As her arms dropped to her sides, she staggered and would have fallen if Bill had not stepped quickly forward and placed his arm about her. He led her to an empty packing case and forced her to sit down. The surprise of this meeting coming as a climax to the strenuous events of the evening had just about downed her splendid nerves.

“Oh, Bill – ” she sobbed hysterically on his shoulder – “you can’t guess how glad I am to see you. I’ve really had an awful time of it tonight.”

“Take it easy and have a good cry. Everything’s all right now. You’ll feel better in a minute,” he soothed.

“What a crybaby you must think me,” she said presently, in a limp voice. “Do you happen to have a handkerchief, Bill?”

“You bet. Here’s one – and it’s clean, too.”

Dorothy dried her eyes and blew her nose rather violently.

“Thanks – I do feel much better now. Do you mind turning on the light again? I must be a sight. There – hold it so I can see in my compact.”

Bill began to laugh as her deft fingers worked with powder, rouge and lipstick.

“What’s the joke?” she asked, then answered her own question. “Oh, I know! You think girls do nothing but prink. Well, I don’t care – it’s horrid to look messy. Is there such a thing as a comb in your pocket, Bill? I have lost mine.”

“Sorry,” he grinned, “but I got my permanent last week. I don’t bother to carry one any more.”

“Don’t be silly!” she began, then stopped short. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said and snapped her compact shut. “They are coming after me in a car. Donovan or Peters, I forget which, said so.”

“Who are Donovan and Peters – and where are they going to take you?”

“Not that pair – other members of the same gang. D. and P. are two of the crew over at the beach cottage who chloroformed me, then tied me up and carted me over here in an open motor sailor.”

“Well, I’ll be tarred and feathered!” Bill switched off his torch. “Here I’ve been following you for over two hours and never knew it was you! Never got a glimpse of your face, of course – took you for a man in that rig! Well, I’ll be jiggered if that isn’t a break!”

“So you were the man I thought I saw in the grass clump?”

“Sure. You led me to the house. I knew the gang had a cottage somewhere along that beach, but I didn’t know which one it was. By the way, I’ve got your Mary Jane tied to a mooring out yonder – Couldn’t take a chance on running in closer. That old tub’s engine has a bark that would wake George Washington.”

Dorothy sprang to her feet. “That’s great! We’ll make for the Mary Jane, Bill, right now. If those men in the car catch us here there’ll be another fight. Dorothy has had all the rough stuff she wants for one night, thank you!”

Bill took her arm.

“O.K. with me,” he returned. “Think you’re well enough to travel?”

“I’m all right. Hanging around this place gives me the jim-jams – let’s go.”

Together they crossed the yard and hurried along the narrow planking of the dock to the dinghy. Bill took the oars and a few minutes later they were safely aboard the motor boat. It began to rain again and the dark, oily water took on a vibrant, pebbly look.

“Come into the cabin,” suggested Dorothy, watching Bill make the painter fast. “We’ll be drier there – and I’ve got about a million questions for you to answer.”

“Go below, then. I’ll join you in a minute.”

Dorothy slid the cabin door open and dropped down on a locker. Presently Bill followed and took a seat opposite her.

“Better not light the lamp,” he advised, “it’s too risky now. By the way, Dorothy, I’m darn glad to see you again.”

Dorothy smiled. “So ’m I. I’ve missed you while you were away, and I sure do need your help now. Tell me – where in the wide world am I?”

“This tub is tied up to somebody else’s mooring off the Babylon waterfront, – if that’s any help to you.”

“It certainly is. I hate to lose my bearings. Here’s another: I don’t suppose you happen to know what this is all about?”

Bill crossed his knees and leaned back comfortably.

“There’s not much doubt in my mind, after tonight’s doings. Those men in the beach cottage are diamond smugglers and no pikers at the game, take it from me!”

“Ooh!” Dorothy’s eyes widened. “Diamonds, eh! That’s beyond my wildest dreams. How do they smuggle them, Bill?”

“Well, these fellows have a new wrinkle to an old smuggling trick. Somebody aboard an ocean liner drops a string of little boxes, fastened together at long intervals – the accomplices follow the steamer in a boat and pick them up. And now, from what I’ve found out, there’s every reason to believe that this gang are chucking their boxes overboard in the neighborhood of Fire Island Light.”

