"'Humph!' says I. 'Well, I'll have to swim ashore that's all, and go up to the station inlet after another boat. You stand by the ship. If she gets afloat afore I come back you honk and holler and I'll row after you. I'll fetch the anchors and we'll moor her wherever she happens to be. If she shouldn't float on an even keel, or goes to capsize, you jump overboard and swim ashore. I'll——'
"'Swim?' says he, with a shake in his voice. 'Why, pard, I can't swim!'
"I turned and looked at him. Shover of a two-mile-a-minute gold-plated butcher-cart like that, a cowboy murderer that et his friends for breakfast—and couldn't swim! I fetched a kind of combination groan and sigh, turned back the sail, climbed aboard the automobile, and lit up my pipe.
"'What are you settin' there for?' says he. 'What are you goin' to do?'
"'Do?' says I. 'Wait, that's all—wait and smoke. We won't have to wait long.'
"My prophesyin' was good. We didn't have to wait very long. It was pitch dark, foggy as ever, and the tide a risin' fast. The floats got to be awash. I shinned out on to 'em picked up the oar that had been left there, and took my seat again. Billings climbed in too, only—and it kind of shows the change sence the previous evenin'—he was in the passenger-cockpit astern and I was for'ard in the pilot house. For a reckless dare-devil he was actin' mighty fidgety.
"And at last one of the floats swung off the sand. The automobile tipped scandalous. It looked as if we was goin' on our beam-ends. Billings let out an awful yell. Then t'other float bobbed up and the whole shebang, car and all, drifted out and down the channel.
"My lashin's held—I cal'lated they would. Soon's I was sure of that I grabbed up the oar and shoved it over the stern between the floats. I hoped I could round her to after we passed the mouth of the Cut-through, and make port on the inside beach. But not in that tide. Inside of five minutes I see 'twas no use; we was bound across the bay.
"And now commenced a v'yage that beat any ever took sence Noah's time, I cal'late; and even Noah never went to sea in an automobile, though the one animal I had along was as much trouble as his whole menagerie. Billings was howlin' blue murder.
"'Stop that bellerin'!' I ordered. 'Quit it, d'you hear! You'll have the station crew out after us, and they'll guy me till I can't rest. Shut up! If you don't, I'll—I'll swim ashore and leave you.'