“The ‘Kaiser’ could slip in by us easily, in this mean fog,” declared Mr. Delavan.
“Not if she keeps to her usual course on this part of the trip,” Halstead answered. “She’d be in these waters in passing, and we haven’t heard any fog-whistle heavy enough to come from a craft of that size.”
All these minutes the owner, who possessed the faculty of keeping his mind on two things at once, had not forgotten to sound the auto whistle at regular intervals.
“I think, sir,” Tom spoke presently, “I had better keep to mere headway now.”
“Do so, if that’s your best judgment,” nodded Francis Delavan. “But remember, captain, that to-day’s game is one that has to be played in earnest.”
“We won’t miss the ‘Kaiser Wilhelm,’ if she comes in soon, and follows her usual course,” Halstead answered.
Though Tom still kept one hand on the wheel, the “Rocket” seemed almost to rest motionless on the gentle swell.
It was an August day. The motor craft, a handsome sixty-foot affair of racing build and with powerful engines, lay on the light, fog-covered swell some twelve miles nearly due south of Shinnecock Bay on the southern coast of Long Island.
Readers of former narratives in this series will remember how Mr. Prescott, a Boston broker, organized the Motor Boat Club among the sea-trained boys at the mouth of the Kennebec River, in Maine.