CHAPTER XXVIII.

IN THE HOSPITAL.

As he doubled the nearest corner, like a hare with the hounds close upon it, Jack uttered a wild shout for help. He hoped that somebody might hear it.

But there was no result from his appeal for aid. Were there no policemen in New York?

The street he had blindly doubled into was lined on each side by tall, dark, silent warehouses. The blank walls echoed back the sound of his flying feet and the heavy footfalls of those in pursuit.

Jack realized, with a thrill of dismay, that they were gaining on him. He heard the heavy exhalation and intake of the runners’ breaths.

Suddenly one of his pursuers whipped out a revolver and fired.

The audacity of the deed sent Jack’s heart racing faster than before. A man who would dare to fire a revolver on a New York street, dark and deserted though it was, would hardly stick at any act of violence.

“If I can’t throw them off, it’s all up with me,” thought the boy.

Bang!

Another report echoed back from the shadowy walls on either side. This time the bullet came close, but it was only a random shot, for at the pace they were running nobody could take careful aim.

The effect of the closely singing bullet was to make Jack lose his nerve utterly. Blindly he plunged forward, not hearing the distant screaming of police whistles and the thunder of nightsticks as they were rapped on the pavements.

The sound of the revolver shots had aroused the police at last. From every direction they came running; but Jack, in a perfect frenzy offear, knew nothing of all this. He did see, though, that he was coming into a better lighted quarter. A few stores and residences blossomed with lights, and help lay ahead if he could only make it in time.

Behind him he could hear only one set of footfalls now. Two of his pursuers had dropped out of the chase. The boy put forth a supreme effort, but in the very act he met with disaster. He had been running with his head down, and suddenly, just as he gave a last desperate sprint to gain the lighted quarter, he collided, crashingly, with an iron lamp-post. The boy went down as if he had been struck with a club. Fire blazed before his eyes; his senses swam, and then all became black.

It was just at this moment that a big black auto came whirling through the street. In the tonneau sat a stout, prosperous-looking man who, as he saw the sudden accident, started up and ordered his chauffeur to stop. Master and man got out and went over to the recumbent figure, and, as they did so, a hulking form glided off in the shadowy region toward the waterfront.

“The kid’s broke his head without botherin’ me to do it for him,” the man muttered as he slunk off.

“Now then, Marshall,” said the prosperous-looking man, “give me a hand to pick this boy up. Lucky for him that we were coming this way home from Staten Island or he might have lain here all night.”

They stooped over the lad and picked him up. As they did so, the light of a street lamp fell on the pale face. The owner of the car gave a sudden sharp exclamation:

“Gracious goodness! It’s young Ready! How in the world did he come here?”

“He’s got a precious bad crack on his head, sir, and by the looks of him won’t be able to answer that question for some time to come. My advice, Mr. Jukes, is to take him to the hospital.”

“You are right, Marshall. I’m afraid the poor lad has a bad injury. Help me put him in the tonneau and then make a quick run for the nearest hospital.”

By a strange fate it was Mr. Jukes’ car that had approached Jack as he fell senseless to the street. The shipping magnate was returning home, as he had said, from a dinner party on Staten Island. Finding the streets by the South Ferry torn up, he had ordered his chauffeur to proceed along West Street and then cut through the village to Fifth Avenue. Thus it came about that his employer it was who had picked up poor Jack.

Straight to the Greenwich Hospital drove the chauffeur, and in less than half an hour Jack lay tucked in a private bed, with orders that he was to be given every care; and Mr. Jukes was speeding uptown, wondering greatly how the young wireless operator happened to be in that part of the city at that hour of the night.

The next morning Jack awakened in his bed at the hospital with the impression that a boiler shop had taken up a temporary abode in his head. For a few minutes he thought he was in his bunk on theAjax, then he shifted to theVenusand at last, as he blinkingly regarded the ceiling, memory came rushing back in a full flood.

The dark, deserted streets, the rough, brutal men, the mad run for life, and then a sudden crash and darkness. What had happened? Had they struck him down? Jack put his hand to his throbbing head. It was bandaged. So theyhadstruck him. But he was uninjured otherwise seemingly, so something must have happened to stop the savage fury of the firemen before they had time to wreck their full vengeance on his defenseless body.

