CHAPTER XVII

A STRANGE VISION

Captain Wiggs was not built on speed lines. He was short and squatty, and inclined to be fat. But the way in which he hustled about as soon as he heard what the sailor said was sufficient to qualify him to enter a go-as-you-please race of almost any kind.

With a few jumps he was at the companionway leading below, and, as he went the boys could hear him call out:

"Ring the fire alarm! Every man to his station! Someone tell the pilot to slow down! Signal to the engineer to get the pumps in gear!"

Nor were the members of the crew slow to carry out the commander's instructions. One man rang the automatic fire alarm, that sounded in every part of the vessel. Another hurried to the bridge, where he delivered the message about stopping the boat. The _Modoc_ at once began to lose way and, a moment later, the vibration from the engine room told the boys that the pumps had been started.

"Let's go below and see if we can help," suggested Bart, and the four chums went down in a hurry. They found men dragging lines of hose forward where little curls of smoke began coming from an open hatchway.

"Drown her out, men!" cried the captain. "It'll be all day with us if the flames get loose in that dry freight!"

Several of the men, dragging the snaky lines of hose, dropped down into the hold. They called for water, and the captain signalled for it to be turned on. The flat hose bulged out like a snake after a full meal, and a splashing sound from below told that the quenching fluid was getting in its work.

"Can we do anything?" asked Fenn, as he saw Captain Wiggs taking off his coat and donning oil skins.

"Not now, I guess. You might stand by for orders though. There's no telling into what this will develope."

It was getting quite smoky below, and the hold, down into which the commander had disappeared, was pouring out a volume of black vapor.

"Tell 'em to send another line of hose!" came a voice from below, and Fenn hurried to the engineer's room with the order.

Several men sprang at once to obey. The hose was unreeled from a rack on the partition, and run out to the hold. Then the engineer started another pump, that had been held in reserve.

There were now three lines of hose pouring water on the flames, which the boys could not see. That the blaze was not succumbing so quickly as had been hoped for, was evident by the shouts and excitement that came from the depths of the ship.

"Tell 'em to give us more water!" yelled the captain to the boys waiting above.

Frank rushed with the order, glad to escape the smoke, which was momentarily growing thicker.

"Tell him he's got all the water I can give him!" shouted the engineer, above the noise of the clanking machinery. "One of the pumps has gone out of commission!"

Frank shouted what the engineer had said to Captain Wiggs, below in the darkness.

"Then we've got to batten down the hatches and turn live steam into this hold!" was what the commander called back. "Tell him to get up a good head!"

Frank did so. When he returned Captain Wiggs was just making his way out of the hold. He was black, and smoke-begrimed, while he dripped water from every point of his yellow garments.

"Is there any danger?" asked Ned.

"There always is with a fire aboard a ship," answered the commander. "But I think we'll be able to hold her down if we get plenty of steam. Come on up, men," he added, and the sailors scrambled up. They looked more like colored, than white men.

Captain Wiggs acted quickly. When the last man was up, the hatches, or coverings to the hold, were fastened down, and tarpaulins, wet with water, to make them air tight, were spread over the top. Then, from pipes which ran into the hold from below, and which were for use in emergency, jets of live steam were blown into the compartment.

This, the commander knew, would penetrate to every nook and corner, reaching where water could not, and would soon quench the flames.

"Now, all we can do is to wait," said the captain, as he sat down, for he was almost exhausted.

That was the hardest part of all. When one can be busy at something, getting out of danger, or fighting a fire that can be seen, the nervous fear is swallowed up in action. But to sit and wait--wait for the unseen steam to do its work,--that was very trying.

Still there was no help for it. Captain Wiggs looked to the other part of the cargo, seeing that there was no danger of that taking fire. The forward hold was separated from the others by thick bulkheads, and there was little chance of the fire breaking through. The hull of the _Modoc_ was of steel, and, provided the fire did not get hot enough to warp any of the plates, there was small danger to the ship itself.

"We'll have to head for shore, in case it becomes necessary to break out the cargo," decided the captain, as he went on deck. "Come on, boys. We can do nothing now, and we want to get some of this smoke out of our lungs."

The course of the ship was changed. Captain Wiggs got out his charts and looked them over.

"Where will we land?" asked Fenn.

"Not much of anywhere," was the reply. "There is no good harbor this side of Duluth, but I've got to do the best I can. There is a little bay, about opposite here. There's no settlement near it, but I understand there's a good shore, and I'm going to make for it, in case this fire gets beyond my control."

Urged on by all the steam the engines could take, though much was needed for the fire, the vessel plowed ahead.

"Land ho!" called the lookout, and the captain, taking an observation, announced they were close to the bay of which he had spoken. When it was reached it was found to be a secluded harbor, with nothing in sight on the shores of it save a few old huts, that appeared to be deserted.

"Not a very lively place," commented the captain. "Still, it will do all right if we have to land the cargo."

The anchor was dropped and then all there was to do was to wait for the fire to be extinguished.

The boys remained on deck, looking at the scenery about them. Back of the bay, rising almost from the edge of the water, were a series of steep cliffs, of bare rock for the most part, but studded, here and there, with clumps of bushes and small trees, that somehow, found a lodgement for their roots on little ledges.

"It's a lonesome sort of place," remarked Fenn. "Not a soul within sight."

Hardly had he spoken than there was seen on the face of the cliff, as if by a trick, the figure of a man. He seemed to come out, as does a magic-lantern picture on a sheet, so quickly did he appear where, before, there had been nothing but bare brown rock.

"Look!" exclaimed Fenn, pointing.

"A Chinaman!" exclaimed Bart. "One of the smugglers!"

The boys jumped to their feet, and approached closer to the ship's rail, to get a better view.

As they did so the Chinese vanished as though the cliff wall had opened and swallowed him up.