IN SIGHT OF SMOKE.

“I suppose I ought to take that view of the situation, too,” said Mr. Brown to Jack, “but somehow I don’t want to give this thing up yet.”

“But surely we should have seen some trace of the ship by this time,” objected Jack, who was beginning to get a little skeptical himself.

The blue line of the horizon was without a speck to mar its empty spaciousness.

Mr. Brown had recourse to the glasses, which he had used frequently since they had set out. But the powerful binoculars failed to disclose any object the naked eye might not have discovered.

“If there really has been a fire on that yacht and the boats are drifting about, it may prove an even more serious matter than we imagine,” said the officer at length.

“You mean they may be lost?” asked Jack.

“Just that,” was the reply. “If the boats should drift beyond the regular established routes and steamer lanes, it might be weeks and even months before they are found.”

“Then the ocean beyond the regular routes is empty of life?” asked Jack.

“I wouldn’t say that exactly, but the Atlantic is covered with regular sailing routes just as a country is mapped out with railroads. The master of a ship usually makes no deviation from those routes; although, of course, in the case of some ships, they are sometimes compelled to.”

They sailed on for some little time further and the officer was on the point of giving up the search, when he once more resorted to the binoculars.

He stood up and swept the sky line earnestly for some sign of what they sought.

“There’s nothing visible,” he was beginning, when suddenly he broke off and uttered a sharp exclamation:

“Jove! There’s something on the horizon. Looks like a tiny smudge on a white wall, but it may be a steamer’s smoke!”

“If it is, it may be some other ship that has come to their rescue,” suggested Jack.

Mr. Brown gave orders to the men to give way with increased power. The breeze had dropped and the use of the oars was once more necessary.

“Should it be a steamer’s smoke, she may have rescued them,” observed the officer; “if not, it may be the burning craft still floating.”

“Lay into it, bullies,” he added a moment later. “Let her have it! That’s the stuff!”

Jack’s excitement ran high. Putting aside the adventurous nature of their errand, the owner of the Titan Line from whom he had parted under such unpleasant circumstances in the Greenwich Hospital, was aboard, and his friend,—for so he called him, despite their brief acquaintance,—Tom Jukes, might be there, too.

“My! Won’t they open their eyes when they see who it is has come to their rescue!” he thought to himself. “Come to think of it, I must have been as rattled as the operator of the Halcyon or I’d have given the name of the ship.”

The smudge of smoke grew as they rowed and sailed toward it, till, from a mere discoloration of the blue horizon, it grew to be a flaring pillar of smoke.

“No ship ever burned coal at that rate,” decided Mr. Brown. “Yonder’s the blaze, men, and the old hooker is still on top, although it surprises me that she hasn’t gone down long ago.”

While they all gazed, suspending their rowing for a moment in the fascination of the spectacle, Jack uttered a shout:

“Look!” he cried, “look!”

Something appeared to heave upward from the surface of the sea. The smoke spread out as if it had suddenly been converted into an immense fan of vapor, and the air was filled with black fragments.

Then the smoke slowly drifted away and the ocean was empty once more.

“Well, that’s good-night for her,” said Mr. Brown. “Ready, that operator certainly had a right to have a case of rattles.”

Jack did not answer. He was thinking of the wonder of the wireless, and how by its agency the news of the disaster that had overtaken the Halcyon had been flashed to the rescue party.

“She just blew up with one big puff and melted away,” he said presently.

“Yes, I’ll bet there isn’t a stick or timber of her left,” said Mr. Brown.

“Was she a fine boat?”

“A beauty.”

“Ever see her?”

“Yes, once in New York harbor. The old man was coming back from a cruise to the Azores. That’s a favorite stamping ground of his, by the way. There’s nothing cheap about J. J. when he comes to gratifying his own whimsies, and the Halcyon was one of them. Mahogany, velvet, mirrors, and I don’t know what all,—but never mind that now. We ought to be sighting some of the boats.”

The men rowed like furies now. Even the most skeptical had become convinced that, after all, there was something in wireless.

It was almost sunset when Mr. Brown tapped Jack’s shoulder after he had taken a long look through the binoculars.

“There’s something in sight off there,” said he; “take a look, if you like.”