It was not until a fortnight after Dan Frazier had been taken home to Key West that he was allowed to leave his room and lounge in a wicker chair on the cottage porch. His face and hands were thinner and the sea tan could not hide the pallor caused by fever, but he looked at the glad, green world with bright eyes and clamored for food like a young cormorant. His mother, who fluttered about him with fond anxiety, had tried to banish all mention of the Kenilworth, but now that he was able to be outdoors he fairly bullied her with questions which had been disturbing his days and nights of illness.

"I am sure Barton is as fond of you as ever," said she. "He may have been angry at first, but he has been here to ask about you almost every day. He told me you had nothing to do with his father's tug being cut in two by brother Jim, but he said you hooted at him when it happened. That wasn't like my Dan."

Her son tried to look repentant, but his eyes twinkled and he grinned as he replied:

"It wasn't nice of Bart to laugh at me while his cantankerous old daddy's tug was keeping the Resolute away from the wreck. How did Bart explain the smash-up?"

"He as much as said that Jim Wetherly behaved like a pirate and a lunatic, though of course Barton is too polite to put it in so many words," confessed Mrs. Frazier with a sigh. "It has made a lot of talk in Key West. Mr. Pringle swears he is going to take it into court. He declares he had made a contract with the captain of the Kenilworth when along came Jim and rammed him to get the job away from him."

"Made a contract with the Kenilworth! I should say Jerry Pringle did," snorted Dan with rising color. "He made his rotten contract in Pensacola, months before the ship was wrecked. He didn't get half what's coming to him. I wish Uncle Jim had sunk the Henry Foster. What else has happened?"

"Captain Bruce has called twice to see you. And since meeting him I am more skeptical than ever about your conspiracy story, Dan."

"Captain Bruce been here? So you like him, too, do you?" exclaimed Dan. "Were all hands saved from the wreck?"

"They got away from the ship in their boats at daylight," answered Mrs. Frazier. "Captain Bruce had some ribs broken by being dashed against the side, and two boats were swamped. But they reached the keys with all hands and were picked up a day later by a sponger and brought down the Hawk Channel to Key West. Captain Bruce was broken-hearted over losing you, and when he heard you were still alive he insisted on leaving the hospital and coming up here, broken ribs and all. He seems very moody and depressed. I suppose he is unhappy about losing his ship."

"He is thinking about several things, I reckon," said Dan. "That ship has made everybody unhappy. She is loaded with trouble. Captain Bruce is sorry he ever clapped eyes on Jerry Pringle for one thing. And he hates himself even worse for not sticking to his vessel. And he quit her and left me on board to come through the gale all right with the ship still under me. What is he planning to do now?"

"Wait, and take the Kenilworth again if she is floated," replied Mrs. Frazier. "He is going up to the Reef as soon as the doctor will let him."

She walked to the end of the porch and brushed aside the tangle of vines which partly screened her view of the street. Then she turned and said to Dan:

"Here comes Mr. Prentice and I think he intends to call here. What a very stiff and formal looking person he is!"

The underwriters' agent opened the gate with a courtly bow to Mrs. Frazier. His greetings were most polite, but he lost no time in coming to the point. Mrs. Frazier was about to withdraw, but Dan spoke up sharply:

"If it's about the Kenilworth, Mr. Prentice, I want my mother to stay. I keep no secrets from her."

Mr. Prentice bowed gravely and seated himself facing Dan, who could not help feeling that this elderly gentleman was unfriendly to him. The underwriters' agent opened fire without further warning:

"I am pleased to note your rapid recovery from a very trying experience, Mr. Frazier. As you may know, I represent English insurance interests which wrote a total of a hundred thousand pounds sterling on the Kenilworth and her cargo. If the efforts to float the vessel prove successful, the loss may be comparatively small."

Mr. Prentice adjusted his glasses, cleared his throat, and resumed with emphatic earnestness:

"You hinted at having prevented a disastrous explosion in the steamer's hold, Mr. Frazier. You may not recall the words you used. It was after you were taken on board the tug Three Sisters. I have made the most thorough examination of the Kenilworth and failed to find any traces of explosives."

