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[Illustration: Both Boys Lurched Backward

_Frontispiece._]




The Motor Boat Club Off Long Island

    OR

    A Daring Marine Game at Racing
    Speed

    By

    H. IRVING HANCOCK

    Author of The Motor Boat Club of the Kennebec,
    The Motor Boat Club at Nantucket
    The Motor Boat Club and the Wireless
    Etc.

    Illustrated

    PHILADELPHIA
    HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY


    COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY HOWARD E. ALTEMUS

    PRINTED IN THE
    UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




CONTENTS


    CHAPTER                                        PAGE
        I. A BREATHLESS MOMENT IN THE FOG             7
       II. A WHIFF OF FORTUNE                        23
      III. THE BUYER OF SOULS                        38
       IV. TOM HALSTEAD’S FIGHT AGAINST ODDS         50
        V. MR. MODDRIDGE’S NERVES CUT LOOSE          59
       VI. THE SIGN OF MISCHIEF                      65
      VII. WORKING OUT THE PUZZLE                    74
     VIII. THE DASHING STERN CHASE                   86
       IX. PLAYING A SAILOR’S TRICK                  95
        X. THE MONEY STORM BREAKS LOOSE             106
       XI. TOM HALSTEAD’S QUICK WIT AT WORK         120
      XII. GOING STRAIGHT TO HEADQUARTERS           129
     XIII. STEALING A SWIFT MARCH                   137
      XIV. THE MELTING OF MILLIONS                  151
       XV. THE MASTHEAD GAME                        161
      XVI. “PUTTING UP” A MARINE JOB                170
     XVII. HANK BUTTS DROPS SOMETHING               177
    XVIII. THE JEST THAT BECAME GRIM EARNEST        186
      XIX. THE MOTOR THAT WOULDN’T “MOTE”           194
       XX. THE COUNCIL OF WAR                       205
      XXI. THE BATTLE OF THE DOLLARS                212
     XXII. SPRINGING THE MONEY MINE                 223
    XXIII. “TWO MILLION DOLLARS A POINT”            232
     XXIV. CONCLUSION                               246




The Motor Boat Club Off Long Island




CHAPTER I

A BREATHLESS MOMENT IN THE FOG


CLA-A-ANG! Cla-a-ang!

The “Rocket,” a sixty-foot motor cruiser, her engine slowed down to ten
miles an hour, had just moved out of comparatively clear water into
a thickish bank of fog. The bell, probably on board a sailing craft,
had just been heard for the first time off the starboard bow of the
cruiser, and close at hand.

Joe Dawson, forward lookout on the “Rocket,” leaned ahead, framing his
mouth with his hands as he shouted:

“Ahoy, there! Keep to your own port, captain!”

Cla-a-ang! Cla-a-ang!

The sound of the bell was appallingly nearer, now, seemingly almost
upon the motor boat.

Captain Tom Halstead, at the “Rocket’s” wheel, abaft of midship,
sounded a shrill warning from his craft’s auto whistle.

Too-oot!

At the same time Halstead threw his own wheel over to go to port of the
bell-ringing stranger.

It was a fog that seemed to grow denser with every foot of headway. The
water at the hull alongside was barely visible.

Then through the mist ahead shot the tip of a bowsprit. Despite the
signals, or through misunderstanding them, the sailing vessel was
keeping to her course. She was due either to ram the “Rocket,” or to be
rammed by that agile little cruising craft.

There was but one thing to do—to reverse the engine with lightning
speed. The engine controls lay convenient to the young skipper’s
hand and feet as he stood by the wheel. He was just reaching for the
reversing lever, in fact, when, from well aft sounded another boy’s
warning:

“Racing craft about to ram your port quarter, captain!”

While, from one of the two men passengers rose an almost despairing
shriek:

“I can’t stand this sort of thing. I’d sooner jump overboard!”

Captain Tom, however, without betraying any excitement, sprang so
that he could easily glance astern. Instead of the reversing gear, he
grabbed for the speed ahead. One glance aft showed him a long, narrow
motor craft diving out of the fog. To reverse would mean a collision
with the motor boat; to go ahead would mean a smash against the sailing
craft. Whatever was to be done had to be thought out at electric speed,
all in a second.

Tom’s judgment was for speed ahead. In that sudden emergency he
increased the fog speed greatly, at the same time throwing his wheel
over as far as it would go.

Thus he escaped a violent meeting with the racing craft, but ranged up
alongside of the sailing vessel, a schooner that now appeared dimly, in
an almost ghostly light, her rail, soon parallel with the “Rocket’s,”
being only a few yards away.

“You lobster smack!” cried Joe, contemptuously. “Why do you ship
lubbers for officers?”

The stupid handling that the sailing craft had displayed was enough to
rouse anger in the mind of anyone endangered by the gross carelessness.

“Get out, you floating oil-stove!” came back, sullenly, from the
sailing craft’s quarter deck. “Your gasoline dories ought to be
confined to duck ponds.”

Joe grinned. His wrath was easily dissipated at any time. Anyway,
young Captain Halstead, swiftly wearing away to port and again slowing
down the speed, put an end to conversation with the stranger.

In this manœuvre the unknown racing motor craft had, of course, been
given ample room, and was doubtless well out of reach by this time. But
Jed Prentiss, his face still a trifle white, stood on the same spot on
the after deck from which he had sounded warning of the swift, narrow
boat’s coming.

“Now, Moddridge,” urged a heavy, easy, persuasive voice, “get a grip on
yourself and be a man. You see for yourself how easily our new skipper
carries himself and the boat in a tight squeeze.”

“But my dear Delavan,” protested the one addressed as Moddridge, “I
simply can’t stand this sort of thing. My nerves——”

“Your nerves have always been the master of a fool slave,” retorted Mr.
Delavan, good humoredly. “Come, be born again, and rule your nerves and
your wits.”

“That scooter acted like a regular pirate,” uttered Jed Prentiss, under
his breath. “Rushing over the old ocean, and never a sound from her
whistle or bell!”

Mr. Francis Delavan, owner of the “Rocket,” tall, broad-shouldered,
rosy-cheeked and athletic looking despite his fifty years, stepped
across the short after deck, going up the short flight of steps at
starboard and posting himself on the bridge deck beside Skipper Tom.

“What’s your speed now, captain?” inquired the owner.

“Slowed down to six, sir,” replied young Halstead, punctuating his
reply by sounding the auto whistle.

“That’s a wise speed, captain,” nodded the owner. “I haven’t been in as
thick a fog as this all season.”

“Are you going to stay here a little while, sir?” queried Tom.

“Why? Anything I can do for you?”

“You might sound the whistle, every thirty seconds, sir, if you will.
That will give me a much better chance to pay heed to the lookouts.”

“All right, captain,” laughed the owner, drawing out a handsome watch.
“If I make the intervals forty, instead of thirty seconds, put me in
irons as soon as you like.”

Captain Tom smiled, but made no other reply. All the young sailing
master’s attention was centered on the work in hand. There is nothing
at all like play about handling a sixty-foot craft in such a fog. As
the incident just closed had shown, there are other lives than those
of one’s own sailing party that are at stake in a possible collision in
the fog.

“Are you going to try to keep out in this fog, sir?” asked Halstead,
some two minutes later.

“Yes,” came the owner’s decisive answer. “Though Moddridge doesn’t
appear to think so, it is well worth while to risk big stakes on a
meeting with the big ‘Kaiser Wilhelm.’ It may be worth a small fortune
to me.”

“There are times when money doesn’t mean much to me,” put in Eben
Moddridge, who had followed his friend up to the bridge deck, which, on
the “Rocket,” instead of being forward, was somewhat abaft of amidships.

Moddridge was a pale, thin, hollow-cheeked, nervous looking man of
forty, and of a height of five feet four. Not much to look at was Mr.
Moddridge, yet, in his own way, he was a good deal of a power in Wall
Street.

“Moddridge,” retorted the owner, firmly, “this is a time when you can
do only one useful thing. Go below and turn in. I’ll wake you when the
fog has lifted.”

“What? I lie down?” demanded Eben Moddridge, in a startled voice. “And
then very likely go down to the fishes without ever waking up?”

“We haven’t that kind of a captain, now,” replied Mr. Delavan, easily.
“You just saw how easily he pulled the ‘Rocket’ out of a dangerous
trap. If Captain Bill Hartley had stood in Halstead’s place we’d have
been smashed fore and aft.”

“Hartley was an excellent skipper,” retorted Moddridge, peevishly.
“He was a most careful man. He never would have gone into a fog. He
wouldn’t take a chance of being wrecked.”

“That was why I had to get rid of him, Eben,” retorted Mr. Delavan.
“Hartley was an old maid, who never ought to have tried to follow the
sea. If it looked like rain he’d run for harbor and drop anchor.”

“A very wise and careful sailing master,” insisted Mr. Moddridge.

“Yes; Hartley had nerves to pretty near match your own,” mocked Mr.
Delavan. “But he wasn’t the kind of man for the kind of work we have
in hand nowadays. And now, Moddridge, I know that your talk, and mine,
is bothering Captain Halstead. Go down aft again, and don’t bother the
lookout by talking to him. Be a good fellow.”

Muttering, and with many shakings of the head, the smaller man obeyed.
He would try to be brave, but nothing could conceal from Eben Moddridge
the certainty that they were shortly to be sunk.

“The ‘Kaiser’ could slip in by us easily, in this mean fog,” declared
Mr. Delavan.

“Not if she keeps to her usual course on this part of the trip,”
Halstead answered. “She’d be in these waters in passing, and we haven’t
heard any fog-whistle heavy enough to come from a craft of that size.”

All these minutes the owner, who possessed the faculty of keeping his
mind on two things at once, had not forgotten to sound the auto whistle
at regular intervals.

“I think, sir,” Tom spoke presently, “I had better keep to mere headway
now.”

“Do so, if that’s your best judgment,” nodded Francis Delavan. “But
remember, captain, that to-day’s game is one that has to be played in
earnest.”

“We won’t miss the ‘Kaiser Wilhelm,’ if she comes in soon, and follows
her usual course,” Halstead answered.

Though Tom still kept one hand on the wheel, the “Rocket” seemed almost
to rest motionless on the gentle swell.

It was an August day. The motor craft, a handsome sixty-foot affair of
racing build and with powerful engines, lay on the light, fog-covered
swell some twelve miles nearly due south of Shinnecock Bay on the
southern coast of Long Island.

Readers of former narratives in this series will remember how Mr.
Prescott, a Boston broker, organized the Motor Boat Club among the
sea-trained boys at the mouth of the Kennebec River, in Maine.

Tom Halstead was fleet captain of the Club, and Joe Dawson the fleet
engineer. They were the two most skilled members.

Readers will also remember how these two sixteen-year-old handlers of
motor boats were sent by Mr. Prescott to enter the sea-going service of
Horace Dunstan, a wealthy resident of the island of Nantucket, south of
Cape Cod. It will be remembered how Tom Halstead and Joe Dawson, with
Jed Prentiss, a Nantucket boy, as comrade, went through a series of
dangerous yet exhilarating adventures which resulted in the detection
and capture by the United States authorities of a crew of filibusters
who were attempting to smuggle out of the country arms and ammunition
intended for revolutionists in the republic of Honduras. It was while
at Nantucket that these three members of the Motor Boat Club had also,
after going through a maze of search and adventure, discovered the
missing Dunstan heir and insured to the latter a great inheritance that
Master Ted Dunstan had been upon the point of losing.

And now we find the same three young Americans aboard the “Rocket,”
a somewhat larger craft than either of the others that Captain Tom
Halstead had handled. It will not take long to account for the presence
of the trio aboard this craft in Long Island waters.

The “Meteor,” Horace Dunstan’s boat at Nantucket, was now in charge of
two Nantucket boys for whom Jed had secured membership in the Motor
Boat Club. This was the first day for Tom, Joe and Jed aboard the
“Rocket.”

Francis Delavan, the owner, was one of the men who make the History of
Money in Wall Street. Besides being a daring operator there Delavan
was also the president of and a big stockholder in the Portchester and
Youngstown Railroad, more commonly known as the P. & Y. Now, the P. &
Y., while one of the smaller railroads of the country, was, on account
of its connections, a property of considerable value.

Mr. Delavan was not one of the multi-millionaires who keep palatial
summer homes on the south side of Long Island. Just at present he
contented himself with a suite of rooms at the Eagle House in East
Hampton, spending some days of every week in New York City.

The “Rocket’s” former captain, Hartley, was entirely too timorous
and cautious a master to suit an owner who loved a spice of danger
and adventure on the salt water. So Mr. Delavan had felt obliged to
let Captain Hartley go. Griggs, the former engineer, had not been
over-brave, either. Griggs had had trouble with a rough character on
shore, and, upon being threatened by him with serious bodily harm, had
promptly deserted his post on the “Rocket,” going to parts unknown.

Thus, at the time when the “Rocket” was laid up, and yet most urgently
needed by her owner, Mr. Delavan had met his friend Mr. Prescott in
New York. What followed was that Tom, Joe and Jed had been wired to
leave Nantucket, if convenient for Mr. Dunstan, and proceed at once to
Shinnecock Bay. As two young friends of Jed’s had been trained well
enough to be able to handle the “Meteor” satisfactorily, Tom, Joe and
Jed had traveled to Long Island with all speed. This was their first
forenoon aboard the “Rocket,” and it was destined to prove a lively one.

All three were in their natty, sea-going, brass-buttoned blue uniforms
of the Motor Boat Club. Each wore an officer’s visored cap. Jed, when
serving as steward, changed his blue to white duck, but he also served
frequently in engine room or on deck.

Just now, as fore and aft lookouts were needed, and as the big motor
was running smoothly, control of the engine was managed through the
deck-gear near the steering wheel.

For another half-hour the “Rocket” barely moved over the water, though
now her nose was pointed east, in the track of in-coming steamships.
Mr. Moddridge had quieted down enough to stretch himself in one of the
wicker chairs on the low after deck, where he chewed nervously at the
end of a mild cigar that was seldom lighted. In this time no other
craft came near them, or, if it did, failed to sound fog signals.

And now the fog was lifting slowly. The lookouts were able to see over
the waters for a distance of some two hundred feet at least.

“A morning fog, in August, off the Long Island coast, isn’t likely to
last long,” said Mr. Delavan. “In half an hour more you may be able to
see the horizon on every side.”

“I hope so,” nodded Captain Tom. “Fog has few delights for the sailor.
Without fog we could make out a huge craft like the ‘Kaiser’ at a great
distance. Listen, sir! Did you hear that?”

Again the sound came, though faintly, from far away.

Whoo-oo-oo! whoo-oo-oo! It was a hoarse, deep-throated, powerful blast
on a fog-whistle.

“That comes from some big craft, sir; as like as not the ‘Kaiser
Wilhelm der Grosse.’”

“Have you ever seen that steamship?”

“No, sir; but I’ve studied her pictures. I think I’d know her if I saw
her.”

“I’m hoping and praying that you do see her this day,” rejoined Mr.
Delavan. “I’ve a pretty big barrel of money at stake on seeing that
steamship. Well, she isn’t in sight now, so I’m going below to get some
cigars.”

His easy manner was in sharp contrast to the fidgeting nervousness of
Eben Moddridge. As soon as the owner had vanished into the cabin the
nervous one almost trotted up onto the bridge deck.

“You haven’t any means of knowing, for a certainty, that that is the
‘Kaiser Wilhelm’?” asked Mr. Moddridge, sharply.

“No, sir; I can only hope that it is,” Captain Tom responded.

“I hope it’s the ‘Kaiser’; I hope it is, I hope it is,” cried Mr.
Moddridge. As further evidence of the excited state of his mind that
gentleman commenced to pace the bridge deck, from side to side, with
quick, agitated steps.

“Wonder why on earth both are so eager for a glimpse of one of the
biggest passenger ships afloat?” wondered Halstead, attending, now, to
the whistle at two-minute intervals, as well as steering. “But, pshaw!
It’s none of my business why the owner and his friend want or don’t
want things. That’s their own affair. Stick to your wheel and your
other duties, Tom, old fellow!”

Yet, though Halstead honestly tried to drive the matter out of his
mind, it was human nature that he should still wonder and catch himself
making all sorts of guesses. The words “a fortune” exert a strong magic
over most human minds. Tom had heard the owner declare that a fortune
hung in the balance on this day’s work.

“Well, if there is any fortune at stake on my giving these gentlemen
a glimpse of the ‘Kaiser Wilhelm,’” Halstead told himself, “it’s my
sole business to see that I give them the look-across at the big ship.
That’s all I need to know.”

Whatever large steam craft it was that was sounding the fog-horn
slightly south of a due east line from the “Rocket,” she was coming
nearer with every minute. The increase in the volume of sound told that
much.

“How are we making the stranger, Halstead?” inquired Mr. Delavan,
returning to the bridge deck, a lighted cigar between his teeth. He
dropped into a comfortable arm-chair.

“She’s coming nearer, sir, and we can see for three or four hundred
feet, now, in every direction. There’s but a slight chance of the
vessel getting by us.”

“What ails you, Moddridge?” demanded Mr. Delavan, turning and gazing
wonderingly at his friend.

“I’m nervous, of course,” returned that gentleman.

“Pshaw! Sit down and let your nerves rest.”

“But I can’t!”

“Stand up, then,” pursued Mr. Delavan, coolly. “But you’re tiring
yourself out, Moddridge, with that jerky gait over such a short course.”

“Delavan, have you no mind, no nerves?” cried Moddridge, raspingly.
“When you stop to think of the great amounts of money that are at
stake. When you——”

Eben Moddridge paused, out of breath.

“Well?” insisted Mr. Delavan, placidly.

“Oh, pshaw!” snapped the nervous one. “There’s no use in talking to
you, or trying to make you understand. You’ve no imagination.”

“For which I’m very thankful,” responded the owner, blowing out a cloud
of smoke.

The fog was lifting more and more, the sun’s rays trying to pierce what
was left of the haze.

“You may as well come in, lookouts,” hailed Captain Tom.

“Jed, if you’re through with deck duty,” called Mr. Delavan, “suppose
you begin to think of getting lunch.”

“All right, sir,” Prentiss answered, and disappeared.

“Oh, Delavan, man,” groaned Mr. Moddridge, “how on earth can you talk
about eating when everything lies at stake as it does?”

“Why, after I get the word,” rejoined the owner, “I shall be hungry
enough to eat—anything.”

“But what if the news be of the worst kind?”

“Let us hope it won’t be, Moddridge.”

“Yet, if it is? You don’t mean to say, Delavan, that you could think of
eating _then_?”

“Confound you, man,” drawled Mr. Delavan. “What do you think my stomach
knows about news?”

The sounding of the fog-horn had died out some minutes ago, as the
vanishing fog rolled further and further away. And now, Tom, gazing
keenly ahead, saw a big black hull rapidly emerge out of a bank of fog
more than a mile away. He looked sharply for a few seconds. Then—

“Gentlemen,” announced the young skipper, pointing, “that craft over to
the eastward is, I think, the ‘Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse.’”




CHAPTER II

A WHIFF OF FORTUNE


MR. DELAVAN immediately raised a pair of marine glasses to his eyes,
taking a long, careful look at the great hull.

“Yes; that’s the ‘Kaiser,’” he agreed.

“There’s a smaller craft, astern, that may interest you also, sir,”
reported Jed, from the after deck.

Mr. Delavan turned quickly, though not with such a start as did his
friend, Moddridge.

Astern, or, rather, over the port quarter, appeared a long, narrow
racing hull. It was evidently the same motor craft that had so nearly
rammed them in the deep fog.

“Confound that hoodoo boat,” muttered Mr. Delavan, in a low tone, to
his companion. “I’d give quite a bit to know who are aboard that craft.”

“S-s-so would I,” stammered Moddridge. “It looks queer. Whoever they
are, they’re dogging us, of course.”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” returned Delavan, musingly.

“Shall I keep to the same course, sir?” asked Captain Tom, as soon as
his employer looked around.

“Why, now, I’ll tell you what I want you to do, captain,” answered the
owner. “Run out towards the ‘Kaiser,’ though you needn’t be at pains to
make it too plain that you’re seeking the big ship. After you get the
‘Rocket’ somewhat near, take a wide, sweeping turn to landward of the
big craft. Run fairly near, keeping your port hull about parallel with
the ‘Kaiser’s’ starboard. Run alongside for a little distance, until
your orders are changed. Moddridge and I are going down into the cabin,
to take our stations at port-holes. Prentiss will stand by the cabin
doorway to pass up, in a low voice, any orders that I may give him for
you. Is that all clear, captain?”

“Quite clear, sir.”

“Then come below, Moddridge,” continued the owner, turning to his
friend. “And for goodness’ sake, man, if you can, behave differently.
Don’t let your legs shake so under you.”

“I c-c-can’t help it,” stammered the smaller man, nervously.

“You’re not going to the hangman, man!” laughed Mr. Delavan, jovially,
as he led the way below.

“I reckon I’d better drop down into the engine room for signals, hadn’t
I?” proposed Dawson. Tom nodded, and his chum vanished, though his
head soon reappeared, framed in the engine room hatchway. The beauty
of a gasoline motor engine is that when all is running smoothly and
no signals from the bridge are to be expected, the engineer may spend
much of his time up on deck. On the bridge deck, near the wheel, are
“controls” by means of which the helmsman can change the speeds, stop
or reverse at will.

As Captain Tom headed in the direction ordered he heard Jed reporting
to the owner that the long racing boat astern did not appear to be
making any efforts to overtake the “Rocket” or to reach the “Kaiser
Wilhelm.” Instead, the racing boat seemed to be playing wholly a
waiting game. This racing craft was about thirty-two to thirty-five
feet long. She was not fitted for cruising, but only for fast spurts.
She had, instead of a cabin, a deck-over hood forward that protected
her engine and galley from the spray.

The “Kaiser Wilhelm” being one of the swiftest of the ocean grayhounds,
and the “Rocket” now making at least sixteen miles an hour, it was not
long before young Halstead was ready to carry out the second part of
his sailing orders.

He steered the “Rocket” so that she made a wide sweep around, then
came up parallel with the big ocean steamship. There was about four
hundred feet of water between the big hull and the little one as the
two craft ran along parallel.

Tom yanked the bell-pull for more speed. This Joe provided, looking
up once in a while to make sure that he was keeping up with the swift
“Kaiser Wilhelm.”

“Ask Mr. Delavan if we’re running all right, Jed,” requested the young
captain.

“Yes,” nodded Jed, after repeating the message without moving.

The big steamship’s deck was covered with passengers, most of them
crowding fairly close to the starboard rail. It was plain that the
voyagers felt some curiosity regarding this dapper, trim little
cruising craft that kept so handily along with the racing grayhound.

There was a great fluttering of handkerchiefs, which Tom acknowledged
by several short blasts on the auto whistle. The “Kaiser’s” heavy
whistle responded.

“That’s all. Mr. Delavan says to head about for East Hampton,” Jed
reported.

With a parting toot from the whistle, Halstead altered the course.

“Make your best speed, captain,” was the next order young Prentiss
transmitted.

So it was not long before the “Kaiser” and the “Rocket” were some miles
apart. Mr. Delavan came on deck, smiling. Tom tried not to wonder,
though he could not help guessing what the Wall Street magnate could
have accomplished by means of this brief, eventless cruise alongside
the larger vessel.

But Mr. Moddridge! His face was positively wreathed in smiles. All his
fears seemed to have vanished. The smaller man was still nervous, but
it was the agitation of intense joy.

“It’s all right, Halstead,” beamed Mr. Delavan.

“I suppose it must be, sir,” smiled the youthful skipper.

“You’re puzzled, aren’t you, lad?”

“Why, I’m trying not to be, as, of course, it’s none of my business.”

“Of course it isn’t,” laughed Mr. Moddridge, uneasily. “But what
wouldn’t he give to know, Delavan?”

“Why, I can give you a hint or two,” smiled the big, good-natured man.

“Don’t you say anything,” protested Moddridge, paling.

“Nonsense,” laughed Mr. Delavan. “Halstead, did you notice one
man who stood at the rail of the big craft? A man tall and very
broad-shouldered, a man of seventy, with considerable of a stoop, but
with the nose and eyes that make one think of an eagle? His clothes
fitted him loosely. He isn’t what you’d call a man of fashion, but a
man whom, once you saw him, you’d never forget.”

“And at his right hand stood a man who looked like a clergyman?”
inquired Halstead.

“I see you marked the man. Do you know who he is?”

“No, sir, though I’m sure I’ve seen his portrait in the newspapers.”

“H’m! I guess you have,” chuckled Mr. Delavan. “Well, that’s Gordon,
the great man in the steel world, the colossal banker, the man who
lends nations money.”

“You didn’t make this trip just to make sure that he was aboard?” Tom
hazarded.

“Of course not, captain. I had that information days ago, by cable. But
Gordon has been doing big things abroad, things that will rouse the
world’s market and shake fortunes up or down. By to-morrow morning Wall
Street will be seething, just on guesses as to what Gordon has done in
Paris and what speculations he’ll make, now that he has returned.”

“Delavan!” cried Moddridge, sharply. “I protest. Not another word.”

“Nonsense!” retorted the big man, cheerily. “Halstead, whoever makes
the right guess as to what big money deals Gordon has arranged abroad
can make barrels of money in Wall Street during the next two or three
days. Those who guess wrong will lose their money. Money will be made,
and money will be lost in Wall Street, during the next few days—all on
guessing which way Gordon’s cat jumped in Paris.”

“And all the while no one will _know_, except Mr. Gordon himself?”
smiled Tom Halstead.

“That’s the point,” chuckled Francis Delavan, contentedly.

“S-s-stop!” cried Moddridge, warningly. But his large friend,
disregarding him utterly, continued:

“On that same ship a man came over whom Moddridge and I trust. Our man
has a great knack for drawing people out. It was his task to talk with
Gordon at every good opportunity, and to get from the great man some
indication as to the real news. Our man was paid by us, and paid well,
but he also gets a substantial share of the profits we hope to make.
He has made every effort to get a tip from Gordon, and it was that
information that our man, by two or three simple movements, signaled to
us.”

“And now I suppose you’re going to unbosom yourself, and tell this
young boat-handler just what our information is?” groaned Eben
Moddridge.

“No, I am not,” grinned Mr. Delavan. “I don’t believe Halstead even
cares a straw about knowing. If he had our information he isn’t the
sort of lad who’d venture his little savings in the vortex of Wall
Street speculation.”

“Thank you. You’ve gauged me rightly, sir,” laughed Halstead.

“But now you can guess why I’m so anxious to reach East Hampton just as
early as you can possibly get us in,” continued Mr. Delavan. “I have
a long distance telephone wire of the main trunk line, all the way to
offices in New York, reserved for my instant use. One minute after I
reach the telephone booth my orders will be known by my secret agents
in New York. To-morrow morning Wall Street will seethe and boil over
Gordon’s return, but my agents—our agents, for Moddridge is in it—will
have their orders in time to do an hour or two of effective work before
the Stock Exchange closes this afternoon. Now, you understand, captain,
why I want to crowd on every fraction of speed to reach East Hampton.”

“Joe Dawson is working the motor for every bit of speed,” Captain Tom
replied, quietly.

Moddridge, plucking at his friend’s sleeve, drew him aside to whisper:

“No matter how well you may like the boy, Delavan, you had no business
to tell him all that you did.”

“Nonsense,” replied the owner, in a voice loud enough to reach the
young skipper’s ears. “Prescott knows this young chap like a book.
Prescott assured me that there isn’t a tighter-mouthed, or more loyal,
dependable young fellow in the world. When a young man is sailing your
boat on rush business he should have some idea of what he’s doing and
why he’s doing it.”

The “Rocket” was now going at a full twenty-five miles an hour, her
powerful, compact engine fairly throbbing with the work. While the boat
might have been pushed two miles an hour faster, Dawson did not think
it wise to attempt it except for life and death business.

The racing boat that they had noted astern was now somewhat ahead.
This craft now turned, came back at rushing speed, circled about the
“Rocket” in safe seaway, then started ahead again.

“Confound that boat,” grumbled Mr. Delavan, staring hard at the
decked-over hood, “I’d like to know whether the people I suspect are
hidden under that hood.”

“Looks as though the boat meant to follow us into East Hampton, doesn’t
it, sir?” Halstead conjectured.

“I may as well tell you, Halstead——”

“Delavan! _Can’t_ you be silent?” groaned Moddridge.

“I may as well tell you,” resumed the easygoing owner, “that the boat
ahead probably carries, concealed, two daring Wall Street operators, or
their spies, who, at any cost, want the very information that Moddridge
and I possess. They must have watched our approach to the ‘Kaiser’
through a glass, and now they’ve sped close to us in the effort to see
whether they could guess anything from our faces. Their next moves will
be to keep with us going in, and even to attempt to overhear what we
may telephone to New York.”

“They’d rather steal your news than get their own honestly, would
they?” muttered Halstead. “A good many people are like that about
everything, I guess.”

The racing craft had gained at least a quarter of a mile in the race
for East Hampton. Jed had just gone below to spread lunch for the owner
and guest when the racing boat was seen to be slowing down. It was not
long before she lay almost motionless on the rolling surface of the
ocean.

“What’s that they’re doing?” cried Mr. Delavan, as the watchers saw a
piece of bunting flutter up to the head of the single short mast of the
racing craft.

“The United States flag, field down,” replied keen-eyed Halstead.

“The signal of distress?”

“Yes, sir.”

Francis Delavan’s round, good-humored face betrayed instant signs of
uneasiness, mingled with disgust.

“Captain Halstead, do we have to heed that signal?” he demanded. “That
is, are we _obliged_ to pay heed?”

“The laws of the ocean compel us to go close and hail her,” replied
Tom, altering the “Rocket’s” course slightly, so as to run near the
motionless boat.

“It’s a trick,” grumbled Mr. Delavan. “They’ll claim that their engine
has broken down. They’ll want to demand a tow.”

“Do you want us to extend any help?” Tom inquired.

“Not unless we’re obliged to. But, of course, captain, neither you nor
I can flagrantly defy the laws of navigation.”

“Luncheon is ready, gentlemen,” called Jed, from the deck below.

“Oh, bother luncheon!” muttered Moddridge.

“Not so, my dear fellow,” retorted Delavan, his old, easy manner
returning. “We have much work to do, my dear fellow, and we must keep
our furnaces running. Luncheon is the best of ideas. Come along.
Captain, I look to you to guard my interests.”

Just as the “Rocket,” her speed lessened, ran up close to the racing
craft, Mr. Delavan disappeared into the cabin, almost dragging his
friend and guest after him.

In the cockpit of the speed boat appeared only two men, both of a
rough, seafaring type, clad in oilskins and sou’westers. There might,
however, be several other men concealed around the motor under the
decked-over hood.

“Boat ahoy!” hailed Captain Tom, running fairly close, then stopping
speed and reversing for a moment. “What’s the cause of your signal?”

“Engine broken down,” responded one of the men aboard the other boat.

“Well, you’re in no danger,” was Captain Halstead’s smiling answer.
“You’re riding on a smooth sea.”

“But we can’t stay out here on the open ocean,” came the reply across
the water. “You’re the only other craft near enough to help. We ask you
to tow us into port.”

“We’re in a hurry,” replied Halstead. “Really, we can’t spare the
speed.”

“But we’re in distress,” argued the man in the other boat. “We ask you
for a tow that you’re quite able to give. What’s the answer?”

