“You going back into the Coast Guard Service?” Johnny asked eagerly.
“I sure am!” Blackie agreed heartily. “Boy! That’s the life! A speedy boat with two or three airplane motors in her hull, a good crew, plenty of gas, the wide open sea and enough trouble to keep your eyes open day and night. Man! Oh, man!”
“Take me along,” Johnny suggested impulsively.
“Me too!” put in Lawrence, his slim, bright-eyed cousin.
“What do you know about boats?” Blackie asked.
“Plenty,” was Johnny’s prompt reply. “Been on ’em all my life, power boats on the Great Lakes, Carib Indian sailboats in the Caribbean, skin-boats way up north. It’s all the same.
“And Lawrence here,” he added after a brief pause, “he knows about motors.”
“I—I was assistant mechanic in an airplane hangar for a season,” Lawrence agreed modestly.
“Well, it—might—be—arranged,” Blackie replied slowly. “Don’t know about pay. You sort of have to be on regular for that. But up here in the north, things can’t always be done according to department regulations. Anyway, it’s worth thinking about.”
“Thank—oh, thank you,” Lawrence stammered. Johnny knew how he was feeling at that moment. He, Johnny, had met adventure in many climes. Lawrence had lived a quiet life. Really to sail on a coast guard boat in search of Orientals suspected of stealing salmon, smuggling or spying off the Alaskan shores, to chase gray shadows that pass in the fog! Worth thinking of? Well, you’d just know it was!