What a night that was!
"I wouldn't have missed it for twenty pounds," Johnny Richards said to those at home.
And the breakfast! It was without parallel. The schooner was held by its anchor inside the bar, and the boys in the morning visited their provision-baskets, and brought off such a heap of delicacies that the light-keeper declared it to be the "most satisfyin' meal" he had ever had inside those stone walls.
About nine o'clock he said, "Now, boys, I expect the tug-boat will be down with that schooner. When the cap'n of the tug-boat has carried her through the channel, I will signal to him--he and I have an understanding about it--and he will come round and tow you up, I don't doubt. You might be a-watching for her smoke."
Soon Dab Richards, looking up the harbour, cried out, "Smoke! she's coming!"
Yes, there was the tug-boat, throwing up a column of black smoke from her chimney, and behind her were the freshly-painted hull, and new, clean rigging of the lately launched schooner. The boys, save Dave, went to the Relentless, as the light-keeper said he would fix everything with the tug-boat, "make a bargain, and so on," and Dave could hear the terms and accept them for the party if he wished. The light-keeper had also promised in his own boat to put Dave aboard the tug.
But what other tug-boat was it the boys on the Relentless saw steaming down the harbour? They stood in the bow and watched her approach.
"She looks as if she were going to run into us," declared Dick.
"She certainly is pointing this way," thought Johnny.
"Our friends may be alarmed for us," was Dab's suggestion.