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!”