“Ahoy, Captain Jordan!” Jack called. “The tug is coming off for you.”
“Hello, youngster! Where is she?”
“Don’t know. They telephoned up to Rockmore for her. She’d gone up there with a tow.”
“Well, if she ain’t quick she won’t be a powerful lot o’ use to us,” replied Captain Jordan. “We could drift home in another month or two, with this wind. What are you doing out here? This ain’t your beat with the ferry.”
“Why, I didn’t know how bad a fix you might be in,” replied Jack. “We could have carried you ashore if the schooner had been sinking. What happened to your masts?”
Only a few yards separated the two craft. The little boat was rising and falling on each wave, Jack keeping her clear, headed up into the wind.
“A squall struck us about four o’clock this morning and made a clean sweep. The dories went, and everything, and afore we knew it the schooner was bumping her bottom out on the shoal. If the tide hadn’t turned just then we’d ha’ been all broken up by now.”
“Well, there’s nothing I can do for you, is there?” asked Jack. Apart from the natural desire to serve those on another craft in trouble, the boy would have been pleased to be of service to Captain Jordan, for he had been on particularly friendly terms with that stalwart fisherman ever since he himself first began to potter about the harbor. Indeed, many a time he had paddled about in one of the Grace and Ella’s dories, and despite Mr. Barker’s enmity, the lad had received more than one invitation from Captain Jordan to make a trip in the schooner to the fishing-grounds, though he had declined to do so, at the desire of his father.
“You say the tug ain’t coming straight out o’ Greenport?” the skipper asked.
“No telling when she will be here,” replied Jack. “I don’t think she can be long, though.”