"If I can't do better I'll take that devil, whoever he is, by the heels, and bat out the brains of the other pirates."

"I reckon that they'll back down when they, see that you've caught him foul," stated the skipper, consolingly. "I've got a lot of confidence in your grit, sir. But I must say it's a terrible tricky gang we're up against, so it seems to me."

"This may be just the right string for us to pull," returned Mayo; "there's no pleading with them, but we may be able to scare 'em."

"I'm afraid I'm too much inclined to look on the dark side," confessed Captain Candage. "You're going to find 'em all agin' ye ash.o.r.e, sir.

But the last words my Polly tells me to say to you was to keep up your courage and not to mind my growling. She thinks We have got a sure thing here--and that shows how little a girl knows about men's work!"

And yet, that one little message of good cheer from the main so comforted Mayo that he went on his way with the whimsical thought that girls who knew just the right time to give a pat and bestow a smile did understand man's work mighty well.

XXVIII - GIRL'S HELP AND MAN'S WORK

We know the tricks of wind and tide That make and mean disaster, And balk 'em, too, the Wren and me, Off on the Old Man's Pastur'.

Day out and in the blackfish there Go wabbling out and under, And nights we watch the coasters creep From light to light in yonder.

--The Skipper.

It was the period of January calms--that lull between the tempest ravings of the equinoxes, and the _Ethel and May_ made slow time of it on her return to the main. In Mayo's mood of anxious impatience, hope in his affairs was as baffling as the winds in the little schooner's sails.

His pa.s.senger sat on the rail and gave the pacing captain occasional glances in which irony and sullenness were mingled.

"So you're going to put me into court, eh?" he inquired, when at last they drifted past the end of the breakwater at Limeport. "Well, that will give you a good excuse for throwing up your work on that wreck."

Mayo kept on walking and did not reply. He had been pondering on the question of what to do with this new "elephant" on his hands. In a way, this stranger was an unwieldy proposition to handle in conjunction with the problem of the _Conomo_.

"Just understand that I don't give a hoot in a scuttleb.u.t.t if you do turn me over to the police," pursued the man. "I'm going to be taken care of. So will you! You'll be tied up! Courts like to have chief witnesses attend strictly to the job."

The young man had only a sailor's vague knowledge of the procedure of courts of law; but that knowledge and considerable hearsay had convinced him that law was lagging, exacting, and overbearing.

All his time, his best efforts, his presence were needed in the gigantic task he had undertaken at Razee. To allow himself to be mired in a law sc.r.a.pe together with this person, even in criminal prosecution of the man, surely meant delay, along with repeated interruption of his work, if not its abandonment for a time.

"Where's your boss?" he demanded, stopping in front of the prisoner.

"Name, please?"

"Don't try to bluff me. Fogg, I mean!"

"You'll probably find Mr. Fogg at the Nicholas Hotel."

"I'm going to walk you up there. If you try to run away--"

"Run your Aunt Huldah! Piff, son! Now you're showing sense. Take me to Mr. Fogg. You'll be shown a few things."

They had no difficulty in finding Mr. Fogg. He was in front of the fire in the office of the Nicholas, toasting his back and warming his slowly fanning palms, and talking to a group of men.

He affected non-recognition of Mayo when the young man asked, brusquely, if he might see him in private.

"Certainly, sir. And your friend?"

"Yes."

The stranger, following up the stairs with Mayo, nudged his companion.

"He's a wonder! 'And your friend?'" he quoted with a chuckle. "No coa.r.s.e work about that!"

Mayo had firmly decided in his mind that his present business was the only matter he would discuss with Fletcher Fogg. Even though the just wrath of an innocent man, ruined and persecuted, prompted him to a.s.sail this smug trickster with tongue, and even with fists, he bound himself by mental promise to wait until he had proofs other than vague words and his own convictions.

"And now--" invited Fogg, when he had closed the door of his room, waiting tmtil his callers had entered.

"Yes, _now!_" blurted Captain Mayo. "Not _then_, Mr. Fogg! We'll have that settled later, when I make you pay for what you did to me. This man here, you know him, of course! He tried to dynamite the _Conomo_.

I caught him in the act. He is your man. He has made his boasts that he would be protected."

Mr. Fogg turned a cold stare upon the man's appreciative grin.

"I never saw this person before, sir."

"I know better!" Mayo leaped to a conclusion, and bluffed. "I can prove by men here in this city that you have been talking with him."

"He may have been one of the persons who came to me asking for work on the wreck, providing my concern decided to salvage. But we concluded not to undertake the work, and I paid no attention to him. As far as any memory of mine is concerned, I never saw him before, I say."

"You don't represent any salvage company," insisted Mayo. "You have come here to interfere with anybody who tries to salvage that steamer."

"What is your business with me, sir? Get somewhere!"

"I have come to show you this man. If you'll keep your hands off my affairs, shut your mouth, and stop telling men here that the plan to salvage is hopeless, I'll turn this man over to you. You know what I ought to do to you right here and now, Fogg," he cried, savagely. "But I'm not going to bother--not now. I'm here to trade with you on this one matter."

"I'm not interested."

"Then I shall take this man to the police station and lodge my complaint. When criminal prosecution starts you'll see what happens to you."

"Go as far as you like," consented Mr. Fogg, listlessly. "You can't make me responsible for the acts of a person I don't know from Adam."

"Is that your last word?"

"Of course it is!" snapped the promoter. "You must be a lunatic to think anything else."

"Very well. May I use your telephone to call the police?"

"Certainly." Mr. Fogg lighted a cigar and picked up a newspaper.

"Just a moment before you use that 'phone," objected the third member of the party. "I want an understanding. You please step out of the room, Mayo."

"Stay where you are," commanded Fogg. "I'll give no chance for any underhand work." He scowled when the prisoner winked at him. "This looks to me like a put-up job between you two."

"There's nothing put up between us," declared the man. "There'd better be something put up between _you_ two. The thing can go about so far, where I'm concerned, and no farther. I want an understanding, I say!"