The Motor Boat Club at the Golden Gate: or, A Thrilling Capture in the Great Fog

CHAPTER XVII
CRAGTHORPE INTRODUCES HIS REAL SELF

"Now, if you find you've anything to say," continued Cragthorpe, in the same low voice, "you can say it when the time comes. But don't try to call out, and don't attempt any impudence, or I'll pull this noose tight. You know what that will mean!"

Undeniably Tom Halstead paled. Upon his feet, with at least a fighting chance, the young motor boat captain, while he might have feared death, would not have run away from it. He had a record for showing grit.

But this was a time when no amount of courage could give him a chance. He read it in Cragthorpe's eyes that the fellow intended to keep the upper hand, and to abuse it, to the end.

"You felt fine and important when you told that big Irishman to lead me off to the brig, didn't you!" began the tormentor.

"What else could I do!" demanded Halstead, in a low voice. "Wouldn't you have done the same by me, if the boot had been on the other foot!"

"And you struck me that cowardly blow over at Oakland the other day," cried Cragthorpe, who seemed to have nursed his wrath until it angered him to the striking point.

"When you went to school," mocked Tom, his coolness returning rapidly, "you studied out of a different book of definitions from the one I had. I was never taught that it was cowardice to defend a woman."

"What call had you to defend her?" insisted Cragthorpe, with a show of increasing anger. "Was it any of your affair?"

"Yes; the fact that the young woman was annoyed by you was excuse enough for my act."

"You spoiled my last chance with her when you humiliated me by a blow that I didn't get a chance to return at the time."

"I'm glad to hear that," retorted Tom, candidly.

"Oh, you are, are you?"

The working of passion in Cragthorpe's face was a fearful sight to see.

"And a fine thing you did for the young woman!" hissed the fellow. "I wanted to marry her. She has money enough to make her a prize," sneered the wretch. "Her brother is to go on trial for his life in a few days, and I am the only witness who could save him from the chain of evidence that the authorities are weaving about him. I made the offer to the girl to save her brother if she would wed me."

"You cowardly – cur!" uttered Tom Halstead, in cool disdain.

Cragthorpe started; then deeper lines of passion graved themselves in his features.

"Yes," continued Tom, scornfully, "you're about the lowest sort of cur that could possibly breathe. To charge a woman such a price for her brother's life and good fame!"

Cragthorpe suddenly restrained his growing anger. He leered down into the face of his straightforward young enemy.

"However, I am to make money in another way," he continued, cheerfully. "Frank Rollings is my cousin. After my failure with the girl he found me so desperate and ugly that, without telling me what he was about to do, he enlisted me in his present fine enterprise."

"Took you along with him to help him guard his stolen treasure, did he!" jeered Captain Tom Halstead.

"Yes, if it interests you," snarled Cragthorpe.

"It'll interest your precious cousin a lot more, before he gets through with you," sneered Halstead. "He'll be lucky if you don't make away with him and try to secure all the stolen money for yourself!"

Cragthorpe started, almost as though the young skipper had hit on the head the nail of his intentions.

"Here! Chew on this, instead of words!" flashed the wretch.

He suddenly forced the young skipper's mouth open, wedging in a crumpled up handkerchief. This he followed with another, gagging his victim.

Scenting more dastardly work to come, Tom Halstead fought furiously with the little chance that was left to him. His hands were secured, in front of him, but his feet and legs were free. He struggled with all his might, trying to use his bound hands, together, on the head of Cragthorpe, as that wretch again bent over him.

In his struggles Halstead rolled over on his side. His lashed hands reached briefly under the edge of the bed. In this way he hoped to gain purchase enough to pull himself free and yank himself to his feet. It was a slight hope, yet the only one the motor boat boy could see.

In the brief interval before Cragthorpe seized him roughly, hurling him back into the middle of the bed, Tom's hands touched something on the under side of the frame. He didn't know what it was he had touched.

In that brief though furious struggle Halstead had succeeded in working out the handkerchiefs. His oppressor caught up one of them.

"I'll gag you in better shape, this time," he proposed.

At that instant the door of the cabin opened. Cragthorpe, busy with his scheme of revenge, did not hear it. But Halstead lay so that he saw the door move ajar; he saw the head of the sailor who, with this watch, served in the wheel-house.

Over the seaman's face swept a look of the most intense amazement. He darted back into the darkness, for an instant, then returned.

"One moment – wait!" spoke Tom Halstead, sharply.

"Confound you – not so loud, if you value your safety!" warned Cragthorpe.