He turned his head and saw a young woman smilingly regarding him. She wore a blue dress and a neat white apron and cap.

“A nurse,” thought Jack, and then aloud, “is this the hospital?”

“Yes,” was the reply, “but you must not talk till the doctor has seen you.”

“But what has happened? How did I come here?” persisted Jack.

“If you will promise not to ask any more questions till after the doctor has been here, I will tell you.”

“Very well. I’ll promise.”

“You were brought here in Mr. Jukes’ automobile.”

Jack tried to sit up in bed. What sort of a wild dream was this? His last recollection was of a dark street, revolver shots and a stunning blow, and now, suddenly, Mr. Jukes, his employer, was brought into the matter.

“Mr. Jukes!” he exclaimed. “Why, how——”

“Hush! Remember your promise.”

Jack, perforce, lay back to wait, with what patience he could, the visit of the doctor, after which he hoped he might be allowed to talk. It was all too perplexing. Then, too, he recollected,with a pang of dismay, that theAjaxsailed the next day. What if she sailed without him? He would lose his berth. The lad fairly ground his teeth.

“Just one question, ma’am,” he begged; “when can I get out of here?”

“Not for two or three days, at any rate,” was the reply.

Poor Jack groaned aloud and buried his face in his hands.

CHAPTER XXIX.

JACK HAS VISITORS.

The doctor had come and gone, confirming the verdict that Jack had dreaded to hear. In the meantime, by the kind offices of the hospital authorities, a message had been despatched to his uncle informing him of the lad’s plight.

The nurse had told the boy all she knew of the matter and added an admiring eulogy on Mr. Jukes, who, she said, had promised to call that day and had ordered that no expense was to be spared in caring for Jack in the meantime.

But all this fell on ears that were deaf. The one bitter fact that the boy’s brain drummed over and over to the exclusion of all else was that his ship would sail without him and his accident might cost him his berth.

“Isn’t there any way I can be patched up so as to get out to-morrow?” he begged.

The nurse shook her head.

“The doctor wouldn’t hear of it. You must lie here two days, at least.”

“You might as well make it a year,” moaned Jack.

After a while he dozed off, but was awakened by the nurse, who, in tones of suppressed excitement, informed him that Mr. Jukes had arrived to see him. Jack, who had been expecting his uncle, felt disappointed, but still, he reasoned, Mr. Jukes might be able to throw some light on the dark hours through which Jack had passed.

With Mr. Jukes, when he entered, was a tall, delicate-looking lad of about Jack’s age. He shrank rather shyly behind his father as he gazed at the sunbrowned, bandaged lad on the bed.

“Well, my lad, how do you feel this morning?” asked Mr. Jukes in his brisk, close-lipped way as he took the chair offered him by the nurse.

“Much better, sir, thank you,” rejoined Jack. “I—I want to rejoin the ship, sir.”

“Impossible. They tell me you cannot get out for two days, at least,” was the decisive reply. “But I must say you are a hard lad to kill. When you struck that lamp-post——”

“That lamp-post!” exclaimed Jack.

“Yes, down in Greenwich Village. You were running along like one possessed. All of a sudden I saw you strike the post like a runaway locomotive, and then down you came. Now, my boy, it’s up to you to explain what you were doing in that part of town at that time of night.”

Mr. Jukes compressed his lips and looked rather severe, but as Jack launched into his story, the magnate’s brow grew black.

“The rascals! The infernal rascals! I’ll offer a big reward this very day for their apprehension.”

“I’m afraid there’s not much chance of getting them, sir,” said Jack. “But it was fortunate indeed for me that you arrived on the scene, although I cannot understand how it happened.”

This was soon explained, and then Mr. Jukes, turning to the frail-looking youth, said:

“This is my son, Tom. Tom, this, as you know, is the lad who saved your sister from drowning.”

“How d’ye do!” said Jack, gripping the other’s slim white fingers in a grasp that made the lad wince, for, sick as he was, Jack’s grip had lost none of its strength.

“Tom’s not very strong, but he’s crazy about wireless and the sea. Now I’ve got to be off. Big meeting downtown. Tom, I’ll be back and get you for lunch. In the meantime, stay here and get young Ready to tell you all he knows about wireless.”