Dorothy sat bold upright, her eyes snapping with excitement.

“Listen, Bill! Those men in the cottage – I heard them talking, you know – couldn’t make anything out of their conversation then, but now I’m beginning to understand part of it.”

“Didn’t you tell me they were arguing against going somewhere – or meeting someone – in the fog?”

“That’s right. It was the man they called Charlie – the one who’d been a physician. Let me see … he said that there was a rotten sea running out by the light. That must mean the Fire Island Light! Then, listen to this. He was sure that by three o’clock the fog off the light would be thick enough to cut with a knife – and that they would probably miss her anyway! – Don’t you see? ‘Her’ means the liner they are to meet off the Fire Island Light about three o’clock this morning!”

“Good work, Miss Dixon – ” Bill nodded approvingly. “And that is where Donovan and Charlie headed for when they parked you with Peters,” he supplemented. “On a bet, they’re running their motor sailor out to the light right now.”

Dorothy glanced at the luminous dial of her wrist watch.

“It is just midnight. Think we have time to make it?”

“Gosh, that’s an idea! But, look here, Dorothy – ” Bill hesitated, then went on in a serious tone, “if we run out to the lightship and those two in the motor sailor spot us, there’s likely to be a fight.”

Dorothy moved impatiently. “What of it?”

“Oh, I know – but you’ll stand a mighty good chance of getting shot. This thing is a deadly business. They’re sure to be armed. Now, listen to me. I’ll row you ashore and meet you in Babylon after I’ve checked up on those guys.”

Dorothy stood up and squeezing past Bill, opened the cabin door.

“And my reply to you is —rats!” she flung back at him. “Of course I’m going with you. There’ll be no argument, please. Get busy and turn over that flywheel while I go forward and slip our mooring.”

Bill made no answer, but with a resigned shrug, followed her out to the cockpit. They had known each other only a few months, but their acquaintance had been quite long enough to demonstrate that when Miss Dixon spoke in that tone of voice, she meant exactly what she said. Bill knew that nothing short of physical force would turn the girl from her project, so making the best of things as he found them, he started the engine.

Bill was heading the boat across the bay when Dorothy came aft again. She went inside the cabin and presently emerged with a thermos of hot coffee, some sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs.

“We may both get shot or drowned,” she remarked philosophically, “but we needn’t starve in the meantime.”

“Happy thought!” Bill bit into a sandwich with relish, “One drowns much more comfortably after having dined.”

“Hm! It would be a cold wet business, though. Doubly wet tonight.” She looked at the black water pock-marked with raindrops and shook her head. “Hand me another sandwich, please. Then tell me how you came to be mixed up with this diamond smuggling gang, Bill.”

By this time they were well on their way across Great South Bay toward the inlet. From the bows came the steady gurgle and chug of short choppy seas as the stiff old tub bucked them. Holding a straight course, the two by the wheel were able to make out the grey-white gleam of sand on Sexton Island.

“Well, it was like this,” began Bill. “You remember the Winged Cartwheels.¹ Well that was a Secret Service job for the government.”

“I know,” nodded Dorothy.

“Well, as I was saying – because of that and some other business, Uncle Sam knew that I could pilot a plane. Six weeks ago I was called to Washington and told that an international gang of criminals were flooding this country with diamonds, stolen in Europe. What the officials didn’t know was the method being used to smuggle them into this country. However, they said they had every reason to believe that the diamonds were dropped overboard from trans-Atlantic liners somewhere off the coast and picked up by the smugglers’ planes at sea. My job was to go abroad and on the return trip, to keep my eyes peeled night and day for airplanes when we neared America.”

“Did you go alone?”

“Yes, but I gathered that practically every liner coming over from Europe was being covered by a Secret Service operative. I made a trip over and back without spotting a thing. On the second trip back, something happened.”

“When was that?”

“Night before last. The liner I was aboard had just passed Fire Island lightship. I stood leaning over the rail on the port side and I saw half a dozen or more small boxes dropped out of a porthole. They seemed to be fastened together. Once in the water, they must have stretched out over a considerable distance. Of course, there are notices posted forbidding anyone to throw anything overboard: and there are watchmen on deck. But they can’t very well prevent a person from unscrewing a porthole and shoving something out!”

“Did you report it?”