Had not the rascal been so intensely absorbed he would have felt and noted the light breeze that blew in with the opening of the door. But Cragthorpe was passion-ridden at the moment. The door closed, with the sailor and Third Officer Costigan in the room.

That "one moment – wait!" Mr. Costigan and the sailor had the presence of mind to understand was directed at them.

"That girl – and her brother – you were lying to me about them," taunted Halstead. "You can't tell me their names."

"I can't – eh?" sneered Cragthorpe, harshly. "The girl's name is Rose Gentry, and her brother's name Robert Gentry."

"And the brother is accused of murder, and you could prove him innocent? Yet you refused to save the brother because Rose Gentry would not marry you and let you own her fortune! It's a lie!"

"It's the truth," snarled Cragthorpe, hotly. "And you helped doom the brother when you struck me down before Rose Gentry. You made her despise me the more."

"She did well to despise you," retorted Tom Halstead, bluntly. "You ought to be clubbed!"

That was exactly what happened, ere Cragthorpe could open his mouth. The seaman had been crouching behind the fellow, a belaying-pin in his right hand. At the word from Halstead the sailor struck, and Cragthorpe fell to the floor, stunned.

Leaving the sailor to attend to Cragthorpe, Mr. Costigan now bounded forward to free the young captain's hands.

"How on earth did this happen, sir?" demanded the third officer, as he cut away the cord from the boy's wrists.

"I dreamed I was fighting the fellow," laughed Tom, "but woke up to find he had slipped my hands into that noose. He had this other noose around my neck, threatening to draw it uncomfortably tight if I tried to make any outcry."

Tom was now able to slip out of bed and pull on his trousers, while Mr. Costigan turned on a stronger light.

"But how on earth did you two happen to come to my relief just at the right time?" the young skipper demanded.

"Why, you sounded the call to the bridge," retorted the third mate.

"I sounded the – wait a second."

Tom bent over the edge of his bed, feeling underneath along the frame.

"Why, there's a button here. Does that call to the bridge?" demanded the motor boat captain.

"It certainly does," retorted the third officer.

"I didn't even know the button was there," gasped the young sailing master. "In my struggles I touched it by accident."

"I sent Oleson, the sailor, to see what you wanted, sir," continued Mr. Costigan. "The next thing I knew Oleson backed out of your cabin, grabbed up a belaying-pin, and signaled to me. I came quick and soft-like, sir. And now, Captain, if you've no further orders for me, sir, hadn't I better be traveling back to the bridge? The quartermaster of my watch is running the ship at this minute."

"Go, then, Mr. Costigan, and thank you; but send the extra deck-hand of this watch."

In another moment the third mate's whistle was sounding shrilly. It brought the extra man of the watch on the run.

"Put these handcuffs on the fellow before he comes to," ordered Tom, going to his desk and taking out a pair of manacles. "There, now he won't do much harm if he does come out of it suddenly. But I'm going with you to the brig, and want to see leg irons put on the rascal, too. He won't have the use of his hands again, on this yacht. The second steward will have to feed the fellow his meals."

Tom quickly finished his dressing. Just as he had done so Cragthorpe uttered a deep sigh and opened his eyes. He was still a bit dazed. Halstead waited for some moments before speaking.

"If you were telling the truth, fellow, about Rose Gentry and her brother," taunted Tom, "your silence won't do you so much good, now. My third officer and one of these sailors overheard your declaration of your infernal villainy. They can testify in court in behalf of young Gentry. They'll help the case quite a bit, I guess."

Cragthorpe was enough himself, by this time, to understand. He scowled blackly, but refused to speak.

"Take him along down below to the brig, now," ordered Captain Halstead.

As the three navigators and their captive stepped out forward of the pilot house, Tom pointed over to port.

"There's the boat of your friends, my man," laughed the young motor boat skipper. "You've told me, too, that Frank Rollings is aboard of her, and that he has the stolen funds with him. Oh, one way and another, you told me a lot this night that I'm glad to know!"

Cragthorpe uttered some savage language under his breath as he was dragged below. Once again he found himself in the brig, and the door locked, after the leg-irons had been fitted. This time, to make doubly sure of his man, Halstead put on a double lock by means of a chain and padlock, the latter being of a pattern that could not be picked.

"In one way I almost feel badly at doing this to you, Cragthorpe," Tom said to the fellow, through the grating. "You'll think I'm crowing over you, and abusing my power. I'd be easier with you – but it wouldn't be safe for anyone aboard the yacht."

Halstead then returned to his cabin, where, at his desk, he wrote a note to Mr. Baldwin, advising the latter of what he had learned from the man who was once more in the brig.