“_That_,” retorted Skipper Tom. He pointed at the mast of the
“disabled” craft, to which was rigged a small, furled mainsail. “The
wind is right, and you can easily make port, even under a small spread
of canvas. You’re not in actual distress, and we _are_ in haste.
Good-bye!”

Joe’s grinning face appeared at the engine room hatchway for a moment,
though it vanished below as the half-speed ahead bell rang. The
“Rocket” forged ahead, followed by ugly words from the racing craft.

“Neatly done, Halstead,” greeted the voice of Mr. Delavan, as that
gentleman, holding a napkin, appeared at the cabin door below for an
instant. “I heard it all.”

“If that fellow hadn’t had his canvas rigged we might have had to stand
by him,” replied Halstead.

A few minutes later it was seen that the racing craft was coming in
slowly, under that small sail. It looked probable, then, that the break
in her engine had been genuine.

Going at full speed, the “Rocket” was not long in making Shinnecock
Bay. Soon afterward the young captain ran his craft in at a pier, on
which stood a waiting automobile.

“I’ll be back for the rest of my lunch soon, steward,” announced the
owner, stepping ashore. He entered the automobile, and was whirled
away through the streets of East Hampton. Mr. Moddridge remained in the
cabin, though he played nervously with knife and fork, eating little.

In fifteen minutes Francis Delavan returned, walking lazily from the
touring car to the deck of his boat, his face expressive, now, of
indolent content.

“Take us out a little way, captain,” requested the owner. “We want some
good, cool sea air in which to finish the meal, eh, Moddridge?”

“I—I’m too excited to eat,” protested the smaller man. “Tell me, is
everything all right at the New York end?”

“Oh, yes, I fancy so,” drawled the owner. “Steward, some more of that
excellent salad, if you please.”

As Captain Tom slipped his craft out of Shinnecock Bay once more they
made out the mysterious speed boat, still under sail and at a distance,
making slowly for the Long Island coast.

“Whatever those fellows have guessed at or discovered,” chuckled Mr.
Delavan, glancing at the other boat and then at his watch, as he came
on deck, “they can’t hope to reach a telephone in time to catch the
Stock Exchange open to-day. Good! Prentiss, come up here. Call Dawson
aft if he can leave his engine.”

As the little group met near the wheel Francis Delavan drew out a
pocket-book, which he opened.

“Young gentlemen,” he observed, “I believe Moddridge and I have been
able to play a most important game in the money world to-day. That
was largely through the bright services of my new crew aboard the
‘Rocket.’ Accept this card, each of you, as a little indication of my
appreciation.”

The “card” that was held out to each was a twenty-dollar bill. Halstead
glanced at it hesitatingly, while his two comrades looked at him.

“Don’t be backward,” urged Mr. Delavan, good-humoredly. “This sort of
thing doesn’t happen every day. You’ve really earned it to-day, and my
luncheon will set better if you take the money.”

“Thank you,” said Tom, in a low voice. “But we’re under regular
salaries to serve your interests, Mr. Delavan.”

It was a little whiff from the gale of fortune that the two Wall Street
men believed had blown their way this day.




CHAPTER III

THE BUYER OF SOULS


WHEN the “Rocket” was tied up at her pier at East Hampton, at a little
before four o’clock that afternoon, and while Tom and Jed were still
busy at the hawsers, the owner and his guest slipped away.

“No orders for the rest of the day, or to-morrow,” remarked Halstead,
as soon as he realized the fact. “Oh, well, the orders will probably
come down later on. We’ve enough to keep us busy for a while, anyway.”

There is, in fact, always enough to be done aboard a good-sized motor
cruiser when the crew have her in at her berth. There is the engine
to be gone over, deck and steering tackle to be inspected and perhaps
repaired, the searchlight and signal lanterns to be taken care of,
and a hundred other routine duties. The steward has his hands full of
“housekeeping” affairs.

“I don’t see that speed boat in anywhere,” commented Jed, looking over
the harbor.

“She must put up at some other point of the Bay,” Tom replied. “Well,
the game of her people was beaten to-day, so I don’t suppose we shall
have to feel any more concern about the speed boat.”

Never did Tom Halstead make a more erroneous guess. That same speed
boat, as subsequent events will show, was destined to become intensely
involved in the affairs of all aboard the “Rocket.”

At five o’clock Jed began to busy himself, in the galley forward, with
the preparation of such a meal as young appetites, sharpened by the sea
air, demanded. An hour later that meal was ready, and eaten to the last
morsel.

Darkness found Tom and Joe pacing the pier together, while Jed reclined
lazily in one of the wicker deck chairs on the deck aft.

“I really wish Mr. Delavan had given us some hint of to-morrow’s
orders,” muttered Halstead.

“If he wanted to sail early to-morrow I believe he’d have said so,”
replied Joe.

“That might be true enough for most days,” argued Halstead. “But think
what an unusual day this has been for him. His mind is on the biggest
game of a money king’s year.”

“He seemed to take it easily enough,” rejoined Dawson.

“Why, that’s his business mask, Joe. Our new owner is a man who has
made himself successful by not allowing himself to get so rattled that
he gets everyone around him on pin-points. He felt the excitement of
the day’s work well and plenty. Don’t have any hazy ideas about that.”

“But what a fearfully nervous chap little Mr. Moddridge is,” observed
Dawson. “It really makes one begin to stutter, just to look at him when
he’s worried.”

“Joe,” announced the young skipper, after a look at his watch, “if you
and Jed will stay with the boat I’m going to run up to the hotel, just
to see if there’s any definite word for us.”

“Don’t take the word from Moddridge, then,” laughed Dawson.

The young skipper didn’t hurry; there was no need of that, and the
night, away from the water front, was warm and close. East Hampton is a
busy summer resort, and the streets were thronged with girls in summer
white and holiday mood, a sprinkling of young men, a good many children
and some older people. Not a few turned to gaze after the erect young
sailor, in his natty uniform, as Halstead strolled along taking in the
sights. Tom knew where the Eagle House was, for that was where he and
his mates had first reported to the “Rocket’s” owner. In a few minutes
he stepped into the lobby of that handsome summer hostelry.

“Is Mr. Delavan in?” he asked of a clerk at the office desk.

“Mr. Delavan left about half an hour ago,” was the answer. “He and his
friend went away in an auto, but I think they went only for a short
spin to get the air. If you wish to wait, captain, make yourself at
home here.”

“Thank you,” nodded Tom, courteously. “I believe I will wait.”

Passing out onto the porch the young skipper seated himself near
the railing. Wind, fog and sunshine had all left their impress of
drowsiness on Halstead. Before long he sat with half-closed eyes,
thinking slowly of the events of the day, and wondering not a little
what unusual business it could be that Messrs. Delavan and Moddridge
were pursuing. Back of the young captain men and women were strolling
up and down the veranda in little groups, laughing and chatting.

Half sleepily Tom felt a paper touch against his hand. More or less
instinctively his fingers closed upon it. Then, with something of a
start he sat more upright, bringing that hand from his side to his lap.

It was a single, small sheet, folded once. Opening it, Captain Tom read
these typewritten words:

    As a most important matter of business take a walk at
    once, out over the Bridge Road. Continue walking, perhaps
    for a quarter of a mile, until you are accosted. Remember
    that Fortune rarely knocks at any man’s door. This is your
    opportunity to line your pockets with greenbacks of large
    denominations. Come and meet one who truly enjoys seeing a
    young man prosper, and who will take pleasure in showing you
    how you may soon have a fine bank account. But come at once,
    as your well-wisher’s time is very limited.

“Arabian Nights! Fairy tales!” smiled Captain Tom Halstead, showing his
teeth. “Who is putting this up on me, and what is the joke, I wonder?”

He was about to toss away the piece of paper, after tearing it up, when
a new thought stayed him.

“There may be something real in this,” thought the boy. “Mr. Delavan
and his friend certainly appeared a bit worried over that racing craft.
If there’s anything behind this note Mr. Delavan will want to know what
it’s about, and so shall I.”

Young Captain Halstead was already on his feet, his shrewd, keen
eyes looking over the veranda crowd. Yet he saw no one upon whom he
could settle as a likely suspect. He could only conclude that whoever
had casually slipped the paper into his hand had already purposely
disappeared.

“I believe I’ll accept this invitation to take a walk,” mused the young
skipper. “If there’s anything real behind the note I may as well find
out what it is. If there’s nothing but a hoax in it I’ll be willing to
admit that I snapped at it.”

There was plenty of time to take the walk and be back before Mr.
Delavan’s return was looked for. Asking one of the hotel employes where
to find the Bridge Road, young Captain Halstead set out briskly. Nor
did he have to go far before he came to the bridge that gave the road
its name. A little way past the bridge in question the road became more
lonely. Then Halstead came to the edge of a forest, though a thin one
of rather recent growth.

“I’ll walk on for five minutes, anyway,” decided Captain Tom. “After
that, if nothing happens, it’ll be time to think of turning back.”

“Hist!” That sound came so sharply out of the dark depths that the boy
started, then halted abruptly.

“Halstead! Captain Halstead!” hailed a voice.

“Where are you?” Tom asked, in a louder tone than that which greeted
him.

“You’re Captain Halstead, are you?” insisted a voice, not much above
a whisper, which the young skipper now located in a clump of bushes
between two tall spruce trees.

“Yes; I’m Halstead. Who wants me?”

“Step in this way, please.”

So Tom stepped unhesitatingly from the road, and walked toward the
voice, at the same time demanding:

“Are you the one who handed me a note?”

“Yes, but not quite so loudly, please.”

“Why not?” challenged Halstead, simply.

“Well, because our business is to be—er—well, confidential.”

Tom Halstead found himself standing before a tall, slim, well-dressed
young man. More than that he could not see in the partial darkness, so
the young skipper struck a match and held it up.

“Here,” exclaimed the stranger, hastily, “what are you doing?”

“Trying to get a better idea of you, and whether you are in the least
ashamed of your business with me,” Tom replied, quietly.

The stranger, who proved to be red-haired, stood more quietly, gazing
intently at this composed young motor boat boy.

“Well,” inquired the stranger, at last, and speaking more pleasantly,
“are you satisfied with my appearance?”

“I’ll admit being curious to know what your business with me can be,”
Halstead replied.

“You read my note through?”

“Yes, of course. But that did not tell me your business, or your name,”
Tom answered.

“Oh, I can tell you all about my business with you, in a few minutes,”
the other assured the young skipper.

“And your name, too?”

“Why are you so particular about my name?”

“Why, you see,” smiled Captain Tom, “down in our little country town,
the place where I was raised, we always rather wondered at any man who
seemed ashamed or reluctant to give his name.”

“Oh, I see,” laughed the other. “And, on the whole, captain, I think
your point is rather well taken. So, to begin with, my name is Calvin
Rexford. Now, as to my business, you are willing to make a little money
now, and a great deal more later on, are you not?”

“How much money?” asked Tom Halstead, bluntly.

“Can you guess how much there is here?” inquired Rexford. He took from
one of his pockets and held out a small, compact roll of bills. Tom
coolly struck another match, scanning the roll, and discovering that
there was a twenty-dollar bill on the outside of it.

“There’s five hundred in this little pile,” observed Mr. Rexford.
“Half a thousand dollars. That’s just the starter, you understand. If
you obey certain orders you’ll get another little lump of money like
this. In the end there’ll be a sum big enough for you to live on the
rest of your days. Like the sound of it? And this half thousand goes to
you at once, in return for a promise or two. _Now_, can we undertake
business together?”

Though Captain Tom Halstead’s eyes had momentarily glistened at the
tempting sight of so much money, he now asked, composedly:

“What’s the business?”

“You’re skipper of Francis Delavan’s ‘Rocket,’ aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You expect to continue to hold the position?”

“Probably all through this summer.”

“Then see here, Captain Halstead, all you have to do is to follow
certain orders. One of them, for instance, is, whenever you see another
craft near that hoists a red pennant, crossed diagonally by a single
white stripe, you’re to have something happen to your boat so that you
can’t proceed for some time. You can _make believe_ something happens
to the boat, you know.”

“You’ve got hold of the wrong party, my friend,” answered the young
skipper, as quietly as ever. “The fellow you want is my chum, Joe
Dawson, the ‘Rocket’s’ engineer.”

Rexford looked Tom Halstead over as keenly as was possible in the
darkness.

“Do you mean, captain,” he demanded, finally, “that we’ll have to let
your friend in on this?”

“Of course,” Tom nodded, “if there’s really anything to be done along
the lines you’re describing.”

“What kind of a fellow is this Joe Dawson?”

“Well,” replied Tom, reflectively, “Joe’s hot tempered once in a while.
If you proposed anything to him that he considered crooked, he’d most
likely hit you over the head with a wrench.”

“So you call my offer a crooked one, do you?” insisted Rexford, a
curious note in his voice.

“You’re proposing to buy us out—to pay us to sell out our employer,
aren’t you?” asked Halstead, directly.

“Why, I am trying to show you how you can make a very handsome sum of
money by being accommodating,” said the young man, slowly.

“You’re asking us to sell out our employer and our own sense of honor,
aren’t you?” persisted the young motor boat captain.

“Look here, Halstead, you don’t want to be foolish,” remonstrated
the red-haired one. “I’m willing enough to let your friend into this
matter, and I’ll make it highly profitable for you both. But don’t get
too stiff about it. I’m only making a very handsome offer to buy some
of your interest and time.”

“Oh,” smiled Halstead, quizzically. “Pardon me. I thought you were
trying to buy my soul.”

The irony, however, was wasted on the other. “Well, now you understand
that I’m not,” laughed Rexford, easily. “So we can begin to talk real
business. Let us begin by dropping this money into your pocket.”

He attempted to slip the roll of banknotes into one of the boy’s coat
pockets, but Halstead quickly side-stepped, receiving the proffered
money in his right hand.

“Oh, very well,” laughed Rexford, “do just as you please with the
money. It’s yours, you know.”

“Thank you,” acknowledged the young skipper. Then, before Rexford could
even guess what he meant to do, Tom Halstead swung back his right arm,
bringing his hand up over his shoulder.

“Here, stop that!” quivered Rexford, darting forward and clutching the
young skipper’s arm. But the move was too late, for Captain Tom had
already hurled the compact little mass of banknotes as far as he could
through the forest. On account of Rexford’s sudden movement neither of
them heard the money drop to earth.

“What do you mean by that?” demanded the red-haired one, hoarsely, his
breath coming fast, his eyes gleaming angrily.

“You told me to do as I pleased with the money,” retorted Tom. “So I
got it out of my hands as quickly as possible. I don’t like that kind
of money.”

“Do you mean to say that you throw our business over?” cried Rexford.

“Of course I do,” smiled Tom. “Are you so slow-witted that it cost you
all that money to find it out?”

“Confound you, I’ve a good mind to give you a good beating,” came
tempestuously from the other’s lips.

“Try it,” again smiled Halstead, undauntedly.

“Then we can’t get you on our side?” demanded Rexford, his tone
suddenly changing to one of imploring. Still smiling, Captain Tom shook
his head. There was a quick step in the bushes behind him, and a sturdy
pair of arms wound themselves about the young skipper, while Rexford
leaped at him from in front.

“If we can’t count on Halstead,” declared a new voice, from the rear,
“then we can’t let him get away from us, either—not when there are
millions at stake!”




CHAPTER IV

TOM HALSTEAD’S FIGHT AGAINST ODDS


TOM’S sea-trained muscles could always be relied upon to stand him
in good stead at need. He strove, now, like a young panther, to free
himself. But this was a battle of one boy against two men, and one of
the latter had the boy’s arms wrapped close to his body in a tight
embrace.

There was a short, panting struggle, after which the young skipper was
bent over. He lurched to the earth, face downward, while his yet unseen
assailant fell heavily upon him.

“Fight fair, can’t you?” growled the captain of the “Rocket.”

“This isn’t a fight,” retorted the voice of the newcomer. “It’s a
matter of self-preservation. Lie still, can’t you. I don’t want to have
to club you out of your senses. It isn’t a gentleman’s kind of work.”

“You’re right it isn’t,” gritted Halstead, though he now lay more
quietly, for the auburn-haired Rexford had thrown himself, also, upon
him. “There isn’t anything about this business that smacks of the
gentleman,” the boy added, tauntingly.

“Hold your tongue, will you?” demanded the unknown one, angrily.

“When it pleases me most,” growled Captain Tom, fast getting into an
ugly, reckless mood.

“Rexford, I can hold him,” went on the man. “Station yourself by the
youngster’s head. Go as far as you like, if he tries to make any noise.
Now, young man, I think you would better listen, while _I_ do the
talking. We’re sorry enough to treat you in this fashion, but it’s all
your own fault.”

“How is that?” challenged the youthful skipper.

“We gave you a fine chance to make your fortune. You wouldn’t have it.
Now, if we let you go, you’d spoil all our plans by repeating what has
happened to your employer.”

“Right!” snapped Captain Tom. “That’s just what I’m going to do.”

“Just what you’re _not_ going to do,” retorted the man. “It’ll be many
a day before you’ll see anyone we don’t want you to see.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Halstead, gruffly.

“You’ll find out. Rexford, get out some cord, and we’ll tie this young
Indian up. If he tries to yell, hit him as hard as you like, and after
that we’ll gag him. Remember, Halstead, you’ve got to keep quiet and go
with us. If you behave quietly you won’t be hurt at all. You’ll only
be held for safe keeping for a few weeks. Then you’ll be turned loose,
with a little purse to console you for your present loss of liberty.”

That didn’t sound very dangerous, but the young motor boat skipper was
not one who would tamely submit to any such proposition. Yet he said
nothing as the unknown man rose from his back, to kneel beside him
while Rexford tied his hands.

Just as that shifting was accomplished, however, Tom Halstead rolled
swiftly over on his back. With a cry of anger the man made a swift
movement to bend over the lad. It was an unfortunate move. One of
Halstead’s flying feet caught him squarely in the face. Another kick
was aimed at Rexford, who sprang back out of the danger zone.

“Now I don’t care what you do to the boy!” snarled the unknown, after
venting a groan of pain and raising his hands to his face, which,
however, had not been struck hard enough to mark it. “Sail in, Rexford,
and help me teach the young idiot a lesson.”

But Captain Tom had made brisk use of that moment of freedom. As his
heels struck the earth again he threw his arms and body forward,
leaping to his feet. In the instant he started running.

“Here, you can’t get away—don’t attempt it!” growled the unknown,
bolting after the boy.

Rexford, being at one side, ran so as to head off the young skipper ere
he could reach the road. And Rexford at once showed signs of being a
sprinter.

If either of the pair caught hold of him Tom Halstead knew that capture
would be swift enough. Well ahead of the unknown, Halstead veered
enough to give him another momentary start on Rexford.

Tom darted to a young oak tree, one of whose branches hung low. This
gave an opportunity not to be overlooked at such a moment. Leaping at
the branch, grappling with it with both hands, Halstead drew himself up
with a sailor’s speed and surety. From that he stepped like a flash to
the next higher branch. Now, he grinned down at his enemies.

Rexford and the unknown collided with each other just beside the trunk
of that tree.

“I hope you won’t either of you try to follow me up here,” hinted
Captain Tom, mockingly. “If you do, I shall have to kick one of you in
the face.”

Holding on above him, he swung one foot suggestively. It was not too
dark for the pair below to realize how much bodily risk there would be
in attacking this gritty youngster in his present place of advantage.

“You’re all right up there,” admitted Rexford, coldly. “We can’t come
up after you without getting damaged heads. But, my boy, what is to
hinder us from throwing enough stones up there to make it pretty warm
for you?”

Tom’s grin of confidence suddenly vanished. He had overlooked the
possibility of being dislodged by a volley or two of stones. Had the
field been clear for a six-foot start from his tormentors he would have
felt like taking the chance of leaping down and taking to his heels
once more. But they were right at hand, below. The boy felt himself
trapped.

“Don’t let him get away,” advised Rexford. “I’m going into the road
after a few stones.”

The unknown got even closer to the base of the tree. Rexford, after a
careful look at the relative positions of trapper and trapped, ran out
to the road.

“Who are we? Who are we? C-o-l-b-y! Rah! rah! rah!”

Down the road came volleys of ringing yells, as though from the throats
of a lot of happy savages.

“Rah! rah! rah!”

“College boys, or a lot of young fellows masquerading as such!” flashed
jubilantly through Tom Halstead’s brain.

“Rah! rah! rah! Wow! Right here! Trouble! Hustle!” roared Tom, as
huskily as his lung power permitted.

“Stop that, you infernal imp!” snarled Rexford, leaping back from the
road.

“Colby! Here on the run! Trouble!” roared Halstead at the top of his
voice.

“What’s that? Who’s there?” came a hail from up the road.

Whizz-zz! Thump! A stone, guided by Rexford’s hand, came through the
air, glancing from one of Halstead’s shins.

“Hustle here quick! Follow the voice!” roared Tom.

He ducked his head just in time to avoid a stone propelled at his face
by Rexford.

“Rah! rah! Hold on! We’re coming. Trouble, you say? Colby to the mix-up
and the happy ending!”

“Come, Rexford! We’ve got to sprint,” advised the unknown.

Up the road the sound of charging feet came nearer. Rexford and his
companion sprang into the woods, running as fast as they could go. But
Halstead wisely concluded to remain treed until he beheld more than a
dozen athletic looking young men under the tree. Then he slid to the
ground.

“Did you call ‘trouble’?” demanded one of the newcomers.

“I did,” the young skipper admitted.

“Then hand over the goods! Show us the face of trouble, or take your
punishment as a raiser of false hopes!” insisted the leader of the boys.

“And be quick about it. We haven’t seen any trouble in an hour,”
proclaimed another of the boisterous crowd.

“Come into these woods with me,” begged Halstead. “Scatter and sprint.
There are two men trying to get away—the rascals! If you can find them
for me I’ll try to have them held by the police for assault.”

“What do they look like?”

Halstead gave a quick description of Rexford. Of the unknown one the
young skipper could say only that he was a dark-haired man of thirty,
clad in a gray suit.

The spirit of adventure being upon these young fellows, they scattered,
dashing through the woods on a chance of finding anything that might
look like a scrimmage. Five minutes of strenuous chasing, however,
failed to discover Rexford or his companion, who must have known these
woods well. Then the rah-rah boys, hot and disgusted, came back to the
road.

“See here, young man,” remarked one of their leaders, severely, “you
haven’t been trifling with our young hopes, have you?”

“On my word of honor, no,” Tom replied, earnestly. Then a happy,
somewhat vengeful thought struck him.

“See here, fellows,” he went on, “I know pretty near the spot where a
roll of five hundred dollars lies in the woods yonder. If you can find
it I guess it will be yours, for frolic or dividing, just as you like.”

But that proved an almost dangerous piece of information to offer.

“Five hundred—what?” scowled the leader of the young men.

“We’ve found a crazy boy!” roared another.

“To the asylum with him!”

“No! Drag him along and duck him—that will be enough!”

Whooping, these irresponsible young fellows charged down upon Halstead.
But he knew better than to run. Laughing, he stood his ground.

“Oh, well, if you won’t believe me,” he said, with mock resignation,
“let it go at that. But what are you going to do?”

“Listen, child!” roared the leader of the crowd. “We are pushing
forward for the surprise and capture of East Hampton. Willst go with
us, and witness scenes of military glory?”

“I’m gladly with you for going to town,” replied the young skipper.

“Then come along. Preserve the utmost silence and stealth, all ye, my
brave men,” ordered the leader, leaping out into the road.

“Rah, rah, rah!” they answered him, roaringly, and turned their faces
townward. Tom glad to get out of it all so easily, stepped along with
them.

“What was that about trouble, younker?” one of the supposed college
boys asked Halstead. “Did you think you saw a shadow among the trees?”

“It was a good deal more than a shadow,” insisted Halstead. “I was
attacked by two men.”

Tom’s questioner looked at him searchingly, then replied good-humoredly:

“Oh, well, say no more about it, and I guess the fellows will forget.
It gave us a good excuse for a sprint, anyway.”

To Halstead it looked as though these college boys suspected him of
some hoax, but were good-naturedly willing to overlook the joke on
them. The young skipper was willing to accept the protection of their
boisterous, husky companionship on any terms until safely out of the
woods and over the bridge once more. As he found himself entering the
town again Tom slipped away, unobserved, from the noisy dozen or more.
Two or three minutes later he was back at the hotel.

Inquiry showed that Messrs. Delavan and Moddridge had not yet returned.
Captain Tom again sought a veranda chair, and, sitting down, awaited
their coming.




CHAPTER V

MR. MODDRIDGE’S NERVES CUT LOOSE


UP in Mr. Delavan’s suite of rooms Eben Moddridge paced the floor in
great excitement. For Captain Tom Halstead had just finished his story
of the night’s queer happening.

Francis Delavan, on the other hand, drew slowly, easily, at his cigar,
his outward composure not in the least ruffled.

Yet, at the outset, Moddridge had been the one to doubt the young motor
boat skipper’s strange yarn. Delavan, on the other hand, had believed
it implicitly. At the end the nervous smaller man was also a believer.

“Frank,” declared Eben Moddridge, “this is a simply atrocious state of
affairs. There is a plot against us, and a desperate, well-organized
one.”

“Let them plot, then,” smiled Delavan. “It’s all right, since we are
warned. Yet, Halstead, I’m just a bit disappointed that you didn’t
pretend to fall in with the schemes of your strangers. You would have
learned more of what is planned against us.”

“I don’t believe they intended to tell me anything definite, sir,”
Captain Tom answered, slowly. “They spoke of a signal, on seeing which
I was to pretend that the ‘Rocket’ was disabled and unable to proceed.
I have an idea, Mr. Delavan, that all their other instructions would
have been as vague, as far as real information is concerned.”

“I dare say you are right, my boy,” nodded the “Rocket’s” owner. “You
did best, after all, no doubt. I must confess myself puzzled, though.
Your descriptions of the two men don’t fit any possible enemies that I
can call to mind.”

“They were most likely agents, acting for someone else, don’t you
think, Mr. Delavan?”

“Undoubtedly, captain.”

“Frank,” broke in Eben Moddridge, in a shaking voice, as he halted,
looking the picture of nervous breakdown, “you must engage detectives
instantly.”

“Nonsense, Eben,” retorted his friend.

“Or at least, two or three strong, daring men who will remain with you,
to defend you against any possible attack.”

Mr. Delavan laughed heartily.

“Eben,” he demanded, “what on earth ails you?”

“Oh, I am so nervous!” moaned the other. “I see dangers, horrors, ahead
of us!”

Francis Delavan grinned. Then, noting the ashen-gray look on his
friend’s face, he stepped over, walking with the nervous one and laying
a kindly hand on the other’s shoulder.

“Eben, you always let yourself get unduly excited. What you need, just
now, is a good, sound night’s sleep.”

“Sleep?” shuddered the nervous one. “I couldn’t think of it. My
nerves——”

“You’ve let them cut loose again, Eben, and make life a burden to you.
There’s no need of it.”

“But you know, Frank, the big money deals we’re engaged in. You know
well that some men would give their souls to possess our information,
both that which we have and expect to get.”

“True, perhaps,” admitted Mr. Delavan, nodding. “But the only way they
have tried to reach us is through the bribing of our young captain.
Halstead and his friends can’t be bribed, so the rascals can’t hope to
do anything. I have full faith in our crew.”

“Something terrible is almost certain to happen, just the same,”
insisted Mr. Moddridge, his voice quaking.

“Oh, nonsense, man! Go to sleep. Your nerves need rest.”

“Laugh at me,” muttered Moddridge, his face now showing a sickly smile.
“But the day will come soon, Frank, when you will wish you had listened
to me.”

“But haven’t I listened to you?” inquired Mr. Delavan, with a
mock-injured air. “Eben, are you going to be disappointed because I
won’t let my nerves rule me, too?”

“I wish your nerves did get the upper hand once in a while,” groaned
the smaller man. “Then you’d know what I feel. I tell you, Frank, the
immediate future looks dark—dark!”

Mr. Delavan laughed jovially.

“Something fearfully unfortunate is going to happen,” insisted the man
of nerves.

“Something very unfortunate,” assented Delavan. “We’re going to add
something in the way of millions to our fortunes, and those millions
will have to be looked after. Eben, a rich man’s lot isn’t a happy one,
is it?”

“Happy?” groaned Moddridge. “I should say not.”

“Then I’ll tell you what to do,” proposed Mr. Delavan. “Turn your
miserable fortune over to Halstead, and then sit by to watch him going
to pieces with worry.”

Mr. Moddridge, however, refused to be comforted, or to take a humorous
view of anything.

“Halstead,” said Mr. Delavan, going over and resting a hand on the
young captain’s shoulder, “I don’t expect to need the ‘Rocket’ for any
purpose to-morrow, but I can’t tell definitely yet. Go back on board.
To-morrow keep all hands on board or close by, so that you can take
the boat out if needed. Enjoy yourselves all you can. Eat the best
that you can find aboard. Don’t bother about to-night’s happenings—my
friend, Moddridge, will attend to all of that. If it happens that you,
or Dawson, are approached again by strangers, let them think that you
might be induced to fall in with their plans, after all, and then you
can let me know what follows. Moddridge and I are playing a peculiar
and big game with the money market, and I’ve no doubt that others would
like to steal or bribe their way into it. But I trust you. Good night,
my boy.”

So Captain Tom strolled back to the pier, thinking over a good many
things. As he came in sight of the “Rocket” at her berth he noted that
the only lights showing were one deck light, aft, and the gleam that
came through the port-holes of the crew’s quarters forward. It looked
as though Joe Dawson and Jed Prentiss had turned in for the night, or
were about to do so.

One of the small Shinnecock Bay freight boats lay in at the other side
of the same pier. A good many cases and barrels were piled up, as
though awaiting shipment. Captain Tom stepped over to his own side of
the pier, still thinking intently.

Just as the young skipper turned toward the “Rocket’s” gang-plank a
heavy object came up over one of the freight piles, flying through the
air. Some instinct of danger made young Halstead leap aside. Bump! An
iron hitching weight struck the gang-plank with a bang.

For just an instant Captain Tom stood gazing at that heavy missile
almost in a daze.

“That was aimed at my legs. The intention must have been to cripple
me!” leaped to his lips.

Then, in a lustier voice, he roared:

“Joe! Jed! Tumble out on deck! lively, now!”




CHAPTER VI

THE SIGN OF MISCHIEF


THE next instant after that rousing hail there was a sound of
scrambling below. Halstead did not wait. Turning, he raced around the
end of that pile of freight. He was in time to hear a loud splash in
the water astern of the little freight steamer, though not in time to
see who or what jumped. Then he heard Joe and Jed on the “Rocket’s”
deck.

“Over here, fellows!” he called. “And come quickly!” Then as his two
friends, partly disrobed, rushed to his side, Captain Tom pointed to
the water.

“Someone threw a weight at me,” he explained. “He jumped in. Watch to
see him rise. Jed, you watch from the other side of the pier. Joe, take
the end—and hustle!”

Thus distributed, the crew of the “Rocket” watched and listened for the
rising of Tom Halstead’s recent assailant. Time went by, however, until
it was certain that no human being could any longer remain under water.
Yet no head showed, nor was any being heard making the shore. Then
the two other boys came back to their young leader, who was looking
extremely thoughtful.

