Chief Engineer Bill McKnight hoisted himself up the iron ladder that led from the fire-room of the Resolute and tottered on deck gasping for breath. He was begrimed from head to foot, the sweat had furrowed little streaks in the mask of soot and grease which covered his ample countenance, and his eyes were red with weariness and want of sleep. He had shoved the tug back to Key West at her top speed, and now he was toiling night and day to make her ready for whatever summons might come for a tussle on the Reef. Captain Wetherly found him slumped against the deck-house with his head in his hands and exhorted him cheerily:

"Don't give up the ship, Bill. It is a great repair job that you've done, and the worst is over. The new tubes are most all in, aren't they?"

"The boilers will be as good as new," grunted McKnight, "but how about my bronchial tubes, Captain? I can't plug them up and make steam same as I plugged the boilers and fetched you back from Santiago. I'm so full of cinders inside that I rattle when I walk. But give me another week and the boat will be fit to hitch a hawser to this benighted island of Key West and tow it out to sea. Anything new ashore?"

Captain Jim sat down beside the engineer and made sure that they could not be overheard as he began:

"Dan has been watching Jerry Pringle's fleet of wrecking vessels for me. Those two schooners he bought in the Gulf have come into port, and it is mighty little sponging he intends to do with them at present, Bill. They look fast and they can stow lots of cargo. And Pringle has been overhauling his other schooners and has chartered three more in Key West. He says he intends to send them out to join the mackerel fleet."

"Anything doing in the tow-boat line?" asked McKnight with a new gleam of interest in his damaged eyes. "If Pringle aims to tackle a certain job that may be reported from the Reef pretty soon, he will have to make a bluff at pulling the steamer off, won't he? There might be a small fortune in salvage, besides looting the cargo out of her."

"He is dickering for some kind of a time charter on the Henry Foster," snapped Captain Jim. "She couldn't pull a feather-bed off the Reef without breaking down. And I understand he has been cabling up the Gulf about another tug or two."

"Well, we can get all the tow-boats we need and good ones, can't we?" beamed McKnight. "Maybe we can't handle most any kind of a wrecking job ourselves! And there won't be any bluffs about it when we take hold."

"I'm certainly sorry for Dan, poor boy," said Captain Jim with a sigh. "He feels as if he were spying on Bart's father. And to make it worse, Bart is going to sail with the old man for a while and the lad will be mixed up in this nasty mess as sure as fate, and he will be on the wrong side of it. Here comes our Dan now. Drop the subject, Bill. It only makes the youngster more unhappy."

Dan Frazier had passed some restless nights since his return to Key West, but his mind was too sunny and youthful to believe that things were ever as bad as they might be. He found comfort in the hope that Captain Wetherly would spoil the plot to lose the Kenilworth. He had implicit confidence in his uncle's ability to win against any odds with the stanch Resolute, and now that a fair and open battle against Jerry Pringle was assured, Dan found himself eager for the fray. Barton had told him that morning:

"Father and mother are talking of sending me North to school, but I'm going to rough it at sea with father for a month or so. He said he tried to get you to work for him. I knew you wouldn't leave Captain Jim, but maybe we might have been lucky enough to work on a wreck together."

"You can't tell, Bart. Perhaps we shall, but we may be working against each other. I'll back Captain Jim Wetherly to be first man aboard the next vessel that goes on the Reef."

"Captain Jim is a good man," declared Bart, "but it will be a cold day when he lays alongside a wreck ahead of that daddy of mine."

The boys were busy with their unbeaten sloop Sombrero, and one day slid into another while Dan employed much of his spare time in helping his mother about the house and in painting the chicken-house, the fences, and porch with great pride in the spick-and-span results. Mrs. Frazier still professed to take no stock in the plot hatched by "Barton's father and Mary Pringle's husband," but she was nervous and absent-minded at times, and there was even more affection than usual in her manner toward Bart.

Dan tacked a calendar at the head of his bed and crossed off the days one by one, saying to himself when he awoke and looked at it:

"Twenty days out from London, as Uncle Jim figured it, and the Kenilworth is one day nearer the Reef."

