! Don't let her come back or
you 'll smash the skiff. There she takes it! A long pull and a strong
pull! Once again! And yet again! Get a turn there, somebody, and take
a spell."

Though the task was but half accomplished, they were exhausted by the
strenuous effort, and hailed the rest eagerly. Joe glanced over the side
to discover what the heavy object might be, and saw the vague outlines
of a small office-safe.

"Now all together!" Red Nelson began again. "Take her on the run and don't
let her stop! Yo, ho! heave, ho! Once again! And another! Over with her!"

Straining and gasping, with tense muscles and heaving chests, they brought
the cumbersome weight over the side, rolled it on top of the rail, and
lowered it into the cockpit on the run. The cabin doors were thrown apart,
and it was moved along, end for end, till it lay on the cabin floor, snug
against the end of the centerboard-case. Red Nelson had followed it aboard
to superintend. His left arm hung helpless at his side, and from the
finger-tips blood dripped with monotonous regularity. He did not seem to
mind it, however, nor even the mutterings of the human storm he had raised
ashore, and which, to judge by the sounds, was even then threatening to
break upon them.

"Lay your course for the Golden Gate," he said to French Pete, as he turned
to go. "I 'll try to stand by you, but if you get lost in the dark I 'll
meet you outside, off the Farralones, in the morning." He sprang into the
skiff after the men, and, with a wave of his uninjured arm, cried heartily:
"And then it 's for Mexico, my lads--Mexico and summer weather!"

Just as the _Dazzler_, freed from her anchor, paid off under the jib and
filled away, a dark sail loomed under their stern, barely missing the skiff
in tow. The cockpit of the stranger was crowded with men, who raised their
voices angrily at sight of the pirates. Joe had half a mind to run forward
and cut the halyards so that the _Dazzler_ might be captured. As he had
told French Pete the day before, he had done nothing to be ashamed of, and
was not afraid to go before a court of justice. But the thought of 'Frisco
Kid restrained him. He wanted to take him ashore with him, but in so doing
he did not wish to take him to jail. So he, too, began to experience a keen
interest in the escape of the _Dazzler_.

The pursuing sloop rounded up hurriedly to come about after them, and in
the darkness fouled the yacht which lay at anchor. The man a