As the Resolute steamed into Key West harbor, Dan Frazier was on the lookout for his friend Barton Pringle who almost always ran down to the wharf when the whistle of Captain Wetherly's tug bellowed the tidings of her return from sea. This time, however, Dan felt that a shadow had fallen over their close comradeship which had been wholly frank and confiding through all their years together. Dan could not forget the events of the night in which Barton's father had behaved like a man caught in the act of planning something dark and evil.

But the sight of Barton Pringle waiting on the end of the wharf to catch the Resolute's heaving lines and welcome him home, made Dan wonder afresh if he had not been too hasty and suspicious. Barton's honest, beaming face was in itself a voucher for his bringing up amid sweet and wholesome influences. Nor was Dan ready to believe that a bad father could have such a straight and manly son. Before the boys were within shouting range of each other, Captain Wetherly sent for Dan and told him:

"You can stay home until you get further orders. I don't expect to leave port again for several days. Tell your mother that I will run in for a little while after supper to-night."

Dan thanked him with a grin of delight and ran below to yell to Barton Pringle on the wharf:

"Hello, Bart. Come aboard and help me scrub decks and get things ship-shape and I'll be ready to jump ashore just so much sooner."

Barton made a flying leap aboard as soon as the lines were made fast, and asked as he picked up a pail and broom:

"What kind of a voyage did you have, Dan? Anything exciting happen?"

"Nothing to speak of," replied Dan, and he felt his face redden with a guilty sense of secrecy. He was about to say that he had met Barton's father in Pensacola, without mentioning how or where, when the other lad spoke up:

"I tried to get away for a little trip myself. Father went up the Gulf on the mail steamer and I begged him to take me along. But he was going only to Tampa to see about buying a couple of sponging schooners, and he said he was in too much of a hurry to bother with me."

"Going only to Tampa," echoed Dan with a foolish smile. "Oh, yes, only as far as Tampa. Sorry you had to miss it, Bart. How's everything with you? Have you bent the new main-sail on the Sombrero?"

Barton plunged into an excited discussion about the fast little sloop which the boys owned in partnership, while Dan tried to keep his wits about him, for he was thrown into fresh doubt and uneasiness by the news that Jeremiah Pringle had said he was going to Tampa instead of Pensacola. Usually the two boys had so many important matters to talk about that one could find a chance to break in only when the other paused for lack of breath, but now Dan found it hard to avoid awkward silences on his part. He was glad when old Bill McKnight, the chief engineer of the Resolute, waddled up to them and announced with a sweeping gesture toward the city streets:

"Back again to the palm trees and the brave Cubanos and the excitements of a metropolis smeared over a chunk of coral reef so blamed small that I'm scared to be out after dark without a lantern for fear I'll walk overboard. I'm due to start a revolution in Honduras, and to-day I enlist a few hundred brave and desperate Key West cigar-makers, Dan. I'm perishin' for a little war and tumult. Look out for my signal rockets."

With that Mr. McKnight jauntily twirled his grizzled moustache and ambled up the wharf. He had been engineer of the Resolute when she was running the Spanish blockade of Cuba, as a filibuster to carry arms and ammunitions to the revolutionists, and his cool-headed courage had fetched the tug out of some perilous places. The ponderous, good-natured engineer was very fond of Dan and every little while invited him, with all seriousness, to join some new and absurd scheme for touching off a Spanish-American revolution, with dazzling promises of loot and glory.

The boys laughed as they gazed after him, and Barton said:

"Filibustering must keep your hair standing on end, eh, Dan? I reckon it beats wrecking, though you couldn't get an old Key Wester to admit it. There hasn't been a wreck on the Reef for goodness knows how long. Father promised to take me with him on the next wrecking job if it isn't blowing too hard when the schooners go out to the Reef."

"Well, you can count on seeing Captain Jim Wetherly and the Resolute on the job no matter how hard she blows," smiled Dan with a spark of the rivalry which flamed high between the tow-boat and the schooner fleet. Willing hands made short work of Dan's tasks, and he hurried into his shore-going clothes while Barton swung his legs from the bunk and retailed the latest news about ships, and the sponge market, and the High School base-ball team which had won a match from the soldiers of the garrison. They parted a little later, Dan eager to run home and see his mother, and Barton anxious to make the Sombrero ready for a trial spin.

