The battered Kenilworth lay heeled far over to one side, looming forlornly from the Reef in the midst of a smooth and sparkling sea. Her sides were gray with brine and streaked red with rust, her grimy decks strewn with a chaotic litter of cargo, timbers, and rigging. The once trim, seagoing steamer made a most distressful picture as seen from the Resolute which was bearing down from the direction of Key West. Captain Bruce was standing in the bows of the tug. Gazing at his helpless ship, he found it very hard to realize that he had deliberately placed the Kenilworth in this pitiful plight.

She looked as if she had laid her bones on the Reef for good and all, but it was plain to see that the wreckers did not think so. Cargo was tumbling from her ports into lighters strung alongside, tugs hovered fussily near-by, and groups of active men toiled at capstans, derrick-booms, and donkey-engines.

She looked as if she had laid her bones on the Reef for good and all

"It looks like trying to float her before long," Captain Wetherly sung down from the wheel-house of the Resolute. "Come up here, Captain Bruce. I want to show you something."

The master of the Kenilworth mounted the ladder with an air of reluctance, for it hurt him even to talk about the ship. He looked worn and haggard and he could not rid himself of a great dread lest the Kenilworth might not be floated after all.

He was cheered, however, by the buoyant confidence of Captain Jim Wetherly who exclaimed with a note of mirth in his voice:

"There's a sight to make you rub your eyes, Captain Bruce. That is Jerry Pringle's tug from Tampa on the port quarter of the Kenilworth. And there he goes up the side. Hooray! see him chase that gang of his down the hatch. He is surely shoving the job along for all he's worth. That's his way when he once buckles down to it."

"But you were fighting each other alongside my ship not long ago. I don't understand it," commented Captain Bruce.

Captain Jim led the other man out of ear-shot of the wheel-house and told him with a grim smile:

"Jerry Pringle expected to work on this wreck. You know that even better than I do. I upset some plans of his, and yours. Now he has to do the job my way—understand? Do you know that I am suspected of plotting with you to put this ship on the Reef, Captain Bruce? You haven't heard it from Mr. Prentice? Um-m; well, you will hear a whole lot more about it from me before this ship of yours slides off into deep water."

The master of the Kenilworth winced at the threatening tone of these words, and his face was very red as he tried to bluster it out:

"What rot! That Prentice is a doddering old fool. Talking behind my back, is he? Of all the wicked, silly nonsense! Well, upon my word!"

"That will do for you," was Captain Jim's curt reply. "You are going to clear me. I kept my mouth shut to shield some innocent people, women and children, friends and kinfolk of mine—do you see? I expect to give your ship back to you. And you are going to do the square thing by me. Think it over and think hard."

Captain Wetherly faced about and left the other gazing with a troubled frown at the Kenilworth. Presently Dan hailed his uncle:

"Bart Pringle came along with his father, sir. I'd like to go aboard the wreck and see him if you don't mind, sir."

"Go ahead, Dan. Last time you two lads met on that deck you bristled at each other like two terrier pups. But I don't expect to cut his dad's tow-boat in two this trip, so I reckon you'll be glad to see each other."

Dan followed Captain Bruce up the steamer's side and found Barton dangling his legs from a heap of hatch-covers.

"Why don't you get busy? I want you to know that I am the real wrecking master of this vessel," cried Dan as he thumped his friend on the back with a generous impulse to forgive and forget their recent misunderstanding. "I never saw a Pringle that was willing to loaf ten seconds on a wreck. Gracious, look at your father. You can't see him for dust."

Mr. Jeremiah Pringle was, indeed, making good his surprising contract with Captain Jim Wetherly. He viewed a difficult task of wrecking as a personal battle between the Reef and himself; his brains, brawn, and courage matched against the perils of the sea. While the boys watched him drive his crew of hardy wreckers, Bart remarked:

"I thought father and Captain Jim were red-hot at each other over the Henry Foster business, didn't you? They must have patched it up all right, and that's enough to show how silly those stories were about—about the wreck and Captain Jim. Father wouldn't lend a hand in a crooked job for any money. I have been feeling meaner than a yellow pup for ever bothering my head about those rumors that lugged you into the dirty work, Dan. Will you really forgive me?"

