sman. I was, therefore, ready sternly
to reprove Jean Lafitte when, presently, I saw him making the perilous
passage forward, clinging to the rail and wet to the skin before he
could reach the forward deck. But he protested so earnestly and seemed
withal so fit and keen, that I relented and allowed him to take his
place by us at the wheel, showing him as well as I could, on the
chart, the course we were trying to hold--the mouth of a long channel,
six miles or more, dredged by the government across a foot of the bay
and making through to deeper and more sheltered waters beyond.

"S'posin' we don't hit her, in this fog!" asked Jean Lafitte.

"It is our business to do that," was my reply. "In an hour or so more
we shall know. How did you leave the ladies, Jean?"

"Jimmy, he's sicker'n anything," was his reply, "except the old lady,
and she's sicker'n Jimmy! The young lady, Miss Emory, she's all right,
an' she's holdin' their heads. She says she don't get sick. Neither do
I--ain't that funny? But gee, this is rougher'n any waves ever was on
our lake. What're you goin' to do?"

"Hold straight ahead, Jean," I answered. "Now, wouldn't you better go
back to the others?"

"Naw, I ain't scared--much. I told Jimmy, I did, any pirate ought to
be ashamed to get sick. But they're all scared. So'm I, some," he
added frankly.

I might have made some confession of my own, had I liked, for I did
not, in the least, fancy the look of things; but after a time, I
compromised with sturdy Jean by sending him below into the dining
saloon, whence he could look out through the glass front and see the
tumbling sea ahead. Through the glazed housing I could see him
standing, hands in pockets, legs wide, gazing out in the simple
confidence that all was well, and enjoying the tumult and excitement
of it all in his boyish ignorance.

"He don't know!" grinned Peterson to me, and I only nodded in silence.

"Where are we, Peterson?" I asked, putting a finger on the wet chart
before us.

"I don't know," replied the old man. "It depends on the drift, which
we can't calculate. Soundings mean nothing, for she's shallow for
miles. If the fog would break, so we could see the light--there ain't
any fog-buoy on that channel mouth, and it's murder that there ain't.
It's this d----d fog that makes it bad."

I looked at my watch. It was now going on five o'clock, and in this
light, it soon would be night for us. Peterson caught the time, and
frowned. "