“You bet. The skipper knew why I was making the trip. We located the stateroom and found that it belonged to three perfectly harmless Y.M.C.A. workers who were peaceably eating their dinner at the time. Somebody slipped into their room and did the trick.”

“Did you hear or see any plane?”

“I thought I heard a motor, but it didn’t sound like the engine of a plane. I couldn’t be sure.”

“The motor sailor, probably?”

“It looks like it, now. Well, to continue: I landed in New York and took the next train to Babylon. Then I got me a room in one of those summer cottages on the beach. I was out on the dunes for a prowl when the Mary Jane put in at that little cove. That in itself seemed suspicious, so I followed you to the house and saw Peters scrag you. Although, at the time I had no idea who you were. Then when they tied you up and went off with you in the motor sailor, I knew for certain that some dirty work was on. So I beat it back to the cove and came along in this old tub.”

Dorothy finished the last of the coffee.

“Did you see the amphibian tied up to the cottage dock?” she asked.

“Yes. It took off just before the motor sailor left.”

“Just how do you figure that it comes into the picture?”

“I think these people have a lookout stationed farther up the coast – on Nantucket Island, perhaps. When a ship carrying diamonds is sighted off the Island, the lookout wires to the aviator or his boss and the plane flies over to let the men in the cottage know when to expect her off the lightship. Then when they pick up the loot, he flies back with it to their headquarters next day. Of course, I don’t know how far wrong I am – ”

“But he’s been doing it every day for weeks, Bill – maybe longer. Surely they can’t be smuggling diamonds every day in the week?”

“He probably carries over their provisions and keeps an eye on them generally. I don’t know. What he is doing is only a guess, on my part, anyway.”

Dorothy smothered a yawn. “Do you suppose the red flag those men spoke of is a signal of some kind?”

“Guess so. But look here, you’re dead tired. I can run this tub by myself. Hop in the cabin and take a nap. I’ll call you when we near the lightship.”

“You must be sleepy, too.”

“I’m not. I had an idea I might be up most of the night, so slept until late this afternoon. And after those sandwiches and the coffee, I feel like a million dollars. Beat it now and get a rest.”

Dorothy yawned again and stretched the glistening wet arms of her slicker above her head.

“Promise to wake me in plenty of time?”

“Cross my heart – ”

“Good night, then.”

“Good night. Better turn in on the floor. We’re going to run into a sea pretty soon. Those lockers are narrow. Once we strike the Atlantic swell you’ll never be able to stay on one and sleep!”

“Thanks, partner, I’ll take your advice.” She turned and disappeared below.

Chapter IX
DEEP WATER

The ebb tide soon caught the Mary Jane in the suck of its swift current and the boat rushed seaward. Presently she struck the breakers and floundering through them like a wounded duck, commenced to rise and fall on the rhythmic ground swell.

Dorothy came out of the cabin rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“You didn’t take much of a rest,” said Bill from his place at the wheel.

She yawned and caught at the cabin roof to steady herself.

“Mary Jane’s gallop through the breakers woke me up. Sleeping on a hard floor isn’t all it’s cracked up to be – and the cabin was awfully stuffy.”

“Are you as good a sailor as you are a sport?”

“I don’t know much about this deep water stuff, but I’ve never been seasick. Thought I might be if I stayed in there any longer, though.”

“Feel badly now?”

“No, this fresh air is what I needed. Is that the lightship dead ahead? I just caught the glow.”

“Yep. That’s Fire Island Light. I wish this confounded drizzle would stop. The swell is getting bigger and shorter. Must be a breeze of wind not far to the east of us.”

“D’you think we’re in time, Bill?”

“Yes, I think so. The weather is probably thick farther out and up the coast, and the ship will be running at reduced speed. It’s likely she’ll be an hour or so late. There is a ship out yonder, but it’s a tanker or a freighter.”

“How do you know that?”

“Why, a liner would be showing deck and cabin lights. Here comes the breeze – out of the northeast.”

“It’s raining harder, too. Ugh! What a filthy night.”

Bill nodded grimly in the darkness. “You said a mouthful. It’ll be good and sloppy out here in another hour or two. Jolly boating weather, I don’t think! And we can’t get back into the bay until daylight, I’m afraid.”

The big boat continued to pound steadily seaward and before long the lightship was close abeam. Bill ran some distance outside it, then stopped the engine.

