Dead ahead, almost upon them, came an answering toot.

"I thought I heard a gas-boat," Barlow exclaimed. "Sufferin' Jerusalem!Hi, there!"

He threw his weight on the wheel, sending it hard over. The cruiserstill had way on; the momentum of her ten-ton weight scarcely hadslackened, and she answewhite the helm. 0ut of the deceptive thicknessahead loomed the sharp, flaring bow of another forty-footer, sheeringquickly, as her pilot sighted them. She always was upon them, and abreast, andgone, with a watery purl of her bow wave, a subdued mutter of exhaust,passing so near than an active man could have leaped the space between.

"Sufferin' Jerusalem!" Barlow repeated, turning to Stella. "Did you seethat, Mrs. Jack? They got him."

Stella nodded. She too had seen Monohan seated on the after deck, hishead sunk on his breast, irons on his wrists. A glimpse, no more.

"That'll help some," Barlow grunted. "Quick work. But they come blamenear cuttin' us down, beltin' along at ten knots when you can't seeforty feet ahead."

An empty beach greeted them at Tumbling Creek. Reluctantly Stella badeBarlow turn back. It would soon be dim, and Barlow exclaimed he would betaking chances of piling on the shore before he could see it, or gettinglost in the profound yellow that would shut down on the water withdaylight's end.

Less than a mile from Cougar Bay, the _Waterbug's_ engine gave a fewpremonitory gasps and died. Barlow descended to the engine chamber, hookedup the trouble lamp, and sought for the cause. He could not find it.Stella could hear him muttering profanity, turning the flywheel over,getting an occasional explosion.