White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1935-04-25

enough to prevent the discovery of
this maneuver from the distance of
the following boat. And at that mo-
ment the fog siren on Monhegan be-
gan to below like COW moose.
CHAPTER VIII
Tom and Robert-and for that mat
ter accurately conyinced that it was
indeed Sebastien there ahead of them,
were in no pressing hurry to overhaul
their quarry They were getting down
toward the end of the promontory
where there is cottage colony, and
there seemed no particular object in
staging their proposed spectacle too
conspicuously. Tom slowed his motor to
a speed that kept the boat ahead bare
ly visible.
Then all at once the siren of Mon
hogan blared, twelve miles seward
Tom clapped his hands together softly.
"Fog coming in" Robert gave cry Of
dismay. Tom swore and threw the en-
CINE into top speed. Although startled
he did not despair. The quarry had
not been more than two hundred yards
ahead when totally extinguished, and it
did not seem possible that such a
1 the track before the rushing launch
closed in upon her.
| But at the end of three of four min
utes Tom felt that he had overshot his
mark He switched off the current and
as the motors purring ceased they
heard the muffled coughing of the
other boat But where away? It sound
ed to port of them, astern, then on the
! ,,l,<1 ou%1,, r.
Robert, dancing up and down, point
ed over the port bow. cover there"
he walled cover there-no-out abeam
-oh-thunder-!"
Tom frantically started the motor,
swinging the boats bow to port. They
rushed madly through the murk, pre-
pairing for collision at any second,
and hoping for it. The boat hit nothing
but brine and that ponderous nothing
ness of humid blindness. There being
no light anywhere, they could not even
see the fog. The phosphorescence of
their wash showed itself only as nom
darkness rather than active illumina-
ton.
| Pattering a steady stream of oratorio
that was yet not sacred of theme, Tom
strove in zigzags through the clammy
oblivion. He felt torn into shreds of
rage and shame. Born and reared in
that region, all his youth spent off and
on at sea, and then to be guilty of
such monumental huke as this!
For several minutes thereafter Tom
charged back and forth like raging
bull gone suddenly blind in the arena,
while Robert held himself all set for
a crash. But no crash occurred. Twice
Tom stopped the motor to listen.
Seguin had started 1nournfully to
back up Monhegan, and now Pema-
guilds brazen voice said that the going
was CLANCY at it's end of the beat.
It struck Tom then that Sebastien
scarcely could have got clean away
without being heard by Robert and
himself during one of their frequent
periods of suspended animation. This
was the sort of game at which the
Miquelon islander would be past mas
ter.
The same idea struck Robert. "I'Il
bet the beggar's lying doggo close
aboard, Tom. We'd have heard him
it stopped. We might drift In against
them
Tom obeyed He was convinced by
seen them and suspected an attempt
to thwart his salvage operations or to
postpone them by some sort of an in
junction.
Somewhere just then, however,
sounded faint noise-an oar rolling
as the dory swung in the long swell
perhaps. Tom located the sound as
precisely ahead and started the motor
But scarcely had the propeller given
it's first kick when the exhaust of the
boat ahead volleyed out not fifty yards
away. 1t was not loud conclusion
scarcely more than a low bubbling, in
fact, but at so close range Tom felt
sure that there was no danger of it's
being drowned again by the noise of
his own motor.
The launch forged ahead. Tom had
not wished previously to betray his
position by the use of an electric torch,
which at the best could not bore far
into the dense concentrated mist. But
he flashed it now and caught the dim
glare of it against the dory Fearing
that it might serve as target, Tom
shut it off again-and at that moment
his motor slowed, gave a strangling
cough or two and stopped.
They heard hooking laugh thrown
into their very faces, it seemed. The
moist sputterings ahead grew fainter,
were dissolved and swallowed in the
fog-filled distance. Tom, roaring i'm
precautions, tugged vainly at the fly
wheel. It stubbornly declined to bulge.
Rushing to the stern, Tom flashed his
light down into the water. He saw the
round cork floats and trailing folds of
a torn old herring net.
Tom raised his head and groaned.
Then, being good sport at heart, he
shut up suddenly, lighted cigarette
and sat down on the motor box. "Well,
I guess that does it, Bob. We're wound
up tighter than a bunny-hug in few
fathoms of fish net. Sebastien spread
it to catch dudfish and he's gone
and done it,