“Look at your hands,” he said, “all filled up mit blisters. By golly, you fine fellows to work like der dickens for me.”
“Nonsense,” laughed Terry. “You wouldn’t expect us to go away and leave you there in that hold, would you?”
Captain Vulfer shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Maype lots of fellows vouldn’t go down in dot hold ven dey hear dot hammering. I bet you my life idt sounded mighty like spooks, eh?”
“Yes, it was a bit scary,” the boys admitted.
The boys and the skipper slept on the deck of the freighter that night and early in the morning the captain was up and moving about. He was in good spirits and the boys found that they liked him very much. He combined a fund of good humor and keen business sense, and he could be authoritative and energetic when he wanted to be. He thought his crew would be found close by at some shore resort and asked the boys if they would run him ashore.
This they readily agreed to do, and after a hearty breakfast on the sloop they got under way. It took them three hours to run to shore, and they visited two small towns without finding any trace of the runaway crew. But the Dutch captain was not cast down.
“Ve’ll surely vind dem,” he told them. “You zee, dey run away from der ship in fear, but dey von’t know vot to do mit demselfs. Dey can’t get anodder job until dey bring dat ship in, and I bet you ve find dem drinkin’ dere head off in some blace.”
In a cheap hotel in the third town they found the missing crew. All of them were sitting in the bar when Captain Vulfer walked into the place, his arms folded and his brows knitted together. Surprise and disbelief greeted the skipper as his motley crew saw him towering before them.
“So!” thundered the skipper, as the boys looked on from the doorway. “Dis iss vere I vind you, hey? Joost because I go down der hold and take maype a little nap behind der lumber. You cowardly children! Unless you make one hurry up back to der boat I get you all put behind der bars in Portsmouth ven I get dere. Scatter, you dunder and blitzen mice!”
The crew scattered. With eyes popping out of their heads they made a rush for the long boat in which they had come ashore. And right behind them, cruising slowly in the Lassie, came their watchful skipper. He made them row back to the freighter, and once aboard he drove them with a will of iron to clean up the ship.