Twenty-two days had been counted when Captain Jim called at the cottage and told Dan to go aboard the Resolute and stay there until further orders. When the deck-hand reported for duty, he found all hands of the crew either at work on board or within call on the wharf. Bill McKnight had steam in his boilers and, although the fires were banked, he had just finished stowing below a generous supply of resinous pine wood, oil-soaked cotton waste, and a barrel of turpentine for use as emergency fuel.

"I lost thirty-five pounds of weight in three weeks," snorted the engineer, "but I mended the old hooker to stay mended. Ho, ho, there goes the Henry Foster to sea, Captain. Wonder if there's anything doing so soon? Her engines sound like a mowing-machine trying to cut a path through a brick-yard."

"Don't worry about her," muttered Captain Jim. "Pringle isn't aboard her. We won't leave here until he gets uneasy. He is a good deal better posted than I am about his infernal program and we——"

Captain Jim stopped short, for Barton Pringle unexpectedly appeared on deck and announced to Dan:

"I'm going up the Hawk Channel with father at daylight to look for one of our sponging vessels that's reported ashore near Bahia Honda Key. Thought I'd say good-by."

Dan could not help glancing at Captain Jim as he replied with a quiver of excitement in his voice:

"We may be running up the outside channel before you get back, Bart. Perhaps we shall sight you. Hope you have a good trip."

Barton was in a hurry and jumped ashore with a wave of his hand to the chief engineer. When he was out of ear-shot Dan observed with a long face:

"I would give six months' wages if I could make Bart stay home. Do you suppose his father is really going to sea at daylight, or is he just using Bart to fool us?"

"I haven't been walking in my sleep," dryly responded Captain Jim. "There's a hundred and fifty miles of the Reef between here and Miami and I don't intend to follow any decoy ducks and fetch up at the wrong end of it. I figure on getting a report of any disaster as soon as the next man."

The next day passed without tidings. Jeremiah Pringle had vanished from his haunts in Key West, and four of his schooners were not to be found at their moorings. Another day dragged by, Bill McKnight was stewing with impatience and Dan Frazier was losing his appetite while Captain Jim Wetherly remained cheerful and unruffled.

He was like another man, however, when a message came to him at noon on the fourth day of waiting. It was from the cable office and he had no more than glanced at it before he darted on deck, ordered the mate to get the crew aboard, shouted down a speaking-tube to Bill McKnight, and took his station at the wheel. His keen-witted, masterful energy seemed to thrill the Resolute with life and action. Black smoke gushed from her funnel as her stokers toiled in front of the furnace doors. The engines were turning over when the last deck-hand leaped aboard, and as the dripping hawsers were hauled in, the tug was moving out into the stream.

Key West island was over her stern before Dan found time to run up to the wheel-house. Captain Jim slipped a crumpled bit of paper into his fist and motioned for him to keep it to himself. It was from the marine observer at Jupiter Inlet, a hundred miles to the northward of the Florida Reef:

"Steamer Kenilworth southbound passed seven this morning. Signalled steering gear disabled by heavy weather but able to proceed."

Dan's faith in human nature, as it had to do with the master of the Kenilworth, had been so severely shocked that he wondered whether the report of her mishap could be true. He was not shrewd enough to perceive, however, what Captain Jim whispered as he went below to see how things were moving in the engine-room.

"Crippled steering gear, bosh. Her skipper has to fake up some excuse for striking the Reef."

Dan could scarcely believe that the curtain had really risen on this seafaring melodrama in which he was to be an actor. A stately ship was moving blindly toward an ambush which might be the death of her. And racing to find and befriend her was this lone tug whose throbbing heart of steel shook her stout hull from bow to stern as she tore through the long head-seas on the edge of the Gulf Stream. The afternoon was already waning and night would overtake the Resolute before she could reach the upper stretches of the Reef. Captain Wetherly felt certain that the Kenilworth would not be rammed on the coral ledges in broad daylight, and he foresaw a desperate game of hide-and-seek between darkness and dawn. But he held to the doctrine that with anything like even chances an honest man will win against a rascal in the game of life, afloat or ashore.

The north-east wind was steadily freshening and the sky had become gray with drifting clouds. As dusk crept over the uneasy sea a mist-like rain began to drizzle. The master of the Kenilworth might reasonably lose his bearings if the night grew much thicker. Bill McKnight emerged from his sultry cavern long enough to grumble to Dan:

"What's to hinder our running past that steamer before morning, I want to know, hey, boy?"

