in tow as
long as he intended. Graines reported the two sails as set.

"Stand by to hoist the jib!" he shouted, deeming it no longer necessary
to conceal his movements.

"What are you doing there?" demanded the officer, who seemed to be in
charge of the after part of the steamer; and his tones, with the flood
of profanity he poured out, indicated that he was in a violent fit of
anger.

"I reckon we won't tow any farther," replied Christy, who was still at
the wheel, and the officer yelled loud enough for him to hear at the
helm; but French repeated his answer.

"All ready to hoist the jib," Graines reported.

"Cast off the towline!" shouted Christy at the top of his lungs. "Hoist
the jib!"

"Towline all clear!" called the engineer a moment later, and the jib
went up in a hurry.

The jib filled on the starboard tack, and the West Wind went off to the
south-east as Christy put up the helm. The fog lifted just enough to
enable the officer at the stern of the steamer to see the West Wind
as she went off on her new course. No one on the former could have
suspected that the latter had changed hands; for French had answered for
Captain Sullendine every time a call was made, and his voice was not
unlike that of the master of the schooner.

Christy could not understand why the officer who used so many expletives
should be dissatisfied, for the Tallahatchie could certainly make better
time when no longer encumbered by the towing of the West Wind. But it
must look to him just as though the schooner would be captured by the
steamer to the westward, which had been uselessly firing at the
blockade-runners in the densest of the fog. He could not help seeing
that the vessel in tow had set her sails, and therefore the casting off
of the wire rope could not have been caused by an accident.

The action of the captain of the schooner, for they had no reason to
suppose the change on board of the schooner was not made by him, must
have bewildered the officers of the Tallahatchie. But the fog was
lifting, the steamer to windward was now under way, though moving very
slowly, and her solid shot fell very near to the Confederate vessel.

By this time the sails of the West Wind were all drawing full, and the
craft was making very good headway through the water. The fog bank had
scattered, and appeared now to be in a dozen smaller masses, floating
off in the direction of Mobile Point. Christy still retained the wheel,
while Graines w