To their astonishment they found Jack in his underclothes busily engaged in stuffing his discarded suit with old bits of canvas and anything he could find to give the clothes the semblance of being on a living frame.
“What on earth have you got in mind now?” demanded Tom wonderingly.
Jack explained.
“I was just thinking,” he said, “that there was no use in our all going ashore. Somebody must be aboard to guard the Sea Gull from attack. But at the same time it’s important that those fellows on the Tarpon should think that there is no one here. My plan is that you, Captain Andrews, and you, Tom, row ashore with this dummy of myself sitting in the stern of the dinghy. You can easily dispose of it in some bushes when you get there. Then you make off at top speed for some telegraph office or telephone and summon help, and I’ll stay here on guard.”
“But they may attack you,” objected Tom. “That’s not likely. In the first place, there are three revolvers that I have at hand, and I guess that I could stand off quite a bunch of them if they should venture on an assault. But I guess they won’t.”
At first Captain Andrews would not listen to Jack’s plan; but when the lad represented to him that it might be necessary to have some one on board in case the Sea Gull floated on a rising tide, he changed his mind. The dinghy was brought around to the side of the launch away from the view of the Tarpon crowd, and Jack’s dummy carefully lowered into it.
Then, with Captain Andrews at the oars and Tom supporting the counterfeit Jack, the row to shore was begun. Jack, in the meantime, had found an old suit of clothes which he had put on in place of the garments he had sacrificed.
THEN, WITH CAPTAIN ANDREWS AT THE OARS AND TOM SUPPORTING THE COUNTERFEIT JACK, THE ROW TO THE SHORE WAS BEGUN.
He did not, of course, show himself outside, but from the porthole he watched the dinghy’s progress. He could hardly keep from laughing as he looked at “himself” propped up in the stern.