“I wonder,” mused Tom, aloud, “whether I’ve had a good one played on
me? You see that weight resting yonder on our gang-plank. That was
thrown at me from behind this pile of freight. After yelling for you
fellows, I rushed over here just in time to hear a splash. And now it
has struck me that some mighty smooth chap may have pitched another
weight into the water, then doubled around the freight and so got
ashore and away.”

“That was the trick, I guess,” nodded Joe Dawson, thoughtfully. “But
what on earth was it all about, anyway, Tom?”

“We’ll take a look over this freight tub first, and then I’ll tell
you,” proposed Halstead, swinging himself on board the little steamer.
But every door and hatchway on that craft had been made fast for the
night, and there appeared to be no one aboard. Then the young skipper
led his friends back to the “Rocket.”

“Now, let’s have the yarn,” begged Jed, who, from being sleepy ten
minutes before, was suddenly very much awake.

After they had seated themselves on the top of the cabin, Halstead, in
low tones, described his brief adventures of the evening.

“Whatever someone’s plan is,” he wound up, earnestly, “it seems to be
a sure thing that they don’t want this boat to keep in commission. That
weight, if I hadn’t jumped, would very likely have broken one of my
legs. So, fellows, do you believe we’ve any right to sleep all hands at
the same time, while tied to this pier?”

“Though I’m soon going to be pretty drowsy,” admitted Joe Dawson, “I
honestly don’t believe we’ve any right to go below without a watch. I’m
ready to stand my share of watch.”

“Me, too,” pledged Jed, ungrammatically.

“Then we’ll divide the night, to six in the morning, into three
watches,” concluded the young motor boat skipper, looking at his
timepiece. “You fellows go below as soon as you like. I’ll take the
first third of the night.”

Joe and Jed were not long in going below, but the former was soon on
deck again.

“Here’s something from the engine room that may come in handy, in case
of need,” hinted Dawson, laying two wrenches on top of the deck-house
beside the young captain. “You can use ’em for clubs, or throw ’em, if
you see anything more’n shadows about.”

Tom Halstead laughed, though he held the wrenches, balancing them and
figuring on what sort of missiles they would make at need.

The night grew late as Captain Tom still watched. Even the lights in
the nearby hotels began to go out. All life on the water had stopped
some time before. Halstead had already brought the weight aboard and
stowed it in the cabin below. He wanted to show it to his employer in
the morning.

Once or twice Halstead thought he heard suspicious sounds near the
pier. Each time, gripping a wrench in his right hand, he went boldly to
investigate. No real sign of a prowler, however, appeared as the time
glided by.

“It’s so quiet I could _almost_ think I had been dreaming things
to-night,” thought Tom, musingly, as he looked out at the few lights
that shone over the water. “We fellows will have to try to keep this
weight-throwing affair from Mr. Moddridge, or the poor fellow will have
another heavy nervous attack. I don’t believe Mr. Delavan will tell
him, if we don’t.”

At two bells past midnight (one o’clock) the young skipper called Jed
on deck, then turned in. The crew’s quarters on the “Rocket” consisted
of two tiny staterooms, each containing two berths, and little else.
Tom and Joe berthed together. Joe was breathing soundly, in deepest
sleep, when Halstead turned in. The latter, later in the night, was so
deep in slumber that he did not know when Jed called Joe to take the
last night watch on deck.

Captain Tom, in fact, knew nothing until Joe Dawson stepped into the
little stateroom and shook him by the shoulder.

“It’s nearly eight o’clock, old fellow,” rang Joe’s cheery voice, “and
Jed has nearly finished cooking the best breakfast he could find on
board. Can’t you smell it?”

“Indeed I can,” answered the young skipper, turning out hastily, and
with an almost guilty feeling over having slept so long. What if the
owner should come aboard, wanting an immediate start made? While
dressing he made a remark of that kind to Dawson, who only smiled.

“Where’s the boat that belongs at the port davits?” asked the young
skipper, as he stepped on deck and immediately noted the absence of the
small boat.

“Oh, a fellow came along and asked if he could have the boat for a
little while,” said Joe, dryly.

“And you let him have it?”

“I figured that I had to,” laughed Joe. “The fellow was our owner.”

“Mr. Delavan? What did he want the boat for?”

“He said Mr. Moddridge was sound asleep, for a wonder, and that he had
slipped down for a little early morning exercise.”

“What time did he take the boat?” questioned Captain Tom.

“About six o’clock. He rowed out south over the bay, and I haven’t seen
him since.”

“Well, I suppose it’s the owner’s business if he wants to borrow his
own boat and go for a row on the bay,” replied Tom.

“Breakfast!” hailed Steward Jed. The chums disappeared below decks
forward, and for the next half hour gave most of their thoughts to the
enjoyment of the morning meal. Then the young engineer and captain
returned to the deck.

“Mr. Delavan said he wasn’t likely to use this craft to-day, and I’ll
be as well pleased if he doesn’t,” said Halstead. An August morning
mist was just more than barely visible as it formed out on the ocean,
rolling slowly inward. The remainder of the forenoon was likely to be
as foggy as on the day before.

“The rest will do the engine good,” said Dawson meditatively. “These
engines that are made for racing speeds are all right at the trick if
the speed isn’t pushed too often. We did quite some speeding yesterday,
so I’m glad if the engine _does_ get a rest.”

“That’s right,” nodded Tom. “No matter if you take the finest care
possible of a gasoline motor, if the engine is pushed too hard and some
little thing goes wrong, the average owner is likely to think he has an
incompetent engineer.”

“That wasn’t the way, though, with Mr. Prescott,” argued Joe. “Nor with
Mr. Dunstan, either. They both trusted everything about the boats to
us. They’d sooner blame the boat or engine-builders than blame us.”

“From all indications,” pursued Captain Tom, “Mr. Delavan is likely to
prove the most indulgent owner of all. Say, I wonder what Mr. Delavan
would look like, worried?”

“It would be easier to guess what Mr. Moddridge would look like,”
laughed Joe.

“‘Speaking of angels——’” quoted Captain Tom, dryly. Joe wheeled about
to look up beyond the shore end of the pier. Eben Moddridge was coming
toward them on a nervous, jerky run. He reached the pier and boarded
the boat, all out of breath.

“Is Mr. Delavan aboard?” he demanded, pantingly.

“Mr. Delavan took the small boat from the port davits and went for a
row, sir, at about six this morning,” reported Captain Tom.

“And hasn’t returned?” asked Mr. Moddridge, eyes and mouth opening wide
at the same time. “Which way did he go?”

“Out toward the inlet, sir,” Joe answered, pointing southward.

“And the fog rolling in there now!” exclaimed Moddridge, looking more
nervous every instant. “Then what are you doing here? Why aren’t you
out yonder trying to find your employer?”

“We will start, if you wish,” Captain Tom agreed.

“Wish?” echoed the nervous one, “I command it!”

Eben Moddridge, not being the owner, could issue no order that the
young skipper was bound to obey. But Halstead himself thought it would
be wholly wise to go out in search of his employer. The “Rocket’s” bow
and stern hawsers were quickly cast off by Jed, while Joe gave the
wheel a few vigorous turns in the engine room. The craft fell off from
the pier, then, at slow speed, nosed straight out for the inlet.

“Jed, take a forward watch, at port side,” called the young skipper.
“Mr. Moddridge, do you mind keeping a lookout at starboard?”

The nervous one stationed himself on the side indicated, not far from
the young helmsman.

“Something has happened to Frank! I know it, I know it!” muttered Eben
Moddridge, in deep agitation. “Oh, why did I sleep so late? Why didn’t
I keep an eye open to watch that reckless fellow? But he’ll never
consent to be governed by me.”

Tom, though he said nothing, smiled a bit grimly, at thought of what it
would be like for one to be ruled by Eben Moddridge.

At first, despite the growing fog, the searchers could see for a few
hundred feet to either side of them. This gradually narrowed down to
two hundred feet, or so, at the inlet. A little further out they could
make nothing out distinctly at a distance greater than sixty feet
Captain Halstead sounded the whistle frequently, now.

“Stop the boat!” yelled Eben Moddridge, frantically, after a while, as
he peered ahead at starboard. “Don’t you see it? Don’t you see that?”

He was pointing, jumping up and down, staring wildly. Tom caught sight
of the object, too. He did not stop the boat, but slackened her speed
down to little more than bare headway, throwing the helm hard over and
bringing the boat’s nose sharply around to starboard.

“Jed, a boat-hook!” shouted the young skipper. “Be ready to make fast
as soon as we get alongside.”

Joe Dawson sprang up from the engine room for a brief look. No wonder
he started, for the “Rocket” was slowly, cumbrously, describing a
circle around an object that proved to be the port boat, bobbing up and
down on the light waves. The small boat was keel up. Eben Moddridge, as
he stared at it, became speechless from dread and terror.

Jed, at the right moment, made fast with the boat-hook, drawing the
small craft in alongside. While he was doing so Joe suddenly cried:

“And say! Look there!”

Coming in on the start of the flood tide, floated a straw hat and a
coat—beyond a doubt those lately worn by Francis Delavan.

“Now, what do you say to that?” gasped Eben Moddridge, turning deathly
pale and looking as though he must sink to the deck.

A great fear was tugging at the heart of Captain Tom Halstead, though
he managed to reply, calmly enough:

“I don’t know just what it means, Mr. Moddridge, but it’s surely the
sign of mischief of some sort.”




CHAPTER VII

WORKING OUT THE PUZZLE


JED, amid all the excitement, deftly captured with the boat-hook the
painter of the small boat, then towed that little craft astern, making
it fast.

Captain Tom now manœuvred the “Rocket” alongside of the floating coat.
The straw hat was also recovered and pulled aboard.

“They’re his—both the hat and the coat!” cried Moddridge, in shaking
accents. “See, here are even letters belonging to Delavan in this
pocket!”

The nervous one never looked nearer to swooning than he did at that
moment. He tried to rise, but would have tottered backward had not Joe
Dawson caught him and steadied him.

“Easy, sir. You’ll best keep your wits now, all of ’em,” counseled Joe,
quietly. “If there’s any work to be done, you’ll have to direct it, you
know.”

With Joe’s aid Eben Moddridge reached the rail. Then Joe brought a
chair and Mr. Moddridge sat down.

“You can’t see the—the—poor Delavan?” fluttered Moddridge, in the
greatest agitation, as he stared out over the waters.

“We haven’t sighted Mr. Delavan as yet,” Captain Tom replied. “But you
may be sure, sir, we’re going to make a most thorough search.”

“Prentiss, help me below,” begged Moddridge, his face still ashen white
and his teeth chattering. “I—I can’t stand any more of this.”

Indeed, the poor fellow’s looks fully bore out his words as Jed helped
him below.

“Put him in a berth,” Tom murmured after them. “Better stay with him
for the present, Jed.”

Then the “Rocket” was started on a very slow cruise over all the waters
nearby. After a few minutes Captain Halstead began to feel that further
search, especially in the fog, would be useless. Yet he continued the
hunt for more than an hour. No further traces, however, were found of
the boat’s owner—or late owner. Which?

Every few minutes Jed was sent up to deck to ask uselessly for news.

“How’s Mr. Moddridge getting along?” queried Captain Tom, at last.

“If he does any worse,” confided Jed, “he won’t live to reach the pier.
I never saw a man more unstrung. He keeps insisting that he knows Mr.
Delavan is dead—drowned.”

“And I’m almost equally positive that nothing of the sort has happened
to Mr. Delavan,” Tom Halstead retorted.

“You——?” gasped Jed, wonderingly, but could go no further, his
astonishment was so intense.

“I’m of the same opinion as Tom,” Joe Dawson added, quietly.

“You two have been talking it over, then?” Jed queried.

“Not very much,” Joe replied. “But there are some things about this
case that look mighty queer for a drowning.”

“But it looks,” protested Jed, “as though Mr. Delavan had accidentally
tipped the boat and gone overboard.”

“When you once begin to think,” retorted Joe, stubbornly, “it looks
like nothing of the sort.”

Jed Prentiss looked wonderingly from one to the other, but Tom cut in
with:

“Take the wheel, Joe, and keep the whistle sounding, for the fog is
still thicker than I like to see it. I’m going below to talk with Mr.
Delavan’s friend. Jed, you’ll be more useful on deck, at present.”

Moddridge was lying in a berth in the cabin, moaning and holding a
handkerchief over his eyes.

“I’ve come to ask you what I’m to do, sir?” Tom called briskly,
thinking thus to rouse the nervous one to action.

The only response was another moan.

“Come, rouse yourself, please, and think what’s to be done in your
friend’s interests,” urged the young skipper.

There was another moan, before Moddridge answered, in a sepulchral
voice:

“Don’t ask me, Halstead.”

“Right! I guess I won’t,” Tom rejoined, thoughtfully. “You’re so
utterly upset that I guess I can furnish better instructions myself.”

“Oh, yes, please,” begged the other, helplessly. “And leave me alone,
Halstead, or else keep quiet.”

“But I’ve got to ask some questions, sir, and you’ll have to answer
them,” Tom went on. “So, sir, it seems to me that you will do best to
come on deck, into the open air.”

“Do you—you—really think so?” faltered the stricken one.

“It will be much better for you to be in the air, Mr. Moddridge.”

“I’d go if I could, but I feel that I simply haven’t the strength to
get there,” mumbled the nervous man.

“I’ll show you how,” responded Captain Tom, briskly, almost cheerily.
“Steady, now, sir. There; it’s as easy as can be.”

Tom Halstead lifted the little man bodily out of the berth, getting
a good hold on him and carrying him out to the after deck, where he
deposited the collapsed burden in one of the wicker arm-chairs.

“Now, in the first place, Mr. Moddridge,” began Tom, “try to get it
fixed in your mind that your friend isn’t drowned—that there isn’t the
least probability of any such fate having overtaken him.”

“Nonsense!” declared Eben Moddridge, feebly.

“Perhaps you think Mr. Delavan stood up in the boat, and it tipped and
let him over,” argued Tom. “But that was next-door to impossible.”

“How impossible?” demanded Moddridge, taking notice sufficiently to sit
up a little more.

“Why, the port boat, Mr. Moddridge, on account of her heavy keel, her
comparatively broad beam and other peculiarities, belongs to a class
of what are called ‘self-righting’ boats. It would take a deliberate
effort, by a very strong man, to capsize such a boat. She’s towing
astern now. After a good deal of effort we righted her.”

For a moment Eben Moddridge looked hopeful. Then he sank back once
more, all but collapsing.

“Nonsense,” he remonstrated. “Any little boat of that size can be
easily tipped over.”

“The boat can’t be capsized easily, I assure you,” Tom argued. “I know
the type of boat, and understand what I am talking about. Now, we found
the boat capsized. It probably took more than one man to do it. Mr.
Delavan could hardly have done it alone. If it took others to help in
capsizing the boat, what is more likely than that others have seized
him, and then upset the boat in order to make it appear that he had
fallen overboard and been drowned? Mr. Moddridge, are there, or are
there not, men who would be glad to seize Mr. Delavan for a while,
for the benefit of what information they might expect to frighten or
torment out of him?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” cried the nervous man, firing up for the instant and
rising to his feet full of new, brief energy. Then he sank back into
the chair.

“But I don’t believe _that_ happened,” he went on, brokenly. “I am
quite convinced that my friend was drowned by the capsizing of the
small boat.”

“Wait a few moments, Mr. Moddridge, and we’ll show you, then,” proposed
Captain Tom, turning and making a signal to Joe Dawson. “Jed, keep the
bridge deck, and sound the whistle regularly.”

Captain and engineer disappeared below, going to their room. They were
quickly back, clad only in their bathing suits.

“Now, you keep your eyes on us, Mr. Moddridge,” young Halstead
requested. “Mr. Delavan is a heavy man, but Joe and I, together, are
much heavier than he. We’ll show you how hard it is to upset a boat of
this type.”

Though the boat’s own oars had not been recovered, there was another
pair aboard that would serve. Joe brought these, while Halstead brought
the port boat alongside of the barely moving motor boat. Both boys
stepped down into the smaller craft. Joe applied himself at the oars. A
slight lifting of the fog now made objects visible for a radius of some
two hundred feet.

“Watch us,” called Tom, when the port boat was some forty feet away
from the “Rocket.”

Both boys stood up, each resting a foot on the same gunwale of that
little port boat. They bent far forward. The boat heeled; they even
forced it to take in some water from the gently rolling sea. Then, as
they stepped back, the little craft quickly righted itself.

“Now, come on, Joe,” proposed the young skipper. “We’ll both stand with
our backs to the gunwale. We’ll tip the boat, and then fall backward
into the water, just as though it were a real accident.”

Wholly at home on or in the water, the two chums went through the
manœuvre with reckless abandon. Once more they succeeded in making the
little craft heel over and take in some water.

“Now!” shouted Halstead.

Both boys lurched heavily backward, striking the water and causing the
port boat to heel more than it had done. Both splashed and disappeared
under the water, but the boat righted itself as soon as relieved of
the weight of their bodies.

Clutching the port rail of the “Rocket,” Eben Moddridge looked on in
almost a trance of fascination. A slight gasp left his lips as he saw
the young captain and engineer vanish under the waves; but they quickly
reappeared, swimming for the port boat, and climbing on board after
recovering the oars.

“Now, you ought to be convinced that this boat couldn’t have been
capsized and left floating keel-up by any accident to Mr. Delavan,”
hailed Tom Halstead, as Joe rowed in alongside.

“I—I am convinced—_almost_,” chattered Moddridge, excitedly.

“Then please take our word for whatever you can’t quite realize,”
begged the young skipper, as he clambered aboard the “Rocket.” “Come
on, Joe, we’ll get into dry clothes. Mr. Moddridge, be sure of one
thing: if any accident happened to Mr. Delavan, there were others
present when it happened.”

With that parting assurance Halstead and his chum vanished below.
Almost incredibly soon they were once more on deck, appareled in dry
clothing. Jed then went to bale out the port boat, which was next
hoisted to her proper davits.

As Captain Tom, still thinking fast and hard, took his place at the
wheel, Eben Moddridge, even though he moved somewhat shakily, managed
to climb the steps from the after deck and take the chair nearest to
the young skipper.

“Halstead,” he queried, hoarsely, “you even went so—so—far as to
declare that you d-d-don’t believe Frank Delavan to be drowned.”

“I don’t believe it in the least,” Captain Tom declared, stoutly. “Now,
Mr. Moddridge, if we’re to be of real help to you, you must answer some
questions, and you must answer them fully and clearly. Will you do so?”

“I—I’ll try.”

“On your honor as a man, sir, do you know of any reason why Mr. Delavan
should _want_ to disappear, leaving behind the impression that he had
been drowned?”

“G-g-good heavens, no!” shuddered the nervous one. “Want to disappear?
Why Frank Delavan has every reason in the world for wanting to keep in
close touch with New York, and with me, his associate in some present
big deals.”

“Then, if he has disappeared, as seems evident, it must have been
through the compulsion of some other parties?”

“Yes—most absolutely, yes!”

“Mr. Moddridge,” pursued the “Rocket’s” young skipper, impressively,
“have you any idea who those other persons are?”

Moddridge’s face worked peculiarly for a few seconds, before he
replied, slowly, hesitatingly:

“I might suspect any one of a score of men—perhaps almost the same
score that Frank Delavan might name under the same conditions. But I
pledge you my word, Halstead, that I do not know enough to suspect any
one man above all others. It would be all guess-work.”

Hesitatingly as this response had been delivered, Tom, watching his
man, felt certain that Eben Moddridge was trying to speak the truth.

“Then,” said the young skipper, at last, very deliberately, “since it’s
a pretty sure thing, in our minds, that Mr. Delavan wasn’t drowned
through accident, there can’t be much sense in trying further to find
his body. Instead, our search must be after those who may be holding
him, against his will, aboard some craft in these waters.”

Joe, listening nearby, nodded his approval of this decision.

“We can’t do much, though, until this confounded fog lifts,” groaned
young Halstead.

Just as he was reaching to sound the whistle once more Captain Tom’s
hand was arrested by a sound that made Joe and Jed also start slightly.

Then out of the fog, three hundred feet away, going at fifteen miles an
hour, or more, glided swiftly the same long, narrow racing craft they
had encountered the day before.

That strange craft crossed the “Rocket’s” bow, at least a hundred and
fifty feet away.

“Racer ahoy!” bawled the youthful skipper, in his loudest voice.

But the swift craft vanished into the fog on the other side.

Was it fancy, or were all three of the young motor boat boys dreaming
when they believed that back from that swift-moving racer came a sound
of mocking laughter?

“Get into the engine room, Joe,” shouted Captain Tom. “Jed, up forward,
on lookout!”

With that the young skipper swung around his speed control. The
“Rocket,” obeying the impulse, leaped forward, then gradually settled
down into a steady gait, while the young skipper strenuously threw his
steering wheel over.

“What are you going to do, Halstead?” demanded Eben Moddridge, leaping
to his feet as he caught the infection of this new excitement.

“Do?” uttered Captain Tom. “That’s the same craft that hung about us
yesterday, plainly trying to nose into our secrets. The same craft that
afterwards tried to play a trick on us to make us reach East Hampton
late. And just now the fellows aboard the stranger laughed at us. What
am I going to do? Why, sir, we’re going after her, going to overhaul
her, if there’s the speed in the ‘Rocket.’ We’ll even try to board that
stranger, Mr. Moddridge, and see whether Francis Delavan is aboard
against his own will!”




CHAPTER VIII

THE DASHING STERN CHASE


NOT a single objection did the man of nerves offer. Ordinarily he might
have jumped with fear at the proposal to go at fast speed through the
fog. Though the mist was already lifting a good deal, as it had done on
the day before, there was still enough of a curtain ahead to make it
more than just risky to go rushing along.

In the white bank ahead the racing boat was already lost to sight.
Captain Tom raised his hand to pull the cord of the auto whistle.

“If I show ’em where I am, though,” he thought, at once, “the man
handling that other craft will know enough to swing off onto another
course. He can leave me behind easily enough.”

The auto whistle, therefore, did not sound. Captain Tom understood
fully the risk he was taking in “going it blind”—and fast, too—right
on this pathway of Long Island navigation. But he made up his mind that
he would very soon begin to sound his whistle, whether he sighted the
other craft or not.

“If they haven’t changed their course I’ll soon be in sight of them,”
the young skipper reflected, anxiously. “Oh, that this fog lifts soon!”

Having guessed the other boat’s course, Tom could follow it only by
compass, as any other method would be sure to lead him astray.

Both boats’ engines were equipped with the silent exhaust. While not
absolutely noiseless, these exhausts run so quietly that a boat’s
presence at any considerable distance cannot be detected through them.

One thing was certain. At present the fog was lifting rapidly. All
would soon be well if another deep bank of mist did not roll in off the
sea.

Jed, watching the gradual going of the fog, was straining his eyes for
all he was worth for the first glimpse of that racing craft. Engineer
Joe had not further increased the “Rocket’s” speed, for Tom, if he was
getting somewhat off the course of the other boat, did not want to be
too far away when the lifting of the white curtain should show him the
enemy.

“Hist!” The sharp summons caused Tom Halstead quickly to raise his
glance from the compass. Jed Prentiss, standing amidships, for he had
run back, was pointing over the port bow. Tom could have yelled with
delight, for off there, in the edge of the bank, now some eight hundred
feet distant, was a low, indistinct line that could hardly be other
than the racing boat.

“Ask Joe to kick out just a trifle more speed, not much,” muttered
Captain Halstead, as Jed, his eyes shining, moved nearer.

Under the new impulse the “Rocket” stole up on that vague line, which
now soon resolved itself into the hull of the racing craft.

By this time the chase was discovered from the other motor boat. There
was a splurge ahead; the hull dimmed down to the former indistinct
line. After a few moments the racing craft was out of sight again.

“Crowd on every foot of speed you can, Joe,” was the word Jed passed
from the young captain. Dawson, crouching beside his motor, was
watching every revolution of the engine that he was now spurring.

And now the fog began to lift rapidly. A thousand feet ahead, driving
northeast, the racing craft could be made out. She was running a few
miles away from the coast and nearly parallel with it.

During the last few minutes Eben Moddridge had been strangely silent,
for him. Even now, as he stepped up beside the wheel, he was far less
nervous than might have been expected.

“Can you overtake that other boat?” he inquired.

“I’ve got to,” came Captain Tom’s dogged reply, as he kept his gaze
sharply ahead.

“She seems like a very fast craft.”

“She’s faster than this boat,” replied Halstead, briefly.

“Good heavens! Then she will show us a clean pair of heels,” quivered
Mr. Moddridge.

“That’s not so certain, sir.”

Tom was so sparing of his words, at this crisis in the sea race, that
Mr. Delavan’s friend felt himself entitled to further explanation.

“You say she’s faster, but intimate we may catch her,” muttered Mr.
Moddridge. “How can that be?”

“Motor engines sometimes go back on a fellow at the worst moment,”
Captain Tom explained. “That may happen to the other fellow. He may
have to slow down, or even shut off speed altogether.”

“But that might happen to us, too,” objected Mr. Moddridge.

“It might, but there are few engineers on motor boats that I’d back
against Joe Dawson,” Halstead continued. “Then again, Mr. Moddridge,
the fellow who is steering the boat ahead doesn’t handle his wheel as
slickly as he might. By the most careful steering I hope to gain some
on him.”

So rapidly was the fog lifting that the skippers of the two boats could
now see the ocean for a half mile on either side, ahead or astern. The
racing craft, after a few minutes, put on still another burst of speed.

“Ask Joe if he has every bit crowded on?” called Captain Tom. Jed
called down into the engine room, then reported back:

“Joe says he may get a little more speed out of the engine, but not
much. We’re pretty near up to the mark.”

So Tom Halstead, whitening a bit at the report, setting his teeth
harder, devoted his whole energies to trying to steer a straighter
course than did the boat ahead.

“There’s some kind of a rumpus on the stranger,” called Jed. “Look at
that fellow rushing for the hood forward.”

Plainly there was some excitement out of the usual on board the
stranger. Jed, snatching up a pair of marine glasses, swiftly reported:

“Someone is trying to fight his way out of the hood, and the others are
trying to force him back. Whee! It looks as though someone had just
hurled something out overboard from the hood.”

“Did you see anything strike the water?” demanded Captain Tom.

“It looked so, but it’s a big distance to see a small object, even
through the glass.”

“Keep your eye on where you saw that something go overboard,” directed
Captain Tom Halstead. “Try to pilot me to that spot. It may be a
message—from Mr. Delavan.”

It was a difficult task to scan the water so closely. But Jed did his
best, and, after a few moments, called back excitedly:

“Better slow down your speed, captain. I think I see something dancing
on the water. It’s bobbing up and down—something.”

Jed Prentiss seemed almost to have his eyes glued to the marine
glasses, so intently did he watch.

“Half a point to port, captain,” he shouted, presently. “Headway, only.
Joe, can you leave the engine to bring me a hand-net while I keep my
eye on that thing bobbing on the water?”

Dawson leaped up from the engine room, going swiftly in search of the
desired net.

“Half a point more to port, captain,” called Jed. “Steady—so! Thank
you, old fellow”—as Joe handed him the net. Eben Moddridge had now
hurried to the port rail as the boat drifted up alongside the thing
that Prentiss was watching. It proved to be a leather wallet, floating
on the waves. So neatly did Jed pilot that, soon, he was able to lean
over the rail, make a deft swoop with the net, and——

“I’ve got it!” he shouted.

Captain Tom Halstead instantly gave speed ahead through the bridge
controls, trying to gain as swiftly as he could the very considerable
distance that had been lost. “It’s Frank’s wallet—his own. There’s his
monogram on it,” cried Eben Moddridge, his voice quaking.

“See if there is any message inside,” shouted Tom, still keeping his
gaze on that hull ahead, while Joe bounded below to nurse his motor on
to better performances.

Mr. Moddridge’s fingers trembled so in trying to open the soaked wallet
that Jed took it from him.

“Your friend’s money,” reported Prentiss, taking out a compact mass of
banknotes and passing them to Mr. Moddridge. “Here are some cards, too,
and that’s all.”

“See if anything is written on any of the cards,” Tom directed.

“Nothing on any of them,” Jed quickly reported.

“It’s Frank Delavan’s wallet, though,” cried Eben Moddridge.

“And Mr. Delavan is aboard that boat, a prisoner,” returned Tom
Halstead. “The best he could do was to throw the wallet overboard in
the hope that we’d see it and know where to look for him. There was
only a small chance of our seeing it, but Jed did, and we won. Confound
’em! They seem to be gaining on us!”

As it became more evident that the stranger was gradually pulling
further ahead of the “Rocket,” Eben Moddridge’s face began to twitch,
his breath coming shorter and faster.

“M-m-must we lose?” he faltered.

“No race is lost until it is finished,” Captain Tom replied, tersely.

“But you can’t overtake that boat?”

“It’s a speedier craft than ours, but I’ll follow ’em, even if they get
hull down on the horizon,” Halstead retorted. “I’ll keep to the course
if they beat us out of sight. I won’t give up while we’ve any gasoline
left.”

The stranger was now a mile ahead. Tom figured that, in an hour, the
other boat’s lead would be very likely increased by four or five miles
more. Surely enough, two or three miles more were gained in the next
thirty minutes. Then—

“Hurrah!” shouted Tom Halstead. “Oh, if it’s only as good as it looks!”

“What is it?” queried Eben Moddridge, brokenly, not even rising from
his chair.

“See how the other craft is slowing her speed. It looks as though her
engine had given out at just the right time for us.”

Indeed, the stranger seemed rapidly coming down to bare headway. Then
she barely drifted. The “Rocket,” eating up the miles, swiftly gained
on the other motor boat.

“It looks like a real enough break in their engine,” reported Jed, his
eyes once more at the glasses. “They’re rushing about under the hood. I
can see that much. They seem dreadfully bothered about the engine.”

Tom had steered the “Rocket,” by this time, within a half mile of the
stranger’s pointed stern.

“_Now_, we’ll run down upon them!” glowed the young skipper.

“What will you do when you _do_ get alongside?” asked Eben Moddridge,
tremulously.




CHAPTER IX

PLAYING A SAILOR’S TRICK


“FIGHT, if we have to,” was Tom’s laconic reply.

“Oh, dear, I do hope that won’t be necessary,” cried Moddridge, in
deeper agitation. “All quarrelsome noises and thoughts get upon my
nerves to a dreadful extent.”

“We won’t fight unless they put us to it,” answered Halstead. “And, of
course,” he added, with a slight smile, “we may get the worst of it. We
may get ourselves fearfully whacked about.”

“Oh, dear!” groaned Moddridge again.

Nor was the nervous man one whit reassured by seeing Joe, after slowing
up the engine somewhat, step up on deck bearing a couple of wrenches.
As for Jed Prentiss, that youth had laid down the marine glasses to
pick up a formidable looking boat-hook.

Even with her lessened speed the “Rocket” was now within less than a
quarter of a mile of the racing craft.

“Confound it! Now, what does that mean?” vented Tom, disappointedly,
as he beheld one of the men aboard the other craft leap to his post
at the wheel. In another moment the answer came. The racing boat was
moving through the water again. Every instant her propeller churned up
the water a little faster.

“They’ve fixed their engine,” quavered Captain Tom. “What we’ve now got
to find out is whether their motor is strong enough to get them away
from us.”

For some three or four minutes the two craft remained about the same
distance apart, despite the fact that Joe Dawson, who had dropped
down once more into the engine room, was coaxing his motor along as
skilfully as he could. Then, at last, the stranger began to draw ahead.

