“Shouldn’t wonder,” answered Nelson. “What’s that thing bucking along there? Looks like a mine-layer, doesn’t she?”
“Yes. What do you suppose she was before they patched her up and painted her gray? Looks like a little old tub that used to run excursions on the river when I was a kid back home.”
“Where was that, Billy?”
“Portsmouth, Ohio. Ever there?” Nelson shook his head while his gaze followed the little blunt-nosed, high-decked steamer that came wallowing toward them from the open sea. Billy Masters sighed. “It’s a swell little burg, and I wish I was back there,” he murmured. Then, as the Wanderer’s search light, atop the wheel-house, jumped into life and sent a long inquiring path across the darkening water, he added more cheerfully: “If I was, though, I’d want to be back here again, so what’s the use?”
The approaching craft bellowed once hoarsely and the Wanderer replied. “Sounds like she had a sore throat,” muttered Billy. “Say, what’s up tonight?”
“Why?”
“Oh, the skipper’s sort of excited like and so’s the other. And Spuds says the Hollis’s captain was aboard this afternoon and he and our skipper and the junior were chinning for about an hour down there. And Ole’s wearing a sort of wise look on his ugly Swedish mug like he knew a lot more’n he wanted to say. Let me tell you something. I don’t believe Ole can hear a blamed thing on that wireless of his. He just puts that black thing around his head and frowns and writes on pieces of paper. Then he takes ’em in to the skipper and the skipper, being in the plot, nods his old head and opens a little book and makes believe to decode the silly stuff. Why, it stands to reason that an aerial no bigger’n a back-yard clothes line can’t pick up much!”
Nelson laughed. “You tell that to Ole. He’ll drop you overboard.”
“Huh, I ain’t afraid of any tow-headed galoot like him, even if he did go to school for three months and has doodaddies on his sleeve. I could have been a radio man if I’d wanted to.”
“Why didn’t you?” asked Nelson.