As Dan sped toward the cottage on the other side of the narrow island, he said to himself with a puzzled frown:

"Everything Bart talked about made me think of the other night in Pensacola: his father's going away, and the next wreck on the Reef, and all that. And he thinks his father is the strongest, bravest man that ever went to sea. Maybe he is, but I wish he wasn't related to Bart."

A slender, sweet-faced woman in black was waiting in a dooryard shaded by tropical verdure as Dan rounded the corner. She had heard the far-echoing, resonant whistle of the Resolute, and knew that her boy was home again. Her husband, for many years employed in the Key West Custom House, had died only two years before, and the love and yearning in her eyes at sight of Dan would have told you that he was her only child and her all-in-all if you had never seen them together before. He was taller than she, and, as her sturdy son stooped to kiss her with his arms about her neck, she said:

"I wanted to be at the wharf to meet you, Danny boy, but I couldn't leave home in time. Bart Pringle's mother ran in to talk to me about sending him away to school. I told her I wanted to do as much for you, but the way wasn't open yet. They can afford it, and Bart is too bright and ambitious to settle down in a Key West rut."

They walked to the wide veranda across which the cool trade-wind swept, and Mrs. Frazier ordered Dan to take the biggest, easiest wicker chair, after which she vanished indoors and almost instantly reappeared with a plate laden with pie and doughnuts.

"You had breakfast in that stuffy little galley, I suppose," laughed she, "but I know you are always hungry. You can stow these trifles away as a deck-load, can't you?"

Dan confessed that he could carry any amount of cargo of this kind and then, between bites of a home-made doughnut, spoke very earnestly:

"Bart ought to go North to school, mother, and I will tell him so and back you up for all I'm worth. It will do him good to break away from home. And Uncle Jim Wetherly will put up the same line of argument to Mrs. Pringle whenever you say the word."

"Jim is my dearest brother, but I can't picture him as showing very much excitement about Bart's education," she responded. "He thinks there's no finer thing in the world than to be master and owner of a sea-going tow-boat. Why do you think he will be interested, Dan?"

Her son took her hand in his hard, sun-burned paw and with a stammering effort began his confession of all that he had heard and seen after Jerry Pringle and the English ship-master had been run down in their small boat. The mother listened with wide-eyed astonishment, and then with something like indignation she cried:

"Why, Dan, you ought to be writing novels for a living! That poor Captain Bruce of the Kenilworth was out of his head, and you know that Jerry Pringle has a sour, gruff way with him even when he's on dry land. I can't believe it of Mary Pringle's husband. It is a dreadful thing to suspect him of, plotting to wreck a fine, big steamer."

"That's just like a woman," declared Dan with a very grown-up air of wisdom. "Mrs. Pringle hasn't anything to do with it. And you are like Uncle Jim, always refusing to think other folks are a bit less square and decent than you are. Ask him to-night what he thinks about it, but don't breathe a word to anybody else, will you?"

"I shall scold him for putting such silly ideas in your head," firmly announced Mrs. Frazier. "You couldn't have pieced this plot together all by yourself, even if you are as big and strong as a young tow-boat."

"All right," said Dan good-humoredly. "Only I hope Barton will go away to school before the explosion happens. For if I'm right, Jerry Pringle may be in disgrace before he's a year older. Captain Jim will never let up on him if the Kenilworth does happen to be stranded on the Reef."

When Captain Wetherly strolled in after supper, his sister began at once to cross-question him. He evaded her as far as possible and finally declared:

"I knew that Dan would tell you. I don't want him to keep anything from his mother. But it must go no farther than this. I will say this much, that when the Kenilworth is due in the Florida Straits on her next voyage outward bound, the Resolute will be a good deal less than a thousand miles away. And just for curiosity I have cabled to London to find out if she is really chartered to Vera Cruz for her next voyage, and what kind of a reputation her owners bear. They may be interested in losing her, do you see?

"Speaking of cables, Dan," he continued; "I got orders this afternoon to go to Charleston at once and tow that big suction dredge to Santiago. We shall be able to get away in a couple of days. You had better come aboard to-morrow night."

"Why, you'll be gone for weeks and weeks, Dan," sorrowfully cried his mother.

