Daylight brought the racer’s masthead in sight.
“We’ll keep just about the upper two feet of that masthead in sight all day,” proposed the young skipper. Soon afterward he called Hank, who had had three or four hours’ sleep, to the wheel. Joe, when there was nothing to do, slept on a locker beside his engine. Eben Moddridge dozed in a deck chair.
At noon, when Halstead again took the wheel, the relative positions of the two boats were the same. Through the glass only about two feet of the racer’s mast could be made out above the horizon. There was no reason to suppose that those aboard the racer had caught the least glimpse of the “Rocket.”
By sun-down this sea-quarry’s masthead was still in sight, each boat going at about nineteen miles an hour.
“We can carry gasoline to go as far as they can,” laughed Tom Halstead, confidently.
At dark the launch’s masthead light again glowed out, so that the chase continued to be a simple matter of vigilance. The young navigators caught their sleep well enough, only the helm requiring constant attention.
Soon after the second morning out had dawned clear and bright, Captain Tom, who was at the wheel, caught sight of something so interesting that he yelled to Hank Butts, asleep on a mattress on deck:
“Wake up, steward! Hustle Mr. Moddridge on deck. Tell him there’s something ahead of huge interest!”