“If you go, I’ll go along,” answered Randy, quickly.
“Well, if you try it, each of you’d better take two life-preservers,” suggested Ira Small. “Then, when you git tired of swimmin’, you kin rest yourselves. It ain’t no mean distance to that there vessel. Distances on the water are mighty deceivin’.”
“What about sharks?” asked Fred.
“We’ve got to run that risk,” answered Jack. “I’d just as lief be food for sharks as to starve to death,” he added desperately.
A little later, each wearing two life-preservers, Jack and Randy struck out for the water-logged steam yacht, which was moving slowly on the rolling bosom of the Atlantic.
“Don’t hurry, Randy,” cautioned the young major. “It may be a long swim, and there is no use of our getting winded. Take it easy. It may get us there quicker in the end.”
The two Rover boys made slow progress, and at the end of a quarter of an hour the water-logged steam yacht seemed to be almost as far away as ever.
“It doesn’t look as if we were going to make it, does it, Jack?” questioned his cousin, as he stopped swimming for a moment. His looks showed his disappointment.
“Oh, we’ll get there sooner or later,” Jack answered, as cheerfully as he could.
They resumed their swimming, and a few minutes later saw, to their delight, that the rolling ocean was bringing the strange vessel closer to them.