the larger craft.
Matt, it will be recalled, had done this in order to let the Sprite glide noiselessly to her berth. Ping repeated the manœuvre, and McGlory danced around on the house boat's deck, fuming at the delay caused by the halted motor.
The San Bruno was almost bunting into the stern of Sprite as the two boys made flying leaps to get aboard. The impact of their bodies came within one of swamping the little craft, and Matt stumbled to the steering wheel and got busy without losing an instant.
Ping slid backward over the midship thwart, yielding his place meekly and gladly; and then, with McGlory, he watched while Motor Matt plucked the Sprite out of harm's way.
It was so neatly done that Ping's heart swelled within him, and he slapped his hands and said glad things in Chinese. One touch of Motor Matt's hand, and the demon stopped pounding. A hum as of an industrious hive of bees came from under the hood, and the launch gathered itself together and flung onward with a fresh burst of speed.
The San Bruno, those aboard her still under the impression that Landers was on the Sprite—perhaps, in the darkness, mistaking Ping for their renegade comrade—continued to give pursuit.
It was a hopeless chase, however, and when the Sprite gained her old berth at the Tiburon wharf the San Bruno had given up and turned back into the night.