"If you are agreeable," assented the Scoutmaster, genuinely pleased at Stratton's unselfishness, "we'll adopt him as a mascot. Carried unanimously! The next item on the programme is what's his name to be?"
Half a dozen names were suggested, discussed and rejected.
"He's like a young bear," remarked Peter. "Why not call him Bruin?"
"Very suitable, Peter," said the Scoutmaster approvingly. "We'll have to train him not to gnaw ropes and tear canvas gear. He must live up to his reputation as a Sea Scout's mascot."
"I'll make a collar for him," declared Hepburn. "I've a spare belt I can cut down, and there are some strips of brass in the engine-room. I'll cut his name and address on a piece and rivet it to his collar."
"Go slow, Alan," cautioned Mr. Armitage. "Bruin isn't anything like full grown yet. If you make a collar to fit he'll outgrow it in a few months."
"I wouldn't have a flat collar, if I were you," suggested Mr. Jackson. "It will spoil the dog's fur. Why not a round one—round in section, I mean—and a brass disk attached to it?"
The lads readily fell in with the idea, and Hepburn and Flemming went below to put the work in hand, while Peter, recklessly breaking his comb in two, proceeded to tease out Bruin's tangled and matted coat.
Meanwhile Mr. Armitage had returned to the wheel-house and was busy with the chart and compass. Woodleigh at the wheel was steering faultlessly. The Rosalie was now half-way across Barrow Deep and approaching the shoal water over the Sunk Sand. Already the Gunfleet Lighthouse had faded in the mist. Not a buoy nor a vessel was visible. The sands, hidden by the rising tide, gave no sign of their presence. Optically the yacht was in the midst of a vast sea, but a deviation from the correct course would speedily pile her upon one of the submerged dangers that infest the Thames estuary.
"Lightship ahead, sir," reported Woodleigh.