with perfect
confidence.

"I don't think she does, sir," replied the first lieutenant. "She can
see the American flag at the peak, and she knows what we are. Doubtless
she is making the mistake of believing that all the Federal ships are
slow coaches."

"Heave the log, Mr. Baskirk," added Christy, and he walked forward.

It was a matter of angles when it was desirable to come down to a close
calculation, and the young commander found his trigonometry very useful,
and fortunately not forgotten. With an apparatus for taking ranges he
had procured the bearing of the highflyer accurately as soon as the last
course was given out, perhaps half an hour before. He took the range
again, and found there was a slight difference, which was, however,
enough to show that the form of the triangle had been disturbed.

Both ships were headed for the same point, and the sides of the triangle
were equal at the first observation. Now the St. Regis's side of the
figure was perceptibly shorter than its opposite. This proved to the
captain that his ship had gained on the other. The two chasers had been
losing on the chase for the last half-hour, and Christy regarded them as
out of the game.

There was some appearance of fog in the south-west, and no land could
be seen in any direction. For another hour the St. Regis drove ahead
furiously on her course, and the highflyer was doing the same. The
two steamers, regardless of the speed of either, were necessarily
approaching each other as long as they followed the two sides of the
triangle. They had come within half a mile the one of the other, when
the commander gave the order to beat to quarters. Ten minutes later the
frame of the ship shook under the discharge of the big Parrot. The shot
went over the chase; but she promptly changed her course to the
southward.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE FIRST PRIZE OF THE ST. REGIS

The shot from the Parrot passed between the funnel and the mainmast of
the chase, as judged by the splash of the ball in the water just beyond
her. It had come near enough to the mark to wake up the captain of the
highflyer. He appeared to believe that the pursuer from the northward
had simply cut him off by approaching on the shorter side of the
triangle, and that all he had to do was to escape to the southward,
evidently satisfied that no steamer in the Federal navy could overhaul
him in a fair and square race.

"Now comes the tug of war," said Mr. Baskirk, when the S