“I hope no one will see us,” laughed Harry as Gerald joined them in the cockpit. “We might be taken for the Flying Dutchman.”
“You look more like an Indian,” said Kendall. “What shall we do when we get ashore? We can’t go up to school in these blankets!”
“We’ll get ashore first,” replied Gerald, “and decide that afterwards. Have you heard the Conomoit’s whistle lately?”
“Yes, a min—there it is now.”
Gerald stared into the fog, striving to locate exactly the direction of the steamer. “Which way did that come from?” he asked puzzledly.
“Over there,” said Harry, pointing to port.
“Over there,” said Kendall, pointing over the bow.
Then the three looked at each other in dawning dismay. “I thought it was more back there,” said Gerald doubtfully. “Let’s wait until we hear it again.” But when it came again it was further away and might have proceeded from almost any point at their right.
“That’s funny,” said Harry. “The last time it seemed more over there.”
“The launch has swung around, probably,” said Gerald. “Well, we’ll have to make a try, anyway. There’s no use staying here and drifting around the Sound.” He started the launch slowly ahead and turned her nose toward where, in his belief, the Connecticut shore lay some mile and a half away. Harry went back to the fog-horn and Kendall resumed his position as lookout in the bow. Now and then a whistle sounded at a distance in one direction or another, and once they heard the slow, steady beat of a propeller through the enveloping mist, but no craft came very near them, and The Dart, proceeding slowly and cautiously, with Harry winding lugubrious wails of warning from the patent fog-horn every half minute or so and Kendall straining his eyes into the gray wall ahead, slid through the water. In spite of the fact that it seemed quite probable that they might have to spend the night wandering around the Sound, the three boys were in high spirits, due, doubtless, to the reaction which usually follows a moment of peril, and chattered like magpies. It was unanimously agreed that it would be quite unnecessary to mention their misadventure to anyone.