“They’ve got some crazy notion of stealing the sloop, I guess,” replied Rodney. “It is crazy, though. To begin with, they can’t get far. They’ll have to put in at Baymouth or some other place within a few miles. And when we land it won’t be half an hour before all the police along this part of the coast are looking out for them. They can’t disguise her, and they won’t have more than a few hours to sell her.”
“I can’t help thinking the same way that you do about it,” replied Jack, laughing, for in spite of the unpleasantness of their position there was something utterly ludicrous and unexpected about it. “But we’re not ashore yet. Got no oars, remember.”
“How far is the coast from here?”
Jack shrugged.
“A couple of miles, perhaps. I guess it can’t be much more. I think it lies over there,” he said, pointing vaguely into the bewildering mass of fog.
“I think it’s over here,” declared Rod, pointing in nearly the opposite direction. “The sloop is—” He turned to glance in the direction of the sloop, but found the mist had swallowed her up.
“She’s over there,” said Jack.
“No, she’s over there,” Rod contradicted.
“What are you going by? The wind, or the sun?”
“Guesswork,” owned Rod, realizing that in a dead calm, surrounded by fog, all points of the compass looked alike.