“Cast off!” yelled Mac in the darkness. “Keep the engine goin’ Tom and youse other kids do what ye kin at the oars.”
Both Jerry and Mac were right. Captain Joe was hanging on to the wheel, which was hard over. The cargo owner was crouched beneath the rail, wrapped in a blanket.
“Free dem jib sheets, but don’t haul in on ’em till ye git de word,” commanded Captain Joe at once, but offering no explanations. “Take the light,” he added.
The nimble Mac and Jerry were off on a bound and a few moments later the slapping sails were free in the wind. For five minutes or more the two boys stood waiting the word to haul in, the jib sheets in hand. Below them, the Escambia, feebly but ceaselessly, pulled at the straining cable, and far astern Captain Joe, with adroit use of the wheel, coaxed the drifting steamer little by little into the wind.
At last came the long-waited-for order. The two boys fell to their task like storm scarred sea dogs. One sheet at a time, they hauled in, against the gale.
“He’ll make it,” panted Mac, as he saw the great triangular canvas fill out over the port bow. As he and Jerry made fast the second sheet they could almost feel the steamer respond. “Captain Joe’ll put her there now, if any one could. But it’s goin’ to be close work,” added Mac. “Hear them breakers, Jerry?”
“He’s sho’ haidin’ her up,” answered Jerry.
After another trip to Captain Joe, the boys were ordered into the Escambia again. The instructions were to give every aid to the unwieldly steamer; if she fell off before the storm again, to use the engine and oars to the best advantage, and, if she made the bay, to hasten aboard to let go the anchor. Neither Mac nor Jerry took the trouble to haul in on the Escambia’s hawser. Throwing their arms and legs about the stiff cable, they shot downward into the life boat’s stern.
Mac now told his oarsmen off in relays, and to Bob the relief came none too soon. Braced in the bow, he took his rest and found time to look about. The campfire on the shore was wholly dead.