"If you are going to call me a liar at the start, you won't get very far," hotly cried Dan. "Do you think I cooked up that yarn to get a reward out of the insurance companies? Did you fish in the water amidships for a sack of powder? Wait till the ship is pumped out and I'll find it for you fast enough."

"If you are going to call me a liar at the start, you won't
get very far!"

Mrs. Frazier laid her hand on the lad's shoulder, whispered in his ear, and he sank sulkily back in his chair while the unruffled Mr. Prentice asked:

"Why did you dump the powder down the hatch instead of letting it stay where it was as evidence of the dastardly attempt of the wreckers?"

"I didn't know what I was doing," exclaimed Dan in a flare of impatience. "I was scared clean out of my wits. I was afraid to turn my back on that bag of powder. Maybe you wouldn't have been as cool as an ice-chest, either, and thinking about evidence. What the dickens are you driving at anyhow?"

"I will drop this matter for the present," said Mr. Prentice, fishing out a small note-book as if to confirm his recollection before he declared:

"I heard you say on board the Three Sisters, 'Don't let them know. Keep it dark. We can handle it all by ourselves. The captain is sorry he did it.' What did you mean, Mr. Frazier? This wreck is to be investigated. I am already convinced that certain persons on board the tug Resolute had advance information of the intended loss of the Kenilworth. Your tug had steam up and her crew on board for several days before the disaster. Captain Wetherly started for sea in a tremendous hurry after getting a cable message that the Kenilworth had passed Jupiter Light. I have copies of the message he sent asking for this information and the reply from the Government signal station. Then, as if to prevent interference with a bargain made in advance, Captain Wetherly deliberately cut down and disabled the tug Henry Foster. I believe you know the truth. What did you mean by 'Don't let them know? Keep it dark?'"

Dan looked bewildered for a moment and stared at Mr. Prentice who seemed to be talking the sheerest nonsense. Then, as the meaning of these suspicions filtered into the boy's mind, his face became red with wrath and astonishment. His world was turning topsy-turvy. The underwriters' agent was actually accusing Captain Jim Wetherly and the Resolute of the wicked deed which they had been trying to mend—of plotting to put the Kenilworth on the Reef! Why, this was like one of the dreams of Dan's weeks of fever. At length he pulled himself to his feet and fairly shouted:

"I know who started this crazy story of yours, Mr. Prentice. Jerry Pringle mu st be at the bottom of it. Do you mean to say you have listened to such infernal lies about a man like Captain Jim Wetherly? You didn't understand what I was talking about on board the Three Sisters. And do you think we had anything to do with the stranding of Captain Bruce's steamer? Do you want to know the truth? I'll tell you the truth—No, I won't. Captain Jim is my skipper and I must take my orders from him. He told me to keep my mouth shut, and I can't say anything until he gives me the word."

Mrs. Frazier was wringing her hands as she stood between Mr. Prentice and Dan, as if trying to shield her boy from harm. "Dan must not talk to you another minute," she exclaimed indignantly. "He is all of a tremble now. It is cruel of you to torment and bully him, Mr. Prentice."

The underwriters' agent apologized and tried to explain his errand in more detail.

"I like your boy, Mrs. Frazier. He is a manly fellow. I am inclined to believe that he is prompted by good motives. He is loyal to Captain Wetherly and the Resolute, which is quite natural. But this Kenilworth affair looks like a bad business from start to finish. Something was in the wind before the steamer went ashore, and it is my duty to get at the facts without sparing any one's feelings. I want Dan to think it over and I shall have another talk with him when he feels a bit stronger."

"Why don't you tackle Captain Bruce and make him tell what he knows?" burst out Dan. "What does he say about it?"

"The case of Captain Bruce will be disposed of in London," answered Mr. Prentice; "but the evidence must be gathered in Key West."

