CHAPTER III
BOY SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE
"Hadn't we better put back and warn them?" suggested Merritt ratheranxiously, for he was alarmed by the confident manner in which the oldseaman prophesied certain disaster to the hydroplane if the weatherfreshened.
"No; see, she's heading toward us. I guess they want a race," criedRob. "We'll slow down a bit and let them catch up."
In a few moments the hydroplane was alongside. The yellow hood overher powerful engines glistened with the wet of the great bow-wave herspeed had occasioned, and her powerful motor was exhausting with a roarlike 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-wisein the narrow racing shell.
"Want a tow rope for that old stone dray of yours?" jeered JackCurtiss, as the speedy little racer ranged alongside.
He did not know that the Flying Fish was slowed down, and that althoughthe hydroplane appeared to be capable of tremendous speed, she was notactually so very much faster than Rob's boat.
"Say, you fellows," warned Rob, making a trumpet of his hands, "thecaptain says it's coming on to blow before long. You'd better get backinto the inlet with that craft of yours."
"Save your breath to cool your coffee," shouted Sam Redding back athim, across the fifty feet or so of water that lay between the twoboats. "We know what we are about."
"But you're risking your lives," shouted Merritt. "That thing wouldn'tlive ten minutes in any kind of a sea."
"Well, we're not such a bunch of old women as to be scared of a littlewetting," jeered Jack Curtiss. "So long! We've got no time to waitfor that old tub of yours."
Before the boys could voice any more warnings, the hydroplane, whichhad been slowed down, dashed off once more.
"I don't know what we are to do," spoke up Merritt. "We can't compelthem to go in, and, after all, the captain may be mistaken."
"No, I'm not, my son," rejoined the veteran. "I can smell wind--andsee them 'mare's tails' in the sky over yonder. They're as fall uvwind as a preacher is uv texts."
"Well, we've done our best to warn them," concluded Rob. "If they areso foolhardy as to keep on, we can't help it."
In half an hour more the boys had landed the captain at the little pierhe had built on his island, and to which his rowboat was attached, andwere ready to start back, good-bys having been said.
"Hark!" exclaimed the captain, as Rob prepared to give the order to "Goahead."
The boys listened, and heard a low, distant moaning sound, somethinglike the deepest rumbling notes of a church organ.
"That's the wind comin'," warned the captain. "Yer'd better behurryin' back."
With more hasty good-bys, the lads got under way at once. As theyemerged from the lee of the island they could see that seaward theocean was being rapidly lashed into choppy, white-crested waves by theadvancing storm, and that the wind was freshening into a really stiffbreeze.
"Those fellows must be wishing they took our advice now if they arefools enough to have kept out," said Merritt, as he slowed down theengine so as to permit the Flying Fish to ride the rising seas moreeasily.
"Yes, I guess they're doing some tall thinking," agreed Tubby, as awave caught the little Flying Fish "quartering" on her port bow, andsent a white smother of spray swirling back over her occupants.
"That's the time we got it," laughed Rob, from the wheel, peeringstraight ahead. Suddenly he uttered a shout and pointed seaward.
"Look there!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "There are thosethree fellows, and they're in trouble, from the looks of it."
The others looked, and beheld, half a mile or so away, on theroughening waters, the hull of the hydroplane. She was tossing up anddown like a cork, and apparently was drifting helplessly, with hermotor broken down, in the heavy sea. Her occupants seemed to bebailing her; but as they caught sight of the Flying Fish they stood upand waved frantically.
"Yes, they're in trouble, all right," agreed Tubby. "And I supposewe've got to go and get them out of it."
Rob had already put the Flying Fish about and headed her for thedistressed 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 whitewith fright, said nothing, but a look of great relief came over theirfaces 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 pullyou aboard."
The three youths on the water-logged hydroplane looked somewhat alarmedat the prospect, but Rob knew that Jack and Bill could swim. He wasnot sure of Sam, but assumed, from the fact that he had lived by thesea 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, asthe hydroplane gave a plunge that seemed as if it would be her last.Lightly dressed as they were, in canvas trousers, sleeveless jerseysand yachting shoes, it was no trick at all for them to swim the fewfeet 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.
"I--I can't swim. You'll have to come alongside for me," stuttered thebadly-scared Sam.
"All right. Hold on, and we'll do what we can," hailed Rob, startingto carry out the risky maneuver of getting alongside the plunginghydroplane in the heavy sea.
In some never-to-be-explained manner, however, the frightened Samsuddenly lost his balance in the tossing racing boat, and, clawingdesperately at her bulwarks to save himself, shot over the side.
"He'll drown!" shouted Jack Curtiss. "He can't swim, and he'll drown."
"If you knew that, why didn't you stand by him?" truculently growledTubby.
Without an instant's hesitation, Merritt threw off the jacket he hadput on when it started to blow, and slipped off his shoes. He wasoverboard and striking out for the drowning boy before those in theFlying Fish even realized his purpose.
With swift, powerful strokes he got alongside Sam just as the owner ofthe hydroplane was going down for the third time.
As the brave boy seized the struggling, frightened youth he felthimself gripped by the panic-stricken Sam in a frenzied hold ofdesperate intensity. His arms were pinioned by the drowning wretch,and they both vanished beneath the waves.
