ill put a crimp into the Vose line and make them stockholders take
notice the next time a fair offer is made."

"It's the thing to do, and I know it. The conditions are just right,
and we've got a green captain to make the goat of. All set! But it's
an awful thing to monkey with--eight hundred people, and no knowing how
they'll take it! It came over me while I stood there and looked at 'em!"

"Sand is sand, and the whole, round earth is braced up under that sand.
She can't sink. She'll simply gouge her way like a plow into a furrow,
and there she'll stick, sitting straight, solid as an island--and it
will be a devil of a while before they'll be able to dig her out. It's
a crimp for the Vose line, I say, governor!" Malevolence glowed in
Burkett's little eyes.

"Of course, the money I'm getting for this job looks good to me,
governor, but my chance to put a wallop into anything that old Vose and
his sons are interested in looks just as good. I wouldn't be in this
just for the money end of it. I'm no pirate, but when they kicked me
out of the pilot-house and posted me up and down this coast, they put
themselves in line to get what's coming to 'em from me."

"But have you considered every side of it?" pleaded Fogg. "You're the
practical man in this proposition. What can happen?"

"If you do exactly what I tell you to do nothing can happen but what's
on our program. Just let me stiffen you up by running the thing over
once more."

He pulled a hand-smutched, folded chart from his breast pocket and
spread it over his knees. With blunt forefinger he indicated the points
to which he made reference in his explanation.

"When he fetches Nobska horn on his port, bearing nor'west by west,
he'll shift his course. After about five miles he's due to shift again,
swinging six points to nor-rard. You'll hear the mate name the bearing
of West Chop steam-whistle. Then you walk right up to the left of the
compass and stand there. You may hear a little tongue-clattering for
a few seconds. There'll be a little cussing, maybe, but you won't be
cussed, of course. You stand right there, calm and cool, never batting
an eyelid. And then it will happen, and when it does happen it will be a
surprise-party all right."

"It's wrecking a seven-thousand-ton passenger-steamer in the night!"
mourned the general manager.

"It isn't! It's putting her into a safe cradle."

"But at this speed!"

"That chap in the pilot-house is no fool. He'll get