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 shell.
"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 assumed, 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.
"I--I can't swim. You'll have to come alongside for me," stuttered the
badly-scared Sam.
"All right. Hold on, and we'll do what we can," hailed Rob, starting
to carry out the risky maneuver of getting alongside the plunging
hydroplane in the heavy sea.
In some never-to-be-explained manner, however, the frightened Sam
suddenly lost his balance in the tossing racing boat, and, clawing
desperately 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 growled
Tubby.
Without an instant's hesitation, Merritt threw off the jacket he had
put on when it started to blow, and slipped off his shoes. He was
overboard and striking out for the drowning boy before those in the
Flying Fish even realized his purpose.
With swift, powerful strokes he got alongside Sam just as the owner of
the hydroplane was going down for the third time.
As the brave boy seized the struggling, frightened youth he felt
himself gripped by the panic-stricken Sam in a frenzied hold of
desperate 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, and
recalling what he had read of what to do under such conditions, struck
the other boy a terrific blow between the eyes. It stunned Sam
completely, and, to his great relief, Merritt felt the imprisoning grip
relax. He could then handle Sam easily, and as they shot to the
surface 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 on
board, and Rob, after congratulations, headed the Flying Fish for the
mouth of the inlet, which was still some distance off.
Tubby and Bill Bender laid Sam on his stomach, across a thwart, and
started to try to get some of the salt water, of which he had swallowed
great quantities, out of him. He soon gave signs of returning
consciousness, and opened his eyes just as Jack Curtiss was demanding
to 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 of
getting 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 the
bully.
"You ought to be mighty glad we came along when we did," indignantly
spoke up Tubby. "You'd have been in a bad fix if we hadn't. Instead
of being thankful for it, all you can do is to kick about leaving the
hydroplane."
An angry reply was on the other's lips, but Bill Bender checked it by
looking up and saying: "I guess the kid's right, Jack. Let it go at
that."
The bully glowered. He felt his pride much wounded at having been
compelled 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 tumbling
waters 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 recommend
Merritt, 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 for
anything 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 a
Boy Scout," rejoined Rob in the same even tone. "More than you can
understand."
On their arrival at the yacht-club pier the boys were overwhelmed with
questions, and a doctor was summoned for Sam, who, as soon as he found
himself safe, began to groan and show most alarming symptoms of being
seriously affected by his immersion.
The boys were not able to conceal the fact that they had accomplished a
brave rescue, and were overwhelmed with congratulations. Merritt
especially 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 the
gentlemen whom Rob had persuaded to act as Scout Master for the new
patrol.
Merritt escaped from the crowd of admiring motor-boat men and boys as
soon as he could, and hastened home for a change of clothes. On the
arrival of Dr. Telfair, the village physician, he pronounced that there
was nothing whatever the matter with Sam but a bad fright, and
prescribed dry garments and hot lemonade.
"Don't I need any medicine?" groaned Sam, determined to make the most
out 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 Jack
to Bill Bender, as, having perfunctorily thanked their rescuers, they
started for home with the almost weeping Sam.
"Sure to be," rejoined Bill. "It's all your fault, Sam, for taking us
out in that fool hydroplane."
"My fault! Well, I like that," stuttered out Sam. "You asked me to
come, and you know I wanted to come back when the boys told us it might
come on to blow; but you called me a 'sissy,' and said I was too timid
to own a boat."
"Um--er--well," rejoined Bill, somewhat confused, "that's so. But
anyhow, to return to what we were talking about, it's given those kids
a great chance to set up as heroes."
"Well, we can work that scheme we were talking about last night on them
just as soon as you're ready," suddenly remarked Jack. "That will give
them something else to think about."
"Oh, say, Jack, cut it out, won't you?" pleaded Sam. "I don't like the
kids any better than you do, but one of them saved my life to-day, and
I'm not going into anything that will harm them."
"Hear him rave!" sneered Jack. "Why last night, when we talked it
over, you thought it would be a prime joke. It isn't as if it would
hurt 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 a
shame 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 anything
else."
"Well," agreed Sam weakly, "if you put it in that way, I suppose it's
all right; but I tell you I don't like it."
"Why, you'll have the laugh of your young life after we've pulled the
stunt off," remarked Bill. "When will we do it, Jack?"
"Not to-night, that's certain," responded the other. "I've had enough
excitement 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's
timid chum.
"Like they left you out of their patrol, eh?" sneered Bill, knowing
that he was touching the other on a tender spot.
"All right, to-morrow night suits me," snapped Sam, flushing angrily at
Bill'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 of
the century!"