“And you propose that we follow it up there?”
“But we might catch her before she got there!”
“That would be a wild-goose chase for sure,” said Dan. “No, I guess we’ve done our duty by Spencer. After all, I dare say he will be able to put up with the captain for another voyage, although I’d hate to have to do it myself, and that’s a fact.”
“Maybe Spencer will manage to slip away again,” said Bob. “Let’s hope so, anyway.”
“You bet! Poor little cuss!” muttered Dan.
Spencer’s fate continued the subject for discussion all the rest of the day, but, as Dan had said, their duty in the affair seemed to have ended and it was decided that the next day, as soon as they could do so, they would continue on to Newport for their mail and then to New York.
They went for a long walk before supper-time, visiting the lighthouse and a life-saving station, and returning at six o’clock very hungry, so hungry, in fact, that the possibilities of the Vagabond’s larder seemed quite inadequate to the demands of the occasion. So they returned to the hotel in the village and fared very well indeed. After supper they adjourned to the writing room and levied on the hotel stationery. Everyone found plenty to write home about and for half an hour the pens scratched diligently. It was Tom whose ideas were exhausted first. After addressing and sealing his letter and thumping a stamp on to the corner of the envelope he picked up a newspaper and tilted himself back in his chair under the light. Two minutes later the front legs of the chair hit the floor with a crash.
“The Sue won!” cried Tom.
The others frowned but failed to look up from their letters.
“I say, you chaps!” called Tom more loudly. “The Sue won!”