“The wind is getting pretty brisk and since it is from the sea, we’ll have to tack out quite a bit to make the port we started from,” Jack said. He then pushed the rudder handle and the bow swung into the wind.
“We’ll have to go at least a mile out to sea,” Dick agreed, “if we make the fisherman’s dock on one tack.”
“That’s hard luck,” Benjy spoke regretfully. “I hate to waste the time, but of course we must get the old boat back. Make the best speed you can, boys.”
Dick and Jack were experienced sailors, while Benjy, desert-born, knew nothing whatever of the management of a boat.
For a long half hour they scudded in silence which was suddenly broken by an exclamation from the boy at the rudder. “Hi, you, Ben! Look over to starboard. What’s that red thing bobbing up and down.”
“Looks like a bottle floating this way. Turn about, can’t you, so that we can sail close enough to pick it up?”
“I’m afraid I can’t make it, old man,” Jack replied. “If we swing that way an inch more we’ll lose the wind out of our sails.”
They were scudding away from the bottle when Benjy shouted excitedly: “Never mind if we do lose headway, I want to get that bottle. I believe that red thing on it is a girl’s hair ribbon and I’d never forgive myself if there was a message in it from Babs and the rest of them.”
“Well, I’ll take a tack that way, if you say so, but of course the bottle can’t hold a message from the girls since it is sailing directly in from somewhere out at sea. More than likely it was dropped from a ship in distress.”
“Well, even so. It’s up to us to get it, whoever set it afloat.”