“Wet feet don’t count in this trade,” he said. “She’s not going to scoop in too much of it if I can keep her running, but you’ll see something very like chaos if we have to put her on the wind. Is that smoke rising any?” Appleby fancied it was, for the dusky smear had lengthened, and it seemed to him there was something more solid than vapor in the midst of it. The skipper, however, in view of the inadvisability of bringing the great mainsail crashing over, could not turn his head. “Still, even if it is a gunboat, we should be well in with the land before she overhauls us,” said Appleby. “Yes,” said Harper grimly. “The trouble is there’s no water yet into the creek, and there’ll be a blame nasty surf running into the bay. Still, there’s a place where we could hold her to it with two anchors down, and it would take good eyes to make us out against the land. It’s just a question whether those fellows yonder see us first.” It appeared to Appleby a somewhat important one, but he had to wait for the answer with the rest, and by and by it came. The man on the cross‐ trees shouted, the smear of smoke seemed to break in two, as though the vessel beneath it had changed her direction, and she became visible in a moment or two, a faint dark blur upon the moonlit water. Harper turned his head swiftly, and his face showed very grim in the moonlight when he stared in front of him again. “I guess our chances have gone down fifty cents in the dollar,” he said. “Get a range of cable up on deck. Then we’ll have the boat cleared handy and the hatch‐wedges out.” The men became busy amidst a rattle of chain, and then stood where it was a little dryer between the masts, with their shadows lying black upon the silvery cloths of the foresail. They were watching the steamer, which was rising upon one quarter with the smear of smoke blowing away from her. Appleby could see her plainly now, a strip of black hull that rolled with slanted spars across the harmonies of blue and silver—and she seemed to him portentous in her shadowiness, for there was no blink of light on board her. “The ‘Enseñada’?” said Harper. “Si, señor!” said Rosendo, with a little gesture which was very expressive. Harper pulled at the wheel, and Appleby saw that he was addressing him. “There are two of their gunboats on this coast, and it’s quite in the usual course that it’s the one I don’t want to see that turns up,” he said. “Her commander has a little grievance against me.”