“The lucky scoundrels!” gritted Tom. “They’re able to go at least
pretty close to their full speed. See ’em eat up the miles again!”

“At least, then, there’ll be no fight,” declared Mr. Moddridge, in a
tone of relief.

“Nor will your friend and our employer have any chance to get back to
his own boat at present,” retorted Tom Halstead. Ordinarily he could
stand this nervous man’s agitated spells, though just now they wore
upon the young skipper’s patience.

For a few miles the chase continued, the stranger gaining all the
while. The two boats had been running, lately, about five miles off the
Long Island coast. Now, the stranger could be seen heading much more
to the northward, as though intent on making the coast.

“Jed,” directed the young skipper, “see whether you can pick up the
mouth of Cookson’s Inlet ahead of the stranger.”

“There’s a break in the beach over yonder,” reported Prentiss, soon.
“It doesn’t appear to be more than fifty feet wide.”

“It’s sixty-two feet,” responded Tom Halstead, who had made a hard
study of all this part of the Long Island coast “And confound them if
they try to go in there.”

“Why?” inquired Eben Moddridge.

“It’s mighty shallow water, the other side of the inlet,” Captain
Halstead explained. “That other boat probably doesn’t draw more than
two and a half feet of water. Our draught, on account of our very heavy
engine, is nearer nine feet. I don’t know just how far we can follow
them in that little bay. In some places the water isn’t over four feet
deep.”

“Then they are not playing fairly,” muttered Moddridge, in a tone of
deep disgust.

“Rascals rarely do play a fairer game than they’re obliged to do,”
answered Tom, with a queer little smile. “However, all we can do is to
stick to them as long as we are able.”

With two boats going at such high speed it was not long before the
mouth of the inlet was made. The stranger, however, passed through
about four minutes ahead of the “Rocket.”

Once in the bay the motor boat boys found themselves not far from a
low, sandy island, on which were a few trees and three small cottages.

“There they are, passing the other side of the island,” hailed Jed,
pointing to the top of the stranger’s single mast, visible for an
instant before it disappeared behind a rise in the sandy surface of the
island.

“It looks as though they’re just running around the island,” muttered
Tom Halstead. “We won’t follow; we’ll meet ’em.”

Putting the “Rocket” about, the young skipper steered for the other end
of the island. In a few minutes he passed around it, to discover that
the strange craft had put about, and was going back the way it had come.

“I think, sir,” explained the young skipper, turning to Mr. Moddridge,
“that the shortest way out of this hide-and-seek game will be to keep
right after that pirate’s stern.”

“All right,” nodded Moddridge, hesitatingly. “Yet why do you call that
other boat a pirate?”

“Any boat deserves the name that sails on queer business, and is even
afraid to show her name-plate at her stern,” Halstead rejoined.

The stranger still led, in that race in the narrow way between the
island and the main shore.

“Good enough, too,” growled Halstead, as his keen eyes noted a slight
change in the color Of the water ahead. “They are leading us into the
shallows. Jed, get the lead, run up to the bow and cast it in a hurry!”

Even as he gave the order, the young skipper, his hands trembling
slightly from vexation, turned the speed control to lessen the
“Rocket’s” headway.

Jed, poising the lead, made the neat cast of a practiced sailor,
letting the flannel-tagged line pay out rapidly between his fingers. At
the instant the line slackened Prentiss, half-turned toward the helm,
sang drawlingly back:

“And a qua-arter, two!”

That signified two and a quarter fathoms, or thirteen and a half feet
of water under the bottom of the cruiser, which drew about nine feet.

Rapidly hauling in, while the “Rocket” now hardly more than crawled
along in these shallows, Prentiss heaved the lead once more.

“And a scant—two!” he reported. Joe Dawson, leaping to the deck, ranged
up alongside of Jed. The water had a shallower look ahead.

“A-a-and three-qua-arters—one!” came the hail from the leadsman.

Ten and a half feet meant a foot and a half to spare under the deepest
point of the cruiser’s keel.

Once more Jed poised the lead for the heave, but Joe, taking a more
knowing look, shouted back:

“Reverse her, captain, or you’ll poke her nose in the mud!”

Instantly Captain Halstead’s hand flew to the reversing lever. Slowly
the motor boat stole backward. The stranger had passed around to the
seaward side of the little island, and was making for the inlet.

“They’re playing with us!” grumbled Skipper Tom. “The fun’s all theirs,
for they’ve got the faster craft.”

Just as soon as the “Rocket” had once more five feet of water to spare
under her hull Halstead decided to head about, the way he had come,
and put on all speed for the inlet. Yet, so expensive of time was this
proceeding that, when the Delavan boat once more glided through the
inlet, the stranger was three miles out to sea, heading south.

“That fellow must be laughing at us,” faltered Eben Moddridge.

“Of course he is,” flared Tom Halstead. “And I could grind my teeth, if
that sort of work would do any good.”

“W-w-what can we do?” stammered the nervous one.

“Only keep up the chase until one or the other breaks down, or runs
out of gasoline,” replied the young skipper, doggedly.

For almost an hour more the boats continued to head south. All but the
high parts of Long Island were below the horizon. Yet Halstead, calling
Jed to the wheel, though still directing the course, believed that he
was gaining on the other boat, even if very slowly.

“We’ve gasoline enough aboard,” the young skipper explained to the
nervous man, “to keep running for twenty-four hours yet. I hope that
other fellow hasn’t.”

“B-b-b-but see here,” quavered Moddridge, a new alarm dawning upon his
mind, “if that other crowd should let us get alongside, and th-then
s-s-s-shoot at us—it would be awful!”

“That’s a chance we’ve simply got to take,” replied Tom Halstead,
coolly, “if we’re to try to reach Mr. Delavan and get him back aboard
his own boat.”

“I—I—I couldn’t s-s-stand anything of that sort!” almost screamed the
nervous one.

“Then will you get off the boat, sir, and walk?” inquired the young
skipper, with perhaps pardonable irritation. This exhibition of
weak-kneed manhood made him indignant.

Erelong the stranger was a good twenty miles south of the nearest
point on the Long Island coast. Both boats had traveled fast over the
gently-rolling sea. The conditions would have been ideal for a race,
had the stakes been less important.

“Maybe their gasoline is running so low that those fellows are ready to
be reasonable,” grinned Joe Dawson, turning from the stand he had taken
near the bow. It could be seen, now, that the stranger was slowing down
her speed. Presently she was lying to.

“That must be a confession of a tank low with gasoline,” cried Captain
Tom, jubilantly, hastening forward with the glasses. “Steer straight
for her, to come up on the port side, Jed.”

Seeing Joe again disappear below, to reappear with a pair of
ugly-looking wrenches, Eben Moddridge turned very pale, and next
hastened, shakily, to the steps leading down to the after deck. Thence
he vanished into the cabin.

“Say,” uttered Joe, disdainfully, “I wish I had _his_ fighting blood!”

Still the stranger lay to, only two men showing in her cockpit. As the
“Rocket” came much closer to her possible prey Tom Halstead again took
the wheel, while Jed stood close to where his prized boat-hook lay. Tom
shut off most of the speed as he ran in closer to port of the stranger.
The two men visible aboard the other boat were now standing by the
rail, looking curiously enough at the motor boat boys.

“‘Rocket’ ahoy!” hailed one of them, as Tom manœuvred his craft within
easy talking-distance of the other. “Have you been following us?”

“Some!” admitted Halstead, dryly.

“Why!”

“To see whom you have aboard.”

“Only us two boat-handlers on board,” replied one of the pair.

“Tell that to the mermaids,” retorted Captain Tom, grimly.

“Don’t you believe us?” demanded the same speaker, the larger of the
rough-looking seafaring pair.

“I’m not very good at believing,” was the younger skipper’s reply.

“Then wait until we get slowly under way, and you can come up
alongside. I guess you can board us, on this gentle sea, without
scraping either hull,” proposed the speaker aboard the racer.

That offer, made in seeming good faith, almost staggered Tom Halstead
for the moment. Why the stranger should run away for hours, then
suddenly agree to be boarded, was not at once apparent.

“Unless they want to get one of us aboard, or want to try the mighty
risky trick of capturing us on the high seas,” reflected the young
skipper. “However, all we’re here for is to find and rescue Mr.
Delavan. We’ve simply got to try to do that.”

So he nodded, allowed his boat to fall away, then come up alongside the
racing boat, now under slow headway.

As the two hulls bumped slightly, Jed Prentiss made fast to the other
craft’s rail with his boat-hook. Tom Halstead, with a wrench dropped
into a hip pocket out of sight, leaped over the other boat’s rail down
into the cockpit.

“You spoke about someone being aboard here?” quizzed the larger of
the two strangers. “You can go ahead and find out your mistake. Open
anything you want; look anywhere you please.”

Halstead’s first swift look in under the hood showed him only the
motor housed there. While Joe Dawson and Jed Prentiss watched keenly,
suspiciously, from the “Rocket’s” rail, the young skipper searched
minutely under that hood deck. There was not a human being there, nor
any trace of late occupancy by any. There were lockers. Tom raised the
lid of every one. He might, in his dismayed wonder, have explored the
gasoline tank, had he not known that the opening was too small to
permit the entrance of a man’s body.

“Through in there? Satisfied?” called the larger of the two men,
half-mockingly. “There are two lockers out here, and an after
compartment out here in the cockpit.”

As soon as he was satisfied that there was no other possible place
under the hood, Halstead accepted the invitation to make a search of
the cockpit lockers and storage spaces. Yet it was all quite in vain.

Suddenly, however, the young skipper straightened himself, glaring
down at a straight, not very distinct line that ran the length of the
cockpit, even extending under the hood. As he looked swiftly up, he
encountered the mocking gazes of the two boat handlers.

“That was a slick trick,” Captain Tom admitted, speaking dryly, though
with an effort. “That line was made by the dirty keel of a small boat.
In Cookson’s Bay, while hidden from us by that little island, you put
the small boat over the side, and some of your passengers went ashore.
Then you decoyed us all this distance out to sea to have the joy of
laughing at us.”

“Blessed if I can guess what the lad means, friend,” said one of the
rough pair to the other.

But Captain Tom Halstead, as he leaped back aboard the “Rocket,” and
turned to them with flashing eyes, retorted gamely:

“I’m planning to have the pleasure, mighty soon, of showing you the
value of the last laugh!”




CHAPTER X

THE MONEY STORM BREAKS LOOSE


AS soon as the “Rocket” had fallen away from the mocking strangers and
was heading back at nearly full speed for the Long Island coast, Eben
Moddridge came almost totteringly on deck.

“Poor Frank Delavan wasn’t aboard that other boat,” he groaned.

“No,” answered Halstead, trying hard to keep his disapproval of the
other’s cowardice from sounding in his voice.

“Then, good heavens! We must get back to East Hampton without loss of a
moment,” cried the owner’s friend.

“Don’t you think we’ll do a lot better to hustle back to Cookson’s
Bay?” demanded the young skipper. “We all of us know, as well as we
need to, that Mr. Delavan was aboard that racing boat this morning,
so we must agree that Mr. Delavan was carried ashore while that other
craft had the island between us and them. We’re out to find Mr.
Delavan, aren’t we? If we are, sir, the trail starts from Cookson’s
Bay.”

“But there are other matters you don’t understand,” replied Moddridge,
nervously. “Both Delavan and I have interests at work in Wall Street.
Those interests involve many millions of dollars. While I was hoping
every minute to come up with Frank Delavan, the chase seemed to me to
be the main thing. But I should have been in East Hampton hours ago, to
answer frantic appeals for instructions that must have been coming in
over the long distance telephone.”

“Then do you instruct me, sir, to head for East Hampton, and leave Mr.
Delavan to take his chances in the hands of rascals?”

“Don’t—don’t put it in that way,” begged Mr. Moddridge, shivering.

“Unfortunately, sir, I don’t see any other way to put the question,”
young Halstead answered.

Eben Moddridge wavered, thinking it all over in an evident frenzy.
While he was thus pondering Captain Tom was heading straight in for
where he knew Cookson’s Inlet to be.

“It’s—it’s—bad either way,” Moddridge finally confessed. “If I delay
in reaching the telephone Frank and I may lose millions through some
unfortunate turn in Wall Street. And, on the other hand, if poor Frank
has vanished, perhaps never to turn up again, he and I may both be
ruined in the money world.”

“As between losing some millions, and all,” spoke Tom, as judicially as
he could, “I should say it would be better to risk some of the money
and keep on after Mr. Delavan himself.”

“If that’s the way it appears to you, then do so,” replied Eben
Moddridge, slowly, hesitatingly. “Oh, dear, I simply can’t think when I
am so nervous.”

“This is a funny sort of an associate to take into a big money
deal,” thought Halstead, wonderingly. The young skipper discovered,
later, that Moddridge was a power in Wall Street simply because he
had inherited more millions than he was capable of handling. He was
valuable when men wanted more money for financial operations than they
themselves controlled. Moddridge was in the present big Delavan deals
simply because Moddridge had discovered that he could always trust Mr.
Delavan.

So Tom headed for Cookson’s Bay, making that shallow little body of
water in less than an hour. Another hour was spent in lowering the port
boat and in rowing Moddridge both to the little island and to the main
shore. It was a sparsely settled region. Only one of the cottages
on the little island was occupied, and that only by a bachelor who
admitted that he had been asleep at the time when the two motor boats
had dodged about the island. He aided, however, in searching the other
two cottages, but no sign was found of Mr. Delavan or of his probable
captors. The search was continued on the main shore, with no better
results.

“Now, we simply must get back to East Hampton,” urged Moddridge, and
Halstead was reluctantly of the same opinion.

“If Frank can’t be found soon,” chattered the nervous one, as the
“Rocket” headed toward her pier at East Hampton, “and if the news
becomes public, then every stock he is heavily interested in will go
away down on the Stock Exchange.”

“Why?” asked Tom Halstead.

“Why, people will think there’s something queer about the
disappearance,” Moddridge explained. “Take the P. & Y. Railroad, for
instance. Its capital is eighty million dollars. Delavan owns fifteen
million of that himself. He’s the president, biggest stockholder,
and the virtual czar of that railroad. If Frank can’t be found, what
will folks be apt to think? Why, simply that he has been guilty of
criminally mismanaging the railroad, for his own profit, and that now
he has fled to some foreign country to hide away from the American
law. P. & Y. stock will take a fearful drop.”

“That won’t happen, all in a day, will it?” questioned Captain Tom.

“It might. It will be sure to happen within a very few days, if Frank
doesn’t show up again. Wall Street is the most sensitive place in the
world. Let a breath of suspicion blow against a certain stock, and
that stock drops and drops, until perhaps it goes down out of sight.
Everyone who has his whole fortune invested in that stock may be ruined
by the smash. If the P. & Y. stock goes down, it will knock Frank’s
deals and mine into a cocked hat.”

“Why?” asked Tom, wonderingly.

“Why?” repeated Eben Moddridge, shiveringly. “Why, I’ve told you that
Frank holds fifteen millions of P. & Y. stock. I hold five millions
myself. Frank told you, yesterday, that we were plunging in Steel and
other allied stocks that Mr. Gordon influences heavily. Steel and
those other stocks are going to work up and down, like a see-saw, for
the next few days. To raise the funds for our operations Frank and I
have been pledging our P. & Y. stock, which stands at 102. But suppose
Delavan can’t be found, and P. & Y. drops to forty—or even thirty?”
gasped Eben Moddridge. “What would happen then?”

“Well, what would happen?” questioned Tom Halstead, to whom the whole
vast Wall Street game was a great puzzle.

“Why, if P. & Y. tumbles like that,” continued Eben Moddridge, “the
great banking houses that have been advancing us money on P. & Y. stock
to play with Steel and allied stocks will be forced to call in their
loans in order to protect themselves. Frank Delavan and I are pledged
as heavily as we possibly can be. We couldn’t raise five million
dollars more between us. So, if the bottom drops out of the P. & Y.
stock Delavan and myself stand to be wiped off the board in all our
deals—ruined!”

The last word came from Moddridge in a sobbing gasp. He was clutching
at the rail as the “Rocket” moved in nearer to her pier.

“Halstead,” he continued soon, “as quickly as we land, I want you to
get a carriage and rush to the telephone office with me. I’m so excited
I feel as though I’d fall over in a faint. You must go with me—remain
with me until this fearful ordeal is over.”

Half a dozen well-dressed, alert-looking young men who stood on the
pier seemed to be greatly interested in the “Rocket” as that boat was
berthed. Jed was at the wheel as Captain Tom stood by the rail, ready
to leap ashore.

“Mr. Francis Delavan aboard?” hailed one of the young men, just as the
young skipper’s feet touched the pier.

“Why do you want to know?” Halstead cross-questioned.

“I’m from the New York ‘Herald’,” replied the young man. “I am here to
interview Mr. Delavan.”

“I’m from the ‘World’,” added another young man. Halstead at once
understood that this group was made up of reporters.

“Mr. Delavan didn’t go out with us this morning,” replied Captain Tom,
while Eben Moddridge surveyed the reporters, uneasily. Seeing a cab up
the road, Halstead signaled it vigorously.

“Where is Mr. Delavan?” demanded the “World” representative.

“That’s Mr. Delavan’s business. I can’t tell you,” replied Tom, a bit
stiffly.

“Is his friend, Mr. Moddridge, aboard? Is _that_ Mr. Moddridge?” asked
another of the reporters. The nervous man, under the concentrated gaze
of six reporters, became more nervous than ever.

“Gentlemen,” went on Halstead, hurriedly, drawing out his watch just
as the vehicle rolled down to the pier and stopped, “it’s twenty-five
minutes of three, and the Stock Exchange in New York closes at three
o’clock. That is Mr. Moddridge on board, but he is in a rush to reach
the telephone office, and he can’t lose even a second until he has
talked with New York.”

Halstead almost led the nervous one from the boat to the cab, helping
him inside, and getting in with him.

“Wait here, gentlemen, if you wish to talk with Mr. Moddridge,” coaxed
Tom. As the cab started one of the reporters bounded up onto the step,
from which he was adroitly yanked by Jed Prentiss. Then the driver
whipped his horses forward, and the reporters were distanced for the
time being.

Yet one of the press scribes, as he ran along in the vain effort to
overtake the cab, shouted:

“There’s a mysterious report in New York that everything is wrong with
the P. & Y., and that Delavan has absconded to some other country. Can
you say anything to that, Mr. Moddridge?”

If Moddridge could, he didn’t. Instead, his jaw dropped. He reeled to
one side as though about to fall from the seat. Tom hastily changed to
the same seat, supporting the worried man.

“So the news has already reached New York and Wall Street?” he asked,
faintly.

“If it has,” whispered Halstead, watching to see whether the driver was
trying to listen, “then it’s because the crowd back of the trouble
took pains to send word in early this morning. Mr. Moddridge, the news
must have been known hours ago, since reporters have had time to get
away out here from the city.”

“If——”

“Don’t try to say any more, Mr. Moddridge,” urged Halstead, again in a
whisper. “The driver may be trying to overhear.”

As they reached the telephone office, and got out, Tom hurriedly paid
the driver, then escorted Mr. Moddridge inside. The manager of the
office looked up to say, briskly:

“The wire in booth number two is waiting for you, Mr. Moddridge.”

“Come in the booth with me, Halstead,” begged Moddridge, shaking. “I
may need you, if my voice is too unsteady.”

So the young skipper followed his employer’s friend into the booth,
making sure that the door was tightly closed. Hardly had this been done
when three of the reporters, who had followed in another carriage,
entered the office. The manager, however, would not allow them near the
booth.

The telephone instrument was already directly connected with a broker’s
office in Wall Street, New York City. Immediately after he had rung
Moddridge asked:

“Is that you, Coggswell? How is everything going?”

Tom Halstead, standing close to the receiver, could hear the reply:

“Oh, is that you, Mr. Moddridge? Where on earth is Mr. Delavan?”

“He is not here just now.”

“Mr. Moddridge,” came the earnest voice from the other end of the wire,
“I hope you will be able to get hold of Mr. Delavan at the earliest
possible moment. P. & Y. has gone down, to-day, from 102 to 91.
There’ll be a further drop unless you can bring Delavan to the fore.”

Eben Moddridge groaned. Tom could see perspiration oozing out on the
nervous one’s face and neck.

“There are persistent rumors,” continued Broker Coggswell, “that
Delavan has secretly and systematically wrecked the P. & Y. Railroad,
and that the road’s finances are in a bad condition. The newspapers
have taken up the yarn, and there’s a bad flurry in all Delavan stocks.”

“The reporters are out here, trying to interview me,” admitted Mr.
Moddridge.

“Then,” begged the New York broker, “produce Delavan at the earliest
possible moment, and let the reporters interview him. It will do a lot
to steady your interests in Wall Street. Where is Mr. Delavan, anyway?”

“I can’t tell you that over the wire, Mr. Coggswell. I’ll write you
this afternoon.”

“Is it true that Delavan has fled, and is in hiding on account of
financial irregularities with the P. & Y. Railroad?”

“It’s wholly false, Coggswell,” cried Moddridge, hoarsely.

“Then hurry up and produce him, or the banks will call your loans, and
you’ll both go under in the crash, besides dragging a good many scores
of innocent people down with you.”

“Oh, I hope it won’t be as bad as that,” shivered Moddridge.

“If you and Delavan go under during the next few days,” warned Broker
Coggswell, “Wall Street is so shaky and suspicious that a good many
failures will result.”

“I’ll put Delavan in touch with you at the earliest possible moment,”
promised Eben Moddridge. “And now, as my watch tells me it’s ten
minutes to closing time on the Stock Exchange, I’ll wait right here for
the day’s final news.”

As soon as he had turned away from the instrument Moddridge looked out
through the glass door of the booth at the reporters hovering by the
street door.

“There’s a side door out of this place, Halstead,” whispered the
nervous one. “I don’t want to have to meet all those reporters again.
Slip into another booth and ’phone the Eagle House to have Delavan’s
car rushed down to the side door.”

Tom Halstead accomplished this, returning to the booth before Broker
Coggswell called up Mr. Moddridge.

It was a few minutes after three when that call came.

“You, Moddridge?” demanded the New York broker’s voice.

“Yes, Coggswell.”

“P. & Y. has broken down to 86. If it goes to 85 in the morning, either
you’ll have to put up extra collateral for your loans and Delavan’s, or
the bankers will call in your loans.”

“Good heavens!” shuddered Mr. Moddridge.

“But Delavan’s reappearance will stop all the wild rumors, and P. &
Y. ought to climb back up where it belongs. Be swift and active, Mr.
Moddridge, for you know how many millions are at stake. I shall be here
at my office for two hours yet for the situation looks black at this
end.”

“Brace up, sir, please do,” begged Tom, anxiously, as Eben Moddridge
turned away from the instrument and rose, his face haggard and ashen
gray, his knees tottering under him. “The reporters will see you. Think
what they may imagine if you look scared to death. A frightened face
may cost you millions at this time! Throw your head up and back. Laugh,
then keep smiling. That’s right; now come!”

Delavan’s automobile was waiting up the street a little way. As soon as
the clever chauffeur saw the pair appear at the side door, the machine
glided up to that side door, the nearer tonneau door open. Into it
stepped Moddridge and the young skipper, the latter closing the door.
The machine turned and was rolling away just as the reporters, suddenly
alert, hurried to the spot.

Arrived at the hotel, Eben Moddridge got to his room as quickly as
possible. There, all disguise dropping, he began to shake so that he
was forced to drop into a chair.

“Tell the clerk I want no cards; that I’m too busy to see any callers,”
directed the nervous one. “Tell him, on no account, to let anyone get
up here. Yet, Halstead, someone must see the reporters. Why can’t you
do it? Your nerve is all right. See them! Talk to them. But don’t let
them know we can’t find Delavan. Go! To the clerk, first, then the
reporters.”

Slipping downstairs, Captain Tom Halstead was able to fill both orders
at the same time, for the reporters were all at the clerk’s desk,
offering their cards. At sight of Halstead the six scribes bore down
upon him.

“You can’t see Mr. Moddridge for two or three hours, anyway,” Tom
assured the gentlemen of the press. “Every instant of his time is taken
up. If there’s anything I can properly tell you, I’ll do so.”

“Where’s Delavan?” the six chorused together.

“Why do you want to know that?” inquired Halstead, innocently.

“Why?” replied one of the reporters. “Because it is reported and
believed that Francis Delavan has wrecked the P. & Y. Railroad, that he
has sent the proceeds of his work out of the country, and that he has
followed the money. There’s another story to the effect that Delavan,
overcome with horror, has committed suicide by drowning himself in
nearby waters. There’s a big tumble in Wall Street, already, and the
money storm is breaking loose!”




CHAPTER XI

TOM HALSTEAD’S QUICK WIT AT WORK


“NOW, where is Francis Delavan?”

Six gentlemen of the press launched that question at Captain Tom
Halstead’s head. Their voices and their eyes put the question together.

But the young man, smiling serenely, was ready for them.

“Mr. Delavan left, early this morning, for a pleasure trip on the
water, and he hasn’t returned yet,” replied the “Rocket’s” skipper.

That was wholly the truth.

“Where did Mr. Delavan go?”

“He didn’t tell me where he was going.”

“How soon will he be back?”

“He didn’t tell me that, either.”

“Did he go on the ‘Rocket’?”

“No.”

“Captain,” demanded one of the reporters, eyeing the lad keenly,
“pardon me for asking you if you answered that last question
truthfully.”

“On my honor I did,” Halstead replied, promptly. “Yesterday Mr. Delavan
went out on the ‘Rocket.’ To-day only his friend, Mr. Moddridge, went
out with us.”

“See here, captain,” demanded another reporter, bruskly and somewhat
roughly, “don’t you know, quite well, that Delavan has skipped away,
probably out of the country, for good?”

“I give you my word, gentlemen, that I don’t know it, or even believe
it. Indeed, while I do not presume to feel myself in Mr. Delavan’s
confidence, I am very sure that he cannot be many miles from here at
this moment.”

“Then _where_ is he?”

“Not being in Mr. Delavan’s confidence, I can’t tell you.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Not—not exactly.”

That reply conveyed the impression the young skipper hoped it would,
namely, that he simply didn’t want to tell where the Wall Street man
was supposed to be.

“All I can tell you,” Tom Halstead added, “is that Mr. Delavan is
probably not many miles away from here at this moment, that he will
undoubtedly turn up very soon, and that he will be pretty angry over
the stories that his brief absence have caused.”

Not being easily daunted or turned aside, these New York reporters
continued their siege of the young skipper for at least another quarter
of an hour. Tom, however, could not be trapped into saying more than
he had already said. Yet he spoke so simply, and with such candor, that
he imagined the reporters themselves were beginning to believe that too
much ado had been made over Mr. Delavan’s brief absence, and that Wall
Street had gone astray on another crazy story. However, still intent on
seeing Eben Moddridge, and perhaps hoping to find Mr. Delavan himself
before the day was over, the reporters lounged about the lobby or at
the hotel entrance.

As soon as he could do so without attracting the attention of any
of the others, Halstead strolled over to the “Sun” reporter, a
fair-haired, alert, athletic-looking young man.

“Do you know that brown-haired, tall young man, in the blue suit?”
asked Halstead, rather carelessly.

“I do not,” answered the “Sun” man.

“Yet he belongs to your party, doesn’t he?” pursued the young skipper.

“Why, he was with us, yes.”

“Do you know the other reporters?”

“All of them.”

“But you don’t know the brown-haired young man?”

“No,” answered the “Sun” man. “I don’t believe he’s from a New York
paper. He may belong to one of the Brooklyn dailies. Shall I ask him
who he is and what paper he serves?”

“Oh, no, thank you,” Tom answered, carelessly. “It’s just the slightest
curiosity on my part. He makes me think, a little, of a fellow I knew
in my own town.”

But as the motor boat boy presently strolled away his mind was moving
fast. He had already suspected that the brown-haired young man, with
the well-tanned face, did not belong to the party of reporters, though
he pretended to.

For Halstead, rarely mistaken in a voice, had heard the fellow speak
twice. Though the tone was low, it had brought back a memory of the
night before.

“If it’s the same fellow,” flashed through the boy’s mind, “then his
hair, last night, was lighter, and his cheeks fairer. Since then he
must have dyed his hair and stained his face. He wore a gray suit,
then, and a yachting cap, but I’d wager a lot the fellow yonder is the
one who directed the fellow calling himself Rexford, and one of the
pair that chased me up a tree. The voice is the same, I’m sure, though
now he’s talking lower and trying to disguise his voice.”

The more Halstead covertly studied the suspected one the more he became
convinced of the whole truth of his guess.

“Then, if he’s one of the fellows who tried to tempt me last night,
he’s working for or with the very crowd that have caused Mr. Delavan to
vanish,” breathed the young captain. Feeling that his excitement must
be showing in his eyes, Halstead forced himself to cool down a good
deal.

“That fellow you asked about claims his name is Ellis, and that he’s on
a Brooklyn newspaper,” murmured the “Sun” man, drifting by the young
motor boat captain.

“Thank you,” acknowledged Tom Halstead, courteously, yet almost
indifferently. To himself, however, as the real reporter strolled away,
the boy muttered:

“Ellis, eh? And a Brooklyn newspaper? What a cool liar the fellow is!”

Though they had now waited but a few minutes after giving up young
Halstead as a bad interviewing job, the reporters were now once more
besieging the desk clerk to send their cards up to Eben Moddridge.

“It’s no use, gentlemen, I tell you,” insisted the clerk. “I’m not
to let anyone near Mr. Moddridge until he informs me that he is at
leisure.”

“That fellow who calls himself Ellis is the only one who doesn’t insist
at all,” muttered the young skipper, covertly watching the game.

Bye and bye, however, “Ellis” drew two of the real reporters aside,
engaging them in low, earnest conversation. The other reporters joined
the party, all hands talking together for some fifteen minutes. Then
once more the “Sun” reporter, as soon as he could do so without
attracting attention from his comrades, sauntered up to Captain Tom,
standing on the veranda just outside the entrance.

“That fellow Ellis claims to have a whole lot of inside track,”
whispered the “Sun” man. “He tells us he _knows_ that Francis Delavan,
overcome with remorse at having looted the assets of the P. & Y.
Railroad, drowned himself near the mouth of the inlet this morning. He
claims that the body has been recovered, but that an effort is being
made to keep it from the coroner.”

“Then the fellow lies,” retorted Tom bluntly, indignantly. “You’ve been
good to me in telling me this, so I’m going to assure you again, on my
honor, that Mr. Delavan isn’t dead; and I’m equally certain that he has
done nothing wrong.”

The “Sun” man looked keenly at the boy, concluding that the
blue-uniformed young skipper was telling the truth as he knew it.

“Thank you,” said the reporter, simply. “I’ll try to keep you posted
on any other wild rumors I hear. But I wish you’d lead me, alone, to
Delavan.”

“I will,” promised Tom, artlessly.

“When?”

“When the time comes that I have a right to.”

Just as the “Sun” reporter walked away the young skipper caught sight
of Jed, standing under a tree in the grounds, making signs. Beside
Jed stood a big, broad-shouldered hulking young fellow with a face as
freckled as the map of the Thousand Islands.

Taking a last look inside, and seeing Ellis still chatting with two of
the New York reporters, Halstead ran down the veranda steps, crossing
the grounds to his Nantucket friend.

