The Frolic chugged slowly in toward the abandoned launch, Toby doing his best to keep the latter between them and the place where the burglars had disappeared.
“Way enough,” he whispered presently. “Let her run. Now, then, get her!”
Arnold reached across the gunwale and seized the side of the other launch, and Toby, dropping the wheel, sprawled across the Frolic’s decking.
“No line in sight,” he muttered, and with quick hands he took the Frolic’s neatly coiled painter, and slipped it over the cleat on the little forward deck. Then, squirming back, he started aft. As he did so a bullet sang overhead and the sound of the shot awoke the silence.
CHAPTER VII
THE STOLEN LAUNCH
“Duck!” cried Arnold.
But Toby had already dropped to the hatching, and Arnold, releasing his grasp of the smaller launch, tumbled down beside him. Another shot rang out and somewhere overhead a second bullet sped whistling past.
“Can you start her without showing your head?” gasped Toby.