"Oh, pshaw!" replied the young skipper. "What a gammy old croaker you are. They won't start to-day, anyhow. But here, take her a minute, while I go aloft for one more look before sundown to make sure."
As the man complied with this request, and waddling aft took the tiller, his more active companion sprang into the main rigging and ran rapidly to the masthead, from which point of vantage he gazed back for a full minute over the course they had come.
"Not a sign," he shouted down at length. "But hello," he added to himself, "what's that?" With a glance seaward his keen eye had detected a distant floating object that was momentarily uplifted on the back of a long swell, and flashed white in the rays of the setting sun.
"Luff her, David! Hard down with your hellum, and trim in all," he shouted to the steersman. "There, steady, so."
"Wot's hup?" inquired the man a few minutes later, as the other rejoined him on deck.
"Don't know for sure; but there's something floating off there that looks like a bit of wreckage."
"An' you, with all your hurry, going to stop fur a closer look, and lose time that'll mebbe prove the most wallyable of your life," growled the man disgustedly. "Wal, I'll be jiggered!"
"So would I, if I didn't," replied the lad. "It was one of dad's rules never to pass any kind of a wreck without at least one good look at it, and so it's one of mine as well. There's what I'm after, now. See, just off the starboard bow. It's a raft, and David, there's a man on it, sure as you live. Look, he's standing up and waving at us. Now, he's down again! Poor fellow! In with the jib, David! Spry now, and stand by with a line. I'm going to round up, right alongside."