“Careful,” warned Nelson, “or we’ll put you in irons for mutiny.”
“Guess the iron wouldn’t be any worse than the brass,” said Tom with a grin.
At half-past eleven all was in readiness. One of the yard hands threw off the mooring rope and Bob took the wheel. Dan and Tom stood at the engine-room door and watched Nelson as he turned on the gasoline, looked to his vaporizer valve, and closed his battery switch.
“All clear!” answered Bob.
Nelson opened the valve at the vaporizer and turned over the fly wheel. The engine hummed, and from without came the steady chug-chug, chug-chug of the exhaust. Then, with Nelson at the lever and moving at half speed, the launch pointed her nose toward the outer harbor. The cruise of the Vagabond had begun.
CHAPTER III—WHEREIN DAN PRACTICES STEERING
Never was there a brighter, more perfect June day! Low down in the south a few long cloud-streamers floated, but for the rest the heavens were as clear as though the old lady in the nursery rhyme who swept the cobwebs out of the sky had just finished her task. In the east where sky and sea came together it was hard to tell at first glance where one left off and the other began. Golden sunlight glinted the dancing waves, and a fresh little breeze from the southwest held the Vagabond’s pennants stiffly from the poles.
The grassy slopes of Fort Independence looked startlingly green across the water, and the sails of the yachts and ships which dotted the harbor were never whiter. But, although the sun shone strongly, it was more of a spring day than a summer one, and the four aboard the Vagabond were glad to slip on their sweaters when the point of Deer Island had been rounded and the breeze met them unobstructed. Bob set the boat’s nose northwest and headed for Cape Ann.
So far they had made no definite plans save for the first day’s cruise. They intended to make Gloucester, a matter of twenty-six miles, to-day and lie over there until morning. After that the journey was yet to arrange. There was talk of a run to the Isle of Shoals, and so on up to Portland, Bob’s home; but Dan, for his part, wanted to get to New York for a day. And just now they were too taken up with the present to plan for the future.