This note he turned over to Mr. Costigan.

"Hand it to him if he comes on deck in the morning before I do," requested the young skipper. "Add anything you please, out of what you saw and heard to-night."

Then the motor yacht captain walked over to the port rail for one more look at the "Victor." The "Panther" was still keeping abreast of her, less than four hundred yards away. These two craft appeared to have the sea all to themselves.

"When, where and how will this all end?" wondered Tom Halstead.

Then he turned in once more, this time hoping for some real rest.

CHAPTER XVIII
A TRICK MADE FOR TWO

Just before eight o'clock in the morning Tom Halstead rolled over luxuriously in his broad bed.

"One more catnap wouldn't feel half bad," he muttered to himself. "However, I reckon I feel about right. I've had some of the sleep that was coming to me."

Then:

"I wonder how my friend Cragthorpe is this morning? It's quite plain he hasn't found some other trick for getting out of the brig."

Tom yawned a couple of times, stretched, and finally decided that he felt like getting up.

While he was coming to this conclusion the whistle sounded in the bridge speaking tube.

Springing out of bed, Tom took up the mouth-piece.

"Well?" he called.

"The 'Victor' is putting about, sir."

"What's her new course?"

"Going right back over the course she came out on, sir. Shall I turn and follow?"

"What else? The only thing we're living for now, Mr. Costigan, is to keep close to that steam yacht. Follow her, without further orders, even if she starts to steaming in circles. I'll be out soon."

"Very good, sir."

Tom looked slowly about him, then headed for the bath-room. He took plenty of time in the warm water, finally dressing. Mr. Costigan's watch had gone below, the third officer having left Tom's letter with Dick Davis, to be handed to Mr. Baldwin when the latter should appear. But, so far, none of the cabin party had yet turned out.

"All our people are still abed, I think, sir," smiled Davis, when the young motor boat captain appeared on deck.

"They've been worn out, by the suspense as much as by their short hours of rest," Halstead replied.

"Now, you guess why the steam craft has put about, don't you?" asked Halstead, after pacing the bridge for some moments while he studied the weather.

"I'm not sure that I do, sir," Dick admitted, after a moment's thought.

"Within three or four hours, I'm willing to wager you a night's rest, we'll be back in the fog belt," Tom replied, pointing ahead. "Now, Rollings and the captain of the 'Victor' have felt that they were getting too far off the course to their real destination, with us tagging right alongside all the way. They knew that the fog bank was a few hours astern of them as they lay on the other course, so they're putting back to get into it."

"For what purpose?" asked Dick.

"Why, I suppose they've figured on some plan for losing us in the fog this time. That's the way their hopes run, anyway."

"I can't see any fog ahead of us, sir," proclaimed Dick. "And I thought a fellow raised on the Maine sea-coast knew all about fogs."

"There's Ab just coming up for the day's work," whispered Tom, as the young first officer appeared through the companionway forward. "Just hear what he says."

Leaning forward over the bridge rail, Halstead called:

"Mr. Perkins, what sort of weather do you think lies ahead of us?"

Ab halted, looking all about him, then peering out for some moments past the bow of the "Panther."

"I think, sir," came the first officer's report, at last, "we're heading back towards another real old San Francisco fog."

"I surrender, then," nodded Dick Davis.

"We'll be in it by noon, or before," Tom Halstead predicted.

"And then, the folks on that craft yonder have it all figured out to give us the slip, sure and easy this time," muttered Ab, as he climbed the steps to the bridge.

Out of the owner's quarters stepped Joseph Baldwin and came forward, stretching and inhaling deeply the outdoor air. Captain Tom Halstead stepped down from the bridge to meet him.

"Haven't the other crowd changed their course a bit?" asked Mr. Baldwin.

Halstead explained the new move on the part of the navigator of the "Victor."

"Going to try to lose us, are they?" chuckled Baldwin. "If they do, Captain, they are clever people. If they can get away from you I'm positive it won't be your fault."

Then, stretching like a man who has had a fine, long sleep, and who isn't yet over the enjoyment of it, the owner added:

"Thank goodness, nothing happened during the night!"

"Nothing happened in the night, eh? I'm glad it was all carried off so quietly, sir, that you weren't disturbed by it."

"Why, did anything happen?"

"The fire, in the first place – "

"Of course; but I meant, nothing after I turned in again."

"Something certainly did happen," laughed Halstead. "I left a note for you with the watch officer, in case you came on deck before I did. Now, however, I can tell you about it."

