pon El Diablo. Bandrist and Rock
were in cahoots. Both were interested in keeping him away from Diablo.
Something was wrong on the island. It was Mascola's job to keep strange
craft from going there to find out. With the words strange craft, his
mind flashed to a new tangent. To his half-closed eyes came a vision of
a long gray hull, running dark, gliding through the water toward them
like a destructive shadow. Bronson had said it looked like the _Gray
Ghost_. What was the _Gray Ghost_? Where did she clear from? And what
was her purpose in putting in in the dark to Hell-Hole?

The questions multiplied with the smoke-wreaths and in the blue haze
which enveloped him, Kenneth Gregory beheld his vague and intangible
suspicions gradually crystallizing into three fundamental hypotheses:
Something crooked was being pulled off at Diablo. Rock and Bandrist were
back of it. The isolation of the island was threatened by the increasing
activities of the American fleet in that vicinity. Mascola's opportunity
was only a means to an end.

Gregory's frown deepened. What Rock and Bandrist were doing at Diablo
concerned him in itself, not at all. In so far as it related to
Mascola's interference, however, it was all-important. Mascola was the
one man who stood between him and his cherished dreams. If Rock and
Bandrist were behind Mascola, as he imagined, would it not be pursuing a
"cart before horse" policy to continue his expensive militant opposition
to the Italian? Why not fathom the motive which lay behind Mascola's
action? If Diablo held a secret, the guarding of which threatened his
business existence, why should he not as an American citizen take the
initiative and----

His meditations were disturbed by a soft tap on the office door. Dickie
Lang entered.

"I knew I'd find you here," she said. "Smoking yourself to death and
worrying gray. I've come to take you outside for a while. You'll be sick
if you go on like this. Forget for a while and come with me. The boys
are having a mussel-bake on the beach and they've sent for you. If you
have ever eaten kelp-baked mussels you'll not wait to be urged. The
grunion should run to-night too, and I want you to see them."

Gregory drew his fingers through his tousled hair and shook his head.
"I'm sorry," he said. "But I can't go. I'm waiting for a radio from
Diablo."

"Bosh!" the girl interrupted. "It won't take one of the boys five
minutes to bring you the message if it comes while yo