He reluctantly took his departure and, as his tall, spare figure moved down the street, Dan followed Mrs. Frazier into the cottage and declared:

"This notion of fighting to keep disgrace and exposure away from Bart Pringle and his mother has gone about far enough. Do you suppose I am going to have you dragged into it, all because Jerry Pringle is smart enough to cover up his tracks and shift the suspicion to Uncle Jim? Not in a thousand years. Uncle Jim will have to come to Key West and clear himself somehow."

A heavy footfall sounded on the porch and the spoon on Dan's medicine glass jingled as the ponderous presence of Bill McKnight filled the outside doorway while he raised his big voice in "Ship, ahoy? Is Dan aboard?"

"The very man I want to see. Come in," called Dan. "He won't excite me, mother, he'll be just like a hogshead of soothing syrup."

The chief engineer advanced cautiously, as if not quite certain how to handle himself in a sickroom, and whispered hoarsely:

"Keep perfectly cool and calm, my boy. We'll say nothing at all about wrecks, riots, and revolutions, will we, Mrs. Frazier? Birds and flowers and how's the weather, eh? They're the topics."

"Oh, shucks," was Dan's rude comment. "I want to know all about everything, don't I, mother? Where is the Resolute? What's the news from Captain Jim?"

Mr. McKnight turned to Dan's mother and waited for orders. She nodded her assent, and the visitor set himself down in a chair which creaked and groaned. Then he extracted a package from his white duck coat and removed the paper wrapping. A glass jar was revealed which Mr. McKnight placed on the table with the explanation:

"Calf's-foot jelly, ma'am. I had to cable for it. There's a poor crop of calves in Key West. I've never been sick myself, except when I got my head busted, or broke an arm or leg, or got shot up. But we fished a box of books out of an English wreck one time, and they were mostly novels. We dried 'em out in the engine-room and all hands read 'em. And whenever anybody in them yarns took sick, I'm blessed if the vicar's wife, or the squire's daughter, or the young ladies next door, didn't trot in with this here calf's-foot jelly. They used tons of it in every novel, ma'am. I reckon it'll put Dan on his pins."

The chief engineer wiped his face and fixed a pair of spectacles on his ruddy nose, after which he gazed searchingly at Dan as if to satisfy himself that the boy was all there. Bashfully waving his paw as if to ward off Mrs. Frazier's laughing thanks, he went on to say:

"The Resolute is almost ready for sea and your berth is waiting for you, Dan. Captain Jim jerked the life out of her when he fetched away the towing-bitts. She was most as sad a sight as the Henry Foster. I've just come down from the Reef to see that the repairs are all ship-shape and run her to sea in three or four days."

"Can't I go in her, mother?" begged Dan. "I won't do any work. Tell the doctor the air will do me good. I've simply got to see the wreck. How about it, Mr. McKnight? Is she really going to come off?"

"You'd think so, if she brings a chunk of the Reef along with her," chuckled the engineer. "Captain Jim has built two coffer-dams in her, where her bottom was ripped out. He'll begin to pump 'em out next week. That will lift the bulk of the water out of her. And the wrecking pumps can handle the rest of the leaks. He's a terrible man is Captain Jim, when he gets a full head of steam in his boilers. He's patching up the bulkheads, lightering the cargo, got a force of mechanics in the engine-room, and so on till she hums like a beehive. Good weather, Reef like a mill-pond, and two chartered tugs waiting to hook on to her, not to mention the Resolute."

"That beats doctors and calf's-foot jelly for putting me on my toes again," was Dan's jubilant comment. "Have you heard anything ashore here about her going on the Reef?"

Mrs. Frazier tried to head off this agitating topic, but Mr. McKnight failed to comprehend her manoeuvres and briskly replied:

"No, I just come away from the Reef and hustled straight up here from looking over the Resolute. There's nothing leaked out, has there? I'd like to see somebody punished, you understand, but Captain Jim told me to shut up and stay shut up."

