The young man pointed down the wharf to where a rather bulky motor boat, broad of beam and about thirty feet waterline was moored head out to a staging.
“Mary Jane—that’s your boat,” announced Mr. Yancy. “She’s old and she ain’t got no looks, but she’s seaworthy and she’ll take you anywhere. You could run over to Paris or London in that old craft if you could pile enough gas aboard her.”
“She looks pretty big,” Dorothy’s tone was dubious. “Think I can handle her by myself?”
“She is big,” he admitted readily, “but she runs like a sewing machine and she’s all set to be taken out this minute if you want her.”
“I’ll look her over anyway,” she declared and led the way to the landing stage.
Stepping aboard the Mary Jane, she peeped into the small trunk cabin which was scarcely bigger than a locker, but would give shelter in case of rain. She observed that there were sailing lights, compass, horn and a large dinner bell in a rack, and two life preservers as well. In one of the lockers she came upon a chart. Stowed up in the forepeak were an anchor with a coil of line and three five-gallon tins of gasoline. A quick examination showed the fuel tank to have been filled.
The motor was a simple and powerful two-cylinder affair, with make-and-break ignition, noisy, but dependable; the sort of engine on which the fishermen and lobstermen along the coast hang their lives in offshore work. It seemed to Dorothy that it ought to kick the shallow old tub along at a good ten-knot gait. The boat itself though battered and dingy, appeared to be sound and staunch so far as one could see.
“I’ll take her,” decided Dorothy. “That is, if she’s not too expensive?”
“I guess we ain’t goin’ to fight about the price, mam,” asserted Yancy. “How long will you be wantin’ her and when do you expect to take her out?”
“Not before nine tonight—and I’ll hire her for twenty-four hours.”