OVERBOARD.

Carl's yell drew the attention of all those on the boat. Brady leaned over the top of the cabin and laughed huskily. Merrick dropped his mask and joined triumphantly in Brady's laugh. The Norwegian and the Swede stared blankly for a minute, and then went stolidly on about their work.

"Brady!" muttered Ferral, squaring around on the cabin so as to get a good look at the man in the cockpit. "Is he the swab that carried Matt off in the air ship, Carl?"

"Sure he iss der feller!" averred Carl. "I vould know him any blace. Ach, himmelblitzen, I toldt you I hat some hunches, Verral!"

"I've made a monkey's fist out of this," growled Ferral, "and I'm a Fiji if I can understand the thing yet. The way this Brady falls afoul of us don't look like a happenchance, and yet I can't make anything else out of it. Ahoy, there, Merrick! Stow that grinning and give me the lay of this business."

"Merrick's real name is Brady," explained the outlaw in the cockpit—and outlaw he was, having been a fugitive from justice ever since Matt had navigated the Hawk away from the swamp and into South Chicago. "He's my son, Hector, Jr., and I'm proud of the way he worked this deal," Brady continued, still laughing as though the affair was a huge joke.

Ferral was bewildered.

"You're a thief, are you," said he, struggling to get the matter clear in his head, "and the fellow who met me on the train, and said his name was Merrick, is your son?"

"That's the how of it," returned Brady.

"Then I'm free to say," cried Ferral, "that I don't like the how of it. 'Bout ship and takes us back to the wharf. I'm a bit particular about the company I keep."

"Well, you've got a picture of us letting you go after we've been to all the trouble to get you here. We'll put you ashore somewhere to the north, my bantam, but before we do that we'll frisk you for that bundle of long green you've got in your pocket. The Hawk's for sale, and I'm counting on buying her."

The more Carl heard and saw, the more puzzled he became. It didn't seem like an accident the way Ferral had met Brady, Jr., on the train, and yet the two Bradys must have taken a long look ahead in order to bring about the situation in which Ferral and Carl now found themselves. Their plots, however, had centred about Ferral, and Carl had merely blundered into them.

"I'll hear from you, Merrick," said Ferral sharply. "What have you got to say about this?"

The Christina had passed through the break in the government pier and was breasting the heavier waves in the open lake. The pier behind was rapidly receding. There were a score of fishermen on the piles, but they had become mere dots, almost out of sight and entirely out of hearing.

Carl looked around for a glimpse of some other boat. There was a smudge of smoke from a steamer, off on the watery horizon to eastward, and well to the south could be seen the upper sails of a schooner, but these were the only craft in sight, and they were too far away for any practical benefit.

"There's nothing much to say," answered Hector, Jr., as calmly as though he had been talking about the weather. "I was running a hand book on the Denver races, but got a wire from dad that he was in trouble. You happened to be on the same train that brought me to Chicago, and when you flashed that roll on me, and I remembered that I was nearly strapped and that dad needed money, I figured on how I could annex such a nice fat wad of the long green. You wouldn't play cards, you wouldn't drink, and there wasn't anything else I could do but make this sort of a play. I put dad next as soon as I could get to him. He didn't think you'd show up to take the sail, but I told him that you had said you would, and that I believed you were the sort of a fool who always did what you said. I reckon I was right, eh, dad?" and Hector, Jr., came forward and leaned over the top of the cabin beside his worthy father.

"Bright boy, son," said the elder scoundrel approvingly. "We've got you, younker," went on Brady, Sr., again facing Ferral. "We're too far from land for you to swim ashore, and I'm giving you credit for too much sense to try a trick like that. It was a bit of a surprise to me to see that Dutchman trailing along after you, but"—and here a black scowl crept over the man's face—"I've got a bone to pick with him and that meddling whelp, Motor Matt. The Dutchman won't get away from us so easily as you will, Ferral, I can promise you that. And before Motor Matt is many days older, I'll show him what it means to cross Brady's path."

Hector Brady, like his son, was a fair-spoken villain, but none the less dangerous for all that. As he ceased talking, he started to step from the cockpit to the aisle of deck between the cabin top and the sailboat's side.

"'Vast, there!" roared Ferral, twitching at the lanyard about his neck and bringing out a sheath knife. "Keep your offing, both you sharks, or you'll find a knife between your ribs. You've got us out in the lake, but you haven't my money yet, and you're not going to cut up rough with my raggie here. I got him into this mess, and I'm going to see him out of it."

A boat hook, dropped by the skipper when he was pushing the nose of the boat away from the pier, lay on the deck close to Carl's feet. He bent down and picked it up.

