Frederick R. Bechdolt

“ But in the passing of that instant, as one who casts behind him all else upon the seizing of swift-racing opportunity, MacKenzie rose and leaped. Out of the boat against the reeling steel wall he sprang; he gripped the ladder's sides with both strong hands and found the step which lay unseen beneath him. Already the oarsmen were pulling off to safety; through the black plates he heard the clanging of the gong down in the engine room. He climbed up and gained the deck. ”

“ He boarded the Bar Pilots' Association tender at Meiggs Wharf, and stood on the low deck as the swift little craft steamed out through the inner portal of the Golden Gate with a seven-knot ebb pushing on her stern.
And now, just after the tug had passed Fort Point, the hill wind and the fog leaped down the Marin County slopes again, hand in hand—like two murderers coming to take a look at their intended victim as he goes by the appointed spot. The Lime Point siren bellowed after MacKenzie in hoarse warning, and he glanced behind him as the pair fled up the mountain. ”

“ Lea thumped the table. “The Frenchman's lost.”
Wills joined him, and their voices mingled for some moments; the names of ships and far ports flew thick and fast; the cabin resounded with strange words by which local tempests are called down the west coast. MacKenzie remained silent until they had concluded. Then——
“I'm right,” he reiterated.
Lea swore at him with the deep fervency which time-tried shipmates can use in their profanity when they apply it to one another. Old Wills turned laboriously to face him once more.
“Dan”—his voice was heavy with solemnity—“you're always this way. ”

“ I'd be no pilot if I didn't know that.”
Lea swore again, and the fervency of despair was in his voice now. “Come, Jim,” he told Wills, and picked up the cards which were lying in front of him on the table, “I'll play you a game of pinochle.”
MacKenzie watched them from the locker for a good half hour; then went on deck, for the third man out has the task of cruising. He stood in the narrow cockpit, talking with the helmsman about the rising sea and the chances of the fog clearing away. But before he left for the cabin—“Keep her pretty well out toward the lightship,” he said quietly. ”

“ The Lime Point siren died away entirely. The Fort Point diaphone crashed louder. The minute at whose expiration MacKenzie had intended to speak the word by which the liner would turn reached its final second. He put that question by. He had made his calculation in the beginning.
Now he spoke. The ship turned.
Her bow swung toward Fort Point; she steamed straight into that blaring warning as if she were defying it.
Her captain sprang toward MacKenzie; his right hand was raised in a gesture of terrible protest; he was sweating; great beads of water stood out on his forehead. “Man!” ”

“ He scanned the first column's closely printed list of homing vessels. “Two men out there ahead of me,” he said thoughtfully. “Let's see.”
When he had replaced the papers—“It's all right, Annie; I'll come home on the Empress to-morrow afternoon.” He made the announcement as positively as though the Asiatic liner were a street car; and then, with his last half hour at home before him, he went on mapping out the details of to-morrow evening's festivities which they had planned in honor of their two grandchildren. ”

“ The days and nights of lonely mastery, when every movement of that enormous structure, every revolution throughout its complicated mechanism, and every act among those hundreds on board were his to answer for ”

“ You can't even pass the time o' day with a man without you got to be so dead sure about the thing. It ain't right, I tell you.”
“Now listen, Dan,” Lea cut in. “You got to change your mind once in a while.”
MacKenzie shook his head. “I know when I'm right,” he said aggressively.
"Supposing you was wrong?” Wills demanded.
“I ain't wrong” MacKenzie announced, in the same sure tone. “I know when I'm right, I tell you. ”