Without waiting to reply, Jack Harvey dodged quickly down the companionway, and returned, a moment later, from the cabin, holding a spy-glass in one hand.
Hooray! clap that to your eye, Henry, he cried, when he had taken a hasty survey ahead with it.
Thats it! exclaimed Henry Burns, taking a long look through the glass, while Harvey assumed his place at the wheel. There they are, two of them, paddling away for good old Southport as hard as ever they can. There are two boys, as I make them out. Yes, its Tom and Bob, sure as you live. Wont it seem like old times, though, to overhaul them? You keep the wheel, Jack. We cant catch up with them any too soon to suit me.
Shall we give them a salute? cried Harvey.
No, lets sail up on them and give them a surprise, suggested the other. They know we own the boat, but they havent seen her under sail since we have had her. They may not recognize us.
While the yacht Viking was parting the still moderate waves with its clean-cut bows, and laying a course that would bring it up with the canoe in less than a half-hour, the occupants of the tiny craft were bending hard to their paddles, pushing head on into the outer edge of the chop-sea. They were making good time, despite the sea and the head wind.
There go a couple of them Indians from away up the river yonder, sang out a man forward on a stubby, broad-bowed coaster to the man at the wheel, as the canoe passed a two-master beating across the river. The boys in the canoe chuckled.
Guess we must be getting good and black, Bob, said the boy who wielded the stern paddle to the other in the bow. And our first week on the water, at that, for the season.
Yes, weve laid the first coat on pretty deep, responded his companion, glancing with no little pride and satisfaction at a pair of brown and muscular arms and a pair of sunburned shoulders, revealed to good advantage by a blue, sleeveless jersey that looked as though it had seen more than one summers outing.
What do you think of the bay, Tom? he added, addressing the other boy. This youth, similarly clad and similarly bronzed and reddened, was handling his paddle like a practised steersman and was directing the canoes course straight down the bay, as though aiming fair at some point far away on an island that showed vaguely fifteen miles distant.
Oh, its all right, answered Tom. Its all right for this evening. Plenty of rough water
from now until seven or eight oclock to-night, but its just the usual sea that a southerly raises in the bay. We wont get into any such scrape as we did last year, when we came down here, not knowing the bay nor the coast of Grand Island, and let a storm catch us and throw us out pell-mell on the shore. Well not give our friends, the Warren boys, another such a fright this year. We can get across all right that is, if you dont mind a bit of a splashing over the bows.
It wont be the first time, nor the last, for that matter, I reckon, responded Bob.
And I always get my share of it, in the end, too, said the other boy; because when it sprays aboard it runs down astern and I have to kneel in it. Well, on we go, then. Its fifteen miles of rough water, but think how well eat when we get there.
Wont we? agreed Bob. Say, now you speak of it, Im hungry already. I could eat as much as young Joe Warren used to every time he took dinner at the hotel. He used to try to make old Witham lose money do you remember? and I think he always won.
Hello! he exclaimed, a moment later, as he looked back for an instant toward the stem. Just glance around, Tom, and take a look at that yacht coming down the river. Isnt she a beauty? I wouldnt mind a summers cruise in her, myself.
Whew! exclaimed the other, as he held his paddle hard against the gunwale and glanced back. She is a pretty one, and no mistake. Shes about as fine as we often see down this way. I dont recall seeing anything handsomer in the shape of a yacht around the bay last summer, unless it was the one Chambers had you know, the man that set the hotel afire.
I believe it is the very yacht, he continued. There isnt another one like it around here. You remember the boys wintered her down the river.
Yes, but wouldnt they hail us? asked Bob.
Perhaps not, answered Tom. Henry Burns likes to surprise people. They are due down the bay about this time. At any rate, we shall have a chance to see the yacht close aboard, for she is heading dead up for us.
The yacht Viking was indeed holding up into the wind on a course that would bring her directly upon the canoemen, if she did not go about. She kept on, and presently the boys in the canoe ceased their paddling and watched her approach.
She wont run us down, will she, Tom?
No, they see us, all right.
There was evidence of this the next moment, for a small cannon, somewhere forward on the deck of the yacht, gave a short, spiteful bark that made the canoemen jump. There followed immediately the deep bellowing of a big fog-horn and the clattering of a huge dinner-bell; while, at the same time, two yachtsmen aboard the strange craft appeared at the rail, waving and blowing and ringing alternately at the occupants of the canoe. A moment later, the yacht rounded to a short distance up-wind from the canoe, and the hail of familiar voices came across the water: