There Was a Roar of Pain From the Sailor.
Young Butts quickly obeyed, though his own wrench he dropped into a hip pocket. He came on deck bearing the same heavy hitching weight that had been shied at the boat’s young skipper on the pier a few nights before.
“Like that better, do you?” asked Tom, his gaze lighting on it as Hank sprang on deck.
“Well, it might come handy,” replied the freckle-faced one, speculatively.
The three men left on the schooner had already hauled in their sheets and headed around in the effort to reach their own boat’s crew. But the “Rocket” ran swiftly up alongside.
“You keep away from us!” yelled the man at the schooner’s wheel.
“Don’t you believe it for a minute,” Captain Tom retorted. Joe and Hank were already at their stations with the grappling hooks.
“You’re acting like pirates, if you try to come aboard us,” shouted back the fellow at the schooner’s wheel.
“A fine lot you are, to talk about piracy,” retorted Captain Halstead, ironically. Then, by a piece of neat steering, he ran the motor boat up so close alongside that she almost grazed the other vessel.
“Let go the hooks!” he ordered. Hank and Joe threw the grapplers so that both made fast over the schooner’s rail. In the same instant Halstead shut off power. The schooner, if it remained under sail, could tow the “Rocket” now.