“No more do I. Joe, we’ll be fighting our way through a southerly gale all night.”
“All gales look alike to me,” laughed the young engineer. “We’ve weathered every other gale in the past. I don’t believe we’ll go down in this one.”
“Oh, the ‘Restless’ is staunch enough, as far as seaworthiness goes,” retorted Halstead. “All that can possibly make us uneasy is the dread that we might hit some uncharted reef.”
From the talk of the chums it appeared plainly enough that, though they spoke easily, they much wished the coming night were through with, and that they had their boat inside of Oyster Bay.
Their boat—yes. They owned this handsome craft, did these two boys, and had come into the possession of it through deeds of daring and sterling seamanship.
Readers of the preceding volumes of this series are aware of how Tom Halstead and Joe Dawson, born near the mouth of the Kennebec River, in Maine, came to handle the motor cruiser of George Prescott, a broker of Boston. Aided by their employer the boys went through some rousing adventures in breaking up the crew of Smugglers’ Island. As a result of the fine seamanship displayed by these two youths, Mr. Prescott had conceived the idea of founding the Motor Boat Club of the Kennebec. This club, now deservedly famous, was composed, at first, of Maine boys born of seafaring stock and trained to meet the dangers of salt water life. By degrees boys in other sections of the Atlantic coast, similarly trained to the sea life, and to the handling of motors, had been added to the club.
All this was outlined in the first volume, “The Motor Boat Club of the Kennebec.” In the second volume, “The Motor Boat Club at Nantucket,” was narrated how Tom and Joe, with the help of a Nantucket boy who was soon added to the club, solved the mystery of the abduction of the Dunstan heir, at the same time going through a maze of thrilling adventures. In the third volume, “The Motor Boat Club off Long Island,” we find Tom and Joe, reinforced by a Long Island youth, Hank Butts, serving two financiers, Francis Delavan and Eben Moddridge, through a long sea chase and helping to break up a Wall Street conspiracy. For their loyalty and in recognition of the amazing perils the boys had cheerfully encountered, Francis Delavan had presented the two chums with the “Restless,” while Hank Butts had been rewarded with a smaller motor craft for use along the southern coast of Long Island.
In the volume just before the present one, “The Motor Boat Club and the Wireless,” we found Tom, Joe and Hank all three again at sea, having chartered the “Restless” to one Powell Seaton, for what they thought would be a very quiet cruise. Having the motor cruiser equipped with a wireless telegraph apparatus, which Joe Dawson had fitted himself to operate, our young Motor Boat Club friends found themselves again suddenly plunged into adventures of the most exciting description.
At the close of the engagement with Mr. Seaton, Hank Butts had felt it best to return to his Long Island home and his aged parents, but Tom and Joe had gradually cruised south along the coast, making more than a living in chartering their fine craft to a number of different sailing parties.
At St. Augustine, Henry Tremaine had chartered the “Restless” to take himself and his party southward around the coast of Florida, and then northward again, up the west coast as far as Oyster Bay. The charter was to run for a month, and Skipper Tom understood that there would be considerable cruising along the Florida keys during that period.