"You wouldn't worry if you could watch Captain Jim hug the Reef," assured Dan. "It's like walking a tight-rope. I thought we were going to climb right up into the American Shoal light-house."

"Well, this old tug is doing her fifteen knots, Dan, which is faster than she ever flew before," chuckled the chief engineer, "and if we touch bottom, you'll know it all right. Look up yonder at my fireworks."

Dan stared at a banner of solid flame that streamed from the funnel which glowed red hot for a dozen feet above the deck. With a cry of alarm he ran to the upper deck-houses which were built just fore and aft of the funnel and found the wood-work charred and smoking. He shouted down to McKnight who replied with a laugh:

"It isn't my affair if your superstructure burns up. My orders are to make steam. Better mention it to the skipper."

Dan rushed to the wheel-house but Captain Jim received the news as if it were the merest trifle. He was sweeping the sea with his night-glasses and exhorting the mate at the wheel to "hold her as she is and keep your nerve." To Dan he replied airily:

"Caught afire, has she? Good for Bill McKnight. He's delivering the goods. Get some men with buckets and put the fire out. I've no steam to waste in starting the pumps and putting the hose on it."

The deck force was taking turns at shovelling coal to reinforce the stifled stokers, and those off watch followed Dan with cheers. They knew that a race was on, and it lightened their toil to know that the Resolute was pounding toward her goal, wherever it was, with every ounce of power in her. Captain Jim joined the fire-fighters long enough to yell to them:

"Look out for rockets ahead. The first man to sight distress signals from the Reef gets ten dollars and a new hat."

A brawny negro stoker wiped the sweat from his eyes as he bobbed on deck and panted:

"When Cap'n Jim smell a wreck she's sure gwine be where he say. If he wants to find 'stress signals he better look amongst us poor niggers in the fire-room."

Midnight came and no one thought of sleep. The excitement had spread even to the cook and the galley boy who thought they saw rockets every time a match was lit up in the bows. Dan gazed out into the starless night and listened to the clamor of the parting seas alongside with frequent thoughts of Barton Pringle who was somewhere out here, proud of his father's seamanship and daring, loyal to his interests, trusting him as Dan trusted his Uncle Jim. Now like pawns on a chess board, the two boys were to play their parts on the opposing sides of a conflict which would be fought to the bitter end. Dan was aroused by a hoarse shout from the bridge of the Resolute:

"Red rocket two points off the port bow."

Dan wheeled and looked forward while his breath seemed to choke him. A second rocket soared skyward, like a crimson thread hung against the curtain of night.

"Hold her steady as she is," shouted Captain Jim from his post on the bridge. "The weather has cleared a bit and that signal was a long way off."

There was an exultant ring to his strong voice as if he were glad to have the climax in sight. He sent for Dan and told him to stay on the bridge and look for answering signals.

"It's the Kenilworth, a thousand to one," said the captain of the Resolute. "And if Jerry Pringle's schemes haven't missed fire, his tug or one of his schooners will just happen to be within signalling distance. Ah, by Judas, there goes his answer, a rocket way out to seaward. Pringle was afraid to hug the Reef on a thick night. He missed the Kenilworth when she passed inside of him. It may possibly be a merchantman that has seen the Kenilworth's signals, but we take no chances."

Captain Wetherly shouted the tidings down the tube to the engine-room force, and the hard-driven tug tore her way through the heavy seas in the last gallant burst of the home-stretch. Back through the speaking-tube bellowed the voice of the chief engineer:

"I've just put the clamp on the safety-valve, Captain. She's carrying thirty pounds more steam than the law allows, and if she cracks she'll crack wide open. Hooray! Give it to her!"

As if the captain of the stranded steamer were content to know that his message had been seen and answered, he sent up no more rockets, nor did any more answering signals gleam out to seaward. It was a race in the dark. The Resolute and her rival, if such it was, must run down two sides of a triangle whose apex was the unseen vessel on the Reef. Captain Jim had taken the compass bearings of the Kenilworth's rockets and, regardless of the risk he ran in driving his steamer along the very fangs of the Reef, he held her in a straight line for her goal and prayed that her bottom would not be ripped off or her straining boilers blow her sky high.

