Ralph Delahaye Paine

“ Captain Wetherly is working for your interests, sir. He knows the Reef better than any pilot out of Key West. If he says he can get your steamer off, he'll do it. And—and—he wants to save you—your ship—no matter what it costs him. It—it—isn't only to get ahead of Jerry Pringle on a wrecking job, Captain. He likes you, and Barton Pringle is my chum, and Mrs. Pringle is my mother's dearest friend, and Captain Jim wants to get you clear and on your voyage again without—without being forced to—to fight it out to a finish with you and Jerry Pringle. ”

“ Almost at the same instant that the excited deck force of the Resolute glimpsed a red light winking far off to starboard, they saw the mast-head light of the stranded vessel almost dead ahead.
"That red light out yonder belongs to J. Pringle," muttered Captain Wetherly, "And we must be pretty near the same distance from that mast-head light on the Reef. It's going to be a whirlwind finish, all right."
The Resolute kept full speed ahead as if she intended to cut her way through the stranded steamer. ”

“ The Bahama wreckers were going to blow up the ship. "A ten-minute fuse," he whispered as he began to crawl forward to escape from the hold. How long had he been unconscious? The explosion might come on the next instant. Dan was afraid to face "Black Sam" Hurley and his lawless crew, but he was far more afraid to stay below. His only thought was to gain the upper deck and jump overboard in the hope that the wreckers might pick him up. Fear gave him strength for the journey, fear such as he had never known before. ”

“ Men don't go bad all at once, Dan. Don't ever forget that. A ship's timbers don't rot overnight and let her founder in the gale that tests her strength. The first speck of rot is almost too small to see, but it grows. At last these people had me fit for their work, and three voyages ago they put it at me that there would be no great sorrow if the Kenilworth met disaster. I should have quit them on the spot, but I took the temptation to sea with me. And in the next voyage I ran afoul of Jeremiah Pringle in Pensacola. ”

“ Oddly enough, he did not feel in the least afraid of meeting the hostile ship-master whose wicked plans had been spoiled by the coming of the Resolute. Dan recalled the big, brown-bearded man with the deep voice and the kindly eyes whom he had met in Pensacola harbor, and said to himself, as he had said then: "He looks like too fine a man." But as Captain Jim's agent, Dan braced himself to be stern and dignified while he clambered to the bridge. ”

“ The love of wrecking is in his blood, and it fairly kills him to be idle with a fine, big ship on the Reef. Now that his plot to lose the Kenilworth is spoiled, why shouldn't he win a nice pot of money by helping save her? Then, again, maybe Captain Jim wants to heap coals on his head till he hollers for a fire-extinguisher. There is going to be something doing on the Reef, Dan. Better come along with us. You will be plenty strong enough if you have eaten up all that calf's-foot jelly I lugged up to you. ”

“ It's as black as the face of a Nassau pilot. We ought to be nearing the coal wharf by now. Of course they wouldn't have sense enough to leave a light on it to give us our bearings."
Captain Jim Wetherly was growling through the window of the darkened wheel-house to his deck-hand, young Dan Frazier, as the oceangoing tug Resolute felt her way up the harbor of Pensacola. She had towed a dismasted bark into port after a long and stubborn tussle with wind and sea, and her master was in haste to fill the empty bunkers and drive her home to Key West, five hundred miles across the blue Gulf. ”

“ Dan was watching the laboring Resolute from the stranded steamer's bridge when Captain Bruce put a hand on his shoulder and said with hearty frankness:
"That skipper of yours is plucky, and he is a first-class seaman. But he will lose his vessel if he stays out here much longer."
"He may have to give you a wider berth by dark," said Dan. "In ordinary weather he could take the Resolute over the Reef along here, but now the seas would pick her up and drop her on the ledges. I guess he will have to leave me aboard here overnight, Captain. There's no getting a boat over to me now. ”

“ Pshaw, boy, Bill McKnight is a good chief engineer, but if his engines didn't get any more rest than that tongue of his, they would have been in the scrap-heap long ago. I suppose he has been filling you up with yarns of the wonderful things he has done with this boat on the Reef. Come to think of it, he was carrying some steam more than the law allowed when we tackled that Italian wreck for the last time, but we weren't there for our health. And wrecking isn't a business for children, Dan. You'll find that out if you stick by me long enough to get your mate's papers. ”

“ After a luxurious night's slumber in a real bed, Dan felt as if the cobwebs had been brushed from his busy brain and that the bright world held better employment than brooding over what might happen to somebody else. ”

“ Presently the steamer passed the Resolute which lay at her wharf ready for sea. The chief engineer hurried into the wheel-house and pulled the whistle cord for all he was worth. The tug roared a hoarse farewell, and Dan gazed at her and the burly figure of Bill McKnight with glad affection in his eyes. ”

“ Because the Gulf Stream flows north along this crowded highway, the steamers and sailing craft bound south skirt the Reef as close as they dare in order to avoid the adverse current. Tall, spider-legged, steel light-houses rise from the submerged Reef, but its ledges still take their yearly toll of costly vessels, as they have done for centuries. When such disasters happen, the wreckers flock seaward to try to save the ship and cargo. ”

“ I would rather be dead along with Jerry Pringle than to go on hating myself and living in a hell of my own making."
"I reckon you are right," said Captain Jim after a long silence. "It pays to go straight, and every man must work out his own salvation."
"Anyhow, you would feel a heap worse if your ship had gone to pieces," Dan ventured to suggest in his effort to find a ray of sunshine in the cloud.
"Right you are, my lad. It has been a great fight, and a man couldn't work alongside this uncle of yours very long without wanting to live straight and clean. You helped save the Kenilworth, Dan. ”