"Oof he makes some foolishness mit me," averred Carl, "you bed my life I vill haf somet'ing to say aboudt dot meinseluf. I had some hunches all der time," he harped ruefully.

Brady, Sr., did not come out of the cockpit just then. "There are four of us against you," said he sternly, "and if you've got as much sense as I give you credit for, you'll not resist. All I want of you, Ferral, is your money. If what you told my son is true, your uncle is a rich man. He'll give you another roll for the asking and never miss it. Are you a pard of King's?"

"I'm all that," declared Ferral. "I owe Motor Matt a debt I can never repay."

"And I owe him one I'm going to repay," said Brady, with a black look. "He stole my air ship from me, and I've got to buy it back. It's no more than justice that I take part of the money from you—if you're such a good pal of King's. I didn't think, any more than Hector, that the thing was going to fall out like this, but my luck must be taking a turn for the better."

"Skipper," shouted Ferral, looking at the Norwegian over the heads of the two Bradys, "put about and take us ashore! These scoundrels are trying to rob me."

The skipper, however, only returned a stolid look.

"You'll be hauled over the coals for this!" threatened Ferral.

Carl had been on the point of saying something, but off toward the west and south, over the stern of the sailboat, he beheld an object that amazed him and aroused a faint hope.

The object seemed to hang in the sky like a black cylinder. It was the Hawk, there could be no possible doubt about that, but was the Hawk sailing out over the lake or merely traveling over the City of Chicago? So far away was it that Carl could not tell whether it was coming or going. Could it be possible that Motor Matt was bringing the air ship in the direction of the Christina? It seemed too much of a coincidence to be true, and yet it was hardly stranger than the circumstances which had enveloped Ferral in the net spread by the two Bradys.

Carl, although the discovery of the air ship stretched his nerves to tightest tension and filled him with fluttering hope, kept the news of his discovery to himself. If the Hawk was really heading lakeward, Brady, if he knew it, might realize the possibilities of escape which it would afford the two boys and take measures to keep the Christina away from the air ship.

"No one is going to be hauled over the coals, Ferral," said Brady. "When we put you ashore, it will be in a place from which it will take you a good long while to get back to Chicago. Before you get back, I'll have a man buy the Hawk, and I and my friends will make a quick getaway to parts unknown. The Hawk means liberty for me, for I can't dodge around on the ground and keep clear of the police much longer. Are you going to hand that money over, or have we got to take it away from you?"

Shifting his sheath knife to his left hand, Ferral drew the roll of bills from his pocket and stowed it snugly in the breast of his blue shirt.

"If you get this money you'll have to take it," said he defiantly, "and if that two-faced sea cook you say is your son comes too close to me, I'll get him on the point of this dirk."

Covertly, Carl was watching the round swaying speck in the heavens. That it was round, proved that he was looking toward the end of the gas bag, which, seen lengthwise, would have been of cigar-shaped proportions; and the fact that the object was growing larger by swift degrees, proved that it was coming closer to the sailboat.

"Enough of this foolishness," scowled Brady, drawing a revolver and leveling it at Ferral over the end of the cabin. "Take that money out of your shirt and throw it this way. If you make a miss throw and land it in the lake, I'll plug you for that just as quick as I would for not throwing it at all. It's up to you," he added warningly, "and I'm not going to wait all day."

Carl, in the moment of silence that intervened, suddenly hurled the boat hook with all his strength. The move was entirely unexpected on Brady's part, and he was caught unawares. The handle of the hook struck his arm a violent blow, knocking the weapon out of his fingers and dropping it overboard.

A yell of rage went up from Brady.

"Kick off your shoes, Tick," whispered Carl excitedly. "Ven I gif der vort, chump indo der lake. I know vat I know, und I dell you it vas all righdt. Do schust vat I say, aber don'd say somet'ing."

The presence of the air ship was unknown to everyone on the sailboat except Carl. To Ferral it looked like suicide to jump into the lake, with no other boat anywhere in sight.

"I'll kill you for that!" bawled Brady to Carl.

The Dutch boy paid no attention. He had already kicked off his shoes and pulled off his coat. Holding his coat in his hand, he leaped to the top of the cabin and began waving it frantically.

The Bradys, the Norwegian and the Swede swept the surface of the lake with their eyes. Even then their glances fell too low to give them a glimpse of the Hawk.

Ferral had got rid of his shoes, although he was still reluctant about taking to the water. Carl did not give him much time to consider the matter, but grabbed him by the arm and, when the little craft heeled to a strong gust of wind, pulled him overboard.