Page:Ralph Paine--The Steam-Shovel Man.djvu/168

 from her decrepit engines. The Dauntless gained on her more slowly. Now the cheerful marines dived below to handle shovels instead of rifles, and they mightily reinforced the sweating stokers.

"I can juggle coal pretty fast myself," said Jack Devlin, as he stripped off his shirt and followed the other volunteers.

This frenzied exertion was needless. An hour or two and the Dauntless must certainly overtake the laboring Juan Lopez. Sympathy for Walter Goodwin, anxiety to know what had become of him, made them wild with impatience. He was an American, one of their own breed, and he was in trouble.

The vessels were perhaps three miles apart when the Juan Lopez veered from her course and swept at a long slant toward the green and hilly coast.

"There is no harbor hereabouts," shouted the skipper of the Dauntless. "They are going to beach her and take to the woods."

The alarm on deck reached the ears of Jack Devlin, who popped out of the stoke-hole and viewed the maœuvre with blank dismay.

"I don't blame Quesada for beating it to the