[CHAPTER VI.]
FOUL PLAY.
Matt was greatly worried over the way that experience with the boat and the chest had worked out. Dick knew enough about handling the air ship to be able to look after her in ordinary weather, but those shifting air currents had bothered even Matt. It was so easy for some little thing to go wrong and either wreck or cause irreparable damage to an air ship. In that respect, an air ship was totally unlike any other craft.
But there had been no other way out of the dilemma and Matt, facing the situation with all the grace he could muster, dropped on the midship thwart, seized the oars, and headed the skiff upstream.
Fortune favored him a little, for a lugger from the oyster beds came lurching up the river, all sails set and bound for the landing. Matt hailed the lugger and the oysterman took him aboard.
He said nothing to the lugger's crew as to how he had happened to be in the skiff. Had he done that, one explanation would have led to another and it would have been necessary to speak of the iron chest—a subject which it was well enough to keep in the background.
When the lugger tied up at the landing, Matt left the skiff with her crew and went ashore. His object now was to find Carl, Dick, and the Hawk, and he made his way along the river front in the direction of Canal Street. He could see nothing of the Hawk in the air, but along the wharves he encountered several groups of roustabouts who were talking excitedly about the "flying machine" that had recently passed over the town.
By making inquiries, he learned that the Hawk had settled earthward in the vicinity of the Stuyvesant Docks. Instructions were given him as to the best way for finding the docks, and he hurried on.