ur the graceful _Belle Helene_
chose to show us her light disdainful heels, serenely indifferent
because wholly ignorant of our existence.

But we held to the chase as true pirates, not loitering at any port,
and--since now I, also, had learned something of the intricacies of
our engine, and could take a trick while the others slept--running
twice the hours daily the haughty yacht would deign to log. I knew
that Cal Davidson would stop to shoot and to visit, and knew that he
could, by no human means, be induced to pass any telegraph point where
the daily standing of the baseball clubs could be learned--he counted
that day lost in which he did not learn the scores. As for myself, I
have never been able to understand how any grown man or any one
ungrown can take any interest whatever in the deeds of hired
ball-playing Hessians, who have back of them neither patriotism nor
even a municipal pride. But, for once, I was joyed that the organized
business sense of a few men had put an otherwise able citizen under
tribute, because now, though the _Belle Helene_ must pause at least
daily, the _Sea Rover_ need do no such thing.

Nor did we. We were hot on the trail of the enemy as he flew south
along the Chickasha Bluffs, hot as he left Memphis behind, and taking
the widening waters which now wandered through low forest lands,
reached out for the next city of size, historic Vicksburg on her
seventy hills. And hot and eager, more than ever, were we when,
chugging around the head of that vast arm of the river, where it
curves like a boy of some southern sea, with its heights rising beyond
and afar, we saw what caused me to exclaim aloud, "At last! There she
lies, my hearties!"

I pointed on ahead. To my eyes, who had designed her, every line of
that long, graceful, white hull was familiar. The jaunty rake of her
air-shafts, like stacks of a liner, the sweep of her clean freeboard
up to her shining rail, the ease of her bows, the graceful boldness of
her overhang--all were familiar enough to me. She was my boat, and
once I was wont to enjoy her. And on board her now was the woman who
had taken away from me all desire to keep a yacht in commission, to
keep open a house in town, or an office, or to frequent my clubs, or
to meet my friends. Was she there, this woman; and was she still?--but
I dared not ask that question.

"Full speed ahead, Jean!" I called. "That's the _Belle Helene_! Yonder
lies the enemy!"

And then the inevita