Young Joe dived below and reappeared the next instant, bringing a small telescope.
“Here,” he said, handing it to Tom, “take a look at them.”
Tom adjusted the focus of the glass and sighted the craft ahead, then exclaimed, excitedly: “Yes, it’s them, sure enough. It’s Harvey and Joe Hinman and it’s the canoe. We’ve got them, too, if the Spray can only catch them. We’re sure to get the canoe, at any rate, for they can’t run far or fast with that on their shoulders, if they see us and take to the shore. We know what it is to try to hurry with that.”
“That we do,” returned Bob. “Let me have a look, Tom.”
“Cracky!” he exclaimed, as he put the glass down almost as soon as he had sighted it. “Who’d have thought they would have had the nerve to get that in broad daylight? They must know they are sure to be seen in it, too. What on earth can Harvey be thinking of?”
“We’ll set the club topsail and the other jib in a hurry,” said George, “and perhaps we can overhaul them before they see us.”
They got the extra sail on in a twinkling and laid the course of the Spray a little closer into the wind. Fifteen minutes went by, and they had made rapid progress in overhauling the canoe. They made short tacks, so as not to be seen by the paddlers, if possible, by keeping so far as they could in a line with the stern of the canoe.
Presently, however, the boy who was wielding the stern paddle turned and looked back, and they could see plainly that it was Harvey.
He must have seen them, too, and been vastly surprised, for, carrying across the strip of land at the Narrows, he had surely expected to meet no familiar yacht in the western bay. The occupants of the canoe turned their craft more in toward shore, though not directly, and, at least so it seemed to the boys, began paddling desperately, as though they hoped to escape.
If they had thought they could run away from the Spray in this way, they soon found out their mistake, for the Spray continued rapidly to overhaul them.