When the charter-man of the “Restless” came out once more the thick pile of banknotes in his pocket had grown a good deal thinner, but Captain Rawley had been enlisted as a friend to the cause.
“Good-bye, old chums,” cried Dick Davis, gripping a hand of Tom and Joe with each of his own.
“Good-bye! Good luck now, and all the way through life!” murmured Tom, earnestly, and with a hidden meaning that Davis caught.
As speedily as Tom and Joe had assisted 194 Powell Seaton aboard the motor boat, Hank cast off, while the crew of the “Glide” began to raise the side gangway.
There were more rousing farewells between the two groups of Motor Boat Club boys. Then the hoarse whistle of the “Glide” sounded, and the freighter began to go ahead at half-speed.
The “Restless” fell away and astern, yet she followed the freighter. That she should do so had been understood with Captain Rawley, and with Dick and Ab. Powell Seaton intended to keep the “Glide” within sight for at least thirty-six hours, if possible, in order to make sure that the seventy-foot drab boat did not attempt to put Anson Dalton or any other messenger on board.
“If we stick to the sea for a hundred years, Joe,” laughed Skipper Tom, as he followed the bigger craft at a distance of eight hundred feet, “nothing as lucky as this is likely to happen again. I was afraid I was booked for Rio, for sure, and it made me heartsick to think of leaving the ‘Restless’ so long and living aboard a big tub of an ordinary, steam-propelled ship!”
“I’ve taken the step, now, and can’t very well change it,” declared Mr. Seaton, who looked both pale and thoughtful. “Halstead, all I can hope and pray for is that your comrades 195 on the ship ahead are as clever and watchful, as brave and honest as you think.”
“If wondering about Dick and Ab is all that ever worries me,” laughed Tom Halstead, easily, “I don’t believe I shall ever have any wrinkles. I know those boys, Mr. Seaton. We were born and raised in the same little Maine seacoast town, and I’d trust that pair with the errand if it were my own diamond field at stake.”
The fog had lifted sufficiently, by this time, so that clear vision was to be had for at least a quarter of a mile.