"I was mean and nasty to you when the Henry Foster was split wide open, so I reckon we are quits," confessed Dan. "Let's shake hands and forget it."

"I'd trust you as I would trust my own father," earnestly exclaimed Bart. "Right down in my heart I would no more dream of your being mixed up with a crooked wrecking job than I would think of suspecting him. That's as strong as I can put it. You won't hold it out against me any more, will you, honest?"

Jeremiah Pringle had come out of a forward hold and was making his way aft along the ship's side to release a fouled guy-rope. The boys did not see him pass behind them, and as Bart waxed earnest his voice carried to his father's ears. The stern-visaged wrecker halted and listened with the most intense interest. He heard his own son say:

"I'd trust you as I'd trust my own father.... That's as strong as I can put it."

Jeremiah Pringle had been dealt a blow from a quarter so unexpected that he was quite staggered. Moving stealthily out of sight of the two lads, he went about his duty but his mind was painfully active with emotions which were as novel as they were disturbing.

It had never before occurred to him that his boy's life was anywhere linked with his own. He did not intend to set him a bad example, nor bring disgrace on the name he bore. But now Barton had accused and condemned him, not by doubting but by believing in him. It was brought home to him from a clear sky that his son was shaping his own course by what he believed his father to be. As Jeremiah Pringle sweated through the long day, he sullenly reflected:

"I can't argue it out with the fool boy. And what gets under my skin, too, is the way Dan Frazier has handled himself since that night in Pensacola. He must have got wind of the Kenilworth job then. I hate to be under obligations to anybody, and Jim Wetherly and that boy have been keeping it all back from my boy. Why? So Barton wouldn't be ashamed of his daddy. That's a cheerful notion to take to bed with me."

He had begun to feel that it might be unfair to his son's faith in him to engage in any more shady wrecking operations, and he was nearer being ashamed of himself than he had been in many years. It seemed as if Captain Jim Wetherly read his thoughts, for he halted him next day long enough to say:

"You have taken hold in great shape. It helps square matters, Jerry. It is your duty to get this ship off the Reef; you know that. And you will never be able to look that boy of yours in the eye until the Kenilworth is towed into port and made ready for sea again."

Mr. Pringle was in no mood to have his sins or his duty flung in his teeth, and he retorted savagely:

"Don't preach at me, Jim Wetherly. I break even with you by helping you get this vessel afloat. And I won't make you pay for smashing the Henry Foster. That squares all debts between us."

Meanwhile Dan and Barton had explored the Kenilworth from end to end, Dan telling at great length the story of his imprisonment among the cargo in the hold. When he came to the chapter dealing with the visit of the Bahama wreckers, he hurried Bart to the spot where he had found the lighted fuse and sack of powder. Alas, even the fragments of the fuse had been swept away in the task of lightering the cargo. Dan headed for the nearest hatchway to search for the powder. The compartment into which he had thrown it was cleared of water, the dÉbris shovelled out, and the shattered bottom plates covered deep with cement and timber bracing.

"Our wreckers didn't find the powder bag, or Captain Jim would have told me," mourned Dan. "The canvas may have ripped open or rotted where it fell. You believe it all, don't you, Bart? But that hatchet-faced old Prentice as much as called me a liar. And I won't be happy till I can make him take it back. He thinks I was trying to pull his leg with the explosion yarn. Why, I couldn't have made up a story like that in a thousand years."

"Don't you care. Of course it's true. And it was splendid. I am certainly proud of you," declared Bart who was anxious to make amends for the rift in their friendship. "You and I will back old Prentice into a corner first chance we get and make him apologize—won't we?"

The underwriters' agent came on board two days later and had a long interview with Captain Jim behind the locked door of the chart-room, after which Captain Bruce and Jeremiah Pringle were singly summoned for more mysterious conferences. But no attention was paid to Dan who felt that he moved in a cloud of suspicion and dismally reflected:

"Old Prentice has set me down as a liar and won't even give me a chance to deny it. I wish I could have kept that fuse to hitch to his coat-tails. I won't save another ship for him,—that's one thing sure."

