“I wish we had washed our hands of this Celebrity from the first,” she said, with a sigh.  “How dreadful if you lose your position on account of this foolishness!”

“But I shan’t,” I answered reassuringly; “we are getting near the border now, and no sign of trouble.  And besides,” I added, “I think Miss Thorn tried to frighten me.  And she very nearly succeeded.  It was prettily done.”

“Of course she tried to frighten you.  I wish she had succeeded.”

“But her object was transparent.”

“Her object!” she exclaimed.  “Her object was to save you.”

“I think not,” I replied; “it was to save the Celebrity.”

Miss Trevor rose and grasped one of the sail rings to keep her balance. 
She looked at me pityingly.

“Do you really believe that?”

“Firmly.”

“Then you are hopeless, Mr. Crocker, totally hopeless.  I give you up.”  And she went back to her seat beside the refrigerator.

CHAPTER XVII

“Crocker, old man, Crocker, what the devil does that mean?”

I turned with a start to perceive a bare head thrust above the cabin roof, the scant hair flying, and two large, brown eyes staring into mine full of alarm and reproach.  A plump finger was pointing to where the sandy reef lay far astern of us.

The Mackinaws were flecked far and wide over the lake, and a dirty smudge on the blue showed where the Far Harbor and Beaverton boat had gone over the horizon.  But there, over the point and dangerously close to the land, hung another smudge, gradually pushing its way like a writhing, black serpent, lakewards.  Thus I was rudely jerked back to face the problem with which we had left the island that morning.

I snatched the neglected glasses from the deck and hurried aft to join my client on the overhang, but a pipe was all they revealed above the bleak hillocks of sand.  My client turned to me with a face that was white under the tan.

“Crocker,” he cried, in a tragic voice, “it’s a blessed police boat, or I never picked a winner.”

“Nonsense,” I said; “other boats smoke beside police boats.  The lake is full of tugs.”

I was a little nettled at having been scared for a molehill.

“But I know it, sure as hell,” he insisted.

“You know nothing about it, and won’t for an hour.  What’s a pipe and a trail of smoke?”

He laid a hand on my shoulder, and I felt it tremble.

“Why do you suppose I came out?” he demanded solemnly.

“You were probably losing,” I said.

“I was winning.”

“Then you got tired of winning.”

But he held up a thumb within a few inches of my face, and with it a ring I had often noticed, a huge opal which he customarily wore on the inside of his hand.

“She’s dead,” said Mr. Cooke, sadly.

“Dead?” I repeated, perplexed.