“That won’t take very long,” laughed Jack, which remark brought from Mr. Jukes a repetition of the observation that it would be “hard to kill” the young wireless man.

Mr. Jukes rushed out of the room as if there was not an instant to be lost.

“That’s his way,” laughed Tom Jukes, as his father vanished, “always in a rush. But he’s got the best heart in the world. Tell me all about your trouble with those firemen and your life on theAjax. I wish dad would let me follow the sea. I’d soon get strong again.”

Jack, in the interest of having someone to talk to, forgot about his damaged head. He gave a lively, sketchy account of life on the big tanker, not forgetting the surgical operation performed by wireless, and wound up with the story of the night raid on the tobacco smugglers and his encounter of the night before with the revengeful firemen.

When he finished, Tom Jukes sighed.

“Gracious! That’s interesting, though! I wish I had adventures like that. But they are doing their best to make a regular molly-coddle out of me. The yacht and Bar Harbor in the summer, Florida in the winter and a private tutor and a man-servant! It makes me sick!”

The lad shot out these last words with surprising vehemence. “I know a lot of fellows who’d change with you,” said Jack.

“You do! They must be sap-heads,” said the rich man’s son; and then suddenly, “How would you like to try the life for a time?”

“Me? Oh, I’ve never thought about it,” said Jack.

“Because if you would—but I forgot. I’m not to say anything about that. That’s dad’s plan, and he’ll have to talk to you about it.”

CHAPTER XXX.

THE REJECTED OFFER.

Jack was much mystified, but Tom adroitly dodged further questioning by turning the subject. He told the young wireless man of his trips to Florida and California in search of health, and all about his father’s fine yacht, theHalcyon, on which he had made many trips.

“But it’s all rot,” he concluded. “If they’d let me live the life any ordinary kid does, I’ll bet I’d be as sound—as sound as you are before very long.”

About noon Mr. Jukes came back. He burst into the room with his customary bustle and hurry, and it was plain that he had something on his mind to deliver in his usual blunt way.

Without any preliminaries he broke out:

“Ready, I’ve decided that you will make an excellent companion for Tom. He needs the companionship of an active, cheery lad of his own age.

“I like you and I know he will. It’s a great chance for you. Stay here till you feel all right, and then I’ll send you and Tom on a cruise to Florida on the yacht. Life at sea is a dog’s life at the best. I’ll pick out a different career for you and give you a desk in my office when Tom is on his feet again. Come now, what do you say?”

While the magnate had been volleying out these rapid-fire orders,—for that is what they amounted to,—Jack’s tired brain had been performing an eccentric whirl. At first he had hardly understood, but now the full meaning of it burst upon him.

Mr. Jukes wanted him to leave the sea, to drop his beloved wireless work and take a desk in his office! He was also to act, it seemed, as a sort of companion for Tom. It was a life of ease and offered a future which few boys would have had the courage to decline.

Jack knew that every round of the ladder he had elected to climb could only be won by stern fighting and keeping the faith like a man. On the other hand, if he chose to give in to Mr. Jukes’ wishes or commands, he was on the road to a life of ease and luxury and one that was as far from the hardships and adventures of the sea as could be imagined.

Mr. Jukes eyed the boy as he hesitated with rising impatience. He was not at all used to having his wishes disobeyed. Men jumped to carry out his commands; and yet it appeared that this stubborn young sailor lad of the ocean wireless wavered.

“What are you hesitating about, Ready?” he asked impatiently.

“I’m not hesitating, sir,” was the astonishing reply, “I’m trying to find the best way to tell you that I can’t accept your offer.”

Mr. Jukes was as astonished as on the night when Jack had refused his check. He flushed red and his cheeks swelled.

“Don’t talk like an idiot, lad,” he exclaimed, choking down his wrathful amazement. “Of course you can do as I wish. It will be the making of Tom and of you.”

“I’d like to do it if I could, Mr. Jukes,” said Jack, wondering why he seemed to be doomed always to run afoul of this man who appeared bent on doing him a kindness. “It’s a great offer. Please don’t think I do not appreciate it.”

“Then why in the name of heaven don’t you accept it?” thundered Mr. Jukes with rising wrath.

“Because I cannot, sir,” rejoined Jack bravely; while he thought to himself, “This means I’ll have to look for another job.”

