“It can be hired, I suppose?” Mr. Farnham asked.
“Sure!” replied Cap’n Crumbie. “Barker’d be tickled to death.”
“Then please go and tell him to hold it at my disposal until darkness sets in. We’ll be on board in a little while. Mr. Santo, I want you to let me help you out in any way I can. I owe it to my boy’s friends, you know.”
“That’s all right, Mr. Farnham,” replied Tony. “But there isn’t much we can do, except, as you say, go off in the tug again.”
“If the boys couldn’t make Greenport, isn’t it likely that they’d turn and run somewhere down the coast?”
“They might, of course. But if they’d done that we ought to have got word by now. They ought to have run into Penley, by rights. I’ve telephoned down there twice, and if anything should be heard of the sloop there I’ll get word over the wire immediately.”
“Well, what’s the next place south of Penley? There isn’t any port for miles, is there?”
“Nowhere that the Sea-Lark could put in, until you come to Bristow, and they wouldn’t have to go as far as that for shelter.”
“Bristow, eh? That’s about forty miles off. Too far, isn’t it? Anyway, I’ll telegraph to the authorities there and at the other places up and down the coast, so that if any news is heard we shall be advised.”
Mr. Farnham drove off to attend to this matter, and immediately on his return the Simon P. Barker put off to sea once more, Tony joining Rodney and his father on board. The tug traveled south almost as far as Penley, and then, bearing off to the east, zigzagged her course northward again. Two incoming schooners were sighted, and Mr. Farnham ordered Burke to head these off, but in neither case had the men on the vessel seen anything of the sloop.