As they went under, however, Merritt managed to get one hand free, andrecalling what he had read of what to do under such conditions, struckthe other boy a terrific blow between the eyes. It stunned Samcompletely, and, to his great relief, Merritt felt the imprisoning griprelax. He could then handle Sam easily, and as they shot to thesurface he saw the Flying Fish bearing down on them, with four white,strained faces searching the tumbling waters.
In a few moments the unconscious lad and his rescuer were hauled onboard, and Rob, after congratulations, headed the Flying Fish for themouth of the inlet, which was still some distance off.
Tubby and Bill Bender laid Sam on his stomach, across a thwart, andstarted to try to get some of the salt water, of which he had swallowedgreat quantities, out of him. He soon gave signs of returningconsciousness, and opened his eyes just as Jack Curtiss was demandingto know if the Boy Scouts weren't going to take the hydroplane in tow.
"Not much we're not," responded Rob. "I'm sorry to have to leave her;but this sea is getting up nastier every minute, and there's no way ofgetting a line to her without running more risk than I want to take.We've had one near-drowning and we don't want another."
"If this was my boat, I'd pick Sam's boat up," sullenly replied thebully.
"You ought to be mighty glad we came along when we did," indignantlyspoke up Tubby. "You'd have been in a bad fix if we hadn't. Insteadof being thankful for it, all you can do is to kick about leaving thehydroplane."
An angry rep
ly was on the other's lips, but Bill Bender checked it bylooking up and saying: "I guess the kid's right, Jack. Let it go atthat."
The bully glowered. He felt his pride much wounded at having beencompelled to seek the aid of the boys whom he despised and hated.
"I suppose you'll go and blab it all over town about how you saved us,"he sneered, as the Flying Fish threaded her way through the tumblingwaters at the mouth of the inlet and began making her way up it.
"I don't think we shall," replied Rob quietly. "I mean to recommendMerritt, though, to headquarters for his Red Honor."
"Oh, you mean that cheap, bronze medal thing on a bit of red ribbon!"sneered Jack. "Why, that isn't worth much. You couldn't sell it foranything but old junk. Why don't they make them of gold?"
"That 'bronze medal thing,' as you call it, is worth a whole lot to aBoy Scout," rejoined Rob in the same even tone. "More than you canunderstand."
On their arrival at the yacht-club pier the boys were overwhelmed withquestions, and a doctor was summoned for Sam, who, as soon as he foundhimself safe, began to groan and show most alarming symptoms of beingseriously affected by his immersion.
The boys were not able to conceal the fact that they had accomplished abrave rescue, and were overwhelmed with congratulations. Merrittespecially came in for warm praise and commendation.
"You will certainly be granted your Red Honor," declared Mr. Wingate,who, besides being commodore of the Yacht Club, was one of thegentlemen whom Rob had persuaded to act as Scout Master for the newpatrol.
Merritt escaped from the crowd of admiring motor-boat men and boys assoon as he could, and hastened home for a change of clothes. On thearrival of Dr. Telfair, the village physician, he pronounced that therewas nothing whatever the matter with Sam but a bad fright, andprescribed dry garments and hot lemonade.
"Don't I need any medicine?" groaned Sam, determined to make the mostout of his temporary notoriety.
"No, you don't," growled the doctor; "unless," he added to himself,"they put up 'courage' in bottles."
"I suppose those boys will be more stuck up than ever now," said Jackto Bill Bender, as, having perfunctorily thanked their rescuers, theystarted for home with the almost weeping Sam.
"Sure to be," rejoined Bill. "It's all your fault, Sam, for taking usout in that fool hydroplane."
"My fault! Well, I like that," stuttered out Sam. "You asked me tocome, and you know I wanted to come back when the boys told us it mightcome on to blow; but you called me a 'sissy,' and said I was too timidto own a boat."
"Um--er--well," rejoined Bill, somewhat confused, "that's so. Butanyhow, to return to what we were talking about, it's given those kidsa great chance to set up as heroes."
"Well, we can work that scheme we were talking about last night on themjust as soon as you're ready," suddenly remarked Jack. "That will givethem something else to think about."
"Oh, say, Jack, cut it out, won't you?" pleaded Sam. "I don't like thekids any better than you do, but one of them saved my life to-day, andI'm not going into anything that will harm them."
"Hear him rave!" sneered Jack. "Why last night, when we talked itover, you thought it would be a prime joke. It isn't as if it wouldhurt them. It'll just give them something to study up, that's all.They think they're such fine trailers and tracers that it would be ashame not to give them a chance to show what they can do."
"That's right, Sam," cut in Bill; "it's more of a joke than anythingelse."
"Well," agreed Sam weakly, "if you put it in that way, I suppose it'sall right; but I tell you I don't like it."
"Why, you'll have the laugh of your young life after we've pulled thestunt off," remarked Bill. "When will we do it, Jack?"
"Not to-night, that's certain," responded the other. "I've had enoughexcitement for one day."
"What's the matter with to-morrow night, then?"
"I'm agreeable. How about you, Sam?"
"I wish you fellows would leave me out of it," rejoined the bully'stimid chum.
"Like they left you out of their patrol, eh?" sneered Bill, knowingthat he was touching the other on a tender spot.
"All right, to-morrow night suits me," snapped Sam, flushing angrily atBill's remark--as that worthy had intended he should. "Here's my house.We'll meet at Bill's 'boudoir."'
"Right you are," chuckled Jack. "Oh, say, it's going to be the joke ofthe century!"