“Say, cap,” began Jed, affectionately, “I’m terribly sorry, but I guess
I’ve got to quit this cruise. It’s mean, but there’s trouble at home.
Mother’s ill. I’ve just had a wire from Dad. He doesn’t say it’s the
worst, Tom, but he advises me to come home. So I’ve got to go by the
next train, which leaves in twenty minutes. You won’t blame me, old
fellow, will you!”

“Blame you?” repeated Halstead, quickly. “Of course not. I’d drop
anything if I had the same kind of a telegram. We’ll miss you, of
course, Jed, but it can’t be helped. Well get along somehow.”

“Oh, I’m not going to leave you thrown down,” retorted young Prentiss.
“Cap, this is my friend, Hank Butts. Hank is right out of sea-faring
stock for a hundred years back. And he can _cook_, too. Say, Tom,
he was down at Nantucket, two years ago, on the Life Saving Service
cutter. Even then he could cook, eh, Hank?”

“Some,” laconically responded the freckle-faced youth. “And I can
handle boats—some—though I don’t know much about motors.”

“I just ran into him on the way up here, Tom,” confided Jed. “But say,
I know all about him, from two years ago. Can you give him the job
until I show up back again, anyway?”

“Yes,” agreed Halstead at once. “Of course, subject to Mr. Delavan’s
approval.”

“Then good-bye, and good luck to you all,” cried Jed Prentiss, after
hastily looking at his watch. “I’ve got to run. I’ve said good-bye to
Joe already. Tom, I’ve left my uniforms on board—if you can squeeze
Hank into ’em.”

With a hasty hand pressure for both youths Jed Prentiss scurried away,
intent on reaching his Nantucket home at the earliest possible moment.

Captain Tom had stepped around so that the bush was between himself and
the hotel entrance. Hank followed.

“Shall I go on board and look about at the new job?” queried Hank Butts.

“Yes,” nodded Tom, instantly adding: “By hokey—no!”

For at that very moment Ellis was coming out alone through the hotel
entrance. The fellow glanced backward, to make sure he was not observed
by any of the genuine reporters. Then he slipped rapidly through the
grounds.

“See that fellow hurrying over there, in the blue suit?” questioned
young Halstead.

“Yep,” nodded Hank Butts.

“Think you could follow him, no matter where he goes, so he wouldn’t
suspect you were following him?”

“Sure,” nodded Hank. “Nothing easier.”

“Then do it,” blazed Tom Halstead, in a frenzied undertone. “And I
will follow, keeping only you in sight. In that way, he won’t have any
chance to know I’m after him, and he doesn’t know you.”

Hank, like a well disciplined follower of the sea, sauntered away
without asking another question. Captain Tom watched him for a few
moments, then, when Ellis had passed out of sight, the young skipper
trailed after Hank Butts, at that moment about to vanish from his view.

“Ellis was hanging around, to spread stories against Mr. Delavan, and
also to find out what is happening,” quivered the young motor boat
captain. “Now, I’ll bet Ellis is going straight to his employer—and I’m
going to follow him right up to that same rascally chief!”




CHAPTER XII

GOING STRAIGHT TO HEADQUARTERS


IT was an exhilarating thought that the fellow in the lead of the
strange procession, who was unquestionably a sham reporter, was going
straight to the headquarters of the whole conspiracy.

Had Ellis been suspicious and looked back, only to behold Tom Halstead
in his wake, it would have been easy enough for the fellow to turn
aside from wherever he was going. As it was, however, only unknown Hank
Butts was visible, once in a while, in the chase, and Hank, in overalls
and a farmer’s straw hat, didn’t look like anything clever. Moreover,
Hank was doing his level best to appear more simple. He went through
the streets greeting people he knew, or thought he knew, in a careless
fashion. Once they got beyond the town, on a road going eastward, Hank
fell back out of sight of Ellis, though still keeping on the trail. The
first time it was necessary for this Long Island boy to let himself
be seen as Ellis turned for a look backward, Hank yanked off his hat,
nimbly chasing a butterfly, which he missed.

“This friend of Jed’s knows his business all right,” thought Tom
Halstead, admiringly, as he followed, just managing to keep in touch
with young Butts, yet wholly behind and out of sight of Ellis. “Hank
looks like a Simple Simon, which, in itself, is almost a sure sign that
he’s no fool.”

After tramping more than a mile down a dusty, lonely country road,
Ellis hauled up under a tree, removing his hat and mopping his face.
Hank, without shying, went straight on.

“Howdy,” greeted Butts, nonchalantly. Then, sighting another butterfly,
he went off after it at full speed, catching this one and wrapping it
carefully in a handkerchief.

“Interested in such things?” asked Ellis, following Hank down the road.

“Yep,” replied young Butts, unconcernedly, “when there’s a fool
professor in town willing to pay me for such stuff.”

“Oh, you’re collecting ’em for someone else, are you?” Ellis wanted to
know.

“Now, did I say quite that?” asked Hank, with a foolish grin. “Say,
mister, I’m minding my business, ain’t I?”

“And you’re a regular boor about it, too,” retorted Ellis, sharply.

“I reckon that’s my business, too, ain’t it?” mocked Hank.

Disgusted with this country bumpkin, as he doubtless considered
him, Ellis stalked on again. But Hank had accomplished his purpose.
Thereafter Ellis, not suspecting him of anything clever, paid no heed
to him.

“Hank is as near all right as, anyone I’ve seen,” chuckled Tom
Halstead, who, having crept close for once, behind the shelter of a
fringe of sumac bushes, had overheard the talk. “I can trust Jed’s
friend.”

Thereafter Halstead did not take the risk of getting too close. He was
satisfied with keeping track of Hank only.

After more than another mile had been covered, however, Hank came
loping back over the course. Tom stepped aside into the bushes.

“Hsst!” he hailed.

“I knew you’d stop me,” whispered Hank, hauling up short. “And I
thought you’d better know what’s going on ahead. Quite a bit down the
road there’s an auto hauled up at the side, and a feller in it just
signaled the chap you set me to watching. Your feller is hiking forward
to meet the goggles in the auto. What do I do now?”

Captain Tom’s hesitation was brief. He would have liked to ask Hank to
wait near by, but remembered the fact that young Butts was not in the
Delavan confidence. It might be better, on the whole, to send Jed’s
friend back to East Hampton.

“Skip back and aboard the boat,” the young captain directed, hurriedly.
“Don’t tell a soul, except Joe Dawson, what you’ve been doing, and
don’t go up into town away from the boat.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” nodded Hank, understandingly. “But don’t stay to watch
me out of sight, or your man may skip off in that auto with his goggles
friend.”

The advice was good. Keeping off the road, crouching low behind
the bushes that fringed the highway, Halstead hastened forward as
noiselessly as he could travel. After going a quarter of a mile he
heard the quiet running of an automobile engine.

“Whoever has that car wants to be ready to start on the instant without
even having to wait to crank up,” throbbed the young skipper, moving
more stealthily than before. Instantly, too, he became more excited,
for now he could hear the low hum of voices in conversation.

The noise of the automobile’s engine guided the young motor boat
captain better than any other sound could have done. Crawling between
the bushes, he came, at last, to a point directly opposite the auto
at the roadside, and barely more than a score of feet away. Halstead
crawled to this spot and lay there, securely hidden.

“You’ve done as well as you could, Ellis, no doubt,” a man’s voice was
saying.

“I’m sure of that, Mr. Bolton,” replied the young man. “I’ve made those
New York reporters suspicious. I’ve done the trick so strongly, in
fact, that everyone of them will send his paper a story that will make
Wall Street jump in the morning. Even if any of the reporters suspect
that Delavan may be alive, they’ll give some space in their papers to
the hint of remorse and suicide. P. & Y. ought to fall at twenty points
when the Stock Exchange opens in the morning.”

“It will,” declared the man addressed as Bolton. “But I hope it will
drop even more than that. The lower P. & Y. goes, Ellis, the better it
will be for me. I want that railroad, and I’m going to get it!”

“Oh, you are, are you?” thought listening Tom Halstead, deeply
interested.

“But I’m certain you’ll have to get Delavan to a safer place, Mr.
Bolton,” continued Ellis, earnestly. “I’m afraid there’ll be a big
search for him. You know Moddridge still has a goodish bit of money
that’s not tied up in his new deals.”

“Moddridge!” sniffed Bolton, contemptuously. “Pooh! That’s the least
of our worries. Moddridge simply won’t do anything—won’t have courage
enough, with Delavan out of the way. Moddridge is a feeble-minded idiot
of finance.”

“But there are other people who stand to lose heavily through a drop in
P. & Y.,” urged Ellis. “Some of them have money enough to hire an army
of detectives and spies. If Delavan is found before P. & Y. touches
bottom price in the market your profits will be much smaller.”

“I know it,” nodded Bolton. “But Delavan simply isn’t going to be
found, until I’ve got enough P. & Y. stock at my own figures. Then he
can come back and boost the stock up again—meaning millions in profits
for Justin Bolton!”

“If you’re absolutely sure he won’t be found before our plans go
through successfully——” hesitated Ellis.

“Found?” echoed Bolton, with a rough laugh. “Not until I want it,
Ellis. See here, this is what I am going to do with Delavan, to-night.”

Some whispered words followed.

“Get him out on the ocean?” cried Ellis, a note of delight in his
voice. “And keep him out there for days, a close prisoner? Good!
Nothing better can be done, if it isn’t traced back to you.”

“Oh, it won’t be,” declared Justin Bolton, with a grunt of conviction.
“Ellis, I’m planning this all too deeply. I couldn’t get in on that
Steel business. I don’t know what tips Delavan’s agent got from Gordon,
and I don’t know what Delavan and Moddridge started to do in that
direction. But when I heard that both had pledged their P. & Y. stock
with the bankers I saw at once how to drive the bankers into selling
the pledged P. & Y. stock to save themselves. And others will sell.
There’ll be a panic in Wall Street to-morrow. We’ll pick up the P. &
Y. for song-prices. Delavan’s final return will show the folly of the
scare. P. & Y. will then go up again, and I’ll clear the millions I
want. Ellis, you and Rexford won’t be poor men any more after that!”

Inch by inch Tom Halstead had continued to creep forward. He wanted to
get a good look at Justin Bolton. He wanted, if possible, to find some
way of “catching on behind” the touring car when it rolled away, for in
that manner, he believed, he could find his way direct to imprisoned
Francis Delavan.

Justin Bolton sat alone on the front seat of the machine, Ellis stood
in the roadway, two feet off. Beside Bolton dozed an ugly-looking
bull-dog.

One of Tom’s movements under the bushes made a slight sound. Neither of
the men heard it, but the bull-dog awoke. The animal thrust up its ugly
head, sniffing. Then, with a growl it sprang out of the car, dashing
into the bushes. Tom had only time to hug the ground more closely,
praying that he might escape detection. But the bull-dog rushed
straight to the spot of hiding. Too late the young skipper rolled over,
to leap to his feet. As he did so, the bull-dog sprang at him. In a
moment Tom felt the brute’s teeth at his throat. The teeth did not sink
through the skin, but Captain Tom knew that the least movement to shake
off the animal would cause those strong jaws to fasten.

Ellis dashed into the bushes after the dog.

“What’s wrong?” shouted Justin Bolton, in a voice of alarm.

“Wrong?” echoed Ellis, glaring down at the hapless young motor boat
skipper. “Everything on the list is wrong! Your dog has caught the
captain of Delavan’s boat. And the infernal young meddler must have
heard every word of our talk!”




CHAPTER XIII

STEALING A SWIFT MARCH


“GR-R-R!” snarled the bull-dog, still holding lightly onto Halstead’s
neck, ready to sink his fangs in at the first sign of resistance.

At Ellis’s startling information Mr. Bolton leaped from his car,
crossing the road and bounding over among the bushes.

“So we’ve got _you_, have we—the young man who refused to aid us for
a good price?” cried the dog’s owner, exultantly. “Ellis, this isn’t
bad news. It’s about the best thing that could have happened. We’ll
stuff this young man’s mouth up, tie him and take him to keep his
employer company. It reduces the danger of any successful pursuit by
the ‘Rocket.’”

Tom Halstead wasn’t a coward, as everyone familiar with his career well
knows. But the dog had the upper hand at this moment, and any attempt
to show fight would have been sheer folly.

“I guess you’ll agree to offer no nonsense, won’t you, Halstead?”
chuckled Mr. Bolton, roughly. “If you do, I’ll call my dog off, though
the beast will be at hand if needed.”

[Illustration: Hank Calmly Dropped the Rock]

Captain Halstead’s blood was boiling over the hopelessness of this
defeat in what he had hoped would be the very hour of his success.
Before he could reply, however, the dog made the next move.

Behind the whole group was a quick, light step. The dog was the first
to hear it. Springing back from the young skipper with a new growl of
warning, the brute turned, making a fresh spring.

Hank Butts had just crossed the stone wall that bordered the road. In
his two hands Hank held a rock slightly larger than his head. Nor did
the freckle-faced youth seem greatly alarmed. As the bull dog sprang
Hank calmly bent forward and dropped the heavy rock on the animal’s
head just in the nick of time.

Without uttering a sound the savage brute dropped to the ground, dead.
Ellis leaped forward at the newcomer, but Hank Butts, with a speed that
seemed strange in him, snatched up the dog and hurled it full in the
face of the sham reporter.

“Here, you young rascal!” roared Justin Bolton, as Ellis toppled over
backward. He rushed at Hank, but Mr. Bolton was a stout, middle-aged
man—no match in agility for a country boy.

“Get back before I have to do something impolite,” mocked Hank,
sidestepping and throwing himself on guard. But Tom Halstead, leaping
to his feet at the first sign of rescue, now tripped Justin Bolton
neatly. That astounded person fell backward, striking the ground
heavily.

“This way, Hank, on the hustle!” called Tom, making a plunge for the
road. Halstead was in the automobile, at the steering wheel, like a
flash. Hank, trembling slightly, but all a-grin, followed.

Ellis was the first to regain his feet, though Bolton was close behind
him as he gained the road. They were just a second or so too late. With
the machine cranked up, the engine running, Halstead had only to give
the steering wheel a turn and push on the speed. The car rolled ahead,
then began to travel fast just as the angry pair dashed up. In another
instant Halstead had distanced them, speeding the car eastward down the
country road.

Bang! There was a single shot. A bullet sped by their heads, but both
boys were crouching low. There was a second shot, but this time no
bullet was heard. The swift car had borne them out of revolver range.

“Hank,” exploded Tom, gleefully, “I want to say that I’ve known some
real fellows, but you’re one of the best ever. But how did you manage
it? I thought you were on your way back to East Hampton.”

“I ought to have been,” admitted Hank Butts, soberly. “But—well, I
suppose I’ve a notion for minding other people’s business. I was just
aching to see how you came out, so—well, I follered.”

“And the luckiest thing for me that you did,” asserted young Halstead,
shutting off much of the speed, now, and running along more slowly.
“But see here, Hank, can you run this car for a moment or two?”

“I can steer it,” Hank agreed.

Tom surrendered the wheel to this new friend, and climbed over backward
into the tonneau. He promptly examined the cushions under the rear
seat. As he had hoped, he found a large locker space under the seat,
and some tools.

“See here, Hank, listen,” admonished Halstead, leaning over the back of
the front seat. “I think our people will run after us a little way in
the hope that we’ll leave the auto and take to our heels. I’m going to
stay here and hide under the back seat. There’s a wrench or two there
that I can fight with if I’m cornered. If Bolton will only overtake
his machine and go where I think he’ll go, I’ll be on the track of the
biggest kind of news. But this time I want you to really run back to
East Hampton. Don’t even think of waiting to see what happens to me.
Get aboard the ‘Rocket’ and tell Joe Dawson, from me, to get the engine
all ready for an instant start. Then he wants to be near the cigar
store, close to the pier, so I can call him over the telephone there
if I want to send him any message. Tell him to have the tank full of
gasoline, ready for a long chase. Here, I’ll give you a note that’ll
make Joe Dawson pay a whole lot of attention to you. Shut off the
engine.”

Hank Butts ran the car in at the side of the lonely road and stopped.
Halstead hastily scribbled on an envelope:

    Joe, trust Hank Butts to the limit. He’s all right. Tom.

“Take this,” ordered the young skipper. “Now, after I get in under the
seat, pile the cushions over it again as they should go.”

Captain Tom quickly stowed himself away, finding the space rather
cramped after all. Under the edge of the seat he slipped the end of his
jackknife, to keep the lid raised barely enough for a supply of air.
This done, Hank placed the cushions.

“Now take to the woods and make a real travel back to East Hampton,”
muttered Tom. “Be quick about it, before Bolton and Ellis get in
sight.”

“Good-bye, Cap. Best of luck!” breathed Hank Butts, fervently. Then the
confined young skipper heard his new friend leap down into the road and
scamper away.

There followed some weary moments, full of suspense and anxiety. The
young motor boat boy hoped that the rascally pair would pursue their
car thus far, but he knew, too, that they might be suspicious enough to
explore that locker space under the big rear seat. Though Tom gripped a
wrench tightly, this pair might both be armed and ready to proceed to
any lengths to prevent the defeat of their plot to wrest millions from
an excited stock market.

At last Halstead heard running steps, followed by a shout:

“There’s the car! Just as I had hoped!”

The running steps slowed down to a walk. Then, as the new arrivals drew
near, Justin Bolton’s voice proclaimed, triumphantly:

“I thought it might be so. Those boys didn’t dare take the risk of
stealing a valuable car, so, as soon as they got away safely, they
deserted the machine.”

“I hope they haven’t done anything to disable the car,” hinted Ellis,
concernedly. “I don’t know who that hulking Simple Simon chap is, but
young Halstead undoubtedly knows enough about gasoline motors to know
how to leave one in mighty bad shape.”

“We’ll soon know,” declared Bolton, as he reached the car. “Why, the
engine seems to be running all right. Jump in, and we’ll try the car a
little way.”

After the pair had gotten in at the front the car rolled ahead. Whoever
was at the wheel let the speed out a few notches, then slowed down and
stopped the car.

“It’s all right, Ellis, and a tremendously fortunate thing for us. Now,
you can get out and go back to East Hampton. Sorry I can’t take you
back, but it wouldn’t do for me to take the slightest risk of being
seen and recognized with you.”

“That’s all right,” nodded Ellis, leaping down to the ground.

“You know just what to do, young man, and you won’t fail me?”

“Not with the big reward that’s in sight,” laughed Ellis.

“Good-bye, for a little while. Be alert!”

The car started ahead again, though not at great speed. Plainly Bolton
was in no immediate hurry about what he had to do. As he guided the car
along he hummed, merrily, in a low voice.

“Just as though he were an honest man,” muttered Halstead, indignantly.

Often, indeed, was the young motor boat skipper tempted to try the
lifting of the lid of the seat enough to look at the country through
which they were now passing. But the risk that Justin Bolton might be
taking a backward glance at the same moment seemed too great.

Twice, as sounds told, they passed other automobiles headed in the
opposite direction. Peeping through the narrow crevice that he had made
with his knife-end—an opening that was concealed by the overlapping
cushions—Halstead saw that daylight was now rapidly waning.

Twenty minutes later it was fully dark. The car now turned off the soft
road over which it had been running, to a more gravelly road. Then the
car stopped altogether.

“All well, sir?” hailed a voice that made Halstead start. The tones
were those of that red-haired young man, Rexford.

“Not quite all well,” replied the voice of Bolton, though the speaker
seemed hardly worried. “We ran into that young captain of the ‘Rocket,’
Halstead, and into another young fellow, a human cyclone. They know
something of our game, but they were glad enough to get away from us.”

Calvin Rexford gave vent to a low, prolonged whistle of amazement.

“However,” Bolton continued, “they don’t know enough of what we’re
doing to spoil our enterprise. As I said, we got rid of them.”

He then gave a rather truthful account of the meeting in the woods, of
the seizure of the auto and of its abandonment, as Bolton supposed.

“I don’t like the sound of that story,” said Rexford, uneasily.

“Nor do I, either,” agreed Justin Bolton. “Still, the boys don’t know
the most important part of what they’d like to find out—where Frank
Delavan is. And, now, Rexford, how has Delavan been behaving?”

“Naturally, he hasn’t been giving us any trouble,” laughed Rexford. “We
haven’t given him any chance.”

“I think I’ll take a look at him; though, mind you, he mustn’t have the
slightest glimpse of me.”

“I think that can be easily arranged,” replied the red-haired one. “But
did the boys, this afternoon, hear your name?”

“I don’t believe they did,” replied Bolton, stepping out of the car.
“It might disarrange our plans some if they did happen to know my name.”

The next words, spoken by Rexford, were not distinguishable to Tom
Halstead, crouching under that rear seat. He raised the lid somewhat as
soon as he was satisfied that the two speakers were moving away.

The car had been run in under a shed, open at one end. Bolton and
Rexford being out of sight, Tom softly raised the lid, cushions and
all, then replaced the leather cushions and leaped hastily to the
ground.

The shed had been built onto a barn that was now rather dilapidated.
Two hundred feet beyond the barn was an old, spacious house of two
stories. Toward this the two men were walking.

“So that’s Mr. Delavan’s prison, is it?” thought the young skipper,
throbbing with the excitement of his discovery. “Whereabouts is this
place? Probably near Cookson’s Inlet. I wonder if the water can be seen
from any point around here?”

Then, gazing after the two men, Tom saw them disappear into the house.
There seeming to be no one else about, the boy stole slowly toward
the house. He had reached an old, tumble-down summer-house when the
sound of voices made him hide there. Two other men, middle-aged and
strangers, came from the direction of the house, going towards the
barn. They had been talking in undertones, but ceased before they came
near enough for the young motor boat captain to make out anything.

“Confound ’em,” grumbled Halstead, a few moments later. For the two
men, having reached the barn, now lighted pipes and stood there,
smoking and chatting in undertones.

Halstead could not move from where he crouched. If he did he ran the
almost certain chance of being discovered. Thus some ten or twelve
minutes passed. The young skipper of the “Rocket” studied the old
house, trying to guess in what part of it Francis Delavan was confined
against his will. Not a single light, however, showed from the outside.

Someone was coming away from the house. As he came nearer, Halstead
made him out to be Rexford. That young man kept on past the barn to
the shed. He soon returned slowly in the car, the two men with pipes
swinging aboard as he passed them.

To Tom’s great alarm the car stopped close to the summer house. The two
strangers now stepped out again, going toward the main house. Hardly
had they vanished when Justin Bolton came out once more, going straight
to the automobile, though he did not board it.

“You understand your orders fully now, Rexford?” inquired Bolton. “You
know what to do to-night, and you are aware that, this house having
served its brief purpose, we shall not use it again. The launch will
remain where it is, in hiding, for a day or two, at least. Then, when
all is ready, the launch will take you and your charge out to sea. You
know the rest?”

“It’s all quite clear, thank you, Mr. Bolton,” Rexford replied.

“I shall rely upon you, then, Rexford. Don’t fail me.”

“No fear, Mr. Bolton. You are wagering millions on the game, but I have
at least a fortune at stake. Trust me. I won’t fail you.”

“Good-night, then, Rexford. Caution and good luck!”

“Good-night, Mr. Bolton. We’ll both be richer when I see you again,”
laughed the red-haired one, recklessly.

Justin Bolton walked rapidly away. Had Tom Halstead wished to follow,
he could not have done so. Rexford, sitting in the nearby car, would
have been sure to see the boy.

Ten minutes passed. Then another crunching was heard on the gravel.
This time the young motor boat captain felt as though his heart must
stop beating. The two strange men now appeared, carrying the helpless
form of Francis Delavan between them.

“Stow him in carefully. Drop these blankets over him,” directed
Rexford. Francis Delavan, bound and gagged for the journey, was placed
in the bottom of the tonneau and covered over. One of the men got in
beside him, the other sitting on the front seat with Calvin Rexford.

Honk! The toot from the automobile’s horn was unintentionally jeering,
for Tom Halstead was left behind, helpless, at the very instant when he
longed, as never before, to be of the utmost service.




CHAPTER XIV

THE MELTING OF MILLIONS


IT would have been worse than useless to have tried to jump into the
breach just before the car started. At the least, Tom Halstead would
have been made a prisoner by these desperate plotters.

Free, though he could not immediately aid Mr. Delavan, the young
skipper could at least carry word of what he had seen. He could rouse
Eben Moddridge to action, or, anyway, to the putting up of money that
would put other and more capable men in action.

Yet the boy felt like grinding his teeth in chagrin and bitter
disappointment as he saw that swift touring car glide swiftly off the
grounds to the road.

He had started to run after the car, hoping to overtake it before it
got fully under speed, and to catch on in some way behind. But almost
at once he saw that there was nothing to catch hold of at the rear, and
immediately afterwards the car shot ahead at a speed of forty miles an
hour.

“Whee! I hope the officers stop them, somewhere, for speeding,” thought
Halstead, with a half hopeful grin as he slowed down to a walk. It
would hardly do, however, to expect the car to be stopped for going
only forty miles an hour on Long Island.

As the young skipper stepped out, panting, through the gate, he
remembered the necessity of proceeding cautiously, lest he run afoul
of Justin Bolton, who could not be far away, and was on foot. That
scheming financier carried a revolver, and had shown himself not slow
to use it. After half an hour Halstead felt that the danger of meeting
Bolton was slight, and hurried on faster.

It was late in the evening when Tom Halstead entered the hotel grounds
at East Hampton. A short distance away he had halted long enough to
remove all excessive amounts of dust from clothing and shoes. In order
to appear neither excited nor in haste, he sauntered slowly enough
through the grounds, approached the veranda, stood there two or three
minutes, walked about a bit in the lobby—long enough to see that two
of the New York reporters were still on the scene—and at last escaped,
without attracting special notice, up the stairs. Now he hastened to
the door of Mr. Moddridge’s rooms, and knocked briskly.

“It’s Halstead, Mr. Moddridge,” he replied, in answer to a shaking
query from within. The door flew open like magic.

“Halstead? Where have you been all these hours?” came the peevish
question, as Eben Moddridge, in negligee attire and looking like a more
than ill man, faced the young skipper. “You——”

Tom went inside, closed the door, and led the nervous one to an inner
room. Here the motor boat boy poured out the whole story of what he had
been through.

“Why, your new boy, Butts, hasn’t been near me with a word of this,”
gasped Moddridge, presently.

“That must have been because he didn’t know you, of course,” evaded
Halstead, easily. “But now, Mr. Moddridge, it will be necessary to pull
all your wits together if you’re to save your friend and yourself. What
should be the first move?”

“Oh, dear,” cried the nervous one, pacing the floor, “I honestly don’t
know. I don’t see my way. Why did Delavan ever allow himself to get
into such a dreadful mess? If he had followed my advice——”

“If your advice is any good, sir,” put in Tom, crisply, “it ought to be
useful, just now, in finding out the way to extricate Mr. Delavan from
his present troubles. Now, what ought to be the first step?”

With most men Halstead would have thought himself presuming to go so
far. But the case was tremendously pressing, and it took more than a
little to get Eben Moddridge started.

By slow degrees Moddridge pulled himself together. He wouldn’t hear to
calling in the reporters and making the whole story public as far as it
was known.

“The public would regard it all as a cock-and-bull invention, gotten
up to hide Delavan’s supposed flight,” the nervous one rather sensibly
declared. “And, if we were to drag Bolton’s name in, Bolton would be
very likely to give us the trouble of proving the whole story, mostly
on your unsupported word, Halstead, with a little corroboration, of
course, from your very eccentric new steward—Butts, did you call him?
Besides, if Frank Delavan were here, I think he would prefer to scheme
secretly to punish Justin Bolton, instead of going after him openly.”

“Who is this Bolton?” asked Tom Halstead.

“A man whom Delavan helped to make the start of his fortune. But Bolton
is unscrupulous and dangerous; Frank had to drop him years ago.”

The idea of sending for detectives Eben Moddridge also declined to
entertain.

“No matter how secretly we may think we hire detectives,” he objected,
“it is pretty sure to leak out. The Wall Street public would take that
as a sensational feature, and P. & Y. would drop lower than ever in the
market. No, no, Halstead; we won’t think of hiring detectives until we
have tried other means. Now, what remains to be done!”

Tom Halstead pondered before he answered:

“Bolton’s intention seems to be to take Mr. Delavan off Long Island on
that racing launch. It will probably be at some point within twenty
or thirty miles of here, either east or west. If we could put enough
men on watch, we could find out when that launch attempts to put out
to sea. But you object to using detectives. I wonder if there are any
other men we could trust, instead of using detectives? Say,” proposed
the young skipper, suddenly, “you both trust your broker, Coggswell,
don’t you?”

“Very thoroughly,” admitted Moddridge, pausing in his nervous walk to
stare hard at the young skipper.

“Then why not get hold of Coggswell, at his home to-night, over the
telephone? Ask him to send out some of his clerks whom he knows to be
reliable. He might even send out a few other young men that he could
vouch for?”

“But what good would they be?” asked Eben Moddridge.

“I can take the map of this coast, sir, and lay out stations for these
young men, so that there’ll be one or two of ’em every few miles east
and west of here. I can give them perfect descriptions of the racing
launch. They can be provided with marine glasses. Just the instant that
any one of them spots the racing launch he can telephone me. Then,
whether the launch has Mr. Delavan aboard, and is putting out to sea,
or is going after him, I can do my best to follow in the ‘Rocket.’
Since you are opposed to hiring detectives, Mr. Moddridge, that’s the
best thing I can see that is left to do.”

After some further talk the nervous financier agreed to this. He called
up Broker Coggswell by ’phone, at the latter’s home in New York. Mr.
Coggswell agreed to send down twenty capable and honest young men by
the earliest train in the morning.

That being all that could be done for the present, Captain Tom Halstead
returned to the “Rocket.” Joe Dawson and Hank Butts were both up,
waiting for him. For the next hour, sitting on the deck house of the
boat, in the dark, still watches of the night, talking in whispers,
the boys discussed all the latest phases of the puzzling affair. Then
Tom turned in below, Joe doing likewise, leaving Butts on deck for the
first watch.

“He can be wholly depended upon, can’t he, Tom?” Dawson asked.

“Who? Hank Butts? Joe, even though Hank has struggled into one of Jed’s
uniforms, he may still look like a Simple Simon, but don’t lose any
sleep worrying about Hank!”

Early in the morning the young skipper was astir again. Hiring a
bicycle he wheeled rapidly to the next railway station above East
Hampton. There the young men sent by Broker Coggswell left the train.
Their leader reported to Halstead with the whispered watchword provided
by the New York broker. Tom led them off in private, unfolded the map
he had brought with him, and assigned to each young man the station
he was to watch day and night. For this purpose the young men were
sent away in pairs. When the instructions had been given and fully
understood, Halstead leisurely pedaled back to East Hampton.

“Those young fellows all look bright,” he thought. “If they serve
faithfully, they may be able to give us the very warning that we shall
need.”

Eben Moddridge, who rarely slept more than two or three hours at a
time, was awake when the young skipper called on him. Moddridge had
arranged for a direct wire from his room to Coggswell’s office in New
York, and was feverishly awaiting the hour of nine, when the great
Stock Exchange would open for the day’s dealings in money.

“I feel as though my death sentence must come through this instrument,”
groaned the nervous financier, tapping the telephone.

At last the call came. Now Moddridge had abundant excuse for being
nervous. The day in New York opened with P. & Y. at 87.

“Two points lower,” sighed the nervous one, “and the bankers will begin
to call in the loans with which Frank and I have been buying Steel.”

Half an hour later P. & Y. touched 85.

“We’ve got to put up some money to the banks now,” stated Coggswell.
“But Steel has been doing a little. If you authorize me, I can sell out
some Steel and allied securities, and meet the first demand from the
banks on your account.”

“What shall I do?” shivered Moddridge, turning appealingly to the
“Rocket’s” skipper.

“Why, I don’t know a blessed thing about the game,” Tom admitted,
promptly. “But I should take Coggswell’s advice. He seems to have a
clear head.”

Eben Moddridge acted on the suggestion. But the New York newspapers
were printing columns about the disappearance of Delavan, and more
about the shakiness of P. & Y. stock. By noon the P. & Y. stock had
dropped to 81. Coggswell had closed out more of the Delavan-Moddridge
buyings in Steel, and thus had averted a crash for those interests.

“If Steel will only go up as P. & Y. goes down,” smiled Halstead
cheerily, “you will be able to keep even.”

“That is, one debt will wipe out the other, and leave Frank and myself
penniless,” replied Eben Moddridge, with a ghastly face.

The Stock Exchange closed for the day with P. & Y. at 76, that is, at
a selling price of seventy-six dollars per share, instead of a hundred
and two dollars per share as it had been forty-eight hours earlier. So
far, by sales of Steel and its allied securities, Broker Coggswell had
been able to keep the Delavan-Moddridge interests from going wholly to
smash.

“But there’s to-morrow to face,” almost shrieked the nervous financier.
“To-day millions of our money have literally melted away. If to-morrow
brings no change in our luck, we shall both be ruined!”

The only change of the next day was to carry P. & Y. as low as 71,
where it remained for the time being. Having between three and four
millions of dollars left in private funds, Moddridge, shaking like a
leaf, had ordered Coggswell to turn this last remnant of his fortune
into the joint Delavan-Moddridge interests. Thus again the banks had
been staved off for a little while.

“But the next drop in P. & Y. will eat up all our Steel investments,
and Frank and I won’t have another penny to turn in,” sobbed the
nervous one. “Then the banks will have to close us out to save
themselves. Frank Delavan and I will be beggars!”

Tottering to the bed in the adjoining room, Eben Moddridge threw
himself across it, sobbing hysterically.

Tom Halstead, however, gazed after the nervous financier with a new,
deeper feeling of respect.

“I don’t understand very much about this Wall Street game, and my
head is lined with a maze of figures,” the young skipper muttered
to himself. “But there’s a heap of the man in you, Moddridge. When
you might have saved a very decent fortune to yourself, you threw it
into the whirlpool to try to protect your absent friend. Yon may be
a nervous wreck, but hang me if you aren’t a whole lot of a man at
bottom!”




CHAPTER XV

THE MASTHEAD GAME


WHILE the game that frenzied men were playing in Wall Street had been
hurrying Mr. Delavan and Mr. Moddridge into a ruin that would drag
scores of others into the crash, Engineer Joe Dawson had been going
ahead very methodically under his young captain’s orders.

The “Rocket’s” gasoline tank had been filled. In addition, as many
extra cases of the oil had been taken aboard and stored as the boat’s
space below could provide for.

“But be mighty careful what you do, Hank, with the galley fire,” urged
the young skipper, seriously. “Any blaze that starts aboard this boat
when we’re out on the water is pretty sure to blow us a thousand miles
past Kingdom Come.”

Just after dark, on the night of that day when Eben Moddridge threw his
last dollars into the frantic game of speculation, Tom was summoned
in haste from the boat to the cigar store near the pier. There was a
telephone booth there, and the young skipper was wanted at the ’phone.

“This is Theodore Dyer,” announced the speaker at the other end.

“Oh, yes; you’re one of the watchers,” Halstead remembered, swiftly.

“That launch you set us to watching for has just gone into Henderson’s
Cove, a mile north of here.”

“Oh, bully for you, Dyer!” throbbed the motor boat boy. “Has she had
time to leave yet?”

“Not yet.”

“One thing more. Was the launch showing all her lights?”

“Every one of them.”

“You’re absolutely certain it’s the launch?”

“Top-sure. My side-partner, Drew, first sighted her coming down the
coast just before dark fell. It’s the launch, all right, or her exact
twin.”

Captain Tom had only time to thank the watcher up the coast, then
bolted back to the boat.

“Get everything ready, Joe,” he called. “We ought to be under way in
five minutes. I’m off to speak to Mr. Moddridge.”

“I’m going with you,” cried the nervous one, leaping up as soon as he
heard the news in his room at the hotel.

“We may be out a long while, sir,” suggested the young skipper. “How
about your broker?”

“I gave Coggswell final orders, two hours ago, to do the best he could
and not to communicate with me until he has better news—or everything
has gone to smash. Hurry, lad!”

By the time they reached the hotel entrance Moddridge was trembling so
that Tom bundled him into a waiting cab. Two minutes later they were at
the pier.

“Cast off, Hank,” Halstead called, at once. Then, as he reached the
deck:

“Joe, be ready at the speed-ahead.”

In a jiffy the “Rocket” was moving out from the pier.

“Hank,” called the young skipper, at the wheel, “down with that
masthead light.”

“Why, it’s against the law to sail at night without a masthead light,”
gasped Butts. “And look at the weather out yonder.”

“We can sail with a bow light when we have no mast,” Tom retorted,
doggedly. “And in twenty minutes we won’t have a mast. Down with the
masthead light.”

Wondering, Hank Butts obeyed.

“Trim the side-lights down to just as little as the law will stand
for,” was Tom’s next order. “Just at present they’re too bright—for our
purpose.”

This, too, Hank obeyed, though he was plainly enough of a seaman to be
disturbed.

“Shall I turn the searchlight on, to pick up the inlet?” Butts next
inquired.

“Blazes, no!” the young skipper ejaculated. “I don’t want to show the
glimmer of a glow that I don’t have to.”

“How are you going to pick up the inlet in this dark, nasty weather?”
Hank inquired.

“Feel for it,” Captain Tom retorted, dryly. “Get up forward, Hank, and
pass the word back.”

A native of this section, Hank was a competent pilot. Thus they got
out through the inlet from Shinnecock Bay, heading southwest for
Henderson’s Cove, ten miles away. As soon as they were safely in
deep water Halstead summoned Joe and Hank, sending them forward to
unstep the mast. Moddridge looked on in silent wonder at these unusual
proceedings. They were going at slow speed after a little, as it was no
part of the young skipper’s purpose to show his own boat to those whom
he intended to watch and follow.

“You can take the wheel now, Hank,” called the young skipper, and
stepped forward, carrying a pair of the most powerful marine glasses,
which he had persuaded his employer’s friend to order from New York.
Moddridge followed, keeping close to the young skipper.

“Stop the engine!” Tom Halstead soon called back, his eyes at the
glasses. “Do you see that searchlight ray against the sky, Mr.
Moddridge? That’s over by Henderson’s Cove. The racing launch is coming
out. And, by Jove, she’s carrying her masthead light. Bully for her!”

For some little time the young skipper watched the searchlight and
moving masthead light of the distant craft with keen interest. Then,
out of the dark weather a squall struck the “Rocket,” rolling her over
considerably. Sheets of rain began to drive down. Captain Tom made a
dive below for his oilskins, bringing up another outfit for Hank Butts.
Mr. Moddridge, too, disappeared briefly below, coming up clad for the
weather.

“See that masthead light, sir?” called Halstead, jubilantly. “It ought
to be easy to follow. That boat is headed due south—putting straight
out for the high seas.”

“And do you imagine Frank Delavan is a prisoner on that craft?”
demanded Moddridge.

“From what I heard Bolton say I’m sure of it. Bolton has been making
his arrangements, and now he’s going to put it beyond Mr. Delavan to
escape until P. & Y. has gone clean to the bottom.”

The wind was increasing so that the “Rocket” rolled and pitched in the
troubled sea.

“Good heavens!” gasped Eben Moddridge. “This boat can’t live long in
such a gale.”

“The ‘Rocket’ ought to be fit to cross the ocean, in any weather, if
her fuel lasted,” Captain Tom replied, coolly.

“But this is going to be a regular gale.”

“It looks that way, sir.”

“Then, by all that’s certain, that launch can’t weather it,” cried
Moddridge, his pallor increasing. “Poor Frank! To be sent to the bottom
in that fashion!”

“Why, the launch isn’t a large craft, it’s true, sir,” Captain Tom
responded. “But she’s built for a sea-going craft. With decent handling
she’ll go through any weather like this.”

“You’re not getting any nearer. You’re not overtaking them,” was
Moddridge’s next complaint. The “Rocket” was moving, now, at about
eighteen miles an hour.

“I don’t want to overtake that boat,” Captain Halstead replied, with
vigor. “I don’t want to get near enough to let them see our lights.
We can’t see anything but their masthead light, since they’ve stopped
using the searchlight.”

Even had it been daylight, the two boats were now so far apart that
from the deck of either, one could not have seen the other’s hull. In
the chase that must follow the young motor boat skipper intended to
preserve that distance in order to avoid having his pursuit detected.
In the thick weather it was not possible to see the launch’s masthead
light from the “Rocket’s” deck with the naked eye. An ordinary marine
glass might not have shown the light, either, but the one that Captain
Tom held in his hand kept the light in sight.

“If Frank is really aboard that launch,” inquired Mr. Moddridge, “where
on earth can they be taking him?”

“One guess is as good as another when you don’t know,” smiled Halstead.
“It may be that they have picked out some lonely little island in the
sea for their purpose. I hope they don’t increase their speed to-night.
That other craft could get away from us if our pursuit were suspected.”

All through the night the gale continued. The “Rocket” rolled a good
deal, and strained at her propeller, but she was a sea boat and held
her own well. When morning dawned the motor craft was getting out
toward the edge of the storm. Hours before the course of the quarry
ahead had changed to the east, and both boats were now south of regular
ocean routes and far east of coast-going vessels.

Daylight brought the racer’s masthead in sight.

“We’ll keep just about the upper two feet of that masthead in sight
all day,” proposed the young skipper. Soon afterward he called Hank,
who had had three or four hours’ sleep, to the wheel. Joe, when there
was nothing to do, slept on a locker beside his engine. Eben Moddridge
dozed in a deck chair.

At noon, when Halstead again took the wheel, the relative positions
of the two boats were the same. Through the glass only about two feet
of the racer’s mast could be made out above the horizon. There was no
reason to suppose that those aboard the racer had caught the least
glimpse of the “Rocket.”

By sun-down this sea-quarry’s masthead was still in sight, each boat
going at about nineteen miles an hour.

“We can carry gasoline to go as far as they can,” laughed Tom Halstead,
confidently.

At dark the launch’s masthead light again glowed out, so that the chase
continued to be a simple matter of vigilance. The young navigators
caught their sleep well enough, only the helm requiring constant
attention.

Soon after the second morning out had dawned clear and bright, Captain
Tom, who was at the wheel, caught sight of something so interesting
that he yelled to Hank Butts, asleep on a mattress on deck:

“Wake up, steward! Hustle Mr. Moddridge on deck. Tell him there’s
something ahead of huge interest!”

Joe, just rousing from a nap on an engine room locker, heard and was
hastily on deck. He and Halstead were using the glass and their own
eyes when Hank appeared with Eben Moddridge in tow.

“What is it?” demanded the nervous one.

“See the tops of a schooner’s masts ahead?” challenged Halstead. “You
can make ’em out with your own eyes. And the glass will show you
the tip of the launch’s masthead. The power-boat is making for the
schooner.”

“For what purpose?” trembled the nervous financier.

“For what purpose?” chuckled Tom, gleefully. “Why, sir, undoubtedly so
that those aboard the launch can transfer Mr. Delavan to the sailing
craft. The two vessels must have met here for that very trick, and by
previous arrangement of Justin Bolton!”

“How is that going to help us any?” queried Eben Moddridge, wonderingly.

“How is that going to help us?” repeated the young skipper of the
“Rocket,” staring hard at his questioner. “Why, if the guess is
correct, it’s going to be the greatest piece of good luck that could
come to us!”




CHAPTER XVI

“PUTTING UP” A MARINE JOB


THE “Rocket” was now drifting, while those aboard watched developments
in the ocean game ahead.

“I don’t quite understand what it profits us if Frank is sent aboard
the schooner as a prisoner,” insisted Mr. Moddridge.

“Well, if the launch crowd do that, and then the launch heads back
for the coast, passing out of sight of things hereabouts, it’s going
to be rather easy for a fast boat like ours to keep up with a sailing
schooner, isn’t it?” Captain Tom propounded.

“Yes, but how are we going to help Frank Delavan any?” demanded the
nervous one. “There must be men aboard the schooner, and undoubtedly
they’re armed, which we’re not.”

“We’ll have to see what happens, and use our ingenuity,” Tom replied.

“Humph!” said Mr. Moddridge, sadly. “I’d rather have one small cannon
than all the ingenuity in the world, just now.”

Knowing that nothing could happen right away, Hank Butts coolly
stretched himself on the mattress to finish his interrupted nap. Tom
and Joe remained intently watching the mastheads of the two craft that
were miles away.

“The launch is surely making straight for the schooner,” Joe Dawson
ventured. “Your guess is all right, Tom.”

Within a few minutes more the mastheads were mingled to the view of the
young observers aboard the “Rocket.” The two suspected craft remained
together for nearly half an hour.

“Now, they’re breaking apart,” Halstead reported, at last, watching
through the glass. “The launch is turning. She’s making back west. And
now, old fellow, it’s us for a more southerly course. We must keep out
of the launch’s sight, but never for an instant lose the schooner’s
mastheads. For, if Francis Delavan isn’t aboard that schooner now I
shall never feel at liberty to make a guess again. Take the wheel, Joe,
and start her up. Keep to the southwest. I’ll keep my eye mainly on the
launch’s masthead.”

This they did, for fifteen minutes. Then Tom laid the glass down in its
rack by the wheel.

“The launch has just gone out of sight,” he announced. “Not even the
button on her masthead is visible through the glass. Now, head about
for that schooner’s tops, Joe.”

After a few minutes more they could make out the schooner’s
cross-trees. Bit by bit more of her masts became visible. Then
followed the first glimpse of the schooner’s upper hull.

Throwing on the speed to full eighteen miles an hour, Captain Tom now
gave fast pursuit. The schooner had now observed the “Rocket’s” chase
and was using all sail, but could not make more than seven knots.

“We’ve surely kicked up some excitement on that other craft,” laughed
the young skipper, gleefully.

“How many men can you make out on her decks?” queried Joe.

“Five.”

In a stern chase of this kind the “Rocket” was not long in coming to
close quarters with the sailing vessel. But now eleven men were visible
on her decks.

“And all rough, hard-looking customers, too,” chuckled Halstead.

“Hm! I can’t quite understand what you’re so merry about,” said Mr.
Moddridge, wonderingly.

“Force of habit,” replied Captain Tom, with a smile.

He ran the “Rocket” up parallel with the schooner, shutting down speed
considerably. There was now a distance of barely five hundred feet
between the two craft. The crew of the schooner lined up at her port
rail, surveying the “Rocket” and those aboard, but no hail was passed
between the two craft.

“They’re not allowing Mr. Delavan the freedom of the deck, anyway,”
declared Tom. He now ran the “Rocket” a little further to the
northward, every eye on the schooner’s deck following the manœuvre.

“Joe, shut off speed jerkily,” ordered the young skipper, by the time
the two craft were almost a mile apart. “Shut off as though something
were happening to our engine.”

“Why—er—what——” began Eben Moddridge, hesitatingly, as Joe vanished
below after turning the wheel over to his chum.

“I’m going to try the value of putting up a marine job on those fellows
yonder,” replied Halstead, very quietly.

Eben Moddridge asked no more questions, though there was a most
wondering look in his eyes. The “Rocket’s” speed began to dwindle.

“Hank,” called Tom, “get up and rush about, into the engine room and
out. Mr. Moddridge, show all the excitement you can yourself. That
ought to be easy,” the young captain added, under his breath.

“Why—why—why——” came from the nervous one.

“Act as though our engine had broken down, and we were simply crazy
over our luck.”

By this time the motor boat was lying all but motionless, moving only
under the impulse of recent headway. Leaving the wheel at a bound,
Halstead leaped down into the engine room.

“If the fellows on the schooner are holding a glass on us, they saw me
do that,” laughed Tom, as he landed beside his chum. Hank rushed up on
deck, vanishing aft. After a few moments he flew forward again, diving
down into the engine room.

“I say,” called Eben Moddridge, from the hatchway, “this conduct of
yours is about as hard to understand as——”

“That’s right, sir,” replied Tom, coolly. “Stand there, looking down at
us as though you’re all broken up. That’ll help fool the fellow with
the glass aboard the schooner.”

“It’s working bully, fine!” reported Joe, gleefully, looking out of one
of the starboard port-holes. “The schooner’s skipper is easing off his
sheets. He’s going to lie to and watch us. Hank, you’d better start
another excited merry-go-round between here and aft.”

Young Butts was surely in his element doing things that looked crazy.
The way he raced over the deck and bobbed in and out must have made
the schooner’s people believe that there was extraordinary excitement
aboard the motor boat. Halstead now joined his chum in looking out to
starboard.

“Say,” he roared, suddenly, “that’s just what we wanted!”

Eben Moddridge turned to stare over the water.

“Why, they seem to be lowering a boat,” he observed.

“Just what,” retorted Captain Halstead, springing up on deck and
bringing the marine glass to bear. “One, two, three—say, they’re
putting eight men over the side to man that boat. They’re going to send
that hard-looking crowd to board us.”

“What for?” demanded Moddridge, beginning to tremble.

“They think our engine has broken down temporarily. They’re going to
board us and finish the job by putting our engine out of business for
good,” laughed Tom Halstead, happily.

“I—I—er—I can’t quite see where we gain by that,” quaked the nervous
financier.

“Keep your eyes open, then,” begged Halstead, as he continued to watch
the strangers. The boat, with its eight men, was coming across the
waters as fast as four lusty rowers could send it. Hank performed a few
more frantic rushes in and out of the engine room during the minutes
that the boat’s crew used in getting near the “Rocket.”

“Keep off!” hailed Tom, mockingly, when the small boat was within three
hundred feet.

No reply came from the boat’s crew. They were sullenly silent. Halstead
could see no signs of weapons among them. Suddenly the young skipper
sprang to the speed-ahead deck control of the engine, giving it a
whirl. Then, instantly, he laid hands on the wheel. The “Rocket” forged
ahead once more, while angry oaths burst from the lips of the men in
the small boat, almost alongside. But the motor boat shot on her way,
leaving the small boat’s crew helplessly in the lurch.

Giving a wide sweep to the helm, Tom brought about, heading straight
for the distant schooner. Those in the small boat followed at only a
fraction of the speed.

“Why, what are you up to, now?” demanded Eben Moddridge, his eyes wide
and almost bulging.

“Going to board the schooner before that boat’s crew has a chance to
get back,” replied Captain Tom, his eyes gleaming brightly. “If Mr.
Delavan is aboard we’ll get him. There are only three men left on the
schooner, and the ‘Rocket’s’ crew numbers three.”

“There are four of us, you mean,” declared Moddridge, with a
near-whoop. “If there’s to be any fighting, now, on Frank Delavan’s
account, you’ll have to count me in!”

The shock of that sudden announcement almost had the effect of causing
Tom Halstead to fall away from the wheel in sheer amazement.




CHAPTER XVII

HANK BUTTS DROPS SOMETHING


“FINE and swift!” chuckled the young skipper, though he had not much
faith that the nervous one would remain up to pitch, “Don’t forget that
new idea of yours, Mr. Moddridge.”

“I won’t,” promised the other, though his voice trembled a bit.

Under the young skipper’s orders Joe and Hank brought up the grappling
hooks and chains and made them fast in place at the starboard rail.

These chains, only a few feet long, ended in hooks that were intended
to catch in the rail of another vessel, holding the two craft locked
fast together.

“Bring me a wrench, and get one for Mr. Moddridge, too, Hank,” was
Halstead’s next order. “Also, get one for yourself. They’re handy, if
strangers try to get rough with you.”

[Illustration: There Was a Roar of Pain From the Sailor.]

Young Butts quickly obeyed, though his own wrench he dropped into a hip
pocket. He came on deck bearing the same heavy hitching weight that had
been shied at the boat’s young skipper on the pier a few nights before.

“Like that better, do you?” asked Tom, his gaze lighting on it as Hank
sprang on deck.

“Well, it might come handy,” replied the freckle-faced one,
speculatively.

The three men left on the schooner had already hauled in their sheets
and headed around in the effort to reach their own boat’s crew. But the
“Rocket” ran swiftly up alongside.

“You keep away from us!” yelled the man at the schooner’s wheel.

“Don’t you believe it for a minute,” Captain Tom retorted. Joe and Hank
were already at their stations with the grappling hooks.

“You’re acting like pirates, if you try to come aboard us,” shouted
back the fellow at the schooner’s wheel.

“A fine lot you are, to talk about piracy,” retorted Captain Halstead,
ironically. Then, by a piece of neat steering, he ran the motor boat up
so close alongside that she almost grazed the other vessel.

“Let go the hooks!” he ordered. Hank and Joe threw the grapplers
so that both made fast over the schooner’s rail. In the same instant
Halstead shut off power. The schooner, if it remained under sail, could
tow the “Rocket” now.

The instant that Joe Dawson and Hank Butts let go of the hooks they
sprang to board the schooner. A sailor brandishing a belaying pin ran
to intercept Hank, but that freckle-faced youth bounded to the sailing
vessel’s deck, bearing the hitching weight before him in both hands.

Just as the sailor was about to close in with him Hank, almost as if
by accident, dropped the heavy iron weight. It fell, just where he had
intended it should, on the sailor’s advanced left foot.

There was a roar of pain as the sailor doubled up and sat down on
the deck. But Hank, who had sidestepped before the downward stroke
with that belaying pin, now regained his weapon and straightened up,
grinning.

“Sorry, matey,” observed Hank to the squatting sailor. “But didn’t
your father ever tell you that you oughtn’t to run into anyone who’s
carrying too much weight for his age.”

Joe, a heavy wrench in one hand, and fire in both eyes, had leaped
forward to meet the other sailor half-way. But that fellow, though
armed with a length of stout rope, knotted at the end, prudently
retreated, snarling all the while.

Tom Halstead was followed by Eben Moddridge as the young skipper made
his way aft to where the helmsman stood.

Hank, seeing that the sailor with the crushed foot was really out of
the running, followed Halstead aft. Butts, holding his iron weight,
perched himself on the cabin house, his feet dangling over the hatchway.

The helmsman had hastily made a few turns of rope fast around the
wheel, to hold the vessel to its course. Now, his eyes glaring, he
stepped in front of Halstead.

“What on airth d’ye mean by these pirate tactics?” he bellowed.

“Keep cool, and keep your distance,” ordered young Halstead, holding
the wrench so that he could use it in a twinkling at need. “You have a
friend of ours on board here. Where is he?”

“There ain’t no one on board ’cept you pirates and us three of the
crew,” retorted the late helmsman. “And you fellers ain’t going to be
aboard but a few seconds more.”

“If you won’t help me out, I’ll go below and search the cabin,”
proposed Captain Tom.

Just as the helmsman sprang forward to intercept this move Joe darted
between them, shoving the fellow back and threatening him with a
wrench. The sailor who had first moved to engage Dawson was now
stepping stealthily aft.

“Jorkins,” yelled the engaged helmsman, “don’t you let no one go down
that companionway. Stop it!”

“Ya-ah!” sneered Jorkins, sulkily. “With that feller balancing his ton
of iron for a crack at my head?”

For Hank Butts had suddenly risen to a standing position on the cabin
house roof, and was holding the hitching weight in a way that did not
look remarkably peaceful.

Halstead sprang down the companionway. Moddridge started to follow,
then turned, feeling that he might be wanted on deck. In his present
excitement he actually forgot to be nervous.

Below were two staterooms and a small saloon. Captain Tom quickly
explored these rooms, searching also the lockers and cupboards. Just as
he was finishing he heard sounds of a tussle above, then a heavy fall.
Like a flash the boy was on deck, fearing mischief. The troublesome
helmsman had made a spring at Dawson, only to be tripped by that agile
youth. Now Mr. Moddridge was seated on the helmsman’s chest, while Hank
Butts had taken up a new post from which he could drop the weight, at
need, upon the helmsman’s legs. The latter fellow, therefore, was now
keeping quiet. Turning, Joe, wrench in readiness, had driven the other
uninjured seaman forward. The fellow whom Hank had first encountered
was limping about, though he did not look likely to cause any trouble.

One swift glance Halstead shot out over the water, at that small boat,
still more than half a mile distant. Then the “Rocket’s” young skipper
ran forward, looking in at forecastle and galley. He even looked down
into the water butts, but no Mr. Delavan was to be found.

“I am afraid we’ve boarded the wrong ship,” declared Mr. Moddridge,
hesitatingly.

“Ye’ll find out ye have, afore ye’re through with the law,” growled
the prostrate and now prudent helmsman, from his “bed” on the deck.
“Boarding a craft forcibly, on the high seas, is a crime.”

“Aw, be a good well, and run dry,” advised Hank.

There remained, now, only the holds to be investigated. Oppressed by
the shortness of the time that was left to him, and fearing, also, that
his guess had not been a good one, Tom Halstead sprang down the ladder
into the forward hold. Here there was nothing beyond a miscellaneous
cargo of supplies. The after hold was empty. With a white face Halstead
reached the deck.

Here the young skipper beheld Joe and the seaman whom his chum was
holding at bay.

“See here, my man,” Tom uttered hastily, turning to the sailor, “tell
me just where to find the man that’s a prisoner on board, and, on
behalf of Mr. Moddridge, I’ll offer you five hundred dollars in cash
and a safe passage ashore on our boat.”

“There ain’t no one on this boat a prisoner, unless it’s us fellers of
the crew,” returned the sailor, sulkily.

Yet, as he spoke, there was a cunning gleam in his eyes that made
Halstead believe him to be lying.

“By gracious, there’s one place I overlooked,” ejaculated Captain
Halstead, turning from the seaman and heading again for the hold
ladder. Down he went, as fast as he could travel. With the wrench he
tapped along the floor.

“Oho! It’s hollow here,” muttered the young skipper, halting in the
middle of the fore hold, right over the keel. His keen eyes moved fast
as he looked for some indication of unfastened planking. Finding one
crack that looked suspicious, he pried in an edge of the wrench. The
plank yielded, came up in Tom’s nervous, ready, strong fingers, and——

There lay Francis Delavan!

“Good gracious! What have they done to him?” gasped the young motor
boat skipper.

The Wall Street man lay on his back, his arms under him, as though tied
behind him.

The plank he was holding fell to one side as Tom Halstead’s first
glimpse of his employer revealed that much.

There was a gag in Mr. Delavan’s mouth, but the startling signs were
the purplish blue in his face and the queer, lifeless look in his
partly-open eyes.

“Have they killed him? Is it spite work, or all part of their fearful
plot?” shuddered Tom Halstead.

Then, his heart pounding against his ribs at a fearful rate, the boy
bent down to rest an inquiring hand on that unnatural-looking face.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE JEST THAT BECAME GRIM EARNEST


“WHATEVER you’re doing, old chap, hustle!” sounded Joe Dawson’s warning
voice from the deck overhead “The boat’s getting uncomfortably near
with its load of scoundrels!”

“I’ve found Mr. Delavan!” Halstead shouted up.

Upon receiving that startling information Dawson, for the moment,
forgot all caution, darting forward. The sullen helmsman seized upon
the opportunity to shake himself free of Mr. Moddridge, for Hank Butts,
too, forgot himself long enough to turn and run a few steps.

“Look out, Butts!” called the alarmed Mr. Moddridge.

Hank wheeled about just in time to find the sullen helmsman coming face
to face with him.

There was time to do but just one thing, and Hank did it. Leaning
toward his would-be assailant, Butts dropped the weight squarely across
the toes of the scoundrel’s advanced foot, then jumped aside.

“You young villain!” roared the sullen helmsman, sinking to the deck,
and reaching both hands out toward his injured foot.

“Much obliged,” said Hank meekly. But he had picked up his iron weight
again, and, with it, he advanced upon the one able-bodied seaman left.

“Won’t you oblige me by aiming a blow of your fist at me!” Hank begged.
“Then you’ll have your own troubles, and we can attend to our own
business.”

But this sailor, who was the least courageous of the three, retreated
aft, using some explosive language as he went.

Joe, in the meantime, had gained the fore hatchway, and stood looking
down with the keenest interest at his chum, one of whose hands rested
on Francis Delavan’s face.

“I think he’s alive,” Halstead reported, feverishly, “for there’s still
quite a bit of warmth to his skin. But,” sniffing, “I’m sure he was
chloroformed when the scoundrels saw us coming, for I can smell it
here. Joe, hustle down a rope.”

Dawson turned, snatching up the nearest bit of cordage that would
serve. Tom, with nervous haste, but tying good, seamanlike knots, made
one end of the rope secure under his employer’s shoulders.

“Now, I’m coming up. Be ready to give a strong hand on the haul,”
called the young skipper.

Eben Moddridge also had both hands on the rope by the time that
Halstead stepped up on deck. A hard, quick haul, and they had the
financier on deck.

From out on the water, close at hand, came an ugly roar. In a hurried
glance over the rail the young captain saw the boat’s crew not more
than two hundred yards away.

“Pick Mr. Delavan up. Over the rail with him,” called the young
skipper. “Seconds now are as good as hours later!”

Between them the three bore the heavy form of the Wall Street magnate.
Moddridge, though not strong, could, under the stress of excitement,
carry his few pounds.

As they reached the rail with their human burden, the sullen helmsman
rose, hobbling, despite the pain in his foot. He snatched up a
marlinespike to hurl at the rescuers, but a warning yell from Hank made
him drop it harmlessly to the deck.

“Wait a second,” directed Tom, releasing his hold on the senseless body
as they rested it against the schooner’s rail. Leaping over to the
motor boat’s deck, he turned like a flash.

“Now, pass Mr. Delavan over carefully,” he ordered.

“And you get in and help,” commanded Hank, poising his weight so as to
menace the seaman he was watching.

Butts looked so wholly ready and handy with that hitching weight that
the seaman sprang to obey.

The instant that Francis Delavan rested flat on the deck of his own
craft Captain Halstead leaped forward to one of the grappling hooks.

“Hank, throw off the hook astern—lively!” he shouted.

Joe Dawson had darted to the wheel, starting the speed and giving the
steering wheel a half turn to port. Nor was the young engineer a second
too soon, for the small boat, with its eight rough-looking fellows,
almost grazed the port side of the “Rocket’s” hull. Hank, having
brought the after grappling hook aboard, rushed to port, poising his
hitching weight over his head.

“It’s a headache for one of you, if you get alongside,” declared
Butts. Nevertheless, the boat-steerer attempted to reach the motor
boat. Had Joe been ten seconds later in starting there must have been
a hand-to-hand fight on the “Rocket’s” deck, with the odds all against
the Delavan forces.

With that timely start, however, Joe Dawson left the boat’s crew
nothing to do but to board their own vessel. The motor boat glided
easily away.

“Keep the wheel, Joe,” called Captain Tom. “Now, Hank, lay by and lend
a hand in trying to bring Mr. Delavan around. First, off with the cords
that bind him, and out with the gag.”

“Er—er—hadn’t we better take Frank below to a berth?” inquired Mr.
Moddridge.

“No,” replied young Captain Halstead, decisively. “Mr. Delavan has been
chloroformed, and almost had his breath shut off by that trick. We
must keep him in the open air. Mr. Moddridge, kneel behind your friend,
and support him in a sitting position. Hank, get around on the other
side and take hold of the left forearm and wrist. We’ll pump-handle Mr.
Delavan, and see if we can’t start more air into his lungs.”

Then, looking up, Captain Tom inquired:

“Joe, what’s the matter with our speed?”

“I just can’t help it,” grinned Dawson. “I’m running slowly just to
tantalize that rascally crew back there. It makes them want to dance
and swear to see us going so slowly, and yet to know that, if we want
to, we can run away from them like an express train.”

Captain Tom and Hank continued their pump-handling until Francis
Delavan’s eyes fluttered more widely open, the bluish color began to
leave his cheeks, and his chest started to rise and fall gently.

“He’s coming around all right,” cheered Halstead. “And he’s naturally
as strong as a horse. His vitality will pull him out of this.”

“The schooner has put about and is following us,” called Joe.

“Let ’em,” muttered Halstead, glancing up and astern. “I wish they’d
follow us until we meet the police boat at New York. But don’t let ’em
get too infernally close, Joe. Something might happen to us. If our
motor stopped, where would we be then?”

Joe Dawson laughed easily as the “Rocket” stole lazily over the waters,
her speed just a trifle faster than the sailing vessel’s.

In a very few minutes more Francis Delavan’s eyes took on a look of
returning intelligence. His lips parted as he murmured, weakly:

“Thank you—boys.”

“And now you’re all right, sir,” cried Tom Halstead, gleefully. “All
you’ve got to do is to keep on breathing as deeply as you can. Mr.
Moddridge, is your strength equal to bringing up an arm-chair from the
after deck?”

Apparently Eben Moddridge didn’t even pause to wonder about his
strength. He ran nimbly aft, then came struggling under his armful. He
deposited the chair where the young skipper indicated. They raised Mr.
Delavan to a seat, Hank stationing himself in front of the chair to
keep the boat’s owner from pitching forward.

“Now, old fellow, you’d better kick up more speed,” advised Halstead,
stepping over beside his chum. “You know, we’ve got to make the coast
in record time, for several fortunes are hanging on our speed.”

Bending forward, Dawson swung the speed control wheel around
generously. The “Rocket” forged ahead through the water.

“This will leave the schooner hull-down before we’ve burned much
gasoline,” smiled Halstead. “Hullo, there they go about again. They
realize the point, and have left off the chase.”

Joe still had the wheel, but he turned to look.

The “Rocket” was more than a mile away from the schooner when a jarring
thump shook the motor boat.

In an instant Joe Dawson’s face went white. His chum looked scarcely
less startled. The extra vibration ceased almost as soon as it was
felt, for the engine had stopped running.

“Hank, take the wheel. The engine might start again,” called Tom
Halstead, barely pausing in his chase after Joe, as the former jumped
down into the engine room.

“What on earth has happened?” gasped Eben Moddridge, but there was on
one to pay him heed.

For a few moments the two white-faced chums looked over the “Rocket’s”
powerful engine together. Then their eyes met as Halstead’s lips framed
the startled words:

“Joe, my boy, it’s one thing to play at broken-down engine, but the
reality, at a time like this, is simply awful! This time the engine is
truly out of business!”




CHAPTER XIX

THE MOTOR THAT WOULDN’T “MOTE”


IT was Eben Moddridge who, marine glass in hand, now devoted the most
attention to the schooner, which was once more in full chase.

Francis Delavan was now doing so well that there was no doubt in
anyone’s mind of his full recovery.

“How—how’s the stock market?” he ventured at last to ask.

“Don’t know, sir,” retorted Butts. “Neither does anyone else. We’ve got
you and the engine to fix. When you’re both going fine, then we’ll try
to find more time to talk.”

Mr. Delavan smiled, good-humoredly, but next inquired:

“How do you happen—to be aboard the ‘Rocket!’”

“Walked aboard,” admitted Hank. “Had to sir. Nobody ever took the
trouble to shanghai me.”

Joe, in the meantime, made two or three frantic efforts to make the
motor “mote,” though without success.

“It’s all on account of this valve,” Dawson explained to his chum,
pointing. “I knew it wouldn’t last forever, but the last time I
inspected it, it looked all right.”

“You’ve another valve in the repair chest that will fit,” replied Tom.
“And, in goodness’ name, hurry up. I’ll help you.”

“One more try at this old valve, for a few miles anyway,” cried Dawson,
desperately. “Tom, the new valve is just a shade too large at the
screw-thread end. It’ll take a few desperate minutes to make it fit.”

By the time he had finished speaking the young engineer was
industriously engaged in forcing in packing around the worn old valve.

“Hank,” Captain Tom roared from the companionway, “shake out that
solitary sail and hoist it. Get all the speed you can out of it.”

No one had thought of the sail up to this moment. It wasn’t much of
a sail. Rigged to the single signal mast of the “Rocket,” the sail
was intended only to enable the boat to reach port if ever the engine
should give out.

Butts, with an exclamation of disgust at not having thought of the
canvas before, ran forward. Almost before he stopped running, his
fingers were at work on the knots that held the canvas furled. In
surprisingly quick time this Long Island boy had the sail hoisted, set,
and was back at the wheel.

Eben Moddridge, without waiting to be called, had taken his place as
attendant by the side of his friend’s chair.

What Hank Butts didn’t know about motors he made up by his knowledge of
sailing craft He handled the “Rocket” now as though she were a catboat,
watching the fill of her canvas and making the most out of the steady
light breeze that was blowing.

As he steered, Hank looked back often at the schooner. That craft, with
all canvas hung out, was coming along at something like seven knots.
The “Rocket” was making barely four under her small spread.

The answer? Hank Butts knew it well enough, and groaned as he watched
his own tiny sail.

Down below Joe Dawson, the perspiration standing out in great, cold
drops, was working against time. After another trial he had abandoned
the idea of making the old valve work even for a few miles. He had
opened the repair chest and had taken out the substitute valve that had
to be fitted over. The young engineer was now bending over the repair
bench, rapidly turning the shank of a thread-cutter. Captain Tom stood
by, anxious, useless for the present, yet ready to lend an instant pair
of hands as soon as he could help.

“Thread still a bit too large,” reported Dawson, after the second
attempt to make it fit.

Back to the work-bench he sprang, while Halstead bounded up into the
open so that he could take a brief look astern.

Behind them trailed the schooner, now a bare third of a mile astern,
and gaining visibly.

“I’m not going to say a word to hurry you, Joe,” he remarked, dropping
below again. “I know you’re working to save even seconds.”

“Ain’t I just, though!” gritted Dawson, as he turned.

“Eb,” demanded Delavan, of his friend, “you’ve simply got to tell me
how the stock market is going.”

“I—I—er—haven’t had the least idea for more than forty hours,” replied
Mr. Moddridge, embarrassed.

“Hey, there,” called Hank, officiously, from the wheel, “just at the
present moment I’m skipper here, and boss. My orders are that no Wall
Street slang be talked on board until after the steward has found a
chance to serve something to eat. Mr. Delavan, be glad, sir, that you
are able to get some of your breath.”

“Are the rascals gaining on us?” was the owner’s next question, as he
endeavored to turn himself around in the chair for a look astern.

“Not much,” replied Mr. Moddridge. “Besides, in a moment or two more
the boat’s engine will be doing its duty again. The engineer has his
repair work almost finished.”

Francis Delavan smiled good-humoredly, though he did not by any means
believe this reassuring information.

The schooner was less than an eighth of a mile away when Joe Dawson
made one more effort to adjust the substitute valve.

“I think it’s going to fit,” he murmured, a world of hope in his
voice, though he squinted vigilantly, watchfully, as he continued the
twisting. “By Jove, Tom, I believe it’s O. K. It seems fast and tight.
I’ll let a little oil in; give the wheel a few turns.”

A few breathless seconds passed. Then the pistons began to move up
and down, slowly, all but noiselessly. Seized with a kind of fearful
fascination, both motor boat boys watched the engine, almost afraid to
breathe lest the driving cease.

Then Captain Halstead, still looking backward, while Joe’s chest heaved
at last, yanked himself up into the hatchway, glancing out over the
water.

The schooner was now almost upon the “Rocket,” though hauling off a bit
to windward as though intending to make a sudden swoop and bear down
crushingly against the motor boat.

“Safe?” Halstead almost whispered down into the engine room.

“Try it, awfully easy,” replied Joe.

“Hank, give the speed-ahead control just a bare turn,” called Halstead.
“Easy, now!”

The propeller shaft began to revolve. At that same instant the schooner
came around on a starboard tack, so steered as to intercept the shorter
craft.

Captain Tom himself sprang to the speed control, letting out just a
notch more, praying under his breath that the motor might stand by them
in this moment of greatest crisis.

At them, heeling well over, her crew at the rail ready to board the
“Rocket,” came the schooner. Her first manœuvre had been to board
by the bows. Now it looked as though the sailing vessel must strike
amidships. Halstead gave a quick turn to the speed-ahead control.
Answering, the motor boat took a jump ahead, then settled down to
steady going. The schooner, left astern, jibed with a noisy flapping of
sails.

“I think we can make it,” called up Dawson.

“We _have_ made it,” called back Captain Halstead, joy ringing in his
voice. “The only question is whether we can keep it up.”

“Let her out a bit more,” called Joe.

One hand on the wheel, the other on the speed control, the young
skipper increased the speed by slow degrees until the “Rocket” had
settled down to a steady twelve-mile speed.

Hank, relieved of the helm, ran aft. Standing on the stern rail, one
arm wrapped around the flag-pole, young Butts made a lot of gestures at
the crew of the schooner. Those gestures were eloquent of derision and
contempt.

Five minutes later the schooner had given up the chase, heading off to
the southward.

“Ev—everything is all safe now, isn’t it?” asked Eben Moddridge,
shakily.

“Trouble seems to be all behind us,” replied Halstead.

“Then—er—I’m—I’m going below and lie down,” quaked Mr. Moddridge. “I
never felt more nervous in my life!”

“Go below and enjoy yourself, sir,” laughed Tom, without malice, but
without thinking. “You’ve done yourself proud, Mr. Moddridge, and
you’re entitled to the best attack of nerves you can find.”

Hank sprang quickly to aid Mr. Moddridge, for the latter was really
shaking and tottering as he started aft.

“Still no one seems able to tell me about the thing I want most of
all to know about—the condition of the market, and of securities in
particular,” complained Francis Delavan, in a much stronger voice.

“No one knows well enough how to tell you,” laughed Skipper Tom,
“except Mr. Moddridge. If you only knew, sir, what a trump he’s been
lately, you wouldn’t begrudge him one first-class nervous fit now.”

Mr. Delavan laughed, though he added, with a comical sigh:

“I don’t see but I shall have to wait.”

“Something to eat, did you say, sir?” asked Hank, suddenly appearing at
the owner’s elbow. “Yes, sir; as fast as possible for all hands. Why,
we’ve been so rattled this morning we didn’t even think about food. And
now my stomach is reading the riot act to my teeth. O-o-oh!”

Hands clutched over his abdomen, Hank made a swift disappearance into
the galley. There was an abundance of food in the “Rocket’s” larder
that could be prepared hastily. But as Mr. Moddridge was “enjoying”
himself in his own especial way, and Mr. Delavan was still feeling the
effects of the chloroform too much to have any appetite, the crew fell
in for the first chance at table.

When that food had been disposed of, Joe cautiously worked the engine
on until the boat was making twenty miles an hour. The new valve proved
fully equal to the strain put upon it.

Mr. Moddridge remained below more than two hours. When he came on deck
again he appeared to be in shape to tell Mr. Delavan the latest news he
had of the state of their affairs.

The owner listened with a face that became graver every moment.

“It looks black for us, Eben, and we may be wiped out by this time, or,
anyway, by the time we can get back to the battle-field. But it was
grand of you, Eb, to throw in the last dollars of your private fortune
to save us both. Whatever happens, I won’t forget your act. But, good
heavens, how we must hustle and move now! Captain Halstead, just where
are you heading?”

“As straight as the crow flies, sir, for New York harbor. But I can
change the course if there’s any other point you’d rather make.”

“No; keep straight on, captain. New York is our battle-field. And, by
all that’s sure, we’ll win out yet if there’s a fighting spar left
standing when we hit Wall Street!”

With a vigorous bound this fighting Wall Street man was on his feet
again, pacing the deck, not a glimpse of fear in his strong face.

Then, a little later, he and Moddridge found their appetites, and Hank
Butts served them enthusiastically.

As the afternoon passed, and all hands gathered near the wheel, the
stories of all were told.

Mr. Delavan, for his part, explained that, on that morning when he had
taken the “Rocket’s” port boat and had gone out for a row, he had gone
past the inlet. While out beyond, he had been overtaken by the nameless
racing launch. A hail from the deck of the other craft had followed,
and then an invitation to take a look aboard. Thinking that he might
possibly penetrate the mystery as to who was really running that craft,
Mr. Delavan had rowed alongside, intending only to stand up in his own
little boat and look aboard the launch.

But, while doing so, he had been seized by both the boat handlers
and dragged aboard. There he became mixed in a fight with two others
who, from their descriptions, must have been Rexford and Ellis. When
the fight stopped Francis Delavan was under the hood, his hands tied
behind him. He remembered that, later on, the small port boat had been
overturned and set adrift, and that his own hat and coat had been taken
from him and cast into the water.

“Later, that forenoon,” continued Mr. Delavan, “I saw my own ‘Rocket’
following us. By stealth I had succeeded in freeing my hands. Now, I
made a dash for freedom, intending to leap overboard and try to swim to
you. But I was caught and held, just at the edge of the hood. I found
chance only to snatch my wallet from an inner vest pocket and hurl
it out into the water. I was in hopes you’d see it, pick it up, and
understand.”

“We did,” nodded Mr. Moddridge.

Mr. Delavan went on to explain how, after the throwing of the wallet,
he had been more carefully bound, hand and foot, and gagged. When taken
ashore at Cookson’s Inlet he had also been blindfolded, his removal
from the boat not taking place until a carriage had been brought.

Then the story of the final chase was told, even how Hank Butts had
done so much to carry the day aboard the schooner by his artless trick
of dropping the hitching weight where it would do the most harm to the
enemy.

“Say, Hank,” put in Joe Dawson, who had taken little part in the talk,
“wherever did you learn the easy way that you drop that weight?”

“A feller from New York taught us that last summer,” Butts replied.
“Some of us fellows over in East Hampton practiced it until we couldn’t
miss.”

“But how did you learn to land it on another fellow’s foot so easily
that it looks almost like an accident?”

“I’ve been telling you,” Hank insisted. “We kept on dropping weights
on each other’s toes until we got the trick down fine.”

“What?” ejaculated Dawson, opening his eyes wider. “You practised
by dropping iron weights on each other’s feet? You fellows must be
wonders, if you could stand that!”

“Oh, no,” Hank confessed. “We practised with small sandbags.”




CHAPTER XX

THE COUNCIL OF WAR


IT was Saturday morning when the “Rocket’s” crew boarded the schooner
out on the high seas. Late Sunday evening the motor boat moved in
through the Narrows of lower New York Bay. The cruise had been at
racing speed, without a single hitch after Engineer Joe had fitted that
new valve.

On the way Francis Delavan, who had thoroughly recovered, formed his
plans in case his fortunes had not gone entirely to smash in Wall
Street. But it was still needful to consult Broker Coggswell and
others, in order to learn just how far the plans were likely to succeed.

As the “Rocket” was intended, in ordinary times, to be a “one-man”
boat—that is, to be handled from the bridge by the helmsman, the three
members of the crew had managed to divide up the watches so that all
had had plenty of sleep.

As Captain Tom dropped anchor at ten o’clock that August Sunday night,
near Bedloe’s Island, and Hank hung out the anchor light, all three of
the boys were wide awake and eager to see what was to follow.

Hank was to row Mr. Delavan ashore in the same little port boat that
had figured in the Shinnecock Bay affair. The owner intended going to
one of the cheapest of the downtown hotels, whence he would telephone
Broker Coggswell and some others.

“Expect a party of us back by midnight,” was the last word the owner
left with the young skipper. “We’ll want a little cruise out to
sea, to-night, where we can talk things over with no danger of any
eavesdroppers about.”

Mr. Moddridge and the two remaining members of the crew stretched
themselves out comfortably in arm-chairs on the bridge deck.

“It’s hard to realize that we can rest,” sighed Captain Tom. “It seems
to me that I still hear the throb-throb-throb of the engine and hear
the continual turning of the propeller shaft. Still, we really _are_
having a brief rest.”

“Rest?” snorted Eben Moddridge, getting up and pacing within the short
limits of that deck. “What does rest mean, I wonder? I feel as though
this Wall Street game I’m in had been going on, night and day, for ten
years, with never a pause for breath. Rest! Is there such a thing?”

A few days before Halstead would have been either amused or bored by
this exhibition of nervousness. But he had seen Mr. Moddridge come out
with surprising strength when things had been darker. There was a good
deal of hidden manhood in this undersized, nervous little fellow who
had had the hard luck to be born with too much money.

“You can feel pretty easy, sir, with a man like Mr. Delavan,” Captain
Tom went on, after a few moments. “If there’s a single foot of ground
left for him to fight on, you can feel pretty sure that he’ll pull at
least a goodly portion of both your fortunes out of the panic that has
struck the money market.”

“I can hardly believe that we have a dollar left in the game,” rejoined
Mr. Moddridge, shaking his head moodily. “Of course, Coggswell is
capable and honest, and he has done his best, whatever that was.
But with such a terrific run on P. & Y. stock, and with such an
overwhelming part of our assets bound up in that stock, I haven’t the
least belief that Coggswell has been able to hold our heads above water
for us. This long suspense, this awful wait for news, is killing me,”
went on the nervous one, sinking weakly back into his chair. “Oh, why
didn’t I go ashore with Frank, the sooner to know how we stand?”

“Mr. Delavan thought it would be better for him to go alone, and to
move quickly,” hinted Tom Halstead, gently.

“Oh, yes, I know,” retorted Moddridge, with a sickly smile. “Frank was
certain that my nerves would go to pieces on shore, and that I’d make a
fool of myself and be in the way.”

Hank came back at last, alone in the port boat.

“What’s the news ashore, Butts?” cried the nervous one, anxiously.

“If you mean the stock market news,” Hank replied, as he brought the
port boat around under the davits, “I don’t know. Mr. Delavan left me
at the pier where I landed him. Told me he’d get a launch to bring his
friends out here in.”

So Mr. Moddridge took to another long stretch of pacing the bridge deck.

Almost punctually as the “Rocket’s” ship’s bell tolled out the eight
bells of midnight the lights of a small launch were to be seen
approaching. It came alongside, bringing Mr. Delavan and three other
gentlemen. One was Coggswell, the broker. A second was Lyman Johnson,
a middle-aged man and managing vice-president of the P. & Y. The third
stranger was a banker named Oliver.

“What news?” was the quaking question that Eben Moddridge shot over the
waters as soon as the little craft was within hail.

“Things right down to the bottom,” replied Broker Coggswell, plainly.

“But there’s a fighting chance, Eb,” broke in Francis Delavan, “and a
chance to fight is all I want for winning.”

As soon as the party had boarded, and the launch was speeding back to
town, Mr. Moddridge began to shake again.

“Look at that little boat scoot,” he shivered. “That boatman is going
back as fast as he can, to trade the information he has overheard.”

“Nonsense,” laughed Mr. Delavan. “A passenger boatman like that fellow
hears all kinds of talk in twenty-four hours. If he tried to remember
a hundredth part of what he hears it would drive him into an insane
asylum. Captain Halstead, get up anchor and take us outside, anywhere.
We’re going to sit up and talk for a while. Then we’ll turn in below
and sleep. We don’t want to berth the boat in New York earlier than
eight in the morning, but must be there sharp at that hour.”

Tired of the motion of the boat so long at racing speed. Captain Tom
got under way at a speed of about eight miles an hour. The newcomers
and Mr. Moddridge sat in a close group on the bridge deck, to hold
their council of war for the morrow.

“In the first place, Moddridge,” began Mr. Coggswell, “P. & Y. closed
yesterday noon, on the Stock Exchange, at 68.”

“We must be closed out, then—ruined!” cried the nervous one, aghast.
“You figured, you know, that the stock touching 71 would wind us up.”

“And so it would have done,” replied the broker, “but Steel and the
other stocks that are traveling with it behaved rather better than
I had expected. So, as things stand to-night you and Delavan have,
perhaps, a few hundred thousand dollars left out of the game. But if
P. & Y., at the opening on the Board to-morrow, goes down to 65—well,
Oliver, as the head of the bankers’ syndicate that has been furnishing
money to the Delavan-Moddridge interests, suppose you tell what must
happen.”

“If the stock drops to 65 to-morrow morning,” took up the banker,
“our pool will have to call in the loans, Mr. Moddridge. Delavan
and yourself will have to heave all your P. & Y. stock overboard in
order to meet the call of the loans. Then, but not until then, as I
understand Mr. Coggswell’s statement, you will both be cleaned out.”

“But that isn’t going to happen,” declared Francis Delavan, coolly
lighting a fresh cigar and puffing slowly. “There have, of course, been
all sorts of stories out that I’ve been robbing the P. & Y. railroad
and that I’ve smuggled the money out of the country. But Johnson,
our vice president, has had a firm of the most respected and trusted
accountants in New York going over all the railroad’s accounts. By
to-morrow forenoon the reports of the accountants will be ready, and
will show that every dollar of the P. & Y.’s money is safe.”

“That will help,” replied Mr. Coggswell, “if the buying and selling
public believe the statement at once. But you never can tell how small
dealers in stocks will accept any report. They may think the move only
a trick to bolster up confidence until the inside operators can slip
out of their holdings in P. & Y. If that view is taken, the stock may
fall off a dozen points in the first half hour that ’Change is open.”

“It can all be summed up in these words,” announced Banker Oliver,
gravely. “Delavan, start P. & Y. going up in the morning, and you’re
safe for a while, with a big chance for fortune left. But let the stock
start downward at the opening to-morrow morning, and you won’t be able
to get the stock up again in season to do you any good.”

Breathing hard, shaking all over, Eben Moddridge rose and left the
council, tottering below and seeking his berth.

“Now that the poor, shaken fellow is gone,” murmured Francis Delavan,
sending a sympathetic glance in the direction his friend had taken,
“I’ll tell you, gentlemen, the plan I have for to-morrow.”

The council did not break up until an hour later.




CHAPTER XXI

THE BATTLE OF THE DOLLARS


ALMOST at the minute of eight o’clock next morning the “Rocket” was
made fast in berth at an East River pier.

Just about three minutes later a closed automobile rolled out on the
wharf. Tom Halstead and Joe Dawson had been invited to go on shore and
see the finish of this notable battle of the dollars. Hank, of his own
choice, remained behind as watchman over the boat.

The two motor boat boys had changed their uniforms for ordinary street
dress, straw hats included. It would have taken a very close friend,
indeed, to have recognized Francis Delavan as that gentleman stepped
ashore from his boat. Over his natty suit he wore an enveloping linen
duster. His eyes and much of his face were obscured behind a pair of
automobile goggles. A cap, the peak pulled well down over his eyes,
completed the concealment. Few of Mr. Delavan’s most intimate friends
would have known him at first or second glance.

The employer and his two young men entered the closed car, which, first
of all, rolled away to the bank of which Mr. Oliver was president. Here
there were some papers that required the signature of the “Rocket’s”
owner.

From the bank the automobile went straight down to the big,
grim-looking building in which the New York Stock Exchange is located.
Here they arrived five minutes before the opening hour, nine o’clock.
Mr. Delavan was already provided with three tickets admitting strangers
to the visitors’ gallery.

As they entered the trio found that, at this hour, they had the gallery
to themselves. Down on the floor, however, some two or three hundred
members of ’Change were already present, gathered in little groups.
Though these men talked mostly in undertones, it was evident that there
was much excitement.

P. & Y. had not alone suffered. Many other stocks had gone down, “in
sympathy.” The outlook was for a gloomy week in financial circles.
Many of the more cautious investors of the country at large were
watching Wall Street and dreading a panic.

Clang! As a sonorous stroke of a gong opened the morning session the
scene became instantly one of turmoil. Bellowing voices broke loose. At
that instant Broker Coggswell slipped into the gallery, taking a seat
behind Mr. Delavan. The entire little party was well out of range of
vision from most of the floor.

“Watch the board,” whispered the broker. “There’s the first quotation—a
thousand shares of P. & Y. at 67—and, by Jove, no taker!”

A few moments later information was posted that ten thousand shares of
P. & Y. had been offered and sold at 66.

“That’s the work of Dimitri & Clark, and Weeks & Bond,” whispered
Coggswell. “My partner has sent me word that those two firms are doing
the selling for Justin Bolton. He’ll sell, through his brokers, a
hundred thousand shares short in the next hour, if need be, to keep the
downward course of the stock in motion. Ah, what did I tell you?”

Ten thousand more shares of P. & Y. had gone at 65½.

“He’s a reckless bear, that fellow, Bolton!” ground out Coggswell,
between his teeth. “He’s selling short at a furious rate. Mr. Delavan,
your enemy, Bolton, expects to close your interests out this forenoon.
If he can bear the stock low enough he’ll begin to buy in for his own
account, as well as to cover his sales. If he can only keep this going
for a while he’ll control the P. & Y. through his bona-fide buyings of
the stock.”

Francis Delavan merely smiled, and Tom Halstead, looking covertly at
him, admired the difference between his employer and Eben Moddridge.

A “bear” is one who is trying to lower the selling price of a stock.
Often, in order to accomplish this, the “bear” “sells short.” That is,
he offers to sell large blocks of the stock in question, at a lower
figure than the market price. This “short operator,” as he is called,
does not actually own the stock that he sells, but he hopes to drive
the price of the stock still lower, and thus be able to buy and fill
his sale at a lower price than he has made the sale for.

When a stock is headed downward in price, the offer of another large
block at a lower price than yet offered has a strong tendency to force
the price still lower, for scared investors who really own large blocks
of the stock may become panic-stricken and close out their holdings of
that particular stock at any price they can obtain.

Thus, a “short operator” may offer, in a falling market, ten thousand
shares of a certain stock at 67. If he makes a sale at that price the
fact may induce some real owner of stock to offer his holding of ten
thousand shares to be sold at the best price offered, say 65. The
“short operator,” who has just disposed of ten thousand shares at 67,
but does not possess those shares, may be able to buy back again enough
shares at 65, which under the terms of his sale, he has disposed of at
67. Thus, he has cleared two dollars a share, or $20,000 in all, by the
operation. If the “short operator” who sells at 67 is able to cover his
sales by buying at the still lower price of 63, his profits would be
$40,000. But if our “short operator” buys at 67, and then the market
rallies, it may be that the “short” cannot buy lower than 71. Having
made his sale, he must fill the order, anyway, and thus he would lose
$40,000.

If a “short” sells stock he does not own, and a sudden rally in that
stock carries the stock up so high that he has not money enough to make
good his sales, then he is ruined and becomes a bankrupt.

If a “bear” sells short, and then the stock continues to drop and drop
in price, it is a happy day for that “bear.” On this Monday morning
Justin Bolton, though not yet actually present, but operating through
brokers whom he instructed by telephone, was prepared to sell short at
a furious rate. First of all, Bolton’s purpose was to “bear” down P. &
Y. to a point where he could buy all the stock he wanted for himself,
and enough more to cover his “short orders” at a profit.

As the four watchers in the gallery looked on, a howl suddenly went up
from the floor:

“P. & Y. at 65!”

“No takers at that price!”

“Bring it on at a lower price!”

“It’s going to smash!”

In lower tones men on the floor of the Exchange below were talking over
the latest information supplied by the newspapers. It was believed
by many that Francis Delavan had looted the railroad of which he was
president, and that a vast sum of the stealings was hidden securely
abroad.

“It’s a bad stock to deal in anyway, at present,” muttered one of the
brokers below. “I have advised all of my clients to keep away from it.”

“If the run is based on false information, someone is going to reap a
heavy profit when the stock begins to soar again,” remarked another
broker.

“It won’t soar in a year. There’s something peculiar and rotten behind
the whole business. The road won’t amount to anything until it has been
reorganized by another crowd.”

Just then an agile young man hurried out on the floor, holding in his
hand the earliest edition of an evening paper. He called out something
to those nearest him. Instantly there was a rush, others crowding about
the bearer of the newspaper.

“Accountants have just finished going over the statements of the P. &
Y. There’s not a dollar short anywhere. The road is as sound as a good
nut.”

That information, backed by the reputation of the accountants, sent a
small squad scurrying off to buy if more P. & Y. were offered at low
prices.

“A thousand shares at 67!” shouted one of those who offered to buy.

“Wanted, two thousand, at 67½!” called another.

“Bosh! That’s only a trick played by those who are ‘long’ to get a
little more for their paper!”

Thus belief and disbelief eddied and surged backward and forward.

Some small sales were made at a fraction above 68. Then, like a
thunderclap came the offer:

“Ten thousand P. & Y. at 66!”

Five minutes later the stock was being offered at 65½ with few takers.

A man entered the visitors’ gallery, taking a swift, careless look at
the others. It was Justin Bolton, but, as he had reason to be sure that
Francis Delavan was hundreds of miles out to sea, Bolton nodded coldly
to Coggswell, merely glanced at the boys, and turned to a seat at some
distance.

Now the Bolton brokers were hurling short stock in, in thousand,
two-thousand and five-thousand lots, trying to break the price below
65. There were takers, for the newspaper report made many buyers look
upon P. & Y. as a fair bargain at 65.

Coggswell took a sidelong look at Justin Bolton, whose gaze was turned
unceasingly upon the floor below.

“Your enemy is smashing things the best he knows how,” whispered the
broker to the “Rocket’s” owner.

“It’ll be rough on him if anything happens to prevent his covering his
sales, won’t it?” smiled back Mr. Delavan.

Another evening newspaper reached the floor below, then half a dozen
appeared, each being glanced over by excited groups of men.

Johnson, the managing vice-president of the P. & Y., had been
found and interviewed. He had confirmed the news given out by the
accountants. P. & Y. went up two points. A messenger entered the
gallery, handing a note to Mr. Coggswell.

“Oliver sends word he likes the looks of things better, and that he
won’t desert you just yet in the battle of the dollars, Mr. Delavan,”
whispered the broker. “Oliver has a million of his own money placed in
this game. He’s buying on the ‘bull’ side of the market.”

“Oliver may be a much richer man, then, by the time night comes,”
smiled the “Rocket’s” owner. This seasoned financier had not, during
all the storm below, shown the faintest trace of excitement. His face
was calm, his voice even. One would have thought him almost bored with
dulness.

“Justin Bolton must be wondering hard why your holdings of P. & Y.
haven’t been dumped into the market,” suggested Coggswell.

“That’s what he’s here for, sitting over yonder,” replied Mr. Delavan.
“As soon as the dealings denote that my holdings are being dumped
Bolton will know that the day and the game are his.”

Some other stocks were being traded in briefly, now. Steel, among
them, was going up a couple of points. Bolton found time to look over
curiously at Coggswell, whom he knew to be directing the fight for
the Delavan-Moddridge combine. Bolton also studied the man behind
the goggles rather attentively, though not once did it occur to the
arch-plotter to connect that half-hidden face with the countenance of
the man he was moving heaven and earth to ruin.

