CHAPTER XXII

KICKING WATER IN THE WAKE OF THE “BUZZARD.”

“DID you see what passengers she carried?” added Tom Halstead, breathless with suspense.

“A young man. I didn’t note him particularly at the distance,” Jeff Randolph drawled.

“Could it have been Oliver Dixon!”

“Why, yes, about his build, though the distance was considerable, and the fellow’s back was turned this way as he went on board.”

“Just one passenger went to the ‘Buzzard’, eh?” broke in Henry Tremaine.

“All I noticed,” confessed Jeff. “I wasn’t paying particular attention.”

Joe, in the meantime, had made a straight break down into the motor room. Now his engines were running.

“Lay out forward, here, Jeff, to help me stow the anchor away,” called the youthful skipper. One of the Tampa officers also aided.

“Crowd the speed on, Joe, as fast as you properly can,” shouted down Halstead as he took his place at the wheel.

Almost with a jump the “Restless” started. The boat supposed to be the “Buzzard” was now about hull-down. Her solitary signal mast would be a hard thing to keep in sight across an interval of several miles.

By this time Jeff Randolph was in possession of the main facts. He knew they were in frenzied pursuit of Oliver Dixon, who was believed to carry with him some sixty thousand dollars, in all, that Henry Tremaine stood to lose.

Now that President Haight knew his bank did not stand to lose a large sum, because of Tremaine’s unfaltering guarantee, the bank man was no longer near a state of collapse. Still, he keenly felt Tremaine’s suspense.

“I’ll never be such a fool again,” muttered Tremaine, to his wife. “I’ll never go security for anyone after this—not even my brother.”

“I can’t understand why you were so easy over the loss of the first ten thousand dollars,” murmured his wife.

“That was because I believed the whole matter would come out presently. I didn’t want to suspect Halstead, and I didn’t want to suspect young Oliver Dixon. So I didn’t know where the lightning might hit. Rather than stir up trouble I preferred to wait and see what the developments would be. Ten thousand dollars I could stand the loss of, if I had to, but sixty thousand——”

The “Restless” was kicking the water at a furious gait, now, but Captain Halstead groaned when he realized that the “Buzzard” had succeeded in taking her hull wholly out of sight.

“Mr. Tremaine, I’ll have to press you into service,” called the young sailing master, firmly.

“Yes; _do_ give me something to do,” begged the charter-man, stepping up beside the wheel.

“The ‘Buzzard’ is now so far away, sir, that I’m not quite sure whether I can see her signal mast or not. Sometimes I think I do; at other times I’m in doubt. You might take the marine glass, sir, and see if you can pick up that mast and keep it in sight.”

“Indeed, I will,” breathed Tremaine, anxiously.

“Joe,” Captain Tom called down through the forward hatchway, “kick on every bit of speed you can crowd out of the motors. We’ve _got_ to hump faster.”

“If I go much faster,” called Joe, dryly, “I’ll blow out a cylinder head.”

“Take a chance,” Halstead urged. “We’ve got to crawl up on that other craft.”

“I can make out her signal mast,” announced Henry Tremaine.

“Then keep that stick in sight, sir. There’s one nasty trick the ‘Buzzard’ might play on us if she got far enough in the lead,” explained the young skipper.

“What trick is that?”

“If she’s running close enough to shore, she might succeed in putting Dixon on land, then the ‘Buzzard’ could head out on her cruise again. If that happened, every throb of our propellers would be carrying us further and further from Oliver Dixon and his booty.”

“Good heavens, yes!” agreed Tremaine. “Well, I’m holding that signal mast steadily.”

“Does she seem to be nearing land?”

“Not yet. I judge her course to be southward.”

“Let me have the glass a second,” begged Halstead, jamming the wheel spokes with his knees as he reached out for the glass.

He took a long, intent look.

“Yes; she’s holding her southerly course,” Tom declared.

“Are we going to catch up with her!”

“I don’t know, yet,” Halstead admitted. “The ‘Buzzard’ is a fast boat. Whether we can catch up with her only the next two hours can tell. We’ve got a mighty good boat under our feet, Mr. Tremaine.”

“We need one!” cried that gentleman.

It being none of their affair, particularly, for the present, the two Tampa officers were lounging in deck chairs aft, smoking quietly. The ladies, however, stood just behind the men, as close to the bridge deck as they could keep without interfering with the handling of the craft.

“Let me have the glass again, please,” begged Halstead, ten minutes later. “Yes, I thought so,” he continued, after looking. “That line on the water near the horizon is the ‘Buzzard’s’ hull showing once more. Then we must be creeping up on her.”

“Want me to take the wheel, Cap’n, for a spell?”—hinted Jeff Randolph.

“Not just now,” vouchsafed Tom Halstead. “Just now straight steering counts for as much as the speed of the propellers. You may be a better helmsman than I, by a good deal, but I can’t take a single chance for the next hour.”

In the next half hour, during which the Tampa harbor was left far behind, the hull ahead loomed up no larger. It remained an all but indistinct line on the horizon.

“If Mr. Dixon is on that boat, do you think he knows we’re after him?” Ida Silsbee asked.

“He must have more than a suspicion,” Tom Halstead grinned.

“What an awful feeling his must be, then!” exclaimed the girl, shuddering.

“Are you sorry for him!” asked Mrs. Tremaine, slowly.

“Only in the sense that I’m sorry for any man who yields to the temptation to turn thief,” replied the girl, slowly.

As Joe Dawson thrust his head up through the hatchway his chum at the wheel could see that the young engineer was much disturbed.

“Are we crowding your motors too hard, Joe?” inquired Halstead.

“They’re mighty warm,” Dawson admitted.

“Any danger of exploding a lot of gasoline gas?” demanded Henry Tremaine.

“I won’t just say that,” replied Joe, hesitatingly. “But——”

“But what?”

“If I keep up this overheating one or both of the motors may be put out of business.”

“Is that all?”

“It would ruin a pair of good engines.”

“If that’s all, boys,” responded Tremaine, “don’t let it worry you. If you hurt any engines, or damage your boat in any way, I’ll make good for it. I want to catch Dixon, and get that stolen money back. But, above money and every other consideration—at no matter what expense—I feel that I must overtake and punish the man who so fearfully abused my confidence and trust!”