“That’s likely what they would do, if they couldn’t make Greenport,” Cap’n Crumbie agreed, little dreaming that at that moment the Sea-Lark was helpless and drifting aimlessly, almost half a dozen miles away to the south.
The tug turned westward, and for several miles the shore was scanned closely from a distance, without success. With a heavy heart Tony at last gave Burke word to return to the harbor. It was always possible, he reflected, that word had been received from some point along the coast that the sloop had gone ashore there, or been picked up by a schooner. Further search in the tug, at any rate, was useless.
“Oh, they’ll turn up all right,” said Cap’n Crumbie, as the tug puffed her way fussily back to her own moorings. He was, however, by no means certain that he would ever see the lads again.
Jack’s father, having by now heard what had happened, was on the wharf awaiting the return of the tug. Mr. Holden shook his head gravely as Tony and Cap’n Crumbie stepped ashore.
“It looks bad, very bad, to me,” he said in a helpless fashion, addressing Tony. “They must have been blown right out to sea.”
“I hope not, at any rate, Sam,” replied the boat-builder. “All I know is that those two boys understand how to manage their sloop, and they’ve both got plain horse-sense. It’s no use trying to guess what’s happened to them, but you can be sure that they did their best. I’ll believe they’ve been drowned when we find the Sea-Lark smashed up somewhere on the rocks, and not until then.”
The news quickly spread through the town that the sloop was missing, and the fact was duly chronicled that evening in the “Greenport Gazette.” The reporter who had written the account had few enough facts to go upon, for there were none except the bare statement that the Sea-Lark had put off on a fishing-trip and failed to return. But that did not deter the reporter from writing half a column, in which he told the story of how the Sea-Lark had come into Jack’s possession, how the boy had started the ferry and actually made money with it, and how sincere was the wish expressed by everybody that Jack Holden and George Santo would soon be back plying to and fro on their regular “trade” in the harbor. A photograph of Jack and also one of his mate appeared on the front page, together with a snap-shot of the sloop which some one had taken in the summer as she lay at the hotel landing on the Point. Altogether, the boys occupied the post of honor in the “Greenport Gazette” that evening, even though it was a somewhat dismal honor. To fill up his half-column the reporter had written glowingly of the courtesy and intelligence of the ferryman and his assistant, and he also printed a curiously inaccurate interview with Cap’n Crumbie on the subject; inaccurate because Cap’n Crumbie, far too worried by the lads’ disappearance to bother about being interviewed, had merely glared at the man with a note-book and consigned him to oblivion.
One or two of the more venturesome Greenport skippers, including Bob Sennet, who never stayed in harbor on account of bad weather if it was humanly possible to get to the fishing-grounds, put off to sea, keeping a sharp lookout for any sign of the Sea-Lark. Captain Jordan, of the Grace and Ella, even went a dozen or more miles out of his way in the hope of being able to rescue the boys, but though the lads actually saw the sails of the schooner in the distance, and had high hope of being rescued until the Grace and Ella went about and disappeared, the sloop was not seen by any of the fishermen.
Meanwhile even Tony was becoming terribly depressed. He had at first resolutely declined to admit even to himself the possibility that his son had been lost at sea, but as the day wore on without word he began to have grave doubts.