"Yonder seems to be a launch making out. See? I wonder what's up." Almost in their path a tiny light was violently agitated. "By Jove! They're signalling." "You won't stop, will you?" questioned Emerson. "I don't know, I am sure. I may have to." The two boats were drawing together rapidly, and soon those on the bridge heard the faint but increasing patter of a gasoline exhaust. Carrying the same speed as _The Bedford Castle_, the launch shortly came within hailing distance. The cyclopean eye of the ship's searchlight blazed up, and the next instant, out from the gloom leaped a little craft, on the deck of which a man stood waving a lantern. She held steadfastly to her course, and a voice floated up to them: "Ahoy! What ship?" "_The Bedford Castle_, cannery-tender for Bristol Bay," Peasley shouted back. The man on the launch relinquished his lantern, and using both palms for a funnel, cried, more clearly now: "Heave to! We want to come aboard." With an exclamation of impatience, the commanding officer stepped to the telegraph, but Emerson forestalled him. "Wait, they're after me, Captain; it's the Port Townsend police, and if you let them aboard they'll take me off." "What makes you think so?" demanded Peasley. "Ask them." Turning, the skipper bellowed down the gleaming electric pathway, "Who are you?" "Police! We want to come aboard." "What did I tell you?" cried Emerson. Once more the Captain shouted: "What do you want?" "One of your passengers--Emerson. Heave to. You're passing us." "That's bloody hard luck, Mr. Emerson; I can't help myself," the Captain declared. But again Boyd blocked him as he started for the telegraph. "I won't stand it, sir. It's a conspiracy to ruin me." "But, my dear young man--" "Don't touch that instrument!" From the launch came cries of growing vehemence, and a startled murmur of voices rose from somewhere in the darkness of the deck beneath. "Stand aside," Peasley ordered, gruffly; but the other held his ground, saying, quietly: "I warn you. I am desperate." "Shall I stop her, sir?" the quartermaster asked from the shadows of the wheel-house. "No!" Emerson commanded, sharply, and in the glow from the binnacle-light they saw he had drawn his revolver, while on the instant up from the void beneath heaved the massive figure of Big George Balt, a behemoth, more colossal and threatening than ever in the dim light. Rumbling curses as he came, he leaped up the pilot-house steps, wrenched open the door, and with one sweep of his hairy paw flung the helmsman from his post, panting, "Keep her going, Cap', or I'll run them down!" "We stood by you, old man," Emerson urged; "you stand by us. They can't make you stop. They can't come aboard."