"Wal', boys, off to yer bunks now! We'll hev a fairly calm night, but thar'll be wet decks to-morrow!"

CHAPTER XII

A SURPRISING ADVENTURE

The captain's prophecy was literally fulfilled, and the boys had no opportunity for fairweather games the next day. Instead, clad in oilskins, they lounged about the wet decks, watching the captain's skillful handling of the boat, ringing the big fog bell when the atmosphere grew thick, and clinging to the railing when the sloop pitched and tossed restlessly on the heaving sea.

Dave retired as usual in rough weather into sullen silence, coming on deck most reluctantly only when his services were demanded by the captain.

Late in the day, the storm increased to a gale of some little violence, and the captain decided to make for the nearest harbor.

He had hoped to reach the home haven that night, but his policy was to meet disappointment rather than to run risks.

"Mebbe I hev a surprise up my sleeve fer you boys," Captain Lem said, his eyes twinkling as he saw their long faces on hearing the news of delay. "Wouldn't mind addin' a little excitement ter the end of the trip, would ye?"

"We're aching for it," returned Billy promptly. "This has been an awfully long day, you know, captain."

"Wal', ef I've got my bearin's all right, we'll spend the evenin' in a right cheerful place. That's all I kin say now, but you boys go collect your belongin's, so's we kin land fer the night ef my calc'lations hold good."

Just as the early darkness of the rainy night shut down over the rolling sea, the boys discovered a gleaming light, high and steady, not far off toward the Florida coast.

"Jimmy!" cried Billy excitedly. "Bet the captain is going to take us to a lighthouse for the night!"

"Can't be your uncle's light, Mark, where we saw the spongers on the way down," commented Chester thoughtfully. "We're too near home for that."

"I have an _idea_---" began Hugh slowly.

"And so have I!" interrupted Alec, glancing at Mark.

At that moment, Roy Norton began to ring the fog bell under the captain's directions.

"Ding! Ding! Ding, ding, ding!" resounded the heavy iron tongue.

There was a pause, and then the signal was repeated. A longer silence followed and again the slow, clear signal was twice repeated.

By this time, the captain had guided his dauntless little vessel into slightly quieter waters, although she still pitched and tossed in a way that would have alarmed a "landlubber."

Then came a new sound, louder than the noise of the pounding waves, deeper than the clang of the iron bell.

"Boom! Boom! Boom, boom, boom!" An answering signal had broken the silence where the steady light shone.

Mark started, as though recognizing the sound.

"Why, that-----" he began bewilderedly, "that is the signal gun at Red Key! Captain, are you signaling to my father?"

"Jest so," Captain Vinton replied. "Keeper Anderson knows my knock on his door!"

"How shall we land?" asked Chester excitedly, as he saw Dave making ready to drop anchor.

At that moment a rocket went streaking up toward heaven and a second later a slender rope fell writhing across the deck, where Roy stood swinging a torch.

"Hurray!" called Hugh, seizing the rope just as Norton, at the captain's orders, also grasped it. "Hurray! It's the breeches buoy!"

It will be recalled by those who followed the adventures of "_The Boy Scouts of the Life Saving Crew_," that Hugh and Billy, Chester and Alec had been at the Red Key Station on the night of a thrilling rescue. They had accompanied and in a slight way a.s.sisted the life-savers on their patrols, at the launching of the life boat, and in the final use of the breeches buoy.

It was most exciting to return to the scene of their memorable experience in this unexpected fashion.

The boys hauled willingly on the rope and soon it was taut, the odd conveyance swinging by the deck railing.

"You go first, Mark. While yer father knows my knock and realizes that I didn't give my danger signal, still he may be a mite anxious to see you, knowin' you was comin' home with me on the _Arrow_."

Obeying the captain's directions and grasping his waterproof bundle of clothes, Mark thrust his legs into the breeches buoy, the signal was given, and the trip through the waves began.

Soon the strange vehicle was back again, and this time Chester, b.u.t.toning his oilskins about him closely, was ordered ash.o.r.e.

In a brief time Hugh, and then Billy, Alec, and Norton had followed the others.

Meanwhile, Captain Vinton, with Dave's help, had made everything shipshape on board the _Arrow_. Then, sending Dave sh.o.r.eward in the breeches buoy, the captain himself, true to tradition, waited to be the last to leave his ship.

Although they had not encountered a moment of real danger, the boys had been given an experience of actual rescue. When Captain Vinton joined them on sh.o.r.e, they greeted him enthusiastically and then stood back to watch his meeting with Keeper Anderson.

The latter grasped the captain's hand in a hearty grip.

"Good for you, Lem, you old sea-dog!" cried the keeper. "You didn't scare us any and it was great fun for my boy and his friends. Mark has gone in to see his mother---she'll be some surprised---and to tell her to fix up some hot coffee and things for you 'survivors.'"

"Haw! haw! haw!" laughed the old captain. "This was the easiest shipwreck I ever managed to survive! He! he! he!"

In great good nature the two men walked toward the keeper's house, while the boys followed, eagerly renewing their acquaintance with the stalwart men of the life-saving crew.

Roy Norton was an interested observer, and when he, too, had met Mrs.

Anderson and Ruth, and heard the story of their first exciting encounter, he no longer wondered at the boys' enthusiasm.

That night the crowd slept, as four of them had before, in hastily arranged shakedowns; and when morning dawned, they looked out upon a sea so blue and sparkling they could scarcely realize that it was the gray, angry, heaving expanse of the night before.

The _Arrow_ dipped and rose jauntily on the sapphire water, giving no sign that she, too, had spent a restless night pulling and tugging at her deeply embedded anchor.

After an early breakfast, the four boys said their farewells to Mark and Ruth and their parents, and, with the captain and Norton, went out to the _Arrow_ in boats manned by members of the life-saving crew.

Not many hours later, they reached Alec's home in Santario, and there they found Mr. Sands, waiting a little anxiously for their safe return. He had learned from the morning papers that the previous night's storm had been severe at sea, and he had not known how or where the _Arrow_ might have weathered the gale.

When he had been told of the "rescue" off Red Key Life Saving Station, he exclaimed impatiently, "Why in the name of sense, didn't you telephone me from Red Key? Here I have spent many hours in needless anxiety."

The boys looked at one another in silence.

"It simply never occurred to us that we were back within communicating distance," replied Alec at last. "We haven't seen or heard a telephone since we left home."