However, he told Larry what the reporter wished to know, describing how, in the fog, the vessel had run on the sand bar.  He related some of the scenes during their wait to be rescued, told of the high seas and terrible winds, and painted a vivid picture of the dangers.  Larry wrote it in his best style and hurried back to the telegraph office.

There was only one passenger missing, and the name of this one, according to the purser’s list, was Mah Retto.  The name, though peculiar, Larry thought, was not dissimilar to scores of others, for the steamer had on board a cosmopolitan lot of passengers.  No one knew how Retto had been lost.

As Larry was on his way to the telegraph office a sudden thought came to him.

“That’s it!” he exclaimed.  “The man who came ashore on the life-raft is this missing Mah Retto.  I’ll just stop on my way to the telegraph office and see him.  That will clear it all up, and make every passenger accounted for.”

He hurried on, intending to get a hasty interview with the man at Bailey’s hut, and then go telegraph the rest of his story.  The fisherman was still down on the beach, aiding the life savers to pack their apparatus for transportation back to the station.  As Larry came in sight of the cabin he saw the raft, on which the stranger had come ashore, lying just beyond high-water mark.

He entered the hut, expecting to see Retto, as he had come to call the foreigner, sitting comfortably by the fire.  But the rescued man was not there.  Nor was he in the room where he had been put to bed.

“Maybe he’s in the woodshed,” thought Larry.  “I’ll take a look.”

But he was not there.

“That’s strange,” Larry mused.  “He’s disappeared.  There is something queer in this, and I’m going to find it out.  But first I must send the rest of my story.”

Larry found Peter Manton still at the telegraph office grinding away.  Larry’s first batch of copy had been sent off, as had most of Peter’s stuff.  As the representative of the Scorcher handed in the last of his copy he turned to Larry and said, sneeringly: 

“I’ll bet I’ve got a better story than you have.”

“Perhaps,” was all Larry replied.  Then, as Peter went back to the wreck for more information, Larry wrote, as an addition to his story, the interview with the captain, finishing with an account of the missing Mah Retto.  He told also of the man who came ashore on the raft, and who was believed to be the passenger who was unaccounted for.

“That’s a good day’s work done,” remarked the young reporter, as he signed his name to the last sheet of copy.  “I wonder if they want me to stay here?”

He wrote a brief message asking Mr. Emberg for instructions.  Telling the operator he would call in about two hours for an answer, Larry decided he would get some breakfast.

As there was no restaurant in the little hamlet, he thought the best plan would be to go back to the fisherman’s cabin.  He wanted to talk with Bailey about the disappearance of the man they had rescued from the raft.