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“ Tersely Darrell gave the call for the government station at La Paz, and the key beneath Bellamy's pliant fingers began to snap and snarl. At the masthead above them the spark crackled and spat.
“Keep calling,” Darrell urged. “Keep it up a minute or two without stopping. Add the distress signal—anything to raise them.”
The operator's vibrant fingers kept the key clicking continuously. Over and over he repeated the call, adding the ominous “S. O. S.” signal which stirs the blood and sets thudding the heart of every wireless man. ”

“ Mr. Ives wants one of the men to bring her back at once, though. Can you run her?”
“Why—er—yes, sir,” the fellow faltered.
Followed close by Bellamy, the secret-service agent sprang up on the gangway and pushed the gaping sailor toward the tender.
“Hustle, then!” he said swiftly. “He won't want to be kept waiting. If he's not on the dock, make fast and wait. Better leave the engine running. Understand?”
Stirred by Darrell's crisp hint of peril, the man dropped into the launch, leaped to the engine, and in a moment the tender shot away into the fog. ”

“ Now the other one,” he went on, as Darrell submitted to the operation with an air of bored weariness. “Nothing more? Good! Tie their hands behind their backs—tight, now.”
The secret-service agent touched a match to the end of the neatly rolled tube of tobacco and took a deep inhalation.
“Is that quite necessary?” he drawled,
Ives turned on him and stared for an instant out of eyes which were hard as flint and utterly implacable. Of the genial good-fellowship he had shown that morning there remained not a single trace. ”

“ Darrell answered crisply. “It's too much to hope for——”
He stopped abruptly, his eyes lighting with a swift gleam of surprised delight as they fell upon a painter half hitched around one of the piles. A second later, he was looking down through the mist into the empty launch that bobbed gently against the wharf.
Ives and the second officer—the wireless man—were still ashore. The two sailors had probably grown tired of waiting in the damp mist, and gone to find what diversion they could in one of the near-by Mexican houses. Luck seemed playing into Darrell's hands. ”