PLAYING SALT WATER BLIND MAN'S BUFF
"I've got to do something!" growled Hepton, his teeth tightly shut.
Raising his rifle to his shoulder, making his guess by sound, the man
let two shots drive at the shore, not far back from the beach's edge.
Then, after a pause and a long look, he let three more shots drive,
slightly changing his sighting each time.
"Come on, Mr. Seaton," he urged. "They're firing on your skipper and
engineer this time. It's up to us to answer 'em--clear case of
self-preservation. The first _law_ that was ever invented!"
Bang! bang! rang Seaton's rifle, twice. He, too, fired for the forest,
near the beach. It was like the man to hope he had hit no one, but he
was determined to stop if possible this direct attack on Tom Halstead
and Joe Dawson.
Evidently the first sign of resistance was not to stop the bothering
tactics of those on shore, for one wire that Joe was handling was
zipped out of his hands.
"They mean business, the enemy," called down Skipper Tom, softly, to
the tune of a low laugh. "But we'll get rigged, in spite of them. All
we ask for is that they let us get the wire fixed often enough for a
few minutes of sending and receiving once an hour."
Hepton and his employer continued to fire, using a good deal of
ammunition. The guard was much more vengeful in his firing and in his
attempts to locate the hidden marksmen than was Seaton.
"That's what those two men went ashore for last night," called down
Halstead, quietly. "First of all, to fool us and get us guessing, and,
next, to hunt up some of their own rascals for this work. The
seventy-footer led us into this trap on purpose. Finely done, wasn't
it?"
"It shows," retorted Mr. Seaton, wrathily, "that along this sparsely
settled shore there is a numerous gang organized for some law-breaking
purpose."
"Smuggling, most likely," guessed Tom. "And it must pay unusually
well, too, for them to have such a big and so well-armed a crew."
Three more shots sounded from the shore. All of the trio of bullets
went uncomfortably close to the young skipper and engineer, though
doing no actual damage. Hepton, with his ear trained to catch the
direction of the discharge sounds, changed his guess, firing in a new
direction.
"There, it's done, until it's put out of business again," muttered
Joe, finally. "Slide, Tom."
Almost immediately after Dawson disappeared the crash of the spark
across the spark-gap and up the wires was heard. The young wireless
operator of the "Restless" was making the most of any time that might
be left to him.
"How about that storm that threatened last night, captain?" inquired
Mr. Seaton. "Has it come any nearer?"
[Illustration: "There, It's Done," Muttered Joe. "Slide, Tom."]
"No, sir," replied the motor boat captain, shaking his head. "It acted
the way many September storms do on this coast. It passed by us, out
to sea, and ought to be down by Havana by now. The barometer has been
rising, and is at nearly the usual pressure. But I don't like the
looks of the sky over there"--pointing.
"Why not?" queried the charter-man, following the gesture with his
eyes.
"We'll be playing in great luck, sir," answered the young captain, "if
a fog doesn't roll in where the storm threatened to come."
"Fog?" Mr. Seaton's tone had an aghast ring to it.
"Yes, sir."
"Are you sure, Captain?"
"No, sir. It's only a possibility, but a good one."
Hepton was making his rifle bark again, deep, snappy and angry in its
throat, in answer to a challenge from shore, but Powell Seaton stood
surveying the weather with a look of deepest concern.
Then he turned to regard the drab seventy-footer at anchor near by.
"It would be the enemy's real chance, wouldn't it?" he inquired.
"Just what I dread, sir," Captain Tom admitted. "Let us be wrapped in
a thick bank of fog, and the Drab would be out of our vision and
hearing in a very short time."
"Shades of hard luck!" groaned the charter-man, growing pallid.
Off on the seaward horizon an indefinite haze was soon observable. To
the untrained eye it didn't look like much. Though Mr. Seaton spoke of
it, he didn't appear much concerned.
"It'll be a pity to bother him until the time comes when he throbs
with worry," thought Captain Tom Halstead, sympathetically. "But if
that low-hanging haze doesn't spell t-r-o-u-b-l-e, then I've been
raised among a different breed of sea fogs!"
The crashing of sparks over the spark-gap had ceased for the present,
and Joe, reporting that there was no wireless craft within reach of
his limited aerials, was on deck once more, waiting until the time
should come around for another trial.
Hank had gone below to start the motors, connecting them with the
dynamo, to renew the supply of electrical "juice" in the storage
batteries, which was running low, as proved by the last message sent.
