south, having done so as soon as she saw the
four vessels lying in her course.

"Make the course south-west by south, Mr. Baskirk," said the young
commander, after he had brought his trigonometry into use again.

Then it became a very exciting question to ascertain which was the
faster steamer of the two.

CHAPTER XXXI

A VICTORIOUS UNION

The fog was coming and going in the distance, and at times the land
could be just discerned. In spite of the number and vigilance of the
blockading fleet, several hundred blockade-runners had succeeded in
making their way into Cape Fear River, though several hundred also had
been captured, not to mention a very considerable number that had been
run ashore or burned when escape became hopeless.

It was the policy of the Confederacy to send out vessels to prey upon
the commerce of the United States. Some of them began their depredations
without making a port in the South, and a few of the swift steamers that
succeeded in getting into Mobile, Wilmington, and other safe places,
were fitted out for the work of destruction. The fog that prevailed
inshore was favorable to blockade-runners; and if there was a vessel of
this character in Cape Fear River, the early morning had been such as to
tempt her to try to make her way through the blockaders to sea.

"She is not one of the ordinary steamers that run in and out of the
river," said Mr. Baskirk, while he and the commander were still watching
the progress of the chase, and Paul Vapoor was warming up the engine as
he had done before.

"She is larger than the St. Regis, but hardly equal in size to the
Bellevite," added Christy. "She cannot draw more than twelve or fourteen
feet of water, or she could not have come out through those shallow
channels at the mouth of Cape Fear River. She seems to have the speed
to run away from her pursuers; but probably not one of them can make
fifteen knots an hour."

The three pursuers of the blockade-runner had changed their course when
the chase did so; but it was already evident that they had no chance to
overhaul her. They were still three miles astern of her, while the St.
Regis, at sunset, was not more than three. Not a shot had been fired by
any one of the steamers, and it would have been a waste of ammunition to
do so.

"We are gaining on her," said Christy, half an hour later. "That steamer
is making sixteen knots at least."

"If she has found out that we can outsail her, very li