Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 177: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Eight Seconds a thousand miles? We knew you had Ted Breen aboard because the master of the Thomas Ames, through his telescope, saw you pick him up.’ “Thomas Ames? Big gray freighter?” asked Captain Mac, pulling dry clothes from a drawer beneath his berth. “Ves. And why did your operator, after refusing to answer us for three days, sud- denly change his mind and call us this morn- ing?” “He called you?” said the captain, sur- prized. “Yes. Told us that you had Breen aboard and that we could have him if we came in a hurry. Who is this operator, anyway?” “His name is Coleman. He and I had a little talk this morning just before we got the line snarled in the propeller. He used to be wireless man on Breen’s yacht; and it was Breen who made him what he is.” “What he is? What is he?” “He has the cocaine habit. Breen started Coleman using it aboard the Sabine. Breen don’t use it himself—too wise. Through some influential friends ashore, Breen got Coleman into the company that owns this ship. Coleman told me the arrangement. He was to buy narcotics m Colon and drop the stuff, in waterproof tins, overboard off Navesink, and the Sabine was to wait there and pick it up. In that way Breen would avoid being checked up as a buyer of nar- cotics at the other end. He has men on at least four ships, Coleman teld me, bringing the stuff up from Central America for him. It can be bought any number of places in Colon and Panama City, you know. But Coleman, it seems, isn’t as bad as Breen thought he was. When he was placed aboard the Hawk he refused to carry narcot- ics. Said he didn’t want to make anybody else like he was. He defied Breen. “However, when Breen came aboard here, when we picked him up by chance, he had no trouble getting control of Coleman again. Coleman was still using cocaine, of course, and he kept it locked in the battery box abaft the shack. All Breen had to do was to take the key away from him and threaten to throw it over the side if he didn’t do as he was told. Coleman was merely a poor sick boy with no one to turn to. He was afraid to come to me. He had to do what Breen told him to. The idea of faking our time signals was Breen’s.”’ 175 “Faking your time signals? Tell me about it.” Captain Mac, as he changed his clothes, told Murdock of how Breen and Coleman had been the cause of their nearly going on the reef to the northward of Watling Island. “Breen was in the sleeping room,” he fin- ished, ‘‘and he had a buzzer connected by a wire to the lead that runs down from the aerial. It was wireless wire tapping. He had compared his watch with the chronom- eter beforehand, and-all he had to do was sit there and give us the signal as if it were coming from Arlington. He’s an experi- enced navigator, you know, and he knew just what time to give us to throw us to the west’rd of the ship track. But he made one mistake. You know that nine out of ten navigators have the habit of counting aloud when they count half-seconds from a chronometer. Well, that’s what Breen did. Not very loud you know, barely above his ‘breath; but he had his head in the locker where he kept the buzzer, and the buzzer was in his hand, and it was connected by a series of wires, running through the radio apparatus, to the phones:on my head. “Did you ever see those toy telephones the children have? They are nothing but a jength of waxed string with an imitation transmitter at each end, and you can talk from room to room with them, the sound traveling over the string. Well, that’s how the buzzer wire worked. His voice in that partly closed closet started vibrations, and the vibrations traveled along the wire to my head. I heard it quite plainly, but at the time I thought it was the mate, Mr. Tenny, who was bending over the hack chronometer by my side. So I thought nothing of it. But just as we left I heard some one moving about in the sleeping room, Coleman said it was Breen. Later I to think about it, and it seemed to me tkat I had heard the ticking of a watch in addition to the count- ing. That was what made me decide to look into it further. And the next time I ught him in the act.” “Well, well! This Coleman, then, is as bad as Breen. I suppose you’re going to turn him over to the authorities as soon as you get in?’ ““No-o,” said Captain Mac slowly, “I’m not.” “No! You're not? What then?” An embarrassed look came to the little man’s face; and he seemed very interested Comicbook (© 5}