Almost at the same instant that the excited deck force of the Resolute glimpsed a red light winking far off to starboard, they saw the mast-head light of the stranded vessel almost dead ahead.

"That red light out yonder belongs to J. Pringle," muttered Captain Wetherly, "And we must be pretty near the same distance from that mast-head light on the Reef. It's going to be a whirlwind finish, all right."

The Resolute kept full speed ahead as if she intended to cut her way through the stranded steamer. Not until a huge black shape dotted with a row of cabin lights loomed a little to one side of her headlong flight, did Captain Jim shift his course to round to in the deep water beyond the Reef. His fists were clenched and his jaw was set hard as he glared from the wheel-house door to find the oncoming boat which he had sworn to beat. Her lights were no more than a quarter of a mile away as the Resolute crept under the quarter of the stranded cargo steamer.

"If that's you out yonder, Jerry Pringle," growled Captain Jim to himself, "you've slowed up to find out who the dickens we are. No wonder you're worried. Come on and have it out, you hatchet-faced pirate."

He seized the whistle cord and the Resolute roared a long, sonorous blast of greeting and defiance. Then he caught up a megaphone and shouted toward the steamer stranded on the Reef:

"Ship ahoy! I'll stand by to put a line aboard at daylight. Are you resting easy as you are?"

"What steamer is that?" came the answering hail from the darkness.

"The tow-boat Resolute of Key West, first vessel to come to your assistance. Who are you?"

"The deuce you are," and there was the most profound amazement in the other voice. "This is the steamer Kenilworth of London. A crosscurrent set me on here but I can work off with my own engines, thank you."

"You'll never work her off," yelled Captain Jim. "Your vessel will break her back if it blows much harder. It's high-water two hours after daylight. It's now or never to pull her clear."

There was no reply. It was evident that Captain Malcolm Bruce was shocked and bewildered by the unlooked for presence of the Resolute and was sparring for time until he could hail the other craft which by this time was feeling her way nearer.

Captain Wetherly was in no temper for parleying. He moved the Resolute up abreast of the Kenilworth's bridge and shouted sternly:

"I know your voice, Captain Bruce. My name is Jim Wetherly. This is the only tow-boat within five hundred miles that's got the power to drag you clear. And I must take hold on this next tide, before you begin to pound and settle. We'll arrange terms afterward."

"I'll wait till daylight before taking any lines aboard," was the curt response from Captain Bruce who had moved aft to hail the other tug which had now dropped astern of the Resolute.

"This is the Henry Foster, in command of Jeremiah Pringle," came back to him. "We answered your rockets. Shall we stand by?"

"I will let you know when daylight comes," answered the master of the Kenilworth.

Captain Jim Wetherly stamped his foot and snarled at his puzzled mate:

"They must think I'm seven kinds of a fool. I'll block their game right now. Oh, Dan Frazier, come here, on the jump."

He grasped Dan by the collar, dragged him into the chart-room, and closed the door. With swift, emphatic utterance Captain Wetherly shot these instructions into the boy's ear:

"Dan, I'm going to put you aboard the Kenilworth. I can't spare anybody else, and you will be my agent, understand? If Captain Bruce refuses to take my line, this business will be put up to the underwriters from start to finish. And the crooked owners won't be able to collect one dollar of insurance, I'll see to that. And I'll have you as a witness to prove that the Resolute was first on the spot. Come along with me."

Captain Jim pulled Dan by the arm toward the lower deck. A boat was lowered in a twinkling and, while the excited lad waited for a chance to jump, Captain Jim told him:

"It's likely that Pringle has Barton with him on the tug, and they may try the same trick. If they come aboard the Kenilworth, you remember that you're working for Jim Wetherly, no matter if it means a scrap."

As the yawl danced away from the side of the Resolute, Captain Jim shouted to the Kenilworth:

"Put a ladder overside, if you please, Captain Bruce. I'm sending my nephew aboard to talk business with you."

"I will talk no business before daylight," roared Captain Bruce. "Call your boat back."

"Oh, yes, you will take him aboard," stormed Captain Wetherly. "If you don't, the underwriters will know the reason why. Shall I tell you why?"

"Hooray! but that was a shot below his water-line," chuckled Bill McKnight from the engine-room door. "But I don't envy Dan his job when Jerry Pringle climbs aboard the Kenilworth."