"I won't waste any time, nor try to save coal on this voyage," said Captain Jim with a grim smile. "I want to be a good deal nearer the Reef than Santiago, about two months from now."

"It's a long, long while to have my boy away from me," Mrs. Frazier murmured with a sigh. "But this tremendous conspiracy will be all blown out of your heads before you come home again."

After a luxurious night's slumber in a real bed, Dan felt as if the cobwebs had been brushed from his busy brain and that the bright world held better employment than brooding over what might happen to somebody else. He set forth to find Barton and arrange a match race between the Sombrero and a rival craft, to be sailed before Dan had to go to sea. The challenge being accepted on the spot, there was much to be done in a very few hours, and Dan heartily agreed with Barton's opinion delivered from the cockpit of their rakish craft:

"It is a pity we have anything to do but sail boats for the fun of it. What a bully sou'west breeze we're going to have this afternoon, Dan! Can you coax old Bill McKnight to come along for ballast?"

"Yes, if we promise him to smuggle some rifles and dynamite in the hold," laughed the other.

After dinner, Dan sauntered along the water front in the hope of finding the mighty bulk of the chief engineer to serve as two hundred and seventy pounds of desirable live ballast. The south-bound mail steamer, from Tampa for Havana, had just landed her passengers, and foremost among them loomed the tail and lanky figure of Jeremiah Pringle. The wrecking master spied Dan and hurried to meet him in the narrow street. His manner was no longer hostile and sullen, and Dan was amazed to have a greeting hand stretched toward him and to hear a cordial voice:

"How's the boy? You and Bart as busy as ever? I went up the Gulf to buy a schooner or two, and I found a beauty. I need a mate for her, Dan. You are young, but you know more about salt water than most men. It means double the wages of a deck-hand on that sooty old tow-boat. I want you to go to Tampa and help fetch her down right away, which is why I spring the proposition on you kind of off-hand and sudden."

It was a chance at which Dan would have jumped a week before. Something held him back, however, and, although he did not take time to reason it out, he vaguely felt that Jeremiah Pringle was trying to bribe him to keep his mouth shut. But he had a natural fear of making an enemy of such a man as this, and he swiftly decided to make no mention of the night in Pensacola. That was a matter for Captain Jim Wetherly to handle. Dan was ready to stand by his guns, however, so far as his own honesty was concerned, and he stoutly replied:

"That is a big thing to have come my way, Captain Pringle, and I ought to thank you. But I don't care to take it. My mother wants me to stick by Captain Jim Wetherly if I'm going to stay afloat, and she knows best."

Jerry Pringle looked black, but forced a smile as he growled:

"One thing you've got from your Uncle Jim is a swelled head. Well, we'll say no more about it; nothing at all about it, understand?"

The last words were spoken with a threatening earnestness, and Dan understood what was meant. He nodded and went on his way, for once anxious to get to sea, away from a situation in which he seemed to become more and more befogged. He found Bart dancing jig-steps with impatience, and trying to listen to a long-winded yarn delivered by Mr. Bill McKnight who had been already kidnapped for the afternoon.

The Sombrero sailed like a witch in the race, the live ballast shifted himself with more agility than the boys had dreamed he could display, and the match was won with the lee-rail under and the cockpit awash. Mrs. Frazier watched the finish from a wharf and invited Bart and the engineer to come home with Dan for a festive supper party in celebration. There could be no long faces or heavy thoughts at such a time, and Dan forgot the shadow and laughed himself into a state of collapse along with his mother and Bart when Mr. McKnight, with a wreath of scarlet ponciana blossoms on his bald head, danced Spanish fandangos until the cottage shook from floor to rafters.

The Sombrero sailed like a witch in the race

They all escorted Dan down to the Resolute in the starlit evening and sat on the guard-rail while the chief engineer fished a guitar from under his bunk and sang Cuban serenades, leading off with "La Paloma." It was as merry as such a parting hour could be, but there were tears in the mother's eyes when she kissed Dan good-night, and her voice was not steady when she whispered, "God bless and keep you, my precious boy."

When it came to saying good-by to Bart, Dan was more serious than usual and, he held fast to his comrade's hand for a moment while he looked him in the eyes and said:

"Blow high, blow low, you will find me standing by, Bart. Good luck and lots of it."