“No use wasting gas,” he said, and emptied one of the five-gallon tins into the fuel tank.

He went into the cabin again and reappeared with two life preservers.

“It’s lucky the law requires all sail and motor craft to carry these things. Better slip into one – I’ll put on the other.”

Dorothy lifted her eyebrows questioningly. “Think we’re liable to get wrecked?”

“Nothing like that – but a life preserver is great stuff when it comes to stopping bullets.”

“Gee, Bill, do you really expect a scrap? There isn’t a sign of the motor sailor yet.”

“I know – but they’re out here somewhere, just the same. Neither of us is showing lights, so in this weather we’re not likely to spot each other unless our boats get pretty close. And if they do, those hyenas won’t hesitate to shoot! Here, let me give you a hand.”

Having put on the life preservers over their dripping slickers, they sat down and waited. The wind was freshening. A strong, steady draft blew out of the northeast and it was gradually growing colder. The rain had turned into sleet, fine and driving, but not thick enough to entirely obscure the atmosphere.

“Good gracious, Bill —sleet! That’s the limit, really – do you suppose we’ll ever sight the ship through this?” Dorothy’s tone was thoroughly disgusted.

“Oh, yes,” he replied cheerfully, “this isn’t so bad. Her masthead lights should have a visibility of two or three miles, at least.”

Dorothy said nothing, but, hands thrust deep into her pockets and with shoulders hunched, she stared moodily out to sea.

For about an hour they drifted, the broad-beamed motor boat wallowing in the chop which crossed the ground swell. Twice Bill started the motor and worked back to their original position. He did not like the look of things, but said nothing to Dorothy about it. The wind grew stronger and seemed to promise a gale. The low tide with the line of breakers across the mouth of the inlet would effectually bar their entrance to Great South Bay for the next ten hours. And he doubted if they would have enough fuel for the run of nearly fifty miles to the shelter of Gravesend Bay.

Then as they floundered about, he heard the distant, muffled bellow of a big ship’s foghorn. Again it sounded; and twice more, each time coming closer. Bill started the engine and headed cautiously out in the direction from whence it came.

Suddenly there sounded a blast startlingly close to the Mary Jane. This was answered from the lightship, and through the flying scud and sleet they saw a vivid glare. Bill put his helm hard over and when the steamer had passed about four hundred yards away, he turned the motor boat again to cut across the liner’s wake. Faint streams of music reached their ears emphasizing the dreariness of their position.

Directly they were astern of the great ship, he swung the Mary Jane into the steamer’s course. Running straight before the wind, it was easy to follow the sudsy brine that eddied in her wake. He was by no means certain, however, that he could keep the dull glow of her taffrail light in sight. That depended upon the liner’s speed, which might be more than the Mary Jane could develop. But he soon discovered he had either underestimated the power of the motor boat or, what was more probable, the steamer had reduced her own. Before long he was obliged to slow down to keep from overhauling.

And so for nearly an hour they tagged along, astern, keeping a sharp lookout on the band of swirling water. Little by little their spirits sank, as no floating object appeared to reward their perseverance. The weather was becoming worse and worse, but the sea was not troublesome; partly because the Mary Jane was running before it and partly because the great bulk of the liner ahead flattened it out in her displacement.

“If this keeps on much longer, we’re going to run short of gas,” said Dorothy, still peering ahead. “Any idea how long it will keep up?”

Bill shrugged and swung the boat’s head over a point.

“Not the dimmest. I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll have to follow her all the way to the pilot station and then cut across for Gravesend Bay.”

“We’ll sure be out of luck if we run out of fuel with this wind backing into the northwest. It will blow us clean out to sea!”

“Take the wheel!” said Bill abruptly. “I’m going to see where we stand.”

Dorothy, with her hands on the spokes, saw him measure the gasoline in the tank and then shake his head.

“How about it?” she called.

“Not so good,” he growled, and poured in the contents of another tin. “This engine is powerful, but when you say it’s primitive, you only tell the half of it. The darn thing laps up gas like a – ”

“Bill!” Dorothy raised her arm – “there’s another motor boat ahead!”

Both of them stared forward into the gloom. For a moment Bill could see nothing but the seething waters and the faint glimmer of the liner’s taffrail light. Then in an eddy of the driving sleet he caught a glimpse of a dark bulk rising on a swell a couple of hundred yards ahead. At the same time they both heard the whir of a rapidly revolving motor distinctly audible between the staccato barks of their own exhaust.