And that Tom Halstead proceeded to do. While he was still engaged in the narration Mr. Ross came up on deck, and had to hear the tale. Just at its finish Dr. Gray appeared, followed by Gaston Giddings. The latter young man, though wholly out of the influence of morphine now, looked seedy and sullen. Plainly, he resented his enforced abstinence from drugs.

"I want to see that infernal rascal, Cragthorpe," muttered Mr. Baldwin. "Captain, won't you be good enough to have him brought on deck?"

So Ab was summoned, and instructed to take the extra seaman of the watch, as well as Quartermaster Bickson, and bring the prisoner to deck.

"Bring him by force, if you have to," added Captain Tom, dryly.

In a short time the quartermaster and seaman appeared, all but dragging Cragthorpe, while Ab Perkins brought up the rear of the procession, giving the doubly manacled fellow an occasional shove.

It was the first time that Gaston Giddings had seen the prisoner. The instant he did so, now, the young bank president looked suddenly angry.

"Mr. Baldwin," demanded Gaston Giddings, "why is this gentleman under such restraint?"

"Gentleman?" demanded Baldwin, with withering scorn. "Why, my boy, about whom are you talking?"

"Why is Mr. Cragthorpe ironed, on board this yacht?" insisted Giddings, his face now white and stern with increasing anger.

"Well, then, I'll tell you," sniffed Joseph Baldwin. "That fellow is in irons because he joined us from the 'Victor.' His first enterprise on board was to try to put one of our motors out of the running. His next effort was to set this yacht on fire, last night. After that, he broke into Captain Halstead's cabin, presumably with the intention of killing the navigator of this yacht; at any rate, he meant to injure Captain Halstead severely. Those are some of the reasons, Giddings, my boy, why Cragthorpe is now guarded as carefully as a mad dog might be if we didn't possess the right to kill it."

While speaking, Joseph Baldwin studied the young bank president's face keenly. After a pause, the older man went on:

"And now, Giddings, if you concede that I have any right to be curious, in turn, I'd like to ask you why you are so intensely interested in this scoundrel?"

From the instant Cragthorpe had caught sight of the face of Gaston Giddings, the man in irons had stood more at ease, a sneer on his face.

"Cragthorpe is a friend of mine," replied Giddings, stiffly.

"Indeed? Then I regret to say that I can't congratulate you on your choice of friends."

"I demand that you set Mr. Cragthorpe free!" cried young Giddings, in a voice passionate with anger.

"That's a request, my boy, that I'm not at all inclined to grant, even had I the power," retorted Baldwin, coolly, yet speaking as though he did not wish needlessly to further rouse the anger of Giddings. "You see, I haven't any power to give the order."

"No power?" snorted Giddings. "Don't you own this yacht?"

"I do; but Halstead is her captain. It is one of the rules of the sea that, after a vessel leaves her anchorage, her captain commands her absolutely until port is again reached."

"Do you mean to say that this boy would refuse to free Cragthorpe, if you commanded it?" demanded Giddings, hotly, a flushed spot burning in either cheek.

"What would you say, Captain Halstead, if I demanded the release of the prisoner?" asked Baldwin, facing the young motor boat skipper with smiling eyes.

"I'd refuse, sir," Tom replied, promptly. "In my opinion the 'Panther' isn't safe a minute when Cragthorpe is out of the brig. Take the prisoner back to the brig, Mr. Perkins."

Gaston Giddings, with a wrathful cry, started forward, but Tom blocked his way.

"You know you're pleasing the owner you sail for, or you wouldn't dare do this thing," choked the young bank president.

The prisoner was speedily taken below.

Gaston Giddings stamped angrily aft, while Joseph Baldwin's eyes followed the young man with a wondering look.

"Mr. Perkins," directed Tom, when Ab came back on deck, "lock the door of the passage leading to the brig, and leave the key with the watch officer, with instructions to turn it over to his successor on the bridge." Tom's order was given for the purpose of preventing Giddings from making any attempt to reach and aid Cragthorpe.

"I'm going to have Doc Gray try to find out what part Cragthorpe has been playing in the life of our young friend, Giddings," Mr. Baldwin confided to the young skipper. "I've a suspicion, already, though."

"May I ask, sir, what you suspect?"

"Well, since Giddings has become a confirmed 'hop-fiend,' and Cragthorpe comes to us from the Rollings crowd, I think it most likely that Rollings has been employing Cragthorpe to cultivate Giddings's acquaintance and lure him on into the opium habit. Such drugs destroy a man's will, his sense of justice – they rot his very soul!"

"So, then, sir, you think Rollings has been, for some time, engaged in a deliberate plot to acquire an ascendancy over Mr. Giddings and ruin him?"