"Well, we are accused of putting up the Kenilworth job," exclaimed Dan. "Don't mind mother. She's one of us. If you're going to have a fit, please go outside. This house isn't big enough."

Mr. McKnight was too taken aback to display any violent emotion. He wiped his spectacles with great care, as if they had something to do with his hearing, and asked Dan to "say it again, and say it slower." Dan told him all about the visit of the underwriters' agent, whereupon Mr. McKnight raised both hands and exclaimed:

"Hold on, boy. It all sounds plumb raving crazy to you, but there may be a heap more in it than you think. Who knew Jerry Pringle was aboard the Resolute that night in Pensacola harbor? You and me and Captain Jim, and the cook and galley boy. The rest of the crew was ashore or down below. Did you know that the cook and the galley boy quit the Resolute last week and went up the Gulf to ship on a Central American fruiter? They may be mighty hard to find if Jerry Pringle had anything to do with getting them out of the way. Where are our witnesses, eh? And you tell me old man Prentice has copies of the cable messages that prove Captain Jim was waiting for the Kenilworth? They may be mighty hard to explain."

"How about Captain Bruce?" asked Dan with a very sober face. "He is the only man that can clear it all up in a jiffy."

"I can't quite fathom him, Dan. Sometimes I think he only needs a good strong shove to make him own up to it all and take his medicine like a man. But supposing Pringle offers him the ten thousand dollars anyhow to saddle the job on us Resolutes? It's worth that to Jerry to save his own skin."

"Captain Jim must get after Captain Bruce and make him tell the truth if he has to choke it out of him," cried Dan in great excitement. "As soon as we pull the Kenilworth off the Reef there is going to be a fight to a finish."

"You ain't quite fit for wrecking or fighting, and your mother will scold me directly for getting your bearings hot," quoth Mr. McKnight. "You just sit tight and maybe you can go up to the Reef in the Resolute with me."

With this the chief engineer departed under full steam, evidently afraid of facing Dan's mother. The patient suffered no relapse, however, and felt so much stronger next day that Mrs. Frazier suggested a walk as far as the parade-ground of the artillery barracks, hoping to give him a respite from any more disturbing visitors. They strolled slowly through quaint crooked streets of the sea-girt town, into the shaded plaza of the garrison which faced an expanse of green lagoon and low mangrove-covered keys. A wharf ran out from the seawall in front of them and they walked idly toward it to look at the schooners beating up to the town.

Dan delayed to watch a distant sail which was scudding in from one of the near-by keys. Presently he called out:

"Don't wait for me, mother. That's the Sombrero yonder, and she will pass within hail of the wharf. I'm going out there and catch Bart Pringle as he scoots by."

The boys had not met since Dan's return from the Reef, and Dan was a trifle surprised that Bart had let the last three days pass without calling to see him. "I want to beg his pardon for laughing at him when the Henry Foster was stood on her ear," reflected Dan as he walked toward the end of the wharf. "We have a pack of things to talk about, and I must be awful careful not to say a word against his father. But there's due to be a rumpus before long."

The Sombrero tore past with a free sheet, fluttered into the wind, and slid gracefully up to the wharf. Dan jumped onto the bowsprit and footed it aft with a cheery greeting to Bart who was busy with sheets and tiller.

"Hello, Dan. Glad you feel so spry. Want to run down to the fort and back?" said Bart without his usual smile. His manner was so glum, in fact, that Dan spoke up rather sharply:

"What in the world has happened to you? Has the Sombrero been beaten while I was laid up? My goodness, I thought you'd be glad to see me."

Bart rubbed his head, scowled at the main-sail, and sighed before he responded with an effort:

"I've got to tell you, Dan. Mind you, I don't take any stock in it, but I hate myself for letting it worry me. It's about the Kenilworth. It's too tough to repeat, really it is, but you ought to have a chance to come out and nail it as a lie. They say Captain Jim Wetherly knew she was going on the Reef, and that you knew it, too. I wish——"

"And you listened to such stuff?" Dan fiercely broke in. "Who told it to you?"