Shortly after daylight next morning the Resolute churned her way out of the placid harbor and laid her coastwise course for Charleston. It proved to be an uneventful run with pleasant weather and a favoring sea. Captain Wetherly had nothing to say about the steamer Kenilworth until they reached Charleston where he found a cablegram from London waiting for him. He read it aloud to Dan as soon as they happened to be alone.

"Unable to send required information until later. Will communicate your next port."

"It might have cleared up this Kenilworth business," said Captain Jim. "However, we may get a message at Santiago."

But the Resolute was not to see Santiago as soon as her master expected. There was a week's delay in getting the great suction dredge ready to begin the voyage. Then, when the Resolute had taken hold of the clumsy monster, for all the world like a bull-dog trying to drag a dry-goods box, the captain of the dredge was hurt by a falling bolt and there was more delay at anchor while a new skipper could be sent for.

When, at last, the unwieldy tow was got to sea, strong head-winds buffeted her day after day and urged the panting, sea-swept Resolute to her best efforts to keep up steerage way. She crept southward like a snail, eating up coal at a rate which compelled Captain Wetherly to put into Nassau, and again into the harbor of Mole St. Nicolas at the western end of Hayti.

Twice the dredge snapped her hawsers and broke clean adrift. When the weary tug and her tow crept in sight of the Morro Castle at the mouth of Santiago harbor, Bill McKnight almost wept as he surveyed his engines and boilers. Sorely racked and strained they were, and Captain Jim tried to comfort him by declaring that no other fat engineer could have patched and held them together to the end of the voyage. Making temporary repairs was a costly and tedious undertaking, and the crew of the Resolute tired of the charms of Santiago and grew restless and homesick for Key West.

While Dan, the captain, and McKnight were eating lunch ashore one day, a swarthy, dapper clerk from the cable office sought the Venus CafÉ with a message which he had tried to deliver on board the tug. It was for Captain Wetherly who read it with an air of mingled surprise and chagrin. With a glance at the engineer who was blissfully absorbed over his third plate of alligator pear salad, Captain Jim remarked as he handed the sheet to Dan:

"It is from London. Well, the cat is out of the bag, and we might as well let McKnight in. We are going to need him before we get through with this job, and need him bad. I suppose I ought to have been more suspicious, but it sounded too rotten to be true. Bill, you must have that engine room in shape this week if it breaks your back. We are going to make a record run home to Key West."

Dan read in silence before handing the cablegram to Captain Wetherly.

"Kenilworth cleared for Vera Cruz. Heavily insured. General cargo. Owners hard hit by recent losses. Will bear watching."

Captain Jim hammered the table with his fist and tried to speak in an undertone as he hotly exclaimed:

"This confidential report makes my suspicions fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. I couldn't for the life of me understand how the master of a big steamer could afford to ram her ashore and lose her, and his berth and his reputation with it, for ten thousand dollars. But if he knew that his owners would shield him and stand in with him, why, of course, he might be tempted to clean up ten thousand dollars for himself when a man like Jerry Pringle crossed his bows and passed him a few hints. A lot of good it would have done for me to cable Captain Bruce's owners and give them warning of what we heard that night in Pensacola harbor. They would have laughed at me as a meddlesome idiot. Cleared for Vera Cruz, has she? She does her ten knots right along, I picked up that bit of information at Pensacola. Allow her twenty days to the Reef."

Bill McKnight had dropped his fork and was purple with suppressed excitement. When the captain fetched up for lack of breath, he blurted in a hoarse whisper:

"It doesn't take a axe to drive an idea into my noddle. As near as I can make out, though your bearings are considerably overheated, Captain, there is scheduled to be a large and expensive wreck on the Reef, assisted by her skipper and one Jeremiah Pringle. It sounds like the good old times before the light-houses crippled the wrecking industry. And we Resolutes propose to be first on hand to pull her off and disappoint certain enterprising persons?"

"Disappoint 'em!" fairly shouted Captain Jim. "If the Kenilworth does go ashore, I'll fetch that vessel off the Reef if it tears the Resolute to kindling wood. I'll break their rotten hearts and show them what honest wrecking is."

"I didn't throw away that clamp I made to hold the safety-valve down, Captain," chuckled Bill McKnight. "And I ain't afraid to use it again, either."