s turned up missing
the next morning. Lang himself is missing, too."

"Who is Lang?"

"Your father's fishing captain. He recently bought him a number of new
boats. They might have gone to try one of them out."

"Nothing has been heard of them since?"

"Not yet. You see it has been very foggy lately all along the coast.
That has handicapped our search."

"Where can I get a boat?"

Blair shook his head. Then he came closer and put his hand on Kenneth
Gregory's arm.

"All of the Lang boats are out now, Captain. Everything is being done, I
can assure you. It would be no use."

"Are there no other boats here than Lang's?"

"Only the alien fleet."

The man in uniform whirled about decisively.

"Then I'll get one of them. Will you show me where they are?"

"It would be no use. They wouldn't go. You see----"

"Let's try."

With some reluctance Blair consented.

"We haven't been getting along any too well with Mascola's outfit
lately," he explained as they walked along. "I'll stop at Lang's wharf
first. Maybe some of the boats are back."

Turning on to a small wharf they walked in silence over the loose boards
down the lane of ill-smelling fish-boxes. At the end of the dock a
narrow gangway led downward to a small float which rocked lazily in the
capping swells thrown up by a passing fishing-boat. Close by, another
wharf jutted out into the bay. Upon it were a number of swarthy
fishermen, piling nets. Blair stopped abruptly at the head of the
gangway, his eyes searching the water. The fishing-boat was swinging up
into the tide and edging closer.

"Is that one of the Lang boats?" he heard Gregory ask.

A paroxysm of coughing prevented Blair's immediate reply. The young
officer looked eagerly at the approaching craft, upon the bow of which a
dark-skinned man leaned carelessly against the wire-stays. He noticed
that the man was tall and straight. Upon his head a gaudy red cap rested
with a rakish air. His eyes were upon the Lang dock as he stood with
folded arms and waited for the boat to nose up to the near-by wharf.

Gregory admitted to himself that there was something masterful about the
red-capped stranger, at the same time, repellent. The crowd of aliens
moreover, he noticed, fell away respectfully. The newcomer was evidently
a personage in the community.

Gregory, watching him as he stepped from the launch, instinctively
disliked him.

"That's Mascola."

Blair bit the words savagely.

Gregory s