"That's my suspicion, stated in a few words, Captain."

Through the forenoon the chase on the course back to San Francisco continued without change. By eleven o'clock both yachts were moving through occasional light blotches of fog, though the two craft still moved in sight of each other. An hour later, however, the two yachts, with speed now down to eight miles an hour, entered a dense, white gloom in which they were soon shut out from sight of each other. Now, Captain Tom was reduced to the old trick of going by sound.

Fortunately, the "Victor" sounded a fog-horn at regular intervals of sixty seconds, as did the "Panther."

"I'm not going to take any chances, however, sir," Tom confided to the owner. "I'm going to keep close enough to hear her machinery, too."

Passing through the fog, the unseen "Victor" was off the better part of three hundred yards to port of the "Panther."

Of a sudden, however, there came a note that was new. Tom and Joe, in the captain's cabin, heard it, and ran out on deck. Davis was bending over the starboard rail of the bridge in his effort to comprehend the new sound.

"Too-whoo-oo!" Nearly abeam, and some three hundred yards off to starboard, that new sound came – a fog-horn identical with the "Victor's."

"What on earth is the trick, now?" wondered Joe Dawson.

"I'd be willing to give a day's pay to guess it all at once," responded the young skipper.

"Too-whoo-oo!" sounded the "Panther's" fog-horn. "Too-whoo-oo!" came the answer, from port, presumably from the "Victor's" fog-horn. "Too-whoo-oo!" came like an echo from starboard.

"It sounds like the first move in a game to mix us up," muttered Tom Halstead, shrewdly.

"But what craft can be off at starboard?" questioned young Dawson.

"Probably a steam launch, put off from the 'Victor,' with a similar fog-horn," rejoined Captain Halstead.

"Or a motor launch," suggested Joe.

"No; I don't believe that. If it were a motor launch we'd hear the chug-chug of her exhaust. It must be a steam launch. A steam craft of small size can be run more quietly."

"That's true," assented young Dawson. "Still, our power tender has a pretty silent exhaust."

"Great scheme!" grinned Tom, suddenly.

"What?"

"I'm going to play a return trick on Rollings's captain."

"How?"

"We have two reserve fog-horns that are identical in sound. I'm going to rig one of 'em on the 'Panther,' using it in the place of the one we're now sounding."

"Yes – "

"And rig the other fog-horn on the power launch," chuckled Tom. "Then we'll put Bickson and his own deckhand in the power launch and send 'em around to cruise to port of the 'Victor.' Thus we'll keep those fellows guessing, too, what's in the wind."

Joe chuckled, but he added:

"Tom, you'd better ask Mr. Jephson to send one of his deputy marshals along, armed, or something might happen that our power launch and two men would be bagged."

"That's a sound idea, too," Captain Tom nodded. Half an hour later the "Panther's" power launch, containing Bickson, a seaman and a deputy marshal, stole as noiselessly as possible around to the port side of the "Victor" in the great, thick fog. Now, there were four fog-horns, sounding all at once. The four power craft were moving practically in one line.

"Say, that's a funny stunt, surely," chuckled Joseph Baldwin, when he heard the four fog-horns almost at once, and understood what the move meant.

"It may have another good effect," suggested Halstead.

"What?"

"Any sailing vessel headed our way, hearing four horns, is likely to steer well out of the way of the whole fleet, thus lessening the danger of collision."

Barely two minutes later another sound intensely interested the watchers aboard the "Panther."

Out of the white gloom ahead, some hundreds of yards, and almost bow-on from the "Panther," came the long-drawn-out hail:

"He-e-elp!"

"What's that?" demanded Joseph Baldwin, starting.

"He-elp!" came the appeal once more.

"Sounds like the latest trick from our friends on the 'Victor,'" grinned Captain Tom Halstead.

Ab Perkins, with the megaphone in his hand, had pushed his way up to the very peak of the bow.

"Ahoy!" he bawled, lustily, through the voice-carrier. "Who's in need of help?"

Back came the answer, faint, yet distinct:

"A castaway in a dory! For heaven's sake, pick me up!"

"Not a thing happened after we picked up the last castaway in a small boat," uttered Joseph Baldwin, sarcastically.

"That hail sounded like a boy's voice," muttered Tom.

"If you pick anyone up in this fog, be careful!" cautioned the owner.

"Oh, won't I be careful, though?" retorted Skipper Tom. "Yet I've half a mind to pick this chap up, just to see what the game is. My curiosity is working over-time. I'm anxious to see the newest trick from the hands that steer the 'Victor'!"