Bright and early the next morning the rollicking three were overboard taking an awakening bath. After bidding their guides of the night before good-by, they began to pick their way among the bars and coral rocks to the open Gulf. It was trying, careful work, requiring constant watchfulness, frequent sounding and much tacking to and fro; but the “Gazelle” was riding the long swells of the open sea by eight o’clock. A long sail was ahead of them, and they hoped to make the distance to St. Joseph’s Bay by nightfall, a run of about eighty miles. But alas! the wind forsook them, and hour after hour they rolled on the long, oily swells under the brazen sun.
“I am tired of loafing around. I am going to do something.” Arthur got up from his place on the deck aft and looked round for a suggestion.
Frank and Kenneth started at this sudden display of energy.
“What are you going to do?” Kenneth asked.
“Fish,” was Arthur’s laconic answer, as he caught sight of a stout line with a big hook bent on it.
“Going to catch minnows?” Frank suggested facetiously.
“No, whales.”
Arthur went below and dug out of the locker the end of a piece of pork, then dropping the tackle and bait into “His Nibs,” he pushed off.
Kenneth roused himself. “Say, Arthur,” he called, “better fish from the yacht; we might catch a breeze and leave you.”
“Oh, go away,” the mate answered. “There isn’t a breeze within two hundred miles of here.”