He pointed back to the mouth of the now distant inlet, from which a curious-looking black craft was emerging at what seemed to be great speed.
"It's that hydroplane of Sam Redding's, for a bet!" cried Rob. "Here, Tubby, take the wheel a minute, while I put the glasses on her."
The lad stood up in the heaving motor craft, steadying himself against the bulwarks by his knees, and peered through his marine-glasses.
"It's the hydroplane, sure enough," he said. "By ginger, but she can go, all right! Sam and Jack and Bill are all in her. They seem to be heading right out to sea, too."
"Say!" exclaimed Tubby suddenly, "if it comes on to blow, as the captain said it would, they'll be in a bad fix, won't they?"
"In that ther shoe-box thing," scornfully exclaimed the old captain, who had also been looking through the glasses, "why, I wouldn't give a confederate dollar bill with a hole in it fer their lives."
CHAPTER III
BOY SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE
"Hadn't we better put back and warn them?" suggested Merritt rather anxiously, for he was alarmed by the confident manner in which the old seaman prophesied certain disaster to the hydroplane if the weather freshened.