CHAPTER XXII
KICKING WATER IN THE WAKE OF THE “BUZZARD.”
“DID you see what passengers she carried?” added Tom Halstead,breathless with suspense.
“A young man. I didn’t note him particularly at the distance,” JeffRandolph drawled.
“Could it have been Oliver Dixon!”
“Why, yes, about his build, though the distance was considerable, andthe fellow’s back was turned this way as he went on board.”
“Just one passenger went to the ‘Buzzard’, eh?” broke in Henry Tremaine.
“All I noticed,” confessed Jeff. “I wasn’t paying particular attention.”
Joe, in the meantime, had made a straight break down into the motorroom. Now his engines were running.
“Lay out forward, here, Jeff, to help me stow the anchor away,” calledthe youthful skipper. One of the Tampa officers also aided.
“Crowd the speed on, Joe, as fast as you properly can,” shouted downHalstead as he took his place at the wheel.
Almost with a jump the “Restless” started. The boat supposed to be the“Buzzard” was now about hull-down. Her solitary signal mast would be ahard thing to keep in sight across an interval of several miles.
By this time Jeff Randolph was in possession of the main facts. He knewthey were in frenzied pursuit of Oliver Dixon, who was believed tocarry with him some sixty thousand dollars, in all, that Henry Tremainestood to lose.
Now that President Haight knew his bank did not stand to lose a largesum, because of Tremaine’s unfaltering guarantee, the bank man wasno longer near a state of collapse. Still, he keenly felt Tremaine’ssuspense.
“I’ll never be such a fool again,” muttered Tremaine, to his wife.“I’ll never go security for anyone after this—not even my brother.”
“I can’t understand why you were so easy over the loss of the first tenthousand dollars,” murmured his wife.
“That was because I believed the whole matter would come out presently.I didn’t want to suspect Halstead, and I didn’t want to suspect youngOliver Dixon. So I didn’t know where the lightning might hit. Ratherthan stir up trouble I preferred to wait and see what the developmentswould be. Ten thousand dollars I could stand the loss of, if I had to,but sixty thousand——”
The “Restless” was kicking the water at a furious gait, now, butCaptain Halstead groaned when he realized that the “Buzzard” hadsucceeded in taking her hull wholly out of sight.
“Mr. Tremaine, I’ll have to press you into service,” called the youngsailing master, firmly.
“Yes; _do_ give me something to do,” begged the charter-man, steppingup beside the wheel.
“The ‘Buzzard’ is now so far away, sir, that I’m not quite sure whetherI can see her signal mast or not. Sometimes I think I do; at othertimes I’m in doubt. You might take the marine glass, sir, and see ifyou can pick up that mast and keep it in sight.”
“Indeed, I will,” breathed Tremaine, anxiously.
“Joe,” Captain Tom called down through the forward hatchway, “kick onevery bit of speed you can crowd out of the motors. We’ve _got_ to humpfaster.”
“If I go much faster,” called Joe, dryly, “I’ll blow out a cylinderhead.”
“Take a chance,” Halstead urged. “We’ve got to crawl up on that othercraft.”
“I can make out her signal mast,” announced Henry Tremaine.
“Then keep that stick in sight, sir. There’s one nasty trick the‘Buzzard’ might play on us if she got far enough in the lead,”explained the young skipper.
“What trick is that?”
“If she’s running close enough to shore, she might succeed in puttingDixon on land, then the ‘Buzzard’ could head out on her cruise again.If that happened, every throb of our propellers would be carrying usfurther and further from Oliver Dixon and his booty.”
“Good heavens, yes!” agreed Tremaine. “Well, I’m holding that signalmast steadily.”
“Does she seem to be nearing land?”
“Not yet. I judge her course to be southward.”
“Let me have the glass a second,” begged Halstead, jamming the wheelspokes with his knees as he reached out for the glass.
He took a long, intent look.
“Yes; she’s holding her southerly course,” Tom declared.
“Are we going to catch up with her!”
“I don’t know, yet,” Halstead admitted. “The ‘Buzzard’ is a fast boat.Whether we can catch up with her only the next two hours can tell.We’ve got a mighty good boat under our feet, Mr. Tremaine.”
“We need one!” cried that gentleman.
It being none of their affair, particularly, for the present, the twoTampa officers were lounging in deck chairs aft, smoking quietly. Theladies, however, stood just behind the men, as close to the bridge deckas they could keep without interfering with the handling of the craft.
“Let me have the glass again, please,” begged Halstead, ten minuteslater. “Yes, I thought so,” he continued, after looking. “That line onthe water near the horizon is the ‘Buzzard’s’ hull showing once more.Then we must be creeping up on her.”
“Want me to take the wheel, Cap’n, for a spell?”—hinted Jeff Randolph.
“Not just now,” vouchsafed Tom Halstead. “Just now straight steeringcounts for as much as the speed of the propellers. You may be a betterhelmsman than I, by a good deal, but I can’t take a single chance forthe next hour.”
In the next half hour, during which the Tampa harbor was left farbehind, the hull ahead loomed up no larger. It remained an all butindistinct line on the horizon.
“If Mr. Dixon is on that boat, do you think he knows we’re after him?”Ida Silsbee asked.
“He must have more than a suspicion,” Tom Halstead grinned.
“What an awful feeling his must be, then!” exclaimed the girl,shuddering.
“Are you sorry for him!” asked Mrs. Tremaine, slowly.
“Only in the sense that I’m sorry for any man who yields to thetemptation to turn thief,” replied the girl, slowly.
As Joe Dawson thrust his head up through the hatchway his chum at thewheel could see that the young engineer was much disturbed.
“Are we crowding your motors too hard, Joe?” inquired Halstead.
“They’re mighty warm,” Dawson admitted.
“Any danger of exploding a lot of gasoline gas?” demanded HenryTremaine.
“I won’t just say that,” replied Joe, hesitatingly. “But——”
“But what?”
“If I keep up this overheating one or both of the motors may be put outof business.”
“Is that all?”
“It would ruin a pair of good engines.”
“If that’s all, boys,” responded Tremaine, “don’t let it worry you. Ifyou hurt any engines, or damage your boat in any way, I’ll make goodfor it. I want to catch Dixon, and get that stolen money back. But,above money and every other consideration—at no matter what expense—Ifeel that I must overtake and punish the man who so fearfully abused myconfidence and trust!”