Skippy and Big Joe would have given their lives at that moment to know.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE DUFFYS
They borrowed a kicker from one of the summer colonists and set out for home just before noon. Skippy was too overwhelmed to speak until long after they left the beach and Tully sat tragic and silent at the wheel.
“We might’s well look agin,” he murmured brokenly, as he headed the boat toward the Channel. “Just so’s to be makin’ sure.”
“Might’s well,” Skippy echoed. Then: “Gee, do you think maybe he was blowin’ the siren?”
“That he must o’ done. He must o’ been blowin’ it like mad.”
They spent half the afternoon chugging up and down the Channel and passed several craft, government and otherwise, which had heard the warning that the Inland Beach guards had passed along. Finally they decided to return home and with bowed heads found their way out of the treacherous waters.
“Sure if the coast guards ain’t found him, we won’t—not if we be stayin’ there all night,” said Tully mournfully. “Kid, don’t ye be jumpin’ on me, now. If ye knew what I been through since ... since.... I been blowin’ a siren in distress five hun’erd times, so I have, and five hun’erd times, I been in that Davy Jones callin’ me lungs out for help an’ no help come! I’ve sunk with her too—oh shiverin’ swordfish ... kid, I ain’t nothin’ but a plain....”
“Don’t say it, Big Joe,” said Skippy, moved to the depths of his soul with pity. “Gee, don’t I know! You wouldn’t have done it a-purpose.”
“No. ’Tis right ye be there.” Tully looked beaten.