Dickie Lang was nonplussed. Her best bet was thrown into the discard. Her pride and independence had been at stake. For her most valued possessions, she had risked her all, and "stood pat" on the turn-up at the devil-island. Her cards were all on the table. Now she had lost. Leaning against the sagging rail she watched the Curlew draw alongside the float. Her slender fingers gripped the hand-rail and the sharp splinters bit into her hands. But what was that to the pain which gnawed at her heart? She hadn't made good. The taste of failure was a new and strange sensation. She had made her fight, done her best. But it wasn't good enough. But why was it necessary to take the little Petrel? Was Diablo to beat her as it had beaten others? No, she must buck up. She was Bill Lang's daughter.

"It's all in the game," she exclaimed to Gregory. "As I told you, the sea plays no favorites."

Before the young man could answer, she had turned from him to meet the men who were climbing from the incoming vessel.

"Hello, boys. Tough luck. But we can't help it. Tell me what happened. Make it short. I've got a lot to do."

The fishermen grouped themselves about her as the quivering figure of a little Mexican lunged through the circle and began to speak:

"Dios, SeÑorita, it was very bad," he quavered. "We were lying close to shore. The fog was everywhere. We could not see. And the anchor, it would not hold. I was at the chain as you say I must when I hear a boat coming. Jesus de mi alma, but she is coming fast. I can not leave as we are drifting and I say to Pedro that he make a noise with the whistle. But he does not get a chance. As he jumped for the engine-house a big boat she come right out of the fog and before we can move, she smash us all to hell. I fall into the water with Pedro and loose the dory. For a time we drift. Then we are picked up by SeÑor Jones."

"Did the Petrel sink right away?" Dickie interrupted.

Another man crowded forward and answered the question.

"She didn't sink at all, miss. She wasn't far from the shore and she drifted in with the tide that was settin' in strong. Then she piled up on the rocks. She's layin' there now, high and dry on the beach."

"Didn't the boat that smashed them, lay to?" volleyed the girl.

Again the Mexican began to speak excitedly: "Sangre de Christo, no," he chattered, "The boat, she was very big, SeÑorita, and she did not stop."

"Nonsense, Manuel. You were crazy with fright. Don't talk like a fool. Go home and go to bed. When you've had a good sleep, I'll talk with you again."

Stung into action by Jones's statement that the hull of the Petrel was still on the beach, she turned suddenly to the wharf.

"Tom Howard," she called sharply. When a voice answered, she ordered: "Fill up the Pelican with oil and stock her with grub. You can get it from Swanson. Throw in a couple of deep-sea hooks and a lot of good hauser. Mind it's new. Be ready to pull out in an hour." She turned again to the men before her. "Jones, I want you to get the Curlew ready. We may need two boats to pull her off. You know where they went ashore. Take Johnson and Rasmussen with you. We've got to move lively. A boat won't hang together long out there."

"Rasmussen's sick. How about Pete Carlin? He was with me coming over."

"Don't want him, Jones. Got to have men who know the game round Diablo in a fog. Take Sorenson."

The fisherman nodded and lumbered up the gangway followed by others. Dickie Lang jammed her hands deep down into her pockets and shrugged her shoulders as she turned to Gregory.

"If it isn't one thing, it's another," she said quietly. "Can you beat it? Manuel saying he was run down? He was scared to death. I don't believe a thing touched him. He just went to sleep and drifted in on the rocks and made up that story to save his job. Well, we'll know when I see the hull."

Gregory listened, scarcely hearing the girl's words. At her announcement of going to the island he began to make tentative plans to accompany her. There might be a lot he could do. And she sure needed help. He wondered if he could offer his assistance without again antagonizing her.

"I'd like to go with you," he said bluntly. "I don't know much about the sea yet, but maybe I can do some of the strong-arm stuff and learn something. Besides, I want to have a look at Diablo."

Dickie regarded him approvingly.

"How about the cannery?" she asked. "My boats will go on fishing just the same."

"McCoy can take care of things all right until I get back. I'll learn a lot more over there than sticking around here."

"You're the boss of that," she replied. Then she added as an afterthought. "I'd be glad to have you."

As they walked to the wharf Gregory encountered McCoy and explained the situation.

"So I'm going out there," he concluded. "While I'm away it's up to you."

McCoy, he noticed, did not enthuse over the idea.

"Diablo's a dangerous place to be fooling around at this time of the year," he said.

"If she can take the risk, I surely can," Gregory answered promptly.

"You're needed here," objected McCoy. "Everything's new and there's liable to be something come up I don't know about."