“Cannot! Why, of all the crass idiocy! What ails you, boy! Cannot, indeed! Why?”

“Because I have chosen my own way of life, sir, and I must follow it out,” replied Jack, as firmly as he could in spite of the bitter feeling that filled him that he was killing his own chances with the Titan Line.

Tom Jukes tried to interpose, but his father angrily choked him off.

“Not a word!” he exclaimed. And then, to Jack, with an air of finality:

“I’ve no more time to dally words with an ungrateful boy. Is it yes or no?”

“It must beno, sir,” said Jack, setting his teeth, “but, if you would let me explain, I——”

“Say no more! say no more!” exclaimed Mr. Jukes, jamming on his hat. “Come, Tom. As for you, Ready, I wash my hands of you. I’ve no desire to interfere with your prospects on the line. You retain your job, but expect no favors from me. You must work out your own salvation.”

“That is just what I want to do, sir,” was Jack’s quiet rejoinder, as Mr. Jukes bounced out of the room, dragging Tom, who looked wistfully back.

“The boy is mad! Stark, staring mad, by Jove!” exclaimed the angry magnate as he stamped his way out of the hospital.

“I suppose anyone would think me a fool for what I’ve done,” thought Jack, as he lay back on the pillows after the frantic Mr. Jukes’ departure, “but I couldn’t help it. I’m not going to be a rich man’s pawn if I know it. What was it he said? Work out my own salvation? Well, I’ll do it, and maybe I’ll astonish some folks before long. Too bad, though I’m not such a chump as not to know what powerful friends and influence can do in the world, and now, through no fault of my own, I’ve had to chuck away both. But if grit and determination will help any, I’ll get up the ladder yet.”

Not long after that Uncle Toby arrived with cheering news. TheAjaxwas docked in the Erie Basin and would not sail for three days more, owing to a defective boiler which would have to be repaired.

“So I can join her, after all,” thought Jack, cheered vastly by the news. “Well, that’s a streak of fat to put alongside the lean!”

CHAPTER XXXI.

A WHISPER OF DANGER.

Jack made his second eastward trip on theAjaxunder smiling skies and seas almost as smooth as glass. Nothing out of the routine happened, and in due course theAjax, once more in ballast, cleared from Antwerp for the home run. Jack had heard nothing more from Mr. Jukes and deemed that the magnate had utterly cast him off.

Before he left the hospital, he had had visits from Captain Dennis and his daughter and from Tom Jukes, who came secretly and brought the information that, although his father was furious with the young wireless man for rejecting what he deemed a magnificent offer, he would yet pay Jack’s hospital bill.

“He’ll do nothing of the sort,” Jack had flared up, and when he left the institution, it was the lad himself who footed the bill.

It ate quite a hole in the check that was his reward for his share in the detection of the tobacco smugglers, but it would have choked him to think of accepting Mr. Jukes’ charity after the scene at his bedside the morning after he had received his injury.

But the disfavor with which he was regarded by Mr. Jukes was the only cloud on Jack’s horizon. Since that night in New York, Captain Braceworth’s manner toward the young wireless boy had changed. He was still austere and silent, but now and then, as he swung past the wireless room on his way forward or to his cabin, he would exchange a word or two with the lad. Perhaps he never guessed how much this encouraged the boy who, on his first voyage, had set down the skipper of theAjaxas a cruel, harsh despot.

Knot after knot the steadily revolving engines of theAjaxbrought her closer to home. The weather continued fine until one day, when Jack was half wishing something would happen, the curtain began to draw up on what was to prove a drama of the deep, destined to test every man on board the big tanker.

A fog, dense, swirling and moist as a wet sponge, shut down all about theAjaxthat morning soon after breakfast. The captain donned his oil-skins and took up his position on the bridge, to stay there, as was his custom, till the fog should lift and everything be secure again.

The chief engineer was sent for and instructed to keep his force in the grimy regions below, keyed up for instant obedience to orders from the bridge, for theAjaxwas on the Atlantic lane, a well-traveled, crowded ocean track.

Like a blind man, the big tanker felt her way along, now starting forward and now almost stopping with an air of fright, as some fancied obstruction loomed in her path.

