"She'll stand a lot of knocking about, and that's a fact," agreed Rob.

"Well," remarked the old man, gazing about him, "it's a good thing that she is, fer, if I'm not mistaken--and I'm not often off as regards the weather--we are goin' ter have quite a little blow before yer boys get back home."

"A storm?" asked Tubby, somewhat alarmed.

"Oh, no; not what yer might call a storm," laughed the captain; "but just what we used to term a 'capful uv wind.'"

"Well, so long as it isn't a really bad blow, it won't trouble the Flying Fish," Rob a.s.sured him.

"Hullo!" exclaimed the old man suddenly. "What queer kind uv craft is that?"

He pointed back to the mouth of the now distant inlet, from which a curious-looking black craft was emerging at what seemed to be great speed.

"It's that hydroplane of Sam Redding's, for a bet!" cried Rob. "Here, Tubby, take the wheel a minute, while I put the gla.s.ses on her."

The lad stood up in the heaving motor craft, steadying himself against the bulwarks by his knees, and peered through his marine-gla.s.ses.

"It's the hydroplane, sure enough," he said. "By ginger, but she can go, all right! Sam and Jack and Bill are all in her. They seem to be heading right out to sea, too."

"Say!" exclaimed Tubby suddenly, "if it comes on to blow, as the captain said it would, they'll be in a bad fix, won't they?"

"In that ther shoe-box thing," scornfully exclaimed the old captain, who had also been looking through the gla.s.ses, "why, I wouldn't give a confederate dollar bill with a hole in it fer their lives."

CHAPTER III

BOY SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE

"Hadn't we better put back and warn them?" suggested Merritt rather anxiously, for he was alarmed by the confident manner in which the old seaman prophesied certain disaster to the hydroplane if the weather freshened.

"No; see, she's heading toward us. I guess they want a race," cried Rob. "We'll slow down a bit and let them catch up."

In a few moments the hydroplane was alongside. The yellow hood over her powerful engines glistened with the wet of the great bow-wave her speed had occasioned, and her powerful motor was exhausting with a roar like a battery of machine guns.

Crouched aft of the engine hood was Sam Redding, who held the wheel.

Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender were in the stern. They sat tandem-wise in the narrow racing sh.e.l.l.

"Want a tow rope for that old stone dray of yours?" jeered Jack Curtiss, as the speedy little racer ranged alongside.

He did not know that the Flying Fish was slowed down, and that although the hydroplane appeared to be capable of tremendous speed, she was not actually so very much faster than Rob's boat.

"Say, you fellows," warned Rob, making a trumpet of his hands, "the captain says it's coming on to blow before long. You'd better get back into the inlet with that craft of yours."

"Save your breath to cool your coffee," shouted Sam Redding back at him, across the fifty feet or so of water that lay between the two boats. "We know what we are about."

"But you're risking your lives," shouted Merritt. "That thing wouldn't live ten minutes in any kind of a sea."

"Well, we're not such a bunch of old women as to be scared of a little wetting," jeered Jack Curtiss. "So long! We've got no time to wait for that old tub of yours."

Before the boys could voice any more warnings, the hydroplane, which had been slowed down, dashed off once more.

"I don't know what we are to do," spoke up Merritt. "We can't compel them to go in, and, after all, the captain may be mistaken."

"No, I'm not, my son," rejoined the veteran. "I can smell wind--and see them 'mare's tails' in the sky over yonder. They're as fall uv wind as a preacher is uv texts."

"Well, we've done our best to warn them," concluded Rob. "If they are so foolhardy as to keep on, we can't help it."

In half an hour more the boys had landed the captain at the little pier he had built on his island, and to which his rowboat was attached, and were ready to start back, good-bys having been said.

"Hark!" exclaimed the captain, as Rob prepared to give the order to "Go ahead."

The boys listened, and heard a low, distant moaning sound, something like the deepest rumbling notes of a church organ.

"That's the wind comin'," warned the captain. "Yer'd better be hurryin' back."

With more hasty good-bys, the lads got under way at once. As they emerged from the lee of the island they could see that seaward the ocean was being rapidly lashed into choppy, white-crested waves by the advancing storm, and that the wind was freshening into a really stiff breeze.

"Those fellows must be wishing they took our advice now if they are fools enough to have kept out," said Merritt, as he slowed down the engine so as to permit the Flying Fish to ride the rising seas more easily.

"Yes, I guess they're doing some tall thinking," agreed Tubby, as a wave caught the little Flying Fish "quartering" on her port bow, and sent a white smother of spray swirling back over her occupants.

"That's the time we got it," laughed Rob, from the wheel, peering straight ahead. Suddenly he uttered a shout and pointed seaward.

"Look there!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "There are those three fellows, and they're in trouble, from the looks of it."

The others looked, and beheld, half a mile or so away, on the roughening waters, the hull of the hydroplane. She was tossing up and down like a cork, and apparently was drifting helplessly, with her motor broken down, in the heavy sea. Her occupants seemed to be bailing her; but as they caught sight of the Flying Fish they stood up and waved frantically.

"Yes, they're in trouble, all right," agreed Tubby. "And I suppose we've got to go and get them out of it."

Rob had already put the Flying Fish about and headed her for the distressed craft. As they drew near, Sam Redding began shouting:

"Help, help! We're sinking, we're sinking!"

Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender, drenched to the skin with spray and white with fright, said nothing, but a look of great relief came over their faces as the chums' boat ranged alongside.

"I don't want to risk ramming my boat by coming right alongside,"

shouted Rob. "You'll have to jump for it. Don't be scared. We'll pull you aboard."

The three youths on the water-logged hydroplane looked somewhat alarmed at the prospect, but Rob knew that Jack and Bill could swim. He was not sure of Sam, but a.s.sumed, from the fact that he had lived by the sea all his life, that he was equally at home in the water.

The hesitation of Jack Curtiss and his chum was over in a minute, as the hydroplane gave a plunge that seemed as if it would be her last.

Lightly dressed as they were, in canvas trousers, sleeveless jerseys and yachting shoes, it was no trick at all for them to swim the few feet to the Flying Fish. As they leaped overboard, Sam lingered.

"Come on, Sam," shouted Jack, as the boys lugged the two dripping, sputtering castaways on board.