Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast; or, Through Storm and Stress to Florida. Louis Arundel
till I get a good chance to show you, fellows," he now remarked, with a satisfied air; "why, I expect to make rings around your blooming old Tramp, Jack; and as for "The Ark," why, it'll be figure eights for hers."
"Wow! don't I just see my finish, then," wailed poor, fat Nick, shaking his head sorrowfully. "The vibration always was just fierce, and now it'll just rattle me, so I'll be only skin and bones. You'll be calling me the Living Skeleton before we ever get to Jacksonville, I bet you, boys."
"Oh, when it gets so you just can't stand it any longer, call on Josh here to change off with you, like he did once before," laughed Herbert. "Josh is built on the order of a match, and seems to be especially suited for a narrow-beam boat."
But the party mentioned did not seem to like the prospect any better than Nick, to judge from the protest he immediately put out.
"Me to stick to the Comfort, fellows. One thing sure, if you are last, you always know where you're at; and that's what I never did when on that broncho of a Wireless. Why, it threw me twice; and souse I went into the drink."
"But just think, Josh," insinuated cunning Nick, "all this shaking would be the best thing ever for that indigestion of yours. It rattles up the liver, and does a heap of good. I don't need that sort of thing, you see. Last time you bunked with George you know you improved a hundred per cent."
"Huh! mebbe," grunted Josh, "but it wasn't worth it, I tell you."
"Look at that tug bucking up against the tide, will you?" exclaimed George just then – being humiliated by all this talk about the cranky qualities of his pet, and anxious to call their attention elsewhere in order to change the subject.
"Must be a greenhorn at the wheel, or else the fellow's had more drink than he had ought to tackle," declared Nick.
"He sure does wobble a heap," admitted Jack, keeping a wary eye on the approaching craft, lest it foul his own boat, and bring sudden disaster on the cruise which had begun so auspiciously. "But perhaps that's a trick these river pilots have when heading up into an ebb tide. They know all the wrinkles of the game, I guess, and how to save themselves from wasted efforts."
"Say, that rowboat had better look out; if he makes a quick turn with the tug he's apt to run the little punkin seed down," George declared, with a note of anxiety in his voice; for he was nervous by nature, as his love for racing and making high speed would indicate.
"That pilot must be watching us all the time, wondering whatever we're heading for down the river, because the duck shooting below isn't on yet. There! he's swung about again! I hope he don't knock that rowboat galley west!" called Herbert.
"Hey! look to your starboard – you're running down a boat!" shouted Jack, dropping his wheel for three seconds in order to make a speaking trumpet with both hands.
There was a brief interval of suspense. Then came a plain crash, accompanied by loud shouts, and more or less excitement aboard the tug that was heading up river way.
"He did it!" bellowed Josh, fairly wild with eagerness. "Oh! I'm afraid the poor fellow will be drowned before that tug can come about and go to his rescue. Turn your bally old tub, Herb, can't you? It takes a whole day for you to get around."
"No use of our trying it," declared the skipper of the big roomy Comfort, calmly, for nothing could start Herb out of his customary condition of mental poise, because he is as steady in his way as his boat; "he'd be drowned twice over before we reached him. Besides, there goes Jack in his Tramp, shooting straight for the smashed rowboat. Unless the poor fellow was injured and has already sank our chum will get him all right, Josh."
"That's right," declared Josh. "George has gone and got flustrated, so that he turned the wrong way; but if anybody can save that fellow it's Jack Stormways. Oh! I hope he does it, because I'll take it as a good sign that our new voyage down the coast is going to have a lucky start!"
CHAPTER II.
A GOOD OMEN FOR THE START
Jack Stormways was always prepared. He never lost his head in an emergency, for which more than one of his chums had had reason to be thankful in times past. So, on the present occasion, when he saw that the tug could not make a complete circuit against the running tide and reach the wrecked rowboat in time to be of any assistance to the unfortunate who had been hurled into the Delaware, Jack instantly headed the little motor boat for the spot.
"Get up in the bow with you, Jimmy, quick now, and take the boathook along! I'll slow down when we get there; and perhaps you can grab him in!" the skipper called out.
Accustomed to obeying, Jimmy made haste to snatch up the implement mentioned, and which had many the time proved its value in recovering things that had been swept overboard in a wind storm.
Then he hurried to gain a position near the bow of the boat, where he crouched, after making sure of his footing, so as to guard against a shock when he clapped the boathook into the clothing of the drowning man.
"I see him, Jack!" he bawled immediately. "He's holding to the boat, so he is!"
"All right, Jimmy," echoed the skipper, calmly; "I glimpsed him before you did, I reckon. Steady yourself now, and try not to make a foozle of it, old man. There you are. Jimmy; get him!"
And Jimmy did the same, catching the coat of the man in the water with his boathook, and holding on tenaciously. Jack, meanwhile, turned his engine backward, so that the momentum of the boat was promptly checked.
The man had been clinging to the rapidly sinking wreckage. In another half minute, no doubt, he would have been left without any support; and as he did not seem able to swim a stroke, his end must have speedily come.
Jimmy drew in with the haft of the boat-hook, until he could stretch down and seize upon the collar of the man's coat. As the Irish lad was brawny and nerved just then to mighty deeds, he managed to hoist the fellow into the little motor boat.
The unlucky man was white, and pretty nearly drowned. He had just had enough sense to cling desperately to the wreck of his boat, and then allow Jimmy to do the rescue act.
"Did you get hurt when that tug struck your boat?" asked Jack, for that was what he feared.
The man was blinking at him, for his eyes had taken in more or less of the brackish water of the river; but he shook his head in the negative. This relieved Jack more than a little. Like Josh, he had been hoping that in the very beginning of their new cruise a wet blanket might not be cast over the spirits of the party by their witnessing the drowning of a poor chap.
"Here comes the tug down after us," remarked Jimmy. "I suppose the omadhauns 'll be expressing their regrets for the accident. Sure, it was criminal carelessness, if ever there was a case. And ye'll be silly, sor, if so be ye don't make 'em pay for the boat they smashed."
By degrees the man seemed to come out of the half stupor into which his sudden immersion in the waters of the river had thrown him.
"They just got to," he grumbled, shaking his head; "for 'twas a borrowed boat, an' I can't pay for a new one."
"We'll try and see you through," said Jack. "If they think we're ready to tell what we saw, they'll not only pay you good damages, but take you ashore in the bargain."
"That's the ticket!" declared Jimmy, quite taken with the idea of frightening the captain of the tug into doing the right thing by his victim.
Presently the tug came alongside, and an anxious voice called out:
"Was he much hurt, boys? I'm sorry it happened. Second accident of the week, and such things don't do a man's reputation as a pilot any good."
"Well," replied Jack, promptly, "suppose you whack up for his boat, and a suit of clothes for the man; then take him ashore, and none of us will say a word about the accident, as you call it, but which looked mighty like criminal carelessness to us."
There was a brief interval of silence, during which the two men in the wheel-house of the tug seemed to be conferring.
"How much does he want, my lad?" asked one, presently thrusting his head and shoulders out, so that Jack could have almost shaken hands had