At length the day came when Captain Jim Wetherly announced that he intended pulling on the stranded steamer with all four tugs at high water in the afternoon. They might not be able to start her, but it was worth trying, for the spell of fair weather could not be expected to last much longer. Dan was still grumbling to himself as he went off to the Resolute which had signalled for all hands to return.

One by one the tugs got into position for a "long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together." Captain Wetherly stayed in the Kenilworth to direct operations and took his station up in the bows. To Jerry Pringle was entrusted the important duty of properly making fast the hawsers from the tugs. It amused Captain Jim to hear him fiercely shouting orders to the crew of the Resolute who glared at their former foeman as if they would like to muster a boarding party and attack him.

The men in the yawls and on the rolling decks of the tugs worked with more caution than usual. They did not mind falling overboard or being upset by an obstreperous hawser as part of the day's work. But the dumping overboard of damaged cargo, including smashed cases of salt meats and other provisions, had lured scores of huge sharks which hovered in the clear, green depths at the edge of the Reef or rushed to the surface at the splash of box or barrel. All hands breathed easier when the hawsers had been passed aboard without mishap.

When all was in readiness to begin the tug-of-war between the tow-boats and the Reef, Captain Wetherly's nerves were tingling with excitement. The hour had come to put his faith and his works to the crucial test. It meant more to him than salvage, for he was also seeking with might and main to undo a wrong of which this ship had been the victim.

"The old Resolute will pull her heart out before she quits," he muttered. "I've given her the hardest berth, for she knows we can't afford to lose this ship."

Slowly the tugs forged ahead until they were straining at their hawsers like a team of well-handled horses, each using every bit of its strength to the best advantage. Then it was "full speed ahead," and they buckled down to their task as if no odds were great enough to daunt them,—Resolute, Three Sisters, Fearless, and Hercules. Soon the rusty, high-sided Kenilworth was veiled in the black clouds of smoke which drifted from their belching funnels. Captain Jim moved to leeward to get a clearer view and observed that Jeremiah Pringle was standing within a few feet of the vibrating steel hawser of the Resolute, where it led in over the bows of the Kenilworth.

"That is a brand-new line, but it isn't healthy to get so near it," he called out. "That tow-boat of mine has busted them before this, Jerry."

"Always bragging of those engines of yours. You are as bad as Bill McKnight," Pringle shouted back.

He looked down at the ponderous steel cable with a careless laugh. A moment later Captain Jim forgot his own warning and ran to the side to shout an urgent order to one of the tugs. He stood for a few seconds almost on top of the hawser where it led inboard and was about to retreat to his former station when the huge line twanged with a rasping note as if its fibres were overstrained. He wasted a precious instant in looking down to find out what the trouble might be, heard the steel cable crack and give, tried to flee, and caught his toe in a ring-bolt screwed to the deck.

Just then Jerry Pringle lunged forward and knocked Captain Jim flat with a sweep of his powerful right arm. This deed, done with lightning speed and rare presence of mind, sufficed to put Captain Jim out of harm's way, but it used the precious second of time in which Jeremiah Pringle might have saved himself.

Before Pringle could drop on deck or leap for shelter, the hawser snapped in twain with a report like that of a cannon. The ragged ends whizzed through the air with the speed and destructiveness of projectiles. One of them crashed against a metal stanchion, cut it clean in two, and knocked a pile of timber braces in all directions. These obstacles saved Jerry Pringle from being sliced in twain, but he was swept up in the flying debris and sent spinning overboard as if he were a chip caught in a tornado.

The accident happened with such incredible swiftness that Captain Wetherly scrambled to his feet and stood blinking at the spot from which Pringle had vanished as if he were blotted out of existence. Then, pulling himself together, with a yell of horrified dismay he rushed to the side of the ship and stared down into the sea which was seething with the foamy wash from the screws of the nearest tugs. He saw a black object rise to the surface, drift toward the stern, and then slowly sink from sight. Running aft where the water was clear, he caught a glimpse of the body of Jerry Pringle settling toward the white coral bottom.

Two of the tugs were hastily manning boats. Captain Jim glanced toward them and knew their help would come too late. He thought of the sharks which had been flocking around the ship. They could not have been driven very far away by the tumult of the tugs. While he wavered, Captain Jim said to himself:

"He didn't figure on the odds when he bowled me out of danger before he tried to save himself. Here goes."

Springing upon the bulwark, he jumped clear and sped downward with feet together and arms stretched above his head. It was a thirty-foot drop to the water and he shot into it as straight and true as a dipsey lead. His impetus carried him far down into the cool, green sea and, opening his eyes, he dimly discerned the shadowy form of the man he sought drifting above him. As Captain Jim rose he grasped the other by the shirt and struck out with his free arm. Pringle might be dead for all he knew, but he hung to him like a bull-dog, fighting his way upward to reach the blessed air and ease his tortured lungs.

A boat was pulling madly toward the scene, the crew yelling and splashing to hold the sharks at bay. Most clamorous of the party was the chief engineer of the Resolute who was roaring with tears in his eyes:

"Wow—wow—wow, keep a yellin', boys. It's Captain Jim they're after. Jerry Pringle's too tough for 'em."

A black fin skittered past the boat and Bill McKnight blazed away at it with a rifle which he had caught up on the run. A few more desperate strokes and they slackened speed and beat the water into foam with the flat of their oars. A long, sinister shadow slid swiftly under the boat and the men yelled as they saw it veer toward the stern of the Kenilworth. But this hastening shark had overrun its prey. Captain Jim and his burden rose within an oar's length of the yawl and were grasped by a dozen eager hands before they could be attacked.

Dan Frazier was not in the boat. He had not recovered his wits until his comrades had shoved clear of the Resolute. He stood as if paralyzed and watched the rescue. When the two dripping figures were hauled into the yawl and he saw Captain Jim sit up and shake himself like a retriever, a wordless prayer of thanksgiving welled from the depths of his heart.

Then he saw the boat move toward Jerry Pringle's tug which lay on the other side of the Kenilworth, screened from view of the rescue. Bart had gone on board this tug earlier in the day, and Dan felt his knees tremble as he saw the body of Jeremiah Pringle hoisted over the low bulwark. It seemed an age before the yawl returned to the Resolute and Captain Jim leaped on deck, followed by the chief engineer. Their faces were very solemn and they spoke with evident effort:

"Were—were you too late, Uncle Jim?" stammered Dan.

"Yes, he must have been dead when he struck the water," slowly returned Captain Wetherly. "But I'm glad I went after him. He made a brave man's finish. It's awful tough on Bart, but he is standing up under it like a thoroughbred. Jerry Pringle staked his life and lost it for me."

Captain Jim wiped his eyes and coughed. Bill McKnight ventured to say to Dan:

"He'd have done the same trick to save one of his own deck-hands. Jerry Pringle was a brave and ready man, we all know that. It was instinct. He didn't have time to figure it out. But I reckon God Almighty will give him plenty of credit and square accounts for whatever he did wrong. Whew! I can't realize it a little bit."

"The tug will take him down to Key West right away," said Captain Jim. "I'm going along with Jerry Pringle on his last voyage. Want to come, Dan? It will do Bart a whole lot of good to have you as a shipmate and you can tell him that his father was a man to be proud of. We'll forget everything that happened before to-day. You come aboard the Kenilworth with me and I'll leave orders for my men. I'll have to be back here to-morrow if this steamer is to come off the Reef. I have a notion that Jerry Pringle was sorry he ever helped to put her on there. And from watching him lately I believe we couldn't please him any better than by getting the Kenilworth off and mending the wrong he planned to do."

As they boarded the Kenilworth Captain Bruce met them and asked in a voice hoarse with emotion:

"They tell me he has slipped his cable. If my ship had not stranded it would not have happened."

"What are you going to do about it? Let me be accused of helping to wreck your steamer?" sternly replied Captain Wetherly. "Jeremiah Pringle has squared his accounts and made his record clean. But how about you?"