Through the weary day and the long night that followed, theAjaxgroped her way through the fog blanket that hung like a dense mist-shroud over the sullenly heaving sea. It was a marine game of touch and go, with possibly death and disaster for the stakes.

The engine-room telegraph spun in a weary succession of “Come ahead”—“Slow”—“Ahead”—“Slow”—“Stop her”—and “Come ahead, slow” again.

When daylight came, it shone on the fog walls that bound theAjaxprisoner. The wan light showed Jack the figures of the captain and his first officer on the bridge. He knew that through the long night they had kept their weary vigil. But so dense was the fog that it was not always possible to see the bridge from the after superstructure.

Only when light and vagrant breezes sent the fog-wreaths fluttering and writhing, like ghosts, could a blurred view of the forward part of the ship be obtained.

Jack, too, had been on duty all night and he felt dull and wretched. Through the fog had come calls from other ships, and vague whisperings and chatterings, all fraught with fear and caution.

So far as those on theAjaxknew, there was no ship closer to them than thePlutoniaof the Smithson Lines. Jack had been busy through the night, running back and forth with messages. Now, as he came to the door of his cabin for a breath of the fog-laden air, he was musing to himself on the anxious look on the captain’s furrowed face.

It was not the fog. Jack had seen the captain guide his ship through even denser smothers than the present one. He had always been his calm, collected, even cold, self.

But now the very air appeared to be vibrant with some vague apprehension which the boy could not name or even guess at. But it was something that lay outside the fog. Some overshadowing peril of more than ordinary imminence.

As the steamer crawled forward, the mournful hooting of her siren sounding like the very spirit of the mist, Jack revolved all these things in his mind. He felt vaguely troubled.

It was no small thing that could worry the stalwart skipper of theAjax, as he palpably was worried. Fog was dangerous, yes, but what with the wireless and the extraordinary caution observed, the peril was reduced to a minimum.

The watches forward had been doubled and in the crow’s nest two men had been stationed. But that was customary in a fog. Suddenly, as Jack stood there, his wireless alarm,—he had perfected the device and had made application for a patent on the same,—began to clamor loudly.

Jack hurried to his post. It was theWesterland, a hundred and fifty miles east and considerably to the south, calling.

“Dense fog clearing here,” so the message ran, “but many large icebergs in vicinity. If in fog, use great caution. Please repeat warning.

“Krause, Master.”

Jack’s heart gave a bound.

“Icebergs!”

So it was fear of the white terrors of the north that kept the captain chained to the bridge with that anxious look on his weather-beaten face.

CHAPTER XXXII.

ICEBERGS!

When he reached the bridge with this all-important despatch, Jack found the captain in consultation with his officers. Tests of the temperature of the water were being made, and the skipper was listening attentively to the roaring of the siren.

If there was ice in the vicinity, the echo of the great whistle would be flung back and serve as a warning.

“Well, boy?” the captain turned impatiently on Jack.

“A message, sir. I think it’s important,” said the boy deferentially.

The captain glanced through it and whistled.

“Important! I should think it is. Just what I thought. Confound this ocean!”

He hastened over to his officers and showed them the despatch. A lively consultation followed, which Jack wished he could have overheard. He would have liked to know what further steps could be taken to avert the dangers amid which they were crawling forward.

As a matter of fact, all that could be done had been done. Humanly speaking, theAjaxwas as safe as she could be rendered in the midst of the invisible dangers that, like white specters, might be swarming about her even now.

Jack was ordered back to the wireless room and told to stand by for any further information. The captain evidently placed great reliance on getting further word of the location of the ice-fields and bergs.

But, although Jack worked ceaselessly, sending out his crackling, sparkling calls, no reply came back out of the blinding fog. Clearly the ship that had sent the wireless that was so all-important had passed out of his zone, or else the “atmospherics” were arrayed against communication.

It was a thrilling and not altogether a comfortable thought to consider that at any moment there might loom above them, out of the choking mist, a mountainous white form that might well spell annihilation for the sturdy tanker.

Raynor, whose hand was now quite well, poked his head in at the door. He was grimy and soot-covered but cheerful, and was going off watch.

“Hello, Jack,” he cried, “what do you think of this? Burning soft coal in heaven, I guess! Isn’t it a smother, for fair?”

