The chubby-faced Joe now bent the glasses on the object of their scrutiny.
He gazed intently for a minute, and then uttered a shout.
“By ginger, Nat, you’re right!” he exclaimed. “There is someone on board. There must be something the matter with them, though, for they seem to be collapsed in a kind of bundle on the thwarts.”
“We must make all speed to their aid,” said Nat, signaling for more power. “Poor fellows, if they have been adrift in all that flare-up, they must be about dead.”
“I should say so,” agreed Joe.
As they neared the boat, Nat began blowing long blasts on the electric whistle, to let the occupants know that aid was at hand. In response, a figure upreared itself in the drifting craft, waved feebly once or twice, and then subsided in a limp-looking heap.
“I reckon we’re only just about in time,” said Nat grimly, coaxing another knot out of the Nomad.
As they drew alongside the boat, they saw that not one but two persons occupied it. The one who had signaled them from a distance proved to be a short, stocky little man, with a crop of brilliant red hair and a pair of twinkling blue eyes. The merry flash in those optics had not been dulled, even by the terrible ordeal through which, it was apparent, he and his companion had passed.
“Hullo, shipmates! Glad to see you!” he chirruped, grinning up at the boys on the bridge with a look of intense good humor.
His white duck clothes were scorched, and his rubicund hair, on close inspection, proved to be singed, but nothing appeared capable of downing his amiability.