"Mr. Davis," he called, "sound the agreed-on signal from our own fog-horn for Bickson to come in, post-haste with our power boat."
From the "Panther's" fog-horn sounded four short blasts.
Just a few minutes later Tom Halstead, listening at the rail, heard the "Victor's" machinery moving at faster rate.
"There they go, stealing away from us," muttered the young skipper.
"And not sounding their fog-horn any more, either," commented Joseph Baldwin.
"It won't take 'em long to get out of our hearing, if our tender doesn't get in," predicted Halstead.
"Confound Bickson! Where is he? What's he doing?" demanded the "Panther's" owner, impatiently.
Barely thirty seconds later, however, the "Panther's" power tender shot in alongside. The falls and tackle were lowered swiftly. The instant when the hoisting began Halstead called sharply:
"Mr. Davis, start us forward on the jump. Don't let those tricksters slip us in that fashion."
Second Officer Davis gave the order for increased speed. Then, before it could be carried out, he cried, excitedly:
"What has become of the 'Victor,' sir? Can you hear her machinery, now?"
Tom Halstead listened intently, growing paler. Barely forty-five seconds before he had had the enemy within sound. Now, not a single trace of noise came to him over the waters.
"By Jove! they've slipped us," he groaned, uneasily.
"That's what," confessed Dick, in a hushed, scared voice.
Joseph Baldwin's face was a study in intense anxiety.
"I'm afraid the steam yacht has gotten away from us, Captain," he remarked. "If that really has happened, I don't blame you. The chances, in a game of this sort, and under these conditions, are all with the fugitive."
"Perhaps it isn't a matter of blame," muttered Skipper Tom, his face chalk-white, his hands nervously gripping at the port deck rail. "But I'm chagrined--ashamed, just the same. What have those rascals done? Have they stopped speed altogether? Are they drifting, so that, if we go ahead, we are drawing further away from them all the time? Or did they shoot well ahead of us, then succeed in running with almost no noise, and on a new course, so that they are slipping further away from us every minute? Shall we stop and drift? Or, if we go ahead, what speed and which course shall we take? Confound the wretches!"