MacKenzie watched them from the locker for a good half hour; then went on deck, for the third man out has the task of cruising. He stood in the narrow cockpit, talking with the helmsman about the rising sea and the chances of the fog clearing away. But before he left for the cabin--“Keep her pretty well out toward the lightship,” he said quietly. “That Standard tanker’s due to-night, and that French bark at almost any time.” * * * * * In the dark hour before the dawn, the helmsman sighted the huge oil carrier--a blurred pin point of light emerging through the night mists, miles away--and he kindled the torch to signal her. As he waved the flaring beacon to and from its buzzing awakened the three sleepers in the cabin, and they saw the crimson glare spilling down the companionway. “Good ship for you, cap’n!” The sailor’s hoarse announcement was followed by the tramp of his feet on the deck as he hurried forward to awaken his companions. MacKenzie came up to take the wheel, and while he signaled for the engines he could hear old Wills stamping about the cabin to assemble his store clothes. Shortly before the launching of the yawl, Wills appeared, all evidences of that piratical undershirt extinguished beneath starched linen and black broadcloth. He hurried to the main rigging as the boat left the skids, and he hung there by the manropes, awaiting a safe moment when he could lower his two hundred and sixty-odd pounds into the pitching craft without bringing disaster. “Good luck!” MacKenzie called from the cockpit. “Tell them if there’s nothing better sailing they’d better send some one out here on the tender, for I’ll be in on the _Empress_.” Wills disappeared; and some moments later his voice floated upward from the darkened waters: “You always got to be so blame sure, Dan!” MacKenzie’s face remained impassive as that final rebuke reached him; and hours later, when he had hastened up into the wan dawn, responding to the helmsman’s summons, his features wore no sign of triumph as he handed the glasses to Lea, pointing into the southwest. Through the fog the lenses picked up a gleaming, white bulk, like the specter of a remote tower which has been razed near its summit; and as that ghostly form stole on, looming larger through the damp mists, the binoculars discovered the black speck that crawled on before it. “Tops’ls gone,” MacKenzie announced indifferently. “And there’s the tug. Your Frenchman, Jack.” “I guess you’re right.” Lea shook his head as he hurried below to change his clothes. “O’ course I’m right,” MacKenzie told him placidly; “I knew that all along.” * * * * *