TOO-WHOO-OO! IS THE WORD
IN that last desperate moment Tom Halstead employed the trick he had
hesitated to use.
He raised one of his feet, kicking smartly at the left knee-cap of his
assailant.
With a groan, Giddings weakened his hold, for the pain following the
kick was intense.
Throwing both his arms tightly around the young man, Halstead held on,
drawing himself back to the deck as Giddings fell back.
"You're not going to fool me that way!" snarled the young drug maniac.
He made another spring, trying to forget the pain in his knee.
But Halstead had regained his footing fully. Now, he dodged, then closed
in, tripping Giddings and throwing him heavily to the deck.
"What's this? What's this going on?" demanded Joseph Baldwin, running
back along the port side, followed by Mr. Ross and Dr. Gray.
Halstead was now on top of his assailant, and, though Giddings still
tried to fight with fury, his strength was deserting him.
"One of you hold him," urged Captain Tom, "and I'll get up and explain."
"Did he attack you?" insisted Mr. Baldwin.
"Well, rather," grunted Halstead.
"Let him up. He won't dare attack you again, with so many about."
"No; but he may try to jump overboard," retorted Halstead. "Mr. Giddings
has another drug streak on him. He's not responsible for what he does."
"I guess that's right," nodded Dr. Gray. "Baldwin, you and Mr. Ross hold
him, while the captain gets up and tells us what has happened."
The young skipper quickly explained, producing the vial he had snatched
from the young bank president.
"That's all the morphine I have with me," remarked Dr. Gray. "I'll make
sure of keeping that, hereafter, where no one but myself can find it.
Mr. Baldwin, you'd better get the young man below. Use force, if you
find it necessary."
They accomplished this without having attracted the attention of any of
the sailors or stewards. Mr. Giddings was then unceremoniously thrust
into his stateroom, and the door locked, though this was not until the
physician had searched the young man, removing his pocket knife and also
the tool that the drug victim had used in forcing the lock of the
medicine case.
"I did what I thought was right," Halstead explained.
"And I'm mighty glad you saw him, and acted so promptly," replied the
physician.
Through the rest of the night the physician had a battle with his
patient, working hard to keep a more pronounced streak of mania from
coming on. It is to such fearful torments that "hop-fiends" and morphine
users are always exposed in the end.
At midnight Dick Davis again went on the bridge, beginning his eight
hours' watch. Though Halstead had the utmost faith in the skill and
judgment of his friend, he, also, remained up until nearly four o'clock
in the morning. Then he turned to leave the bridge.
"I'm going to my cabin now, Mr. Davis, to turn in on my sofa for a
while. If I am needed for anything at all, don't hesitate to call me
instantly."
"Aye, aye, Captain," Dick replied.
Barely two hours had the young skipper slept when the sharp, jarring
tones of the vibrating electric bell from the bridge rang over his head.
Tom was up in an instant, pulling on his shoes. As he reached for his
deck ulster and cap there came from overhead a note that told him at
once why he was wanted.
Too-whoo-oo-oo!
"Fog!" gasped the young yacht captain. "Of all the confounded luck!"
With his ulster over his arm he threw open the door of his cabin, making
for the bridge steps.
The mist was yet light and curling as Captain Halstead reached the open.
Second Officer Dick Davis met him at the head of the steps.
"How long has this been coming on?" demanded Halstead.
"The first little puffs rolled in half an hour ago," replied Dick. "You
see, I've put in closer to the enemy. We're still well in sight, or I'd
have called you earlier."
The motor yacht was now running along abreast of the "Victor," and less
than three hundred yards distant. The steam yacht's lights were in plain
sight, save when occasional puffs of fog obscured them briefly.
Tom groaned with excitement.
"This is going to get heavier," he muttered.
"Yes, sir," nodded Davis. "Still, I didn't believe it necessary to call
you until I had to use the whistle."
Too-whoo-oo-oo! sounded the auto fog-horn, controlled by the sailor on
watch in the pilot-house with the quartermaster.
"You did right, Mr. Davis," the young skipper nodded. "But we're going
to be up against it in half an hour. Where's your extra man of the
watch?"
Davis blew a thrilling blast on his mate's whistle. In answer the third
sailor of the watch came running to the bridge steps.
"My man," called down Halstead, "go at once to Mr. Baldwin's stateroom
door, and tell him, with my compliments, that I believe he'd better come
to the bridge at once."
Even with so imperative a summons as this, five or six minutes passed
before the owner appeared on the scene.
"Good heavens, Captain!" gasped Joseph Baldwin. "And this white curtain
is thickening all the time, isn't it?"
"The fog is beginning to roll in fast, now, sir. Mr. Davis, alter the
course so as to bring us a hundred yards closer to the 'Victor.' We've
got to keep her in sight to the last moment."
"We've got to keep that other boat in sight all the time," retorted Mr.
Baldwin.
"As close as we can go without running her down," Halstead answered.
"We've the rules of the sea to obey, sir, at any cost."
"Go and call Mr. Jephson here," shouted down Mr. Baldwin, to the sailor,
who was still standing by at the port rail.
In another five minutes the representative of the United States district
attorney at San Francisco was beside them on the bridge.
Dick Davis had now manoeuvred the "Panther" in within one hundred and
fifty yards of the "Victor." Closer than that Tom Halstead did not dare
to go. Even this he considered almost too little sea-way.
"May the furies consume the luck!" growled the man of the law. "Yet, of
course, we might have looked for this! It's bound to happen on this
coast. A genuine, four-ply, real old 'Frisco fog reaching out to
encompass us and let those blackguards yonder get away!"
Aboard the other yacht few signs of human life showed. One figure,
wrapped in a great coat and topped by a sou'wester, huddled in the bow.
That was the bow watch of the "Victor." As the light of coming morning
began to filter through the increasing fog, it was possible, now and
then, to make out a figure in the steam yacht's wheel house. A watch
officer tramped the bridge. No other figures appeared. Once the steam
yacht's watch officer looked directly over at his foes, and a cunning
grin illumined his face.
"That's a great face to show above the hangman's noose!" bellowed Mr.
Jephson, angrily, through the megaphone that he snatched up.
Captain Tom suddenly darted from the bridge, running to his cabin. When
he came back he carried a pair of revolvers, one of which he handed to
Dick Davis.
"Mr. Jephson, the fellows on that craft may open fire on us, at any
moment, hoping to make us drop back into the fog. If they do, we'd
better shoot back, eh, sir?"
"If they open fire on us," replied the assistant district attorney,
promptly, "I order Mr. Davis and yourself to return it."
To make matters more emphatic, Mr. Jephson passed the word to have his
two deputy marshals aroused at once and ordered to the deck.
Still, though the day broadened, the fog rolled in so thick and heavy
that the steam yacht, nearby though it was, became more and more
obscured.
Both yachts sounded their fog-horns simultaneously just as a final big,
thick, white blanket of mist rolled in and shut them out of each other's
view.
"Done! Beaten out!" groaned Mr. Jephson, savagely. "It's only a question
of minutes, now, when we shall have lost all trail of that craft on this
hidden waste of water!"
"Only a question of minutes?" repeated Tom Halstead, grimly. "Is it?"