“Now go ahead, please, and tell me all about your plan,” the officer said with eager interest.
“Well, it isn’t more than three or four miles, I should say, from this point to the mouth of our creek, and the tide is with me all the way. If you’ll set our dory in the water and Cal will go with me to help row—”
“We’ll all four go, of course,” said Larry.
“In that case, we can put ourselves back at our old camp in about an hour with such a tide as this to help us. When we land there I’ll go at once to the lookout tree, climb to the very top of it and see what is going on. Then, if there’s anything more to be found out, I’ll creep down to the neighborhood of the rascals’ place and take a closer look. When the dory gets back here I can tell you all you want to know.”
“Excellent!” exclaimed the officer. “Only, instead of having you boys row the dory all that way, I’ll have you taken to the place you want to reach in a ship’s boat.”
“They might see that,” objected Tom, “and take the alarm, while if they see the dory returning to her old anchorage they’ll think nothing about it. Besides, we don’t mind a little rowing. The tide’s with us going, and if necessary, we can stay up there in the creek till it turns and is ready to help us come back.”
“There won’t be any waiting,” said Cal. “It’ll turn just about the time we get there—or even before that if we don’t get away from here pretty quick.”
“Very well,” said the lieutenant. “The plan is yours, Tom, and you shall have your own way in carrying it out.”
A hurried order from the commanding officer, a little well-directed scurrying on the part of the seamen, and the Hunkydory lay alongside, ready for her crew to drop from a rope ladder into her.