"No; see, she's heading toward us. I guess they want a race," cried Rob. "We'll slow down a bit and let them catch up."
In a few moments the hydroplane was alongside. The yellow hood over her powerful engines glistened with the wet of the great bow-wave her speed had occasioned, and her powerful motor was exhausting with a roar like a battery of machine guns.
Crouched aft of the engine hood was Sam Redding, who held the wheel. Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender were in the stern. They sat tandem-wise in the narrow racing shell.
"Want a tow rope for that old stone dray of yours?" jeered Jack Curtiss, as the speedy little racer ranged alongside.
He did not know that the Flying Fish was slowed down, and that although the hydroplane appeared to be capable of tremendous speed, she was not actually so very much faster than Rob's boat.
"Say, you fellows," warned Rob, making a trumpet of his hands, "the captain says it's coming on to blow before long. You'd better get back into the inlet with that craft of yours."
"Save your breath to cool your coffee," shouted Sam Redding back at him, across the fifty feet or so of water that lay between the two boats. "We know what we are about."
"But you're risking your lives," shouted Merritt. "That thing wouldn't live ten minutes in any kind of a sea."
"Well, we're not such a bunch of old women as to be scared of a little wetting," jeered Jack Curtiss. "So long! We've got no time to wait for that old tub of yours."
Before the boys could voice any more warnings, the hydroplane, which had been slowed down, dashed off once more.