The chug-chug of the twin motors was heard over on the seventy-footer,
and soon an unknown man, his cap pulled well down over his eyes,
appeared at the stern of the Drab. He took a long, keen look at the
"Restless."
"He's wondering if we're going to hoist the mud-hook," smiled Tom.
"And hoping that we are," grinned Joe. "Oh, but we must be an eyesore
to those wistful scoundrels!"
Powell Seaton now spent most of his time gazing at the line of haze,
which, by degrees, was growing bigger and coming nearer.
"Captain Halstead," he faltered, "I'm beginning to feel certain that
you're a prophet."
"Or a Jonah?" laughed Tom, though it was not a very cheerful sort of
laugh.
"No, no, no!" cried the charter-man, earnestly. "Never that! The
little luck that I've had in these trying days has all come through
you youngsters. Without you I'd have been flat on my back in the
fearful game that I'm playing with such desperate hopefulness against
hope. But I see our fog is coming in as a sure thing. If it envelops
us, what can you do with regard to that drab-tinted sea-monster over
yonder?"
"It depends upon the depth and duration of the fog, sir," Halstead
answered. "We have our motors going. At the first strong sign of our
getting hemmed in by it we'll lift our mud-hook [the anchor] and move
in closer. If the fog isn't too thick we may be able to take up a
position where we can at least observe her dimly. If she starts to
pull out into a fog-bank, we'll follow at her heels, keeping as close
as necessary to keep the Drab's stern flag-pole in sight. We won't
lose her if there's any way of stopping it."
The advance guard of the fog was in upon them by the time that Joe
went once more to his sending table in the forward end of the cabin.
The light mist extended to the shore, though it did not altogether
screen it. But the lookout on the Drab's deck appeared wholly watchful
at the weather side of the craft.
"Not in touch with any other wireless boat yet," reported Dawson,
coming on deck, presently.
"Look at that heavier white curtain rolling in," uttered Powell
Seaton, in a tone near to anguish.
Whoever was in the drab boat's pilot house took occasion to toot
derisively twice on the auto whistle.
"That's as much as warning us that their turn is coming," declared Mr.
Seaton, wrathfully.
Their faces were wet, now, with the fog as it rolled in. Slowly the
nearby shore faded, wrapped in the mist.
"We'd better get up anchor," decided Skipper Tom. "Come along, Hank,
and you, Hepton."
As the anchor came up and was stowed, Captain Halstead moved the deck
speed control ever so little. The "Restless" began to barely move
through the water. They overhauled the seventy-footer, passing within
a hundred feet of her starboard rail. Yet only the same deck watch
appeared in sight. He favored those on the bridge deck of the
"Restless" with a tantalizing grin.
Halstead slowly circled the drab seventy-footer, Mr. Seaton keeping
ever a watchful eye on the stranger.
"There! They're hoisting anchor!" muttered the charter-man, at last.
"I saw 'em start," nodded the young skipper. "And the fog is growing
thicker every minute."
"How are you going to beat them, if they try hard to get away?"
"I don't know," confessed Halstead, honestly. "We may keep 'em in
trail, but the chances are all in favor of the drab boat."
Presently the seventy-footer slipped slowly away from her anchorage.
Halstead promptly closed in, keeping not more than a hundred feet
behind her drab stern. If the fog grew no heavier, and the enemy's
speed no greater, he could maintain his position.
But the sea-born fog continued to come, looking as though it arrived
in ever-increasing billows.
Once the seventy-footer's stern vanished for a moment or two. Tom,
cautiously increasing the speed, soon came in sight of that drab stern
once more.
"I don't want to croak, sir," warned the young motor boat skipper,
"but, luck aside, it looks as though we're about done for in this salt
water blindman's buff."
"I realize it," nodded Powell Seaton.
Just then the seventy-footer crawled ahead again into the fog, and was
lost to the pursuer. Throwing the wheel somewhat to port, Captain
Halstead tried to come up on the Drab's quarter. A full minute's
anxious suspense followed, but the enemy's stern did not show through
the white shroud of the atmosphere.
Then Halstead threw off the power without applying the reverse. The
"Restless" drifted under what was left of her headway.
"They've done it," uttered Tom Halstead, grimly. "They've given us the
slip--gotten away in this white mass of mystery!"
Shaking, Powell Seaton leaned against the deck-house, his face pallid
with sheer misery.