"Alcohol? Backen what?"

"The ivy poison."

"Oh! Well, there's plenty of alcohol on board. Wonder what time it is,"

Perry drew out his watch and whistled surprisedly. "Only a quarter to ten, Han! We couldn't have walked very far, after all. And they won't signal us until ten-thirty. Here, I'm going this way."

"It's the alkali that counteracts the poison," explained Han. "They say that if you can bathe the places in alcohol soon after you come in--in contact with the ivy--"

"For the love of Pete!" exclaimed Perry. "Forget about it, Han! You'll worry yourself to death over that poison-ivy. Maybe it didn't bite you, after all."

"Of course it did!" replied the other resentfully. "It always does. If I had some alcohol, though--"

"Well, come on and get some. We've got to find the boat first, haven't we?"

"Yes, but I don't think it's that way."

"Then you try the other way, and if you find it, sing out so I'll hear you."

"All right." They separated, each following the edge of the water, and presently Perry's voice rang out. "Here she is, Han!" he called. A faint hail answered him and Perry stowed the milk-can in the bow of the little boat and seated himself to wait. A few minutes later, as Han still tarried, he shouted again. This time there was no reply however, and Perry muttered impatiently and found a more comfortable position. When some five minutes more had pa.s.sed he got to his feet and yelled at the top of his lungs. "Get a move on, Han! The milk's getting sour and I'm getting cold!" he shouted. An answering cry came from closer by, but what it was that Han said Perry couldn't make out. He turned his coat collar up, plunged hands in pockets and viewed the grey mist scowlingly. Then he began to listen for footsteps crunching the sand.

But no sound save the lapping of water on the beach and the creaking of a boom on an unseen boat reached him.

"It would serve him right to leave him here," he muttered resentfully.

"Anyway, I'm not going to yell at him any more. I suppose he's so taken up with his poison-ivy business that he can't think of anything else.

Wonder if I got into that stuff, too!" The idea was distinctly unwelcome. He thought he recalled brushing through leaves as he crossed the wall. He had never had any experience with poison-ivy and didn't know whether or not he was susceptible, but it seemed to him that there was a distinct itching sensation on his back. He squirmed uncomfortably.

Then a p.r.i.c.kly feeling on his left wrist set him to rubbing it. He examined the skin and, sure enough, it was quite red! He had it, too!

You had blisters all over you, Han had said. Perry looked for blisters but found none. Still, he reflected miserably, it was probably too early for them yet. He suddenly found himself rubbing his right wrist too. And that, also, was distinctly inflamed looking, although not so red as the other. Gee, he'd ought to do something! Alcohol! That was it! He ought to bathe the places in alcohol! He jumped out of the dingey, pushed it down the beach into the water and sprawled across the bow. Then he shoved further off with an oar and sudsided onto a seat.

"Back in ten minutes for you, Han!" he shouted. "You wait here! I'll bring some alcohol!"

When a dozen choppy strokes had taken him out of sight of the sh.o.r.e his panic subsided a little and two thoughts came to him. The first was that he was treating Han rather scurvilly and the second was that he hadn't more than the haziest notion where the _Adventurer_ lay! But, having embarked, he kept on. Probably ten or fifteen minutes wouldn't make much difference in Han's case, while, as for finding the cruiser, he would shout after he had rowed a little further and doubtless someone aboard would hear him.

So he went on into the mist, occasionally stopping to scratch a wrist or wiggle about on the seat in the endeavour to abate the p.r.i.c.kling sensation in back or shoulders. It seemed to him now that he was infected from head to toes. Presently, having rowed some distance, he began to hail. "_Adventurer_ ahoy!" he shouted, "O Steve! O Joe!"

He stopped rowing, rubbed a wrist, peered into the fog and waited. But no answering hail reached him. He lifted his voice again. "Ahoy!

_Adventurer_ ahoy! Are you all dead? Where are you?"

This time there was an answer, faint but unmistakable, and, somewhat to Perry's surprise, it came from almost behind him. "Shout again!" he called. "Where are you?"

"He-e-ere! Hurry up!" At least, that was what the answer sounded like.

Perry grumblingly turned the boat around and rowed in the direction of the voice. "I suppose," he thought, "I rowed in a circle. I always did row harder with my right. But I don't see what they want me to hurry for. And they might blow their whistle if they had any sense."

"Shout again!" he yelled presently.

"h.e.l.lo-o-o!" came a hail from somewhere back of the boat, and: "Come ahead!" called a voice from the fog in front. Perry exploded.

"Shut up, one of you!" he called exasperatedly. "I can't row two ways at once! Where's the boat?" But his remarks evidently didn't carry, for all he got was another hail from behind. "All right," he muttered. "Why didn't you say so before?" He swung the dingey around a second time and rowed on a new course. "Wonder who the other chap was," he thought. "I dare say, though, there are boats all around here if a fellow could see them." A minute later he called again: "Come on, you idiots! Where are you?"

"Don't bust yourself," said a voice from almost over his shoulder. "And watch where you're going if you don't want to stave that boat in."

CHAPTER IX

SOUR MILK

Perry was so surprised that he almost fell off the seat, while, forgetting to obey injunctions, he let the dingey run until there was a sudden b.u.mp that toppled the milk-can over and nearly treated him the same way. He looked startedly about. Six feet away lay a black boat and a boy with a boat-hook was threatening him from the deck.

"You silly idiot!" called the boy impatiently. "Look where you're going!

If I hadn't got you with the hook you'd have knocked half our paint off!"

The boy and the boat slowly vanished in the mist like a "fade-out" at the movies, before Perry found his voice. Then: "Who the d.i.c.kens are you?" he gasped.

"I'm the man who put the salt in the ocean," replied the voice jeeringly. "Come on easy and I'll get you."

"Well, but--but--what boat's that?"

"U.S. Battleship _Pennsylvania_, Pride of the Navy! Come on, you lubber!"

Perry came on and again the boy with the boat-hook took form in the fog. "You're Cas Temple," said Perry stupidly. "That's the _Follow Me_!"

"Surest thing you know, son! h.e.l.lo! Why, it's Perry Bush. I thought you were Bert. What did you do with the fellows?"

"What fellows?" asked Perry, puzzled, as Cas pulled the dingey alongside the cruiser.

"Why, Bert and Wink and the rest of them."

"Haven't seen 'em."

"Haven't? Where'd you get the boat, then?"

"What boat?"

"That one! The one you're in! Say, are you dippy?"

"This is our boat and I got it--"

"Your boat nothing! That's our boat, you silly chump! Think I don't know our own tender?"

"Wh-what!" gasped Perry. "So it is! Then, where's mine! I mean ours? How did I get this one?"

"Search me! If you don't know, I'm blessed if I do," chuckled Caspar Temple. "You must remember something that's happened since yesterday morning!"

"Han and I went ash.o.r.e," said Perry, staring puzzledly at the milk-can from which a tiny stream was trickling past the loosened stopper. "Then we went to look for our boat and I found this and I yelled to him and he didn't come and so I started back to the boat to get some--" Perry suddenly remembered his affliction. "Say, got any alcohol?" he asked anxiously.

"Alcohol? I don't know. Why?"

"I want some." Perry started to scramble out of the tender. "I got poisoned."