CHAPTER VIII.
THE CAMP INVADED.
"Why, fellows, this is dead easy!" George called out, after they had been making good time for an hour or more, with the heaving sea showing no sign of taking undue advantage of the confiding little motor boats that had ventured on its placid bosom.
"Just as I told you," Jack answered, for they made sure to keep pretty close to each other while undertaking this passage. "Choose the right time, after a storm with the wind and sea gone to rest, and a little run like this is a picnic."
"But she looks pretty wide out there," remarked Nick, pointing toward the east.
"Oh! not so much," laughed Herb. "I should think that a matter of four thousand miles or so would cover it."
"Gee! whiz! that must be Africa over there, then?" Nick gasped.
"That's right!" Jack called; "but there's a trifle of haze hanging out just at present, so you can't quite see the tropical shores, with the black natives dancing around some missionary. But joking aside, boys, I think we're going to make the riffle without any trouble. Already we must be well on the way there, and no sign of wind yet."
"Perhaps when she does come it may be in the west?" suggested Josh, who did occasionally have a brilliant thought, it seemed.
"Just so, and in that case we'd be all hunky," Jack answered back; "because with a west wind we could creep in close to the shore, since there'd be no waves rolling up on the beach. Suppose we touch up for a little faster gait."