"But we just haven't a couple of paddles," answered Sam. "No, what we need now is courage and endurance. We must wait for a wind, and keep our courage up. We are suffering already with hunger and thirst, and will suffer more, but it can't be helped. We must keep our courage up, and endure that which we cannot do anything to cure. It is harder to endure suffering than to encounter danger, but a brave man, or a brave boy, can do both without murmuring."
Sam's words encouraged his companions, and they managed to get some sleep. After awhile day dawned, and the fog was still thick around them, while not a zephyr was astir. Nearly an hour later, a sudden booming startled them. It was a cannon, and was very near.
"What is that?" asked the boys in a breath.
"A sunrise gun, I think," said Sam, "and it's on a ship or a fort. Now then all together with a shout."
They shouted in concert. No answer came. They shouted again and again, and finally their shout was answered. A little later a row boat came out into the fog, and the first man Sam saw in it was Tandy Walker.
It is not necessary to repeat the greetings and the explanations that were given. Sam learned that the gun had been fired from Fort Bowyer, the guardian fortress, which, standing on Mobile Point, commanded the entrance to the bay. The fort had been garrisoned only the day before, and Tandy was one of the garrison. Sam's boat had drifted further west than he had supposed, and he found himself now precisely at the point he had tried to reach.
As Sam was too weak to walk, and there was no wind with which to sail up to the town, a messenger was sent by land from the fort, bearing to General Jackson a detailed account of Sam's wanderings and adventures in the shape of a written report. When the wind served, the little band of weary wanderers sailed up to Mobile, and when Sam reached the hospital to which he had been assigned for the treatment of his wounds, he found there an official despatch from General Jackson, from which the following is an extract:—
"The commanding General begs to express his high sense of the services rendered by Samuel Hardwicke and his band, and his appreciation of the rare courage, discretion and fortitude displayed by the youthful leader of the Pensacola scouting party. A few blank commissions in the volunteer forces having been placed in the commanding General's hands for bestowal upon deserving men, he is greatly pleased to issue the first of them to Mr. Hardwicke, in recognition of his gallant conduct, creating him a captain of volunteers, to date from the day of his departure on his recent mission."
"So, you're really 'Captain Sam' after all," said Sid Russell, when the document was read in his presence, and the formal commission had been inspected reverently by all the boys.