“Twenty thousand P. & Y. offered at 65½!”

That was the next challenge hurled on the floor below. There were no
takers at the moment.

“Twenty thousand at 65!”

Within the next few minutes this offering was traded off in smaller
lots.

“Watch Bolton fidget,” whispered Mr Coggswell. “There’s a bigger
hammering coming, and of course Bolton knows it’s near. We’ll see his
biggest plunge within the next few minutes.”

Within two minutes by the big clock the pounding came.

“Forty thousand P. & Y. offered at 62!”

There was instant pandemonium. While there were those on the floor who
rushed forward to get in on some of the buying at this price, there
were many more who believed that P. & Y. would quickly slump far worse
than it had yet done.

Justin Bolton’s eyes were gleaming. Most of the color had left his
cheeks. His breath was coming in quick, short gasps. It was near the
moment when he hoped to reap millions from his operations, and also
to become the largest owner of P. & Y. Yet this schemer, knowing full
well that the sales below were being made mainly on his own account,
realized also that the Delavan-Moddridge stock had not been sprung.

“Does Delavan think he’s at a moving-picture show?” whispered Joe
Dawson, in Tom Halstead’s ear. “Is he going to do nothing but sit here
and smile?”

“Perhaps there’s nothing he can do here yet,” was Halstead’s answer. “I
am wondering whether he’s going down to ruin, or whether he hopes to
find the way out yet.”

A messenger from one of the brokers on the floor now darted through the
gallery, handing a sheet of paper to Justin Bolton.

That worthy, after glancing over the sheet, penciled a few words upon
it. The messenger hastened back to one of the brokers below.

Bolton’s own face, after the messenger had gone, was of a ghastly
pallor. He looked unsteady, worried—or else as though he were about to
take the most daring plunge of all.

“Watch out for what’s going to happen,” nudged Mr. Coggswell. That
broker had now a pad on his own knee, a fountain pen in hand, as
though prepared to dash off written orders in a hurry.

“Look out for a thunderclap,” whispered Coggswell, as one of the Bolton
brokers on the floor hurried forward.

Then it came:

“Forty thousand P. & Y. at 60!”




CHAPTER XXII

SPRINGING THE MONEY MINE


IN an instant all seemed mad frenzy on the floor of the Stock Exchange.

Members ran about, waving slips of paper, bawling themselves hoarse,
colliding with each other in efforts to reach desired parts of the
floor.

Junior members of brokerage firms rushed to their private telephones to
call for instructions.

Many thought that the day would go out in widespread panic, for now
much more seemed involved than merely the P. & Y. Railroad.

At the first crack of this new firing on the battle line Broker
Coggswell, a written order in his hand, bounded from his seat in the
gallery, making his way frantically to the floor below.

Justin Bolton turned for an instant to follow the broker with his
eyes. Then down below he looked to see Coggswell hurl himself into the
wild chaos of the ’Change floor.

Broker Coggswell snatched up the entire offering of forty thousand
shares like a flash. That held the market steady at that price for
a moment. There was even talk among the excited operators that P. &
Y. might be good for some rise. Gradually the hubbub lessened. Quiet
followed. Every operator interested waited to see what the next move in
the great game was to be.

Justin Bolton, shaking all over in his excitement at this crisis in the
daring battle he had waged, stood up, leaning forward over the railing.

“Coggswell, your clients must be crazy to go in so heavily on a
dropping stock,” one “bear” operator called to Delavan’s broker.

“I don’t believe it,” smiled the broker.

“But P. & Y. will be at 40 by to-morrow,” insisted the other.

“Bosh, man!” returned Coggswell, serenely.

“You think you have inside information, do you, Coggswell?” demanded
the “bear,” banteringly.

“My principal client believes he has,” laughed Coggswell, good
humoredly.

“Your principal client?”

“Yes.”

“I wish I knew who he is,” admitted the “bear,” moving closer to the
bold broker.

“Why, I might tell you,” came the smiling retort.

It would be news of great value to many operators to-day to know who
was behind the purchase of forty thousand shares of a falling stock. A
crowd surged around Coggswell.

“Tell us who your client is,” dared the same “bear,” while the size of
the gaping crowd increased. A hush had again fallen over everything.

“My principal client——” began Coggswell, then paused, smiling in a
tantalizing way.

“Name him!” insisted the same “bear.”

“Yes, name him! Name him!” came the fevered demand from all sides,
though probably not one expected the broker to comply.

“My principal client, for whom I just made the big purchase,” announced
Broker Coggswell, “is Francis Delavan himself.”

“Francis Delavan?”

The cry was taken up and repeated all over the floor. Scores of men
came running to get as near as possible to the talking broker.

“I made that purchase on behalf of the Delavan-Moddridge interests,”
continued Coggswell, showing a still smiling face.

[Illustration: “Delavan! Yes, It’s Delavan!”]

“Then you must know where Delavan is?” called someone, rather
banteringly.

“I do,” nodded Coggswell.

One of the Bolton brokers sent a messenger scurrying to the gallery to
inform the arch-plotter.

“Where is Delavan?”

It rose as a shout, penetrating every nook and corner of the great
Stock Exchange space.

“Right up there!” called Mr. Coggswell, turning and pointing toward the
gallery.

At that instant Mr. Delavan stood up. As he rose he cast off the linen
duster and peaked cap. In the next moment he removed the disfiguring,
concealing goggles from his eyes, dropping them to the floor.

“Delavan! Yes, it’s Delavan!” rose a mighty shout.

Justin Bolton turned at the same time. He fell back, clutching at a
seat, gasping, his lower jaw dropping, his eyes protruding. It must be
all a wild, disordered trick of the imagination, for wasn’t Francis
Delavan a close prisoner in that schooner out at sea?

But as Justin Bolton, horror-stricken and dazed, continued to glare at
the calm, smiling face of his foe, it was driven home to him that here,
indeed, was Delavan in the flesh.

It came over the scoundrel slowly, but crushingly. Still wildly
staring, foam flecking his lips, Justin Bolton sank back in his seat.

And those below saw. While they could not comprehend it all, they knew
that Justin Bolton, who was known to be the chief factor behind the
“bear” movement in P. & Y. stock, plainly admitted defeat.

At all events, Francis Delavan was neither an absconder nor a
defaulter, since he was here in the flesh and dared show himself. Then
it was that the report of the accountants, as published in the evening
newspapers, was remembered and accepted in good faith. Plainly the
“bear” movement had been based on a cruel hoax of some kind.

When the tumult had begun to subside, a broker’s voice was heard
announcing:

“I bid 67 for three thousand P. & Y.!”

The upward movement started then and there. Yet there were many
cautious ones. Almost at the outset a score of excited operators left
the floor to crowd about Francis Delavan.

The two intensely interested motor boat boys extricated themselves from
that crush, standing well apart from the crowd.

“You fool!” hissed a voice in Tom Halstead’s ear.

The young skipper turned, to find himself gazing into the glaring eyes
of Justin Bolton.

“In some way,” declared the scoundrel, “this is all your work!”

“Partly mine, partly that of my friends,” Tom smilingly admitted.

“You may have beaten me, but I offered you a fortune to work on my
side. What do you get out of this turn of affairs?”

“The satisfaction, at least, Mr. Bolton, of knowing that I’m a decent
human being, true to what little trusts may come my way.”

“Bah! That, as against a fortune!”

Then, suddenly, as though actuated by uncontrollable fury, Bolton
leaped at young Halstead, gripping him furiously by the throat.

“Quit that!” commanded Joe Dawson, sternly. Without waiting the young
engineer swung his fist, striking Bolton a heavy blow full in the face.

The maddened financier let go, staggering back. He reached for one of
his hip pockets.

But two new actors moved swiftly into this scene. They were plain
clothes policemen, provided by the thoughtfulness of Broker Coggswell.
Bolton was seized, and his right hand followed to his hip pocket.

“You don’t need this weapon,” remarked one of the officers, taking
Bolton’s revolver. “Calm down, man, and come with us.”

“But, good heavens, officer, I can’t leave here now,” cried Bolton,
his eyes flashing fire. “I’ve millions of dollars at stake on the floor
below.”

“Then calm down and behave yourself,” advised the other policeman. “If
you had drawn that gun and pointed it, we’d have to take you. Behave
yourself, and we’ll let you stay here and attend to your deals.”

“I’ll—I’ll promise,” agreed Justin Bolton, his words coming in a gasp.

This scene, as quickly as it had taken place, had not altogether
escaped the attention of those about Francis Delavan.

“Gentlemen,” said the “Rocket’s” owner, “if you can see any connection
between my brief disappearance and that scene over yonder, you’re
welcome to draw your own conclusions. But I’ve nothing further to say
on the subject, for the present, at any rate. My absence from the world
wasn’t a matter of my own choice—that’s all. As to P. & Y., I give you
my word of honor that I regard it as a splendid investment, even at
110. If there’s any man here who ever knew me to lie, let him stand
back and keep out of the good things that are going to happen on the
Stock Exchange to-day.”

Broker Coggswell, with the help of three of his men, was now on the
floor, snapping up all P. & Y. stock that offered. The selling price
was above 70.

Then Clark, one of the Bolton brokers, came rushing up in person to
consult his client. The two withdrew by themselves, forming the new
plan of campaign.

While Bolton had been the power behind the plot against P. & Y. stock,
yet there were scores of others who had been led into selling that
railroad stock “short.” They were not going to allow themselves to be
wiped out without a struggle of the fiercest sort.

In fact these “shorts” now rallied about Justin Bolton, and a powerful
money combine was spontaneously formed.

Francis Delavan was yet a long way from having won the day. His
dramatic appearance in the gallery of the Stock Exchange had brought
about at least a strong momentary rise in P. & Y.

Could it be made to last?




CHAPTER XXIII

“TWO MILLION DOLLARS A POINT”


SELDOM had a fiercer, more resolute fight been waged on the firing line
of the money field.

On the whole, P. & Y. seemed to have the better of it, though the
“shorts” fought with determination and discipline.

For an hour more Delavan, with his two motor boat boys and a few
operators who preferred to remain near the great figure in this battle,
remained in the gallery.

Then, with an easy, good-humored smile, the “Rocket’s” owner turned to
Halstead with:

“I’m afraid, lad, I didn’t enjoy my breakfast this morning as much as I
ought to have done. Let us three go out and find something good to eat.”

“Can you feel like eating now?” asked Halstead, in astonishment.

“Why, yes, Captain. Can’t _you_?”

“But I haven’t any money at stake down there,” replied Halstead,
nodding toward the floor.

“Yes, you have. If I’m wiped out to-day I don’t know how I’m even to
pay my motor boat crew. So, you see, you certainly have some money at
stake, just as I have.”

“But my few dollars don’t amount to anything,” protested the young
skipper, smiling.

“If I manage to come out on top of the heap, your ‘few dollars,’ as you
call them, may prove to be quite a good many. However, come along to
eat. It will serve to kill time, at least.”

So the trio left the Stock Exchange building. Mr. Coggswell couldn’t
go, as he must be on hand to manage the details of the fight.

Delavan and his young employes went to one of the famous restaurants
nearby. They were followed by several brokers who wanted more
information, but Francis Delavan engaged a private room at the
restaurant, and thus barred out all intrusion.

“Now,” proposed the host, “we can put in at least a couple of good
hours if we eat slowly.”

“Can you spare all that time, sir?” inquired Dawson.

“Why, bless you, boy, I could spare the day, if I had to,” laughed Mr.
Delavan. “The fight is up to Coggswell and his aides. There’s nothing I
can do now.”

“Are you going to ’phone any word to Mr. Moddridge?” asked Captain
Halstead.

“What’s the use? We’re a long way from out of the woods, yet, and poor
Moddridge, on any uncertain news, would only go worse to pieces. Now,
boys, please don’t even think of the word business until we’re out of
this place.”

It was after two o’clock when they left the restaurant. Mr. Delavan was
smoking a cigar as they stepped to the sidewalk. At the curb stood an
automobile that he had ordered by ’phone.

“We’ll just drop down to ’Change,” announced their employer. “You can
wait outside, if you wish, until I get an idea how the market is
going.”

When Mr. Delavan again joined them before the Stock Exchange Building
the confident smile had not left his face.

“P. & Y. is up to 74,” he announced, “but all the ‘shorts’ are making
savage assaults. Boys, this is a rather interesting game. It means
about two million dollars a point for Moddridge and myself. A point
up means the money in our pockets; a point down simply means that our
pockets are being picked. However, I’m going to stop fussing until
to-morrow. I’m off, now, in the auto, so you two will have to walk down
to the pier. Expect me aboard with a party at about six o’clock. We’ll
sail outside to-night. Tell Hank Butts I want a first-class dinner for
six this evening. And now, bye-bye.”

“Well, he’s a wonder,” ejaculated Joe Dawson, as the motor boat boys
turned to walk down the street “He may get wiped out yet, but if he
does he’ll buy a fresh cigar, laugh and sit down to plan what he’s
going to do to make a new fortune.”

“He can have Wall Street all to himself, though, as far as I’m
concerned,” declared Tom Halstead. “If I went there every day I’m
afraid I’d grow to be more like Mr. Moddridge.”

To the intense astonishment of both boys, when they boarded the
“Rocket,” Hank informed them that Eben Moddridge was in his berth below
and sound asleep.

“Why, I really believe Mr. Moddridge is acquiring some nerve,” laughed
Halstead.

As Hank went below to look over his larder and galley, Halstead and his
chum turned to busy themselves with the boat. After her long trip at
racing speed there was much to be done in cleaning and trimming up her
machinery, and the time was short. Yet, by team work, they accomplished
much, and were on deck, in their best uniforms, when two cabs arrived
at the pier.

Out of the first stepped Mr. Johnson, Banker Oliver and a stranger, the
latter one of Mr. Delavan’s Wall Street friends.

Out of the second cab came Mr. Delavan. He turned while a second
gentleman alighted. At sight of this last man Tom Halstead and Joe
Dawson looked in swift delight at each other, then straightened up more
than ever. For the man with the owner was George Prescott, the Boston
broker, who had organized the Motor Boat Club and was now its president.

“How do you do, boys? I’m heartily glad to see you,” was Mr. Prescott’s
greeting. Stepping across the gang-plank, he shook hands vigorously
with each youth in turn.

“I’ve been hearing some fine things of you both,” he added. “I’m proud
of my Motor Boat Club members. I shall have a long talk with each of
you on the trip to-night.”

“Down the Bay, through the Narrows, and then anywhere, Captain; say,
down along the Jersey coast. We’ll be out all night,” announced Mr.
Delavan, “though you’ll not need to put on much speed. Be back at eight
in the morning, as you were this morning.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Captain Tom, saluting lightly.

Hank cast off, bow and stern, then hurried below, getting into his
white jacket and busying himself with the dinner.

By the time they were a mile from the pier dinner was announced. They
were through the Narrows, and some miles down the New Jersey coast
when the gentlemen came out of the cabin again. It was a fine, starlit
night. While the others seated themselves in chairs on the after deck,
Mr. Prescott climbed up the steps, pulling up an arm chair so that
he could sit close to the young captain. As the “Rocket” was going
along at less than ten miles an hour and the sea was smooth, the young
skipper had not much in the way of duty to occupy his attention.

“Tom,” began the Boston broker, “I can’t tell you how pleased I am that
you have been able to be of such grand service to my friend, Delavan.
I recommended Dawson and yourself to him, and he says it has proved to
be the greatest service I ever did, or could do him.”

“Is it a proper question if I ask whether Mr. Delavan is now safely on
his feet again?” ventured Halstead.

“It’ll take to-morrow’s dealings on ’Change to show whether he’s sage,”
replied Mr. Prescott. “But, if he hadn’t been on hand to-day, just as
he was, nothing could have saved him. By three o’clock this afternoon
the Delavan-Moddridge combination would have been wiped off the slate
for good. Frank Delavan will be back and fighting again to-morrow.
Perhaps the greatest strain of all will be to-morrow, for the ‘shorts’
are powerful and they simply must fight. But Delavan isn’t by any means
cast down.”

As if to prove this, Mr. Delavan’s voice was heard, at that moment, as
he broke into a roar of laughter over a story that had just been told
by one of his guests.

“He doesn’t seem to know what fear or nerves mean,” smiled Captain Tom.
“I never knew a man who seemed to care so little about the things that
worry most men to death.”

“I think most likely,” replied Mr. Prescott, musingly, “he is no more
a stranger to worry than other men. But he has wonderful courage and
perfect control of himself. Frank Delavan will never allow himself to
be frightened until he has found out just what it was that scared him.”

Tom took a look up at the sky to see how the weather lay. Mr. Prescott
took a few puffs at his cigar before he continued:

“By the way, Tom, I saw Horace Dunstan the other day, and, for the
first time, got a complete account of all you and Dawson were able
to do to serve him and his interests—perhaps I should say, his son’s
interests—down at Nantucket. It was a thrilling yarn to hear, but made
four-fold more interesting by the knowledge that boys of mine—that’s
what I call you Motor Boat Club boys—were the ones who had acquitted
themselves so magnificently.”

Then the two fell to talking over the happenings at Nantucket. Readers
of the second volume in this series are already familiar with the
occurrences at Nantucket. Then, by degrees, the two went back to the
subject of those days in the Kennebec waters, which resulted in the
organization of the famous Club, as told in the first book of this
series.

When they had exhausted other topics Tom Halstead ventured to inquire:

“Can you tell me how Justin Bolton came out to-day?”

“Oh, Bolton is still putting up a big fight on ’Change, or was when
the gong sounded this afternoon. Yet he is a few millions of dollars
poorer than he was this morning. He will put up a plucky fight, for in
the battle of finance he is very nearly as game as Delavan himself.”

After an hour’s chat Mr. Prescott dropped down into the engine room
and enjoyed a long talk with Joe Dawson. When the Boston broker came
on deck again the “Rocket’s” young steward was standing beside the
youthful skipper at the wheel.

“Mr. Prescott,” spoke Captain Tom, respectfully, “Butts is very anxious
to be enrolled as a member of the Club. He can handle a boat like this
from the deck as well as anyone, and he promises to pitch in and study
the running of a motor hard.”

“You’re a member, then, Butts,” laughed Mr. Prescott. “Tom Halstead’s
nomination of a young man for membership is as good as election into
the Motor Boat Club.”

“Thank you, sir, and thank you, Tom,” said Hank, very earnestly. “I am
going to do everything I know how to become one of _the_ members of the
Club.”

“Then you like motor boating, do you?” inquired the Boston broker.

“Like it?” echoed Hank. “Why, sir, motor boating is the only sport for
a rich man, and the only job for a poor one. I came near saying I’d
sooner be cabin boy on a motor craft than a member of Congress. And I’m
not sure, sir, but what that’s right.”

Eleven o’clock found the cabin darkened, and all but the necessary
lights out. Owner and guests were in their berths. Halstead was soon
sound asleep and Joe dozed in a berth in the engine room, where he
could be ready for duty instantly if the engine needed his attention.

Hank, at the wheel, handled the craft carefully, though he was dreaming
a goodly bit under that fine August night sky.

“A member of the Club,” he repeated to himself over and over again.
“Whee! I hope I’m skipper of a craft like this myself one of these
days. Being steward and crew ain’t so bad, yet I surely do envy Tom
Halstead.”

In the morning, as on the day before, the “Rocket” was berthed
punctually. This time Tom and Joe were not invited to go up to the
Stock Exchange. They would have liked immensely to have seen the day’s
doings, but there was an abundance of work to be done aboard.

“I shall probably have the same party again to-night,” said Mr.
Delavan, before going ashore. “Coggswell will be with us, too, if it is
possible to get him to come.”

At one o’clock that afternoon Captain Tom was summoned to the
telephone office nearest the pier to talk with his employer.

“That you, Captain Halstead?” came the voice of Delavan over the wire.
“Good enough. What I have to say is that I’m going to give the ‘Rocket’
a rest for a little while.”

“Are you going to lay the boat up, sir?” asked Tom, feeling a start of
disappointment, for he had grown very fond of his present work.

“Oh, I am going to keep on the water,” replied the Wall Street man.
“But I’m going to make a change for a day or two anyway. Take your
crew and go over to Macklin’s shipyard, South Brooklyn. There’s a boat
over there, the ‘Soudan,’ that I want you to bring around to Pier
Eight, North River, by six o’clock to-night. I’ve arranged it all by
telephone. You’ll find gasoline, provisions and everything aboard,
ready for a start. As you’ll have some time to spare, you can try the
boat up the Hudson a little way, if you like, in order to get used to
running her. Macklin has your description from me, and will turn the
boat over to you, all right.”

“Am I too forward, Mr. Delavan, if I ask how things are going on
’Change?” Halstead ventured.

“Oh, things are coming our way, I believe,” was the cheery response.
“It’s too early to be wholly sure, but we’re a lot more ahead in
the two million dollars a point game. Oh, by the way, I came near
forgetting poor Moddridge. Give him my compliments, please, and ask him
to go over to South Brooklyn with you.”

After everything had been locked up aboard the “Rocket” the start for
South Brooklyn was made.

“I’m more than glad of this programme,” confessed the nervous one.
“I have an idea that a change of boat will make our change of luck a
complete one.”

Arrived at the ship-yard Mr. Macklin at once conducted the party down
to the slip in which the “Soudan” lay. She proved to be an extremely
handsome boat, five feet shorter than the “Rocket,” though broader of
beam in proportion. In other words, she was fifty-five feet over all,
and fifteen wide at the broadest part of her hull.

“You’ll find everything shipshape and ready, I think,” said Mr.
Macklin, fitting the keys to cabin door, the hatchways and other locked
places. “I hope you’ll like the boat, Captain.”

“From the little I’ve seen of her she looks as though she had been
built for a gentleman’s boat,” replied Halstead.

“You may well say that,” replied the shipyard man. “For example, just
step into the cabin.”

This part of the craft was found to be fitted up with much luxury.
Besides berths in the cabin proper, there were a stateroom and
bath-room.

“I’ll leave you in possession, Captain,” announced Mr. Macklin. “You
will find everything ready for starting at a moment’s notice.”

“We won’t start until I’ve had a little time to study the motor of this
new craft,” declared Joe. “I’m not going to be caught with a motor on a
boat under way until I understand something about that motor.”

In two or three minutes more he had the engine running.

“It’s a smooth mote, all right,” Dawson declared, after a few minutes
more of observation. “I guess you can cast off, Captain, whenever you
feel like moving us out of here.”

So the “Soudan” moved out into the stream. The craft behaved
beautifully as the young skipper turned her nose toward the Battery.

“How do you like this boat, Mr. Moddridge?” asked the young skipper, as
the nervous one sauntered by on the bridge deck.

“Oh, as well as any other craft,” replied Eben Moddridge. “She’s a
handsome and comfortable vessel, but I’ve had so many horrors on the
salt water lately that, if I get out of Wall Street with my fortune,
as I now have some hopes of doing, I think it will be the mountains or
the Middle West for me. Anything to be away from the salt water for a
good, long while.”

As Moddridge turned away Captain Tom could not help sending after him
a look of sympathy. Anyone who could not love the sea and the smell of
salt water was much to be pitied!

The short spin up the Hudson River, over the same route taken three
hundred years before by Hendrik Hudson—though our friends did not at
this time go as far up the river—proved the excellence of the “Soudan”
as a well-behaved craft. Then the young skipper turned back for Pier
eight.

A little before six o’clock Mr. Delavan and his friends came aboard,
Mr. Coggswell among them. The boat left the pier right afterward.

“How do you like this boat, boys?” asked Mr. Delavan, approaching the
chums as they stood together by the wheel after passing below the
Battery.

“She’s a fine craft, sir,” Tom Halstead answered.

“I’m glad you like her,” nodded Francis Delavan, smiling. “I’ve
bought the ‘Soudan,’ but I bought her in order to present her to you,
Halstead, and to you, Dawson.”




CHAPTER XXIV

CONCLUSION


TOM HALSTEAD started, then, open-mouthed, gaped at Francis Delavan in
sheer amazement.

“You’re joking, sir,” he said, thickly.

“I sometimes _do_ jest,” admitted the Wall Street man, “but this is
not one of the occasions. Did you young men think I would let your
services pass without remembering them in some substantial manner? But
here, I’ll convince you as to whether I’m joking or not. Here comes the
president of your Club. Mr. Prescott, to whom does this boat belong?”

“The deed you handed me declares Thomas Halstead and Joseph Dawson to
be the joint owners,” replied the Boston broker. “The deed also names
me as trustee until the young men become of age, or until they dispose
of the boat with my consent.”

“Tell them the rest, Prescott,” laughed Mr. Delavan, hurrying away to
avoid being thanked. “They take me for a jester.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything like that,” protested the young skipper.
“Only it all seemed so wonderful, so much as though we were dreaming.”

“Tom Halstead, what’s your course?” broke in Joe, rather sharply. “Are
you trying to beach on Bedloe’s Island, or collide with the Statue of
Liberty!”

Truth to tell, Halstead had, for a moment, almost forgotten that he was
handling the boat.

“It’s all true,” Mr. Prescott went on heartily, “and I congratulate
both of you youngsters on your fine piece of property. Of course
Delavan knows you boys haven’t the means to run such a craft as this
for pleasure, but he hopes and believes you can make a fine thing
out of the boat by chartering her to other people and going along
to navigate the boat. Until you become solidly established in this
business you can draw against me for supplies. Delavan has handed me a
small sum for that purpose.”

“But a boat like this costs a fortune,” declared Joe, staggered, for
once.

“She cost something like fourteen thousand dollars to build,” replied
the Boston broker. “The former owner has had her two years, and now
wants a bigger boat, so he put this one up for sale. Delavan heard of
it to-day, and asked me, as a favor, to hurry over to Brooklyn and look
the craft over. On my report he bought the ‘Soudan’ for you two.”

“But this boat is still worth a fortune,” choked Halstead. “It wouldn’t
seem right for us to take such a magnificent present.”

“As a matter of fact,” Mr. Prescott replied, “the boat didn’t cost Mr.
Delavan exactly a fortune. Motor boats are like automobiles, pianos and
a lot of other things. After you’ve used them a while, if you want to
sell, you’ve got to be satisfied with a fraction of the original price.
Delavan secured this boat for three thousand dollars. As to its being
right for you to accept, I tried to decide that for you. I believe
you _have_ a right to such a reward. Without your daring services Mr.
Delavan would have been despoiled of his whole fortune.”

It was some time before the two young owners of the “Soudan” got over
feeling utterly dazed. It was a much longer time before they outlived
the feeling of exultation that this fine piece of property caused them.

“I have the deed to the boat for you, boys,” wound up Mr. Prescott,
displaying a paper. “I’ll file it away for you until it’s needed. Now,
take as good care of your own boat as you have of the boats of other
people.”

Hank Butts, while they were talking, passed them on the run, the cabin
bell having rung. Soon after Mr. Prescott left Tom and Joe, Hank came
out of the cabin, his face a study in amazement.

“I—I have heard about your great luck fellows,” said Hank, eagerly. “So
this fine boat is yours? Oh, I congratulate you.”

“Joe and I have just been talking it over,” replied Halstead. “You have
had as much to do with this cruise, Hank, as we have had, and it seems
to us you should have a third of the boat. So we’re going to ask Mr.
Delavan——”

“Ask him nothing,” advised Hank, promptly. “Mr. Delavan was talking
with me yesterday, though I didn’t know what he was up to. You see, my
father is getting old, and my mother isn’t always well. I’m the only
boy left at home, so I’ve got to be near them every little while. Mr.
Delavan has given me more than I ever thought I’d own. That is, I’m to
have it in a day or two, as soon as Mr. Delavan gets time to go around
with me and look things over.”

“Then you haven’t been forgotten, or overlooked?” queried Halstead.
“Oh, but we’re glad of that, old fellow.”

“Now, I don’t get quite such a fine boat as yours,” Hank went on
quizzically. “Mine is to be a thirty-foot launch, suited for taking out
pleasure parties in and around Shinnecock Bay. But Mr. Delavan is going
to buy me a lot on the bay-front, and build a little pier, so I’ll have
my own water frontage. Fellows, I’ll be fixed for life!”

“As we are,” throbbed Joe Dawson.

“But, geewhillikins, fellows,” remembered Hank, suddenly, “I mustn’t
get my mind so much on my good luck that I forget there’s a dinner to
serve.”

On this first trip with her new owners the “Soudan” behaved splendidly.
In fact, she afterwards proved to be an exceptionally good, strong and
sea-worthy craft.

When the Wall Street party returned to town the following morning,
the battle on ’Change was carried on to a finish. Before the day was
over P. & Y. stock was up where it belonged. Steel and the allied
securities also behaved in a way that netted large profits for the
Delavan-Moddridge combine. Francis Delavan came out of the affair with
more than fifteen million dollars of profits, and Eben Moddridge with
ten million dollars—this in addition to the fortune with which they had
started.

The experience has cured Mr. Delavan of any further desire to plunge
into Wall Street. He feels that he has more money than he can use,
and is now devoting himself solely to advancing the interests of the
railway of which he is president.

Eben Moddridge has invested largely in Government bonds, as a rest for
his nerves. The balance of his great fortune is invested in securities
that do not go up and down on the Wall Street barometer. Mr. Moddridge
spends much of his time in the Western States, notably hunting in the
Rocky Mountains, and his nerves are coming gradually, surely under
control.

Justin Bolton’s end, financially, came with deserved suddenness and
completeness. Unable, with all his millions, to buy in enough P. &
Y. stock to cover his immense range of “short” sales, the worthless
fellow found himself with every dollar gone when that last stern day
of fighting on ’Change ended. Bolton is now clerking—drudging and
scheming, though all in vain.

Ellis and Rexford did not, of course, earn the great sums of money they
had expected. Fearing prosecution for their part in the affair, they
fled to Europe. Lately the news came that they had been arrested in
Paris for swindling American travelers. The pair are now confined in a
French prison.

Francis Delavan, generous and forgiving, refused to try to find
the crews of the racing launch or of the schooner, or to consider
prosecution of these underlings, and they have never been heard of
since.

“Bolton was the arch-scoundrel, and he’s had punishment enough meted
out to him,” declared the good-humored president of the P. & Y. “I
never did feel much like going after small fry, anyway. Besides, having
to go into court as a witness might upset all the good that has been
done to good old Eb’s nerves.”

Jed Prentiss was soon able to report that his mother had recovered. Jed
thereupon took command of Horace Dunstan’s “Meteor” for the balance of
the season.

Hank Butts has the launch and the water frontage which Mr. Delavan
promised him, and is supremely happy. He would rather be a Motor Boat
Club boy than anything else he could imagine.

Mr. Delavan continued to cruise for the balance of August, using his
own boat part of the time and the “Soudan” the rest of the time.

In September——

But the story of the further doings of the Motor Boat Club boys must
now be deferred for narration in the next volume of this series. The
most absorbing and exciting adventures of our young motor navigators
will be made the subject of the fourth volume in the Motor Boat Club
Series. These rousing adventures will be described under the title:
“THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AND THE WIRELESS; OR, THE DOT, DASH AND DARE
CRUISE.”

    (THE END.)

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 63, “to-morow” changed to “to-morrow” (purpose to-morrow, but)

Page 119, “Moodridge” changed to “Moddridge” (can’t see Mr. Moodridge)

Page 153, “neglige” changed to “negligee” (in negligee attire)

Page 218, “hurired” changed to “hurried” (young man hurried out)