“It sure is,” rejoined Jack, “but the fog isn’t the worst of it.”

Raynor looked surprised.

“What are you driving at? They’ve had us on double watches since it started, stopping and starting up the engines till they must think they’re being run by a gang of crazy engineers.”

“It’s icebergs, old fellow,” said Jack in an awed tone.

“Icebergs! At this time of year, that’s unusual,” said Raynor.

“I don’t know about that, but I got a message from theWesterlandtelling about them.”

“The dickens, you say! No wonder the old man is worried out of his socks. Say, Jack,” went on the young engineer.

“Well?”

“What a fine chance we’d stand down below there, if we ever hit anything, eh?”

And young Raynor, whistling cheerily, passed on to his room to wash up and change.

Jack gave a shudder. “If they hit anything.” Well did he know what a small chance the men in the grimy, sooty regions of the fire-room and engine-space would stand in such a contingency. It would be their duty to keep up the fires till the rising water put them out, and then—every man for himself!

Woo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo! boomed the siren.

“Ugh! You sound as cheerful as a funeral,” shuddered Jack; and, to divert his mind into a more cheerful channel, he fell to running the wireless scale, in the hope that he might find himself in tune with some other ship with fresh news of the white monsters of the northern polar cap.

But the white silences were broken by no winged messages; and so the afternoon waned to twilight, and night descended once more about the fog-bound ship.

The strain of it all began to tell on the young wireless man. He made hourly reports to the shrouded figures on the bridge that looked like exaggerated ghosts in the smother of fog. The lights on the ship shone through the obscurity like big, dim eyes, and the constant booming and shrieking of the siren grew nerve-racking.

Vigilance was the order of the night. Bridge, deck and engine-room were all alike keyed up to the highest pitch of watchfulness. At any moment a message of terror might come clanging from the bridge to the engineers’ region.

The suspense made Jack, strong-nerved as he was, feel like crying out. If only something would happen, he felt that he would not care so much, but this silent creeping through the ghostly fog was telling on him.

Half dozing at times, Jack sat nodding at his key. All at once, without the slightest warning what all hands had been waiting for with keyed-up nerves happened.

From somewhere dead ahead the shriek of the siren was hurled back through the fog in a volley of echoes.

It was Captain Braceworth himself who jumped to the engine-room telegraph and signaled:

“Full speed astern!”

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE COLLISION.

At the same instant a voice boomed out from the fore-peak:

“Something dead ahead, sir!”

And then the next moment a heart-chilling hail from the crow’s nest:

“Ice ahead! A big berg right under our bow!”

Jack leaped from his instruments, a nameless dread clutching at his heart. There had been no impact as yet, but he did not know at what instant there might come a crashing blow that would tear the stout steel plates of the tanker open as if they had been so much cardboard.

For a moment wild panic had him in its cold grasp. Then, heartily ashamed of the cold sweat that had broken out on him and the wild impulse he had had to cry out, he clenched his hands and regained control of himself.

The whole fabric of the ship quivered as the mighty engines flew round in the opposite direction to that in which they had been rotating. At the instant Captain Braceworth’s order had been given it had been obeyed.

For a breath there was killing suspense; and then suddenly there came the shock of an impact. It was not a violent one, but just a grating, jarring shock.

“Great Scott! We’ve struck!” exclaimed Jack, as the next instant there came a second and more violent contact.

He was thrown bodily from his feet. Forward there came a babel of cries.

The ship listed heavily to port and then slowly, like a wounded creature, she righted. Then came a sound of thunder as the masses of ice, dislodged from the berg by the collision, toppled and slid from her fore-decks.

Jack knew that what the skipper had dreaded had come to pass. In spite of ceaseless, sleepless vigilance and the exercise of every caution a man could use, theAjaxhad rammed an iceberg.

Above the yells and shouts of the seamen came the captain’s calm, authoritative voice.

His orders rang out like pistol shots. Accustomed to obey, the seamen stopped their panic and fell to their work. The mates were down among them, silencing the more obstreperous in no very gentle manner.

A squad of men came running aft to the boats. For an instant Jack thought that, in their panic, they were about to lower away and make off. But he speedily saw, to his immense relief, that they were in charge of cool-headed little Mr. Brown; they had been sent aft merely to stand by the boats and tackle in case it became necessary to abandon the ship.