"Then do the best you can. I'll back you up. You know a lot more about it anyway than I do."

McCoy lapsed into silence while Gregory hurried away to make ready for the trip. When they were ready to shove off, McCoy watched the two boats slide out into the fog with conflicting emotions. Dick knew how to take care of herself all right. She could handle a boat in bad weather with the best of them. But, was that good enough? He reflected suddenly that Bill Lang had been the best of them. And it was on just such a day as this that Bill Lang had met his death on Diablo with Gregory's father.

Leaning against the dripping rail, he cursed the circumstances which prevented his being at the girl's side if anything went wrong. He liked the boss or he would have told him to look for another man. And Gregory's banking on him, tied him up. His inability to join the expedition gave to another the chance which should have been his. Torn by anxiety for the girl's welfare and another emotion he was slower in analyzing, he listened to the faint gulping of the Pelican's exhaust until it was no longer audible.

The sun rose sullenly from a fog-spotted sea and glared wrathfully at the wreaths of low-lying mist which obscured his vision of the saw-toothed peaks of El Diablo. Under the warmth of his gaze, the white-fleeced clouds wavered, shifting about uncertainly. As if loath to leave the devil-island they had guarded throughout the long night, they contracted slowly, niggardly exposing a line of rugged cliffs which shone bleak and gray in the strengthening light of early morning.

"It's breaking up at last. Look!"

Dickie Lang pointed to the dark blot on the horizon.

"Can't. If I take my eyes from this needle for a second the boat'll run all over the ocean."

Gregory continued to stare at the compass while the girl smiled at his earnestness.

"Tom will take her now," she said, nodding to Howard to relieve him at the wheel. Then she added: "You've done fine. We've been going all night on dead reckoning and we're not far off."

Gregory surrendered the wheel with a sigh of relief and followed the direction of the girl's extended arm.

"That's Diablo," she announced. "I'm mighty glad the fog is shifting. Wouldn't have needed to have started so early if we had known. But that's the fun of the sea. You never know. There is no use trying to make it in there in a fog," she added. "It is bad enough when you can see."

While she talked with Johnson concerning the location of the wreck, Gregory found time to note the towering cliffs which rose precipitously from the blue-green sea. Somewhere along that rock-crusted coast, he reflected bitterly, Diablo had claimed another of the Lang boats only a few months ago. Somewhere among the white-crested rocks his father and Bill Lang had met their death. He wondered where, but did not ask. Perhaps the girl would speak of it.

For some time he watched the mist-clouds flee before the brightening rays of the rising sun. Then he noticed that Dickie was standing by his side. Her eyes too were held by the rugged coast.

"The devil dumped it there," he heard her say in a low voice. "And when he saw what a hellish coast it was, he named it for himself. That's what dad used to say." She flung out her arm in the direction of a towering peak. "At the base of that highest cliff was where the Gull went on the rocks. They call it 'Hell-Hole.'"

Staring in silence at the saddle-backed mountain, their minds traveled into the past. Then Gregory asked: "Does any one live on the island?"

"It's a sheep-ranch. A man by the name of Bandrist has it leased on long time from the government. He's Swiss, I think. He farms a little of the land that isn't too rocky and runs his sheep over the rest. The island is about twenty miles long and over ten in the widest place."

"Is fishing good out here?"

"Fine," the girl answered. "Only it's dangerous. Fogs in spring and summer, and storms the rest of the time. Lots of albacore and tuna. But it costs boats and sometimes men to get them. Dad used to fish out here, but something was always sure to happen about the time he got well started. Just like yesterday. Diablo's a place," she said slowly, "where a man just can't make a mistake. If he does, he never lives to tell what happened." She pointed to the frowning cliffs which guarded the shore and extended far out into the water in a series of white-capped reefs. "No anchorage," she explained. "And a strong inshore current. When you get weather out here, it's nasty, and it hits you all in a bunch."

As they neared the island the Pelican slowed down to wait for the Curlew which had been lagging astern.

"Jones must be having engine-trouble," commented Dickie Lang. "Or else Diablo's got him buffaloed too."

"What do you mean?" Gregory asked.

Lowering her voice so that it would not reach the two fishermen on the Pelican, she said: "They all give Diablo a wide berth. The fishermen are scared to death of the island. If you want to hear a lot of wild tales, just talk to some of my men at Legonia. Look at Manuel. Went clean out of his head and the funny part of it is the others all believed him. What's the matter, Jones? Having trouble?"

She addressed the skipper of the Curlew as he brought his craft alongside.

