“We’ve got to get back now,” he chattered. “But let’s meet the same way to-morrow night. We’ll try to slip the hint to Billy and Mouser and have them here, too. If we’ve gotten away with it to-night, we may be able to again.”
“Righto!” agreed Fred.
“And in the meantime,” added Bobby hurriedly, “we’ll do our best to think up some way of escape. If we get too far into the Frozen North it will be mighty hard to get back to civilization. It looks impossible to get free, with nothing but this water about us, but impossible things have happened more than once. We’ve got to find a way!”
“I’ve got my thinking cap on,” announced Fred. “We’ll think up some way, sure enough.” With this they parted, returning as silently as they had come, and regained the safety of their hammocks without meeting with accident.
As Bobby, wet clothes and all—he did not dare take them off for fear of waking the other men—got into the hammock and drew the rough blanket up over him, he felt strangely happy and elated.
They had succeeded in eluding the captain’s vigilant eye this once, perhaps they could do it again. At any rate he had enlisted Fred’s help in his plan of throwing Captain Garrish off his guard, and that was the first big step toward their escape.
Some day they would give Captain Garrish and his muttering crew the slip for good and all. If he could only think of a way—if he could only think of a way—and with the words saying themselves over and over in his mind he finally fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
It seemed to him that he had not been sleeping five minutes, though in reality it had been that many hours, when he was roused rudely from his slumbers and hustled out on deck.
Sleepy-eyed, he stared about him.
It was a gray day; the storm clouds that had pursued them all the day before had not yet lifted and a fog hung low over the seething water.