"Who is out there with you?"
"The gulls," answered Maurice, as he smiled to himself.
Jack did not quite hear him. "The Gull?" thought he. "Surely not! Why, he must be at least three miles off."
"Do you mean the Gull Light?" he called.
"Ya-as. What's the matter with you, any way?"
They were so far apart that their voices sounded to each other as if they came through a telephone.
At this time the fog had lifted from Maurice, and he lay basking in the sun, perfectly content with everything, while Jack, still enveloped in fog, was feeling quite anxious about him. He paddled quickly back to the yacht and got a pocket compass, and with this in the bottom of the canoe steered sou'-sou'west until he got out of the fog, and discovered the gig floating high up at the bow and low down aft, puffing smoke and drifting up the lake before an easterly breeze and looking, in the distance, rather like a steam-barge.
"Is that the costume you go cruising in?" asked Jack, as he drew near.
"This is the latest fashion, Mother Hubbard gown, don't you know!" said Maurice, as he viewed his spindle calves with satisfaction. "Look at that for a leg," he cried, as he waved a pipe-stem in the air. "No discount on that leg."
"Nor anything else," growled Jack. "What do you mean by going off this way with the ship's boats?"