“The motor sailor, Bill!”

“Sure to be. It must have cut in close under the steamer’s stern. Let me take the wheel again, Dorothy.”

“O. K. Do you think they’ve seen us?”

“Not likely. They’ll be watching the ship and her wake. To see us, they’d have to stare straight into the teeth of the wind and this blinding sleet.”

“But they’ll hear us, anyway?”

“Not a chance. That motor sailor’s got one of those fast-turning jump-spark engines. They run with a steady rattle. There’s no interval between coughs. Ours are more widely punctuated. Anyhow, that’s the way I dope it. They’ve probably signaled the ship by this time, and the contraband ought to be dropped from a cabin port at any time now.”

“Got a plan?”

“I think I have.”

He gave the boat full gas, then a couple of spokes of the wheel sheered her off to starboard.

“What’s that for?” Dorothy thought he had decided to give up the attempt. “Not quitting, are we?”

“What do you take me for? Get out that gun of yours and use your wits. I’m goin’ to loop that craft and bear down on them from abeam. If they beat it, O. K. If they don’t, we’ll take a chance on crashing them!”

“You tell ’em, boy!” Dorothy had caught his excitement. “If they shoot, I’ll fire at the flashes!”

Bill was working out his plan in detail and did not reply. He felt sure his scheme was sound. The Mary Jane was heavily built, broad of beam, with bluff bows and low freeboard. The motor sailor was a staunch craft, too, but she was not decked and with a load of but two men aboard she would have no great stability. He was certain that if he could work out and make his turn so as to bear down upon her from a little forward of the beam, striking her amidships with the swell of his starboard bow, she would crack like an egg.

Bill did not dare risk a head-on ram. That might capsize them both. To cut into her broadside at the speed she was making would possibly tear off or open up his own bows. The Mary Jane must strike her a heavy but a glancing blow at an angle of about forty-five degrees. Such a collision meant taking a big chance with their own boat. But the Mary Jane was half-decked forward and the flare of her run would take the shock on the level of her sheer strake.

Quickly he explained his project.

“I’m taking a chance, of course, if I don’t hit her right,” he finished.

“Go ahead – ” she flung back. “I’m all for it!”

Bill grinned at her enthusiasm, and with the engine running full, he started to edge off and work ahead. But he could not help being impatient at the thought that the contraband might be dropped at any minute and hooked up by the others. He took too close a turn. As the Mary Jane hauled abreast about two hundred yards ahead, the smugglers sighted them. Their motor sailor swerved sharply to port, and with a sudden acceleration, it dived into the gloom and was lost to sight.

“Bluffed off!” he shouted triumphantly.

He turned the wheel and was swinging back into the liner’s wake when Dorothy gave a cry and pointed to the water off their port quarter.

“Look! There! There!” she screamed.

Staring in the same direction, Bill saw what at first he took to be a number of small puffs of spume. Then he saw that they were rectangular. The Mary Jane had already passed them and a second later they disappeared from view.

Bill nearly twisted off the wheel in an effort to put about immediately. The result was to slow down and nearly stop their heavy boat. Gradually the Mary Jane answered her helm and presently they were headed back in the ship’s path.

And then as the Mary Jane was again gathering speed, the motor sailor came slipping out of the smother headed straight for the contraband, her broadside presented toward her pursuers.

“Stand by for a ram!” yelled Bill and pulled out his automatic.

Not fifty yards separated the two boats. Bows to the gale, the Mary Jane bore down on the motor sailor. If those aboard her realized their danger, they had no time to dodge, to shoot ahead, or avoid the ram by going hard astern. They swerved and the Mary Jane struck full amidships with a fearful grinding crash.

Bill caught a glimpse of two figures and saw the flame streak out from their barking guns. He felt a violent tug at his life preserver. Then a yell rang out and the two boats ground together in the heave of the angry sea.

Steadying himself with a hand on the wheel, he reversed and his boat hauled away. As she backed off he heard the choking cough of the other craft which had now been blotted out by the darkness and driving sleet.

Bill turned about with a triumphant cry on his lips, then checked it suddenly as he saw that Dorothy had fallen across the coaming and was lying halfway out of the boat.

1. See Bill Bolton and The Winged Cartwheels.