"Been havin' it all the way over," the man replied. "Compression's gettin' worse all the time." He drew a grimy hand across his blackened forehead and squinted in the direction of the island. "No place to be foolin' round with a cripple either, I can tell you," he growled. "Reckon I'd better lay to until I can get patched up."

The girl's brow wrinkled.

"All right, Jones. I'll go on. Follow when you can. We'll be around that next point. Can you beat that?" she exclaimed in a low voice to Gregory. "His feet are getting cold too, and he's one of the best men I have."

Keeping well off the headland they rounded the point and turned shoreward.

"In there."

Johnson jerked his head in the direction of a small cove which lay almost hidden beneath the brow of an overhanging cliff.

"She lays just beyond that arch."

Dickie ordered a halt.

"Can't chance it in there with the big boat. Throw out the hook and keep your motor warm, Johnson. We may have to get out of here in a hurry. Keep a good eye on the chain for if she starts to drift you'll be on the rocks before you can snub her up. Put the dory over, Tom, and we'll go ashore and take a look."

Under the powerful sweep of Tom Howard's oars, the small boat darted from the shadow of the launch and sped away toward the cove. Rounding the natural arch by which the point projected itself into the sea, they entered the little cove which nestled at the base of the overhanging cliff. Bisecting the cove, a rugged ledge of rock jutted out into the sea. Dickie shaded her eyes with her hand and half rose from her seat. Cradled between two jagged rocks at the extreme end of the ledge, her bow angling sharply, her stern washed by the lapping waves, bruised and broken, lay all that was left of her favorite vessel. Only the girl's eyes mirrored her emotion as she stared at the wreck.

"Looks as if they made a clean job of it," she observed quietly. "Land right in here, Tom. We'll climb up on the ledge and walk over."

Pulling the dory up on the rocks they stumbled over the slippery eel-grass and approached the ill-fated craft. Dickie Lang examined the hull.

"Looks like Manuel wasn't dreaming, at that," she ejaculated, pointing to the jagged hole in the Petrel's side.

"Somebody bumped him all right and it must have been almost in the cove or he would never have drifted in here."

The further examination of the wreck went on in silence. The engine was half-submerged, Gregory noticed, and the water poured from the splintered hull and splashed to the rocks in a series of tiny cataracts.

"Not much of a chance to save anything but the motor and the shaft," Dickie observed. "And we'll have to work lively to do that on this ebb. She'll break up on the flood if there's any sea."

As Howard jerked his head in acquiescence with the girl's diagnosis, a shower of loose rocks rattled from the overhanging cliff. Dickie walked around the Petrel's bow and scrambled to the ledge.

"Looks as if we were going to have company," she announced, pointing in the direction of the bluff, where three men were descending the trail to the beach. Reaching the ledge the strangers walked steadily toward the wreck and halted within a few feet of the salvage party. As they jabbered in a French dialect, Gregory listened intently.

Dickie's hand stole to the pocket of her coat. The men seemed bent on making trouble. It was best to take no chances. Her fingers sought the handle of the Colt in vain. Cursing her negligence in leaving the automatic aboard the Pelican, she stepped forward for a parley with the strangers. Gregory and Howard placed themselves about her as the men moved closer.

"No sabe," exclaimed Dickie Lang. "What kind of lingo are they talking anyway."

Gregory was dividing his attention between the man with the red beard and the weasel-faced stranger who was gesticulating so wildly with his long arms.

"Red-beard says nobody's allowed here, or words to that effect," he interpreted. "Weasel-face backs him up in it and says for us to beat it."

"Tell them what we're here for. And that when we get the boat stripped we'll go, and not before."

The red-bearded man shook his heavy head with slow comprehension. Weasel-face shuffled closer, his small eyes blinking malevolently. The third member of the party, a thick-set man with a face pitted by scars, motioned threateningly in the direction of the dory.

Dickie brushed forward.

"I'll try them in dago," she said.

Gregory watched the strangers move closer to their leader as the girl began to speak; heard his low-voiced words, uttered in a harsh guttural; saw his arm flash out and grasp the girl roughly by the shoulder.

Leaping forward, Gregory found his way blocked by Weasel-face. The islander's hand was fumbling at his belt. Gregory's fist snapped his head backward. The man's hands flew up, but not in time to block the vicious blow which caught him full on the chin.

Weasel-face's legs collapsed. Without a sound he fell in a heap upon the rocks. Holding Dickie Lang in his great arms, the red-bearded man saw his companion fall by his side. With a snarl he released the struggling girl and shoved her from him. Before he could draw his knife Kenneth Gregory was upon him.