“At twenty-five miles an hour, Joe, if you can keep it up, a straight sou’east by east course should bring us right in the path of the ‘Constant’ on the course and speed she reports.”
“Oh, we can keep the speed up,” predicted Joe, confidently. “But I can’t fool with the engine, unless you insist. I ought to be back in the cabin, at the wireless instrument.”
“Hank can keep at the motors, then,” nodded Captain Tom. “Go along, old fellow.”
Joe paused but an instant to give Hank the needed orders, then raced aft. At the after end of the cabin were two snug little staterooms; at the other end, forward, a table had been fitted up with wireless apparatus, for the twin motors of the boat generated, by means of a dynamo, 20 electricity enough for a very respectable wireless spark.
Hardly had Joe vanished when Hank, satisfied with the performance of the motors, appeared on deck. The signal mast stood just behind the bridge deck. It was of light, hollow steel, with two inner tubes that, when extended, made an unusually high mast for such a boat.
“We can run the extension mast up to full height in this light breeze, can’t we, Tom?” asked the Long Island boy. Halstead nodded.
So simple was the arrangement that, within a few moments, Hank had the aerials well aloft. Nor was he too soon, for this query came promptly through space from Powell Seaton, up at Beaufort:
“Are you starting at once?”
With a quiet grin, all alone there by the wireless apparatus, young Dawson sparked back through the air:
“Three miles east, and running to intercept the ‘Constant.’”