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The Motor Boat Club at the Golden Gate

OR

A Thrilling Capture in the Great Fog

By

H. IRVING HANCOCK

Author of The Motor Boat Club of the Kennebec, The Motor Boat Club at
Nantucket, The Motor Boat Club off Long Island, The Motor Boat Club and
the Wireless, The Motor Boat Club in Florida, etc., etc.

Illustrated

PHILADELPHIA
HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY


COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY HOWARD E. ALTEMUS


[Illustration: "I Trust You, But I'll Hold Onto the Pitcher."

_Frontispiece._]




CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                           PAGE
    I. TOM HALSTEAD, KNIGHT OF THE OVERLAND MAIL,    7

   II. HAZING, M. B. C. K. STYLE,                   22

  III. CAPTAIN TOM'S NEW COMMAND,                   34

   IV. HALSTEAD IS LET INTO A SECRET,               52

    V. A HUNT IN THE UNDER-WORLD,                   59

   VI. FACING THE YELLOW BARRIER,                   68

  VII. DICK TAKES THE RESCUE BOAT TRICK,            81

 VIII. THE REAL KENNEBEC WAY,                       94

   IX. THE CHASE OF THEIR LIVES,                   100

    X. COMING TO CLOSE, DANGEROUS QUARTERS,        111

   XI. GASTON GIDDINGS MAKES TROUBLE,              122

  XII. TOO-WHOO-OO! IS THE WORD,                   129

 XIII. THE CALL FROM OUT OF THE FOG,               136

  XIV. MR. CRAGTHORPE IS MORE THAN TROUBLESOME,    146

   XV. THE MIDNIGHT ALARM,                         155

  XVI. THE FIRE DRILL IN EARNEST,                  164

 XVII. CRAGTHORPE INTRODUCES HIS REAL SELF,        172

XVIII. A TRICK MADE FOR TWO,                       183

  XIX. TED DYER, SAILOR BY MARRIAGE,               196

   XX. THE FIND IN THE FOREHOLD,                   206

  XXI. ON A BLIND TRAIL OF THE SEA,                213

 XXII. A STERN LOOMS UP IN THE FOG,                222

XXIII. ROLLINGS'S LAST RUSE,                       228

 XXIV. CONCLUSION,                                 243




The Motor Boat Club at The Golden Gate




CHAPTER I

TOM HALSTEAD, KNIGHT OF THE OVERLAND MAIL


"I feel it in my bones," announced Joe Dawson, quietly though
positively.

"That's no talk for an engineer," jibed Tom Halstead. "Tell me, instead,
that you read it in your gauge."

"Oh, laugh, if you want to," nodded Dawson, showing no offense. "But
you'll find that I'm right. You know, I don't often make predictions."

"Yet, this time, you feel that something disastrous is going to happen
before this train rolls out on the mole at Oakland? In other words,
before we set foot in San Francisco?"

"No, I don't say quite that," objected Joe, thoughtfully. "There's a
heap of the navigator about you, Tom Halstead, and you're pinning me
down to the map and the chronometer. I won't predict quite as closely as
that. But, either before we reach 'Frisco, or mighty soon after we get
there, something is going to happen."

"And it's going to be a disaster?" questioned Tom, closely.

"For someone, yes; and we're going to be in it, at great risk."

"Well, it's a comfort to have it narrowed down even as closely as that,"
smiled Tom Halstead. "I hope it isn't going to be another earthquake,
though."

"No," agreed Joe, thoughtfully.

"Oh, well, that much of your prediction will comfort the people of San
Francisco, anyway."

"Now, you're laughing at me again," grinned Joe, good-naturedly.

"No; I'm not," protested Halstead, but belied himself by the twinkle in
his eyes, and by whistling softly the air of a popular song that the
boys had heard in a New York theatre just before leaving for the West.

At the present moment both boys were sitting comfortably facing each
other in their section in a sleeping car on the luxurious Overland Mail.
It was early forenoon. They had left Sacramento behind some time before,
on the last stretch of the run across the state of California.

Joe Dawson was riding facing forward. Tom Halstead, in the seat
opposite, half lolled at the window-ledge, with his back toward the
engine. Both boys had slept well on their last night out from San
Francisco. Both had breakfasted heartily, that morning, in the dining
car now left behind at the state capital. The next thing that would
interest them, so far as they could now guess, would be their arrival at
Oakland, and the subsequent ferry trip that would land them in San
Francisco.

It may seem a curious fact to the reader, but neither Tom Halstead nor
Joe Dawson knew just what new phases of life awaited them in the City by
the Golden Gate. They were engaged to enter the employment of a man who
owned a motor yacht. The owner had agreed to their own terms in the way
of salary, and he was paying all their expenses on this luxurious trip
westward. Moreover, the same owner had engaged some of the other members
of the Motor Boat Club of the Kennebec, as will soon be told.

Readers of the preceding volumes of this series are already well
acquainted with bright, energetic, loyal and capable Tom Halstead, who,
from the start, had held the post of fleet captain of the Motor Boat
Club. The same readers are equally familiar with the career of Joe
Dawson, fleet engineer of the Club.

As narrated in "THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB OF THE KENNEBEC," Tom and Joe were
two boys of seafaring stock, and natives of Maine, having been born
near the mouth of the Kennebec River. That first volume detailed how the
two young men served aboard the "Sunbeam," the motor yacht of a Boston
broker, and how the boys aided the Government officers in solving the
mystery of Smugglers' Island. Out of those adventures arose the founding
of the Club, with Tom and Joe at its head.

In "THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AT NANTUCKET" the two boys were again seen to
great advantage. There they had some most lively sea adventures, all
centering around the abduction of the Dunstan heir. Next, as told in
"THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB OFF LONG ISLAND," the motor boat boys played an
exciting part in the balking of a great Wall Street conspiracy. In
recognition of their services at this time, the man whom they most
helped presented them with a fifty-five foot cruising motor boat, which
the two proud young owners named the "Restless." Afterwards they
installed a wireless telegraph apparatus on the boat, and then came one
of their truly famous cruises, as related in "THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AND
THE WIRELESS," wherein wireless telegraphy was employed in ferreting out
one of the great mysteries of the sea.

"THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB IN FLORIDA" described the sea wanderings of Captain
Tom and Engineer Joe in the Gulf waters, and their subsequent
adventures in the Everglades and at Tampa, including the laying of the
Ghost of Alligator Swamp.

From time to time other seafaring boys, whose experience aboard motor
yachts qualified them, were elected members of the Motor Boat Club, an
organization which now boasted some forty members along