“Not more than eight miles, I reckon,” answered Lester.
He looked over the side to gauge the speed at which they were traveling.
“It’s a ten-knot breeze,” he conjectured, “and if we didn’t have that ugly customer in the rear to tow along, we’d make it in less than an hour. But even as it is, we’ll surely do it in an hour and a half.”
But the wind freshened and cut some time off their schedule, so that it was only a little over an hour when Lester gave a turn to the tiller that swung the Ariel in toward the coast.
“There’s Milton,” he said, pointing to a tiny village of small, straggling houses that came down close to the beach, “but we don’t go so far as that. Mark lives in a little hut about a mile this side of the town. Take the glasses and you can make it out. It stands all by itself and you can’t miss it.”
Fred pointed the binoculars in the direction that Lester indicated and plainly saw a shack near the edge of the water.
“Do you see any one about the cabin?” asked Lester.
146“No, I don’t,” replied his companion. “The door is open though, and he may be inside.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” laughed Lester. “Mark hasn’t anything worth stealing, and I guess the door’s open all the time except in winter. But it won’t be long now before we find out.”