Jack jumped to his key. If the ship was sinking, he would show them that he could live up to best wireless traditions.

Out into the black, fog-bound night went thundering and volleying the stricken ship’s appeal for aid. But the boy did not send out the S.O.S.; that could only be done by the captain’s orders. His intent was to inform any ship within his zone of their plight, so that they might stand by to render assistance if it should be necessary.

But no answer came to the wireless appeal that the boy flung broadcast through space. Time and again he tried to summon help, but none answered his call.

The captain himself came aft, leaving things forward to the first officer. The second officer and the carpenters were sounding the ship to discover if her wound were mortal or if she could make port somehow.

Somewhere off in the fog Jack could hear the swells breaking as if on a rocky coast. He knew they were beating against the iceberg that the ship had crashed against!

Jack looked up as the captain entered the wireless room. Never had he admired the man as he did in that instant. Pale, but stern and resolute, Captain Braceworth looked the man of the minute, a fit person to cope with the dire emergency that had befallen them.

“Any ships in our zone, Ready?” he asked calmly.

“No, sir, I’ve been trying to raise some and——”

“Very well. Keep on. If you get into communication, report to me at once.”

“Yes, sir. Are—are we badly hurt, sir?”

“It is impossible to say. We are trying to find out now. I need not tell you it is your duty to stay at that key till the last boat leaves the ship.”

“You need not tell me that, sir,” said Jack, flushing proudly. “I’d go down with her if it would do any good.”

The captain looked oddly at the boy a moment and then slapped him hard upon the back.

“You’ve the right stuff in you, Ready,” he said and hurried off again.

The ship was still slowly backing. Presently Jack heard the mate’s big voice booming out from forward.

“She’s flooded to the bow bulkhead, sir, but so far as I can see, there’s no immediate danger. When daylight comes, we may be able to patch her up.”

This was hopeful news, and a cheer arose from the men as they heard it. But mingled with the cheer came another sound—a muffled roar like that of wild animals or of an enraged mob.

What it meant flashed across Jack in a jiffy.

The firemen, The Black Squad, as they were called! They had mutinied against being penned in the fire-room on a sinking ship and were rushing to the deck.

Without knowing just what he was doing, the boy took his revolver out of the drawer where he kept it and rushed outside. The first thing he saw under the glow of the lights was the figure of Raynor.

The young engineer’s head was bleeding from a cut and in his hand he had a big spanner. Pressing upward behind him as he backed out of the fire-room companionway were the Black Squad, wild with panic. In their hands they carried slice-bars, shovels, any weapon that came handy.

“Stand back, I tell you,” commanded Raynor, as Jack approached him.

“Stand back nothing,” bellowed a giant of a stoker. “Think we’re going to the bottom on this rotten hooker? Stand back, yourself. Come on, boys! The boats! We’ll get away while there’s time.”

“You’ll stay plumb where you are or be drilled as full of holes as porous plasters!”

It was little Mr. Brown who spoke. Almost before he knew it, Jack was at the doughty little officer’s side and stood with Raynor and Mr. Brown facing that howling mob from the black regions below.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

QUELLING THE MUTINY.

“So youwillhave it, eh?”

The leader of the Black Squad, a huge hulk of a fellow, stripped to the waist and smeared hideously with coal-dust, sprang forward. Above his head he brandished a heavy slice-bar.

He came straight for Jack and was raising his formidable weapon to strike the boy down when something happened.

Crack!

There was the report of a pistol and the fellow fell headlong. But it was not Jack’s pistol that had exploded. The boy could not have brought himself even in that moment to fire on a fellow being.

It was Mr. Brown’s weapon that had spoken.

He came straight for Jack ... when something happened.—Page 258

“Any one else want the same medicine?” demanded the fearless little man, indicating the form of the wounded fireman.

The men murmured sullenly. Their leader was gone, and without him they wavered and hesitated. The captain came running aft.

“What in the mischief is going on here?” he shouted.

“Fire-room crew. Mutiny, sir!” said Raynor. “We held ’em as long as we could, but the scoundrels overpowered us. The first is lying below wounded, sir. That fellow Mr. Brown shot felled him with a slice-bar.”

