The vessel was some three miles to windward. She was a schooner of the common two-masted Pacific type, but she was comporting herself in a manner uncommon on the Pacific, or any other ocean. Even as Barnett spoke, she heeled well over, and came rushing up into the wind, where she stood with all sails shaking. Slowly she paid off again, bearing away from them. Now she gathered full headway, yet edged little by little to windward again. "Mighty queer tactics," muttered Edwards. "I think she's steering herself." "Good thing she carries a weather helm," commented Ives, who was an expert on sailing rigs. "Most of that type do. Otherwise she'd have jibed her masts out, running loose that way." Captain Parkinson appeared on deck and turned his glasses for a full minute on the strange schooner. "Aloft there," he hailed the crow's-nest. "Do you make out anyone aboard?" "No, sir," came the answer. "Mr. Carter, have the chief quartermaster report on deck with the signal flags." "Yes, sir." "Aren't we going to run up to her?" asked McGuire, turning in surprise to Edwards. "And take the risk of getting a hole punched in our pretty paint, with her running amuck that way? Not much!" Up came the signal quartermaster to get his orders, and there ensued a one-sided conversation in the pregnant language of the sea. "What ship is that?" No answer. "Are you in trouble?" asked the cruiser, and waited. The schooner showed a bare and silent main-peak. "Heave to." Now Uncle Sam was giving orders. But the other paid no heed. "We'll make that a little more emphatic," said Captain Parkinson. A moment later there was the sharp crash of a gun and a shot went across the bows of the sailing vessel. Hastened by a flaw of wind that veered from the normal direction of the breeze the stranger made sharply to windward, as if to obey. "Ah, there she comes," ran the comment along the cruiser's quarter-deck. But the schooner, after standing for a moment, all flapping, answered another flaw, and went wide about on the opposite tack. "Derelict," remarked Captain Parkinson. "She seems to be in good shape, too, Dr. Trendon!" "Yes, sir." The surgeon went to the captain, and the others could hear his deep, abrupt utterance in reply to some question too low for their ears. "Might be, sir. Beri-beri, maybe. More likely smallpox if anything of that kind. But _some_ of 'em would be on deck." "Whew! A plague ship!" said Billy Edwards. "Just my luck to be ordered to board her." He shivered slightly. "Scared, Billy?" said Ives. Edwards had a record for daring which made this joke obvious enough to be safe. "I wouldn't want to have my peculiar style of beauty spoiled by smallpox marks," said the ensign, with a smile on his homely, winning face. "And I've a hunch that that ship is not a lucky find for this ship." "Then I've a hunch that your hunch is a wrong one," said Ives. "How long would you guess that craft to be?"