"Mr. Prentice asked me a lot of questions and I couldn't help seeing what he was trying to prove, Dan. I asked my father about it and he seemed to think things looked pretty black for Captain Jim. And father is mighty seldom fooled about anything that goes on along the Reef. I want to tell him that you say it's all foolishness. He would be mighty glad to have it cleared up all right for Captain Jim Wetherly. And he knows how chummy I am with you."

"Y-you asked your f-father about it?" stuttered Dan and his eyes were blazing. "Bart Pringle, you make my head dizzy. Look here, I'll tell you one thing that's straight goods. I wouldn't believe you were guilty of a murder, not if they had a million witnesses, unless I saw you do it with my own two eyes. And as for the Kenilworth, whether Captain Bruce meant to put her on the Reef or not, Captain Jim Wetherly had nothing to do with it. And that's all I can tell you. Of course that lets me out."

Dan's heart was sore that his chum's loyalty should have been shaken in the slightest degree, but he tried to be fair, and added in a milder tone:

"Mr. Prentice got things all snarled up somehow, but it's sure to come out right. Maybe I ought not to blame you for being worried, Bart. Things have been happening mighty fast for all hands concerned."

By this time Barton was honestly ashamed of himself and could think of nothing to say but a stammering apology which Dan accepted with a rather gloomy nod. It was the nearest their friendship had ever come to a break, and both boys would have preferred an open quarrel to this cloud of aggrieved misunderstanding. There was little more talk between them while the sloop crashed into the long seas of the outer roadstead. After they had put her about and were heading homeward, Dan exclaimed:

"There's the good old Resolute at her dock, and she is getting up steam. She must be 'most ready to go to the Reef. Put me alongside, Bart. I want to look her over. I'll walk home from there."

As Dan sprang up the deck of the tug he was hailed by the chief engineer. Leading the way to his state-room, Mr. McKnight picked Dan up bodily, tossed him on the bunk, locked the door, and spoke as follows:

"Things are a-popping red-hot, my boy. Captain Jim landed from the Reef an hour ago. I told him all I knew about his being suspected of the crooked job, and what does our busy skipper do then? He promptly lays for Jerry Pringle. Does he beat him to death, same as I figured on doing sooner or later? No, Captain Jim, as usual, does what you least expect. He tells Pringle that he needs help on the Kenilworth wreck. Weather looks unsettled; must lighter more cargo out of her quicker than blazes; needs all the schooners he can lay his hands on, and is in a desperate hurry for another tug. Then he up and offers J. Pringle a contract to take all his vessels up to the Kenilworth and go along himself as assistant boss on the wreck. Jerry hems and haws, but Captain Jim looks him square in the eye and tells him to have that Tampa tug of his ready for sea at daylight to-morrow. And Jerry agrees as meek as Moses and goes off to find the skipper of his vessels."

"But why and what for?" exclaimed Dan. "Jerry Pringle working for Captain Jim on the Kenilworth! It's too much for me to fathom."

"For one thing, Captain Jim needs his help to get the steamer off," returned Bill McKnight. "There isn't a smarter wrecker on the coast than this same Pringle. The love of wrecking is in his blood, and it fairly kills him to be idle with a fine, big ship on the Reef. Now that his plot to lose the Kenilworth is spoiled, why shouldn't he win a nice pot of money by helping save her? Then, again, maybe Captain Jim wants to heap coals on his head till he hollers for a fire-extinguisher. There is going to be something doing on the Reef, Dan. Better come along with us. You will be plenty strong enough if you have eaten up all that calf's-foot jelly I lugged up to you."

"Where does Captain Bruce come in?" asked Dan. "Will he be on the Kenilworth, too?"

"He goes up in the Resolute with us, but Jerry Pringle doesn't know it," answered Mr. McKnight with a solemn wink. "Everybody that has played a hand in this game is going to round to on the deck of that unfortunate steamer in a couple of days from now, and I'm a poor guesser if it don't turn out to be a lively reunion before she comes off the Reef."