The captain’s brow grew black as night.

“Back to your posts, you mutinous dogs!” he roared. “Back, I tell you, or some of you will feel cold lead!”

He advanced toward them, driving them before him by sheer force of character as if they had been a flock of sheep.

“You cowards!” he went on. “There is no danger, but at the first shock of a small collision you leave your posts like the curs you are! Down to the fire-room with you!”

Completely demoralized, the men shuffled below again. Certain men were told off to attend to the wounded chief engineer, whose injuries were found to be slight. As for the man Mr. Brown had shot, he turned out not to have been injured at all. The chicken-hearted giant of a fellow had simply dropped at the report of the pistol and lain there till the trouble blew over. He was placed in irons and confined in the forecastle to await trial in port on charges of mutiny.

And thus, by prompt action, the mutiny was quelled almost in its inception. The thoroughly cowed firemen took up their work and nothing more was heard of refusal to do duty. It had been a good object lesson to Jack who, in ranging himself by the side of Mr. Brown and the young engineer, had acted more on instinct than anything else.

Secretly he was glad it had ended as it had, without bloodshed, for, as he knew, discipline on a ship must be upheld at any cost. He realized that neither the captain nor Mr. Brown would have hesitated for an instant to hold the men back with firearms, had they persisted in their bull-headed rush.

“Well, we are all right for the time being,” said the captain to Mr. Brown. “No need to keep these men by the boats.”

“Then we are not hurt as badly as you thought, sir?”

“No, the report is that the bow bulkhead is holding, although our forward plates are stove in. Thank goodness, we didn’t hit harder!”

“Yes, indeed, sir.”

“When daylight comes we’ll start to patch up. I hope this witches’ broth of a fog will have held up by then.”

“I’m glad that it was no worse, sir.”

“And so, indeed, am I, although, if it comes on to blow, there may yet be a different yarn to spin.”

The captain and the officer went forward, and Jack was left alone.

He took the opportunity to snatch a nap, adjusting the “wireless alarm” so that any ship that came within the zone would awaken him instantly.

Twice during the long night he tried to raise some other craft, but each time failed.

“I guess they’ve called in all the ships on the ocean,” said the boy to himself as, after the second attempt, he desisted from his efforts for the time being.

When daylight came, the big tanker presented a forlorn picture. Of the berg that had almost sent her to the bottom, there was no sign, although the fog had lifted quite a little.

The stout steel bow was twisted and crumpled like a bit of tin-foil. There was a yawning cavity in it, too, through which the water washed andgurgled with an ominous sound. When Jack came on deck, huge canvas screens were being rigged over it to keep out the water as much as possible. The steamer was proceeding slowly ahead through the fog wreaths, but, compared with her usual speed, she appeared hardly to have momentum.

Besides the protection of the crumpled bow by the canvas screens, another portion of the crew was sent below to strengthen the bulkhead from within by heavy timbers. There was a space between the front end of the tanks and the bulkhead, and in this they labored, bracing the steel partition as firmly as possible.

But Jack, when he made his report, heard Mr. Brown, who had the watch, remarking cheerfully to the second officer that the barometer had risen and that the prospects were for good weather.

“Well, we deserve a little luck,” was the response.

About noon the captain reappeared on the bridge. He was as much refreshed by his brief rest as most men would have been by a night’s sleep.

He had not been there ten minutes, when Jack, his face full of excitement, came hurrying up with a message.

“Important, sir!” he said.

The captain glanced the message over and then burst into an angry exclamation.

“They are asking for assistance, you say?”

“Yes, sir. But all I could catch is on that message there.”

“Great guns! Mr. Brown, sir, disasters always appear to come in bunches.”

“What’s the matter, sir?” asked the sympathetic officer.

“Why, young Ready, here, has just caught a message from the air. A ship is in distress somewhere.”

“Any details, sir?”

The captain shook his head.

“None. This is all the wireless caught. ‘S.O.E.,’ and then a few seconds later, ‘No hope of controlling it.’”

“Sounds like fire to me, sir,” said Mr. Brown.

“So it does to me. Hustle to your key, Ready, and get what more you can. If we can help them, we will, though Lord knows we’re in bad enough shape ourselves!”

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