Another day saw the scouts feeling more like seasoned veterans. The motion of the vessel no longer had any terrors for the weakest among them, even though it chanced that in the afternoon the ocean began to get so rough that the boat fairly wallowed in the seas.
Luckily the commander had chosen to select the morning hours for the torpedo-launching practice, and it proved of considerable interest to the boys. They were on hand to see everything that was done, and they did not hesitate to ask many questions readily answered by the young men who made up the Reserve crew.
Hugh had cautioned the others to try and make good friends of the men who temporarily manned the Vixen, the vessel having been given completely over into their charge for the entire two weeks. This bore good fruit, and the wearers of the khaki suits had become prime favorites at every mess. Indeed, they were known to have already had considerable experience for boys, and of course it took very little urging to coax any one of them to relate some of the things that had come their way in the past, with which most of our readers are already familiar.
All of the scouts were really glad when night again set in, with half a gale blowing and the cruiser heading for an anchorage in a certain harbor.
“If this keeps up to-morrow, good-bye to our hopes of being set ashore on the coast,” Alec told several of the others as they gathered around some of the crew who were bent on having a pleasant evening, discipline having been relaxed for a spell in order to ease the strain under which they were laboring.
“Yes,” added Walter, “because they couldn’t take chances of launching a boat to land us without danger of a capsize in the surf. It’s nice and quiet back of this point, but you can hear the sea smashing up against the rocks out there right along.”
“But there’s no storm coming because Hugh told me he saw the barometer, and it reads well up to thirty, which means fair weather, though windy,” Don Miller went on to say, and the information brought fresh hope to the rest.
“Like as not the breeze will have gone down more or less before night sets in again,” Blake Merton gave as his opinion, though of course it was mere guesswork, as he did not pretend to be a weather prophet, and knew nothing, about the signs on the sea, even if he were something of a woodsman ashore.
“That’s a fact,” Alec remarked. “We don’t land till long after dark, I understand. So there’s plenty of time for it to quiet down.”
“And to-morrow Hugh says the commander promised that he’d give a try to see if our Arthur can be reached by wireless,” Billy announced with considerable pride. He had at various times assisted Arthur in perfecting his station on the crown of Cedar Hill, and Billy had some sort of proprietary rights in the wireless.