"All aboard, then!" announced Mr. Brown, and one of his men pushed the Spray away from the dock. Bunker Blue started the gasolene motor, and the boat went out into the bay, with Mr. Brown at the steering wheel.
"Oh, I do hope we'll find Toby! I do hope we will!" said Bunny over and over again to himself.
As the motor boat went out beyond the dock the full force of the wind and waves was felt. The Spray bobbed up and down, but Mr. Brown was a good sailor, and Bunker Blue had lived most of his life on and about salt-water, so he did not mind it. Nor did Bunny, for he, too, had often been on fishing trips with his father, and he did not get seasick even in rough weather.
"Like it, Bunny?" asked his father, as the little boy stood beside him in the cabin, while Mr. Brown turned the steering wheel this way and that.
"Lots, Daddy!" was the answer. "Shall we get there pretty soon?"
"Yes, if the storm doesn't hold us back."
But that is just what the storm seemed going to do. The wind began to blow harder and harder, and the waves, even in the sheltered bay, were quite high. But the Spray was a fairly large boat, and stout; able to meet any weather except the very worst out on the open ocean.
On and on she chugged across the bay toward Springdale, and as they got farther and farther out in the middle, the storm grew much worse.
"I don't know about this, Bunker!" called Mr. Brown to the fish boy, who was looking after the motor. "I don't know whether we can get across or whether we hadn't better turn back for our dock."
"Oh, Daddy! don't go back! You're not going back before you get Toby, are you?" Bunny asked.