“ The Resolute ploughed on with headway almost unchecked, and as her horrified mate rushed forward to see what damage had been done to her own hull, Captain Jim Wetherly looked back and remarked to himself:
"As neat a job as I ever saw. Her after bulkhead will keep her afloat, but the Henry Foster is surely shy her tail-feathers. I guess that winds up her career as a tow-boat for some time. Jerry Pringle looks kind of upset and agitated." ”

“ Will you really forgive me?"
"I was mean and nasty to you when the Henry Foster was split wide open, so I reckon we are quits," confessed Dan. "Let's shake hands and forget it."
"I'd trust you as I would trust my own father," earnestly exclaimed Bart. "Right down [Pg 154] in my heart I would no more dream of your being mixed up with a crooked wrecking job than I would think of suspecting him. That's as strong as I can put it. You won't hold it out against me any more, will you, honest?" ”

“ The deck force was taking turns at shovelling coal to reinforce the stifled stokers, and those off watch followed Dan with cheers. They knew that a race was on, and it lightened their toil to know that the Resolute was pounding toward her goal, wherever it was, with every ounce of power in her. Captain Jim joined the fire-fighters long enough to yell to them:
"Look out for rockets ahead. The first man to sight distress signals from the Reef gets ten dollars and a new hat." ”

“ Jerry Pringle was one of the last of a famous race of native wrecking masters of Key West. His father and grandfather were wreckers before him, and they had been hard and godless [Pg 11] men, rejoicing in the tidings of disaster on the Reef as a chance to plunder and destroy. Rumor had said some curious things about this Jeremiah Pringle's methods as a wrecking master, but Dan Frazier gave them careless heed, partly because he had heard so many wicked tales of the by-gone wrecking days, but more because young Barton Pringle, the only son of this man, was his dearest chum and school-mate. ”

“ Although the seas did not break over the Reef because of the depth of water, they threatened to smash the yawl against the steamer's side. Presently a lantern crept down from the [Pg 60] deck above like a huge fire-fly. It was tied to one of the lower rounds of a swaying rope ladder, at the sight of which Dan gathered himself for the ordeal. As the yawl rose he jumped headlong, got a grip on the ladder, and hung on for dear life while a frothing sea washed over him. Gasping for breath, bruised and dazed, he fought his way up the side and fell over the bulwark of the after well-deck. ”

“ Under the circumstances, I am of the opinion that the underwriters are deeply indebted to you for preventing the total loss of the Kenilworth. They can well afford to do the handsome thing by you, my boy, not as salvage, but as a gift, a reward for a heroic deed. Such gifts have been bestowed on several ship-masters within my recollection. Captain Wetherly informs me that you are ambitious to get an education. ”

“ Father went up the Gulf on the mail steamer and I begged him to take me along. But he was going only to Tampa to see about buying a couple of sponging schooners, and he said he was in too much of a hurry to bother with me."
"Going only to Tampa," echoed Dan with a foolish smile. "Oh, yes, only as far as Tampa. Sorry you had to miss it, Bart. How's everything with you? Have you bent the new main-sail on the Sombrero?" ”

“ That poor Captain Bruce of the Kenilworth was out of his head, and you know that Jerry Pringle has a sour, gruff way with him even when he's on dry land. I can't believe it of Mary Pringle's husband. It is a dreadful thing to suspect him of, plotting to wreck a fine, big steamer."
"That's just like a woman," declared Dan with a very grown-up air of wisdom. "Mrs. Pringle hasn't anything to do with it. And you are like Uncle Jim, always refusing to think [Pg 29] other folks are a bit less square and decent than you are. ”

“ He was cheered, however, by the buoyant confidence of Captain Jim Wetherly who exclaimed with a note of mirth in his voice:
"There's a sight to make you rub your eyes, Captain Bruce. That is Jerry Pringle's tug from Tampa on the port quarter of the Kenilworth. And there he goes up the side. Hooray! see him chase that gang of his down the hatch. He is surely shoving the job along for all he's worth. That's his way when he once buckles down to it."
"But you were fighting each other alongside my ship not long ago. I don't understand it," commented Captain Bruce. ”

“ Twice the dredge snapped her hawsers and broke clean adrift. When the weary tug and her tow crept in sight of the Morro Castle at the mouth of Santiago harbor, Bill McKnight almost wept as he surveyed his engines and boilers. Sorely racked and strained they were, and Captain Jim tried to comfort him by declaring that no other fat engineer could have patched and held them together to the end of the voyage. Making temporary repairs was a costly and tedious undertaking, and the crew [Pg 37] of the Resolute tired of the charms of Santiago and grew restless and homesick for Key West. ”

“ Hurley, a Bahama wrecker of such evil repute that he had been pointed out to Dan in Nassau harbor as one of the notorious characters of the islands.
Dan felt a new thrill of surprise and alarm
"There are plenty of honest wreckers in the Bahamas," said the lad to himself, while his teeth chattered. "But they don't sail with 'Black Sam.' And he was alongside the Resolute at Nassau, talking to the cook. He'd know me again. It's a good thing I chucked up that idea of lying out of this. It's time for me to get under cover, all right." ”

“ Every boy who plays foot-ball has dreamed of breaking through the line, blocking a kick, scooping up the ball, and running down the field like a whirlwind to score the winning touchdown with the other eleven vainly pounding along in his wake. ”

“ Are you resting easy as you are?"
"What steamer is that?" came the answering hail from the darkness.
"The tow-boat Resolute of Key West, first vessel to come to your assistance. Who are you?"
"The deuce you are," and there was the most profound amazement in the other voice. "This is the steamer Kenilworth of London. A crosscurrent set me on here but I can work off with my own engines, thank you."
[Pg 56]
"You'll never work her off," yelled Captain Jim. "Your vessel will break her back if it blows much harder. It's high-water two hours after daylight. It's now or never to pull her clear." ”